Posted on 12/29/2024 8:31:28 AM PST by Starman417
In the fine bad cattitude tradition of “making everyone angry by weighing in on multiple sides of issues of current calamity,” here comes a whole set of takes on immigration, economy, and culture. Some of it is likely to make many people mad. But let’s remember: not liking a fact does not make it false, and not agreeing with everything that someone says does not invalidate the points they make.
This one seems to have really brought the bats down from the rafters, and I’m sure we’ll get a comments section for the ages. But please, can we do two things:
Please apply the golden rule of “reading with the charity with which you in turn would like to be read.” This was a lot to try to pull together.
OK, game on.
Here we go.
For those not on Twitter, the last couple of days have been an immigration food fight seemingly kicked off by Vivek saying some half-smart, half-tone-deaf stuff, and Elon wading into it without much finesse or calibration. Then wave upon wave of “telephone” amplified and distorted messages into straw men of utmost flammability, used to feed both racist trolling Indians (dot, not feather) and nativist American economic illiterates alike—pitting the worst, least informed, and least representative of two factions against one another in a horizon-to-horizon fracas to see who could be more offensive. It was rage farmer Valhalla.
Welcome to the internet. There’s not really a helluva lot one can do about that apart from letting tempers cool and then seeing if anything useful was learned.
What I learned was this: there’s some dangerous entitlement and reality denial on both sides, and some folks clearly want a fight on this issue. But the reality is twofold:
Emphasis on “overly optimistic.”
OK - so that escalated quickly!
Twitter rapidly devolved to poo, then rock, and then actual bomb throwing. So I basically said, “Yeah, this is not going to be a place to have much in the way of productive discourse in the near term.” But as things have now calmed down a little, and at the risk of kicking nests of at least somewhat quiescent bees, I’d like to go back to some themes that seemed lost or ignored in the great Christmas immigration conflagration.
Let’s see if we can set the stage with some shared belief.
Some salients:
This is my answer:
Because human capital is only useful in systems where human capital can flourish and realize potential. It’s like asking why the son of an NBA player never got good at basketball while ignoring the fact that he was raised in a cave with 5-foot ceilings and never allowed outside or to stand up straight.
Human capital may be easily thwarted. The Soviet Union did not lack for smart people. It lacked any outlet for them to build things.
Human capital requires and creates freedom, systems, and structures to thrive. It requires an ethics and ethos where such thriving is encouraged, enabled, and protected.
And that is what has, for generation after generation, attracted so many of the best and brightest to America.
America was the preferred place to chase and build your dream and pursue your happiness.
The “activator” is real. The activator is America. One can do here that which cannot be done in China or India or Japan or France. The ceiling is raised.
Martin, who I do not know but who seems like a reasonable guy engaging in good faith, then asks this.
I don’t mean to single him out, and please don’t dogpile him. It’s just a good sort of Socratic question and, honestly, the kind of civil and potentially productive engagement that makes social media useful. And I think he’s correct about the sides talking past one another. I’d like to explore what I see to be the disconnect.
Firstly, I disagree on one matter: we do need more startups, Silicon Valley or otherwise. That said, it matters a great deal what kind of “Silicon Valley startup” we’re discussing. The old kind was awesome. Many of the new ones are a blight, but this does not mean that all or even most are, just the biggest and best connected that gather so much limelight.
I was there in the 90s and 2000s. The hot new tech at the time was a thing called “the internet.” It turned out to be pretty useful, and it really could only have emerged at the kind of speeds and capacity that it did in a place like Silicon Valley. Anyone who thinks “But DARPA would have invented it all!” simply has no idea what happened.
The problem is that the culture of hard work, big risks chasing big visions, and endless hyper-competitive creative destruction has atrophied and been replaced by something else: big business tactics of crony corporatism and aristocratic capture of political systems. This has turned the ethos on its head.
California ate the Valley.
I barely recognize the place. Sand Hill Road might as well be lobbyist row in McLean, Virginia. VCs hire Al Gore to make sure their portco products are mandated. PE buys up all the HVAC installers, then pushes new air handling rules for COVID and mandates heat pumps.
As a result, I think that many of Vivek’s own words may be turned against Silicon Valley (in a manner, incidentally, that I suspect he would agree with).
He states:
“A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:And there is obvious truth here, albeit also truth that misses the fact that engineers tend to make lousy CEOs and visionaries, and that “winning the math olympiad” and “being able to build a high-function organization” are often at odds with one another. I, for one, love to hire athletes because they come with drive, discipline, desire to win, and a hatred of losing (which is not the same as desire to win). His take gets a bit myopic and nerd-centric. (I say this as both a jock and a math olympiad winner.)Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer).
That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
“All math, no outside life” is not a path to innovation. Ask China.
