6 ms·

There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary: * English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will

There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary: * English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will speak a world language. * Racially and culturally diverse cultures, cuisines, and communities. * Exposure to goods from most of the world, even if marked up. * Availability of international franchises headquartered in other countries in major metros. * A strong passport that offers visa-free travel to many locations and very favorable visa terms in many others. and more. My partner and I are (different) Asians and the higher-skilled members of our family who wanted to emigrate mostly rejected Europe because of non-English language instruction and honestly just feeling racially uncomfortable in most of Europe. I have some family in Germany (who like it there) so it's obviously not impossible, but European ethnostate thinking is just unattractive to a lot of non-Caucasian talent. Canada, UK, and Australia are not like this and have potentially a lot to gain if the US kneecaps its research bureaucracy.

jillyboel 2y ago
[flagged]
77pt77 2y ago
[flagged]
- Spivak 2y ago
  I don't know what to tell you, if you think the cuisine available in the US isn't great it's because you aren't looking. The "tossed salad" nature of the country comes out in full force to create a food scene that holds its own against anywhere in the world. Even if you restrict yourself to classic American cuisine the food is still world class. One of my absolute favorite things to do any time a friend from overseas who only knows American food from our media portrayal comes to visit is to take them out to eat and watch their eyes light up. The best reaction I got was from a UK friend I met on WoW— "good lord I see why you're all so fat" said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. If there's one thing America can do it's cook.
  - logifail 2y ago
    > Even if you restrict yourself to classic American cuisine the food is still world class [...] > [...] said through a mouthful of cheeseburger > If there's one thing America can do it's cook FWIW, a variety of other opinions exist :)
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      Incidentally, our President today really likes his cheeseburgers. I don't blame him.
  - underdeserver 2y ago
    Uhh, if you're comparing to the UK, maybe. Walk into a random restaurant in any big city in the US and you're going to have a bad time. Walk into a restaurant in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Seoul, Tokyo, Lisbon, the food is going to be much better. Maybe at the top, the very best restaurants, the US holds its own. But the standard for the average restaurant is low.
    - yubblegum 2y ago
      I worked at a village next to Geneve and the local restaurant was really good considering the price and location. (Cafe American in the city for the rack of lamb which is exquisite -- if they are still there; this is circa 2000)
    - Spivak 2y ago
      I don't disagree with this assessment at all, the food at a randomly chosen restaurant in Paris was better than randomly choosing in the US. I had the same experience in Prague. Not usually "wow" but far from disappointing. But I've lived my whole life with the mantra that 90% of everything is shit so mediocre food places existing anywhere doesn't affect my read of the scene overall. It's not usually the "top" restaurants that are the best in the US, I take people to dives, little holes in the wall, and greasy food trucks that just happen to be where some artisan decided to hone their craft. The place that cheap plastic tables and still has a line every day.
- bakuninsbart 2y ago
  > The USA passport is far from a strong passport. Plenty of better alternatives elsewhere. Also, that implies getting citizenship, a 5 year ordeal. This depends on the metrics chosen to evaluate. My german passport offers significantly more visa free travel options, but the German government is notorious for not really giving a shit about citizens getting stuck in crisis abroad. For example when the Sudan civil war broke out, Americans were evacuated in a pretty crazy and expensive military operation, while Germans were told to buckle up and keep their heads close to the ground...
