> India is a land of lawlessness and that's a reality.

It's a little more subtle : well connected people to whatever they want and get away with no consequences. People who dare to oppose these powerful people discover the true meaning of hell. It's true practically everywhere in the world including the US.

IMO for all the shit that social networks receive (for good reasons), one of the side effects is that it's a lot easier to share such gross violations of law an example of which are the above videos. In a way social networks give people power.

It can be true in the US, but it definitely is not the norm. This statement rings false. For all the problems the US has, yes including corruption in some places, it is almost entirely unique in its freedom of speech and its allowance for political opposition without fear of retribution as a modus operandi.

This is a common misconception of Americans and is blatantly untrue. America is absolutely not the only free country in the world and, in some areas, it is less free.

Take press freedom, for instance: the US currently ranks 41st:

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

There are plenty of other fully democratic countries in the world, where freedom of speech is accepted, encouraged, and enshrined in well-respected laws.

Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit. Lie blatantly about the motives. Spend billions of dollars for it in a country in massive debt. Get caught doing so. Yet ignore international instutiions, go kill thousands of people anyway and get away with it.

You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.

You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.

Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.

The only difference with India is that they are better at it :

- they don't make it obvious and chocking enough so that it leads to a strong reaction

- they use all the tricks in the book to divert attention

But in the end, the US is so corrupted it could be a case study for future historians.

France is pretty much the same, mind you. We have just less guns and more smug.

>Plus, you are in a country where you can go to war to satisfy your friends benefit.

India does not have financial muscle to start a war but Indian government starts projects to help friends all the time.

> You are in a country bailing the banks that ruined themself.

Almost all major Indian banks are owned by state heavily mismanaged and completely inefficient. They run as jobs program and are every year bailed out using taxpayer money.

>You are in a country where it's legal to snatch somebody without a trial. Where you can get in secret prisons and be tortured. All that justified by events that killed less people than the flu.

Indian government can put you in jail for years without trial. Even for a high profile celebrity case takes on an average 10 years to conclude.

>Where massive surveillance is allowed by politicians for security, yet they ban all attempt of transparency on their own actions.

There is no privacy in India. If the cop asks you to undress you better do.

This is true, but it benefits the already wealthy a hell of a lot more.

Elon Musk is one man with good intentions in a sea of obscenely wealthy, self-serving plutocrats. The bad far outweighs the good.

At the very least if you are going to allow financial lobbying, you need to put a hard cap on the amounts, and the cap should be low. Very low.

Are we talking of the country of COINTELPRO, that killed civil rights activists, or obliterated unions and the US socialist party by force and shady tactics? it's like, you can say what you want, as long as it has zero consequences -- otherwise, prepare to meet some serious shit.

Because when a government really destroys a group they let huge swaths of their own employees join that group.

You can't seriously believe this?

People can believe some astonishing things; without making those things true.

    > well connected people to whatever
    > they want and get away with no
    > consequences

    > It's true practically everywhere
    > in the world

The press, the judiciary, the police, and the civil service are strong institutions. Reading up on "Plebgate" will give you a feel for the truly pedestrian nature of power abuse in the UK, and what happens when the police go rogue.

    > Millionaires fly without
    > even seeing border security

If you're merely pointing out that it's possible to receive much speedier service with money, then yes, there are a wealth of commercially available options operated by airports, private and public alike. That's hardly evidence of corruption.

https://youtu.be/ORpBAIB9j64

Scandinavia is the poster child for ethics, and from what I know I would say rightly so, but it's not representative of Western Europe as a whole.

Your inclusion of Sarkozy surprises me. Googling for Sarkozy and mafia is bringing me a bunch of antisemitic sites and a site called info-resistance — do you have any reliable sources?

So there's a long history of shady ties at the very top of the French institution, pretty often in the form of what was deemed as a "necessary evil", but corruption nonetheless. That's pretty much summarizes the spirit of the French Fifth Republic, anyway: "we go to do what we got to do, and the public wouldn't understand".

Case in point: a few neighbors had a shitbird stealing milk bottles delivered to our porches. The police obviously aren't sending in the detectives for 4-5 $2 bottles a week. But we captured the guy in camera, did a social media assault that attracted the news. A city fireman saw the guy on TV, recognized him from another petty theft, and called his cop friend who found the guy.

That's what social media does for individual or small group problems.

If you have a problem with a building project or city action, social media will attract sympathetic comments and crazy people. To get action, you need to round up people and show up at events and hearings.

I've helped people out fighting powerful interests.l at a local level. They always fight back, but in modern America you don't have people showing up to rape your wife or beat you. At the end of the day, powerful people need money, and its very possible to create the perception of risk that will slow down the funding stream. That tends to solve David v. Goliath issues.

