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Comment by bsnnkv | Hacker News Reader

I recently posted some of my feelings related to watching the UK post-2019 from the US as a Brit that left as part of the ongoing brain drain.[1]

I received my Green Card since that post and I've booked my flights for a visit to the UK for early next year.

Mostly I just want to share how sad reading this article made me feel this morning.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682030

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Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK, Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the ones bennefiting from a brain drain of americans leaving the country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the United States to foreing talent. I recall someone pitching the "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going to be the new Stanford and MIT.

It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these predictions were. Here in the Valley, I actually noticed an increase in number of international hires coming from commonwealth countries in the last few years.

I've mainly seen Canada be used to park people there who can't immigrate to the US because the system for that is too backed up. Being in the same timezone as SV is pretty helpful for collaboration.

I think that can be true, but from knowing many people that did take that route, I don't think that's a stable kind of immigration though. i.e. people who do that would rather be in the US but couldn't and are often just waiting around for the right opportunity to go back. Some stay forever, sure, but I think the two countries offer entirely different lives, specially for career-driven people.

> two countries offer entirely different lives

Curious about this. Could you please elaborate?

Like, the differences in lives of a software developer in, say Toronto and San Francisco (other than salary)?

Just curious.

There was an interesting reading a while ago, trying to find. It basically boiled down to "The Canadian dream is move to America". Canada is a middle-class, "middle-all", in fact, country with, in my opinion little excitement. But then again, that's just my personal opinion. Factually, yeah, the US offers more purchase power, better salaries and better mobility.

From a quick search would it be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31378415 ?

yeah, exactly.

My point is: if you have to leave the US due to immigration, frankly I'd rather go to Britain than Canada. At least I get an exciting change in lifestyle. Canada is too close to America in what it tries to do but fails. UK is f* up, but at least it's Europe

May be the the first time I’ve heard the UK called “exciting”.

lol. fair. London is still better than Toronto tho.

Yes, the UK has supplied competent people to the world via emmigration for a long time.

One wonders if the average intelligence of the place is going down?

Just to be clear: competent people exist everywhere, in the USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, India, Japan, China, Argentina, Korea, Luxembourg, Sweden, and everywhere else.

What matters is where these competent people want to go.

When people want to leave, that means there's something lacking at where they are currently.

My opinion is that every place must create an environment where their best brains want to stay there (without being forced to, of course!). The whole world could be better due to that.

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