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > Americans were evacuated in a pretty crazy and expensive military operation Which is a great marketing stunt that most countries (Germany included) couldn't afford, but otherwise, how often does it actually happen? I doubt they're spooling up Black Hawks to evacuate tourists every time there's a crisis somewhere.
    - surfaceofthesun 2y ago
      It's not that the US will respond to every crisis, but that it's much easier to do so when you have resources nearby. Flashy rescue missions help justify the infrastructure and logistics networks that support such a sprawling military footprint. Also, humans are notoriously poor at thinking about low-probability, high-impact events.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    I don't have the links on me, but there were other crises where Europeans were quickly evacuated but the Americans dragged their feet, so it's more case by case than you make it seem.
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      Fukushima in Japan. France chartered planes when no one knew how bad it was. Americans were just looking with envy. I know of one case where they just married so that the spouse could be evacuated.
- dang 2y ago
  If you keep posting swipes and flamebait, as in your first sentence here or "shut up forever" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949095, we're going to have to ban you. We've had to ask you this more than once. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
lrem 2y ago
Eh, that's not a unique set of strengths. In any European country I know about (at least a dozen) you can get all-English education from kindergarten to PhD. In some for free, in some that's paid, but probably not as expensive as in the US. Everything is really rather a matter of tradeoffs and bang-for-the buck rather than categorical differences. Some European passports offer more access, but without the downsides of the US one. The only matter in which I don't know how to compare is the racial issues, but I hear the US is not exactly free of those either.
- AdamN 2y ago
  I dunno - I'm in Berlin and my kids go to a private school for English education. I don't think somebody who couldn't afford it and wasn't a native English speaker would be getting English without parental effort before 4th grade. Also in the area I'm in plenty of people don't speak English - I just went to an eye doctor and they didn't speak English although to be fair that's the first time it's happened to me in 2 years.
tormeh 2y ago
Canada and Australia are immigration nations. The UK definitely is not.
- booleandilemma 2y ago
  The national dish of England is chicken tikka masala, last time I checked.
  - eastbound 2y ago
    Most common first name in France is Mohammed. I really don’t understand what he means with immigration, unless he means he wants mostly-Asian immigration because others are a problem.
    - daemoens 2y ago
      That factoid is because Muslims are obsessed with the name, and you will find someone named Mohammed in the majority of Muslim families, not immigration. It doesn't take much for the name to enter the top 10 boy names when they become 0.1% of the population.
- volkl48 2y ago
  Historically/as national origin story, no. But it has in recent decades accepted quite a large number of immigrants, and is at this point at a higher foreign-born % than the US, if still lower then Canada or Australia. That's not quite the same as having a culture rooted in the immigration narrative, but it has changed significantly. And I'll also mention that while integration of significant immigration into an existing society is clearly a challenging prospect everywhere, the UK is overall, doing noticeably better with it than most of it's European peers. Both from my subjective perspective as a somewhat regular visitor, and from a lot of the metrics I see. This is a decent piece for the data side of that claim: https://samf.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-integration https://samf.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-integration
coliveira 2y ago
Most of these perceived advantages are not unique to the US. I think there are only two things that still make the US more attractive nowadays: higher salaries and more jobs available to immigrants than in other places. If these two things disappear, the whole proposition starts to fall apart.

