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It's all propaganda. There's no engineering shortage. They're all just trying to flood the market with more engineers from all around the world. It's all propa

by Vardhan 12y ago

It's all propaganda. There's no engineering shortage. They're all just trying to flood the market with more engineers from all around the world. It's all propaganda plastered with a nice marmalade of feel goody "let's help the immigrants", or "everything great about our country came from immigrants", or other such variants of rhetoric. It's actually very smart, because it plays to the tune that people dance to. That said immigration policies do need to change, and immigration is indeed a good thing for this country. Attracting talent is a lot of what makes this country great, but we need to be careful with the fine print of such policies as to not destroy our own economy.

untog 12y ago
There's no engineering shortage. They're all just trying to flood the market with more engineers from all around the world. You could argue that this is the actual natural order of things. Let the free market decide the value of an engineer, not arbitrary government regulation. It is the Silicon Valley way, after all.
- samstave 12y ago
  UH, CEO collusion is the same as "arbitrary [executive] regulation".... The free market is what the actual value of the engineers is - not how the CEOs choose to work together to suppress prices.
  - untog 12y ago
    Oh, I know. I wasn't disputing that. Just making an observation on perspective - that the current system of limited immigration is not the fairest, but it's in the interests of developers today to resist it being changed.
  - mbetter 12y ago
    No, you're thinking of a competitive market. Collusion between CEOs to suppress salaries is exactly the free market.
- yulaow 12y ago
  Free market is strongly against "Cartels". Because, yeah, ceo-cartels are another way of arbitrary regulation. See them as a "maximum wage fixed" and you get why.
- freyrs3 12y ago
  The natural order of things is that we have a process in place to create and change government regulation. If someone thinks that process is inflexible or arbitrary doesn't given the prerogative to break the law to get around it.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Government control of immigration is a natural consequence of government establishing and defending a border. If you want to take the free market to its logical conclusion, we should get rid of that too, and leave Silicon Valley to its own devices vis-à-vis fending off hostile foreign actors. Historically that sort of thing has not worked out well.
  - chetanahuja 12y ago
    Note that the products/services made by these immigrants are sold globally, not just in the US. Google, for example, acquires more than 50% of it's revenues from outside the US. If you don't object to google's selling it's services across the world on free-market principles, it'll take a rather large leap of (il)logic to constrain the employment to be restricted to the physical location of the HQ of this global company.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      Movement of residents is fundamentally different than movement of goods. Moreover, nothing constrains Google from hiring people in locations outside the US to service those markets.
- SixSigma 12y ago
  The natural order of things is the formation of powerful groups that ruthlessly exploit their environment. Ironically the Free Market needs governments to provide the institutions in which it can operate.
selmnoo 12y ago
> That said immigration policies do need to change, and immigration is indeed a good thing for this country. I want them to change too... but in a different way. I'd rather that we take the unwanted and wounded, the homosexuals threatened to receive capital punishment in Uganda, the atheists who worry for their lives in Saudia Arabia, the homeless in Mexico yearning for just a small improvement in the access of opportunity (no matter how small of a step it may be). Let the Indians keep their talented engineers -- let them improve India, god knows it's got enough problem of its own, don't send them to us here so they can make another silly app. Let China keep its engineers, so they may one day create technologies that truly challenge the great firewall. Seriously, is it just me who sees this aggressive attempt of siphoning the world's talent as being opportunistic and predatorial? This is not the spirit of America that Emma envisioned, this isn't something to be proud of. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Idealistic and well-intentioned. But there's little opportunity in many places for Engineers to be fully used. Its a positive good for humanity to get the most out of talented people. That can happen in America.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    > Its a positive good for humanity to get the most out of talented people. That can happen in America. I seriously, honestly doubt this. Consider the main force behind FWD.us: Mark Zuckerberg. You're telling me the most positive good for humanity to get out of talented people is at Facebook, where the most valuable people to the company are those who optimize advertisement algorithms that exploit cognitive biases of a population already being challenged in all sorts of horrendous ways? I really don't think your perspective is getting things right. If the engineers want to make great apps for Android or iOS, they can make it sitting in India or China or Brazil or wherever.
username223 12y ago
> we need to be careful with the fine print of such policies as to not destroy our own economy. Au contraire. Many Americans and Europeans would get a huge and valuable smack with the clue-bat if there were no immigration restrictions, and if licensing schemes designed to create arbitrary shortages of e.g. doctors were eliminated.
- Vardhan 12y ago
  I think immigration policy will eventually be nonexistent, but before then many things need to happen. The developing nations need to achieve a certain quality of living across the board so that the people there don't all just decide to get up, and leave. Economies need to become less decentralized, and more global in their scope. Which arguable is very much a reality today, but I think this is simply the beginning. And there's a whole host of other developments that need to happen, but I believe eventually will happen in the coming decades. We'll see a more homogenous world, yet also a more diverse one.

