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> The current admin does not understand that our lead comes from immigrants. Sorry, but most Americans are kind of mediocre academically. > I do not understand

> The current admin does not understand that our lead comes from immigrants. Sorry, but most Americans are kind of mediocre academically. > I do not understand why the "American First" MAGA crowd can't get it through their thick skulls that everything nice they have, including our technological lead, is built by immigrants that are just smarter than they are. Which specific Americans are kind of mediocre academically? Which specific immigrants are smarter than the average American and are therefore responsible for the nice things about America? Not all American citizens have the same level of intelligence, nor do all people attempting to or actually succeeding in immigrating to the US. To the extent that "everything nice" including technological development is grounded in the average level of intelligence of the people currently inhabiting a country (which I think is a substantial part of but not the entirety of the explanation), this doesn't necessarily imply that immigration which isn't specifically gated on the intelligence of individual immigrants will improve a country along this metric. And in fact the US has a huge number of legal pathways for immigration (including some like "immigrating illegally, having a natural-born-citizen child on US soil, and having that child sponsor your legal immigration decades later) that have nothing at all to do with how intelligent a given immigrant is. And of course, immigration itself changes how "mediocre academically" Americans are, by changing who Americans are - an immigrant might eventually become a citizen; or if they don't their children born on US soil will be.

solenoid0937 5mo ago
> Which specific Americans are kind of mediocre academically? Most of them. We have normalized getting Bs and Cs in our schools. Our school curricula are mediocre, and our culture around education is as well. It is distinctly uncool to care about education here. > Which specific immigrants are smarter than the average American and are therefore responsible for the nice things about America? Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs. > which isn't specifically gated on the intelligence of individual immigrants will improve a country along this metric. It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met. > And in fact the US has a huge number of legal pathways for immigration That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well.
- JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  > Most of them. We have normalized getting Bs and Cs in our schools. Our school curricula are mediocre, and our culture around education is as well. It is distinctly uncool to care about education here. Would you agree that caring about school performance constitutes acting white? Would you agree that acting white is uncool? Less flippantly, how much of American culture around education is specifically driven by a desire to eliminate or avoid noticing conspicuous racial discrepancies in measured educational attainment? > Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs. What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy. > It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met. What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit? > That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well. That might be worth it, if those highly intelligent and capable immigrants would, once they are settled in the US, turn their capacity and intelligence towards making US immigration policy more open to less intelligent and capable immigrants (e.g. their less capable and intelligent family members, or just liberalizing immigration policy in general).
  - sakompella 5mo ago
    slop
  - solenoid0937 5mo ago
    > Would you agree that caring about school performance constitutes acting white? No, the opposite. In my experience immigrants care far more about getting good grades, whereas most multigenerational American students were happy with Bs or even Cs. > What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy. A lot more Asians. Very few Asians. A lot more Asians. > What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit? Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Nigerian, Mexican, etc. So many. The only ones not fluent in English were the Hispanic immigrants, but despite this they better embody the American spirit than most Americans. I don't need to be fluent in Spanish to see that (though mine is passable). The skilled first and second generation American immigrants do extraordinarily well. Most of my second generation Asian peers are clearing mid 6 to low 7 figures in their 30s, many working on their own ventures or at bold startups. And my Hispanic landscaper that came here with nothing, now owns a business enough to pay him and his four employees. Now compare this to the median multigenerational American - working a dead-end job, comparatively far less grit, ambition, and risk-taking, too comfortable so there is not as much a drive to be exceptional or prove themselves. Which group do you think the Founding Fathers would say better reflects the American spirit? To me immigrants are clearly the better reflection of the best aspects of American culture.
oefrha 5mo ago
Go to any top STEM PhD program and do a headcount. I don’t know what’s going on now thanks to this wave of xenophobia and funding cut madness, but back when I was in one (Princeton Physics, that was last decade), everywhere I go it was at least 50-50 in terms of international representation. You can also count the massive number of clearly foreign born faculty. It could not be more obvious. Edit: And before you mention O-1 and friends for highly accomplished individuals (maybe that's not affected for now? Honestly have no idea), this kind of policy has wide ranging second order effects even if it doesn't affect top talent directly. Like I said I was U.S. educated myself, once I would encourage bright minds from elsewhere to pursue a higher education in the U.S., now I heavily advise them from even setting foot in the U.S.
- blowscum 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - oefrha 5mo ago
    If you mean “intelligent” Americans who work on fucking blood sucking ad tech or garbage financial engineering rather than pushing the boundaries of science and technology, sure.
  - fooker 5mo ago
    It’s not that far in the future that you’ll start seeing quite a few ‘intelligent Americans’ in European and Chinese PhD programs :)
    - lurk2 5mo ago
      The flow of students between China and the USA is effectively unidirectional and always has been. What insight do you have to suggest that this will change in the near future?
- dnautics 5mo ago
  > Go to any top STEM PhD program and do a headcount Having done a STEM PhD, No. STEM PhDs are merely easily exploited labor by STEM departments. The PhDs and postdocs from foreign countries are typically a notch lower than the US PhDs and postdocs (especially the postdocs, because in many foreign countries you can do a 3 year PhD). It's just that most americans won't accept 100 hour workweeks in exchange for a $50k paycheck, and won't falsify the science to stay in pursuit of the next rung on the academic ladder.

