"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops"
I think you are giving too much credit to billion dollar companies that really just want to milk as much labor from poor countries as they can.
Just like a college student working at McDs to get by, the same could apply here. Cost of living is not equal.
I'm not siding with either of you to be clear, just a different perspective. I feel both points are valid and without more information both are also irrefutable
It doesn't follow that because I said you can find people without important work in low-GDP countries, that there is no important work there. If you've ever been in one though, there are always people whose job seems to be "watching a single goat" and would be much better off training AIs to identify cats.