Eric Weinstein On the Secretly Contrived Study Behind the H-1B Program
During his latest appearance on the Joe Rogan Show, Eric Weinstein reveals details about his friendship with Isadore Singer — celebrated mathematician and former chair of the Committee of Science & Public Policy at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). According to Weinstein, his friendship with Singer became strained after confronting Singer about a discovery he’d made that the NAS faked a shortage of scientists and engineers after determining that the cost of employing them was getting too high.
As Weinstein tells it, the NAS in 1986 had conjured up a demographic supply crisis that eventually led to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 which included a new visa type called H-1B. H-1B visas allow U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in certain specialty occupations, but Weinstein views it as a cynical ploy that traded away America’s singular advantage in exchange for cheap labor.
Weinstein confronting Singer about the study led to their falling out, as Singer was unable to reconcile the fact that an institution he played a great part in and obviously admired could be responsible for such deception. Singer died earlier this year at the age of 96.
Weinstein is critical of the H-1B program not only because, as he explains, it made it harder for American scientists and engineers to find gainful employment, but it allowed China to have all the benefits of academic freedom with none of its drawbacks.
By populating American labs with Chinese grad students, the important discoveries being made here at the world’s top universities would find their way to China where they could be utilized without constraints. “They would get the benefits of totalitarianism, and the benefits of our freedom. They’d learn all the stuff we were doing with our freedom, and then they’d go implement and execute with totalitarianism.”
This revelation leads to an interesting back-and-forth with Weinstein and Rogan. Rogan, hearing Weinstein describe Singer as one of the smartest and most decent people he’s ever known, is confused why telling Singer the truth about the study would upset him. I wasn’t so confused because I’ve seen it before and identified it as a serious problem in our society — that humans become so wedded to institutions that they are unable to accept criticism of them, particularly moral criticism.
Personal Industry Bias Breeds Corruption
You can see this with the tax preparation industry which is expected to reach 335,238 workers by 2024. Most people who understand the tax code know that it is rotten to the core and forces Americans to sacrifice a full day of productivity every year come rain or shine with earnings. Yet try talking to someone in the industry about abolishing the IRS or replacing the income tax with a VAT or flat tax. It won’t go well. The tax preparation industry effectively has a few hundred thousand lobbyists dispersed across our 50 states who will defend it against all logic.
Singer, like most other humans, was unwilling to admit that an organization he devoted some significant part of his life to and had come to cherish, was in fact up to no good. Try admitting that about the industry you’re in. None are perfect, but you’ll find that yours is somehow more perfect than others because that’s easier than being honest with yourself and admitting that your life’s work may have actually contributed to a problem. This is how evil acts often continue unabated. Eventually, it’s how you make a third world country.
Weinstein put Singer “in a position where the thing that he loved — the system — had gotten so corrupted that we were going to give it all away to China.” Listening to him talk, it was clear how difficult it was to tell this story about a man he admired (for good reason) so much. I personally don’t know exactly how I feel about the H-1B visa program, but generally speaking I think immigration to the U.S. should be easier, not harder.
Nevertheless, this story, if true, should impel us to at least take a second look. Whatever our feelings on H-1Bs, we should all be grateful that there are a handful of honest people like Eric Weinstein who are willing to tell these stories so that we can, hopefully someday, sort things out. We should also be grateful that in America, we have people like Joe Rogan, unfettered and with big microphones, who are willing to have these conversations. Most of the world doesn’t have such a luxury.
