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.
This is just an ego problem I suspect. It bruises the ego of MAGA voters to realize that immigrants actually are smarter, they actually do get paid more (and not because they're "taking the jobs" but because they are actually more desirable.)
> 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.
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.
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.
Any justification at all for the US government to give a visa to someone - including student visas, including visas for postdocs doing ostensible research - will be gamed by people whose primary concern is access to the US. Demand for access to the US among the myriad peoples of the world is that strong.
This is why most ivy Ph.d holders are some kind of Asian. Peter and Paul really are dumber than the alternative on average.
Intelligent Americans rarely go through the hazing ritual that is a PhD because its financially stupid unless you’re rich.
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.
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).
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.
But... the US also has not the best education, so.
and nutrition, pollution, infectious diseases, etc
But America being what it is, it attracts those with most potential creating and sustaining a network effect.
But there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad of the US, and it’s quite easy to mess up the equilibrium and go back to the mediocrity you mentioned
That's my point to get the Constitution changed (Amendment #28) to allow an immigrant to run for POTUS. We love US more than natural-born citizens. Our interests are far more aligned with the betterment of the country than anyone else's.
Generally, yes.
But then there's Elon Musk.
Peter Thiel too: while a US citizen by birth, he defacto immigrated to the US from elsewhere (as in: moved from another country to settle in the US).
Immigration for rich folks is a bit different, see.
Musk was (mostly) great until 2020; Something happened to him during the COVID timeframe.
I'd not want Musk, Thiel, or Palantir guy to run for POTUS. Probably, there should be a clause that if your net worth exceeds the threshold, you shouldn't be eligible to run until you donate all of it to the government, with no option to get it back ever. Some more clauses can be added as well.
Edit 1: I think another clause, maybe most important, a minimum one term public office service experience required only as a Senator, Rep, Governor, or a Mayor.
Oops, my bad, somehow I thought his parents naturalized before he was born.
Thanks for pointing this out; this helps the point I'm trying to make.
>I'd not want Musk, Thiel, or Palantir guy to run for POTUS. Probably, there should be a clause that if your net worth exceeds the threshold, you shouldn't be eligible to run until you donate all of it to the government, with no option to get it back ever. Some more clauses can be added as well.
Edit 1: I think another clause, maybe most important, a minimum one term public office service experience required only as a Senator, Rep, Governor, or a Mayor.
Can I vote for you and your proposals somewhere?
At this point, this reads like "I have a dream". But it's one worthy of trying to make a reality.
>Musk was (mostly) great until 2020;
Aside from running the Thai cave diver's life (and slandering him as a "pedo") for daring to rescue the children instead of letting them die waiting for Musk's non-existent submarine to rescue them.
That, and being generally known for working his employees to the bone.
And the whole "I need to spread my superior seed" conveyor belt approach to having children.
And the "420 funding secured" nonsense.
Oh, and the Hyperloop hype, which he did with the sole intent to kill high speed rail in California (which he succeeded in).
And the Boring Company scam.
And... nevermind, he was a known, not OK", great asshole before* he went full Nazi, but I can agree that he was "great" in comparison to what he's become.
>Something happened to him during the COVID timeframe.
It's ketamine. Ketamine happened.
Power is a function of technological superiority. The moment you it stops attracting the smartest people, a country will fall behind on military and economic power.
If that was about any other class of people it'd be downvoted to oblivion, but for some reason Americans and white can always be talked shit on.
This is the kind of shit US AMERICANS are talking about, this xenophilia bullshit that is infecting our nation.
Go to any high school and see how little American schoolchildren care about academics vs immigrant schoolchildren. Academic excellence being uncool is baked into American culture. You're a "nerd" if you do well and care. Getting a B is "good enough." And "C's get degrees." This mentality is plainly unacceptable in most immigrant cultures.
I took almost two dozen AP classes in my day. In each one, the concentration of immigrant groups was far higher than the rest of the school at large.
Expand this out to college. Look at the admissions for top colleges without affirmative action. How do their demographics compare to the rest of the country? - MIT, 47% Asian. Berkeley, 41% Asian. UCLA and Stanford, 27% Asian.
