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America’s Secret Innovation Weapon: Immigration

71 points by mspeiser 17y ago

chancho 17y ago
> If we assume that talent is evenly distributed throughout the planet... This is a terrible assumption. 71% of the planet's surface is practically devoid of talent.
- TriinT 17y ago
  Hey, dolphins are smart!!! ;-)
  - sho 17y ago
    They're not distributed equally, either.
    - TriinT 17y ago
      The point I was trying to make was not that they're equally distributed, but that the oceans are not devoid of "talent" ;-)
      - dangrover 17y ago
        Yeah, I hate it when companies hire dolphin engineers instead of humans. Dolphin programmers will work for half of what a human one will -- often times being paid under-the-table in fish.
        TriinT 17y ago
        That's the funniest comment I've read in a while. Kudos!
        noonespecial 17y ago
        I've heard, though, that they have an uncanny habit of disappearing one day, just before disaster strikes, with nothing more than a "so long, and thanks for all the fish".
        ojbyrne 17y ago
        Just a random guess, but I bet if you added up all the costs of dolphin engineers in the US, they cost twice as much. They need those giant aquariums to keep them happy!
  - kailashbadu 17y ago
    Nah, you aren't factoring in those who are cruising on a ship at any given time.
- deleted 17y ago
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  - ianbishop 17y ago
    He is making reference to the fact that 71% of the surface of the earth is ocean.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
mynameishere 17y ago
Disproof: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nobel-prize-laureates-per-capita http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nob... So, so tired of the BS. The reason you think immigration is so wonderful is because you have been brainwashed since childhood. Period. But really, look at this: Smart immigration policies will do more for American innovation and productivity than better math and science education, more spending on basic research and additional venture capital combined. Boil this off...what is he saying: "You should not improve the people...you should replace the people."
- deleted 17y ago
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- ardit33 17y ago
  Disproof to your above claim: The US soccer team is mostly out of first-gen recent immigrants, or people that were given a passport just to play here. I think a fair-er comparison is of Noble prize laureates by ethnicity or country where they were born. You probably will see a lot more even distribution. Americans are not any smarter then, lets say Europeans. It is just they have more means. You will probably see a great correlation to economic output and noble price laureates because: 1. Richer countries attract smart people. You are smart, you probably are smart enough to be given great jobs/research positions and the best places to live in this earth, which happen countries that are rich already. 2. To do nobel price research, you probably need a lot of financial/instutinational backing, which you are most likely to find in rich countries..
  - thras 17y ago
    "I think a fair-er comparison is of Noble prize laureates by ethnicity or country where they were born. You probably will see a lot more even distribution." Ha. You seriously believe that, don't you? I'm impressed almost. In the U.S., 13% of the population is black. 2% is Jewish. Guess who get Nobel prizes and who don't. Evolution is a nasty, nasty theory that happens to be true. The magical equality fairy theory is beautiful, full of peace and love, and is wrong and stupid.
- deleted 17y ago
sho 17y ago
Unfortunately this strategy does not have the potency it once did. The two largest possible sources of talent for the US, India and China, have rapidly growing economies and plenty of opportunity. I don't know all that much about India but if you're smart and "hungry" in China there is a ton of opportunity. Why on earth would you go to the US? Same, to a lesser degree perhaps, for Brazil et al. I suppose the attractiveness of migration to the USA remains high in ex-communist states, the middle east, Africa, etc, so it's certainly possible they could make up the numbers, but the days of automatically assuming Chinese and Indians dream of building their companies in the USA are over, IMO.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  if you're smart and "hungry" in China there is a ton of opportunity. Why on earth would you go to the US? The freedom to criticize the government openly and vote in contested elections for the national leadership? That works for a lot of the Chinese immigrants I know in the United States. (Net immigration flows from China to the United States are still strongly positive in the direction of smart people leaving China and settling in the United States.) India actually presents the more interesting example, as people in India enjoy press freedom and free elections, but still find reason to move to the United States.
  - jibiki 17y ago
