Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment
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And zooming out a bit.
American culture isn’t the (main) problem.
I say this as someone who really admires the immigrant work ethic and who believes passionately that immigrants offer countless economic and cultural benefits to our society. But the insinuation that Americans lack a strong work ethic is just ignorant. Americans work harder, longer, and more productively than pretty much any rich nation, China included.
Now, at the extreme right end of the distribution, it’s the case that American society isn’t producing enough engineers to meet the demand of the tech industry. But one reason that foreign-born engineers are more attractive is that foreign-born engineers are poorer and willing to be paid less than their native-born counterparts. I don’t think it’s as simple as that, but it’s simply the case that that’s a factor. And the same holds true for a lot of unskilled and less-skilled labor. Native-born Americans are perfectly able to pick fruit, clean bathrooms, and drive Ubers—even the ones who thought Screech was hilarious and that Zach and Slater were cool. They just don’t want to be paid the going rate for a lot of those jobs while people desperate to come here are.
That desperation to come here is the best rebuttal to Ramaswamy’s claim that American culture is the problem because it doesn’t value excellence. American culture is literally the reason all of those immigrants want to come here, because those immigrants understand better than native Americans that Americans are willing to pay for excellence. Ramawamy’s definition of excellence is deliberately narrow and tailored to the kind of workers his master thinks are essential. But the Haitian workers in Springfield, Ohio, are just as dedicated to professional excellence. Yet the Silicon Valley bros were okay with calling them cat-eaters because they can’t use warehouse or auto parts laborers. Heck, some of them would be happy to automate those jobs out of existence.The Department of Globalist Efficiency.
And that’s one of the things I think is so hilarious about this feud. For at least a decade a lot of folks on the right have been denouncing globalism as if Davos was really a secret meeting of Hydra. According to some nationalists, the globalists want to “replace” white Americans, censor the phrase “Merry Christmas,” and make you eat bugs. The DOGErs glommed onto this populist hysteria for political access. But beneath the surface—and I mean just beneath the surface—it turns out they’re globalists. They do all manner of business with China while at the same time insisting that if they don’t have unfettered access to global labor markets, China will beat us in the race to win … something. Whatever the DOGErs believe about tariffs for widgets and washing machines, they reject protectionism for computer programmers. From their vantage point, they support free trade for high-end workers.
They just can’t put it that way. So they insist that their free trade for specialized labor position is really a nationalist, America-first, priority. Borrowing from Barack Obama and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, Ramaswamy in his diatribe on Twitter trotted out hoary clichés about “Sputnick” moments:
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.This can be our Sputnik moment.
We’ve awaken [sic] from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
“Sputnik moment” is globalist, neoliberal, and even neoconservative code for Cold War-style nationalism. Our enemy is beating us! We need to all come together and spend metric buttloads of money not to let them win! Tom Friedman—idiotically—wanted green tech to be the new race of the 21st century (though the subsidies and policies that argument gave birth to helped Elon Musk become the world’s richest man, so there is that).
Ramaswamy can’t say unfettered, skilled immigration is good for multinational corporations and the gross domestic product—which it is—so he falls back on great power competition with China as the justification for precisely the exact policies the globalist fat cats want. Again, I’m not saying his preferred policies are necessarily wrong; I’m good with a more expansive policy on skilled immigration (and I generally like automation). I’m saying the arguments he’s offering are dishonest and hypocritical, particularly for a devotee of MAGA economics.
And I think it’s hilarious that the MAGA nationalists immediately recognized the sales pitch for what it is. On the policy front I’m more sympathetic to DOGErs, but what’s so delicious about this is how it illuminates the internal contradictions of the Trump coalition. All winning political coalitions have internal conflicts, so there’s nothing new there. But Trump’s coalition is very small compared to, say, Obama’s, Reagan’s, LBJ’s, Eisenhower’s, and especially FDR’s. When you have a very large coalition, you can afford to piss off one faction while promising to take care of it down the road. Trump has much less wiggle room.
The most tangible illustration of this is the two-seat majority in the House. If 30, or even three, Republicans agree with the Loomer crowd, it’s hard to see how Trump makes up for that with Democratic votes.
My point isn’t that this divide will be the undoing of Trump or anything like that. He can probably finesse his way out of this particular “MAGA Civil War.” And this isn’t necessarily the most important fault line—it’s just the first of many. To govern is to choose. When campaigning you can promise everything and anything to everybody. But when you’re setting policy, one group wins and another loses. And it’s going to be particularly popcorn-worthy watching Vice President-elect J.D. Vance try to stay the Golden Boy for both the winners and the losers while never disagreeing with Trump (or Musk).
From where I sit, this is just another chapter in the long story of people convincing themselves that Trump is wholly on their side only to discover he’s not and never will be. Since these aren’t my monkeys and this is not my circus, I’m happy to watch them all duke it out.When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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@jon-nyc said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
From where I sit, this is just another chapter in the long story of people convincing themselves that Trump is wholly on their side only to discover he’s not and never will be. Since these aren’t my monkeys and this is not my circus, I’m happy to watch them all duke it out.
So make a prediction. What is something Trump voters expected, which will not happen.
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For me, the saddest thing about this debate is that anybody gives a flying fuck what Laura Loomer thinks about anything.
As Klaus would say, so it has come to this.
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@Horace So you have no thoughts on the piece? Or the mini-controversy? Rather you want me to pull out my crystal ball? Or do you just want to change the subject?
I mean im perfectly happy to. I just would like to first let people comment on these two posts.
When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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@jon-nyc said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
@Horace So you have no thoughts on the piece? Or the mini-controversy? Rather you want me to pull out my crystal ball? Or do you just want to change the subject?
I mean im perfectly happy to. I just would like to first let people comment on these two posts.
I thought I was commenting on the post; I was rhetorically responding to the person who wrote that. I was doing you the favor of reading it, through the formatting rape of whatever ctrc-c-v you used.
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“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ~Winston S. Churchill
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@Mik said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
Tldr
If you need that long to make your point you’re working hard not smart.
Maybe you haven’t seen it but this has turned into a much bigger row about Indian Americans and American Culture (both phrases trending all day on twitter) and not simply a post about how to get ahead in life.
When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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@jon-nyc said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
@Mik said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
Tldr
If you need that long to make your point you’re working hard not smart.
Maybe you haven’t seen it but this has turned into a much bigger row about Indian Americans and American Culture (both phrases trending all day on twitter) and not simply a post about how to get ahead in life.
Maybe we both took mik's response personally.
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@Horace said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
@jon-nyc said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
@Mik said in Vivek's Blood, Sweat & Tears Comment:
Tldr
If you need that long to make your point you’re working hard not smart.
Maybe you haven’t seen it but this has turned into a much bigger row about Indian Americans and American Culture (both phrases trending all day on twitter) and not simply a post about how to get ahead in life.
Maybe we both took mik's response personally.
I was referring to the posted article. Sorry if that was not clear.
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Vivek has a point about culture. He's not saying much that the "Tiger Mom" didn't say years ago, and things have slid since her time in the spotlight.
We all know it. It's partially why the public school system is in the mess it's in, as better students exit for a better education.
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Second note... Just go O visas for the talent.
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We HAD a culture that valued such things. I think we started to lose it, some time in the late 1960's. I think it fell down a rathole during the second half of the Obama Administration.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
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