It's a simple matter of math. The USA has less than 5% of the world's population. It's statistically impossible for that 5% to be the smartest 5% in the world. Therefore, if we want the smartest people in the world, we have to allow immigrants.
It's a simple matter of math. The USA has less than 5% of the world's population. It's statistically impossible for that 5% to be the smartest 5% in the world. Therefore, if we want the smartest people in the world, we have to allow immigrants.
The smartest aren't uniformly distributed across the Earth.
That's true. It is possible that the smartest 5% are all here in the USA. But it is statistically unlikely that's true.
You put words in my mouth. I don't claim that the smartest are clustered in the USA.
So your original comment was somewhat of a tangent. the point jedberg made is that it is in the interest of a country with a strong economic and academic base to welcome the smartest people from across the world, since it is unlikely that all the smartest people in the world are in the US.
Yes, but Jedberg makes it sound as though -- given that only a small fraction of the world's population lives in the USA -- the country has little chance of succeeding if it is to go without immigrants. I disagree, and an extreme example I could offer as a counterpoint is Japan: tiny population (relatively), yet outsized performance.
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No? Not sure how you reached that conclusion. I'm just stating that the USA needs immigrants if we want to increase our median intelligence because we can't possibly have the smartest people in the world born here.
so in order to increase our median intelligence, we should make the process super easy?
Obviously those smart people are going to go where they feel welcome, rather than climbing through obstacles designed purely for humiliation and malevolence.
Yes.
Why should immigration be kafkaesque? It is in the US interest to have a pipeline of smart, hard-working, innovative people come to this country. The US is/was in many ways a great country for them to come, but we are not the only international destination for such talent. Why would we want to put up such artificial barriers to entry, if we agree on the premises I laid out?
The purpose of this is to discourage legal immigration.
So what prevents the incompetent and lazy from immigrating?
Someone immigrating is almost certainly less incompetent and lazy than the median American. Immigration requires uprooting your entire life, and it requires entrepreneurial spirit and grit. That's why many immigrant groups dramatically out-earn American-born citizens.
TBH most immigrants I've met better embody the American spirit than most Americans.
What about the immigrant groups that don’t dramatically out-earn American-born citizens?
Asking basic questions about finances and job searches/security, perhaps? Do you have any original ideas or assertions to make, or do you only ask sealioning questions?
The current American immigration process is not figure-out-able. As any immigration lawyer will tell you, there's strategies with higher or lower chances of success, but there's nothing at all like a roadmap which will definitely lead to permanent residency if you follow it well.
The smartest 5% are able to figure out where they're not welcome.
https://yaledailynews.com/articles/international-grad-school...
come on, don't do this here.