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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder about when people emigrate their way out of a problem country, doesn't it just leave behind people who are too complacent, too poor or too uneducated to enact real change?

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Yeah, welcome to Eastern Europe. Everyone who can, leaves, then they badmouth the country for not changing/advancing enough. Who tf is supposed to do that? The farm workers left behind? Or the politicians who have zero interest beyond their own pockets?

And risk ending up in jail, murdered or dying poor? One may love their country but loves their life/family more.

I don't know where you're from but if you're from postsoviet countries you should know how freaking difficult it is to oppose the system and, in case of Russia, also dangerous.

Much the same can be said about America's own heartland. I got out as soon as I could afford enough gas to make it across the physical, ideological, and mental borders.

Somebody else can stay and "advance" things. Life's too short.

It would seem many have tried to enact change in Russia in the past, often with less than positive outcomes. Sometimes the only reasonable thing you can do for your life is leave.

That's what the "brain drain" idea is about. These days, it's not just about the problems caused when doctors, scientists and the like emigrate, it's also about what happens when civics-literate people, activists, journalists etc. decide to throw in the towel as well.

YOLO. It takes too much time to change something in the whole country. Almost no one wants to trade a decade of their own lives to fight windmills.

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