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1245 points mriguy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | 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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mcmcmc ◴[] No.45306451[source]
> 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.

This is a double edged sword given that it means there’s less incentive to invest in US public education and fostering our own talent. Instead of brain drain we’re dealing with brain rot.

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1. xp84 ◴[] No.45307549[source]
A hugely overlooked point. If FAANG etc want talented people, and couldn't hire H1Bs, they might have more of an incentive to try to influence education and to train people with aptitude but lacking learnable skills.

As of now, both the K12 system and college education seem in freefall in terms of quality and applicability to careers. No doubt those companies will devote their money to lobbying to keep hiring H1Bs instead of training the talent they need here, since they're just profit-optimizing functions, rather than humans with morals.