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Not exactly sure how Donald Trump calls Stewart's critique against Cain racist. If you criticize a black guy, it doesn't make it racist.

Maybe Donnie should leave Johny alone.

lol. Political book-writing tarantula. burrrn.

This is easily tested, if we care about such things.

Test young minority kids to determine future political temperament, then track them to see if conservative minority kids really do grow up to contribute more to society than their liberal counterparts.

I'd bet money on those results.

@chilaxe

Do you mean republican or non-partisan conservative? I'd say many latinos, blacks, asians, etc are conservative, but don't fold into the so-called conservative groups that have a fair amount of nativism present. I am fairly conservative on many issues, including being a fiscal conservative, but will never pull a lever for a Republican or a Conservative candidate.

all of the TDS clips have been blocked in Aus lately

@longde

Yeah, I'd bet money that non-partisan conservativism boosts life outcomes relative to liberal temperaments.

Isn't most of the nativism of conservatives actually about culture, rather than ethnicity? Conservatives don't care that Herman Cain, Michelle Malkin, Bobby Jindal, etc. etc. aren't white, but they do care when someone doesn't have proactive attitudes or views themselves as separate from the rest of society.

Also, isn't it in every American's best interest to limit mass immigration of unskilled workers while globalism and ever-increasing automation are decreasing the need for unskilled workers? Liberalism did turn California into officially the dumbest state in the country, with lower scores even than the states we make fun of, like Alabama, so this seems to be a priority issue.

@chilaxe

No, historically it has been ethnic-based tribalism. Any outsiders were tokens who had to prove their bonafides by driving stereotypes and condemnation of their ethnic group. These so-called "race men", seem to always talk about racial issues at the core, because their identity in conservative movements are not defined by any conservative principle, but by their race/ethnicity. Michelle Malkin, for example, talks about race incessently, and even wrote a book praising internment. If she stopped talking about any racial issues for a year, I bet her viewerbase would drop off dramatically. Most All of these characters have had to leave their dignity at the door.

Cain is an absolutely new phenom, and an encouraging one, a highly regarded minority that does not focus on race, and has pushed back (a little) on racism in his party.

You know how I feel about immigration. Yes, let's let high skilled workers in. The US probably does that more rigorously than any country.

But, show me a country that does not have a large pool of unskilled workers. I don't see how you can avoid it. One great thing about the US is that people in lower classes have been able to climb higher, while in other countries, they'd be stuck at the lower rungs forever.

@longde

"Yes, let's let high skilled workers in. The US probably does that more rigorously than any country."

The US is definitely the worst country in the world in terms of immigration skill level. 21st century workers in Silicon Valley get kicked out all the time, along their with brilliant tech start ups that were providing 21st century jobs. However, unskilled workers who will be in poverty for generations... we imported 80 million since the 1970s. That's more than the entire population of most countries.

Virtually all liberals advocate increased importation of unskilled workers, and they sabotage rational efforts to restrict it. They don't prefer societal decay, but they do prefer the conditions that cause societal decay.

@longde

Also, multiple lines of evidence seem to indicate that Immigrants Do Not Improve Academically In Later Generations.

During the remainder of our lifetimes, we're probably going to watch the academic and economic decay of California be repeated on a national level as the descendants of unskilled workers replace the higher-contributing previous population.

Define "higher contributing". Do you mean education, income?

@longde

People e.g. engineering the Paypal backend contribute more to society than people e.g. doing simple tasks that would be easy to automate. California doesn't automate some areas like agriculture that the most efficient countries in Europe and Asia automate because we have so much more uneducable labor than those countries have.

More students going to college relative to 1985 doesn't mean more useful workers in society, it means more students studying dumb, easy areas of study. Silicon Valley always has a shortage of talented 21st century workers, regardless of the incredible compensation we offer.

Liberals depend on the suffering of the lower classes for votes. The oligarcs of the Republican party use them for cheap labour.

Both want liberal immigration laws. Only the true conservative want restrictive measures. The ones that care about a strong government and rule of law. Also they ususally favour a mono culture. Trust issues and family first and all that.

