Comment by epicureanideal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by epicureanideal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

One counter-argument to this would be:

A nation with a 10x higher per capita of truly productive scientists and engineers (with a well functioning R&D system that wasn't just publish-or-perish or other friction that reduces efficiency) would perform roughly as well as a nation with 10x the population. Somewhat but not perfectly analogous to how some countries invest more, or more wisely in their military budget, and have equivalent military power as much larger countries.

So if the UK invested such that it had 10x the per capita scientists and engineers, let's say 10% of the population vs 1%, then it could compete with a nation of 680 million.

If it also invested more wisely in capital equipment, business efficiency, legal efficiency, and so on, it might be able to get further multipliers and compete with the biggest economies in the world.

> So if the UK invested such that it had 10x the per capita scientists and engineers, let's say 10% of the population vs 1%, then it could compete with a nation of 680 million

With the equal outcome approach taking over universities and sciences being considered the unfashionable stream unlike East Asia, how would you do this?

Even if you are able to, why won't these trained people just leave for US when they realise they are compensated more and taxed less there?

> With the equal outcome approach taking over universities and sciences being considered the unfashionable stream unlike East Asia, how would you do this?

Clearly that approach is harmful and is preventing the economic development of nations, which in turn harms those who need assistance because there’s a smaller tax base.

But as other nations 'catch up' and turn out productive scientists and engineers in similar ratios, the disparity in the denominator becomes overwhelming. E.g. China.

This sounds like a win-win. No need to imply it is a zero sum competition.

To add an example. Israel with 9.3 million population has more productive scientists and engineers than whole continent of Africa with 1.2 billion population.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com