TheFooder
4mo ago
I think what you're pointing at is a great example of the McLuhan "Medium is the Message." In the days of radio and television the medium determined that the message was necessarily centralized and top-down -- information dribbled out to the public. The Internet's 'medium' is decentralized which disrupts and negates the top-down gatekeeeping so it's 'message' is effectively, "here's what everyone else is saying." The thing is, I think we've already moved through that into the next medium, the Balkanized-firing-rings of social media. We get the decentralization and access to information, but included in that are the muddy waters of propaganda and disinfo, devolution to the lowest-common-denominator-cringe-take, and whales pressing their fishy flippers on the scales of truth. The message now is, "don't believe your lying eyes."
TheFooder
4mo ago
the "but they're here legally" argument isn't meant to dismiss concerns. It's meant to highlight that the government is limited in it's ability to throw people out and the legal ones are always the easiest. The debate is a distraction. Republicans need to be able to show at the mid-terms that they "threw the bums out that Biden let in." They will dump numbers on us. Those numbers (people kicked out of the US) are already higher than they've ever been and unlikely to increase without a mass mobilization of the ICE, cops, Border Patrol, every sanctuary city and the military. But you know an easy way to juice the numbers? send back the people you actually have some control over and all you have to do is let their visas expire. Boom!
This is a time honored American tradition, the same game from here-to-eternity. People hate H1-B fine--whatever. I sincerely don't care. Just don't be fooled into thinking this is the real discussion. It's a preliminary distraction set to prime voters for the mid-terms.
TheFooder
4mo ago
My main point is it's a distraction from the actual immigration issues. I agree there is no reason to expand the program.
The claim there is a shortfall in skilled STEM talent is difficult because STEM is an overly broad category. Initially I dispute the claim -- there seems to me to be an extreme over-production of STEM graduates globally and in the US. Very roughly, 900k new grads for 110k positions. About 200k of those grads are Master's and Doctorates, the rest are under-grad.
the problem I have with the claim comes more from my experience. I think there may actually be a shortfall at the upper echelons of the various tech industries. The number of really good coders, deep algorithmic thinkers, experienced operators, etc. is kind of high. It's really tough to hire great engineers and no one wants the middling ones who fill out the fat belly of the jobs market. The H1-B program, if expanded, will produce more of these huckleberries, but only in proportions we already understand; you'll get a few more geniuses and a lot more chumps.
What I'm curious about is how we get the huckleberries without the H1-B program. We still require a legal path to hiring them and bringing them over. And maybe 99% chumps to 1% huckleberries is tolerable if that 1% initiates the next tech revolution. These types of games scale in ways that are difficult to predict.
TheFooder
4mo ago
To start with, this program is MASSIVELY popular with employers. The program has a statutory limit of 85,000 visas per year, but employers routinely receive approval for more than 800k applications per year (868k, or 10x the limit, in 2024).
I was looking for the part where the "900k application approvals" somehow became 900k visas, but he never got there. the 85k number seems to still be the amount we actually give out per year. I'm going to stick with the 85K number. His entire post seems to be focused on the applications, but I don't see how it's relevant to the debate. Every person in the world could apply for every role and we'd still only give out X number of visas.
I'm not surprised these are popular programs. It clearly keeps the costs down and from my personal experience, many of these large firms already have considerable populations of Indian employees and a working climate that is comfortable for them and self-reinforcing.
The big question that I haven't seen discussed is what's the actual jobs situation? Who's battling and for what? I asked ChatGPt for basic STEM jobs data. it seems reasonable:
Determining the exact number of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) workers hired annually in the U.S. is challenging due to the lack of specific data on yearly hires. However, we can infer trends based on employment growth projections and existing workforce statistics.
Current STEM Workforce and Growth Projections:
Current Employment: As of 2023, approximately 10.7 million workers are employed in STEM occupations in the U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Projected Growth: Employment in STEM occupations is expected to grow by 10.4% from 2023 to 2033, adding about 1.1 million new jobs over this period. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Annual Hiring Estimates:
Average Annual Growth: The projected addition of 1.1 million STEM jobs over 10 years suggests an average annual increase of approximately 110,000 new positions.
