This is already the law with respect to H1B. The problem is that it's not enforced well, and there are many legal tricks to artificially lower the target wage level.

What you and a lot of other people don't understand is that for many of us, H1B visas are the only viable path to a green card. US immigration policy is rather ridiculous in that respect in that it doesn't have a properly designed, dedicated skilled immigration track, the way e.g. Canada, Australia or New Zealand do. So in practice that role is subsumed by the "dual-intent" H1B, where you come into the country on that as a "temp worker", and then get your employer to sponsor you for a green card.

Thus, H1B has two kinds of people lumped together into it: the true temp workers, usually paid low wages, and kicked out as soon as their visa expires; and people who are trying to actually immigrate and using it as a stepping stone. In most other countries, the two pools are separated much earlier on.

As an H1-B from Russia, let me give you the answer:

Because I get paid waaaay more in US (even accounting for cost of living and cost of property). Because this is a more stable and prospering society with crime levels several times less. Because I can actually get into politics here on any level from local to national without risking my neck.

Basically, because the grass is greener on this side of the fence.

It doesn't. It assumes that there is a sufficient number of great programmers who don't want to live where they currently live, and for whom a country like US that is easy for them to move into and that would offer great career opportunities would be very attractive. That is certainly true for pretty much anyone from a third world shithole somewhere in Africa or Asia, and even for many from relatively well off middle class families in Eastern Europe or Latin America.

Now it's true that US is not the only one offering this deal. The main players in the market today are US, Canada and Australia. Of these, US is the hardest to immigrate to and has the most associated red tape and the least clarity; Canada is arguably the easiest. OTOH, US generally offers the best career prospects, and the highest quality of life in terms of how much to earn vs cost of living, so it's still the #1 destination for skilled immigration.

Why don't you let them decide where they want to stay and what they want to improve? They're not slaves, you know.

They can, and do. But when that happens, people start complaining about how those programmers working in India (and hence being paid proportionally to the cost of living there) undercut them. And they also pay their taxes in India, and spend that money there, thereby subsidizing Indian economy. So from your perspective, it's better that those same people are employed in US - where they have to contend with the cost of living here (and demand the appropriate wage), pay income and property taxes here, and spend their earned money here.

Unless, that is, you're one of the people who are complaining about the "curry stench".

Am I the only one who read this initially thinking that "supercharger" meant a pump that forces compressed air into an internal combustion engine?

Not my choice, we got them in a deal with a VC. And I will tell you from experience that they're not all great programmers. A *few* of them were very good programmers, most of them were OK, and a few were very *bad* programmers. Just like everyone else. The idea that the H1B program just brings in technical giants is pure fantasy. This isn't 1980; if a CS genius living in Bangalore wants to work he doesn't have to come to the US anymore, there are good opportunities for him at home..

H1B brings in a cross section of inexperienced programmers and kicks them out of the country once they've gained some experience. I have nothing against bringing more foreign talent into the US, but it should be with an eye to encouraging permanent residency. I think if you sponsor an H1B and he goes home, you should have to wait a couple years before you replace him. Then companies will be pickier about who they bring over.

I have to say, managing a team of H1Bs was very rewarding, not necessarily from a technical standpoint but from a cultural standpoint. Because I had to learn about each programmer on my team and the way things are done in his culture, I think I became closer to a lot of them than I would have to a team of Americans.

Having looked at the XML files they provided, while some are marginally useful, about 1.4 million reply comments are simply dumped into CDATA sections without any consistent formatting or separators. After much regex splitting, it was readily apparent that the downloads they provided were missing about 700k comments. Glad to see they're actually admitting it and may even remedy it.

"HTML guis are complete shit."

Only because those making the HTML GUIs are coders, not UI/UX people.

I've personally never rotated a wrench using friction force. It's always been a pull upwards (bracing) or sideways; sideways pulls are largely done by my body pivoting over some joint (legs, hips, etc.), with gravitational assist. I have, on occasion, lifted myself off the ground.

3D printing will be irrelevant in 500 years.

You produce a socket extender with a bolt head if you need to. Plenty of ways around spatial problems.

Dude, sockets are positive-locking. They're not "the finer part of the tool"; they distribute stress among an entire surface, which is distributed to a round barrel. This is why you can shatter a socket that's slightly wrong (e.g. an 8mm socket on a 5/16 bolt) relatively easily: you have six contact points prying at the weakest part of the socket, instead of a fitted socket providing full contact.

Again: you are quantifying death such that that lead poisoning is not fatal, cigarettes do not kill people, diabeetus doesn't kill people, lack of access to food doesn't kill people, etc. You are supposing that if someone is getting 70% as much food as they need, becomes chronically ill because of it, and dies after 10-15 years of this due to kidney failure, that it's because of kidney failure and not because of starvation (i.e. malnutrition causing degradation of the health of vital organs until they fail).

That is bullshit.

I know you want to cover your eyes and pretend the plight of the poor doesn't exist, and that people are just greedy and lazy assholes who can't even be bothered to get their EBT set up; but the real world doesn't work that way, it's not all roses and butterflies, and it's not cut and dried into geometrically perfect tessellations. The Just World Hypothesis is a piece of shit: people don't get what they deserve, and karma is as real as Santa Clause. Outcomes are the result of a myriad of factors, and sometimes the root cause of a problem is obscured. VERY obscured. That this conveniently allows you to not see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Some of us are just far more intelligent than you, and able to see the whole picture.