6% of the US population is Asian, and 75% is white, and these schools don't have affirmative action. If all groups were equally competitive, admissions would reflect demographics.
(Ethnicity here is a crude approximation for immigration recency. I am not saying one ethnic group is better than another - simply that children of immigrants excel.)
The same goes for top PhD programs, the highest paying STEM jobs, even C-suite positions at big tech.
I am American and when I say that we have a problem where most Americans do not give a fuck about education, I am not being racist, I am just pointing out the truth. Over decades, our culture has bred an anti-intellectual attitude, one that prioritizes being cool and sociable over getting shit done. This is the antithesis of progress and ambition. It is great for sitting around and demanding handouts.
Immigrants more closely approximate the culture the founding fathers intended for the US. They uproot their lives to build something great. They get off their asses, do exceptionally well, and are carrying the nation on their backs. The rest of our culture could learn from them, instead of blaming our problems on them and turning them away.
Even if it were true, there are wider effects of immigration that you must consider. The purpose of life isn't to increase GDP. It reflects poorly on you that you must cast your opponents as being stupid and spiteful. Could it be that MAGA voters are humans with real motivations and rationales?
Because Literally everyone else in the US is an immigrant. Or are you referring to the Spanish that settled the west? The French in the far south? The Italians and Jews that populated New York? The British and Africans?
I’m painting in broad strokes, but to say “the American People” as if it’s somehow distinct from immigrants is just ladder pulling.
I'm not American, but this conversation happens a lot in Canada where I'm from too
I was born in Canada, in a Canadian hospital. I've never had any other home than this country.
I'm descended from immigrants, but I am not an immigrant. I'm not considered indigenous either, that's a whole other type of person.
What a strange thing, to be from a place but have many people say "it's not your place, it's stolen" as if I had a say in that. If I went anywhere else, I would be an immigrant there.
Very odd.
Meaning, if we time travel and apply these restrictions, you yourself would have never been a citizen. In fact, you probably wouldn't even exist. Do you see the problem?
That, my friend, is ladder pulling. When you destroy the very conditions that allow you to thrive.
Is Kash Patel any different from Americans who have lived here for generations? Is Rishi Sunak any different from the people who lived in Britain from generations?
Immigrant (noun) A person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.
Certainly if 8,000[1] years ago a tribe walked across and settled, and then 7,000 years ago another group walked across and set up camp next to the descendants of that first tribe who had been there a thousand years, the second group were actually immigrants, right?
And how do we sort it out now, millennia after those various groups arrived, after all that DNA has been mixed together?
My point is just that it's silly to label any race or group "immigrant" or "native" based on what movements we guess from their skin color that their ancestors may have made millennia or centuries ago, or even what their parents did. Yes, I'm very in favor of birthright citizenship, even if people have "anchor babies" in bad faith the baby didn't have any say in it. And no one else of any color had any say in being born in America either.
[1] please substitute correct numbers -- they don't matter
Pre-colonial North America was certainly not some idyllic pacifist utopia as people like to fetishize. However, any previous ethno-political disputes between those nations is irrelevant compared to the very recent history of the last 200 years.
The genocide of Native Americans in the 19th century happened under the unbroken chain of authority of our current government.
No, it couldn't. Trump tells them to vote a certain way, they do it. Look at Massie's primary as an example.
The Democrats squeaked out one miraculous win buoyed by the incompetence of Trump's band of corrupt idiots in the early COVID days. But now merely pointing out how incompetent and corrupt Trump is stopped working, as we saw in 2024. Do Democrats have anything left in the playbook besides derision and scorn toward those outside their tent? We will soon see, I guess.
[1] I know the talking points say that the tax cuts "only benefit the rich" but I'm far from a 1%er and can tell you that I'm paying way more taxes in a blue state than I would be in a red state, and also the OBBB improved things for me. Voters in those blue states can see their tax bills and the one thing Democrats can't say is that they don't put a huge tax burden on those who work.