Replacement Needs: Beyond new positions, the labor market must also account for replacements due to retirements and other workforce exits. While specific data for STEM occupations is limited, considering both growth and replacement needs, the annual hiring requirement is likely higher than the average growth figure.
89k or 110K annual positions is a lot! Based on the other numbers, I'll grant H1-Bs something around 10% of the total STEM workforce.
Then we ask, "well what about native US STEM grads?
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), U.S. postsecondary institutions conferred the following number of STEM degrees and certificates in the 2020–2021 academic year:
Associate's Degrees: Approximately 126,000 Bachelor's Degrees: Approximately 453,000 Master's Degrees: Approximately 168,000 Doctoral Degrees: Approximately 44,000 This totals to about 791,000 STEM degrees and certificates awarded during that period.
So we have 110k jobs annually for 800k grads + 90k H1B
Maybe everyone is too focused on STEM? Seems like there's a bigger issue in overproduction that dwarfs the H1-B discussion. From my perspective, the problem is that real advancement in tech requires the input of an extremely rare type of tech-genius -- let's call them huckleberries. In the real-world, most people are mid-level, mid-IQ flunkies doing make-work in Excel.
Back to the the X post:
You can see where I’m going with this. A casual perusal of the data shows that this isn’t a program for the top 0.1% of talent, as it’s been described. This is simply a way to recruit hundreds of thousands of relatively lower-wage IT and financial services professionals.
the X post backs up my claim that these are grunt-level positions. These are low-middle class folks who, by dint of a national culture overwhelmingly focused on STEM education, are trying to lever themselves up into the (American) upper-middle class.
From my perspective in a senior role in Fin-tech/IT who has done a reasonable amount of hiring over the past decade, we can't find good people for the high-complexity, high-responsibility roles we need filled. I've never hired an H1-B applicant as they've never passed an initial interview. I can also count them on one hand. The program simply does not concern me. If they're competing for jobs, they aren't the ones I'm trying to fill.
I maintain my claim this is not a big deal in the near or long term -- not nearly as big of a deal as STEM over-production in the age of AI. I also maintain it's a diversion from the real issue which is an open US-Mexico border and millions of low-skilled, unaccountable unknowns that will never be found let alone repatriated. It is a debate over wallpaper as the house burns down. Ending it won't do much, expanding it won't do much. What the discussion does instead is prime everyone to get upset about easily controlled, legal, largely pro-social and pro-American immigrants instead of 10x randos as it's a guarantee that the campaign promises of "closing the border and sending all the migrants back" will not happen.
TheFooder
4mo ago
I would not have wanted migrants in the millions to a country I was a native of, period. White-collar migrants are even worse since you are making college admissions and jobs even harder for your kid but you are also ensuring votebanks, unstable coalitions.
As I said in a downstream reply, this is all a diversion. H1-B visas represent 85K per anum of imported workers. US universiteis graduate 850K STEM students per year, so it's basically and additional 10% of skilled workers added to a market that isn't nearly as tight as people think. H1-B Visas are not an issue, they are a solution to the wrong problem.
The problem is an open border across which millions (almost 3 million in 2024, from a basic Google search) of people cross and only 250k (8-9%) get sent back. That is an all-time high number of deportations. In other words, ICE is working at full capacity to "repatriate" migrants and it's a drop in the bucket. Closing the Border is the first step, sure, but sending people back simply isn't going to happen, not in any meaningful way that conservatives hope for.
So, how do you goose those numbers? go after the low-hanging fruit, i.e. the people you can find, who you already know follow the rules, and send them back.
The H1-B debate is a distraction so you don't notice that nothing will actually change.
Prediction: mass deportations will not happen. If we currently deport 250k that number will not rise above 350k. 85% confidence.
TheFooder
4mo ago
I needed some time to clarify this in my mind, but here's a few more words... the entire debate is a distraction. It's a time-tested, well-worn, same-as-it-ever-was, hand-waving, smoke in mirrors attempt to get conservatives to take their eye off the ball.
