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Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by curiousDog on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:24PM (#12222750)
Reiterates the fact that the strength of America is its diversity and openness to attract and retain the brightest from around the world.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by douche on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:00PM (#12222866)
Which is a great argument in support of making immigration easier for the highly intelligent and highly educated. Selfishly, enabling the best and brightest in the world to relocate into your country is a win. Particularly if those people were educated at US universities, taking internships at US companies, or doing US research.

Nothing is gained by opening the floodgates to average and below average intelligence people, who we have already have a native surplus of.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by yummyfajitas on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:55PM (#12223287)
Opening the floodgates can be tremendously beneficial provided we allow capitalism to work. It's called comparative advantage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Of course, the modern welfare state cuts against that, as do the harmful externalities imposed by (eventual) voting. But the humane solution here - which might be politically impossible - is to allow immigration while eliminating the welfare state and making the newcomers into a permanent non-voting underclass.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Chris2048 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @07:54AM (#12224888)
> Opening the floodgates can be tremendously beneficial

Beneficial to who? Factory owners - yes, factory workers - no ...

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by yummyfajitas on Thursday August 04, 2016 @09:18AM (#12225258)
It's true that rent seekers who currently use state-sanctioned violence to prevent economic competition might be harmed in a visible manner.

But factory workers are consumers too and gain (less visible) benefits from immigrants. I.e. if you work at factory X but consume goods produced at factory Y, you benefit from cheaper labor at factory Y. If you work at factory X but consume medicine, you benefit from having an Indian doctor and a Filipina nurse.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Chris2048 on Friday August 05, 2016 @09:06AM (#12231963)
> but consume goods produced at factory Y, you benefit from cheaper labor at factory Y

Assuming the savings are passed on to the consumer.

I think it's more important that the owners vastly benefit, and may manage to push down wages across more than just one industry by leveraging economic differences between nations that only they can take advantage of.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by netheril96 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:47AM (#12223646)
> is to allow immigration while eliminating the welfare state and making the newcomers into a permanent non-voting underclass.

If the political climate allows a separate class of citizens, then there is no need to eliminate the welfare state.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by adventured on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:05PM (#12222890)
'A native surplus of below average intelligence people'

I'd like to see you prove that claim while defining exactly what you mean by a surplus.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by djf1 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:30PM (#12223197)
I think it would be reasonable to claim that the larger the proportion of smart people in your population, the better. If that's true, than any number of below average intelligence people would be a surplus.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by laxatives on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:55PM (#12223281)
I get your point, but I think what your describing isn't particularly meaningful. By definition, nearly 50% of any population is categorically an undesirable surplus.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by djf1 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:04AM (#12223315)
Yes, you could argue that. But a _nation_ could improve its proportions by restricting immigration to a subset of the _global_ population.

To a certain extent, this principle is applied today. But I imagine it could be scaled up to something akin to highly selective university admissions process (e.g. interviews, standardized testing, resume critique, references). If a country starts with sufficient desirability, this could result in a positive feedback loop -- an increasingly competent and productive society.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by laxatives on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:23AM (#12223375)
I agree with you there. Unfortunately, the greatest motivation to bring in someone outside the country is rarely for their exceptionalism, its usual about making/saving money. And at most institutions, its far more cost effecting to get individuals who are just sufficient and will accept a substantially lower compensation than their domestic peers. The individuals who are exceptional have loads of options/opportunities in their own homeland.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by netheril96 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:49AM (#12223657)
> The individuals who are exceptional have loads of options/opportunities in their own homeland.

That is simply not true. Most countries do not have the demand, willpower or money to sustain, say, a world-class research institution.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Chris2048 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @08:30AM (#12225048)
There's also the networking effect of wanting to work were there is already an established community.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by zhemao on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:36AM (#12223414)
Not necessarily. Average =/= median. But with a population as large as the US, they will be pretty close to each other.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by douche on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:06PM (#12222894)
I grew up in Appalachia. You don't have to look hard...
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by adventured on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:16PM (#12222933)
So did I, and I disagree with you.

The part of Appalachia I grew up in for example, in Maryland, had among the best public schools in the state, and had among the highest testing outcomes in the state. That's still true to this day.

I'd like to see you prove your claim and define what a surplus of below average intelligence people means.

Given the small population base of Appalachia, you're not providing meaningful evidence of anything by referring to that location. The median standard of living in Appalachia is higher than that of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Russia, China, Latin America, and so on.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by douche on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:33PM (#12223009)
What I see, is that the intellectual floor for high-quality employment that results in traditional middle-class security continues to rise. In my grandfather's generation, somebody who could chew gum and walk at the same time could get a decent union industrial job and live the proverbial "two cars and a picket fence" lifestyle. In my father's generation, you had to at least graduate high school, and odds are, you needed your wife to work as well. In my generation, a college degree is table-stakes, and really, you need a degree from one of the places that has more legitimacy, and really, a degree in one of the harder, more intellectually demanding subjects. Roughly, at every generation here, I'm approximating the floor of intelligence and ability to increase at around one standard deviation.

