On 2007-06-15, sf <sf> wrote:

> All you need to do is watch HGTV. They don't pretend. You want to
> do it cheap, hire cheap labor....

Well, that's the whole problem, isn't it. It matters not whether they
are here illgally and are breaking any number of laws. The bottom
line is, you saved money. So, it's perfectly OK, right? So, what
other laws is it ok to break just because you benefit?

> I can't comment about "cookie cutter", but students from the Indian
> Institutes of Technology are from *the* NUMBER ONE tech schools in the
> world. They graduate the best of the best....

Yeah, they're all freakin' geniuses. In the meantime, I'm still
waiting for that first Indian IBM or Intel or Google or a single
decent car or airplane or.... (continue endless list on your own)

> about it. We used to "brain drain" other countries, so the US
> doesn't have a corner on who's "smart".

Yeah, and parents all over the World are sending their kids to India
for an education instead of the US.

> people they hire are competent and earnest in my experience.

So are migrant workers, but do you want one operating on you?

I'm not saying foreigners are stupid. They are not. They all have
strengths and weaknesses, as do we. But, in my 20 yrs in the hi-tech
industry, I did notice some things that made me go hmmmm.... One was
that Americans seem to be better at critical thinking. Maybe not
better, but it seems to come more natural than other cultures. I
noticed over and over some culture's ability to perform their job,
often brilliantly, was dependent soley on their reservoir of past
experience. But, confronted with a new problem, they were often
stymied. It was difficult to take fact A along with fact B and come
of with conclusion C.

This is what I meant earlier about rote learning. It's one thing to
memorize years and years of facts and figures, but being able to
utilize this knowledge to come up with new and original knowledge is
essential. Otherwise, it's useless. So, getting great grades and
whipping facts off the top of one's head is impressive, but what good
is it. Innovation and creativity are the key. I realize much of this
is cultural, as I said before.

Basic sociology reveals mixed cultures are more likely to originate
knowlege than mono cultures. This only makes sense and the US is a
prime example. But, innovation alone is not without its shortcomings.
What good is it if it can't be used or deployed effectively or
efficiently.....

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nb