You can get shot for simply brushing some up jumped real estate dealer's car in the capital city - a friend's colleague had to learn the hard way.

Where does he try to do this?

There is an implicit assumption in his definition of an introvert that is introvert == cut off from society. This is just plain wrong. An introvert is a a shy, reticent person and this does not imply that he is cut off from society or does not understand social interactions. I would argue that it's the exact opposite. Introverts understand social relationships and the "real world" very, very well. They just don't actively take part in social interactions much.

> The first is the idea that measurement of things like quality and success can be objective, perfect and fair. These are not objective facts, they are highly contextual and can be manipulated by power struggles, charisma, clever marketing, or outright fraud.

The article is concerned with startups with a very small team working on it. Measurement is easier than in large teams of people. I don't see OP disputing this directly. The question of power struggles, charisma etc does not arise in startups with a small team.

> A second critical assumption being posited in Graham’s essay is that one person’s direct contribution can be disentangled from that of others.

No, it's easier to have a better idea of what people in a small team contribute than in a large team.

> Although he never says this payoff is guaranteed, he doesn’t deny it either

First valid criticism.

> Here is the crux of Graham’s assumption that programmers are the real engine of the value chain. He ignores the fact that without the infrastructure and ancillary components of the business, it isn’t so easy to simply translate that new piece of software into pure profit.

That's exactly what small startups do, where the founders manage everything from code to sales to legal work (in the initial stages of a startup).

> Graham so desperately wants to justify his own wealth as the righteous product of his own personal labor without acknowledging the effects of either luck or power

Uncalled for personal attack, but yes, luck plays a major role.

> “Smallness = Measurement”. Here, he uses the analogy of the “ten best rowers” who, if you take them out of a large system and put them together with a shared goal, will necessarily be superior.

In comparison to large teams, measurement is easier in small teams. Team dynamics are still important, whether the team is small or large.

> It is amazing how well this piece serves as marketing fodder for Graham’s venture capital arm, Y Combinator.

Looking at it from a cynical perspective, yes. Nothing stops people from questioning or rejecting (or dismissing) his work publicly as lots of people on HN and twitter do.

> Libertarianism != Meritocracy

This section has some valid criticisms of libertarianism and PG's implicit bias towards it.

The next wave that will eventually unseat Facebook (the product) will have to be something entirely different. And it might even come from Facebook (the company).

People want to be able to find their friends, so you need some way for discovery to happen. If there's no tracking locations and relationships, then how do you do it? Usernames are the only privacy-concious way to accomplish that, and then you've just described MySpace. Facebook works because when you drunkenly befriend someone at a party, you can find them the next day online. It's bootstrapped discovery. Like it or not, that's what most of the world likes about Facebook.

Google almost solved this problem with G+, but they did it by scanning your email contacts. Is that still a privacy breach?

Though...Bloomberg Chat meets your criteria (ex-fee). It consists of ~300K financial users who pay ~$25K/year/terminal. Many argue this is the killer feature of Bloomberg. I agree. It's like an exclusive, digital country club.

I'm not following.

I don't think it would work in the world we live in because people are long used to getting things for "free" (from the days of "free email"), where they exchange their attention and personal information for some services. Somehow people have also been trained to avoid even tiny costs in monetary terms (one reason why iOS App Store pricing is always a bad trap for most developers). In my own experience, the cost-benefit ratio takes a longer time to analyze and convince myself of in certain cases.

But if there were such a platform, I would certainly want to try it if it provided similar features (not lagging like Google+ and not including features in "New" that were in "Classic").

When Ello started a few years ago, I really wanted to use it and see it grow fast. But it turned out to be a platform that self-targeted some niche artistic crowd and didn't focus on features I wanted (like groups).

I keep pushing people in my circle to try new things as much as I can possibly do (like Telegram, Wire, Signal). So I'd be very interested in breaking out of Facebook.

MySpace died because they weren't evil enough.

We already have this. It's called "Diaspora". It's a great idea using all the things you talk about: decentralized, peer-to-peer, etc.

No one uses it.

>but I don't require mainstream adoption to use it.

Then I encourage you to set up your own Diaspora account. Maybe if enough people do so, it'll eventually get somewhere.

Diaspora is many steps in the right direction and looks like a great alternative to fb. (Slightly disappointing to see support for non-privacy oriented social networks being baked-in. I guess that's a strategic move.)

The average person just doesn't care about privacy at all.

I always feel that I come across as a tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist when I'm trying to explain to friends why I don't use Facebook.