    So people immigrate because they want to vote in US elections? What kind of change in American policy do they wish to effect? Wanting to vote seems like a very abstract motivation for making such an immense personal sacrifice. All of the Chinese immigrants I know moved for more obvious reasons (personal gain, marriage, etc.) And none of them seem particularly critical of the US government, or the Chinese government, for that matter. (But most of them work in academia, so take that with a grain of salt.)
    - sp332 17y ago
      People move to somewhere they will have a say in local government. Casting a vote now and then is a very small part of that participation. Or maybe they're interested in politics and are sick of not being able to have a real debate.
mbadoiu 17y ago
Immigration law actually deters innovation of the top immigrants. These students come to US to study at top universities, undergrad or grad and afterward they cannot legally start a business on their own. They have to wait to get a green card, which is years away. By then, as people become older, they lose some of the hunger. The next best thing for them is to team up with Americans.
tokenadult 17y ago
I buy into the conclusion that immigration is good for the United States in general and particularly good as a source for innovation. Having lived overseas, in one of the countries that is a big source for immigrants to the United States (Taiwan), I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that what is going on here is mostly selection of people from very high-IQ echelons of source countries, and those people then doing things that lower-IQ people INHERENTLY can't do. Most human beings don't come close to maximizing the realization of their potential. And many of the countries that are the biggest sources of immigrants to the United States have very much of a "growth mindset" http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat... in general in their cultures, and particularly in the subcultures that supply most of the immigrants to the United States, such that those immigrants, whatever their IQ scores, do more to realize their potential than people with "fixed mindset." Indeed, there is a whole book on this subject, James R. Flynn's Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ. http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Americans-Achievement-Beyond-Iq/dp/0805811109/ http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Americans-Achievement-Beyond-Iq/... The IQ threshold for eminent achievement and even "genius" (as carefully defined by psychologists) is not particularly high, but is only about 120 on a currently normed IQ test. That, by definition of IQ standard scoring, is less than two standard deviations above the population mean. Follow-up comments to this by request.
ianbishop 17y ago
Ironically, the 'secret' is one that everyone but the American government and the majority of the American population are aware of. A NY Times article [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/googles-immigration-fixer/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/googles-immigration...] published not too long ago outlined how much Google was spending on H-1B visas and their demand for the cap to be raised. If you read the comments or the backlash which followed, it made you very aware how the American public is still convinced immigrants are 'stealing their jobs'.
- ardit33 17y ago
  To back your thing: My current company was closing down. So I started looking for a new job, and I was really worried as an H-1B that I am, companies are really reluctant to hire in this environment, b/c of the huge amount of paper work, and cost required for them to eventually sponsor me. Within two weeks I got 3 job offers, and getting one more next week (they are doing background checks), with a lot of money. I mean a lot more than I thought I could make. What it shows me, that there is a real demand for highly skilled engineers, even in a downturn, and a lot of "i am an American, I can't find a job lets send the h-1bs home", are probably voices from people that have no talent, or desire to work. This is truly work Americans can't do, as I am not cheap at all, actually very expensive, money and paperwork wise. The secret in the Silicon Valley is that 80% of the code is produced only by 20% of the engineers. If I have my own company, (or you had your own), I'd want to hire from that 20% pool, no matter what their race, ethnicity, or immigration status they are. Unfortunately, you have people on the 80% pool, that scream (or wishfully thinking) that if immigrants weren't here, there would be able to command higher salaries, and find job easily. It is often much easier to blame others, instead of just looking in the mirror.
  - cglee 17y ago
    I don't think most Americans have a problem with truly bright engineers. I think the problem is when large corporations abuse the system to keep wages down. Plus, yes the complaining will always come from the lower 80%; the top 20% usually have a way to solve their problems - that's the benefit of being on top.
kirubakaran 17y ago
I wonder what will happen if people around the world can sell their citizenship. Of course host governments have to do a background check etc and sign off on the bidders/buyers. Everybody wins, right? And I bet you can IPO 'eBay for citizenship' overnight.
