Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy revealed in what may just be the worst tweet of the year that he doesn't understand America at all.
you really should please read Totally, it is that It's scary, but I'll outline it for efficiency.
A “significant part'' of why high-tech companies hire foreign workers rather than Americans is “culture.'' “For too long (at least since the '90s, and probably longer) our American culture has worshiped mediocrity over excellence. It doesn't start in college, it starts in youth.” Ramaswamy writes.
“A culture that celebrates prom queens more than Math Olympiad champions, athletes more than valedictorians, won't produce the best engineers,” he continues, and then goes on to say that he also admires the cool kids more than the tech geeks. He criticized the popular 90's sitcom for being arrogant.
While he blames “average American parents” for succumbing to Hollywood's idea of ”normality,” he also “restricted” access to that kind of TV programming to instill a stronger work ethic in STEM fields. He praised the “immigrant parents” who had done so.
“In the competitive global market for technical talent, 'normal' doesn't cut it. And if we behave that way, we'll get our butts handed to us by China,” he said. I concluded.
The reason why top technology companies often hire foreign-born first-generation engineers rather than “native” Americans is not because of Americans' innate IQ deficit (a lazy and incorrect explanation). An important part of this can be summed up in one word: culture. Hard questions require hard answers, and if…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRAmaswamy) December 26, 2024
Let's unpack this:
First of all, this is ethnic narcissism disguised as cultural criticism, operating under the thinnest possible veil. Ramaswamy probably had strict Indian parents, which helped him excel in STEM. Good for him, but if he gets shoved in a locker in high school because of it, it's not our fault. No matter how much they try to justify it, men who resent a “prom queen” celebration are actually just upset that they weren't the prom king.
This is what this discussion boils down to. But Ramaswamy also misunderstands the benefits.
The bigger issue here is the relevance of language. It's not even true anymore that Hollywood values popular jocks and cheerleaders. that hasn't been true for a while very for a long time. In fact, hanging out with Vivek has now become the norm. Cool athletes are generally seen as stupid losers who work for the nerds who bullied them growing up. This is a sign of the mid-century shift towards meritocracy, away from the more classical criteria of 'good breeding' which is more holistic in nature. To qualify as an elite, a model young man had to be athletic, healthy, articulate, well read, have an appreciation for the arts, and be educated, but not all of the above. You cannot become an athlete even if you have the following or Otaku. Both typical virtues were expected of a young man from a good family. That began to change in the 1940s, when standardized tests made it possible for any Joe Schmoe with a good SAT score to get into Harvard and join the ranks of the elite. Today, these scores are considered the only true measure of success in everything from college admissions to hiring decisions.
Over time, our broader cultural game has reflected that change, which has distorted our entire social values. I've learned to think that anything that gets in the way of test preparation is a waste of time, and to distinguish between the virtues of nerdiness and the virtues of joking. But because narrow meritocracy is the only ladder to success, we open the door for fraudsters to exploit the system. Find a way to look good on paper, and you could be Silicon Valley's next H1B millionaire.
