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> a German programmer of Russian origin I wonder how much of a boom Russia will see from émigrés returning home if the political environment lets up a little
by petesergeant 2y ago
> a German programmer of Russian origin
I wonder how much of a boom Russia will see from émigrés returning home if the political environment lets up a little
- trhway 2y agoNot much. Russia is a country of just 140M people. With wider availability of education/etc. size of population matters more and more.
- cgh 2y agoAnd Russia's demographic crisis is going to get a lot worse, cementing its irrelevency as a world power: https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/03/04/russias-populati...
- riehwvfbk 2y agoSo let's see, Russia's population is 1/2 that of the US and it's irrelevant. But the US population is 1/5 of China's. When do you expect to see irrelevance of the United States as a world power?
- trhway 2y agoRight now US has 156M college educated people, China - has been quickly increasing that number during last 10-20 years and currently reached 218M. Thus we see emergence of China as rivaling superpower. You can look at China's rate of new college admissions and make a reasonable projection when a number of senior (10-15 years of experience) professionals in China will dwarf that in US. >Russia's population is 1/2 that of the US and it's irrelevant. not yet. Quickly moving that direction though. No yet there mostly because of USSR built resources like nuclear weapons, space program, educational and scientific foundations from that time (USSR was an empire of 250M population of proper USSR plus the Eastern Block which in particular produced technology - Bulgarian computers, Hungarian buses, Polish built ships, including Navy ones, etc.) All that in Russia is falling behind and apart.
- riehwvfbk 2y ago156M out of a total ~300M population are college educated?
- trhway 2y agoMy mistake - i used 46% out of 340M from the quick Google search. Actually it is https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/02/01/percentage-of-us-adults-with-college-degrees-edges-higher-finds-lumina-report/# https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/02/01/perc... "The percentage of adults in the U. S. between the ages of 25 to 64 with college degrees, certificates or industry-recognized certifications has increased from 38.1% in 2009 to 54.3% in 2021" so something like 100M. And if we look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... it is more like 70M.
- ekianjo 2y agoCollège education is not a super good proxy for superpower status... Even more so nowadays.
- 082349872349872 2y agoA « collège » being what in the States would be called a "Jr High", probably not. (that said, china seems to have done much better with broad secondary education than india did with targeted tertiary education)
- cgh 2y agoMaybe read the article, Ivan.
- FpUser 2y agoMaybe learn to be civil Joe.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoHey, it's OK, I'm just a bot after all.
- AlexeyBelov 2y agoAre you not? Relatively fresh account that's obviously not "real" (a throwaway), and also discussing Russia in a positive light pretty frequently of all the topics on this site.
- christophilus 2y agoI’m not an expert, but demographic trends are bleak for Russia, not particularly good for China, and only a bit better for the US. Only time will tell what it all means. The world has never seen demographic collapse on the scale we’re witnessing, so people who confidently predict the consequences are speculating. That said, losing super power status seems like a reasonable bit of speculation. I don’t see a path to maintaining it while in demographic collapse.
- protomolecule 2y agoMost likely Stiver emigrated in the 90s for economic reasons -- Russia was in shambles. There are about 11 millions of emigrants of Russian origin [0], but I highly doubt that many will come back even if tomorrow we get a new liberal president. [0] https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/WMR-2022.pdf https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/WMR-2022.pdf
- pk-protect-ai 2y agoHow do you change the political environment in a dictatorship where ruling class has all the power and majority of the money and controls what you should read, watch or talk about?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rob74 2y agoWell, the Russians already tried it once, more than 100 years ago, with limited success unfortunately...
- 082349872349872 2y agoA while ago on HN I said the Cheka learned all their techniques from the Okhrana and people took me literally, even replying to the effect that there was no personnel continuity. What I'd meant is that, having been on the receiving end of all the Okhrana's dirty tricks, and having learned the hard way, the Cheka knew very well indeed how to play those games by the time they were on top.