- DenisM 17y ago
  Citizenship of a given country is a commodity in that piece is no differnt than any other piece, so it will be traded on an exchange and not in an auction house.
  - kirubakaran 17y ago
    This is not much different from how Gmail invites were sold on eBay. While the invites themselves were no different from each other, auctioning helped the market find the 'fair' price. Auction price will reflect the current supply and demand, affected by economic conditions and a million other factors. Remember that I proposing that people, not countries, sell their citizenship and move out to a country where they have bought new citizenships.
    - DenisM 17y ago
      Good point. I suppose this will depend on the trade volume - no one will set up an exchange for the low-volume stuff so one arises on top of the nearest thing such as ebay. If volume is high and exchange must form tho. Imagine the news roll: "Canadian citizenship was 5 points up today on soaring energy prices and the new healthcare proposal". Hilarious, but also kind of makes sense.
deleted 17y ago
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naveensundar 17y ago
Most of the evil in this world comes from people believing in and fighting over imaginary borders.
- kingkongrevenge 17y ago
  In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention. --alexander solzenitzen
  - naveensundar 17y ago
    I am not saying cultures should disappear. What I meant was national and other imaginary boundaries have engendered wars, genocides and other evils. Bringing boundaries down will not makes us clones in a 1984 like manner but may give rise to even more diversity due to the mixing. And these indigenous cultures are of no use when people are not free to roam the world!
    - kingkongrevenge 17y ago
      War and genocide predate the nation state. It's perhaps as easy to argue that the nation state has been a force for restraint of violence and a bulwark against broader tyranny. Violence is worst in the modern world where nations are weakest and least independent. The endless wars in Europe only wound down when national boundaries were finally properly drawn along ethnic lines. > more diversity due to the mixing You are confusing diversity within a place with diversity between places. Whereas London was once an English city with a distinctive English character, it is now a "multi-cultural" stew that is much like any of five other large global multi-ethnic cities. The loss of an English London is a loss of diversity.
kingkongrevenge 17y ago
This narrative where the second generation immigrants ascend economically is not actually true. For certain ethnic groups it may have been true at one time, but the data actually show that Hispanics descend economically after the first generation, for one example.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Which data? Back up your argument.
  - kingkongrevenge 17y ago
    http://www.amazon.com/review/R60O7705YNTL7 http://www.amazon.com/review/R60O7705YNTL7 "Throughout this book, our statistical models have shown that the low education levels of Mexican Americans have impeded most other types of assimilation, thus reinforcing a range of ethnic boundaries between them and white Americans." As is well known, American-born Mexicans average more years of education than do their Mexican-born immigrant ancestors. Unfortunately, as Telles and Ortiz report, the third and fourth generations of Mexican Americans do not continue to close the gap relative to non-Hispanic whites: "In education, which best determines life chances in the United States, assimilation is interrupted by the second generation and stagnates thereafter." The fourth generation (whose grandparents were born in America) was particularly unaccomplished: "Sadly and directly in contradistinction to assimilation theory, the fourth generation differs the most from whites, with a college completion rate of only 6 percent [compared to 35 percent for whites of that era]." The fourth generation Baby Boomers averaged 0.7 years less schooling than the second and third generation Mexican Americans born in the same era. Telles and Ortiz found: "...the educational progress of Mexican Americans does not improve over the generations. At best, given the statistical margin of error, our data show no improvement in education over the generations-since-immigration and in some cases even suggest a decline."
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      This hardly seems to justify your sweeping assertions above, and the review (by Steve Sailer, who I'm afraid I do not consider an objective commentator) seems to suggest that the fault lies entirely with the population in question, ignoring the book authors' own conclusion that institutional discrimination is a major limiting factor in Mexican-American economic development. Sailer writes: Their book is a monument to disinterested, objective social science. but seems uninterested in reporting the context in which these trends take place, preferring an interpretation of racial degeneracy. The publisher's description and one other review present a considerably more nuanced picture than the one you chose to quote (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871548488/ref=cm_rdp_product http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871548488/ref=cm_rdp_produ...) I do not think a selective book review from a tinfoil-hat-wearing race baiter makes the cut.
