TE
科技回声
首页24小时热榜最新最佳问答展示工作
GitHubTwitter
首页

科技回声

基于 Next.js 构建的科技新闻平台,提供全球科技新闻和讨论内容。

GitHubTwitter

首页

首页最新最佳问答展示工作

资源链接

HackerNews API原版 HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 科技回声. 版权所有。

Want jobs? Encourage immigration

144 点作者 sathishmanohar超过 13 年前

23 条评论

kiba超过 13 年前
Jobs. It would seems that we have an obsession with creating jobs.<p>If you hear politicians, and if my perception are right, they talk about jobs. Not whether or not we get more purchasing power than ever before. Not whether or not our lifestyle is more fulfilling than ever before. Jobs. More jobs. Less jobs. More competitive Americans. No manufacturing jobs. Colleges not creating enough people to fill jobs. Robots are destroying our jobs. Robots need to be maintain by something or someone, probably another robot or human being.<p>But jobs are just proxy. A proxy for our self-worth, our independence, or whether or not we have a future. Jobs, for us, are just means to an end. Yes, some of us are musicians, football players, programmers, scientists, etc. We like our jobs. I suspect the vast majority of humans don't really enjoy all that much working their job.<p>Rather than talking about creating jobs and destroying jobs, which is an assumption that exists in a world where there are scarcity and there's boring things to do for humans to maintain their existence, why not talk about the end, what should our goal be in life? We can then rearrange our actions in life based on our conclusion what our life should be and what we want to achieve rather than just simply on what needed to be done at this point in time.<p>After all, if a strong FAI comes, we may not even have jobs. At the same time, we ought to figure out what's our life purpose other than going to a job and work for someone or operating a business just to simply maintain our existence. There's no longer a need to grow your food, goes to the hair saloon to cut someone's hair, pump the gas, etc. How are we going to live for the next 10,000 years and 10,000 years beyond that and so on?
评论 #3280855 未加载
评论 #3282072 未加载
评论 #3281188 未加载
georgemcbay超过 13 年前
I'm pro-immigration, but the article still feels like a bit of a sham to me by highlightling Brin, Omidyar and Yang without addressing the fact that Sergey Brin immigrated to America when he was 6, Pierre Omidyar was also 6 and Jerry Yang was 10.<p>How do you know then that they'll be massive job creators? Certainly each of them had ambitious parents and that's something, but then so does just about everyone who actively works to immigrate to a new place for a better life... assuming we can't figure out who the next Brin will be when they are 6 or 10 (and we can't), is the author arguing we should just open up the floodgates to everyone with educated parents? Because that's a heckofalot of people.
评论 #3281051 未加载
potatolicious超过 13 年前
The US really needs to emulate other countries here.<p>The problem here is that the "immigrant" visa is really the same thing as a work visa, and that leads to a great deal of abuse.<p>For one thing, the eligibility is tied to an employer, who is incentivized to embellish, cheat, and otherwise finagle their way to a visa. The expectation that the visa is <i>temporary</i> also sets a lower bar for entry - even though many of these people will eventually become American PRs/citizens.<p>The recent trend to "stage" the H-1B green card process is a step in the right direction - though it doesn't go as far as it needs to. There is still a major problem of indentured servitude. Once an employee has a green card process in the pipeline their employer has them over a barrel - and many will not hesitate to use this as an opportunity for abuse.<p>Not to mention, with the green card backlog the way it is now, it would be years before "your huddled masses of immigrant entrepreneurs yearning to breathe free" are actually <i>able</i> to start businesses. First they have to go through ~8-10 years as a rank and file employee, before they're granted the legal freedom to pursue their own future. The startup visa would go a long way to alleviating that, though the heavy involvement of VCs in that initiative will mean that bootstrappers and other scrappy startups that <i>don't</i> want to raise hojillions in funding will be still at a severe disadvantage.<p>How do you fix this? IMO the US needs to setup a track for immigrants to <i>immediately</i> receive green cards, where having a job offer is <i>not</i> a prerequisite (though it would certainly help). The focus needs to shift away from fulfilling "temporary shortages" (which we all know is bullshit) to simply permanent, mass importation of worthy talent. Set up the process to filter people based on the assumption that they will permanently stay, as opposed the the current process where we'll let just about anyone in, since they're "temporary" H-1Bs anyways. This will raise the calibre of people you're letting in, and also make sure you're giving top talent maximum freedom once they're here. The whole "immigration policy masquerading as work permit" thing <i>really</i> needs to GTFO.
评论 #3280998 未加载
评论 #3280988 未加载
评论 #3281296 未加载
评论 #3280933 未加载
microarchitect超过 13 年前