jillyboel 2y ago

[flagged]

77pt77 2y ago

[flagged]

Spivak 2y ago
I don't know what to tell you, if you think the cuisine available in the US isn't great it's because you aren't looking. The "tossed salad" nature of the country comes out in full force to create a food scene that holds its own against anywhere in the world. Even if you restrict yourself to classic American cuisine the food is still world class. One of my absolute favorite things to do any time a friend from overseas who only knows American food from our media portrayal comes to visit is to take them out to eat and watch their eyes light up. The best reaction I got was from a UK friend I met on WoW— "good lord I see why you're all so fat" said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. If there's one thing America can do it's cook.
- logifail 2y ago
  > Even if you restrict yourself to classic American cuisine the food is still world class [...] > [...] said through a mouthful of cheeseburger > If there's one thing America can do it's cook FWIW, a variety of other opinions exist :)
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Incidentally, our President today really likes his cheeseburgers. I don't blame him.
- underdeserver 2y ago
  Uhh, if you're comparing to the UK, maybe. Walk into a random restaurant in any big city in the US and you're going to have a bad time. Walk into a restaurant in Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Tel Aviv, Seoul, Tokyo, Lisbon, the food is going to be much better. Maybe at the top, the very best restaurants, the US holds its own. But the standard for the average restaurant is low.
  - yubblegum 2y ago
    I worked at a village next to Geneve and the local restaurant was really good considering the price and location. (Cafe American in the city for the rack of lamb which is exquisite -- if they are still there; this is circa 2000)
  - Spivak 2y ago
    I don't disagree with this assessment at all, the food at a randomly chosen restaurant in Paris was better than randomly choosing in the US. I had the same experience in Prague. Not usually "wow" but far from disappointing. But I've lived my whole life with the mantra that 90% of everything is shit so mediocre food places existing anywhere doesn't affect my read of the scene overall. It's not usually the "top" restaurants that are the best in the US, I take people to dives, little holes in the wall, and greasy food trucks that just happen to be where some artisan decided to hone their craft. The place that cheap plastic tables and still has a line every day.
bakuninsbart 2y ago
> The USA passport is far from a strong passport. Plenty of better alternatives elsewhere. Also, that implies getting citizenship, a 5 year ordeal. This depends on the metrics chosen to evaluate. My german passport offers significantly more visa free travel options, but the German government is notorious for not really giving a shit about citizens getting stuck in crisis abroad. For example when the Sudan civil war broke out, Americans were evacuated in a pretty crazy and expensive military operation, while Germans were told to buckle up and keep their heads close to the ground...
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > Americans were evacuated in a pretty crazy and expensive military operation Which is a great marketing stunt that most countries (Germany included) couldn't afford, but otherwise, how often does it actually happen? I doubt they're spooling up Black Hawks to evacuate tourists every time there's a crisis somewhere.
  - surfaceofthesun 2y ago
    It's not that the US will respond to every crisis, but that it's much easier to do so when you have resources nearby. Flashy rescue missions help justify the infrastructure and logistics networks that support such a sprawling military footprint. Also, humans are notoriously poor at thinking about low-probability, high-impact events.
- kalleboo 2y ago
  I don't have the links on me, but there were other crises where Europeans were quickly evacuated but the Americans dragged their feet, so it's more case by case than you make it seem.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    Fukushima in Japan. France chartered planes when no one knew how bad it was. Americans were just looking with envy. I know of one case where they just married so that the spouse could be evacuated.
dang 2y ago
If you keep posting swipes and flamebait, as in your first sentence here or "shut up forever" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949095, we're going to have to ban you. We've had to ask you this more than once. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

lrem 2y ago

Eh, that's not a unique set of strengths. In any European country I know about (at least a dozen) you can get all-English education from kindergarten to PhD. In some for free, in some that's paid, but probably not as expensive as in the US. Everything is really rather a matter of tradeoffs and bang-for-the buck rather than categorical differences. Some European passports offer more access, but without the downsides of the US one. The only matter in which I don't know how to compare is the racial issues, but I hear the US is not exactly free of those either.

AdamN 2y ago
I dunno - I'm in Berlin and my kids go to a private school for English education. I don't think somebody who couldn't afford it and wasn't a native English speaker would be getting English without parental effort before 4th grade. Also in the area I'm in plenty of people don't speak English - I just went to an eye doctor and they didn't speak English although to be fair that's the first time it's happened to me in 2 years.

tormeh 2y ago

Canada and Australia are immigration nations. The UK definitely is not.

booleandilemma 2y ago
The national dish of England is chicken tikka masala, last time I checked.
- eastbound 2y ago
  Most common first name in France is Mohammed. I really don’t understand what he means with immigration, unless he means he wants mostly-Asian immigration because others are a problem.
  - daemoens 2y ago
    That factoid is because Muslims are obsessed with the name, and you will find someone named Mohammed in the majority of Muslim families, not immigration. It doesn't take much for the name to enter the top 10 boy names when they become 0.1% of the population.
volkl48 2y ago
Historically/as national origin story, no. But it has in recent decades accepted quite a large number of immigrants, and is at this point at a higher foreign-born % than the US, if still lower then Canada or Australia. That's not quite the same as having a culture rooted in the immigration narrative, but it has changed significantly. And I'll also mention that while integration of significant immigration into an existing society is clearly a challenging prospect everywhere, the UK is overall, doing noticeably better with it than most of it's European peers. Both from my subjective perspective as a somewhat regular visitor, and from a lot of the metrics I see. This is a decent piece for the data side of that claim: https://samf.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-integration https://samf.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-integration

coliveira 2y ago

Most of these perceived advantages are not unique to the US. I think there are only two things that still make the US more attractive nowadays: higher salaries and more jobs available to immigrants than in other places. If these two things disappear, the whole proposition starts to fall apart.