ilkhd2 17y ago
I already gave my points about immigration in some earlier posts, but my opinion is: Immigration is irrelevant to prosperity of country. Several reasons for that: 1. The countries many immigrants are from, you know they have very affordable medicine and education (former Soviet Union, for example), so in fact any modern American big software company parasite on this cheap facilities, without any interest in developing similar things domestically. 2. There plenty of examples of countries with high rates of innovation, but with low immigration rates: Sweden (ericsson), Finland (Nokia), Japan. 3. I dare to claim, that immigration erodes values of American society.Imagine a person from China or India (the country where 60 million people literraly live in poop, they are born in cast of poop-cleaners-by-bare-hands), the person comes to USA and imeddiately becomes middle class (upper sometimes). Well, this new middle class built from immigrants from ugly places, thet have a lot higher tolerance for injustice and corruption.
- _debug_ 17y ago
  Systems are more powerful than the people caught up in them. The person who is escaping the "cast of poop-cleaners-by-bare-hands" is trying to escape the system that casts him thus. If you (America) ensure that only the best and the brightest are granted entry, then you get to both a) preserve your system, without dilution of it's core principles b) allow new entrants into the system who are hungry and desperate to succeed and start a new life What the article correctly identifies is that someone who is desperate to succeed will go much further than others. This kind of inner motivation is extremely valuable and is what fuels the engine of America's growth.
emontero1 17y ago
Indeed. We've talked about this phenomenon before. Here's the link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678144 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678144 This was my remark on the matter: As a foreigner in the US about to finish a MS degree in IT and travel back home, I find Friedman's words apropos. The limitation on H-1B visas does more harm than good. I've met many young, intelligent knowledge workers about to get their advanced degrees who, unfortunately, find themselves unable to stay in this country because of visa restrictions. Sending those brains back home is a mistake. A new approach is required if the US veritably wants to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. It's good to see more and more people are joining us and voicing their opinions loudly. Evidently, the H-1B program needs some major tweaking. The more people know and understand the implications of what's at stake here, the better.
petercooper 17y ago
one that targets the best and brightest around the globe and makes it easy for them to become permanent residents. We should be recruiting the world’s best talent the same way top companies recruit the best talent. No! Google ostensibly hires all of the "best talent" in the industry, yet what do you see of it? If the government takes on some policy of allowing the world's "best and brightest" to immigrate, you're not necessarily getting the people who would have produced the most value. Instead you'll get people who have tons of qualifications and degrees. Let's say France had this same immigration idea back in 1980. Would Bill Gates have been considered one of the brightest and greatest and allowed in? No. Would Larry Ellison? No. Would Steve Jobs? No. It's next to impossible to pick out the true people who provide value before the deed is done.
preview 17y ago
FTA: So I would argue further that the “innovation probability” of a high I.Q. individual whose family has been in the U.S. for many generations is less than that of someone who’s new to our nation and has a comparable intellect, but far more desire. It sounds to me like the author stating an obvious, and often repeated, point. Perseverance/hard work is a much better predictor of success than raw intelligence. Immigrants, for a couple of generations at least, have the work ethic. Based on other posts to this discussion, this fizzles our by the fourth generation, so you're stuck on a tread mill of bringing in new hard workers to fuel the engine. Is that really the only way to handle this? It doesn't seem to address the root cause. As far as the requirement to post a job to prove no American worker could fill the role, I think it's common knowledge that this aspect of the system is heavily (and easily) gamed. The H1-B program does need to be reworked. It seems like the H1-B visa should provide more freedom to the individual to innovate--start their own company and not be so beholden to their sponsor. I am making an assumption that the hard working, hungry H1-B holder is more likely to start their own company. This is where innovation creation thrives and, therefore, where there is great potential value in H1-B visa reform.

