
The Secret of Immigrant Genius - r4um
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-of-immigrant-genius-1452875951
======
acqq
> (Einstein's) “miracle year” (...) occurred after he had emigrated from
> Germany to Switzerland.

Does the author even know (or does he just want to hide) that Zurich is in a
German-speaking part of Switzerland, and that Einstein surely didn't feel like
an "immigrant" there?

Isn't it annoying reading how Einstein is used by a lot of writers as an
attempt to prove any claim they make?

The claim that Freud's "immigrated" is equally absurd. Wikipedia has the name
and the location of the place where he was born: "Freiberg in Mähren, Moravia,
Austrian Empire." (Now it is in Czech Republic and called Příbor, but it's
still the same place). He just grew up some 200 miles southwest from his
birthplace, right in the capital of the Empire. His father actually brought
him and the family to Vienna as Freud was only 4. He certainly never
remembered any other place and went to all schools in Vienna.

~~~
david-given
> Does the author even know that Zurich is in a German-speaking part of
> Switzerland, and that Einstein surely didn't feel like an "immigrant" there?

That's not _precisely_ true. Zurich speaks German, true, but it's
Schweizerdeutsch --- it's a quite different dialect to the Hochdeutsch they
speak in Germany. I live in Zurich; a German-born work colleague is actually
taking formal lessons in it so he can understand what the locals say. It's
that different.

Everyone here speaks Hochdeutsch too, or at least does now, so Einstein would
probably have gotten along fine, but he most likely wouldn't be feeling like
he was at home.

~~~
DominikR
> but he most likely wouldn't be feeling like he was at home.

I'm an Austrian and yes, the German variant in Switzerland is different but I
would never consider Switzerland as a country or culture where I could
possibly feel estranged.

It's not like you moved as a German to the Ottoman Empire, everybody can
understand you if he/she wants to, the landscape and weather is similar (at
least for Austrians), the culture is very similar and so is the food, sports
(Skiing) and everything else.

~~~
datalist
What you said, plus non-native speakers often strongly exaggerated the
difference between the Swiss dialect and German German (which people usually
refered to as High German).

Yes, it is a strong dialect, but still a dialect. Tyrol, Styria, Salzburg,
Bavaria - heck, even some parts in Germany (despite their tendencies to
eradicate dialects) - have equally strong dialects

~~~
acqq
> even some parts in Germany

My favorite joke video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaXEYkKUuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJaXEYkKUuo)

"70 million people in Germany don't speak Plattdeutsch" (Low German, which is
on the North! More details in my other posts here). Here the bank robber
doesn't, don't ask me which dialect is his.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German)

I wish some native speaker would transcribe these joke videos for us who
aren't.

------
graeham
The article has the causation backwards: being an immigrant does not make one
bold and creative.

Instead, people who are bold and creative are more likely to take the risk of
packing up their lives for better opportunities.

------
datalist
> Freud is a classic case. As a little boy, he and his family joined a flood
> of immigrants from the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian empire to Vienna

Freud a classic case of immigration? Příbor the fringes of the Austrian
Empire? He moved at the age of four 130 miles southwest to the capital. The
Austrian Empire included at that point parts of Ukraine. That is hardly
immigration, let alone a classic case.

> He wore lederhosen and played a local card game called tarock

Neither "lederhosen" nor "tarock" is local to Vienna.

Sorry Wall Street Journal, but please get your facts straight before writing
rubbish. Also, as the article is drawing comparisons to the flow of migrants
right now, it should be noted that the current events are not comparable to
any of the given examples in the article.

~~~
a_bonobo
>Neither "lederhosen" nor "tarock" is local to Vienna.

Vienna had its own tarock type that did not survive WW1: [http://i-p-
c-s.org/pattern/ps-14.html](http://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-14.html)

Lederhosen were once popular all over the Alpine Region, so I'm sure that they
were popular in Vienna, too.

~~~
datalist
> Vienna had its own tarock type that did not survive WW1

It is/was played there, but not exclusively.

> Lederhosen were once popular all over the Alpine Region, so I'm sure that
> they were popular in Vienna, too.

