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>How is not wanting competition from aliens in the labor market irrational for native workers? Extreme example: Elon Musk was not born in the US. He was an imm

>How is not wanting competition from aliens in the labor market irrational for native workers? Extreme example: Elon Musk was not born in the US. He was an immigrant. Even ignoring the whole nation-of-immigrants ideology, surely you agree that the country and its workers may benefit from immigration? The title makes it seem like hiring any foreign workers is bad a-priori.

User23 8y ago
Committing securities violations on Twitter is a job that Americans just won’t do. Tweets are rotting on the internets! Seriously though, Elon Musk has undoubtedly benefitted from immigrating to the United States, as most immigrants do. Presumably the native born employees of Tesla and his other ventures have directly benefitted as well. Of course it’s impossible to show one way or the other that a native born entrepreneur wouldn’t have filled the same niche. Also nobody likes to talk about the massive deleterious effects on the immigrants home countries of having their best and brightest leave. To answer your direct question I absolutely agree that Americans can benefit from some level of immigration. I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though. Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040.
- outworlder 8y ago
  > I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though Non sequitur. Is anyone even arguing that this should be the case?
  - User23 8y ago
    Well it's current legislative policy. The posterity of the founders, which is to say the American people, will be a minority in 2045 according to the US census[1]. In fact they actually already are, since the largest "white" ethnic group in the USA is actually Germans. Germans however showed a strong inclination to assimilate, whereas the most recent migrants prefer to keep their language, culture, religion, and political views. [1]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-...
    - dang 8y ago
      If you continue to use HN for ideological battle, we will ban you. Race war is especially unwelcome here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dmode 8y ago
  Do you really fear that native born citizens are being overwhelmed by immigration ? I believe US admits 0.3% of the population as immigrants every year. A fraction of that is employment based. Your fear seems to be a little bit irrational and nativist.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though. “Americans” can't be made a political minority through immigration, because naturalized immigrants and, a fortiori, their descendants are Americans (and are as much Americans as descendants of 18th C and earlier British and other European migrants.) White Americans might become a political minority, but I don't see any reason anyone but racists would think that, in and of itself, is a bad (or good, for a different stripe of racist) thing. > Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040. I'm not sure what you mean by “foreign majority”, but whatever you mean by it: (1) it obviously includes a significant share of the Baby Boomers, and (2) in 2040, there will be precious few Baby Boomers for any group to appropriate assets from, and (3) I don't see any non-paranoid reason to believe this would happen, no matter what group you identify as the “foreign majority”.

User23 8y ago

Committing securities violations on Twitter is a job that Americans just won’t do. Tweets are rotting on the internets! Seriously though, Elon Musk has undoubtedly benefitted from immigrating to the United States, as most immigrants do. Presumably the native born employees of Tesla and his other ventures have directly benefitted as well. Of course it’s impossible to show one way or the other that a native born entrepreneur wouldn’t have filled the same niche. Also nobody likes to talk about the massive deleterious effects on the immigrants home countries of having their best and brightest leave. To answer your direct question I absolutely agree that Americans can benefit from some level of immigration. I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though. Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040.

outworlder 8y ago
> I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though Non sequitur. Is anyone even arguing that this should be the case?
- User23 8y ago
  Well it's current legislative policy. The posterity of the founders, which is to say the American people, will be a minority in 2045 according to the US census[1]. In fact they actually already are, since the largest "white" ethnic group in the USA is actually Germans. Germans however showed a strong inclination to assimilate, whereas the most recent migrants prefer to keep their language, culture, religion, and political views. [1]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-...
  - dang 8y ago
    If you continue to use HN for ideological battle, we will ban you. Race war is especially unwelcome here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dmode 8y ago
Do you really fear that native born citizens are being overwhelmed by immigration ? I believe US admits 0.3% of the population as immigrants every year. A fraction of that is employment based. Your fear seems to be a little bit irrational and nativist.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I don’t believe Americans benefit from a level of migration that makes them a political minority in their own homeland though. “Americans” can't be made a political minority through immigration, because naturalized immigrants and, a fortiori, their descendants are Americans (and are as much Americans as descendants of 18th C and earlier British and other European migrants.) White Americans might become a political minority, but I don't see any reason anyone but racists would think that, in and of itself, is a bad (or good, for a different stripe of racist) thing. > Although I admit to anticipating schadenfreude when the foreign majority votes themselves the baby boomer’s assets around 2040. I'm not sure what you mean by “foreign majority”, but whatever you mean by it: (1) it obviously includes a significant share of the Baby Boomers, and (2) in 2040, there will be precious few Baby Boomers for any group to appropriate assets from, and (3) I don't see any non-paranoid reason to believe this would happen, no matter what group you identify as the “foreign majority”.