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Comment by grubbydiff | Hacker News Reader

The real rationale for the change isn't fraud at all. Does it make sense that the administration is specifically concerned about fraud regarding hiring in tech sector while at the same time pardoning convicted fraudsters where the victims lose out on billions of dollars?

Does it make sense to declare the "America is full" and deporting people who have been granted asylum while welcoming white South Africans with open arms?

> On the flip side it always surprises me how rabid HN can be about throwing out H1B workers

HN had its mask off moment some time around the 2024 election.

View on HN

HN's shift from a group of plucky Wozniak-like technological enthusiasts to a group of unicorn focused wealth seekers tracked the broader change from engineers being primary staffed with hobbyists to wealth seekers across society.

That change FAR predates the most recent election.

Bravo, and the reason why HN is so nauseating to read nowadays.

> HN's shift from a group of plucky Wozniak-like technological enthusiasts to a group of unicorn focused wealth seekers tracked the broader change from engineers being primary staffed with hobbyists to wealth seekers across society.

This is just what happens when communities get bigger, they become more reflective of the societies which the people are drawn from.

I do remember HN getting much nastier around 2015-16, and again around Covid, but this is just a reflection of society again and unlikely to be a purely HN thing.

If anything, in the 15 (fuck) years I've been hanging out here, it's amazing how well the community has held up.

This website is run by a VC firm...

There was never a mask. People have always cared more about their own country than their supposed political party.

If you made assumptions that turned out to be wrong, that might look like a "mask".

This is not caring about their country, this is caring about their paycheck. They want higher salaries, damned' be what it does to competitiveness. It's nearsighted protectionism, that's what it is.

> They want higher salaries, damned' be what it does to competitiveness.

You're advocating against people seeking higher salaries because that hurts competitiveness? That is competitive behavior in a nutshell.

It's local maxima vs global maxima. Or 10% of small pie vs 1% of big pie, etc. More to the parent's point though, HN demographics have changed just like all other social media. It's not the SF Bay area tech scene anymore; it's a global townsquare like x.com. So it's hard to separate the signal from the noise.

> It's not the SF Bay area tech scene anymore

...or the Bay Area scene has become - or no longer cares to hide its misanthropy, as examplified by senior leadership at YC, a16z and other places telling us how they really feel. Even Paul Graham went mask-off in the afterglow of Trump's second inauguration - February 2025 has some truly wild, victory-lap takes that almost seemed coordinated.

It's also crabs in a bucket.

People should demand lower salaries, god damnit! What happened to the good old-fashioned Mission of the company? In fact that we ask for anything at all to get ahead on our housing and healthcare payments is morally abominable. When did HN get so... germaine. We must serve our corporate missions at any costs, and bring forth the future our Founders promise.

People are too afraid to challenge their billionaire bosses, so they go after immigrants, because immigrants seem like easy targets. It's basic human cowardice underneath.

Going after immigration is challenging their billionaire bosses. Whose bottom line do you think is benefiting from all the cheap labor immigration brings? I don't get how folks got so confused about this in the last 10 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0

Satya Nadella is both a billionaire boss and an Indian immigrant.

So the parent is wrong...?

Mask off about what? Supporting Bernie Sanders' opinion on immigration from 2020[1]?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT2G3wcDMTU

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