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- pk-protect-ai 2y agoTo repeat this, there has to be a condition: "the oppressed can't bear it anymore." Economically, they are totally fine. They are just cattle who are fed and expected to behave as the owner requires. Ninety percent of Russians who didn't leave the country after 2021 have no incentive to be in any struggle; they are fed, they have work, they have a roof. The conditions that helped in 1917 were related to an economic disaster that the majority of the population experienced, and this was influenced by the 1st WW as well (which took a huge financial toll on the elites as well).
- 082349872349872 2y ago
- centur 2y agoI don't think it will see any, people moved from Russia not because a single person in power, but because of systemic problems on all levels - kindergartens, schools, police and safety, rights to do a legit business. It's never a head person, it's always a system that been enabled and groomed by a head person or party
- danielodievich 2y agoNobody will go back. One of more interesting experiences from early 2000s in Microsoft was when Microsoft Russia finally crossed 1B in revenue by finally having Gazprom/Sberbank buy all the sh*t that they were pirating before. By doing so, the country was eligible to do the yearly business review in person, instead of over whatever passed for Zoom back then, I don't remember anymore. Olga D...can't remember her last name was the country manager, one of the few women in such position at the time. She invited everyone in russian community (hello rodina email list) to come to the Microsoft conference center in building 34 to listen to repeat of what she did earlier that week to Ballmer. This was the only microsoft event with catered vodka and caviar I've been to, but anyhow, after presentation of the financial stuff it turned a bit into a recruiting event - hey, come back to the motherland, the water is nice, look they are buying software licenses like civilized people, here is the pay scale from levels 61 and up, etc etc. There were ~400 people in the room, and the uptake was 0 (zero). All of us who were there in the room were not there in motherland for a reason.
- throw-the-towel 2y agoYou and your peers remember the Russia of the 1990s, dirt poor, barely avoiding famine, with a completely collapsed society and state. The new emigrants remember the Russia of the 2010s, with classy restaurants, developing infrastructure, cheap housing and whatever consumer goods money can buy, and that's very different. Your experience from 20 years ago does not apply anymore.
- usrnm 2y agoTo be fair, your experience from 5 years ago is just as irrelevant. Russia under sanctions is very different.
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- 2y ago
- cyberax 2y agoRussia has plenty of resources, and is severely under-populated. So yep, it has a huge growth potential. But the political system will have to be reformed first.
- jojobas 2y agoAnd by "reformed", you mean "burnt to the ground, for real this time".
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- jojobas 2y agoWe had the evil establish in the 1917, and pretend-removed in 1991. It was in hiding for a decade and a bit, and it will only get worse from there.
- protomolecule 2y ago[flagged]
- riehwvfbk 2y agoThe ones who think of themselves as "not evil" of course.
- cyberax 2y agoBurning systems to the ground does not work. The end result is almost always worse than before. Russia actually has a rather functional bureaucracy that is holding the country together. All it really needs is decentralization of power, probably similar to the German's model.
- jojobas 2y ago
- selivanovp 2y agoIt's happening already. Like significant part of recent JetBrains struggles with lower quality of their products is due to they had to relocate people out of Russia, and some people just don't like to live abroad. Their Kotlin lead returned to Russia and works in Yandex now. About half the people that relocated during 2022 returned already, and if the war in Ukraine will finally end in 2025 a lot more will return back home.
- 9dev 2y ago> if the war in Ukraine will finally end in 2025 a lot more will return back home. And how do you suppose this will happen? By Trump cutting a deal with Putin leaving Ukraine out to die, or what? The Russian soldiers might return home. The Ukrainians won’t. There won’t be a home to return to, and in many cases, there won’t be anyone left to return.
- selivanovp 2y ago[flagged]
- riehwvfbk 2y agoGenerally speaking, wars tend to end.
- 9dev 2y agoSpecifically speaking, however, we are talking about Russia illegally invading and occupying Ukraine, a sovereign state both Russia and the USA have explicitly declared to keep its territorial integrity intact in exchange for its nuclear weapons. We are talking about this because the president-elect of the USA has curiously exclaimed to be able to ”end the war“ in a single day, and the only way that is possible is by simply sacrificing the country to Russias imperialist urges; that specifically implies millions of people loosing their lives, their home, their language, their history, their families, and their belongings. Wars end, true. Exactly how this war ends is crucial.
- 2y ago