Indians!
"Cry for the Indians, oh, die for the Indians"- Joey Belladonna
I know I’m a little behind the ball on this one but give me a break, it was the holidays and I really couldn’t be bothered writing out my retarded opinions on anything. But I figured if even Sam Hyde is getting in on it, so must I. So, as usual, here are some half-baked ideas about the current thing (insert soy face). Of course, since I’m a little late, chances are I won’t be saying anything fresh or novel. You’ll be getting lukewarm leftovers.
It all started with Elon Musk’s opinions on H1B employees of the South Asian persuasion. Apparently, his tweets are surprising to people, considering he’s an all-in MAGA guy now. However, this past Christmas, he began Tweeting (or X-ing) about America’s supposed dearth of high skilled tech workers and the need for America to scour the globe for talent. Invariably, this means going abroad to south Asia, specifically India, to find said talent. Of course, many people on the right took issue with this immediately. Seems Elon doesn’t realize that the vast majority of “new conservatives” or “new right” people- whatever you want to call them- have an issue with immigration in general, both legal and illegal. More on that later.
Everyone’s favorite Indian-American grifter Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in with a now deleted tweet, stating American culture is lazy, or something like that (don’t inquire into how he made his fortune, by the way). I’ll be honest, I couldn’t find an archived version of the post and I don’t care to dig through the internet to find it. Sorry. But, as many of you probably know already, it’s got something to do with American culture not respecting or giving proper laurels to the math nerd, instead praising jocular culture. This is bullshit on multiple fronts: firstly, most jocks seem to be fairly intelligent. You need good grades in school to play sports and, a personal anecdote, most high school and college athletes I knew were smart kids in AP and honors level classes. Plus, martial/physical prowess IS a virtue a society should strive towards. Suggesting nerds aren’t valued is utter bullshit, as geeks are the main characters in nearly every movie in television show of the past 40 years. Being a nerd a-la “The Big Bang Theory” is considered cool these days. Which, by the way, it’s not cool to be an insufferable “well actually” guy with no social skills. Regardless, none of that indicates to me a need to import hordes of shit-slinging Indians.
It’s weird to see all this controversy stemming from these two, considering, if all goes according to plan, they’ll be heading up Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). I think this is a really good idea, considering the U.S government spends money like a teenage trust-fund kid with daddy’s credit card, but it appears that the nerds, and particularly Elon, have kinda missed the mark on this one. Many of us forget that Elon is a foreigner himself, being born and raised in South Africa. Of course, he’s going to view the United States as a sort of halfway house for the third world, and desire to see more H1B recipients swell the labor ranks that the “lazy” Americans refuse to fill.
This is a common theme among the immigrant class in America, especially those immigrants who “make it”. They think to themselves, “hey, I’m an immigrant, I achieved the American dream, therefore all other immigrants must be like me”. And, when you spend a majority of your adult life as an immigrant swimming in the woke Silicon Valley stew, you’ll naturally acquire some of the blank slate ideas that are formed there. This explains, in part, some of Elon’s bizarre comments. He’s sticking up for people like himself. He doesn’t seem to realize or care that he’s an exception to the rule. Most of America’s immigrants are mediocre at best.
I think it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain what’s really going on here. I have two observations: Elon and his ilk are nerd guys who are finally in the cool kids club, and they think infinite growth at any cost is a moral good in and of itself. Secondly, people who support the mass influx of H1B slave labor at America’s expense might hold animosity towards Americans and their culture in general.
H1B employees are third world slaves. I’m being slightly facetious, but there’s a nugget of truth here. Yeah, it’s illegal to pay visa holders less money, but many companies do anyways, allegedly. This visa is especially insidious because it allows employers to higher people at a fraction of the cost of an American. The U.S department of labor estimates tech workers employed via an H1B visa earn as much as 52% less than their American counterparts. An exception to this appears to be Netflix, who pays H1B workers as much if not more than American workers for some reason. I’m assuming they hire fewer workers of this kind. Regardless, an employee has an incentive to hire these people. I mean, who doesn’t want an employee you can force to work 60+ hours a week, for fraction of the cost, all while hanging the sword of deportation over their heads?
It's been said before in the last couple weeks that Americans want greatness- even expect it- but on their own laurels. Elon and Vivek identify the greatness that Americans desire, but seem to have this idea that as long as stock prices of American tech companies (staffed by internationals) are high, Americans are happy and, more consequentially, Americans are great. That isn’t true. Americans don’t want their work ethic or culture degraded and debased by big business moguls, no matter how “correct” their opinions on most things are, or how based they appear to be. They don’t want their greatness measured by stock prices built on the backs of Indian laborers who just showed up yesterday. Americans are proud and stubborn, and the vast majority of them work exceptionally hard. There seems to be a stereotype of the modern American as lazy and frivolous, constantly seeking a handout. Vivek seems to believe this trope. But, in his case, he’s most likely expressing the well known in-group preference that many Indians have. Hell, that at least partially explains why there are so many of them working in every sector of the economy.
