Posted on 12/30/2024 8:32:27 PM PST by SeekAndFind
My friend @JoshuaSteinman is dropping bombshells about H-1B visas, and I’ve got a story to add.
tl;dr – It’s a cultural problem.
I spent years in India, working directly for one of the country’s wealthiest individuals. He recruited me for my computer skills to lead some of the most ambitious, technically challenging projects ever attempted.
We broke world records and unlocked trillions in wealth. My boss? He now lives in a skyscraper in Mumbai.
Toward the end of the project, he told me his best engineers were leaving for Silicon Valley, lured by unbelievable salaries. So, on his recommendation, I packed up my family and moved to California.
Here’s where it gets weird: I was (at least for short periods of rime) chief of that massive project, with ultimate responsibility. But guys several rungs below me - men way less qualified for any job - were getting H-1B visas and landing incredible salaries in tech.
I got turned down for every tech job I applied for.
Looking back, here’s why:
1.I told the truth. The foreign visa applicants? Many claimed to work in different departments or roles to fit the narrative. I admitted I worked on oil & gas projects. That’s considered “dirty” and “irrelevant” in tech. http://2.My school wasn’t on “the list.” I graduated from @MaritimeCollege —what @stevenujifusa calls “the Harvard of Maritime.” Highest attrition rate in the country. 185 credits. Classes like spherical geometry. But it’s a state school in The Bronx.
Tech doesn’t care. They rely on lists of “approved” “Ivy Plus” schools, as @bhorowitz admits in The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
But there’s more to it. It’s a cultural problem.
American applicants are at a disadvantage because we’re too easy to vet.
•Work for an Indian oil company? Don’t mention it on your resume.
•Work for a Chinese communist spy agency? Just leave it out.
•Wrong degree? Ask the school to reword your transcript or reframe it as a minor.
As an American, it’s incredibly difficult to lie. HR WILL call my references and confirms every detail of my background.
But for foreign applicants? That’s a lot harder to verify, so they get a pass.
And beneath it all? “Tech culture.”
Read any book about the industry, and you’ll find a near-religious obsession with maintaining “culture.” It’s a startup mantra: hard work, positivity, willingness to take risks.
But the dirty secret? “Tech culture” also harbors disdain for: •“Dirty” industries like oil & gas. •Christian values or Republican politics. •Anything less than an Ivy League education.
This isn’t just about H-1Bs. It’s about arrogance baked into an industry that weeds out Americans for not fitting their mold.
I’m not surprised that zero of Josh’s friends from the Trump administration got hired in tech, even at the highest levels.
If you’re a foreign conservative? They’ll hire you because it doesn’t code against “tech culture.” (E.g. I have several ultra conservative very religious Hindu friends who don’t have this problem) But if you’re an American who doesn’t fit their narrative? They’ll weed you out.
It’s time to talk about the serious cultural problem in tech—and how it’s harming American workers.
Tech has serious biases. They either need to toss them out and hire the best candidates or figure out how to properly vet foreigners who don’t fit their BS culture.
P.S. I did find a way around this BS. Start a company yourself m. I did and raised over $6M for one company.
How did I do it? I dropped any mention of my religion, politics, oil drilling experience and state school education from my capital raising meetings. Worked like a charm.
As an American it’s literally easier to get million dollar checks than a middle level job at Facebook or Apple.
Watch this:
The list of grievances wasn't to justify why we left England. It was to telegraph what kind of government we were creating. For the signers of each state to come on board they had to know what kind of government they were setting up (to make sure it was worth the risk to break away from England). The grievances in the Declaration were statements that the new government wasn't going to have those characteristics.
For example, we know that the first draft of the Declaration had abolitionist language, talking about the cruelty of slavery done by England's government. The delegates from Georgia and South Carolina dug their heels in and said they wouldn't sign the declaration with that language. Why? Because they didn't want an abolitionist mindset at the beginning of the new government. Thus, the abolitionist language had to be removed for those two states to help make a new nation.
Likewise almost a century later, the confederate states didn't have to state to the U.S. why they were leaving. They were justified in leaving for whatever reason they wanted to. But they did need to telegraph to their constituents and to other southern states what kind of values the new nation would have. Thus, the often repeated references to slavery, especially in the first few southern states to secede (as seen in my post # 57 on this thread) was a way to say, "Heads up fellow southerners. We haven't ironed out exactly what the new nation we're starting will look like. But we do know we won't abolish slavery."