Why doesn't the US move to a points-based system like the UK and Canada? This seems like a simple and sensible solution to a complex problem that ensures that the people who immigrate are in some sense "useful" to the country.<p>I also don't understand why the green card backlog isn't being handled efficiently. Surely, if somebody is paying, say more than 20k in income taxes every year for, say 5 years in a row, there is reason to believe their contribution to the country is a net positive. Why not just give them citizenship and be done with it?<p>As an outsider, I feel like the US is the opposite of an "agile" government. It seems like there is a lot bickering and fear-mongering at every level and important decisions are being made based on populism and emotional appeals rather than rational decision making. I'm not sure if this is really the case because my news sources are the likes of Reddit and the so-called "liberal media", but unfortunately this is perception I get.
评论 #3281399 未加载
评论 #3281120 未加载
评论 #3281226 未加载
jammur超过 13 年前
I'm shocked at the amount of xenophobia in the comments on the CNN site. Being Canadian, I have no idea whether it is representative of the population at large, but it appears that many Americans have been brainwashed into the thinking that the only immigrants are the ones driving cabs or working at fast food. The problem is that everybody has been talking themselves to death about illegal immigration, and haven't focused on the benefits of legal immigration. Does the Startup Visa have a chance in hell with the current political climate surrounding immigration in the US?
评论 #3280949 未加载
incosta超过 13 年前
I agree that US needs an entrepreneur visas. But I disagree with author's suggestion that all US-educated graduates must be given green cards. A lot of them came to US to study because they could afford it (often via wealthy parents). I don't think it's fair to give green cards only because they graduated from a US university thanks to their rich parents.<p>Foreign students have one year after graduation to find an employer, convert to H-1B and then ask the employer to sponsor the green card. Nothing wrong with this.<p>However, of course H1-B to green card to citizenship must be done in a more timely manner. In many cases it takes too long. The time spent on waiting for the green card (sometimes as long as 4-5 years or even more, due to slow bureaucracy) must be in some way counted towards the citizenship requirement of 5-year residency.<p>I think as baby-boomer generation starts to retire en-mass, U.S. will have no choice but to liberalize and simplify its immigration policy. It is competing against many other developed countries for younger workers and talent, and the earnings disparity is becoming less of a factor in many developing countries. There's just no way out but to make immigration process faster and more attractive if the U.S. wants to win.
评论 #3281204 未加载
评论 #3281233 未加载
muzz超过 13 年前
If you read TechCrunch (Wadhwa's pieces especially) or the ABC article referenced, this piece contains absolutely nothing new, just a rehash of the same things. Sparse, suspect data, plenty of correlation/causation fallacies, and topped off with a populist appeal to "create jobs"
评论 #3281043 未加载
评论 #3281888 未加载
评论 #3281216 未加载
fragsworth超过 13 年前
This logic has always bothered me, and I know lots of you will disagree, but here it is: Job creation alone is not a noble goal. It should <i>never</i> be used as a reason for making policy changes.<p>There's an economic fallacy at place here. Jobs, in and of themselves, do not benefit us on the whole. You could give some number of people a "job" to walk around in circles all day long and pay them money for it, but the net effect would be that society sees no benefit from this. Productive jobs, however, are good things. There is a conflict, though: the more productive your job is, the fewer employees are necessary - actually resulting in fewer jobs.<p>Hopefully you have witnessed this first-hand over the last few decades. Travel agencies have been replaced by Priceline, Expedia, etc. Tax specialists have been replaced by TurboTax, TaxAct, etc. Even simple legal matters can be handled by LegalZoom and the like, reducing the need for lawyers. All manufactured media products (books, news, movies, music, games) are now transferred digitally, which eliminates the need for factory workers to produce physical products. Online banking eliminates the need for bank tellers. Countless other examples.<p>Essentially, technology <i>kills jobs</i>. We develop software and devices to handle what was traditionally done by people, and sell the services at a much cheaper rate because we don't have to pay for all the overhead that old services once required. This is a <i>good thing</i>, however.<p>Anyway, I'm all for immigration, and I'm all for tech companies. But the fact is they destroy jobs more than they create them, and are therefore partially responsible for the current unemployment rate. The logic behind this article is all backwards because of this.
评论 #3281354 未加载
评论 #3282508 未加载
kmfrk超过 13 年前
One thing is work visas; another is college visas.<p>I remember being told (as a European) in the equivalent of high school(?) that if I wanted to go to an American college, I would have to start preparations a year and a half in advance - mainly due to the time spent on processing visas.<p>I would have loved nothing better than to go to an American college, but, at least at the time, that made it neigh-impossible to apply for an American college, when studying at a national university or, hell, another university in Europe or Britain seemed so much easier.<p>I don't know what other people's experiences are, and it may be a cultural thing; maybe the process is otherwise facilitated in, say, India and China.<p><i>EDIT: FWIW, this was after 9/11. Just to account for whatever that may have changed.</i>
评论 #3280999 未加载
cletus超过 13 年前