One of, if not the biggest, issues that got Trump elected was the mass migration of humanity across the Mexico border that ballooned under Biden. Millions are estimated to have crossed in the past few years hoovering up all kinds of services and national goodwill. Conservatives point at gangs taking over apartment complexes and many (poor) liberal voters point at cities that take their resources and give them to migrants. The problem -- broadly understood -- is an open border and a flood of people.
The solution -- broadly understood -- is closing the border and sending all the people back. The reality is this can't be done, at least not in a meaningful way and not much more than is already happening. It's safe to assume that half or more of these people are already in the wind. The people who will be sent back first are the ones we can get our hands on. It is precisely the same argument I'd give libs/progressives about the gun debate: you cannot stuff that particular genie back in the bottle, but if you were going to try you'd go after all the guns you knew about first.
So, who's up first? How about some of those 85K Visa holders! We know where they all are and we already know they follow the rules and will do what we tell them. You want to show bigly action on sending back migrants but most are dispersed -- or worse, dangerous? Send the easy ones back first! DUH. Get those numbers up! We didn't need them anyway! They were just doing the garbage programming work that no one really cares about. Boring entry level stuff like, updating warehousing services for Wallgreens, or front-end development for Door Dash, or using PuTTy to monitor Python scripts and shell services on data farms --the crap jobs we should be giving to the 820k STEM college grads. It's an easy win.
But Musk says, "hang on, we kinda need these guys, there's more of those jobs than you realize!" Now the in-fighting begins. Keep your eye on the ball: the Indian guys aren't the problem anyone actually wants fixed. The H1-B visa people are not stealing American jobs or warping American culture. They slot in precisely where we want immigrants to our immigrant nation to slot in -- legally, usefully and competitively. America consumes these people like Popeye eats Spinach. This isn't Britain or Germany. This is still the world's strongest economy and it's ravenous.
Are H1-B visas a real problem? Maybe. Are they the actual problem we're trying to fix? Nope. It's a trompe l'oeil. A token gesture. A ruse. A Hail-Mary on the first play. It's the brazen hope that we don't notice that the people-flood isn't actually receding and a million illegal immigrants aren't getting forcibly repatriated. It's not what people actually voted for. It's a distraction. And if I had to choose a side (which i don't) I'd side with Musk. We need these folks to do the (digital) shit work--same as always.
***Yes, I'm making a prediction: wholesale deportation won't happen. My prediction is that the growth rate of deported aliens will not exceed 20% of what it already is. According to Reuters and others, there were almost 3 million border interactions last year with around 270k deported. I predict that number will not exceed 350k for at least the first two years of Trump's presidency. I have 85% confidence in this prediction. I think we're already sending back as many as we can and the debate over H1-B's is an attempt to goose the numbers.
TheFooder
4mo ago
Trump's which is handwaving, inaction, minor lip service and then letting things happen as they already are.
Maybe this is the right choice. I don't think this issue is very important in the long run.
TheFooder
4mo ago
suppose the basic message here is that there’s neither bravery nor value in doing things that are easy.
That was my argument against the "I punch Nazis" movement of the late 2010's. It turns out no one wants to hear it.
TheFooder
4mo ago
no early aggression (unless cheesing) easily cheesing them (trading early res for gold, predictable diplomacy, total inability to fight on water)
The only Cheesing I'm aware of is from South Park: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7kA4qgOc94M
TheFooder
4mo ago
Thanks for that. I was pretty sure it was illegal to work while furloughed.
TheFooder
4mo ago
I've never played above King, mostly because I value my time, but also because I'm not the best player and would be cheating and reloading every other turn. What do you mean by "solve" at Deity? what's the trick?
TheFooder
4mo ago
Did they ever do Toussaint Louverture? He seems like an obvious pick. I'd take Frederick Douglass over Nat Turner--just a personal preference. Imagine John Brown, though. He'd be like, "Year 1: where are the nukes?" Tubman is a goofy choice; fake, lame and gay.
TheFooder
4mo ago
I'm posting this on behalf of a person in one of my Signal groups. I think it's a cool project and completely Motte worthy. I might post it a few times in case no one sees it...
