OBAMA WAS TOO SOCIALIST

The Trump administration plans to delay and ultimately scrap a rule that would allow some foreign entrepreneurs to stay in the U.S. and build their companies, according to an administration official citing a final draft of a Federal Register notice.

The International Entrepreneur Rule, the closest the United States has come to the “startup visa” Silicon Valley has long sought, was approved by the Department of Homeland Security in January during President Barack Obama’s waning hours in office. It was supposed to go into effect July 17.

According to the notice, the department plans to push back the rule’s effective date to March. During this time, the department will pursue steps — which include a public notice and comment period — to rescind the rule altogether.

Many in Silicon Valley were looking forward to the rule because currently no straightforward path exists for a foreign entrepreneur to reside in the U.S. while building a company.

The point of the rule was to give entrepreneurs who do not qualify for existing visa programs a chance to stay in the U.S. and grow their businesses. The visas that currently exist, like the H-1B and L-1 programs, also under scrutiny by the Trump administration, are more suited for companies hiring employees or transferring executives from abroad.

Sharoon Thomas until recently ran his e-commerce software startup, Fulfil.io, from an office on Castro Street in Mountain View. The international entrepreneur rule — or any visa tailored toward entrepreneurs — would have helped him stay in the U.S., he said. Instead, Thomas is moving the company to Canada, which he said has more relaxed visa rules.

“We would have preferred to stay in the U.S., but we started looking for alternatives,” said Thomas, 29, who is from India.

In this episode of Let's Make Silicon Valley Great Again, our Dear Leader has delivered swift justice to Sharoon Thomas, banishing this job-stealing entrepreneur to Canada-land.

via Hacker News

After spending his 20s in some kind of haze of middle class ennui searching for spiritual truth Sam finally found the more fundamental, bourgeois truth: New Age spiritualism has nothing on getting filthy rich and famous.

Yet Harris’ claims about his intellectual bona fides are all a fraud. Sam Harris is no neuroscientist, nor is he a philosopher. Harris’ success has not been built on his abilities in either discipline. It has been built on his parents’ wealth, his connections, and a media and audience lusting after the kind of warmongering-but-liberal calls to action that he spouts, touched up with a veneer of intellectual credibility.

Like some kind of Lena Dunham with a man pee pee dongle.

I have no idea who she is, but a quick Google search seems to put her in the center of gender-warrior ****slinging. What's the comparison you're making?

I feel more sorry for someone who's writing lengthy screeds about how unfair it is that certain people are successful because of their connections than I do for Sam Harris. Those things can provide a big step up and make life easier for a person, but they can only get someone so far before the person has to prove that they can actually deliver something of value.

She's someone who's often accused of having a successful career only because of industry connections through her parents.

You know you ****ed up in your career choices when you realize that nobody is paying you to do fMRI imaging of dead salmon emotions.

Of course it is. The author is claiming that Sam Harris is "unworthy" because he didn't "earn" his success for himself. It was "provided" for him as a result of his "privilege".

(All quotation marks are air quotes and are not actually quotations lol)

Maybe you don't think he's his intellectual output is very valuable, but he managed to build a sizable following. That doesn't happen without effort, automatically. It requires the ability to create something people want, or, at the very least, to have the ability to convince people it's in their interest to promote you.

Yeah, we have different definitions of what "valuable" means in this context.

Something like that, yes. I'm certainly not talking about the merits or the sophistication of his ideas.

The entire article (so far as I can tell -- I didn't actually read the whole thing because I got tired of the whining)

I feel more sorry for someone who's writing lengthy screeds about how unfair it is that certain people are successful because of their connections than I do for Sam Harris. Those things can provide a big step up and make life easier for a person, but they can only get someone so far before the person has to prove that they can actually deliver something of value.

Of course it is. The author is claiming that Sam Harris is "unworthy" because he didn't "earn" his success for himself. It was "provided" for him as a result of his "privilege".

(All quotation marks are air quotes and are not actually quotations lol)

Maybe you don't think he's his intellectual output is very valuable, but he managed to build a sizable following. That doesn't happen without effort, automatically. It requires the ability to create something people want, or, at the very least, to have the ability to convince people it's in their interest to promote you.

Something like that, yes. I'm certainly not talking about the merits or the sophistication of his ideas.

The entire article (so far as I can tell -- I didn't actually read the whole thing because I got tired of the whining) is complaining about Sam Harris' undeserved success. I'm suggesting that it still requires talent to be a successful media personality, and that he has the requisite talent. But the actual content of that talent doesn't have much at all to do with being an original or even a very interesting thinker. (I assume what it takes these days is writing things that people hear and think "that's what I was thinking all along, but I couldn't articulate it", being able to develop a strong "personal brand", being photogenic, etc.)

Which goes back to what I was saying before. He may have had connections, but I'd argue that those connections were merely a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for his success.

Something like that, yes. I'm certainly not talking about the merits or the sophistication of his ideas.

The entire article (so far as I can tell -- I didn't actually read the whole thing because I got tired of the whining) is complaining about Sam Harris' undeserved success. I'm suggesting that it still requires talent to be a successful media personality, and that he has the requisite talent. But the actual content of that talent doesn't have much at all to do with being an original or even a very interesting thinker. (I assume what it takes these days is writing things that people hear and think "that's what I was thinking all along, but I couldn't articulate it", being able to develop a strong "personal brand", being photogenic, etc.)

Which goes back to what I was saying before. He may have had connections, but I'd argue that those connections were merely a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition for his success.

So uh how about that healthcare bill?

US shot down a Syrian plane?

No Comey tapes?

RUSSIA??!

Maybe you don't think he's his intellectual output is very valuable, but he managed to build a sizable following. That doesn't happen without effort, automatically. It requires the ability to create something people want, or, at the very least, to have the ability to convince people it's in their interest to promote you.