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Adam Davidson at The New York Times has a story debunking the myth of the job-stealing immigrant:
When I was growing up in the 1980s, I watched my grandfather — my dad’s stepdad — struggle with his own prejudice. He was a blue-collar World War II veteran who loved his family above all things and was constantly afraid for them. He carried a gun and, like many men of his generation, saw threats in people he didn’t understand: African-Americans, independent women, gays. By the time he died, 10 years ago, he had softened. He stopped using racist and homophobic slurs; he even hugged my gay cousin. But there was one view he wasn’t going to change. He had no time for Hispanics, he told us, and he wasn’t backing down. After all, this wasn’t a matter of bigotry. It was plain economics. These immigrants were stealing jobs from “Americans.”
I’ve been thinking about my grandfather lately, because there are signs that 2015 could bring about the beginning of a truce — or at least a reconfiguration — in the politics of immigration. Several of the potential Republican presidential candidates, most notably Jeb Bush, have expressed pro-immigration views. Even self-identified Tea Party Republicans respond three to two in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Every other group — Republicans in general, independents and especially Democrats — is largely pro-immigrant. According to Pew, roughly as many people (18 percent of Americans) believed in 2010 that President Obama was a Muslim as believe today that undocumented immigrants should be expelled from the United States. Of course, that 18 percent can make a lot of noise. But for everyone else, immigration seems to be going the way of same-sex marriage, marijuana and the mohawk — it’s something that a handful of people freak out about but that the rest of us have long since come to accept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 28 2015, @06:05PM
Equal parts sad, funny, and understandable. It takes a higher level of intelligence to do well in tech. Those with higher intelligence are generally idealists, capable of seeing the world as how it could be. That combined with the obsession with potentially perfect digital constructs reinforces their view that they know how things should be to such a degree that they lose sight of what actually is.
That is the stuff of existential depression. When someone talks in ways that reveal they have that sort of mind, tender sympathy is the right course. They have a hard life ahead of them despite their surface-level advantages. Fight to keep your sense of self and accepting reality as how it actually is. There is little anyone can do in practical terms of efficacy outside of exceptionally controlled specificities.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 29 2015, @02:30AM
Yes, because everyone REALLY smart knows the following things are true:
1. Anytime anyone says anything cynical, it should be taken at face value, even when said person is an Anonymous Coward on a spinoff of Slashdot.
2. It's always a conspiracy, no matter how many people need to be in on it for the conspiracy to work.
3. Bribery in government is universal, never investigated, and never prosecuted. Expert surveys of corruption by organizations such as Transparency International indicating this is not so are to be immediately discarded using one of the Standard Arguments of Conspiracy:
- They're in on the conspiracy and are there to pacify the sheeple.
- They're naive idealists who aren't as smart and insightful as you are.
4. Any attempt to determine the truth value of a cynical assertion by analyzing the plausibility of its arguments should also be immediately discarded using the Standard Arguments of Conspiracy. See item 2.
Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:18AM
I do not know what snarky remarks about assumed conspiracy theorists and biases has to do with a post talking about well understood [davidsongifted.org] psychological [hoagiesgifted.org] effects. [sengifted.org]
The world simply is. Go out and measure it. Just because someone has an expectation that the world should be different or ought to be different does not change what is. No conspiracy theorists, insults, or numbered lists required. A loose argument does not make for a cogent one, even more so when a counterclaim is presented to be true based on someone's first-hand account. Even if it did, cogent arguments do not refute reality. That is why we use Science to figure stuff out when we used to use pure rationality.
I also never claimed conspiracy, corruption, bribery, or anyone is a "sheeple". It was not my intent or insinuation either.
The word idealist does not in any way indicate naivety.
Finally, what is your point exactly? I did not do nor think any of the things you have presented as being attributable to me.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:32AM
And a few phone calls/posh dinners later its not a problem. We all know the score. The guys with money talk to the guys in power. The guys in power do the bidding of the dudes with money. The guys in power give the appearance 'they are doing something' notice how they get word first that it is happening? A month or two later its business as usual.
Was that not you? It's hard to tell when two or more ACs are arguing with each other. Even if it wasn't you, you seem to be on the same "side" as that person. That's what I was criticizing. Even if existential depression is a thing (and I guess it probably is), attributing that or a tendency to that to anyone doubting the rather tall tale told by the OP of this thread is inappropriate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:41AM
Is it a tall tale? That needs to be proven. You talk of attributing generalities to a specific situation when reasonably appropriate. So do I. It is not the initial doubting that is the indicator, but the persistence in belief that reality is a specific way by using rationality to show that it should be that way even after an equally reasonable counterargument is presented. Well, that and the high rate of people amongst the demographics of this site facing that very issue.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:53AM
Okay, which one are you now? You guys should really create accounts.
Tall tales can be true, they just seem subjectively unlikely to be so. I think the guy or guys arguing against the plausibility of the initial story has the better argument. And wishful thinking or existential depression has nothing to do with this because quite frankly there are bigger problems in the world than first world construction workers' wages being depressed, and I don't personally know any construction workers, and I really quite frankly just don't care that much. I mean, the OP is probably a nice guy and I hope things go well for him, but, like I said, North Korean prisoners have it much worse.
Also, saying there are a large number of people on this site who struggle with existential depression is something you would have to make a much better argument for to convince me. Handwaving and saying gifted children struggle with existential depression doesn't cut it, for many reasons including but not limited to that the users of this site are unlikely to be "children" in the strict sense (13).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:10AM
Considering you don't care and are not at all knowledgeable about any of this, why do you matter? Why should anyone spend the time convincing you?
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:21AM
It's relevant that I have no personal involvement with construction workers because your approach appears to be to accuse anyone who disagrees with you of wishful thinking to avoid falling into existential depression. And perhaps I should have said that your argument about existential depression being at all relevant to SoylentNews "wasn't convincing"; however, it's somewhat customary not to make sweeping passive voice statements like that in order not to seem arrogant. I was saying I don't agree with you and giving one reason why. I didn't specify the other reasons because I don't have an unlimited time to spend on these comments, I don't think your argument is likely to convince others; I thought one was enough.