Just as a segue, Indians are notorious for their nepotism. I’m not an expert, so I can’t really comment on why this appears to be the case; maybe it’s entirely cultural, or maybe it has something to do with inbreeding (which, in India, accounts for about 7% of married couples- this is considered low by South Asian standards). Regardless, Indians hire their relatives at a much higher rate than we do here in the west. It’s actually quite a taboo to hire a family member in many western countries, where one may risk damaging his entire reputation in doing so. Of course, we don’t have a caste system (at least no de-facto one like Hindus do). Anyway, I digress.
So, tech companies like cheap labor, and they think Americans are lazy. But why Indians, exactly? Why is every company, from Tesla to Amazon, and from Seven Eleven to Walmart hiring them? Are they really better? Can Walmart really not find an 18 year old American kid to fill a cashiering position? Why are nearly 70% of H1B holders from India? Conventional wisdom (and tech moguls) would tell us Indians are far smarter, industrious and clever than Americans. But, if that were true, why does India look like… India and not Singapore or Beijing? Why, if Indians are the modern ubermensch, is the average IQ of that country 76? I can’t answer all of these questions, and this is getting to be outside my wheelhouse: I’m a two time college dropout, after all.
I suspect there’s some degree of brain drain inflicting the Indian subcontinent. Since the mid 1800s, Indians have been emigrating- sometimes against their will- to countries all across the globe from Africa to Europe and abroad to the New World. In the decades following the end of WW2, hundreds of thousands traveled to the United Kingdom to find work in the blasted waste heap the country had become following the German blitz. It’s entirely possible in the convening centuries, India suffered a dramatic shedding of IQ points, leading to the river-shitting situation we find them in today. My point being, maybe all the smart Indians have moved west. Even so, the average IQ of an Indian living in America is about 102, which is only two point higher than the American Average.
Another reason for the prevalence of Indian H1B visa holders, particularly in tech fields, is the cultural propensity for Indians to go to college for IT and computer science degrees. They also speak English, so that’s cool, too, I guess. However, I’ve also read some shit online about India as a breeding ground for fake degree holders. Could they really be pulling the proverbial wool over Elon’s sunken eyes? Maybe so. Honestly, I couldn’t find much info on that topic, but I’ve dealt personally with Indian scammers online, so a degree printing factory located somewhere in New Delhi doesn’t really surprise me.
I’m not trying to sound glib or cynical, but I cannot for the life of me find a legitimate reason to explain the American tech bros’ obsession with the Indian foreign laborer outside of a desire to hire desperate, agreeable Indian yes-men and a misguided attempt to make tech shares go up. Remember, if imaginary number go up, America do good.
Clearly America has talent. There are millions of workers in STEM fields all across the country; many are currently unemployed (at nearly 4% unemployment for tech workers based in the USA). And, as I mentioned earlier, when it comes to low skill jobs like cashiering, there are literally tens of millions of people qualified enough to do this type of work.
I think the majority of Americans are skeptical people, especially in regards to immigration. Elon is new to the MAGA game, but I imagine he also struggles to understand the plight and attitudes of the average American person. Americans, generally, have no desire to see the very fabric of their society eaten away by foreigners, and no amount of moving the goal posts from “illegal” to “legal” immigration is going to change that. The legal status of the immigrant is low hanging fruit; of course it’s an issue that many Americans recognize. However, legal immigration is just as worrisome. If you import millions of workers- no matter how skilled they may be- your society begins to change. When people immigrated from Italy and Eastern Europe to New York City in the earlier 20th century, the character of that city began to change rapidly and permanently.
You could make the argument that Americans are more receptive to immigrants from Christian or European countries; those people appear to be less “other” and have more in common with Americans in terms of values and culture.
I hate to risk parroting Sam Hyde’s video, but I think he’s right about this issue. If an individual has decided to ally himself with America, that means looking out for the interests of American people. There’s talent and skill in this country. I mean, just look at the achievements of America in the 20th century alone, from inventing the first airplane to landing a man on the moon in the span of a few decades. This is an incredible feat, one that has become integral to the American legacy and tradition of greatness we have in this country. Again, as Sam Hyde says, you can’t treat people as individual economic units that can be switched out and replaced. It would be most unwise to view a country and its people in this myopic way.
I still have faith in Elon Musk., less-so in Vivek or Trump’s other ethnic Indian picks for crucial spots in government. I’m sure they’ll do fine, but I still find myself a little concerned by the turn of events here. Maybe Elon is whispering in Trump’s ear, a Sarumon to Trump’s Theoden, but I’m not sure. Trump has stated he would at least restrict the number of H1B applications that will be accepted and, unless I’m dreaming, I think at some point he stated he’d do away with the program entirely. Of course, Elon and others have walked back their statements, so maybe they simply got caught up in the heat of the moment. We shall see.
In short, I know taking in millions of foreigners, who view America as a launch point for their career goals or as a piggy bank, will have disastrous consequences. Americans can’t compete with that, and nor should they. After all, can the average worker really compete with agreeable slave laborers?
But seriously, watch Sam Hyde’s video, it’s much better than this crap.
Sources N’ shit:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/world/asia/12iht-letter12.html
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/inbreeding-by-country
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/h1b-visa-program-fact-sheet
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-h1b-work-visa-tesla-technology/
https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/
Lots of shit from Twitter
My head
Bravo!