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And everyone who could be a good software engineer is succeeding? None of that talent is wasted on excessive obligations, or crime, or malnourishment?

• potatolicious 14y ago
  It's not a zero-sum game. Even if the American school system miraculously stopped failing overnight, and we solve the trifecta that is American poverty-race-criminality instantaneously, it will be decades before the labor force sees the full benefit. We can, and should, be improving the domestic situation - but even going full-bore on that front there is still a gap in labor supply that won't solve itself for decades to come. There is also a national competitive angle here, which is that every talented, highly-paid individual not working in the US is working somewhere else, enriching another economy, paying (copious) taxes to someone else, and nudging the American trade deficit just a bit in the wrong direction. Worst case scenario they're working on things that directly threaten the US (see: space programs, military tech, economically disruptive tech, etc) when they instead could be working for you threatening some other poor country. The most prime example of this at work is the entire history of the US space program.
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]