> The median standard of living in Appalachia is higher than that of Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy.

Fuck, that's bad news for Europe, I suppose. I knew people that had dirt floors and no indoor plumbing.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by adventured on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:40PM (#12223035)
> I knew people that had dirt floors and no indoor plumbing

That isn't a very strong data point. The median household income in Appalachia - which also includes eg Pittsburgh - is above all but a dozen or so major nations, and is above that of the EU and Eurozone. The unemployment rate there is also lower than the EU and Eurozone (in fact, it's about ~45% lower).

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by douche on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:54PM (#12223072)
Including Pittsburgh in Appalachia is being very generous. You're way too far west there.

Unemployment numbers are mostly bullshit, to boot. Depending on which set of them you are using, that can have huge discrepancies with the actual labor force numbers percentages, since after so many months of a hopeless situation, people drop off the unemployment rolls and into the masses of the long-term unemployed.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by yompers888 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:48PM (#12223260)
It's like you're dangling a pinata and yanking it away at the last second. If you want to talk about your particular backwoods place, name it with greater specificity. If you want us to focus on labor force participation rates vice unemployment stats, offering those up would be similarly wise.

For the record, my Appalachia town also had good schools, though we had more than our fair share of meth and poverty as well.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by douche on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:27AM (#12223392)
>For the record, my Appalachia town also had good schools, though we had more than our fair share of meth and poverty as well.

Good on you. We had the poverty, although weed was the favorite cash crop, rather than meth. Growing some plants out in the woods is easier to hide than a lab that might blow up and catch the double-wide on fire...

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by macintux on Thursday August 04, 2016 @09:57AM (#12225490)
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by oblio on Thursday August 04, 2016 @05:24AM (#12224378)
Well, when comparing Appalachia with some countries, does that include HDI? Some of those "poorer" states might be welfare states that don't have the "benefit" of some large US corporation being located there and skewing statistics.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by 77pt77 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @02:58PM (#12227689)
> The median standard of living in Appalachia is higher than that of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Russia, China, Latin America, and so on.

Care to give a reference?

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by antoineMoPa on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:14PM (#12222922)
I love it. An American telling Americans are dumb and trying to use this fact in a way that makes it look bright to restrict US immigration. At least he started with "Selfishly" and warned users with his username.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Gustomaximus on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:10AM (#12223334)
You've misread/understood. They dont state or imply Americans are dumb. More recognise America (as do all countries) has a surplus of average, so points out why increase that.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by jonathankoren on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:46PM (#12223251)
No, it's called taking advantage of a brain drain, and has long been a point of pride for Americans.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by laxatives on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:28AM (#12223396)
Immigration is a zero-sum game. Americans should be proud when they can poach the best.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by United857 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:40PM (#12222803)
Judging from their names, most of the US team members are of Chinese or Indian descent.

Would be interesting to note if they were US born/raised (i.e. educated under the US educational system), or recent immigrants (i.e. primarily educated in those countries).

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by adventured on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:43PM (#12222811)
It would make perfect sense if they were educated in the US, given the US is undergoing a math boom:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/the-math...

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by tn13 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:05PM (#12222892)
Not for this particular team but I had done a quick study of previous Indian-American members of winning teams. They were all US born.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by fma on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:10AM (#12223509)
American born Indians are very cut throat in their schooling. My cousin runs an after school supplementary program and their best students are all Indians. If an Indian student refuses to do homework they get scolded by their parents. If an American student refuses, their parents beg and plead and eventually pulls their student out of the program. Not all cases are like that, but most are.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by padiyar83 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:55PM (#12223080)
And these are the exact kinds of people who have to work the hardest to get a US citizenship. On average it takes an Indian citizen 10 years more than immigrants from other countries to get a US citizenship. Its equally bad for people who are born in China too.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by 77pt77 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @08:52AM (#12225136)
You have to realize that these people are far less violent than the people they're competing against.

The state hands rights, exemptions and benefits only in so far as not doing so would result in violence.

If you are tame there's no reason to give you anything.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by macintux on Thursday August 04, 2016 @09:59AM (#12225508)
That's a much weirder explanation than the US has always had a bias in favor of European (perhaps more accurately "white") immigrants.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by pcurve on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:45PM (#12222815)
I would guess that they were born here, or came here as a very young child. You'd need to have fairly good mastery of English to correctly interpret those questions.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by umanwizard on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:15AM (#12223522)
That's totally false. Plenty of Chinese and Indian researchers are reading math papers and books in English, which requires the same level of English skills.

I learned a foreign language to fluency at age 17, and math is one of the easiest things to read in the second language because the grammar is never very creative and the vocabulary is much more restricted than a novel or even a typical newspaper.

(Tangentially, a lot of people born in raised in India speak English at near-native levels. Especially the well-educated classes that would be likely to move to the US and participate in something like this.)