Facebook had a net income of $3.6bn from 1.86bn monthly active users, or $1.93 per user.

I don't think many users are going to work for what Facebook could reasonably pay out of that....

Worse, any remotely attractive payment might well lead to the rapid creation of billions of fake accounts.

[1] http://static2.uk.businessinsider.com/image/589259d8dd0895fb...

It's more like, you pay out to the users that generate a lot of views, and after a threshold. If 1/100 users is a great content generator, the idea that they may make $100/mo is very attractive to switch (and take their followers with them).

As for fake accounts, you bundle in the proof-of-identity stuff and whatever else current networks use to keep bots out. It's its own engineering problem.

If anything, I place more blame on "legit news" and their "80+% WIN!" predictions for Clinton, ensuring that anyone who thought about casting a protest vote stayed home.

The only productive use of Facebook is to keep in touch with people. If you do this using alternative methods (Whatsapp, email or direct phone calls) then you save yourself from the continuous stream of garbage that is the news feed.

---

I'm on an H-1B, and the thing that infuriates me about the dialogue on this is that they are effectively trying to ban skilled immigration, and exclude people like me from coming.

If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway. The amount of hate I see piled on people trying to come here via the employment-based immigration seems insane to me. These people make it seem like employment-based immigration is not as respectable or legitimate, compared to refugee/asylum and family-based immigration.

The problem with requiring higher wagers is that for people like me, who were students in US -- it's very hard to get an ultra-high salary for the first job out of college. (I did my undergrad here, and I don't have a Master's.) I was a student (on an F-1 visa), and my first job out of college offered me $60,000/year. On my first job on my H-1B visa (in NYC), I was offered $85,000 a year (got slightly over $100,000 with bonuses). Then, just about a year and half later, I was paid (incl. lucky cash bonuses) slightly over $200,000 in a single year. (My base salary is $130,000 now.)

If you raised wage requirements, you'd basically be not allowing people like me to continue to stay and work in the US (after graduation from college), and would instead only allow people from outside who have lots of experience (and skill) and can command a much higher salary upfront.

---

It's very disappointing to see the level of vitriol directed towards people who are just trying to build a better life in this country, especially here on HN.

Likely there should be some path for immigrant students to stay, but H-1B shouldn't be that path.

Perhaps they should create an exception that allows immigrant student to work for entry-level market wages for a few years after they graduate.

I mean, immigrants students will need some kind of visa that lets them work to stay here after school. It could be the H-1B, or something else.

But the only way they can stay is if that visa requires only paying what new graduates normally make.

PS: I suspect if there where a direct path from student to staying in the US then people would just game that process. Which would reduce the number of 'real' students and cause a political backlash.

If someone manages to get accepted at a genuine accredited U.S. high-education institution, and completes their studies, and graduates, why not let them stay? I understand there will be a lot more demand to study in the U.S. if such a pathway existed; so you would want to make sure that there are no diploma mills, and that only people graduating from accredited colleges are allowed to stay. Perhaps capping the number of international students at a college to something like 20% would go further in mitigating your concern. The flow of student immigrants would then be naturally regulated by the admissions process, and by the number of available seats for international students in U.S. universities and institutions.

It really doesn't make much practical sense to attract students, educate them, and have them leave. But having the flow of student immigrants be naturally regulated by the admissions process, as you propose, seems to be putting the cart before the horse policy wise. From the gov't perspective, the interests and education goals of the (potential) immigrants are irrelevant but the flow of skilled immigrant labor matters a lot - what would be a practical solution is to make a decision about what amount and kind of post-college immigrants staying would be best for the interests of current USA citizens (which might reasonably be close to 0 in some areas of study), and then set the limits and conditions for student visas/admissions to match that goal.

They have something like this, it's called Optional Practical Training (OPT).

It's already incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to secure an employment-based immigration path. The process takes between 1 to 2 years. In addition, the employer is required to attest (via labor certification) that there are no minimally qualified U.S. workers who can do the same job. The quotas create just decades-long backlogs, and make things even worse for immigrants.

The regulatory red tape for EB immigrant visas is incredible. I've read comments on HN and other forums saying that companies typically spent circa $40,000 to get an EB-2/EB-3 visa. In fact, Congress intentionally made it easier to get H-1B visas for precisely this reason: https://www.cato.org/blog/why-congress-rejected-h-1b-recruit...

You mean EB-2 and EB-3 (Employment Based green cards)?

E-3 is a US work visa for Australian citizens only, almost identical to H1-B but with a separate cap. It was a thank you to Australia from the Bush Administration for helping in the Iraq war.