I believe the word your looking for is clusterf**k>> ^chilaxe:

@longde
"Yes, let's let high skilled workers in. The US probably does that more rigorously than any country."
The US is definitely the worst country in the world in terms of immigration skill level. 21st century workers in Silicon Valley get kicked out all the time, along their with brilliant tech start ups that were providing 21st century jobs. However, unskilled workers who will be in poverty for generations... we imported 80 million since the 1970s. That's more than the entire population of most countries.
Virtually all liberals advocate increased importation of unskilled workers, and they sabotage rational efforts to restrict it. They don't prefer societal decay, but they do prefer the conditions that cause societal decay.

@chilaxe Honestly, I don't think california has ever had many high contributors as you are defining it. This group has always been a highly visible minority in the state. And this is probably shrinking as people move to greener pastures and better opportunities overseas. Frankly, I see more opportunity in Asia and Africa than in Silicon Valley, which is rather cliquish. More and more of my foriegn born Chinese and Indian colleagues agree, and there are more and more high skilled people avoiding the glass ceiling and cliques by going back.

@longde

Did you read the article showing that California is now the dumbest state in the country, despite being a global center for many industries? No reasonable person could be dismissive of that decline.

If people want to believe that Silicon Valley, which definitely has leaders from more ethnic groups than any place on Earth, has a glass ceiling, that's they're choice. People who don't have a meritocratic temperament probably wouldn't be very successful in the culture here anyway, where all people care about is what you can do.

>> ^chilaxe:

@longde
Also, multiple lines of evidence seem to indicate that Immigrants Do Not Improve Academically In Later Generations.

That's interesting, because I was listening to a discussion last week about generational aptitude in immigrant families and they specifically mentioned how Mexican immigrants (such as in your link) were unusual in their lack of progress over several generations.

I wish I could remember which program it was, but they seemed to indicate that outcomes were very similar among families from the same region (foreign home), but were quite different between regions even when considering original living conditions and levels of education.

I believe they said that most achieved very similar education levels to native white families by the third generation, but pointed out that Mexican families in general didn't seem to follow that pattern.

@Psychologic

If the implication is that subsequent generations from Nicaragua or El Salvador do well academically and economically, I'd be skeptical because all the factors appear to be very similar.

On the other hand, if the implication is that immigrant children from regions like Asia or India do well, yes, that's to be expected.

In general, my experience when I was an academic working in this area was that academics want very much for some things to be true, so they'll often mess up their results.

@chilaxe The article is about all californian students. It has little bearing on the top of the class or the elite.

Also, how do you know Silicon Valley is a meritocracy? Have you worked in tech companies. Are you involved with venture capital? I'd like to see you tell some of my friends, who are highly accomplished in academia and industry, and decided to move back to China to run tech companies that they somehow can't measure up. They'd laugh you out of the room. Why would anyone willingly choose to be a marginalized minority when they can live in a place where their culture is dominant and they can get better rewards for their effort?

Don't get me wrong. I love the Bay. I think there is opportunity there. But to say that it's some ideal meritocracy or that it has a monopoly on opportunity or innovation is wrong. You have to get out more and travel.

@longde

The last Silicon Valley event I went to was a startup demo day for an incubator, and about 1/3 of the startup founders were White.

The event before that was an industry event/mixer for which the speaker was non-White, the event manager was non-White, and about 1/3 of the audience was White.

The event before had 5 CEO speakers, and only 2 of them were White. About half of that audience was White.


Perhaps we need affirmative action for these White minorities who are being underrepresented relative to their proportion of the population.

There are endless high profile Chinese and Indian angel investors and venture capitalists, and all Silicon Valley investors regardless of ethnicity have 1 concern: are you or are you not going to achieve our investment objectives?

The first rule of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley is that there are no excuses, and if countless other people can solve whatever problem you believe you have, then you can solve it to.

@chilaxe Those rules of entrepreneurship apply just as much in Shanghai, Bengaluru, and Johannesburg.

@longde

As long as Whites are being underrepresented relative to their proportion of the population, and Asians and Indians are being overrepresented, that sounds like the most heavenly type of 'discrimination' in the world.

In practice, most startups find much greater access to capital and connections in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, and in any social interaction, we have about 15 seconds to convince someone we're an interesting person.

There are plenty of startups that have reasons to go abroad, but saying discrimination is one of them doesn't seem consistent with the numbers.