The only important issue at the moment is the 14th Amendment, given that the large context backing all of this is the Civil War.
That said, there was a convention of sorts in the 1860s where they sat down(or stood) and debated and wrote the 14th Amendment with specific things in mind. That 14th amendment is not a Santa Claus amendment even though people believe it to be so.
"The idea of a "living constitution" begins with Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson, circa 1912:"
Thank you. I appreciate all references to these things regarding the progressive era. Sincerely.
"Of course, conservatives have always said: the way to adapt our constitution is through constitutional methods, such as amendments, conventions of states and lawful acts of Congress, not through imaginative reinterpretations, executive fiats or SCOTUS legislation."
You clearly are not aware that there has been a separate conversation going on and are trying to divert the argument away from the 14th Amendment.
"then you must first demonstrate where & how that happened"
I have already done so two or three times now. You're sitting in the very thread, not paying attention. Besides, this is not the first time I've noticed deep support for the living and breathing constitution in these discussions. I've referenced in past discussions how much deep trust for the ideas of the progressives.
Originalism with the 14th Amendment is deeply unpopular here. And I will state that every time, forcefully, because it is the undeniable truth.
"You didn't read my post #80, did you?"
I did not, and I'm not going to either. Its not my business to intensely monitor your conversation and I've already stated I'm not interested in the same ten people's decade-long (or more) circular repetition. Your discussion with DiogenesLamp is a part of that. But I'm not interjecting on your conversation either though, I'm leaving it well alone - you can have it, you can have every bit of it. Conversely you did interject, though, and now you've left yourself confused not knowing what the conversation was even about. Not even realizing that the living constitution is in fact being supported right here right now.
The only one diverting anything here is you.
I thought you gratuitously threw in the comment about women not having the right to vote in the Confederate states because women's causes are so popular today and this, in some way, would wrong foot and retroactively disqualify the southern independence movement.
In fact, that is exactly what you are doing.
And I don't understand why since Union states were not championing women's right to vote. The 15th amendment, adopted years after federal bayonets bought brotherhood, prohibited states from denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The 15th amendment and federal bayonets did not grant black women or white women the right to vote. That would come generations later. Before, during, and for some time after the 1860s southern thought on women's suffrage was very much in the American mainstream.
It isn't. What conservatives do you know about who support the "living constitution" view of constitutional law?
Most of us bitch about crap they read into the law, usually as a result of the 14th amendment, but not always.
Anyone can read it for themselves. If they have a good grasp of the English language and understand sentence structure, they can very quickly see that the Declaration of Independence articulates an Absolute, Unconditional right to independence for any reason whatsoever.
The "Big Lie" is your effort to put conditions on it that give the *OPPRESSORS* veto power over the oppressed.
You cannot stand the fact that the Declaration offers you no support for your belief that people had a right to invade and kill them for their own good because their "reasons" did not meet with the approval of the people they wanted to get away from.
Desiring for other people to *LEAVE THEM ALONE* is not dominating others nor forcing them into submission.
All they wanted was for people to *LEAVE THEM ALONE*. Yes, quite unreasonable, and obviously necessitating the invasion of a million men to kill them for their Insolence.
You do. You. DiogenesLamp. You support the "living constitutional" viewpoint when you accept these lies that progressives have been promoting about the 14th.
I've been trying to be respectful by not naming names, although my direct comments to jeffersondem have been clear and singular enough.
Progressives are liars. But I know that when I say that there is trust of what progressives say, you know that sounds familiar. I've said it to you multiple times in the past.
You have way to much trust in progressives. The 14th does not grant unlimited amnesty, the Civil War was not about illegal aliens and that's not what they discussed at the debates. Ditto abortions, ditto gay marriage, ditto any of the other multiple items we get told about this pseudo Santa Claus amendment.
Progressives are liars.
You should not have any fear of repeating those three words so simply and so elegantly. Just those three words.
Progressives are liars. Your turn.
You seem to fail the understanding of what the word "should" means, as in "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;"
"Prudence"? "Should not"? Do you see a command in there? I see suggestions. I read it as saying throwing off your government for "light and transient causes" is a bad idea, but I don't read it as saying that it is forbidden.
