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Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
219 points thisisit | 4 comments | 11 Jan 18 16:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.87s | source
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asabjorn ◴[11 Jan 18 19:41 UTC] No.16127096[source]▶
I am a Norwegian in Silicon Valley that have spent most of my career with Chinese colleagues, both in academia and industry, and my anecdata seem to indicate that my highly talented China-born colleagues are sadly leaving because;

- China has great opportunities for riches

- Getting a US VISA is hard and painful when you come from a populous country like China or India

- My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

Only the first reason is somewhat objective, while the two others cause stress in their daily life as their ability to provide can at any time be removed due to what is perceived as arbitrary reasons. Everything being equal, many of them have told me they would prefer the less crowded Silicon Valley.

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drb91 ◴[11 Jan 18 20:10 UTC] No.16127351[source]▶
> My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

What exactly does this mean? Are they evangelical baptists, libertarians, reactionaries, nationalist, homophobic, misogynist, racist, anti-atheist, pro family-values, pro corporation, skeptical of global warming, pro fossil fuel energy, war hawks, or something else altogether? It's really quite difficult to interpret your statement as anything meaningful without clarification, and there are ten thousand different ways to be "conservative".

And to be clear, "conservative" is anything but a dirty word or something I'm trying to critique here--just a context-sensitive one. It could be a pejorative or a value.

Otherwise it doesn't add much to the conversation--it is itself a reactionary statement.

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1. asabjorn ◴[11 Jan 18 21:03 UTC] No.16127828[source]▶
Before I continue I would like to preface that personally I am a classic Norwegian social liberal that fight for people right to speak and a sense of justice, regardless of which group you belong to (e.g. social justice warriors, conservatives, liberals, flat earthers etc).

I do not find it useful at all to try to list out the views that are not tolerated as there is no way that you can reduce a huge population groups opinions into neat categories, people can hold both conservative and liberal opinions as well as everything outside those at the same time, and I believe doing so would distract from the real conversation which is the intolerance.

There are also plenty of leaked examples of how people with other opinions are treated to even shock me that generally agree with the predominant view, and I encourage you to look it up and form your own opinion. I also think people like Tim Ferris and several in the YC leadership amongst others have made salient points on how Silicon Valley has become intolerant of anything but the predominant views, and how it is hurting our competitiveness.

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2. surfmike ◴[11 Jan 18 22:24 UTC] No.16128616[source]▶
Although there is a certain culture of political correctness in Norway too, I find that people are far more civil and respectful when encountering people with different political beliefs
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3. asabjorn ◴[11 Jan 18 22:29 UTC] No.16128667[source]▶
In Norway I have not observed a propensity to seek extrajudicial measures or ostracisation of people that hold opinions different from the predominant view. Have you seen that?
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4. surfmike ◴[12 Jan 18 00:50 UTC] No.16129503{3}[source]▶
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or alluding to some other country; just saying I generally find Norwegians much more civil toward people whose views they disagree with.