5 ms·

I read the text of the ad without making any assumptions, and I was hard pressed to find any fault with it. The only problem appears when you factor in who's sa

by hliyan 9y ago

I read the text of the ad without making any assumptions, and I was hard pressed to find any fault with it. The only problem appears when you factor in who's saying it and what you _think_ the ad is saying. Edit: in case readers assume I'm being racist in some way: I'm a Sri Lankan national.

mfoy_ 9y ago
Generally speaking, it's not wrong. There's historically always been friction between labour and management. I don't know what the ideal "solution" is, though the authors of the ad seems to thinks it involves immigrants. :\
lightbyte 9y ago
I think the name of the organization that is running the ad is also a problem. They seem to be trying to co-opt the "progressive" label for something that is completely opposite to what it is supposed to (over the last few years) stand for. I can't tell if they are intentionally doing that for nefarious reasons. Imagine seeing a "Conservatives for repealing the 2nd amendment" ad. I would assume they have some ulterior motives there.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  I think the ad is utterly genius (in a nefarious way) because it's making me want to play devil's advocate soooo badly. The authors are clearly trying to get people to conflate "H1-B abuse" with "immigration". People can be against H1-B abuse and NOT be anti-immigration.
- drb91 9y ago
  Yea, this is a conversation that people should be having, the "progressive" part seems to just be a straight up lie/misdirection. Hard to take it seriously.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  It was really weird to me when people in the 21st century started calling themselves to differentiate themselves from other sorts of liberals. Modern progressives and the progressives of the Progressive era share many features but traditional progressives were strongly associated with moral paternalism and eugenics. Seeing people I would have called liberals start calling themselves progressive was as jarring as Trump's use of "America First". And I think that nativism isn't unknown to modern progressives. I think Bernie Sanders is commonly considered a progressive and he was very down on immigrants depressing native worker's wages.
  - ergothus 9y ago
    I hadn't known that historical perspective, thanks. I was glad when the term started to become popular because the US post-Reagan era had made "liberal" into a term used to insult and degrade without considering the actual ideas of any instance. I was shocked at Sanders amount of success, because I had grown up believing that the US public would immediately discount any associating with the word "socialist" (even by those that actually had beliefs not far from socialist views, and even allowing that Sanders positions aren't actually 'socialist' as used in Europe). I suspect "progressive" was embraced for such reasons, but given how much I've been wrong about most anything political on the past decade+, I'd love to have actual evidence.
  - jnbiche 9y ago
    > he was very down on immigrants depressing native worker's wages. I'm not a Sanders supporter, but just wanted to point out that one can be both pro-immigrant (wanting to increase general immigrant quotas) and against programs like H1B that are designed to suppress salaries in specific industries.
    - Symmetry 9y ago
      Well, most Sanders supporters are way more pro-immigrant than he is so being pro-Sanders doesn't really mean that much here. There was some great reporting in I think the New York times a while ago on the beliefs of the supporters of various presidential contenders. And yes, you can certainly be against a certain policy without being anti-immigration. I'm for drastically expanding US immigration but replacing H1Bs with programs that don't tie people to a particular employer is something I would support.
  - scythe 9y ago
    You used [1] but didn't provide a link at the bottom. Did you forget to cite something?
    - Symmetry 9y ago
      Oops, I was going to list an example then decided not to. Thanks for pointing that out.
- swebs 9y ago
  On the contrary, their stance is more in line with the traditional view of progressivism. It's only fairly recently that free market capitalists tried to push for open borders and mass immigration under the guise of "progress". There's a simple reason why the big tech companies want more immigrants. It suppresses wages. It changes the dynamics of supply and demand of the workforce in order to take power away from workers and give it to employers. If you're against the 1%, you should be against these neoliberal immigration policies.
  - maoistinquisitr 9y ago
    What's changed is the needs of the political classes. The democrat party has been in something of a death spiral for decades (arguably since the 50s) and is critically dependant on imported voters. Without the massive immigration that has happened post-1965, the political party configuration would have almost certainly fractured and reformed along quite different lines by now. But ongoing immigration has kept the democrat party in its rather ossified form highly competitive (as they lost "American" voters, they gained immigrant votes). This is why they were so terrified of Bernie Sanders. He got a lot of support from working class whites who have been trending Republican for decades. But a figure like Sanders would derail the agenda (immigration and all) that is keeping a never ending stream of Kennedys in power.
abandonliberty 9y ago
If you are an employee, you should protect your interests. This includes ensuring that you, your children, and your fellow citizens are hired preferentially to importing labor. The 'better future' people many immigrate for includes higher standards of living for similar work. They are willing to work for less because they believe citizenship is worth something. That 'better future' only exists if the country maintains this inequality by ensuring that citizens are hired first where possible. Issues of globalization, birthplace lottery, and wealth inequality aside; these policies are in your favor if you are an employee, immigrant or not. Conversely, these policies hurt the company's bottom line by preventing hiring of the most cost efficient labor. The backlash against this message is weaponized political correctness and/or employees speaking out against their best interests.
klenwell 9y ago
I checked it out thinking maybe I was quick to assume the worst. On review, it looks and sounds pretty dog-whistley to me. Worse than I expected. As a Sri Lankan national, you may be missing some of the nativist overtones. "Undeserving" in particular is a loaded term in American public political discourse. For an especially pernicious application, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen This is a meme that still resonates with many people in America. It still resonates with me, as an ugly example of the way misleading rhetoric get deployed to stigmatize an underrepresented political class. This term immediately evokes associations like these. Also, the color scheme and typography: seems designed to evoke a not very enlightened response. Definitely not embracing the light and airy look-and-feel I generally associate with progressive tech community.
- bassman9000 9y ago
  the color scheme and typography I'd say it's designed to draw your attention. And boy it did.
- archagon 9y ago
  Yeah, the red, black, and white color scheme was certainly not chosen by accident.
- hliyan 9y ago
  Yup, I do admit I may be missing some of the finer nuances here...

