When I did my Ph.D. in engineering over 40 years ago I would estimate that the grad students in my program were at least 75% foreign born. I had and have no problem with that. Let them stay. Too few Americans are willing to work that hard. I did tell my kids that unless they had a definitive calling, they were better going into industry with their masters than doing their Ph.D.'s - the opportunity cost is too high unless you are looking for a research position, when the Ph.D. becomes all but mandatory.
I did observe that the Honors / IB programs that my kids took in high school were ~ 75% the children of highly educated East and South Asian parents. I told my kids - get used to it, they will be your peers and competitors for the rest of your life. You are playing on a world stage and have to step up to the bar.
I can make a lot of national strategic interest arguments in favor of high skills immigration but I gotta admit that on a personal level I like it because I know I can compete. I’ve been in the software industry for thirty years now and while I’ve had plenty of talented foreign-born colleagues, none of them has been orders of magnitude better than me. I’ve taken some of the younger Indian developers under my wing as a mentor. Just paying it forward.
I’ve also so far worked at two start ups with founders from either India or Pakistan. Judging from the upper management at those places there may have been a bit of a South Asian good ol’ boys network going on. Not in a discriminatory way: just in the sense that people tend to hire out of their social circles. Again, it’s not a problem when you know you can hang. You welcome global competition. It’s just further proof of your own competence.
Besides which, an educated Pakistani in the US isn’t exactly a foreigner. I mean, they’re from another country and if we spend a lot of time together we’ll discover some cultural differences, but they’re ipso facto cosmopolitan and maybe culturally Muslim but not a redneck about it. Like me they’re Anywhere people in David Goodhart’s formulation, and we probably share an admiration for Ramanjuan and Feynman. Despite being an American lying at the core of my identity (because where else is an atheist, liberal, individualist supposed to live?) immigrant South Asian professionals and I generally see eye to eye. Birds of a feather.
While many high-skilled immigrants come here and benefit the country, a few of them come here and demonstrate their incompatibility with American values. I heard about this one guy, he was a refugee from a failed communist regime, his dad worked as an electrical engineer at MIT, he went to MIT and two Ivy League colleges, yet he spends all his time spreading vulgarity and fantasizing about overthrowing the US government.
In the techno optimist manifesto by Andreessen, I think this section is very telling
“We had a problem of starvation, so we invented the Green Revolution.
We had a problem of darkness, so we invented electric lighting.
We had a problem of cold, so we invented indoor heating.
We had a problem of heat, so we invented air conditioning.
We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the Internet.
We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented vaccines.
We have a problem of poverty, so we invent technology to create abundance.”
🎶One of these is not like the others🎶
We did not have “a problem of isolation” before the internet, the internet created one. I think there is good reason to believe smartphones, the internet and social media are the main drivers behind the strong decline in mental health and life safisfaction; rising conspiracism, wokeness, MAGA and authoritarianism more generally; and a receding birth rate.
There is a good case to make this cluster of technologies has made us worse off overall. AI is around the corner and most people are very negative about that too.
Unsurprisingly, its from tech, not medicine, construction or energy, that this “techno optimism” comes from. Here’s how I see it. Under Biden, there was increasing pressure on the tech sector, with various famous documentaries and discourse more generally describing the tech sector as a threat to mental health, democracy and society. Feeling aggrieved, big ego tech billionaires turned to online accelerationists and other rightists. In their stories, they were not profiteers selling young people digital crack, but Nietzschean vitalist space explorer heroes.
The reason it aligns so well with MAGA, is because of the core MAGA value: shamelessness. Right wing populism is the coalition of the shameless, those upset at being criticized, moralized, held accountable. Hence the presence of supplement salesmen, crypto bros, various other conmen, racists, all the botox, tax evasion, etc. Hence the “long house”, the soyjak memes with text walls. The flaunting of wealth, the constant search for external validation.
Its a movement of puerillism, the ultimate “mass man” as described by Ortegy y Gasset. Modern man needs to learn shame and guilt again, boundaries, respect for authority, humility, gravitas and moral seriousness.
"There is no coherent way to accept the reality of IQ and the importance of market forces, and also not be an enthusiastic champion of unlimited high-skill immigration."
Will the high-skill immigrants accept the importance of market forces *and* be enthusiastic champions of *us*? What about their descendants?
I am for letting them in only once they meet ideological criteria and other filters.
That extrapolation is highly reasonable. Also, we can see things on the tech horizon like fusion energy and disease cures that are certain benefits. No guarantees, but the future looks better on the whole than the past or present from my perspective.
Matt Ridley makes the case in his "Rational Optimist." Ridley’s central thesis is that optimism is not naïve—it’s rational, based on evidence of human resilience and ingenuity.
I think Matt Ridley's book has a number of gaps for example relating to environmental limits. When I read it, I was wondering whether it is not an example of motivated reasoning (dont forget that he is a fossil fuel entrepreneur and English aristocrat).
While I support the notion that we should recruit the best and brightest without regards to nationality, the example of higher education is a difficult one because many nationals will return to their home country with valuable education secured, providing little to no benefit to the country where they received their education. Furthermore their education is partially subsidized by the US government (since virtually 100% of colleges/universities rely on federal grants).
In short, yes to recruiting foreign expertise, no to expanding efforts to educate foreign students.
