In the movie ID4, the president is told by his military command that there are aliens and that there are artifacts. This is after the spaceships arrive. When the president asks why wasn't I told this (about the aliens), his advisors answer: "Two words. Plausible deniability"
When you look at the H1-B database, you lose plausible deniability.
If you want to take this further (for those of you who are university graduates), look at your alumni/class notes. Feel free to feel envious about the weddings/birth announcements/job promotions/degrees earned. Or maybe even feel condescension. And realize that it all doesn't matter. A person's life isn't just a set of facts, it is their personal impact on the ones they choose to love. The reason why baseball players make millions and why teachers make puny salaries is a question of financial impact. A baseball player through multiple channels (marketing, tickets, television, news) can indirectly affect many orders of magnitude people more than the teacher in their lone classroom teaching twenty kids. (This is why the Khan Academy is so powerful, it scales personal directed learning). If you want to get a more shallow sense, keep reading your class notes until you get to the deaths. Reading about people who are summed up in a paragraph. Life is not a guarantee.
Anyway, realize that salary is just a number and that true wealth is not how much you earn but how long you can maintain your preferred lifestyle without working (savings, ideally mostly passive income). The meaning of life is up to you to define it.
When you look at the H1-B database, you lose plausible deniability.
If you want to take this further (for those of you who are university graduates), look at your alumni/class notes. Feel free to feel envious about the weddings/birth announcements/job promotions/degrees earned. Or maybe even feel condescension. And realize that it all doesn't matter. A person's life isn't just a set of facts, it is their personal impact on the ones they choose to love. The reason why baseball players make millions and why teachers make puny salaries is a question of financial impact. A baseball player through multiple channels (marketing, tickets, television, news) can indirectly affect many orders of magnitude people more than the teacher in their lone classroom teaching twenty kids. (This is why the Khan Academy is so powerful, it scales personal directed learning). If you want to get a more shallow sense, keep reading your class notes until you get to the deaths. Reading about people who are summed up in a paragraph. Life is not a guarantee.
Anyway, realize that salary is just a number and that true wealth is not how much you earn but how long you can maintain your preferred lifestyle without working (savings, ideally mostly passive income). The meaning of life is up to you to define it.