by hliyan 9y ago

mfoy_ 9y ago

Generally speaking, it's not wrong. There's historically always been friction between labour and management. I don't know what the ideal "solution" is, though the authors of the ad seems to thinks it involves immigrants. :\

lightbyte 9y ago

I think the name of the organization that is running the ad is also a problem. They seem to be trying to co-opt the "progressive" label for something that is completely opposite to what it is supposed to (over the last few years) stand for. I can't tell if they are intentionally doing that for nefarious reasons. Imagine seeing a "Conservatives for repealing the 2nd amendment" ad. I would assume they have some ulterior motives there.

mfoy_ 9y ago
I think the ad is utterly genius (in a nefarious way) because it's making me want to play devil's advocate soooo badly. The authors are clearly trying to get people to conflate "H1-B abuse" with "immigration". People can be against H1-B abuse and NOT be anti-immigration.
drb91 9y ago
Yea, this is a conversation that people should be having, the "progressive" part seems to just be a straight up lie/misdirection. Hard to take it seriously.
Symmetry 9y ago
It was really weird to me when people in the 21st century started calling themselves to differentiate themselves from other sorts of liberals. Modern progressives and the progressives of the Progressive era share many features but traditional progressives were strongly associated with moral paternalism and eugenics. Seeing people I would have called liberals start calling themselves progressive was as jarring as Trump's use of "America First". And I think that nativism isn't unknown to modern progressives. I think Bernie Sanders is commonly considered a progressive and he was very down on immigrants depressing native worker's wages.
- ergothus 9y ago
  I hadn't known that historical perspective, thanks. I was glad when the term started to become popular because the US post-Reagan era had made "liberal" into a term used to insult and degrade without considering the actual ideas of any instance. I was shocked at Sanders amount of success, because I had grown up believing that the US public would immediately discount any associating with the word "socialist" (even by those that actually had beliefs not far from socialist views, and even allowing that Sanders positions aren't actually 'socialist' as used in Europe). I suspect "progressive" was embraced for such reasons, but given how much I've been wrong about most anything political on the past decade+, I'd love to have actual evidence.
- jnbiche 9y ago
  > he was very down on immigrants depressing native worker's wages. I'm not a Sanders supporter, but just wanted to point out that one can be both pro-immigrant (wanting to increase general immigrant quotas) and against programs like H1B that are designed to suppress salaries in specific industries.
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Well, most Sanders supporters are way more pro-immigrant than he is so being pro-Sanders doesn't really mean that much here. There was some great reporting in I think the New York times a while ago on the beliefs of the supporters of various presidential contenders. And yes, you can certainly be against a certain policy without being anti-immigration. I'm for drastically expanding US immigration but replacing H1Bs with programs that don't tie people to a particular employer is something I would support.
- scythe 9y ago
  You used [1] but didn't provide a link at the bottom. Did you forget to cite something?
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    Oops, I was going to list an example then decided not to. Thanks for pointing that out.
swebs 9y ago
On the contrary, their stance is more in line with the traditional view of progressivism. It's only fairly recently that free market capitalists tried to push for open borders and mass immigration under the guise of "progress". There's a simple reason why the big tech companies want more immigrants. It suppresses wages. It changes the dynamics of supply and demand of the workforce in order to take power away from workers and give it to employers. If you're against the 1%, you should be against these neoliberal immigration policies.
- maoistinquisitr 9y ago
  What's changed is the needs of the political classes. The democrat party has been in something of a death spiral for decades (arguably since the 50s) and is critically dependant on imported voters. Without the massive immigration that has happened post-1965, the political party configuration would have almost certainly fractured and reformed along quite different lines by now. But ongoing immigration has kept the democrat party in its rather ossified form highly competitive (as they lost "American" voters, they gained immigrant votes). This is why they were so terrified of Bernie Sanders. He got a lot of support from working class whites who have been trending Republican for decades. But a figure like Sanders would derail the agenda (immigration and all) that is keeping a never ending stream of Kennedys in power.

abandonliberty 9y ago

If you are an employee, you should protect your interests. This includes ensuring that you, your children, and your fellow citizens are hired preferentially to importing labor. The 'better future' people many immigrate for includes higher standards of living for similar work. They are willing to work for less because they believe citizenship is worth something. That 'better future' only exists if the country maintains this inequality by ensuring that citizens are hired first where possible. Issues of globalization, birthplace lottery, and wealth inequality aside; these policies are in your favor if you are an employee, immigrant or not. Conversely, these policies hurt the company's bottom line by preventing hiring of the most cost efficient labor. The backlash against this message is weaponized political correctness and/or employees speaking out against their best interests.

klenwell 9y ago

I checked it out thinking maybe I was quick to assume the worst. On review, it looks and sounds pretty dog-whistley to me. Worse than I expected. As a Sri Lankan national, you may be missing some of the nativist overtones. "Undeserving" in particular is a loaded term in American public political discourse. For an especially pernicious application, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen This is a meme that still resonates with many people in America. It still resonates with me, as an ugly example of the way misleading rhetoric get deployed to stigmatize an underrepresented political class. This term immediately evokes associations like these. Also, the color scheme and typography: seems designed to evoke a not very enlightened response. Definitely not embracing the light and airy look-and-feel I generally associate with progressive tech community.

bassman9000 9y ago
the color scheme and typography I'd say it's designed to draw your attention. And boy it did.
archagon 9y ago
Yeah, the red, black, and white color scheme was certainly not chosen by accident.
hliyan 9y ago
Yup, I do admit I may be missing some of the finer nuances here...