That was an excellent essay. You made some great observations here: Many of those railing against the idea of letting in more programmers (or workers in genera

That was an excellent essay. You made some great observations here: Many of those railing against the idea of letting in more programmers (or workers in general) have a simplified view of the economy, in which there are a fixed number of jobs to go around. 10,272, say. And if you let in more people, there will be more competition for those jobs, and therefore lower wages. The people arguing against immigration are afraid that they won’t make as much money. This is known as the lump of labor fallacy. It is zero-sum thinking in which for one to gain, another must lose. It is wrong, with the simplest example being that there are clearly more jobs and more money in the US economy now than 100 years ago. Currently, there are approximately 320 million people in the United States. 100 years ago, there were roughly 100 million. Clearly, something happened for the country to have gained both people, jobs, and money: the economy grew. ... People living in a country founded by immigrants trying to keep out other people hoping for a better life for themselves and their families is questionable, at best, and very ugly at its worst. In reading the reactions to Graham’s essay, I would not ascribe blatant, outright racism to most people commenting, but there’s certainly an ugly undercurrent of “us” and “them”. ... At one time, it was considered acceptable to keep black people out of ‘good jobs’. Attempting to keep foreigners out of jobs seems broadly similar to me: it’s immoral and based on bad economics.