Not being forbidden, it is therefore within their rights if they so choose to throw off their "Government long established." It is their right to do so if they think it necessary. (Which they did.)
And who gives you the right to claim *THEIR* reasons are light and transitory? Their independence would have netted them between 200 million and 700 million in additional yearly profits, and that is a considerable sum of money in their day. Who are you to be able to say that wasn't a good enough reason for them to want out of the Union that favored the Northeast?
Well yes, that is exactly what it says. You haven't identified any conditional clauses in it. You keep trying to interpret the word "should" as "shall", and that is just incorrect. "Should" does not mean "shall." It never did.
The North didn't grant women (or many blacks) the right to vote either.
If you are trying to draw a distinction between the Northern good guys and the Southern evil people, you need to pick one where there was a difference between the two groups.
I know people like to blame Georgia and South Carolina, but my take is that they were the vocal states, and others, who may have felt the same as they do, didn't bring it up, but might have if someone else hadn't objected.
I find it odd that a Union of which the vast majority were slave states, would only have two of their number objecting to the anti-slavery language, when it applied to all states except Massachusetts, at the time.
I think Georgia and South Carolina were merely the first to object, but others would have done had the Representatives of Georgia and South Carolina not done so.
This view just makes more sense to me. I just can't believe the other 10 slave states would have just let that language go unchallenged. It doesn't stand to reason.
I am at a loss to understand how you can come to that conclusion. I have no recollection of anyone on FreeRepublic defending the nonsense courts have come up with regarding the 14th. All the people with whom I discuss things are mostly against people using the 14th to justify things like Gay Marriage, Abortion, and so forth.
About the only exception I can recall is the willingness of so many to redefine "citizen" and "natural born citizen" through a misreading of what the 14th says.
Yes, there are a lot of people that think "Subject to the Jurisdiction of" means an ability to punish people for breaking our laws, but that was not the intended meaning of the Congress in 1868 when they wrote it.
As one congressman made clear at the time, it is intended to mean "subject to the exclusive jurisdiction" of the United States. Meaning "no foreign allegiance."
But for the most part, people here are absolutely against using the 14th to do all that other stupid stuff the courts have used it for.
Acknowledging that they do it is not tantamount to me agreeing with it. I don't. I very much reject creative interpretation of the constitution to deviate from original intent.
The 14th does not grant unlimited amnesty, the Civil War was not about illegal aliens and that's not what they discussed at the debates. Ditto abortions, ditto gay marriage, ditto any of the other multiple items we get told about this pseudo Santa Claus amendment.
I agree with you here. Trouble is, I'm not in power. Liberals are, and so long as they hold that power, what they say is "the LAW!"
Again, my observation that liberals twist the 14th to mean something different from it's original intent is not the same as saying I agree with it. I don't agree with it and I want it stopped.
I have pointed out that if the 14th wasn't written so badly, it wouldn't be so easily misinterpreted.
I also point out that I regard it's ratification process as illegitimate, because all the Southern states that "ratified" it had guns to their heads with a Federal army forcing them to "ratify" it against their will.
That is *NOT* how the ratification process is supposed to work. The Founders would have been aghast at such a coerced ratification.
Progressives are liars. Your turn.
I like to use the term "LIEberal." Yes, "progressives", i.e. "liberals", are liars.
Liberals are liars. Liberals are liars. Liberals are liars.
Or if you prefer. Progressives are liars. Progressives are liars. Progressives are liars.
No problem. I hate em!
The U.S. Constitution does not stand alone, people frequently cite the Federalist papers to explain it. Equally, people can and sometimes do use James Madison's debate notes to explain the U.S. Constitution.
This is largely how Originalism works. (There are plenty of other documents as well)
I'm frequently told, by including yourself, that "the poorly worded 14th amendment" made all of this Santa Claus stuff possible through the courts.
No. That's the progressivism trust. There are also debate notes for the 14th Amendment. We can be originalists here, too. We know what they did and didn't discuss and illegal aliens wasn't it. The courts can claim all they want that they're relying on the 14th, but it's just lies.
The 14th amendment is a slavery amendment and nothing more. Just solely a slavery amendment. It really puts the lies of progressivism in context. It doesn't come from the 14th amendment. It just comes from the courts and nothing more. There is a clear and undeniable wall of separation between the two.