71 points by mspeiser 17y ago

> If we assume that talent is evenly distributed throughout the planet... This is a terrible assumption. 71% of the planet's surface is practically devoid of talent.

TriinT 17y ago
Hey, dolphins are smart!!! ;-)
- sho 17y ago
  They're not distributed equally, either.
  - TriinT 17y ago
    The point I was trying to make was not that they're equally distributed, but that the oceans are not devoid of "talent" ;-)
    - dangrover 17y ago
      Yeah, I hate it when companies hire dolphin engineers instead of humans. Dolphin programmers will work for half of what a human one will -- often times being paid under-the-table in fish.
      - TriinT 17y ago
        That's the funniest comment I've read in a while. Kudos!
      - noonespecial 17y ago
        I've heard, though, that they have an uncanny habit of disappearing one day, just before disaster strikes, with nothing more than a "so long, and thanks for all the fish".
      - ojbyrne 17y ago
        Just a random guess, but I bet if you added up all the costs of dolphin engineers in the US, they cost twice as much. They need those giant aquariums to keep them happy!
- kailashbadu 17y ago
  Nah, you aren't factoring in those who are cruising on a ship at any given time.
deleted 17y ago
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- ianbishop 17y ago
  He is making reference to the fact that 71% of the surface of the earth is ocean.
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mynameishere 17y ago

Disproof: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nobel-prize-laureates-per-capita http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nob... So, so tired of the BS. The reason you think immigration is so wonderful is because you have been brainwashed since childhood. Period. But really, look at this: Smart immigration policies will do more for American innovation and productivity than better math and science education, more spending on basic research and additional venture capital combined. Boil this off...what is he saying: "You should not improve the people...you should replace the people."

deleted 17y ago
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ardit33 17y ago
Disproof to your above claim: The US soccer team is mostly out of first-gen recent immigrants, or people that were given a passport just to play here. I think a fair-er comparison is of Noble prize laureates by ethnicity or country where they were born. You probably will see a lot more even distribution. Americans are not any smarter then, lets say Europeans. It is just they have more means. You will probably see a great correlation to economic output and noble price laureates because: 1. Richer countries attract smart people. You are smart, you probably are smart enough to be given great jobs/research positions and the best places to live in this earth, which happen countries that are rich already. 2. To do nobel price research, you probably need a lot of financial/instutinational backing, which you are most likely to find in rich countries..
- thras 17y ago
  "I think a fair-er comparison is of Noble prize laureates by ethnicity or country where they were born. You probably will see a lot more even distribution." Ha. You seriously believe that, don't you? I'm impressed almost. In the U.S., 13% of the population is black. 2% is Jewish. Guess who get Nobel prizes and who don't. Evolution is a nasty, nasty theory that happens to be true. The magical equality fairy theory is beautiful, full of peace and love, and is wrong and stupid.
deleted 17y ago

sho 17y ago

Unfortunately this strategy does not have the potency it once did. The two largest possible sources of talent for the US, India and China, have rapidly growing economies and plenty of opportunity. I don't know all that much about India but if you're smart and "hungry" in China there is a ton of opportunity. Why on earth would you go to the US? Same, to a lesser degree perhaps, for Brazil et al. I suppose the attractiveness of migration to the USA remains high in ex-communist states, the middle east, Africa, etc, so it's certainly possible they could make up the numbers, but the days of automatically assuming Chinese and Indians dream of building their companies in the USA are over, IMO.