True, in the Alpine regions of Austria, Switzerland and Bavaria they are still
somewhat common, mostly in the rural parts. Vienna has never been Alpine nor
rural.

~~~
a_bonobo
>It is/was played there, but not exclusively.

I don't think the author ever implied that tarock or Lederhosen were exclusive
to Vienna, but that both were common there at the time, so Freud acquired both
to fit in. I think you're reading too much into the text.

~~~
datalist
What I was referring to is that neither is Tarock a local game nor were
lederhosen common in Vienna, both which is implied by the article. That can
come to show how well the author did his research.

------
zamalek
I have a different theory on why this happens, as a potential immigrant
myself: it's a giant sorted hash-set.

My reason for immigrating is simple: in a developed country I'll make more of
a difference with the same amount of effort. My "hash" inclines me to move to
developed buckets (and also privileges me with the means to do so). Take Elon
Musk as an example. If he attempted to start SpaceX in South Africa (his
country of birth) he would have been hemorrhaging capital via the corrupt
government tender process. There is also the added problem of a lacking
employee pool due to the on-going brain-drain. His "hash" landed him in a
developed country and is demonstrably an advantage because of many factors,
including the support of the American government.

I really don't think that immigration changes people; it's merely a tool that
the inspired use to achieve their goals. The anthropic principle could be
invoked here in a contrived way.

~~~
laichzeit0
> There is also the added problem of a lacking employee pool due to the on-
> going brain-drain.

Not to go off topic too much, but it should be noted that in South Africa
there is also an extremely authoritarian form of affirmative action or black
economic empowerment, etc. which effectively means you _have_ to employ people
based on their skin colour when your business reaches a certain size or
effectively you can't do business in the economy. It's a form of justified-
racism directed at a minority group (< 10% of the population is white) that
stifles the labour market and makes things like SpaceX impossible.

The "brain-drain" you speak of is skilled white workers who are leaving the
country because they can't get work or can't advance in their careers, etc. A
completely stupid problem created by the government's own ineptitude.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Unless you can demonstrate that it's actually detrimental to the average South
African, then it's not really a problem or ineptitude is it?

Notably, you didn't even try to make that argument, you were more concerned
with the problems it causes for less than 10% of the population that used to
benefit from an "extremely authoritarian form of affirmative action".

~~~
laichzeit0
Are you telling me you actually hold to the belief that having a policy which
contributes towards driving away skilled professionals because of their race
is a benefit to the average South African?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Yes. A situation in which a large company can't find any roles for 90% of the
population is clearly unsustainable and needs to be fixed. It's apartheid in
all but name. Getting rid of that also had negative consequences for some
individual people, but was clearly the right thing to do, and benefitted the
average South African.

~~~
laichzeit0
Yes because 90% of the population is clearly black engineers, doctors,
scientists, etc. and the only reason they're not being hired is because
they're black and there's some racist conspiracy going on and not because
these people don't actually exist. You can't just "will" a skilled
professional into existence.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If, as you claim, black doctors, engineers and scientists do not exist in
South Africa and the country is > 90% black, then clearly that is a problem
for the country as a whole, and fixing it will improve life for everyone.

One supply-side fix for that is to send more people to school to learn these
skills. One demand-side fix for that is to make sure that the people who have
those skills get jobs.

I can well imagine, that after decades of being systematically excluded from
these positions, the transition will be hard. Unlike you, I'm not rushing to
blame the current government for the impact of decisions that were made many
years ago.

~~~
laichzeit0
What you are describing is racism. You're dressing it up in a way that makes
it justifiable. What you are suggesting is no better than the architects of
apartheid. Good luck building a non-racist society based on selective-racism
as the driving force to "fix it". You can try to rationalize it any way you
want.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
> What you are suggesting is no better than the architects of apartheid

Let's just leave it on that note of hyperbole.

------
thesumofall
Having lived in 4 countries for at least 9 months each over the last 5 years,
I agree with the conclusion of the article but not necessarily with the
underlying reasons. Yes, getting to know a new culture reveals new ways of
thinking and behavior that one would otherwise have missed. But I think more
critically, leaving another place also frees one from the constraints of that
place (be it personally, socially or culturally) It provides opportunity to
rethink ones priorities in life and to dare to do things differently

------
staunch
Immigrant does not mean poor. Often immigrants are the most wealthy,
connected, and educated people from their countries. Poor people are usually
stuck wherever they are.