From the About page:
The basic idea is that we are investigating specific topics (called 'claims') together. Each claim is a declarative statement, but don't assume the statement is true! Click on any claim on the homepage to see the page where the claim is being investigated.
Each investigation page will have a title and a brief explanation of what is being investigated or why. There may already be evidence in the "For" or "Against" columns, or it may be blank. You can use the form at the bottom of each claim investigation page to add evidence "For" or "Against" each claim, and click on the "plus" sign to leave comments under evidence that other people have added.
Comments should be directly related to the evidence you're commenting on. For example, if you have reason to believe the source is not credible or is missing some context, you can explain why.
Please stick to submitting evidence that is relevant to the claim, and please be respectful in your comments. For now, I will be moderating manually.
It's a bit like a debate where evidence is gathered and commented on and each user gets to use a slider to determine their confidence in the claim. A bit like Metaculus but for sensemaking instead of predictions. I've helped by providing some evidence, but what the site really needs now are users. If you have a few minutes, maybe take a look find a topic you know something about and put some links up. I think Stacia has something pretty cool and interesting and I'd love to see it grow.
Cheers!
TheFooder
4mo ago
I have the mini 2! Love it, best camera I own. But I can't fly it very high where I live due to FAA regulations. I've taken it to other places, like a beach in Florida--or even England-- and it soars. The "military" drones I saw in MD were easily 4-6X in size, painted drab colors and flying formation. They were also only about 3-4 stories up so very easy to see. Not sure this is what people are seeing in NJ though. As I said in a different comment, I live around all kinds of National military crap, so you just sort of get used to seeing weird stuff. (This is also where Mothman, Snallygaster, Jersey Devil and the Blair Witch originate, so maybe just a crazy place).
TheFooder
4mo ago
Oddly and anecdotally, I've seen large, heavy-duty drones flying around my area (Western Maryland) and between Baltimore and Annapolis. This was in the last year. It was shocking and gross, but I also just assumed it was our overlords testing out their latest toys, which isn't such a surprise considering I live on the flight path from DC to Camp David. I don't think it's just peoples' imaginations--these things are out there flying around.
Now, why are they flying around NJ/NY or are those people seeing what I saw? Don't know, don't really care. I consider it another media distraction that I don't have bandwidth for. It's certainly curious? Certainly. Is it important? Maybe, but probably not as important as--say--the escalating war in Ukraine.
FWIW, Walter Kirn, in reference to his government sources, says it's 99% psy-op. His claim is that it's another churn of the news-cycle meant to gin up anxiety and present Trump with another problem his enemies can try to cudgel him with. Not sure I'm on-board with all that, but since I agree with the assessment it's a distraction, it's as good of an explanation as I care to present.
Kirn and Taibbi livestream (Drones are near the middle): https://youtube.com/watch?v=VvYPaEO_4gQ Here's Michael Tracey saying he saw them: https://substack.com/home/post/p-153179566?source=queue
TheFooder
4mo ago
Greenwald came immediately to my mind too. It's hard to dismiss him though when he's been pointing at the same phenomena and people for 20 years. You kind of get why he's so sassy.
TheFooder
4mo ago
totally agree. I have been like this since the 90's so I basically can't listen or read anyone anymore. Everyone feels compelled to inject their snappy wordplay, Russel Conjugations and pejoratives into whatever crass culture war topic they choose to wade in on. It /feels/ like this has gotten intolerably bad on the left recently, but it may also be that no one cares to try and articulate things honestly and fairly and jsut want to "score points." It's bad out there, folks.
TheFooder
5mo ago
Tyrannies are problematic because the quality of them depends massively on the quality of the individual person ruling them.
Tyrannies are problematic because there's rarely a good plan for what comes next. Once a tyranny ends (i.e. tyrant dies) there is chaos or more tyranny. The purpose of the liberal order is to try and preserve some semblance of continuity through time culturally and politically, too smooth the road, so to speak.
The weirdness we have now is because people want all of the power and none of the responsibility. If anything, there might be a valid argument to bring back landed gentry and give people a free pass to move to whichever fief suits them best.
