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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

This is a major foreign aid program by the US. For decades the US has benefited from a so-called “brain drain” as smart people from other countries came to the US to work, or to be educated and then staying to work. Germany sent their best and brightest starting in the 1930s and continuing into the 40s when they induced other countries to do the same. There would be no A bomb without this, for example, nor US moon missions.

GW Bush returned the favor by sending stem cell work to China and Singapore (and to a lesser extent, Europe). Now smart scientists, if they want to work in person with the widest supply of good colleagues, will go to other wealthy countries.

It’s hard to see this as anything good for the world.

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While I understand the angle that the brain drain creates inequality among regions, perhaps it could be argued that it is thanks to those people congregating in few places, and hence there being many of them in the same place, that there have been scientific advances. In other words, had those people stayed in their home countries it's not a given that we would have had more, if any, moon missions.

> Now smart scientists, if they want to work in person with the widest supply of good colleagues, will go to other wealthy countries.

Right. I would say they will go to the countries where other smart people are, which turn out to be wealthy countries.

> Right. I would say they will go to the countries where other smart people are, which turn out to be wealthy countries

Yes, I elides that step. (not in order): Canada, UK, France, Germany, Singapore, possibly Australia. Not a huge change, except improvement in quality of life.

It's interesting phrasing to say that Germany "sent" their best and brightest, as opposed to Germany causing the best and the brightest to flee for their lives, or the US simply arresting and politely kidnapping scientists(ie during Operation Paperclip).

I assumed it was meant ironically.

It was meant ironically but not the part of the US’s benefit from the brain drain. There’s a lot of hysteresis in the system but the current draconian rules will probably drive a lot of research elsewhere, especially when you can live in a wealthy country and not have to put up with the hassles of living in the US.

My guess for the big beneficiaries are Canada (right next to the US, with both Vancouver and Toronto benefiting) and Germany, despite the lack of English.

> There would be no A bomb without this, for example, nor US moon missions. These were mostly German weapons scientists brought to the US near the end of WWII. The alternative was being sent to Russia. Russia was brutal to PoW's so given the chance everybody tried to surrender to US and European troops. Not really regular brain drain that time.

Brain drain always happens from poor to rich countries. Those able to move to greener pastures will, I don't blame them. This is even happening within the US in Illinois. High taxes and precarious government have led to massive migration away from the state. Highest percent of college students going out of state, and average person moving to Illinois makes nearly $25,000 less than average person leaving.

You can't blame people from wanting a better life for their family. In the end it does concentrate wealth, but maybe it will eventually just concentrate the population? This seems to be happening in China, with massive migration to megacities. Rich or poor, the countryside is being abandoned, so there's not many being hurt by the migration, just empty buildings

Interestingly, the scientists I encountered who moved out of the US were ones who couldn’t make it in our rigorous environment.

"Now smart scientists, if they want to work in person with the widest supply of good colleagues, will go to other wealthy countries."

Except there are no such places for the most part.

Europe's economy is stagnant and they are not paying competitively.

China's wages don't remotely compare, it only makes sense in the context of a National who might value their lives their due to family, history, nationality etc. etc..

Germany was rubble in 1945.

America still leads most industries.

There is an easier, less theoretical issue here, and that is the H1B program was a hustle. Infosys and a few others use it to 'inshore' IT talent and that's it. Not R&D by the way.

"It’s hard to see this as anything good for the world."

Actually it's crystal clear: those jobs stay in India where they pay local taxes where they are desperately needed and many more boats are lifted.

> Except there are no such places for the most part.

That's a pretty amazing claim to make. The United States is not the only wealthy country in the world, and does not have the highest standard of living in the world. Western Europe is comparable. I would argue - for many reasons having to do with social solidarity and public goods - that it generally has a higher standard of living than the US. There are lots of other places scattered around the world, like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and don't forget Canada.

> China's wages don't remotely compare

Neither do prices in China. Moreover, as the difference between the US and China narrows, the attractiveness of the US over China as a place to live decreases, and the US will benefit less and less from brain drain out of China. Places like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen already have a GDP/capita of around $25k, and actually feel much more modern than American cities in many ways. I'm sure this dynamic is not unique to China.

The US had an incredibly good thing going for it - the ability to attract the best students and workers from around the world. People just take it for granted that the global tech industry is concentrated in Silicon Valley. Many people believe that if the US restricts immigration, all those tech jobs will remain in Silicon Valley and be redistributed among Americans. That might be the case for a short time, until companies adjust and move operations abroad, to where the labor force is.

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