That said, I think a permissive immigration policy is in our intrests, but H-1B is a poor basis for such a policy.

F1 students are not American citizens and are not entitled to an immigration pathway through employment.

They are on a student visa with the right to study at an American university.

I can only convey that the current system is shady and is rife with abuse. Reform is necessary, preferably nonpartisan.

American citizens would be entitled to an immigration pathway?

Suggesting that the existing H-1B system is broken and in need of reform isn't necessarily a call for less skilled immigration. My two biggest complaints about it are actually both pro-immigration.

First, I think what was meant as a way to integrate skilled immigrants into the economy has been transformed into a way to marginalize many visa-holders into non-standard consulting work.

Second, I think the H-1B system has created a distorted market which hurts both visa holders and domestic workers by creating a labor pool which is basically unable to bargain. Tying someone's immigration status to the actions of a single employer makes even basic negotiations like "this work environment is terrible" or "I'm underpaid for the work I'm doing" untentable, since the employer has an irrefutable lever over the employee. That's terrible for visa-holders working at inappropriate wages or under unpleasant or unsafe conditions. It's also bad news for domestic workers, who rightly complain that they're not just competing against international labor but handicapped-by-law labor. In an industry which has already seen one major wage-fixing conspiracy, I think it's understandable that there's some nervousness about employers using the law to create an artificial boundary on labor prices.

I'd like to see skilled immigration massively expanded, and I think part of that process is reforming the H-1B system. Many companies use the system quite reasonably, but others are specifically using it to avoid treating American or international workers fairly.

That's true, there are a lot of consulting firms like Tata/Infosys/Wipro that use up a large chunk of the available H-1B visas. They only pay their workers like $80,000 on average, and almost never sponsor a green card. The other thing is that a big chunk (like >50%) of the people at these firms are on visas. I'd like to see a solution that limits that sort of use, and instead provides visas to more legitimate companies, without making it impossible for immigrant students to stay in the country.

One possible solution might be to require higher wages if more than 20% of the employees are on visas. At most of the companies I worked, at least 80% of my coworkers were Americans. But at the same time, I've heard that a high percentage of developers Facebook and Google are on visas. Simply requiring that companies higher wages if more than like 20% of their workforce are on visas, would end the use by consulting firms that are heavily staffed by H-1B workers. It also would not completely shut the door on immigrant students looking for a job after they graduate.

> Tying someone's immigration status to the actions of a single employer makes even basic negotiations like "this work environment is terrible"

This is a misconception. I can change jobs to any employer that is willing to do an H-1B visa transfer. Of course, it reduces the set of companies I can work for, but in tech, most companies will transfer your visa. Another fact is that, before January 17, 2017, you couldn't have gaps in employment, and had to find a new job while working. But this has been fixed, and now H-1B visa holders can quit freely, and have 60 days to find a new H-1B employer. I've pointed it out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13452381

In addition, I have been in the exact situation you described -- i.e. "this work environment is terrible". This was before the 60-day rule came into effect, and I actually quit my job anyways. I lost my legal status in the country as a result, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. I just had to do find a new job, fly out of the country, and re-enter, to regain my legal status (and start my new job). I've explained what I did in detail, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13361827

> to require higher wages if more than 20% of the employees are on visa

This is the sort of change I'd like to see. H-1B should be a stepping-stone to offering citizenship to skilled workers who want it. (Regardless of original intent - it's both practical and moral for the US to do this.) The possibility of creating a perpetual pool of visa contractors is one of my main complaints, and I'd like to see more visa slots opened to companies willing to pay well and sponsor for green cards.

> This is a misconception.

Interesting context, thank you. I knew about the change of employer (I think that's common knowledge?) but I'd heard horror stories of people being told, basically, "shut up or we'll fire you right now and you'll have an employment gap". Or just being fired outright, to show other visa employees how little bargaining power they had.

I didn't know about the 2017 allowance for employment gaps. That's awesome news, and that change specifically is one I've wanted to see for a while.

As for your experience, I'm glad it worked out, but I do consider it a horrible problem with the visa system. Forcing people to leave the country during their application process is stupid (and harmful to anyone short on money), it worsens problems like the recent re-entry ban Trump enacted, and it's a bit delicate with actual legal status; losing legal status here can have consequences almost immediately if someone cares to enforce them.

More broadly, I hate how much of the US visa system involves getting lucky with paperwork, or having an administrator look the other way. I'm glad to know about the 60 day improvement, and I'd love to see further extensions to allow easier green card access or student-to-work rollovers.