tokenadult 17y ago
if you're smart and "hungry" in China there is a ton of opportunity. Why on earth would you go to the US? The freedom to criticize the government openly and vote in contested elections for the national leadership? That works for a lot of the Chinese immigrants I know in the United States. (Net immigration flows from China to the United States are still strongly positive in the direction of smart people leaving China and settling in the United States.) India actually presents the more interesting example, as people in India enjoy press freedom and free elections, but still find reason to move to the United States.
- jibiki 17y ago
  So people immigrate because they want to vote in US elections? What kind of change in American policy do they wish to effect? Wanting to vote seems like a very abstract motivation for making such an immense personal sacrifice. All of the Chinese immigrants I know moved for more obvious reasons (personal gain, marriage, etc.) And none of them seem particularly critical of the US government, or the Chinese government, for that matter. (But most of them work in academia, so take that with a grain of salt.)
  - sp332 17y ago
    People move to somewhere they will have a say in local government. Casting a vote now and then is a very small part of that participation. Or maybe they're interested in politics and are sick of not being able to have a real debate.

mbadoiu 17y ago

Immigration law actually deters innovation of the top immigrants. These students come to US to study at top universities, undergrad or grad and afterward they cannot legally start a business on their own. They have to wait to get a green card, which is years away. By then, as people become older, they lose some of the hunger. The next best thing for them is to team up with Americans.

tokenadult 17y ago

I buy into the conclusion that immigration is good for the United States in general and particularly good as a source for innovation. Having lived overseas, in one of the countries that is a big source for immigrants to the United States (Taiwan), I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that what is going on here is mostly selection of people from very high-IQ echelons of source countries, and those people then doing things that lower-IQ people INHERENTLY can't do. Most human beings don't come close to maximizing the realization of their potential. And many of the countries that are the biggest sources of immigrants to the United States have very much of a "growth mindset" http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/features/dweck.html http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/marapr/feat... in general in their cultures, and particularly in the subcultures that supply most of the immigrants to the United States, such that those immigrants, whatever their IQ scores, do more to realize their potential than people with "fixed mindset." Indeed, there is a whole book on this subject, James R. Flynn's Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ. http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Americans-Achievement-Beyond-Iq/dp/0805811109/ http://www.amazon.com/Asian-Americans-Achievement-Beyond-Iq/... The IQ threshold for eminent achievement and even "genius" (as carefully defined by psychologists) is not particularly high, but is only about 120 on a currently normed IQ test. That, by definition of IQ standard scoring, is less than two standard deviations above the population mean. Follow-up comments to this by request.

ianbishop 17y ago

Ironically, the 'secret' is one that everyone but the American government and the majority of the American population are aware of. A NY Times article [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/googles-immigration-fixer/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/googles-immigration...] published not too long ago outlined how much Google was spending on H-1B visas and their demand for the cap to be raised. If you read the comments or the backlash which followed, it made you very aware how the American public is still convinced immigrants are 'stealing their jobs'.

ardit33 17y ago
To back your thing: My current company was closing down. So I started looking for a new job, and I was really worried as an H-1B that I am, companies are really reluctant to hire in this environment, b/c of the huge amount of paper work, and cost required for them to eventually sponsor me. Within two weeks I got 3 job offers, and getting one more next week (they are doing background checks), with a lot of money. I mean a lot more than I thought I could make. What it shows me, that there is a real demand for highly skilled engineers, even in a downturn, and a lot of "i am an American, I can't find a job lets send the h-1bs home", are probably voices from people that have no talent, or desire to work. This is truly work Americans can't do, as I am not cheap at all, actually very expensive, money and paperwork wise. The secret in the Silicon Valley is that 80% of the code is produced only by 20% of the engineers. If I have my own company, (or you had your own), I'd want to hire from that 20% pool, no matter what their race, ethnicity, or immigration status they are. Unfortunately, you have people on the 80% pool, that scream (or wishfully thinking) that if immigrants weren't here, there would be able to command higher salaries, and find job easily. It is often much easier to blame others, instead of just looking in the mirror.
- cglee 17y ago
  I don't think most Americans have a problem with truly bright engineers. I think the problem is when large corporations abuse the system to keep wages down. Plus, yes the complaining will always come from the lower 80%; the top 20% usually have a way to solve their problems - that's the benefit of being on top.

kirubakaran 17y ago

I wonder what will happen if people around the world can sell their citizenship. Of course host governments have to do a background check etc and sign off on the bidders/buyers. Everybody wins, right? And I bet you can IPO 'eBay for citizenship' overnight.