The US immigration and visa situation is really quite horrendous.<p>For example, I'm an Australian. That means I qualify for (and have) an E-3 visa. What's that you might ask? It's a special work visa <i>created specifically for Australian nationals</i>. It applies for two years and can be renewed indefinitely.<p>What's more, unlike an H1B visa, it's not subject to quotas and the employer doesn't first need to "prove" they couldn't find a suitably qualified domestic worker (a system fraught with abuse that simply acts as a wealth transfer system from companies to immigration lawyers).<p>The problem? When I need to renew it, it may take USCIS <i>months</i>. Plus it's more expensive than applying for a fresh visa. Also, once approved they renew your <i>status</i> not your <i>visa</i>. What does that mean? It means if you leave the country for any reason you don't have a valid visa to re-enter the US so you have to get a new visa anyway.<p>Basically, you need to leave the country every two years to apply for a new one (since you can't apply within the US, of course).<p>What's more, each time I will have to fill out the exact same set of questions (DS-160), make an appointment, give them my passport and wait for it to be returned.<p>Why does this visa exist? Essentially to settle a trade dispute between the US and Australia over wheat. Australia does not subsidize wheat. The US does (as does Europe) to a huge degree, yet Australian wheat is <i>still</i> price competitive but the US keeps Australian wheat out of the US on the flimsy grounds of "quarantine" (something Australia complained loudly to the WTO as an artificial restriction of trade for years, which like most things that are not to the US's advantage, it simply ignored). This was eventually settled and the E3 visa was one byproduct of this.<p>But you can see just how screwed up the system is that factors like this cause visas to be created.<p>Others have posted about the whole H1B problem (quotas, etc) and the backlog of green card processing basically allowing employers to treat you like indentured servants. That needs to change.<p>Some argue H1B visas are used to pay substandard wages in lieu of employing domestic workers. The substandard wages bit is true but that's because of the H1B processing problem. The real problem for domestic software engineers at least is that most people who call themselves "engineers" or "programmers" <i>suck</i>.<p>I've been shocked at some of the people I've interviewed, their inability to code very simple problems and their complete lack of theoretical foundations. <i>And those are the ones that make it past resume screening and phone screens".<p>The government needs to accept that tech companies are basically the most mobile in the world. Look at big tech companies and you'll see they need data centers, some of which need to be in the US (which really doesn't employ that many people). Everything else can be done from </i>anywhere*. Barriers to entry, kneejerk legislation (eg Sarbanes-Oxley) and software patents are all contributing to driving the future Googles and Facebooks elsewhere.<p>All of this makes me a little sad actually because the US has forgotten it's route. The US is a country of immigrants (IIRC population 2 million in 1800, 50 million in 1900).<p>One of the reasons I've come to New York to work is because I want to see it. New York is the beating heart of commerce and you can see capitalism and commerce in every form here, some pretty, some not-so-pretty.<p>I want to see it before it doesn't exist anymore.<p>My picture of the US is one of decay, rotting from within, collapsing under a mountain of debt and unsustainable policies that will be its downfall. The Roman Empire was enormous and collapsed. The British Empire was enormous and collapsed. Don't think it can't happen again.
评论 #3281631 未加载
评论 #3281641 未加载
评论 #3282895 未加载
评论 #3282831 未加载
评论 #3283226 未加载
barumrho超过 13 年前
In Canada, international students are given work permit up to 3 years after graduation and after 1 year of full-time employment they can apply for permanent residency. I think the US could benefit from a similar policy.
ry0ohki超过 13 年前
While I agree we need to encourage immigration, the "facts" stated in this article seem like a causation does not imply correlation argument that drive me nuts.
评论 #3281034 未加载
resnamen超过 13 年前
It's not a zero-sum game when you bring in bright people. Smart people create opportunity around them.<p>On the other hand, I'm not so enthusiastic about lowering immigration barriers so we can get cheap workers to robotically throw together CRUD forms. (I guess that work is outsourced, anyway?)
cletus超过 13 年前
I believe humanity is approaching an important turning point that will either herald in a new era and a new way of thinking or there are going to be some dark times ahead.<p>The entire of human history has thus far been fueled by population growth. When there were 10 million of us, this wasn't a problem. When there were 100 million of us, this wasn't a problem. When there were 1 billion of us, it was <i>mostly</i> not a problem. Now as we zero in on 10 billion... it's becoming a problem.<p>The way our society and our economy works should in so many ways tell you this is true. Look at the urban decay that occurred in many American cities in the 20th century.<p>Urban decay post-WW2 was fuelled by the interstate system, the cheapening cost of owning a car and that it was cheaper to build new communities than it was to maintain existing infrastructure.<p>Some cities experienced negative population growth with devastating consequences (eg Detroit, Baltimore). Certainly in Detroit's case, there are large swathes of the city that really need to be returned to wilderness. But who's going to pay for the demolition, relocation and clean up?