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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould

If you believe that quote as I do then unskilled laborers can have intelligent children. Making to the United States is quite a test of endurance, flexability and competance so people who pass that filter are quite likely to be intelligent

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How many unskilled laborers do we need to accept to get one future Einstein? The ratio matters.

>Making to the United States is quite a test of endurance, flexability and competance so people who pass that filter are quite likely to be intelligent

I doubt this is true in cases where you can literally just walk across the border.

I doubt you have many Mexican locals living next the the border literally walk across the border and then travel to the interior of the country. Most of them are from far away places and endure quite a challenging journey to get here. I live in San Jose in a neighborhood with many older Vietnamese boat people. Columbians have been moving in. There isn't an easy way to get from Columbia to Mexico by walking.

Crossing the Darién Gap: Migrants Risk Death on the Journey to the U.S.

https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-ris...

Yes, the trek is hard for many. But physically hard doesn't imply cognitively hard or selective for cognitive traits. These paths are well trodden and the difficulty is purely physical.

I don’t think anyone knows what factors lead to the next einstein or else we’d have nothing but einsteins coming out of the public school system.

But what about the many skilled laborers who are just as willing to immigrate to the U.S. and other high-income countries? Don't they have at least just as much of a right to try and make it there legally?

Once someone gave me a similar argument in a rather rude utilitarian way: Look at all the white kids in our society. They get all the support they need. Any Einstein in there, we will catch. Adding support want change the outcome much. But look at the immigrant's children. There's so much hidden potential. Adding support has the chance to change the outcome dramatically.

I still have to come to terms with this way of thinking but in a world of limited resources it gave something to think about.

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