I studied here, but never really had to deal with the immigration aspect because I'm here to be with my American wife. However, I vaguely remember that F1 students could work for a very limited amount of time with the F1 visa and work even longer if they studied a STEM field. I guess that's something. But having to hustle like nuts to get above some magical salary boundary is crazy. Especially since that likely would include changing employers since that seems to be the best way to get a raise.

The changes aimed at fixing the abuse of the system by consultant "super companies" are going to affect ppl who finish their studies and get paid a market-level salary at their first gig which in most cases still won't come close to 130K.

These are typically well adjusted folks with drivers licenses, their own apartments/houses/families even (so they need to make more than 5 TCS consultants cramped in a studio apartment) etc. One would think they'd be in the batch of prime candidates for the long-term or even permanent immigration.

Note that during the F-1 visa application, you needed to prove that you had no intent to stay. This is a current requirement for the F-1 visa.

While there are problems with the proposed legislation, at a minimum, it does allow for dual-intent for F-1 visas, and allows for a bridge from F-1 status to legal permanent resident. This means that an F-1 visa petitioner doesn't have to lie on their application, and there is no incentive to use the H1-B program in a way it wasn't intended.

This small piece, seems like a attempt at solving this student-to-resident pathway issues.

This line along with the rest of the comment is completely written out of context. I have no idea how your reply is relevant.

That being said, as someone in a similar boat (graduated from a US college, lived in the US for more than half of my life), I strongly believe that there is a need for a reform in US immigration laws. Even though I spent more than half my life in the States, I don't qualify for any programs/paths to pursue permanent residency in the US except for the H1B route.

Clearly the rate of family-based immigration is insane. And the lack of requirements for any kind of skills that would benefit America for relatives is costing America. Outside spouses and minor children, family has no special right to follow immigrants into the USA and privileging unskilled family migrants reduces the chance for a community to assimilate.

That reunification migration program should be regulated and limited severely.

But there is no right for employment based immigration either. There does not need to be a pathway for every single person on Earth to come to America. America is already crowded.

If there's no viable visa category to come to the USA, there are 200 other countries for a person to migrate to. And staying put is a fine option for most migrants as well, though there are exceptions.

The idea that the USA and only the USA is the acceptable destiny for every person is ludicrous and has to stop. We have the highest proportion of foreign born people in hour history already and it's time for a long immigration moratorium to help us absorb the immigrants we have.

Also, family sponsored visas don't come out of the same quota pool as other visas so your statements are functionally irrelevant to this topic.

I've never heard about this. Where did you get it from?

America isn't crowded. America is mostly pretty empty. http://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/thematic/us_p...

This is, I think, the fundamental problem of our immigration system and ultimately tied to the source of the illegal immigration.problem that arises whenever the economic and social climate is relatively good (right now, we've got negative net rate of illegal immigration, because the economic and social climate sucks), and also much of our border security problem.

Our immigration policy seeks to do three main things:

(1) prevent people we absolutely don't want in this country (usually, for safety/security reasons) from coming in for any reason at any time.

(2) Allow people we specifically do want in the country to come in, and

(3) Manage the costs incurred as a result of the total level of immigration.

#1 is pretty straightforward: we prohibit certain people from entry, period, based on certain rules.

#2 and #3 together are served by a complex set of visa categories, with quotas in each category (both global and per country, in each category.) And we treat anyone that doesn't get a slot in the quota.or doesn't fit a preference category exactly like the prohibited individuals in #1.

A better way to address #3 (and to replace some existing categories, like the H-1B) would be to allow either entry- or annual- (possibly both as options) fee-based immigration or annual residency with work status for immigrants above the caps. The fee structure might be different for people eligible for dofferent existing preference categories but "skipping the line", and higher than any of those for non-prohibited immigrants in no preference category. Third parties could sponsor such supernumerary visas, but would have no special status for doing so (other than contract rights, but even then law could limit contract enforcement to recovery of the cost of sponsorship according to the rules applicable to general debts.)

yeah, we know. that's kind of the point.

I have seen H-1Bs get paid less than their American counterparts, for doing the exact same work.

Raising the salary floor on H-1Bs would be good for all employees in the sector, both Americans and those on H-1Bs. (There might be a small drop in the number of jobs, but the quality of life in those jobs will be much better.)

> These people make it seem like employment-based immigration is not as respectable or legitimate, compared to refugee/asylum and family-based immigration.

I can communicate over mail, if that helps.

I hate to break it to you, but those are the exact kind of people that H-1B visas are SUPPOSED to be used for. Not fresh out of college people. Your employer abused the visa program.

Thankfully it has zero chance of passing.

Red flag right there.

That's indeed a very dubious claim, only the opt-in "Secret Chats" use end-to-end encryption. [0]

[0] https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data