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It’s funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas and AI because they suppress their wages and take their jobs. However, the millions of unskilled illegal

by _mlbt 1y ago

It’s funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas and AI because they suppress their wages and take their jobs. However, the millions of unskilled illegal immigrants are a good thing, because they have that effect on the working class instead. Personally, I think we really need to take a hard look at all forms of immigration until average Americans can have good paying jobs, affordable housing, and affordable healthcare.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
> Personally, I think we really need to take a hard look at all forms of immigration until average Americans can have good paying jobs, affordable housing, and affordable healthcare. You are making big assumptions that the USA is a closed system that can generate its own prosperity, and that is far from the truth. Wrecking America's competitiveness (by not taking in skilled or unskilled immigrants) is just going to turn us from a rich country into a poor country, your goals are never going to be accomplished.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >is just going to turn us from a rich country into a poor country, What value is the country getting richer if the people are still poor? Wealth inequality is a real thing, and importing more labor competition for the working class people only devalues their labor, serving only to make the business owning elites richer while keeping workers poor. Bernie Sanders even said that himself. The "line goes up" stock market and GDP numbers are abstract numbers for the working class people that don't reflect in their purchasing power or quality of life. The person flipping burgers at McD for $12 an hour, isn't gonna be better off now that Microsoft and Nvidia are worth 4 trillion instead of 1 trillion. It literally makes no difference to them. So as long as there's no trickle down, why would people care about their country getting richer, when it's just the top 10% of the country who are seeing that richness and not them?
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - _mlbt 1y ago
      The issue isn’t race. Typical Americans would be just as against illegal immigration if it were white Europeans flooding into our country. The uncomfortable reality is that illegal immigration is a net negative for society, particularly when it reaches the numbers it did under the Biden administration.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      > maybe we should focus on other ways of dealing with wealth inequality (improving productivity, education so our kids can compete on the world stage when they grow up, etc...)? Yes we should. And when politicians are gonna fix those issues first, then people's opinion on importing more competing labor will change. Until then, they'll vote to tilt the supply-demand balance in their favor, as per democratic process because the business class is also doing the opposite so you have a conflict of interest you need to fix. People not seeing the argument of this side of the isle, are in a bubble who have never had to compete in a zero sum environment against people who will do anything for money, and love writing cheques that other people have to cash. Which is why you're seeing the backlash from this at elections. If you want people to agree with you politically, you have to take care of their grievances first, before you take care of imported people form abroad and business owners. >it doesn't work now that the immigrants are no longer primarily white? Nowhere was the skin color part of the argument till you brought that up witch says everything about you and why I'm exiting the convo here.
- _mlbt 1y ago
  Until we hit zero percent unemployment, we have a surplus of labor in this country and have no need to import any more. It is up to employers to pay competitive wages and train people to fill the vacancies.
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    If you do this, you'll have unintended consequences: - You don't allow the US to import skilled workers anymore, and rather than hire locally from a non-existent labor pool they simply move the jobs abroad. What's worse, hiring someone from India on an H1B to work in your AI lab, or moving your AI lab to India? - You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. Or maybe...they'll just figure out how to automate those jobs or go out of business since no one wants to pay $5 for an apple.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >- You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. That's the same argument used against abolishment of slavery. "Who will pick all the cotton?" Except today it's not slavery, it's indentured servitude.
      - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
        No, it means the elevator operator just doesn't exist anymore. We didn't pay them more, we got rid of them. If agriculture workers don't exist anymore at the wages the market is willing to bear, we just won't bother with those foods anymore, or import them from somewhere else. I'm uncomfortable with how racist HN has become. Because your ancestors were white they were permitted a chance to work from the bottom up, but because today's immigrants aren't white, you think its either slavery or exploitation, and they should just stay in poor countries accordingly (a situation that was not forced on your ancestors, for your benefit). Or if it isn’t racism, what is your reasoning for pulling up the ladder today?
        1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
dghlsakjg 1y ago
> It’s funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas and AI because they suppress their wages and take their jobs. However, the millions of unskilled illegal immigrants are a good thing, because they have that effect on the working class instead. The hive mind is greatly exaggerated. The existence of cognitively dissonant opinions on a website is more likely evidence that the site has posters that have differing viewpoints, rather than evidence of a group thought process that is illogical.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  At some point the contradiction is so flagrant that the typical "we're all individuals here" dismissal no longer suffices. Like if you showed up on a homeschooling moms facebook group and half the moms are spewing religious mumbo jumbo and the other half are spewing trans rights stuff it immediately begs the question how the heck are these groups coexisting without fighting at every turn without massive cognitive dissonance or not actually believing what they're saying. Same thing here with immigration, among other things (wouldn't have been my first pick of an issue to highlight the dissonance but here we are).
  - tom_ 1y ago
    This is not a homeschooling mothers' Facebook group though. There is absolutely no requirement for people here to agree, and/because the place will not fall apart if they don't - as you can see from its continued existence.
ecshafer 1y ago
There are plenty of people that are against both types of immigration, or against one but not the other in each category. The Hive mind is often not that much of a hive.