DenisM 17y ago
Citizenship of a given country is a commodity in that piece is no differnt than any other piece, so it will be traded on an exchange and not in an auction house.
- kirubakaran 17y ago
  This is not much different from how Gmail invites were sold on eBay. While the invites themselves were no different from each other, auctioning helped the market find the 'fair' price. Auction price will reflect the current supply and demand, affected by economic conditions and a million other factors. Remember that I proposing that people, not countries, sell their citizenship and move out to a country where they have bought new citizenships.
  - DenisM 17y ago
    Good point. I suppose this will depend on the trade volume - no one will set up an exchange for the low-volume stuff so one arises on top of the nearest thing such as ebay. If volume is high and exchange must form tho. Imagine the news roll: "Canadian citizenship was 5 points up today on soaring energy prices and the new healthcare proposal". Hilarious, but also kind of makes sense.

deleted 17y ago

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naveensundar 17y ago

Most of the evil in this world comes from people believing in and fighting over imaginary borders.

kingkongrevenge 17y ago
In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention. --alexander solzenitzen
- naveensundar 17y ago
  I am not saying cultures should disappear. What I meant was national and other imaginary boundaries have engendered wars, genocides and other evils. Bringing boundaries down will not makes us clones in a 1984 like manner but may give rise to even more diversity due to the mixing. And these indigenous cultures are of no use when people are not free to roam the world!
  - kingkongrevenge 17y ago
    War and genocide predate the nation state. It's perhaps as easy to argue that the nation state has been a force for restraint of violence and a bulwark against broader tyranny. Violence is worst in the modern world where nations are weakest and least independent. The endless wars in Europe only wound down when national boundaries were finally properly drawn along ethnic lines. > more diversity due to the mixing You are confusing diversity within a place with diversity between places. Whereas London was once an English city with a distinctive English character, it is now a "multi-cultural" stew that is much like any of five other large global multi-ethnic cities. The loss of an English London is a loss of diversity.

kingkongrevenge 17y ago

This narrative where the second generation immigrants ascend economically is not actually true. For certain ethnic groups it may have been true at one time, but the data actually show that Hispanics descend economically after the first generation, for one example.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Which data? Back up your argument.
- kingkongrevenge 17y ago
  http://www.amazon.com/review/R60O7705YNTL7 http://www.amazon.com/review/R60O7705YNTL7 "Throughout this book, our statistical models have shown that the low education levels of Mexican Americans have impeded most other types of assimilation, thus reinforcing a range of ethnic boundaries between them and white Americans." As is well known, American-born Mexicans average more years of education than do their Mexican-born immigrant ancestors. Unfortunately, as Telles and Ortiz report, the third and fourth generations of Mexican Americans do not continue to close the gap relative to non-Hispanic whites: "In education, which best determines life chances in the United States, assimilation is interrupted by the second generation and stagnates thereafter." The fourth generation (whose grandparents were born in America) was particularly unaccomplished: "Sadly and directly in contradistinction to assimilation theory, the fourth generation differs the most from whites, with a college completion rate of only 6 percent [compared to 35 percent for whites of that era]." The fourth generation Baby Boomers averaged 0.7 years less schooling than the second and third generation Mexican Americans born in the same era. Telles and Ortiz found: "...the educational progress of Mexican Americans does not improve over the generations. At best, given the statistical margin of error, our data show no improvement in education over the generations-since-immigration and in some cases even suggest a decline."
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    This hardly seems to justify your sweeping assertions above, and the review (by Steve Sailer, who I'm afraid I do not consider an objective commentator) seems to suggest that the fault lies entirely with the population in question, ignoring the book authors' own conclusion that institutional discrimination is a major limiting factor in Mexican-American economic development. Sailer writes: Their book is a monument to disinterested, objective social science. but seems uninterested in reporting the context in which these trends take place, preferring an interpretation of racial degeneracy. The publisher's description and one other review present a considerably more nuanced picture than the one you chose to quote (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871548488/ref=cm_rdp_product http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871548488/ref=cm_rdp_produ...) I do not think a selective book review from a tinfoil-hat-wearing race baiter makes the cut.