When I did my Ph.D. in engineering over 40 years ago I would estimate that the grad students in my program were at least 75% foreign born. I had and have no problem with that. Let them stay. Too few Americans are willing to work that hard. I did tell my kids that unless they had a definitive calling, they were better going into industry with their masters than doing their Ph.D.'s - the opportunity cost is too high unless you are looking for a research position, when the Ph.D. becomes all but mandatory.
I did observe that the Honors / IB programs that my kids took in high school were ~ 75% the children of highly educated East and South Asian parents. I told my kids - get used to it, they will be your peers and competitors for the rest of your life. You are playing on a world stage and have to step up to the bar.
I can make a lot of national strategic interest arguments in favor of high skills immigration but I gotta admit that on a personal level I like it because I know I can compete. I’ve been in the software industry for thirty years now and while I’ve had plenty of talented foreign-born colleagues, none of them has been orders of magnitude better than me. I’ve taken some of the younger Indian developers under my wing as a mentor. Just paying it forward.
I’ve also so far worked at two start ups with founders from either India or Pakistan. Judging from the upper management at those places there may have been a bit of a South Asian good ol’ boys network going on. Not in a discriminatory way: just in the sense that people tend to hire out of their social circles. Again, it’s not a problem when you know you can hang. You welcome global competition. It’s just further proof of your own competence.
Besides which, an educated Pakistani in the US isn’t exactly a foreigner. I mean, they’re from another country and if we spend a lot of time together we’ll discover some cultural differences, but they’re ipso facto cosmopolitan and maybe culturally Muslim but not a redneck about it. Like me they’re Anywhere people in David Goodhart’s formulation, and we probably share an admiration for Ramanjuan and Feynman. Despite being an American lying at the core of my identity (because where else is an atheist, liberal, individualist supposed to live?) immigrant South Asian professionals and I generally see eye to eye. Birds of a feather.
While many high-skilled immigrants come here and benefit the country, a few of them come here and demonstrate their incompatibility with American values. I heard about this one guy, he was a refugee from a failed communist regime, his dad worked as an electrical engineer at MIT, he went to MIT and two Ivy League colleges, yet he spends all his time spreading vulgarity and fantasizing about overthrowing the US government.
His name is Costin Alamariu.
In the techno optimist manifesto by Andreessen, I think this section is very telling
“We had a problem of starvation, so we invented the Green Revolution.
We had a problem of darkness, so we invented electric lighting.
We had a problem of cold, so we invented indoor heating.
We had a problem of heat, so we invented air conditioning.
We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the Internet.
We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented vaccines.
We have a problem of poverty, so we invent technology to create abundance.”
🎶One of these is not like the others🎶
We did not have “a problem of isolation” before the internet, the internet created one. I think there is good reason to believe smartphones, the internet and social media are the main drivers behind the strong decline in mental health and life safisfaction; rising conspiracism, wokeness, MAGA and authoritarianism more generally; and a receding birth rate.
There is a good case to make this cluster of technologies has made us worse off overall. AI is around the corner and most people are very negative about that too.
Unsurprisingly, its from tech, not medicine, construction or energy, that this “techno optimism” comes from. Here’s how I see it. Under Biden, there was increasing pressure on the tech sector, with various famous documentaries and discourse more generally describing the tech sector as a threat to mental health, democracy and society. Feeling aggrieved, big ego tech billionaires turned to online accelerationists and other rightists. In their stories, they were not profiteers selling young people digital crack, but Nietzschean vitalist space explorer heroes.
The reason it aligns so well with MAGA, is because of the core MAGA value: shamelessness. Right wing populism is the coalition of the shameless, those upset at being criticized, moralized, held accountable. Hence the presence of supplement salesmen, crypto bros, various other conmen, racists, all the botox, tax evasion, etc. Hence the “long house”, the soyjak memes with text walls. The flaunting of wealth, the constant search for external validation.
Its a movement of puerillism, the ultimate “mass man” as described by Ortegy y Gasset. Modern man needs to learn shame and guilt again, boundaries, respect for authority, humility, gravitas and moral seriousness.
"There is no coherent way to accept the reality of IQ and the importance of market forces, and also not be an enthusiastic champion of unlimited high-skill immigration."
Will the high-skill immigrants accept the importance of market forces *and* be enthusiastic champions of *us*? What about their descendants?
I am for letting them in only once they meet ideological criteria and other filters.
Based on the immigrant doctors I have encountered, I say get a lot more of them.
"The tech right is of course correct not to fear the future and to see technology as the key to human progress, not a threat to it."
Are you extrapolating past successes into the future? Or do you have any special insights that justify this attitude?
That extrapolation is highly reasonable. Also, we can see things on the tech horizon like fusion energy and disease cures that are certain benefits. No guarantees, but the future looks better on the whole than the past or present from my perspective.
"That extrapolation is highly reasonable." Why?
Matt Ridley makes the case in his "Rational Optimist." Ridley’s central thesis is that optimism is not naïve—it’s rational, based on evidence of human resilience and ingenuity.
I think Matt Ridley's book has a number of gaps for example relating to environmental limits. When I read it, I was wondering whether it is not an example of motivated reasoning (dont forget that he is a fossil fuel entrepreneur and English aristocrat).
While I support the notion that we should recruit the best and brightest without regards to nationality, the example of higher education is a difficult one because many nationals will return to their home country with valuable education secured, providing little to no benefit to the country where they received their education. Furthermore their education is partially subsidized by the US government (since virtually 100% of colleges/universities rely on federal grants).
In short, yes to recruiting foreign expertise, no to expanding efforts to educate foreign students.