A more accurate title would be: "The Secret of Rich Genius"

But it's pretty obvious why the elite have such a huge share of success in all
things.

~~~
collyw
As has been pointed out on here before, usually rich immigrants are called
expats.

------
ronotono
I would say moving to another country itself takes lots of courage, and this
can be one of the reasons why some of them can be successful and innovative.

~~~
phillc73
I think it takes more inquisitiveness than courage to voluntarily move to
another country. I'm specifically discounting those who move to another
country as a refugee or asylum seeker.

I've lived in four different countries for periods of 12 months or longer
(including the country of my birth), on three different continents. I don't
think it took or takes specific courage to make such moves, more like an
innate sense of inquisitiveness and lust for adventure. I wanted to experience
different people, cultures and norms.

In someone much smarter than myself, this may help to encourage their genius.
In my case, I mostly just had a good time, but also I believe became a much
more tolerant person.

~~~
sumedh
> I don't think it took or takes specific courage

I am assuming you are from a developed country and probably white which is why
you are saying that. Ask people who are from developing countries who have to
put a major chunk of their life savings to get a resident visa move to a
different country use their savings again till they get a job in their own
domain.

People from developing countries also have to face the humiliation from their
friends and families incase they dont get a job and have to move back.

I think courage is the right word.

~~~
phillc73
Good points and agreed. I did specifically think of and note those refugees or
asylum seekers who do for sure need courage. However, I didn't consider
economic migrants from developing countries. I can see there is courage
required for them too.

------
chipsy
The argument made is a corollary of "openness to experience" indicators for
creativity - just, with immigration, once you make the big leap more of the
new experiences automatically come to you during ordinary life.

If you're already seeing exciting new things happening around you(and they
aren't the same exciting new things everyone else sees), you may be getting as
much of the effect as needed.

------
pervycreeper
Humans are lazy thinkers. We need some impetus to break ingrained patterns of
thought.

------
raverbashing
I suspect it has to do also (in the basic idea of the article) to knowing a
different way of doing things.

Those who are born in one place and keep doing the same things won't know
about ways of doing it differently

The article seems that it's trying a bit too hard though.

~~~
masida
I think that the gist of the article is that you can be more creative (i.e.
come up with ideas that hardly anyone thought of before), if you have more
distance from culture. In other words, people that are deeply entrenched in
culture, can only think of doing things in the way that the culture is doing
it now.

Alan Kay tries to express this concept in his talk "Normal considered
harmful", it may give a different perspective on the same concept.

I think it's very good to point this out in relation to immigration right now.
However, it's just one of the reasons we should be open to immigration:
humanness (brotherhood); a better outcome for both parties ("immigrants" and
"natives") in the long run if we give immigrants a possibility to start a
"normal" life as fast as possible; we can share the workload and may alleviate
the problem of ageing western societies; etc.

------
sklogic
Fusion of different schools of thouht brings unexpected results. Nothing to do
with immigration, but highlights how important it is for the academics to
communicate outside of their tiny local environments.

------
justaaron
they forgot to mention that sometimes an entire nation/city has their head up
their ass and pretty much anyone from outside can see it... i'm not referring
to anyone in particular, so please, no butthurt...

------
Yenrabbit
'Today, foreign-born residents account for only 13% of the U.S. population but
hold nearly a third of all patents and a quarter of all Nobel Prizes awarded
to Americans.' Nearly a quarter is 15% - not much more than 13%. Sensational
writing for a fact that could also be explained by, perhaps, the fact that a
large number of people go to the US specifically for education. The 'one third
of patents' is more interesting, but even then I have to wonder how much of
that is simply people with a dream moving to America to patent their invention
and start a business. I am sure immigration can indeed spark creativity, or at
least select for creative people, but the article reads as just a little too
click-baity for my tastes.

~~~
nmjenkins
Err… a quarter means 25%, not 15%.

~~~
datr
I thought maybe at first GP meant the actual percentage of Nobel prizes
awarded to immigrants was 15% and WSJ was rounding that up to a quarter but it
seems they're actually rounding down. 30.7% of U.S. awarded prizes are given
to immigrants [1].

[1] [http://iir.gmu.edu/research/immigrant-nobel-prize-
winners](http://iir.gmu.edu/research/immigrant-nobel-prize-winners)

