4 ms·

It is quite a puzzle. I have spent some time thinking about it however the only solution I reach seems conspiratorial. To me, it seems obvious that every finan

by alva 9y ago

It is quite a puzzle. I have spent some time thinking about it however the only solution I reach seems conspiratorial. To me, it seems obvious that every financially successful (through merit or otherwise) and well educated person you can draw into your country, the better. If such a person makes your country home, the likely-hood of them contributing to the economy is high. Despite this, emigrating to the US from Western Europe is extremely arduous. Either you are transferred via a multinational facing high competition for the place or you enter the lottery alongside others who won't necessarily contribute as much as you are able to. The incentive for a nation such as the US seems perfectly apparent from the outside. Grab the best and brightest from countries with excellent education and similar cultural backgrounds in exchange for citizenship. When there is so much demand, why not? Seems to only be a win. I cannot help but think that western nations have entered some sort of pact (as many SV companies did) in regards to non poaching. Each country wants to keep their best, so some agreement (formal or otherwise) is reached to prevent mass exodus to one.

Banthum 9y ago
It is a mystery. I don't think it's some grand thought-out non-poaching agreement, though. I think you have to break it down to domestic politics. The left wants to maximize multiculturalism. This has become a sort of fundamental value to that tribe (rather than a means to an end), and their fundamental anti-value is racism/xenophobia/intolerance of anyone not white-Christian. So that tribe will resist any hint of an attempt to selectively immigrating people from culturally or racially similar countries, because such immigration actually threatens to reduce multiculturalism, which to them is a fundamentally evil thing. So they'd call it racist. In addition, even just choosing people for wealth or intelligence or English skills, you'd end up with a big cultural/racial skew towards white people (compared to the world population), so the left would call it racist for the same reasons. Those on the right might be happy with such immigration, but it's too difficult of an argument to make and it's too easy for the left to call them racists if they suggest anything like it. So as a proxy, they tend to argue for reducing all immigration. I must be missing a lot of the details but I think it's some sort of political compromise/deadlock like this.
sorokod 9y ago
In which case you need to re-examine the assumption that government policy is dominated by national interest. You can reverse engineer the government's motivation by looking at the policies it seeks to introduce and asking your self what worldview would motivate such policies. There's a nice little ML project.

by alva 9y ago

Banthum 9y ago

It is a mystery. I don't think it's some grand thought-out non-poaching agreement, though. I think you have to break it down to domestic politics. The left wants to maximize multiculturalism. This has become a sort of fundamental value to that tribe (rather than a means to an end), and their fundamental anti-value is racism/xenophobia/intolerance of anyone not white-Christian. So that tribe will resist any hint of an attempt to selectively immigrating people from culturally or racially similar countries, because such immigration actually threatens to reduce multiculturalism, which to them is a fundamentally evil thing. So they'd call it racist. In addition, even just choosing people for wealth or intelligence or English skills, you'd end up with a big cultural/racial skew towards white people (compared to the world population), so the left would call it racist for the same reasons. Those on the right might be happy with such immigration, but it's too difficult of an argument to make and it's too easy for the left to call them racists if they suggest anything like it. So as a proxy, they tend to argue for reducing all immigration. I must be missing a lot of the details but I think it's some sort of political compromise/deadlock like this.

sorokod 9y ago

In which case you need to re-examine the assumption that government policy is dominated by national interest. You can reverse engineer the government's motivation by looking at the policies it seeks to introduce and asking your self what worldview would motivate such policies. There's a nice little ML project.