Agree. Another belief that is simply accepted by most people is that universal suffrage is 100% right and good. Try arguing the opposite! I agree that landed families probably ought to have more of a say than renters or welfare people, but of course I think that...I own property. How we would manage giving some people more than others based on some type of meritocratic system is kind of the base level problem. The simple solution is 'might makes right,' but 2k+ years of human society have brought us to a point where most people globally think there's something wrong with that formulation, largely that the mighty (not the same a noble, merely those with power) shit all over the weak. So we have an ideal--a liberal ideal-- that we give everyone the same amount of liberty, or whatever, and here we are...the mighty shitting all over the weak, again.
The Yarvin solution, as I understand it, is to stop pretending that liberalism exists and embrace the power of the strong and attempt to wield it...somehow. My main disagreement is that it just gets right back to the starting point where it's a coin flip if the monarchs will curb-stomp you or not and there's no exit, just monarchs/tyrants/oligarchs all the way down.
TheFooder
5mo ago
For the same reason some people are disgusted by sushi. They register disgust because of a fear of eating raw things, even though they understand it might be delicious and millions of people eat it without issue. The disgust is a conditioned reaction, not a rational point of view. Rationally, I'm mostly on board with Yarvin and his essays are fun to read. As a conditioned American, classical liberal, democratic patriot type, the thought that we should just give ourselves over to our most wild monarchic instincts makes me feel queasy.
TheFooder
5mo ago
I've been uncomfortable with the "Authoritarianism is always bad" line for a while. I don't love or seek authoritarianism, but clearly it's something people want because we keep bumping up against two of it's many flavors: top-down bureaucratic oligarchy or Strongman monarchism. I've been in discussions with very smart quasi-famous idea generating people who simply refuse to accept that Authoritarianism can be useful and desirable.
I think the reason is that an authoritarian state has no exit, once you're in it, there's no way out except violent revolution. So it's to be avoided because you'll get crushed...even though you're going to get crushed regardless. If the POTUS had meaningful executive powers, I could see how every 50 years or so, we'd want a person to come in, clean house and then depart once their time was up.
That is effectively what the Trump election was all about. But the reality is he's stuck muddling around with the same bench-warmers and institutions every other president has to muddle about with. Sure, he might find some loopholes and it's always possible that some appointee will be surprisingly capable, but the course for humanity's destruction (nuclear war, AI safety, energy and environmental limits, etc.) is set and on-track barring some miraculously gifted leadership.
Bureaucratic oligarchy's are simply too beholden to self-interest and bad incentives. They can manage but not lead. Monarchies are too easily converted to tyrannies, they can lead but not manage. Liberal democracies are racing to the bottom pandering to every whim, they can't lead nor manage long-term. It absolutely disgusts me to find myself agreeing with Yarvin on so much, but as the threats increase and we near the great filter, it seems impossible that Democracy can solve the problem.
Someone turn my black pill white...please!
I've personally been arguing for decades that 9-11 killed the United States and the $2.3 trillion (pretty sure that's a low-ball number, like we blew past that in 2005) was the price we paid for our own funeral. Every disaster after that -- 2008 collapse, various infrastructure disasters caused by natural events, Covid Authoritarianism, drug and homelessness crises, race and culture wars, political intransigence and overall cultural atomization, are downstream effects of the US obliterating its wealth, military and moral clarity on two unwinnable wars that didn't even relate to the initial injury. My outrage kicked off, in steering-wheel-pounding-earnestness, during Colin Powell's testimony to the UN security Council in 2003. It was the moment I knew we were completely screwed. By (NDAA) 2012 I had completely given up on any hope we'd ever revert to sanity.
As for why isn't there more outrage...well, the same reasons as always: people are mostly level-1 NPCs who can't remember (or don't know) history and are distracted by whatever the latest water-cooler-MSNBC/FOX outrage is. NPCs can't connect dots, they consume slop and regurgitate the opinions they've been handed. "We slit our own throat on the altar of 9-11" is not an opinion I see too much in the wild and not at all in mass media spaces.
More options
Context Copy link