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Comment by inglor_cz | Hacker News Reader

Not everything is about money. The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free.

China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader.

Their cultural insularity does not help either. You can live in China, but you will never be accepted as Chinese. The US was quite unique (together with Canada, Australia etc.) that it was able and willing to accept you as an American even with a funny accent, as long as you wanted to be one.

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Just to add one more point that makes the US attractive to global talent: citizenship. In particular: 1) citizenship at birth and 2) viable path to citizenship via green card.

Of course, both of these are in the crosshairs for “revision”.

It's much easier to get citizenship almost anywhere else in the world than to get it in the USA by green card.

Uh not really? As a comparison, it is almost impossible to naturalize if you decide to work in the two cited examples (China and KSA).

Also, the green card process very much depends on your nationality.

Name 5 wealthy countries (let's say top 30 HDI) where this holds outside of the EU.

Plenty of developed countries limit the easy way to their citizenship to ius sanguinus, and if you aren't a descendant of a previous national, you have to pass stringent language and culture tests.

I don't think you would find a Lithuanian or Finnish language test quite so easy.

We are talking about exceptionally talented individuals, who do in fact have an express path to citizenship.

Are you suggesting that anyone who lives and works here in the US can be accepted as “American”?

Are you also implying that in the US anyone is free to speak negatively of “dear leader”?

There are a multitude of current examples to the contrary.

The comment used the past tense in every sentence

> used to be

Born here.

And yeah, used to. Past tense.

Not any more with der fuhrer.

> There are a multitude of current examples to the contrary.

I see negative opinions of government officials constantly.

It's basically all I see whenever I have the misfortune of turning on the TV.

Have you tried OAN or Fox News?

Many many such negative opinions.

The only difference between channels is which government official is criticized.

> Are you suggesting that anyone who lives and works here in the US can be accepted as “American”?

Whether you're born in Moscow and named Sergey Mikhailovich Brin, or born in Pretoria and named Elon Reeve Musk, or born in Hyderabad and named Satya Narayana Nadella, born in Frankfurt and named Peter Andreas Thiel - America has a place for you. Maybe even your own government department.

In America a man can find acceptance regardless of the circumstances of his birth, and irrespective of race, creed and colour, so long as he has a billion dollars.

America had a place for you.

(Looking at Elon boat photos) Oh, that's what the founders meant by huddled masses!

Does it apply just to billionaires?

> The US was quite unique

Well, based on the current admin and supporters, only part of the US was unique

That is a trivial observation. A nation of such size can hardly be a hive mind with totally homogeneous politics.

You’re right best reserve such observations for small nations like China

Yeah. And? So?

When the part of the country that was less unique took power, they immediately did what everyone else that was not unique did and became unwelcoming of foreigners.

I guess to you other countries that the US is becoming more like would also not be of a hive mind by having people that are welcoming of foreigners. Where's your hive mind comment about that part of the original comment?

Yet China is 3 times as big and you are quite comfortable treating it this way

That has always been true, and for everywhere. However very few countries are anywhere near as accepting for foreigners as the US as a whole despite the many who are not. Canada is just as accepting from what I can tell - I don't know enough about Australia to know. Most other countries are far worse - though many will not admit it just how bad their country is.

Sadly Australia is very welcoming to foreigners until you get about 50km out of the major cities. Our xenophobe political party (One Nation) has had a significant rally in the last few years, to the point where by some measures it is the second largest party.

That's probably all that matters TBH. If you can attract top talent to major cities where top schools, research firms, and companies in general, what does the opinions and attitudes of people 50km away matter?

Ok It probably matters during elections and the policies that lead up to them (must appease the rural vote with mostly symbolic and emotionally wretching anti-immigrant rhetoric) but cities need skilled (and unskilled) labour and when they get what they need they stand to generate a lot of money (re taxes to the policy makers from earlier).

> what does the opinions and attitudes of people 50km away matter?

Well, using Texas as an example, it's those people 50km away that win elections. Of course, gerrymandering helps, but even with large metro areas leaning left, there's enough of those 50km away that swings that lean to the right.

Ignore the people in the rural areas as your own peril

It's the same thing in every country.

Big cities and metropolitan areas are very progressive and welcoming to well educated foreigners, and the countryside is filled with racist idiots who live in fear of something they only know from the television

It’s the same in the US. Proximity to a city correlates strongly with all forms of openness. It holds nationwide. There aren’t really blue or red states, just predominantly urban or rural ones.

I still don’t quite understand why. The contact hypothesis makes some sense but can that explain the whole urban rural divergence?

Rural populations will even vote hard against their own interests in other areas over culture war stuff.

There's more pressure in rural areas to conform in the sense that people know people that can make your time more difficult if you don't. If you get blacklisted in the bush gl finding any work and that's a survival issue. In the city you can walk around anon most of the time and people are more used to others being different. Dump a new high rise of foreigners that don't speak the local language in a metro area and no-one will notice. Do that in the bush and LOL.

The dilution factor is something I hadn’t thought about.

Dump a few hundred foreigners in a town of 5000 and that’s very noticeable and some people will find it jarring. Dump ten thousand foreigners in a metro of three million and nobody will notice.

The point about conformism and exile cost is good too. Cities present endless options for social circles and employment. Little towns not so much.

