[colechristensen]

I think it's good for the world and good for America if we don't siphon off the best and brightest from everywhere else, especially more developing countries.

Dangling green cards in front of the most motivated people from other countries is not better than actually working to develop our own talent, which we're doing an awful job at. Think of how things would be if school funding was something being demanded by industry to develop the best candidates. Instead we have the lucky few and a bunch of people who feel very rightly left behind.

[davidw]

> siphon off

These are people we are talking about, with agency, capable of making their own choices in life, not some inanimate "resource". If they want to come to the US, I'm a "grow the pie" guy.

[JumpCrisscross]

Also, if they come here and better themselves, they’re going to produce goods and services that make the world better off. And if they return, they have more to contribute.

[ThrowawayR2]

> "Think of how things would be if school funding was something being demanded by industry to develop the best candidates."

It would be pretty much the same because you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

[programmarchy]

It's not an either-or, though, is it? Why can't we both improve developing the native population and siphon the best and brightest from everywhere else?

[jltsiren]

I think the biggest reason why America depends so heavily on foreign talent is culture. America is culturally a country of middlemen. Being a middleman (such as an administrator, a lawyer, a consultant, or many roles in finance) is more lucrative than doing fundamental work, and the social status of middlemen is higher. Too many Americans become middlemen, and then they hire foreign talent to do the actual work.

[tourmalinetaco]

That’s absolutely not a result of American culture, if anything every American is taught to be the CEO, the big man, the Steve Jobs. In reality it’s multinational business interests that push everyone to become middlemen as that’s cheaper. We moved most of our factories to asian countries, making most forms of American enterprise glorified dropshipping because we can use slave labor there. We import tons of office labor, especially tech jobs, from countries like India, where again it is cheaper. And the legal structure of so many sectors are essentially built to remove jobs from Americans (take for instance the federal limit on US-based doctors).

[jltsiren]

Everyone wants to be on the top, but their real preferences are revealed by the choices they make. Americans are less likely to study STEM than people in other developed countries, while foreign students in American universities prefer STEM fields. And when there is not enough domestic STEM talent, even with the help of foreign students, American businesses import foreign talent.

[firesteelrain]

I understand the sentiment. US has a lot of capital to spend on talent compared to poorer countries. US provides a lot of opportunities that normally would not be available to them. And the US benefits