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Meh, your analogy doesn't hold up at all. A nation is by definition a collective of people. The collective of people should operate with the best interests of t

Meh, your analogy doesn't hold up at all. A nation is by definition a collective of people. The collective of people should operate with the best interests of the people it represents in mind. The analogy with white just isn't valid. I do think a nation should attempt to limit immigration when there are people in the country who can do the job (full disclosure: I'm American). If their skills are rusty, then train them. It's simply good social policy. The benefits of the nation (strong economy) should go to the citizens of that nation first.

philwelch 15y ago
If you take this nonsense seriously, you conclude that massacring your neighbors and using their territory for "living space" is good policy. That's the actual outcome of nationalism. And for most of this "nation"'s history, the white racial identity of the "nation" was a controlling factor, using the exact same reasoning you are here. Suffice it to say, I don't trust bureaucrats in DC to judge who can or can't do a given job over the judgment of actual employers whose bread and butter depends on it. And if you enable bureaucrats to keep people out of the country who can produce wealth, then the "benefits of the nation" will wither away. As a worker, let me worry about my own competence and ability to compete; as a consumer and as someone who needs the rest of the ecosystem for my job to exist in the first place, I want the best fucking semiconductor engineers in the world doing the work, not just some "rusty" guy deemed "good enough" to keep out a more qualified candidate by some uninvested bureaucrat, simply by the virtue that the better engineer happens to have been born in India.
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  >If you take this nonsense seriously, you conclude that massacring your neighbors and using their territory for "living space" is good policy. Come now, this is just a rather poor slippery slope argument. One can act in his own interest without infringing on other's rights. The economy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not random that the semiconductor jobs are in America vs another country. The people in this country have all contributed to the economy that supports these businesses. Thus Americans should be the first to benefit from the jobs we ourselves are responsible for creating.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    I would argue that a more qualified worker contributes more and hence deserves the job. Full stop. This is a nation of immigrants where, as often as not, immigrants are the ones creating the jobs in the first place. That's actually one reason the jobs are in America in the first place. You think a less qualified engineer who happens to have citizenship is more responsible for that economy than the qualified workers--native and migrant--who are actually working to create that wealth? "We ourselves" are responsible for creating those jobs? Give me a fucking break. Many immigrants are working hard in this country, and many American citizens are sitting on their entitled asses begging for a piece of the pie. It's not a matter of nationality that decides how responsible you are for the wealth of the country.
    - hackinthebochs 15y ago
      I think we need to define what "qualified" for a job means. This term has been bastardized lately to mean "exactly fits my arbitrary specifications". We can see this to the extreme in development jobs. No one wants someone who can program well, they want specifically X years with Y technology, rinse, repeat. This definition is specifically crafted for the benefit of the company to the detriment of worker pool. Lets do away with this bullshit definition. Qualified to me means "has a certain level of experience or expertise that allows him or her to perform the job well with a certain amount of training". With this new definition we can more clearly see my point. If there are no qualified workers in this country, it makes sense to allow companies to bring in talent from abroad. The problem is companies are too cheap to tap into the talent that exists here. This is bad social policy for a myriad reasons. The wealth of a nations workers helps create an environment where companies can flourish. Bringing in talent from overseas when there are workers here that can do the job (with some training) is in fact a net-negative for the country as a whole. It's not a swap: were not sending away the "unqualified" American, the system still has to support him somehow. Now he'll either have a lower paying job or in the case of the story in the article, he'll a burden on the country's safety net. This is a net negative for the integrity of the country. For equal or nearly equal qualifications (by my definition), the local worker deserves the job. Companies don't start in vacuums. Their tax dollars has supported these companies, created environments where they can flourish, created a healthy workforce that allowed the company to grow, etc. The nations workers deserve the benefit of their "investment". Extremely liberal immigration policies may be a net positive for the world, but its decidedly a net negative for the workers here. >This is a nation of immigrants where, as often as not, immigrants are the ones creating the jobs in the first place Of course, the ones that are creating jobs can be let in :). But for every entrepreneur immigrant there are many times more rank-and-file worker who's job could probably be done by someone locally (with training perhaps). >It's not a matter of nationality that decides how responsible you are for the wealth of the country. Yeah it is? As a citizen, I'm certainly more responsible for the wealth of this country than a non-citizen chosen at random.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
7952 15y ago
Why is restricting free trade of talent in the best interest of the people?
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  (In the extreme case) the only people this serves to benefit are those who own the companies in question. It makes for an extremely unhealthy worker environment. Someone locally will always be undercut by someone external. This creates a race-to-the-bottom where the only people who benefit are the owners. Trickle down theory is bunk: rising tide for business owners does not necessarily uplift everyone else. It may be a net-positive for the world, but its decidedly a net-negative for those who are local.
  - pm90 15y ago
    H1-B visas/ immigration restrictions are there precisely for that: to prevent the loss of jobs that can be easily learnt/trained. Remember that we are talking of skills that are much more difficult to learn.
    - hackinthebochs 15y ago
      Definitely, and in those situation we should welcome them with open arms. I was assuming (perhaps erroneously) that he was speaking towards completely free and open talent-immigration, as in simply hiring an immigrant because they're cheaper and are are completely dependent on you for their visa.