To expand on this, consider the historic importance of culture for improving survival odds and thus conformism as a natural consequence. So it makes sense that people in smaller groups would exhibit associated tendencies, and also that people who exhibit those tendencies would tend to gravitate towards smaller groups.

Somewhat related recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46989124

To be fair, they're still welcoming to foreigners in the bush, just as long as they're white. Rural Australia has many towns that have a strong Italian or Greek heritage (for example).

One Nation are flat racist rather than xenophobe, I think.

And it's being pushed by our billionaires for some reason. You'd think Gina would want cheap immigrant workers on her mines

The problem with billionaires is that they truly have more money than they need. The only thing left for them to pursue is power. Cheap labor only helps them get more money. Racism on the other hand can be used to justify the destruction of democratic institutions which are a billionaires only competition.

> A CEO, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant sit down together at a table upon which there is a plate of a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, then whispers in the ear of the blue-collar worker "Hey, I think he wants your cookie."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46701886

> The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free.

Yeah, it used to be the that the US only committed ethnic cleansing against people that were here first, not foreigners, and was so welcoming to foreigners that it would expend resources to have them shipped here as property.

We used to teach a nuanced, honest version of history too. Apparently that doesn't happen anymore.

> The US was quite unique (together with Canada, Australia etc.) that it was able and willing to accept you as an American even with a funny accent, as long as you wanted to be one.

Very select parts of the US. Would've thought that the last 9 years taught you that for huge swathes of it, this was never true.

Well, perhaps it is time for large, ethnically-homogenous countries that are on the ascent to adopt diversity policies of the sort that the US was approaching before the "vibe shift"

Canada is largely still homogeneous but still welcoming to immigrants and very close to the US. Rather than China totally changing cultures, I think it’s more likely that US-based companies will have large satellite offices in middle powers.

Canada is not ethnically or culturally homogeneous at all.

Canada is 70% white where the US is close to 50%. That 20% puts them far above the majority line though. Not at all homogeneous, just much more so than the US.

"White" is not one ethnicity or culture -- a lot of that 70% are French-speaking Quebeckers who surely cannot be considered part of a homogeneous mass with Anglo-Canadians.

I’m upvoting you because you’re 110% right but don’t discount how diverse the US is too, without an obvious divider like that. The New Orleans Cajun are also French immigrants, for example.

No, they're not: they're the ancestors of Canadian refugees who were forcibly expelled from what used to be called "Arcadia".

Incase anyone else is a wikipedia searcher like me, want to point out there's no 'R' in the historic colony.

Acadia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadia

Wanted to save other people time searching it up too

White is a color, not a culture. Quebec and Newfoundland are very different than Alberta and Saskatchewan.

I will say that perogies are amazing and were much cheaper in Alberta than Newfoundland so you get an upvote. But don’t discount that this is also true of the white population in the US.

Data at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada

I'm Canadian and unless you're talking about the middle of Saskatchewan I don't know what you mean - no city over a hundred thousand here is homogenous.

I have been in small towns in the Maritimes where people looked shocked to see an Indian immigrant with me, probably for the first time ever. I meant more in relation to the US, though, which is a much more diverse country.

I don’t think diversity policies are what made America diverse.

How could they not be? If people cannot emigrate to the US then they won’t settle there. A relatively open immigration policy absolutely helped make America diverse. I’m pretty sure that’s what OP is referring to, not DEI or whatever the latest boogeyman is.

I don't think open immigration in America's earlier years stemmed from a desire for diversity. It was more like "holy shit we need workers, I guess we can tolerate some Irish and Chinese people if we have to". It seems like a reach to call that a "diversity policy".

Nor did I claim it was. A diversity policy is a policy that increases diversity, whether it is the specific goal or not.

> China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader.

I mean we are literally putting people in concentration camps right now. Kinda hard to take the moral high ground at the moment. Scientists are fleeing the United States for their safety, just like they did from 1930s Germany.

Don't get it twisted. While what is happening is not right, explain to me what happens when there is criticism of China from within China on their treatment of Uyghurs.

The existence of concentration camps in China does not disprove their existence in the United States.

US State Department already asked for social media accounts. Chinese visa applications dont.

America is hostile to science and technology. I'm not sure how anyone with a functional desire to improve humanity decides "Hey, those americans, they sure do deserve better vaccines."

> I'm not sure how anyone with a functional desire to improve humanity decides "Hey, those americans, they sure do deserve better vaccines."

Because people understand that people don't get to choose their government or culture and that everyone deserves better healthcare. Every child who is at risk from the rise of anti-vax 100% deserves better vaccines and ought to bear 0% responsibility for what the adults do.

Lots of folks vote against better healthcare. Perhaps they “deserve” better healthcare regardless as they’re human, but perhaps they deserve the outcomes they specifically voted for. Otherwise it feels a little paternalistic.

> Not everything is about money.

It is when researchers can't make enough money to eat and live, which is an actual reality in the US right now.

Researchers at top institutions often make less than Uber drivers.

There are other countries where you can live on less and the government isn't dipping their hands into your pockets every 5 seconds.

Some people will switch careers, but I do doubt that in an economy with very low unemployment amongst qualified people, any actual scientist will literally starve and become homeless.

Well yea, but I suppose that exceptional molecular biologist can use his potential somewhere else better than as a lower manager in a corporate.

maybe not starve, but should scientists live in poverty?

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