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by gohrt on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:48PM (#12222828)
Maybe? The questions are translated into many languages, and many many non-Americans (especially well-educated non-Americans) learn technically capable English.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by fma on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:06AM (#12223491)
You must not know a lot of Chinese born Americans. English is taught in China starting at elementary school. Their literacy skills are higher than verbal, thus reading word problems would not be difficult.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Swizec on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:57PM (#12222857)
I came here at 26. My English tests at native levels or above (it's been ~10 years since I took the test). Most people assume I'm a native speaker until they hear my accent and even that is going away.

English really isn't that hard to learn.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by geomark on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:00PM (#12223101)
I'm impressed when someone says English is not hard to learn. I'm a native English speaker now living in an Asian country where I have learned the language. When I view English from my new perspective it seems so much more difficult. Even just trying to explain to non-native speakers inconsistent pronunciations it seems ridiculous (how about these 4 words: rough, plough, though, through). I can't even get started on verb conjugations and all the irregularities
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by WildUtah on Thursday August 04, 2016 @03:41AM (#12224038)
English is tough, though through thorough thought it can be mastered.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by 77pt77 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @08:54AM (#12225145)
What a concise way to get your point across.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by gone35 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:25PM (#12223178)
Idiomatic English is hard. From your HN profile[0]:

"At least 5000 people bought my books..."

Don't ask me why, but to me it should read instead:

"at least 5000 people have bought my books,"

or even:

"over 5000 people have bought my books."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Swizec

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by dasfasf on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:03AM (#12223309)
Just "bought" implies that the sale of the books is compassed in the past. It sounds strange because no explicit compass is mentioned and the reader suspects they are still for sale. I don't see anything wrong with "at least" though. Note that "over" changes the meaning (>= vs. >) and at least some prescriptivists obelize using "over" like that (I believe the AP Stylebook used to).
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by gone35 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:26AM (#12223381)
[...]and at least some prescriptivists obelize using "over" like that (I believe the AP Stylebook used to).

Indeed they did, until very recently[0]. I had no idea.

[0] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/more-than...

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Swizec on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:27AM (#12223386)
But in idiomatic spoken English, at least in the US, people omit that have. I agree that it's there for more formal or more British English.

Also, what you're describing goes beyond native level English and reaches the level of professional writer/teacher/linguist/editor/etc level English. I would expect many HN readers to have English proficiency beyond native level.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by umanwizard on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:18AM (#12223535)
You have got to be kidding me. I'm a native English speaker and the sentence sounds totally fine the way he wrote it. Plenty of native speakers could have produced it and I'm not even totally convinced (though it might be true I guess) that the other two are statistically more common
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Myrmornis on Thursday August 04, 2016 @03:57AM (#12224103)
"Over 5000 ... have bought" is obviously the best formulation to a native English speaker who can write / copy edit well.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Alphasite_ on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @11:35PM (#12223214)
You example makes the point that formal English hard to write, not hard to read.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by laxatives on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:32AM (#12223406)
Speaking idiomatic English is irrelevant in technical or professional discourse however. His point is clearly made, even if it is not the most natural syntax/semantics possible.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by pcurve on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:02PM (#12222876)
That's very impressive. Obviously everyone will experience different learning curve, but you are an exceptional individual and not a norm.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Swizec on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:11PM (#12222915)
I think it has more to do with the fact that most of the develop world starts learning English before they're 10 years old. And a lot of the music/movies/internat is in English as well.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by thinkpad20 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @12:59AM (#12223469)
I'm sure it also has to do with what country you were raised in, your exposure to media etc, your educational and support system, your level of motivation and dedication, and your aptitude. I taught English for three years in a foreign country to many smart people who struggled to learn the language. Although English is apparently not difficult for you, the claim that "English really isn't that hard" is clearly untrue for a great many learners. (Also there are a few minor errors in the above post ;))
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by Swizec on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:35AM (#12223605)
As with anything, it depends. It's never seemed hard to me and I'm sure we can all agree that it's among the easier languages for people to learn. At least people coming from indoeuropean languages.

As for errors, I've noticed that spending time in the US and using colloquial English a lot, has wreaked havoc on my English grammar. Or maybe it's the distance from schooling that did it.

Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by fengwick3 on Thursday August 04, 2016 @06:18AM (#12224552)
I beg to differ. Math olympiad problems are typically short and concise, and mathematical phrasing, even when expressed in English, typically has clear bijections to equivalent terms in other languages.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by allendoerfer on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:37PM (#12222795)
Which is something America can be proud of. It could improve the ratio the whole society benefits from it though, when you look at what for example the Nordic countries are doing without all these rockstars at the top.
Re:U.S. Team Wins First Place at International Math Olympiad by force_reboot on Thursday August 04, 2016 @01:04AM (#12223490)
There seems to be very non-Bayesian updating that goes on around this issue.

When White people do well at something, people update their prior that White people experience White privilege that makes it easier for them to achieve these things.

When non-White people achieve something, or White people do poorly, people update their prior that diversity is important to achieving good results.