Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Spouting Thomas's avatar

I enjoy the anecdotes on H1-Bs. You didn't spell this out, but my understanding is that what you're describing is the reverse of the letter of the law: in theory a job is supposed to be advertised to Americans and an H1-B visa is only supposed to be approved if no qualified Americans showed up. Of course, this rule is widely flouted. I wonder how much could be accomplished by rewarding whistleblowers and punishing violators for this.

In college, I worked in the office of a major grant-producing medical researcher whose group made extensive use of H1-Bs. I'd actually say, in contrast to how corporations mostly use H1-Bs, these researchers were closer to being the "good guys": they were mostly using H1-Bs to bring in experienced foreign researchers with specialized knowledge relevant to their research, in many cases for a temporary collaboration, and that research was directly relevant to improving the welfare of the human race. Most of the visa holders were from Europe, and none from a country poorer than China.

But even so, they flouted the requirement that the H1-B position be publicly advertised to Americans. The office manager kept them in a hard-to-see corner of her office, behind the door when it was open. She said, disingenuously, "Well, everyone in the labs comes in here at one time or another to pick something up from me, so I would qualify this as a public place." It was interesting to me that, even when the job description was written with an ultra-specific resume in mind that perhaps only one person on Earth qualified for, they STILL didn't want to run any kind of risk of an American actually applying for the H1-B job.

Expand full comment
Boulevardier's avatar

I wonder if the decline in dating app usage is due to because although it can theoretically expand your dating pool it ultimately falls far short of the traditional and far more organic method of meeting people in person through common interests/activities or acquaintances? I met my spouse before these were a thing so I have no personal experience but this is my impression. Anyone I know who has used one seems to have gone on lots of first dates to produce any relationships.

We also see some evidence today that younger people are socializing less, having less sex, etc than they did a generation ago, and I wonder if that is also due to technology allowing people to communicate with others without actually interacting in person, which leads to other things. I have teenagers and although they do have in-person social lives, it seems to me that they are not as active as mine was, largely because they can text, message, facetime or whatever with groups of other kids easily whereas when I was their age if I wanted to be social I had to actually make plans with others and show up in person.

Expand full comment
17 more comments...

No posts