solenoid0937 5mo ago

> Which specific Americans are kind of mediocre academically? Most of them. We have normalized getting Bs and Cs in our schools. Our school curricula are mediocre, and our culture around education is as well. It is distinctly uncool to care about education here. > Which specific immigrants are smarter than the average American and are therefore responsible for the nice things about America? Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs. > which isn't specifically gated on the intelligence of individual immigrants will improve a country along this metric. It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met. > And in fact the US has a huge number of legal pathways for immigration That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well.

JuniperMesos 5mo ago
> Most of them. We have normalized getting Bs and Cs in our schools. Our school curricula are mediocre, and our culture around education is as well. It is distinctly uncool to care about education here. Would you agree that caring about school performance constitutes acting white? Would you agree that acting white is uncool? Less flippantly, how much of American culture around education is specifically driven by a desire to eliminate or avoid noticing conspicuous racial discrepancies in measured educational attainment? > Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs. What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy. > It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met. What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit? > That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well. That might be worth it, if those highly intelligent and capable immigrants would, once they are settled in the US, turn their capacity and intelligence towards making US immigration policy more open to less intelligent and capable immigrants (e.g. their less capable and intelligent family members, or just liberalizing immigration policy in general).
- sakompella 5mo ago
  slop
- solenoid0937 5mo ago
  > Would you agree that caring about school performance constitutes acting white? No, the opposite. In my experience immigrants care far more about getting good grades, whereas most multigenerational American students were happy with Bs or even Cs. > What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy. A lot more Asians. Very few Asians. A lot more Asians. > What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit? Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Nigerian, Mexican, etc. So many. The only ones not fluent in English were the Hispanic immigrants, but despite this they better embody the American spirit than most Americans. I don't need to be fluent in Spanish to see that (though mine is passable). The skilled first and second generation American immigrants do extraordinarily well. Most of my second generation Asian peers are clearing mid 6 to low 7 figures in their 30s, many working on their own ventures or at bold startups. And my Hispanic landscaper that came here with nothing, now owns a business enough to pay him and his four employees. Now compare this to the median multigenerational American - working a dead-end job, comparatively far less grit, ambition, and risk-taking, too comfortable so there is not as much a drive to be exceptional or prove themselves. Which group do you think the Founding Fathers would say better reflects the American spirit? To me immigrants are clearly the better reflection of the best aspects of American culture.

oefrha 5mo ago

Go to any top STEM PhD program and do a headcount. I don’t know what’s going on now thanks to this wave of xenophobia and funding cut madness, but back when I was in one (Princeton Physics, that was last decade), everywhere I go it was at least 50-50 in terms of international representation. You can also count the massive number of clearly foreign born faculty. It could not be more obvious. Edit: And before you mention O-1 and friends for highly accomplished individuals (maybe that's not affected for now? Honestly have no idea), this kind of policy has wide ranging second order effects even if it doesn't affect top talent directly. Like I said I was U.S. educated myself, once I would encourage bright minds from elsewhere to pursue a higher education in the U.S., now I heavily advise them from even setting foot in the U.S.

blowscum 5mo ago
[flagged]
- oefrha 5mo ago
  If you mean “intelligent” Americans who work on fucking blood sucking ad tech or garbage financial engineering rather than pushing the boundaries of science and technology, sure.
- fooker 5mo ago
  It’s not that far in the future that you’ll start seeing quite a few ‘intelligent Americans’ in European and Chinese PhD programs :)
  - lurk2 5mo ago
    The flow of students between China and the USA is effectively unidirectional and always has been. What insight do you have to suggest that this will change in the near future?
dnautics 5mo ago
> Go to any top STEM PhD program and do a headcount Having done a STEM PhD, No. STEM PhDs are merely easily exploited labor by STEM departments. The PhDs and postdocs from foreign countries are typically a notch lower than the US PhDs and postdocs (especially the postdocs, because in many foreign countries you can do a 3 year PhD). It's just that most americans won't accept 100 hour workweeks in exchange for a $50k paycheck, and won't falsify the science to stay in pursuit of the next rung on the academic ladder.