Thomas Friedman: “I Am For a High Wall With a Big Gate.” Interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Video. Real Clear Politics, January 9, 2017. YouTube.
RCP Transcript:
TUCKER CARLSON: Technology leads to isolation... It’s easy for us, who are thriving, relatively speaking, in this economy. But the idea that people who are displaced by technology are going to seamlessly or at all find a place in this new order is really hard to believe. You can teach a farmer to run a drill pass, you can’t teach one to write code. Or a cable news host to write code. You just can’t. So what about those people?
TUCKER CARLSON: Technology leads to isolation... It’s easy for us, who are thriving, relatively speaking, in this economy. But the idea that people who are displaced by technology are going to seamlessly or at all find a place in this new order is really hard to believe. You can teach a farmer to run a drill pass, you can’t teach one to write code. Or a cable news host to write code. You just can’t. So what about those people?
THOMAS
FRIEDMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Because my point is I don’t think that we’re
going to be the cutting edge of the jobs. I think the best jobs are going to be
these people-to-people jobs.
Yes,
some people write code. Unfortunately, computers will soon be writing a lot of
our code.
CARLSON:
Exactly.
FRIEDMAN:
I think we’re going to see a whole new set of jobs and industries really around
the heart, connecting people to people, it may be through restaurants, through
entertainment. Think of our generation, how many people are going to need elder
care as the baby boomers retire. So I’m much more optimistic about these new
jobs.
CARLSON:
And I’m glad you’re optimistic. I am not. But I am glad that somebody is. I don’t
understand at a moment of change this profound why you would want to add
demographic and cultural and economic change on top of economic change. And I
know it benefits a small number of employers who want cheaper labor. But why
would you want to let in low-skilled labor, no promise for participating in
this new economy, how does that help anybody?
FRIEDMAN:
My view on openness in general, I say in the book and have always said I am for
a high wall with a big gate. I believe our country has to control its borders.
I’m a big believer in that. But I also believe that what has made America great
is we’ve accrued more high IQ risk takers than any country in the world. And
high-energy risk takers – the lower skilled, the higher the energy. That’s what
made us great.
CARLSON:
Shouldn’t we screen for them? Because our current immigration system says that
if you have a relative you get to come. Shouldn’t we say, wait a second, are
you impressive or not?
FRIEDMAN:
That may be, I’m really agnostic on how we best bring in these people. But what
I would hate to see us do, Tucker, is to close off America as this giant
magnet. We are who we are as a country because we've attracted more of these
risk takers. My great grandparents and somewhere your great grandparents, they
left somewhere bad and came to somewhere they thought were better.