"people here are absolutely against using the 14th to do all that other stupid stuff the courts have used it for."
See, this. You're doing it right now. You're at a loss to understand how I can come to this conclusion, well here it is. Here is the sentence. You just did it. You just proved me.
The progressives and the courts are not "using" the 14th to do all of these things. That's just a lie that progressives tell. You could tell me right now you used a fire extinguisher to fly to the moon but I'm not going to believe you because that tool doesn't make that action possible. The tool and the action do not align. As such, it would simply be just a lie. So it is with the 14th amendment.
The tool and the action do not align. As a tool the 14th is a slavery amendment, it does not enable illegal aliens. The tool cannot do that. The tool is a slavery amendment, it does not enable gay marriages or abortions or any of the other fluff. The tool cannot do that. It's not possible.
You trust the progressives. You do absolutely trust them. You just did.
Exactly what I wanted, you just delivered.
Acknowledging that they do it through the 14th when it's not possible to do it through the 14th is tantamount to you agreeing with it.
It's the big lie that you are tipping your hat to. It's the big lie that you happily ate. And you're still eating it. I don't care how good the flavor of it is, stop eating it, it is not healthy food to eat.
And that is why I say, It is unclear to me why the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution is so popular with conservatives. You're doing it right now. Right here, right now.
They are NOT using the 14th amendment to do these things. That's just a lie that progressives say. It's the big lie.
Stop trusting the lie.
In light of the last two posts this bears repeating.
The 14th amendment does NOT enable such things. Its not possible.
These are just lies that progressives tell and nothing more.
My point in post # 101 was not to throw shade on Georgia and South Carolina. But to point out that the grievances section wasn’t needed to justify to England why we left England. There was no need to justify leaving England. The grievances section is about what the colony states wanted in the new nation (a nation that didn’t do the things listed as grievances toward England).
The courts disagree, and they have the power to enforce their stupid and wrong headed ideas.
The tool and the action do not align. As a tool the 14th is a slavery amendment, it does not enable illegal aliens. The tool cannot do that. The tool is a slavery amendment, it does not enable gay marriages or abortions or any of the other fluff. The tool cannot do that. It's not possible.
The tool is an ill defined blob of power, and they used it like a hammer. Had it been more refined and better written, they would not have been able to use it like a hammer to beat the law into any form they liked.
You trust the progressives. You do absolutely trust them. You just did.
I absolutely do trust them to abuse power. You should too. They consistently abuse power whenever they have it. If you don't trust them to abuse power, you are being foolish.
Liberals abuse power, and that is also what they did when they wrote the 14th amendment. There is no way that amendment should have legitimately passed.
We are to believe the Southern states fought for four years to keep slavery, yet we are told they willingly voted to give slaves freedom, citizenship and voting rights?
Does that seem realistic to you? All that blood and treasure and they just voted to throw away all that sacrifice?
No, the 14th amendment was created by liberals, written very badly, and other liberals have been using it as a tool to bash law into whatever form they wanted.
The 14th may have been good intentioned, but it has been a disaster in reality.
No it isn't. As they do in fact use the 14th to create "gay marriage", abortion on demand, "anchor babies", ban prayer in public schools, and a whole host of wrong headed destructive ideas, it is in fact possible to use the 14th to do it.
That is the reality we live in.
And that is why I say, It is unclear to me why the doctrine of the living and breathing constitution is so popular with conservatives. You're doing it right now. Right here, right now.
Pointing out that liberals are abusing the 14th amendment is not the same as believing in a "living constitution." It is drawing attention to the fact that liberals see it that way.
Me noticing that liberals are letting illegal aliens come into the country does not make me a supporter of illegal aliens. Noticing things is not the same as supporting things.
I don't have a connection to either state, or for that matter, any of the states in the South, but I had heard that claim about Georgia and South Carolina, and it just struck me as being a little too dismissive of the role of other states that likely felt the same way but didn't speak up.
I think the information about Georgia and South Carolina comes from Thomas Jefferson who was miffed that they wanted the anti-slavery language removed from the Declaration.
But yes, I get your point. It is not an idea I had thought of before, but after you explained it, I can see how you arrived at that idea.
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