Its difficult to understand Elon throwing away so much political capital on a low upside/high downside prospect like H1B, beyond just being emotional about it.
1) We already got to watch Canada, UK, and Australia speed run lets bring in more "skilled" Indians.
The results were a real disaster. Immigrant quality plummets, lots of institutional and cultural damage, none of the economic growth or technological prowess promises fulfilled. All of these countries are now calling for severely curtailed Indian immigration.
It seems likely the same would happen here if its tried.
2) The talent pool in India isn't that deep.
High end immigrant talent looks like high end talent globally. Mostly Whites and Jews with some East Asians:
India has an average IQ of 76. That would put the amount of IQ > 130 talent at a mere 300,000 people.
There are minority groups within it with higher IQs (4% of the population is Brahmin, I've seen IQ estimates 90-100). This is a topic one could get into an endless debate about, but let's say top Indian talent is 10x higher for a total of 3M.
There are 20M whites at IQ > 130. 75M+ East Asians with IQ > 130. 3M is a drop in the bucket.
I don't believe we are in competition with China nor that raw IQ points = success, but 75 vs 20 and 75 vs 23 doesn't make much of a difference.
What we seem to get with increased Indian immigration in the long run is just a lot of midwits, no matter what kind of filter you try to put on.
I would note that if you are a current Indian immigrant and you think about it for a minute, diluting and poisoning your "brand" through mass importation of mediocre people with your same skin color is not going to be in your self interest.
3) So the real question is "is having a bunch more midwits from India good for the country."
I'll take a pass.
I think there are a lot of problems with nepotism, corruption, honesty/trust, and resentment with the Indian population. Examples abound, Toronto had to close its food banks because immigrants systematically abused them. The overwhelming opinion about Indian hiring practices is that they seem to look like this:
I think it's not just a backlash against "immigrants", but specifically a backlash against Indians (perhaps other countries near India as well).
I have no doubt the higher end of the midwit rage, armed with lots of ethnic nepotism, loose moral standards, and inculcated tiger mom striver ethic, could ruthlessly take over a lot of large established institutions and have high per capita income, but its not clear to me a lot of overall value would be created by this (just ask Canada, UK, Australia).
You might say this is all racist, but we're all racist here aren't we. We know races differ in meaningful traits.
And anyway, influential Indian-Americans more or less proved all these stereotypes are true over the last few weeks when they took to twitter to announce their undying hatred for whites and mission to turn America into India.
4) Luckily for America, there is no "mythical man month" of high IQ output. High trust entrepreneurial institutions, culture, and politics turn high IQ into growth.
East Asia may have more brains, but if our institutions are better we will win. In fact it's the only way to win, we will never win a numbers game. If Indians are damaging to our elite institutions, it's not going to help to throw a few more bodies at the problem.
If we follow Vivek's advice and turn America into one giant cram school, we will just get South Korea writ large. A miserable stagnant state with a 0.7 TFR, OECD highest suicide rate, and a GDP/capita drastically lower than ours.
5) Finally, this gets to the last point. Musk goes on and on about pro-natalism.
Asian TFRs are apocalypse level especially amongst the smart fraction, and the culture Vivek promotes is terrible for fertility. Indian fertility amongst its smart fraction has cratered lately, its already low and it looks to be heading to South Korea levels within a generation.
I'm quite afraid that if we import low fertility elite culture from abroad that it will be singularly damaging to long run growth and societal functioning. IQ Shredder economics only work in the short run.
Its difficult to understand Elon throwing away so much political capital on a low upside/high downside prospect like H1B, beyond just being emotional about it.
1) We already got to watch Canada, UK, and Australia speed run lets bring in more "skilled" Indians.
The results were a real disaster. Immigrant quality plummets, lots of institutional and cultural damage, none of the economic growth or technological prowess promises fulfilled. All of these countries are now calling for severely curtailed Indian immigration.
It seems likely the same would happen here if its tried.
2) The talent pool in India isn't that deep.
High end immigrant talent looks like high end talent globally. Mostly Whites and Jews with some East Asians:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-153786072
India has an average IQ of 76. That would put the amount of IQ > 130 talent at a mere 300,000 people.
There are minority groups within it with higher IQs (4% of the population is Brahmin, I've seen IQ estimates 90-100). This is a topic one could get into an endless debate about, but let's say top Indian talent is 10x higher for a total of 3M.
There are 20M whites at IQ > 130. 75M+ East Asians with IQ > 130. 3M is a drop in the bucket.
I don't believe we are in competition with China nor that raw IQ points = success, but 75 vs 20 and 75 vs 23 doesn't make much of a difference.
What we seem to get with increased Indian immigration in the long run is just a lot of midwits, no matter what kind of filter you try to put on.
I would note that if you are a current Indian immigrant and you think about it for a minute, diluting and poisoning your "brand" through mass importation of mediocre people with your same skin color is not going to be in your self interest.
3) So the real question is "is having a bunch more midwits from India good for the country."
I'll take a pass.
I think there are a lot of problems with nepotism, corruption, honesty/trust, and resentment with the Indian population. Examples abound, Toronto had to close its food banks because immigrants systematically abused them. The overwhelming opinion about Indian hiring practices is that they seem to look like this:
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1a18f173-414a-4ee2-aa47-0cfe085c99d5_384x1017.jpeg
I think it's not just a backlash against "immigrants", but specifically a backlash against Indians (perhaps other countries near India as well).
I have no doubt the higher end of the midwit rage, armed with lots of ethnic nepotism, loose moral standards, and inculcated tiger mom striver ethic, could ruthlessly take over a lot of large established institutions and have high per capita income, but its not clear to me a lot of overall value would be created by this (just ask Canada, UK, Australia).
You might say this is all racist, but we're all racist here aren't we. We know races differ in meaningful traits.
And anyway, influential Indian-Americans more or less proved all these stereotypes are true over the last few weeks when they took to twitter to announce their undying hatred for whites and mission to turn America into India.
4) Luckily for America, there is no "mythical man month" of high IQ output. High trust entrepreneurial institutions, culture, and politics turn high IQ into growth.
East Asia may have more brains, but if our institutions are better we will win. In fact it's the only way to win, we will never win a numbers game. If Indians are damaging to our elite institutions, it's not going to help to throw a few more bodies at the problem.
If we follow Vivek's advice and turn America into one giant cram school, we will just get South Korea writ large. A miserable stagnant state with a 0.7 TFR, OECD highest suicide rate, and a GDP/capita drastically lower than ours.
https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872312139945234507
5) Finally, this gets to the last point. Musk goes on and on about pro-natalism.
Asian TFRs are apocalypse level especially amongst the smart fraction, and the culture Vivek promotes is terrible for fertility. Indian fertility amongst its smart fraction has cratered lately, its already low and it looks to be heading to South Korea levels within a generation.
I'm quite afraid that if we import low fertility elite culture from abroad that it will be singularly damaging to long run growth and societal functioning. IQ Shredder economics only work in the short run.
Why don’t my own group chats look like this??