<p>The Western world is essentially dying with net migration being pretty much the only reason any Western country is growing at all. The social experiments of the early 20th century (ie state-funded retirement) are, at present rates, ultimately unsustainable when we get down to 3 or even 2 employed people pre retired person (initially it was in excess of 50 to 1 at least for Social Security).<p>An aging population is a natural consequence of slowing population growth, just like urban decay is. So far we've largely shown ourselves at being ill-equipped at dealing with either, except for politicking around migration, which basically just kicks that can further down the street.<p>It is my opinion that there need to be an awful lot less of us and there will be one day, one way or the other. As much as people point to space as a solution to these problems we have an economy built in basically digging not-that-deep holes for our metals. While there are metal-rich asteroids out there, the cost of moving, processing and using those materials is so many orders of magnitude more expensive (both realistically and conceivably) that I have to wonder if it will <i>ever</i> be comparable (although it might one day be viable just because every other way has become so expensive, which will be an earth-shattering adjustment for us all).<p>So migration is, I believe, a short term fix. But it doesn't address what I believe to be a key driver in unemployment: we're slowly automating our way out of the most unskilled jobs (and increasingly skilled jobs too). That too will be a challenge.
droithomme超过 13 年前
There are a lot of countries that lobby for their citizens to enjoy an open border policy where their people can be able to freely come to the US to live, work and own property. Oddly though, these countries do not have open border policies where Americans can come to live, work and own property in their countries.<p>Let's say you are British. You can move pretty freely throughout much of Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, with a minimum of hassle.<p>If you are American, the situation is very different. There are very few countries you can easily emigrate to. Yet most countries want rights for their people to be able to immigrate to the US.<p>I would be in favor of a global open border policy. Eliminate passports, visas, and all restrictions on the flow of people. As opposed to now where through WTO style agreements goods travel much more freely than people.<p>But I don't support one sided policies where people can move easily in one direction but not the other.
ypcx超过 13 年前
Funny, just today I stumbled upon this video while randomly strolling through the avenues of YouTube: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70KhYzBhT4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70KhYzBhT4</a>
mbesto超过 13 年前
The bottom line is this: How do you assess one's talent? If this were possible then a system could work, otherwise it will never be perfect.
mgh2超过 13 年前
Americans need to support the Startup Visa: <a href="http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/2010/03/support-startup-visa.html" rel="nofollow">http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/2010/03/support-startup-vi...</a><p>I think Obama is starting to hear too: <a href="http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/2011/04/startup-america-tell-white-house-how-to.html" rel="nofollow">http://trendguardian.blogspot.com/2011/04/startup-america-te...</a>
etz超过 13 年前
how many immigrants would it be necessary to let in the country to have one of these success stories?? If we let in only the best and brightest, then success is assured! But if we do the right thing, and let nature take it's course....Assuming that the person is a 1 percenter, then it would only take one hundred people to create wealth. On the other hand, the united states has 300 million people, if 25 percent of the successful startups are by foreigners, then that would mean about 75 million people would have to enter the country to create 25 percent. All for 15 or 20 THOUSAND jobs. What will the rest do??
wavephorm超过 13 年前
I distinctly remember 2001-2003 during in the post dot-com, post-911 recession when there was loud outcry to cancel all visas to open up jobs for American-born workers. And in subsequent years these ideas took on the form of erecting a wall around Mexico, and eliminating technology-related visa categories, and ending up in today's environment of extreme hostility toward business travellers at American ports of entry.
评论 #3281046 未加载
greenName超过 13 年前
Increase supply of labor, decrease wages. Econ 101, folks. The Wall Street types benefit from immigration. There might be "more jobs" but there will be lower pay checks. Working Americans are the targets in this upper class scam. Polls show that most Americans are for moderating immigration. Strangely, rich Democrats are the ones most for open borders and "free" trade. The party of labor? No way.
评论 #3282143 未加载
unfare超过 13 年前
The editor are modding all dissent in this page down. Can't handle another side of the story ? Shame.
评论 #3281047 未加载
评论 #3281804 未加载
known超过 13 年前
I disagree. Unless USA aligns Immigrant &#38; Non-immigrant Visas and Outsourcing to Caste system in India and Human Rights in China, American middle class will be destroyed. <a href="http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/29/un-says-indias-caste-system-a-human-rights-abuse.htm" rel="nofollow">http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/29/un-says-indias-cas...</a> <a href="http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-apple-workers-forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-...</a>