philwelch 15y ago

If you take this nonsense seriously, you conclude that massacring your neighbors and using their territory for "living space" is good policy. That's the actual outcome of nationalism. And for most of this "nation"'s history, the white racial identity of the "nation" was a controlling factor, using the exact same reasoning you are here. Suffice it to say, I don't trust bureaucrats in DC to judge who can or can't do a given job over the judgment of actual employers whose bread and butter depends on it. And if you enable bureaucrats to keep people out of the country who can produce wealth, then the "benefits of the nation" will wither away. As a worker, let me worry about my own competence and ability to compete; as a consumer and as someone who needs the rest of the ecosystem for my job to exist in the first place, I want the best fucking semiconductor engineers in the world doing the work, not just some "rusty" guy deemed "good enough" to keep out a more qualified candidate by some uninvested bureaucrat, simply by the virtue that the better engineer happens to have been born in India.

hackinthebochs 15y ago
>If you take this nonsense seriously, you conclude that massacring your neighbors and using their territory for "living space" is good policy. Come now, this is just a rather poor slippery slope argument. One can act in his own interest without infringing on other's rights. The economy doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is not random that the semiconductor jobs are in America vs another country. The people in this country have all contributed to the economy that supports these businesses. Thus Americans should be the first to benefit from the jobs we ourselves are responsible for creating.
- philwelch 15y ago
  I would argue that a more qualified worker contributes more and hence deserves the job. Full stop. This is a nation of immigrants where, as often as not, immigrants are the ones creating the jobs in the first place. That's actually one reason the jobs are in America in the first place. You think a less qualified engineer who happens to have citizenship is more responsible for that economy than the qualified workers--native and migrant--who are actually working to create that wealth? "We ourselves" are responsible for creating those jobs? Give me a fucking break. Many immigrants are working hard in this country, and many American citizens are sitting on their entitled asses begging for a piece of the pie. It's not a matter of nationality that decides how responsible you are for the wealth of the country.
  - hackinthebochs 15y ago
    I think we need to define what "qualified" for a job means. This term has been bastardized lately to mean "exactly fits my arbitrary specifications". We can see this to the extreme in development jobs. No one wants someone who can program well, they want specifically X years with Y technology, rinse, repeat. This definition is specifically crafted for the benefit of the company to the detriment of worker pool. Lets do away with this bullshit definition. Qualified to me means "has a certain level of experience or expertise that allows him or her to perform the job well with a certain amount of training". With this new definition we can more clearly see my point. If there are no qualified workers in this country, it makes sense to allow companies to bring in talent from abroad. The problem is companies are too cheap to tap into the talent that exists here. This is bad social policy for a myriad reasons. The wealth of a nations workers helps create an environment where companies can flourish. Bringing in talent from overseas when there are workers here that can do the job (with some training) is in fact a net-negative for the country as a whole. It's not a swap: were not sending away the "unqualified" American, the system still has to support him somehow. Now he'll either have a lower paying job or in the case of the story in the article, he'll a burden on the country's safety net. This is a net negative for the integrity of the country. For equal or nearly equal qualifications (by my definition), the local worker deserves the job. Companies don't start in vacuums. Their tax dollars has supported these companies, created environments where they can flourish, created a healthy workforce that allowed the company to grow, etc. The nations workers deserve the benefit of their "investment". Extremely liberal immigration policies may be a net positive for the world, but its decidedly a net negative for the workers here. >This is a nation of immigrants where, as often as not, immigrants are the ones creating the jobs in the first place Of course, the ones that are creating jobs can be let in :). But for every entrepreneur immigrant there are many times more rank-and-file worker who's job could probably be done by someone locally (with training perhaps). >It's not a matter of nationality that decides how responsible you are for the wealth of the country. Yeah it is? As a citizen, I'm certainly more responsible for the wealth of this country than a non-citizen chosen at random.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

7952 15y ago

Why is restricting free trade of talent in the best interest of the people?

hackinthebochs 15y ago
(In the extreme case) the only people this serves to benefit are those who own the companies in question. It makes for an extremely unhealthy worker environment. Someone locally will always be undercut by someone external. This creates a race-to-the-bottom where the only people who benefit are the owners. Trickle down theory is bunk: rising tide for business owners does not necessarily uplift everyone else. It may be a net-positive for the world, but its decidedly a net-negative for those who are local.
- pm90 15y ago
  H1-B visas/ immigration restrictions are there precisely for that: to prevent the loss of jobs that can be easily learnt/trained. Remember that we are talking of skills that are much more difficult to learn.
  - hackinthebochs 15y ago
    Definitely, and in those situation we should welcome them with open arms. I was assuming (perhaps erroneously) that he was speaking towards completely free and open talent-immigration, as in simply hiring an immigrant because they're cheaper and are are completely dependent on you for their visa.