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1245 points mriguy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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roughly ◴[] No.45306289[source]
I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

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1. vovavili ◴[] No.45306815[source]
Taking the well-being of abstract concepts like a country over the well-being of concrete individuals is a slippery road towards a particularly unappealing version of collectivism. Me emigrating from Eastern to Western Europe was among the best decisions I have made in my entire life, and I couldn't care less if the outcome of this is my country doing "worse". My country by itself doesn't feel nor think anything, but I certainly do. One of these thoughts is me not believing that I have a civic duty to be less well-off materially and mentally just so my taxes get re-routed to a country I accidentally happened to be born in. I vote with my feet.