But to get to the real insight, problem, and bifurcation, let’s substitute “crony corporatism” for “mediocrity” and “connected political activist paying for play and wrapping themselves in platitudes of diversity, equity, and servitude to false collectivist problems ginned up to demand expensive mandates for collectivist solutions to justify this” for “prom queen” and “jock.”
Because this is the real divide, the part many of the tech bros are missing, and the reason so many are finding them so infuriating.
I think people are talking past each other on this because the debate has been framed incorrectly, leaving the truly important issue to go begging.
Sili-Valley is appealing to what it once was but, like so many American institutions, has lost much of the virtue that underpinned such institutional and cultural conception.
Instead, a tone-deaf aristocracy advantaged by subsidy, connection, and diversity and equity edict is mocking those who are forced to give up their places (and worse, their culture) to it, and telling the same people who can no longer get into top schools based on merit that they are failing at meritocracy and that hiring that slants heavily against their inborn characteristics is somehow their fault for going to prom.
“Why didn’t your race attend the engineering school that discriminates against your race or gender?” is not much of an argument.
The wokelord Google gang is not the “proof of fitness” test it claims to be (and is, frankly, failing badly now as a result and will soon be an irrelevancy if it does not get its act together).
You don’t get to grab spots at university with skin tone, then claim meritocracy.
This is self-flattery of the most excremental form.
Silicon Valley has become a crony corporate hypocrisy hill.
And that, ultimately, is why people are so pissed.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
The issue mainly concerns male innovators, entrepreneurs, engineers, and other professionals.
What’s not being discussed is the 30+ year assault on the “Angry White Males” who normally desire to have a family with a loving wife & mother along with meritocratic rewards for their hard work & skills. Their foreign counterparts have not been psychologically & materially constrained in this regard.
Some bullet points
- Our govt was built on the Golden Rule, which is rare in the world. In exchange for being subject to morality we are in turn protected by society. This allows a high-trust, high-freedom society
- cronyism and corruption allows entities to buy politicians and then force laws and regulations that OPPOSE the Golden Rule, rewarding the guilty and punishing the innocent. As a result, Americans pay all the costs but get none of the protections and benefits that invaders get.
- DEI and other woke crap solidifies all of that. This pisses Americans off. Invaders who never intend to assimilate into the Golden Rule world boast about making suckers out of us. This further pisses us off.
- Genuine growth and exceptionalism is only possible in a Golden Rule (moral) society. Truly exceptional people should be here, for the good they can do all mankind. The system should allow this.
- People just trying to milk the system, and companies milking the system because they’ve bought enough politicians to do so, cost the country far, far more than they will ever be able to contribute. The system needs to be fixed so we go back to the Golden Rule without the cronyism and corruption, and the people who just want to suck us dry will not have freebies to lure them here. This will solve both the illegal immigration issue and the H-1B issue.
- In a global world where we are free to buy cheap goods from other countries, Americans will lose jobs even if there are extreme protective measures for American workers, because the free market will bankrupt their companies. So we can’t just be protectionist and expect everything will be great. There’s a bigger picture at work. But what angers people most is not as much the job security issue but the way America rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent.
That’s mostly what I remember. It’s a well-stated piece, worth the time to read it. I think he captures the core issue.
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i dont read weasel , sorry.
what i havent seen yet, is a straight forward
” i apologize “
im glad he can admit he is able to learn the truth of visa's
now lets see if he can learn to apologize
none of the lefts
” im sorry you walmart smelling , ignorant racists got mad at me”......... non apology bs.
.
I think Musk was responding to people saying H-1B should be ENDED. He rightly noted that truly exceptional people are necessary to do truly exceptional things. The satellite system that Musk created was SO, SO helpful to people trying to recover from Hurricanes Helene and Milton. That innovation can truly serve mankind, and it is worth it for our country to make provisions that allow truly exceptional people to come here where there is a chance to thrive and create truly helpful things for the whole world.
Musk has clarified that he knows the H-1B system has also been corrupted and has said that adding costs for employers using H-1B could keep the system from being basically a slave market that makes American workers too expensive in comparison.
The article for this thread is a totally different conversation, but it does talk about how we need to be careful not to misunderstand and misstate what others are saying.
Most people don’t want to totally do away with H-1B because they do recognize that America and the world both need for truly exceptional people to have access to do amazing things for the world and the US. There’s really not a whole lot of argument there.
Must was responding to the idea that there should be NO H-1B’s.
I don’t think he would apologize to those who say there shoujld be no H-1B’x. But if you aren’t one of the people saying that, then he was never talking to you and owes you no apology.
So are you saying there should be NO H-1B’s?
In all of this, the left loves it if we are slow to listen, fast to anger, and fast to speak, and that seems to be what some MAGA people have fallen for. We don’t need to fear the discussion of hashing things out. What we need to fear is burning bridges and tearing apart alliances that we need, in order for Trump to do the things we elected him to do.
Yes I am saying that.
Maybe Elon can move Space-X to North Korea. There he would have a leader that loves rockets and an endless supply of cheap labor!!!
