Tom Guarriello reflects on a George Orwell quote about missing what's in front of us and asks what obvious problems we overlook. He argues U.S. immigration policy after 9/11 makes it nearly impossible for skilled immigrants to stay, draining talent the country needs. He invites viewers to share their own blind spots.
Well, hi guys, it's Tom Guarriello. Back here in lovely Connecticut after a couple of pretty intense weeks of travel, business-related and TED conference-related. And you know, sometimes when I travel, it's good for sort of focusing my mind because it helps me to, you know, think about things that I don't think about in the everyday kind of pace of life. And something happened yesterday during my travels that accomplished that for me and kind of jarred my thinking. And what happened was I was listening to a broadcast of the National Public Radio show Fresh Air, and one of the commentators recounted a quotation from George Orwell, and the quotation was, was this: "To see what's in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." And that really got me thinking because it's kind of related to another one of those kind of cliché sort of old statements, which is "hindsight is 20/20." You know, when we look back on events, boy, they're perfectly obvious. As this George Orwell statement says, you know, but seeing what's right in front of one's nose is a real struggle. It's very difficult because, you know, fish don't know they're wet, and most of us don't see our current circumstances all that clearly. So the question I wanted to ask you today is what are— what do you think we're missing? What do you think is right there in front of our nose that we're not seeing today? And it could be in any kind of area. I'm, I'm, uh, interested in anything that you think we're missing in any of the kind of domains of life. I've got one to maybe just start the conversation going. I think we're missing the obviousness of the the, the foolhardiness of our current immigration policy in the United States. I'm not talking about the illegal immigrants business, you know, with people coming in across the borders from Mexico or whatever. What I think, what I'm talking about is we're missing the tremendous impact that our post-9/11 immigration policies are having on our country. Many, many, many talented people who would like to come here and work here and stay here are finding it very, very difficult, if not impossible, to do so. I've got a couple of personal situations that I know of where that's happening, and I think we're missing the obvious implication of that, which is that a lot of very talented people are going elsewhere rather than America. I'm, you know, ashamedly, unashamedly, you know, American-centric on this issue, but I think, you know, America has grown because of our great history of welcoming immigrants from all over the world to come here and to work and to engage in our system to try to form, to develop, build the kind of lives that people want to build. So that's one that I think is right there in front of our nose that we're missing. And I'm interested in your thoughts. What is right there in front of our nose that we're just not seeing from your point of view? So thanks a lot. Good to be back out here in YouTube-ia and and, uh, you know, voting for the YouTube Awards. Wow, that's a pretty cool thing. So anyway, see you guys soon. Take care. Bye-bye.