by _mlbt 1y ago

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

> Personally, I think we really need to take a hard look at all forms of immigration until average Americans can have good paying jobs, affordable housing, and affordable healthcare. You are making big assumptions that the USA is a closed system that can generate its own prosperity, and that is far from the truth. Wrecking America's competitiveness (by not taking in skilled or unskilled immigrants) is just going to turn us from a rich country into a poor country, your goals are never going to be accomplished.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>is just going to turn us from a rich country into a poor country, What value is the country getting richer if the people are still poor? Wealth inequality is a real thing, and importing more labor competition for the working class people only devalues their labor, serving only to make the business owning elites richer while keeping workers poor. Bernie Sanders even said that himself. The "line goes up" stock market and GDP numbers are abstract numbers for the working class people that don't reflect in their purchasing power or quality of life. The person flipping burgers at McD for $12 an hour, isn't gonna be better off now that Microsoft and Nvidia are worth 4 trillion instead of 1 trillion. It literally makes no difference to them. So as long as there's no trickle down, why would people care about their country getting richer, when it's just the top 10% of the country who are seeing that richness and not them?
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - _mlbt 1y ago
    The issue isn’t race. Typical Americans would be just as against illegal immigration if it were white Europeans flooding into our country. The uncomfortable reality is that illegal immigration is a net negative for society, particularly when it reaches the numbers it did under the Biden administration.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    > maybe we should focus on other ways of dealing with wealth inequality (improving productivity, education so our kids can compete on the world stage when they grow up, etc...)? Yes we should. And when politicians are gonna fix those issues first, then people's opinion on importing more competing labor will change. Until then, they'll vote to tilt the supply-demand balance in their favor, as per democratic process because the business class is also doing the opposite so you have a conflict of interest you need to fix. People not seeing the argument of this side of the isle, are in a bubble who have never had to compete in a zero sum environment against people who will do anything for money, and love writing cheques that other people have to cash. Which is why you're seeing the backlash from this at elections. If you want people to agree with you politically, you have to take care of their grievances first, before you take care of imported people form abroad and business owners. >it doesn't work now that the immigrants are no longer primarily white? Nowhere was the skin color part of the argument till you brought that up witch says everything about you and why I'm exiting the convo here.
_mlbt 1y ago
Until we hit zero percent unemployment, we have a surplus of labor in this country and have no need to import any more. It is up to employers to pay competitive wages and train people to fill the vacancies.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  If you do this, you'll have unintended consequences: - You don't allow the US to import skilled workers anymore, and rather than hire locally from a non-existent labor pool they simply move the jobs abroad. What's worse, hiring someone from India on an H1B to work in your AI lab, or moving your AI lab to India? - You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. Or maybe...they'll just figure out how to automate those jobs or go out of business since no one wants to pay $5 for an apple.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >- You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. That's the same argument used against abolishment of slavery. "Who will pick all the cotton?" Except today it's not slavery, it's indentured servitude.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      No, it means the elevator operator just doesn't exist anymore. We didn't pay them more, we got rid of them. If agriculture workers don't exist anymore at the wages the market is willing to bear, we just won't bother with those foods anymore, or import them from somewhere else. I'm uncomfortable with how racist HN has become. Because your ancestors were white they were permitted a chance to work from the bottom up, but because today's immigrants aren't white, you think its either slavery or exploitation, and they should just stay in poor countries accordingly (a situation that was not forced on your ancestors, for your benefit). Or if it isn’t racism, what is your reasoning for pulling up the ladder today?
      - 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

dghlsakjg 1y ago

> It’s funny how the HN hive mind is against H1-B visas and AI because they suppress their wages and take their jobs. However, the millions of unskilled illegal immigrants are a good thing, because they have that effect on the working class instead. The hive mind is greatly exaggerated. The existence of cognitively dissonant opinions on a website is more likely evidence that the site has posters that have differing viewpoints, rather than evidence of a group thought process that is illogical.

potato3732842 1y ago
At some point the contradiction is so flagrant that the typical "we're all individuals here" dismissal no longer suffices. Like if you showed up on a homeschooling moms facebook group and half the moms are spewing religious mumbo jumbo and the other half are spewing trans rights stuff it immediately begs the question how the heck are these groups coexisting without fighting at every turn without massive cognitive dissonance or not actually believing what they're saying. Same thing here with immigration, among other things (wouldn't have been my first pick of an issue to highlight the dissonance but here we are).
- tom_ 1y ago
  This is not a homeschooling mothers' Facebook group though. There is absolutely no requirement for people here to agree, and/because the place will not fall apart if they don't - as you can see from its continued existence.

ecshafer 1y ago

There are plenty of people that are against both types of immigration, or against one but not the other in each category. The Hive mind is often not that much of a hive.