PS: Elon can shove his fake apology and instead go fornicate himself.
If there was somebody in Zimbabwe who has the skill to cure the world of all cancer, you would let that person rot away in Zimbabwe rather than give him/her access to America where the infrastructure and culture exists to allow him to genuinely serve the world?
owes you no apology.
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he owes ALL AMERICA an apology.
parse youreself , i dont care how you think elon did whatever
he made none of your assertions he said
.FK U IN YOUR FACE ....RACISTS “
he then wants to “ clarify “ ?
how about a simple apology ?
why is that so much to ask ?
tell me , why ?
The issue is H-1B. H-1B is abused to the point where yes, I will forgo the geniuous cancer guy over it. I want a job and future not poverty at worse or scrapping by at best for some drug research I may never need.
“ MAGA and cares about having a traditional nation state”
And individual liberty, self determination. And a middle finger to big government .
Yes, they always tell us about how we won’t get some cancer drug or whatever.
But if the price of that is millions of pagan Hindus, government surveillance that the STASI could only dream of, America awash in porn, 1500 microchips in an F-150, and the loss of free speech.... I can take the older way.
Radio knobs on the radio in my truck do not bother me,
It’s hard to get the full context of the comments made, but before he made the F Yourself movie quote comment he was talking about people within MAGA who were railing against people from India. Scott Adams had said that MAGA was working hard to lose all future elections, and Musk said that those who are racist need to be removed from the party. He later stated even further that excluding people who are very capable just because they’re Indian is just as bad as DEI; it’s a person’s MERIT that should decide whether they are hired. And he’s argued that having the best and brightest is crucial for America to be exceptional.
And he said he would fight that war as hard as necessary. It is clear that he is not fighting for the right of companies to stiff American workers, but for the right of companies to recruit exceptional people from anywhere in the world and not just the United States.
You sound like you’re drunk, to be honest. If you are not the racist that he made the comment to, then why do you expect an apology from him? And why should he apologize to racists anyway?
He could apologize for not being clear that he only meant racists and not anybody arguing about H-1B on the basis of other factors. But I suspect that wouldn’t satisfy you either. You’d say “he then wants to ‘clarify’?”
It seems like you just want to be angry.
As for me, if somebody from Zimbabwe can cure the world of cancer, I would never DREAM of withholding that gift from the world, by refusing to let them into a position where they could do it. If somebody here was already able to do it, I wouldn’t dream of refusing them that position either. The country they are from makes no difference to me - just making sure that tremendous talent doesn’t go to waste. Human life is worth so much more than this bickering.
Wow. Human life is that cheap to you.
I have no words.
This article actually addresses that - says that what people are objecting to more is not necessarily H-1B but the whole degradation of the “Golden Rule” culture, where the moral/innocent are now bound by laws and taxes but get no protection from it, but the immoral/lawless/guilty get all the benefits and protections without any of the costs.
He says the solution to this issue is to fix the corruption so we can get back to a meritocracy, which is also what Elon is saying.
In a meritocracy you can let truly exceptional do exceptional things for the good of us all, without losing the “Golden Rule” culture that alone makes exceptional things possible.
It’s a long read, but it’s worth the time, IMHO.
If they think American culture is bad, try Asian culture. No thanks.
“Vivek missed this one big time when he discusses culture. While innovation can transform a culture, it has to be useful to that culture.”
A sage observation. Silicon Valley has given us a few good things. But even a casual look at the last 15 years has shown that the vast majority has been very bad for America.
Massive isolation from social media, poorer health outcomes, mRNA nostrums, a tidal wave of the most vile porn imaginable, easily accessible to every kid with a phone, the loss of living in the moment and everyone “in their phone”. Obesity, cameras everywhere, the most invasive domestic mass spying regimen in human history, stolen elections, hyper centralization of every detail of life, micromanaging everything, the rigging of investing, biometrics and facial recognition, unreliable and expensive cars, refrigerators, etc etc. A complete loss of privacy.
A new F-150 has about 1500 microchips in it.
At some point, we need fewer H1Bs because we need far fewer of their products.
- * - * - * -
Great post.
We need to get culture back in the picture. How do we do this?
Nobody in your country or family has cancer? Nobody in your country or family needed what Musk created because of a hurricane after our govt left them high and dry?
And Elon has acknowledged that the H-1B visa program is corrupted. He says we should require the companies to pay a high price to use it so that the quality of the person they choose has to be worth the price. He doesn’t want your country or family replaced by people no better than them either.
You sound like you’re drunk, to be honest.
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you sound like elon, to be honest
i dissagree so im
drunk/ wallmartsmelly/ racist
you cant anwser why he doesnt simply apoligize ?
First Problem — Thes guys all believe Government can fix it. Is a wrong premise. Government needs to get out of the way reduce regs taxes and let the people make what they can.
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