ilkhd2 17y ago

I already gave my points about immigration in some earlier posts, but my opinion is: Immigration is irrelevant to prosperity of country. Several reasons for that: 1. The countries many immigrants are from, you know they have very affordable medicine and education (former Soviet Union, for example), so in fact any modern American big software company parasite on this cheap facilities, without any interest in developing similar things domestically. 2. There plenty of examples of countries with high rates of innovation, but with low immigration rates: Sweden (ericsson), Finland (Nokia), Japan. 3. I dare to claim, that immigration erodes values of American society.Imagine a person from China or India (the country where 60 million people literraly live in poop, they are born in cast of poop-cleaners-by-bare-hands), the person comes to USA and imeddiately becomes middle class (upper sometimes). Well, this new middle class built from immigrants from ugly places, thet have a lot higher tolerance for injustice and corruption.

_debug_ 17y ago
Systems are more powerful than the people caught up in them. The person who is escaping the "cast of poop-cleaners-by-bare-hands" is trying to escape the system that casts him thus. If you (America) ensure that only the best and the brightest are granted entry, then you get to both a) preserve your system, without dilution of it's core principles b) allow new entrants into the system who are hungry and desperate to succeed and start a new life What the article correctly identifies is that someone who is desperate to succeed will go much further than others. This kind of inner motivation is extremely valuable and is what fuels the engine of America's growth.

emontero1 17y ago

Indeed. We've talked about this phenomenon before. Here's the link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678144 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678144 This was my remark on the matter: As a foreigner in the US about to finish a MS degree in IT and travel back home, I find Friedman's words apropos. The limitation on H-1B visas does more harm than good. I've met many young, intelligent knowledge workers about to get their advanced degrees who, unfortunately, find themselves unable to stay in this country because of visa restrictions. Sending those brains back home is a mistake. A new approach is required if the US veritably wants to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. It's good to see more and more people are joining us and voicing their opinions loudly. Evidently, the H-1B program needs some major tweaking. The more people know and understand the implications of what's at stake here, the better.

petercooper 17y ago

one that targets the best and brightest around the globe and makes it easy for them to become permanent residents. We should be recruiting the world’s best talent the same way top companies recruit the best talent. No! Google ostensibly hires all of the "best talent" in the industry, yet what do you see of it? If the government takes on some policy of allowing the world's "best and brightest" to immigrate, you're not necessarily getting the people who would have produced the most value. Instead you'll get people who have tons of qualifications and degrees. Let's say France had this same immigration idea back in 1980. Would Bill Gates have been considered one of the brightest and greatest and allowed in? No. Would Larry Ellison? No. Would Steve Jobs? No. It's next to impossible to pick out the true people who provide value before the deed is done.

preview 17y ago

FTA: So I would argue further that the “innovation probability” of a high I.Q. individual whose family has been in the U.S. for many generations is less than that of someone who’s new to our nation and has a comparable intellect, but far more desire. It sounds to me like the author stating an obvious, and often repeated, point. Perseverance/hard work is a much better predictor of success than raw intelligence. Immigrants, for a couple of generations at least, have the work ethic. Based on other posts to this discussion, this fizzles our by the fourth generation, so you're stuck on a tread mill of bringing in new hard workers to fuel the engine. Is that really the only way to handle this? It doesn't seem to address the root cause. As far as the requirement to post a job to prove no American worker could fill the role, I think it's common knowledge that this aspect of the system is heavily (and easily) gamed. The H1-B program does need to be reworked. It seems like the H1-B visa should provide more freedom to the individual to innovate--start their own company and not be so beholden to their sponsor. I am making an assumption that the hard working, hungry H1-B holder is more likely to start their own company. This is where innovation creation thrives and, therefore, where there is great potential value in H1-B visa reform.