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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 14:37:45 JST Adrianna Tan

   Re tech immigrants specifically: the low wage slave idea doesn’t hold up. Maybe two decades ago, coming to the U.S. at any cost was the dream for lots of people. Now, a highly skilled person in tech can work in almost any global location in the world. Hell, some senior roles in India pay pretty well (in USD). (I have hired, and paid for top tech talent in Bangalore)

   These are the folks who are in a global market, they’re constantly benchmarking to ‘it’s only worth it to leave my nice fancy life back home if X happens’.

   150K USD a year in India goes a long way. It’s not uncommon. They’re not moving for wage slavery rates. This whole narrative is weird.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 14:41:07 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     The folks I used to work with are now in London, Toronto, Berlin, Singapore. Many still choose the U.S., especially those who have access to far more cutting edge type of work. They’re not going to be compensated for that type of work anywhere outside of the U.S. coasts.

     They’re very different from the ‘Cognizant and Wipro sends in 1000 workers’. The only thing they have in common is the visa they’re on.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 14:44:24 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Personally, I come from a country with so much money and so much opportunity that the only place that offers more of it is California. I would never have gotten off my arse to leave my nice life in Singapore unless I felt something about it was worth it.

     Some days, I think about how someone like me or my friends who do similar jobs in Bangalore would move to SF far more easily than someone from a smaller city in the U.S. (in spite of the visas and challenges of international immigration, the proximity to that type of work is shorter because of networks). We’ve done a lot of this work in often many other places. It doesn’t mean we are better.

     It means that global tech hubs have far more in common with each other than other American cities.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 14:59:26 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Joe Beam

     @JoeBeam many immigrants come from places with poorly resourced education systems too. This take is true but it is also benchmarking the average population of the U.S. generally to the top of other countries’ talent. It doesn’t mean that the immigrants are better necessarily, just that the immigrants who want to come are at the top of their field in their society and probably globally too.

     Even if U.S. education got better over time and things were fine, H1B immigrants still end up creating more jobs and increasing salaries especially as they become citizens shortly after.

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     Joe Beam (joebeam@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 14:59:27 JST Joe Beam

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte
     Still, there is the underlying problem that US schools are not providing the quality education that is needed for a lot of these tech jobs.

   • Embed this notice
     Harsh Shandilya (msfjarvis@androiddev.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 15:29:20 JST Harsh Shandilya

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I have friends here in India who get paid these numbers by EU/US companies as remote workers and they won't even entertain the idea of moving at their current salary. The whole wage slave thing is so infuriating to hear every single time it comes up, people act like the US is such a dream land that Indians would leave everything behind for meager pay just for the privilege to exist on US soil.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 15:31:57 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Some confusion in the comments, but H-1B company and salary info is public.

     Look up any big tech co, even Trump’s companies. You’ll see that these foreigners are here on well paid jobs (it’s also the basic comp, doesn’t include stock). It’s the govt saying ‘we won’t approve this visa for this job title unless you pay at least 150K / 200K / 300K’.

     I get people are upset, but spreading the lie that all these workers are wage slaves doesn’t help. There are other issues with exploitation. Wages and the idea that they’re only getting these jobs so they can be exploited doesn’t help.

     If you’re of the opinion that high paid jobs should only go to Americans, I can’t help you with that.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 15:33:14 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Harsh Shandilya

     @msfjarvis yes, and I have hired remote folks in India at similar rates. It’s frankly insulting

   • Embed this notice
     Frederic Jacobs (fj@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 15:37:18 JST Frederic Jacobs

     in reply to

     • Harsh Shandilya

     @msfjarvis @skinnylatte I remember talking to multiple Silicon Valley recruiters a few years back. And they felt so arrogant insinuating “why wouldn’t you want to move to the greatest country in the world?”
     And all I could think of was
     https://youtube.com/watch?v=fJh9t9h6Wn0

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 15:37:18 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Frederic Jacobs
     • Harsh Shandilya

     @fj @msfjarvis lol I feel like that’s changed a bit coz of the last couple of years

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 23:59:21 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Michael Potter

     @mpotter yes they are, and I don’t trust leftists and democrats to push back because they as already getting it wrong. They not fighting the things that matter and they’re going to end up harming more immigrants just to be ‘right’

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Potter (mpotter@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 03-Jan-2025 23:59:22 JST Michael Potter

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Your arguments are logical, and I believe you. I worked at Caltech in the past and I never worried about losing my job to people at that level because they didn't want my job.

     But the incoming government here is likely to abuse the visa system if they can, to help corporations drive down wages and union-bust, even as recent layoffs have already flooded the market with qualified applicants. They also lie a LOT and say divisive things to cast blame off themselves and onto others.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 02:17:00 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Colin Lee supports #BLM 🇺🇦

     @colintheshots I’m not ignoring that. I am an immigrant myself. I am fully aware. I’m saying people claiming to want to speak for us should use facts to advocate for us. There’s a lot of FUD

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     Colin Lee supports #BLM 🇺🇦 (colintheshots@androiddev.social)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 02:17:02 JST Colin Lee supports #BLM 🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I have a cousin who came here on an H1B.

     You can't ignore the fact that they aren't allowed to stay here without finding a new visa sponsor. They can't just leave their job if work conditions are bad because it'll be heck to find the next sponsor to take over their visa.

     Companies say these immigrants work harder, but there's also definitely a stick as well as a carrot.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:43:31 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • yaygya

     @yaygya yeah im really tired of the ‘I really care about labor issues that’s why we have to close the doors’ narrative

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     yaygya (yaygya@c.im)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:43:32 JST yaygya

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte there’s a certain kind of protectionist populist narrative on the left that tends to have a blind spot on issues like this.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jan-2025 08:42:36 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Michael Potter

     @mpotter Bernie just threw immigrants under a bus, so we can start with him and other white people in the system.

   • Embed this notice
     Michael Potter (mpotter@social.coop)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jan-2025 08:42:37 JST Michael Potter

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I've been trying to work out the clearest way to express what I think is wrong with the left/Democrats right now. We're a dog that's been wagged, an ant hill that's been kicked. We've been convinced to throw ourselves under the bus.

     If we can collectively learn some psychological opsec, and stay frosty in the face of the outrage machine that's being used to keep us muddled and angry, we can turn things around.