by Vardhan 12y ago

untog 12y ago

There's no engineering shortage. They're all just trying to flood the market with more engineers from all around the world. You could argue that this is the actual natural order of things. Let the free market decide the value of an engineer, not arbitrary government regulation. It is the Silicon Valley way, after all.

samstave 12y ago
UH, CEO collusion is the same as "arbitrary [executive] regulation".... The free market is what the actual value of the engineers is - not how the CEOs choose to work together to suppress prices.
- untog 12y ago
  Oh, I know. I wasn't disputing that. Just making an observation on perspective - that the current system of limited immigration is not the fairest, but it's in the interests of developers today to resist it being changed.
- mbetter 12y ago
  No, you're thinking of a competitive market. Collusion between CEOs to suppress salaries is exactly the free market.
yulaow 12y ago
Free market is strongly against "Cartels". Because, yeah, ceo-cartels are another way of arbitrary regulation. See them as a "maximum wage fixed" and you get why.
freyrs3 12y ago
The natural order of things is that we have a process in place to create and change government regulation. If someone thinks that process is inflexible or arbitrary doesn't given the prerogative to break the law to get around it.
rayiner 12y ago
Government control of immigration is a natural consequence of government establishing and defending a border. If you want to take the free market to its logical conclusion, we should get rid of that too, and leave Silicon Valley to its own devices vis-à-vis fending off hostile foreign actors. Historically that sort of thing has not worked out well.
- chetanahuja 12y ago
  Note that the products/services made by these immigrants are sold globally, not just in the US. Google, for example, acquires more than 50% of it's revenues from outside the US. If you don't object to google's selling it's services across the world on free-market principles, it'll take a rather large leap of (il)logic to constrain the employment to be restricted to the physical location of the HQ of this global company.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Movement of residents is fundamentally different than movement of goods. Moreover, nothing constrains Google from hiring people in locations outside the US to service those markets.
SixSigma 12y ago
The natural order of things is the formation of powerful groups that ruthlessly exploit their environment. Ironically the Free Market needs governments to provide the institutions in which it can operate.

selmnoo 12y ago

> That said immigration policies do need to change, and immigration is indeed a good thing for this country. I want them to change too... but in a different way. I'd rather that we take the unwanted and wounded, the homosexuals threatened to receive capital punishment in Uganda, the atheists who worry for their lives in Saudia Arabia, the homeless in Mexico yearning for just a small improvement in the access of opportunity (no matter how small of a step it may be). Let the Indians keep their talented engineers -- let them improve India, god knows it's got enough problem of its own, don't send them to us here so they can make another silly app. Let China keep its engineers, so they may one day create technologies that truly challenge the great firewall. Seriously, is it just me who sees this aggressive attempt of siphoning the world's talent as being opportunistic and predatorial? This is not the spirit of America that Emma envisioned, this isn't something to be proud of. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Idealistic and well-intentioned. But there's little opportunity in many places for Engineers to be fully used. Its a positive good for humanity to get the most out of talented people. That can happen in America.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  > Its a positive good for humanity to get the most out of talented people. That can happen in America. I seriously, honestly doubt this. Consider the main force behind FWD.us: Mark Zuckerberg. You're telling me the most positive good for humanity to get out of talented people is at Facebook, where the most valuable people to the company are those who optimize advertisement algorithms that exploit cognitive biases of a population already being challenged in all sorts of horrendous ways? I really don't think your perspective is getting things right. If the engineers want to make great apps for Android or iOS, they can make it sitting in India or China or Brazil or wherever.

username223 12y ago

> we need to be careful with the fine print of such policies as to not destroy our own economy. Au contraire. Many Americans and Europeans would get a huge and valuable smack with the clue-bat if there were no immigration restrictions, and if licensing schemes designed to create arbitrary shortages of e.g. doctors were eliminated.

Vardhan 12y ago
I think immigration policy will eventually be nonexistent, but before then many things need to happen. The developing nations need to achieve a certain quality of living across the board so that the people there don't all just decide to get up, and leave. Economies need to become less decentralized, and more global in their scope. Which arguable is very much a reality today, but I think this is simply the beginning. And there's a whole host of other developments that need to happen, but I believe eventually will happen in the coming decades. We'll see a more homogenous world, yet also a more diverse one.