[jaysonelliot]

Despite the headline CBS gave the article, it seems the problem is not with happiness, but with the seductive appeal of materialism and the effects of exposing one culture to another.

Social comparison theory is the idea that our satisfaction with what we have isn't an objective measure, but is actually based on what we see other people have. Young people generally seem to have an innate desire to leave their hometowns and seek out what else might be waiting out there for them. When you add in globalization and media influence exposing them to what looks like a "better" life with more things, it's not surprising that they've seen ~9% of young people leave Bhutan.

The other question is, what will happen if Bhutan does increase their financial wealth as well as their happiness? Will they then see a net influx of people through immigration, looking for the lifestyle Bhutan promises? And will those new people be able to maintain the culture Bhutan has cultivated?

It sounds like the concept of Gross National Happiness is a successful one, on its own, but it brings new challenges that couldn't have been forseen originally. That doesn't mean they can't solve them without giving up their core values.

[cardanome]

Nah, the issue is the one that many developing countries suffer from: brain drain.

The best people leave the country because the can earn orders of magnitude more money in the developed world. This is why countries like the US keep being so successful while developing countries stay poor.

It is just the rational best decision for a young people to try their luck abroad and earn more money that they could ever dream of in their home country. Why shouldn't they? Idealism? There is nothing wrong with striving for a better life, it is what moves humanity forward.

Offering great and free education will always backfire for developing nations.

The solution is to either keep the population ignorant, hamstringing their education so they are less useful abroad and implementing a strict censorship regime so they don't get "corrupted" by the West or well force them to stay.

We saw that all play out in the Soviet Block. There is a good reason there was a wall.

I think the fairest solution is to NOT make education free but instant offer a deal of having to stay in the country and work for X-years in the profession one has been trained in by the state. Once they get older and settle down they are less likely to leave anyway.

Being a developing country just sucks. There is a reason most never break the cycle of poverty.

[FLT8]

This reminds of the corporate adage: "You can choose to invest in your people and run the risk that they leave, or you can choose not to invest in your people and run the risk that they stay".

It seems to me that the smartest people would be far more motivated to leave a country where they are unable to find other people like themselves to collaborate with.

And they'd be far more likely to come back in future and reinvest their overseas earnings in a country that they felt warmth towards than one that had forced them to play life in hard mode and was actively hostile towards them.

[fuzztester]

>This reminds of the corporate adage: "You can choose to invest in your people and run the risk that they leave, or you can choose not to invest in your people and run the risk that they stay".

Yes. I've seen it like this in a LinkedIn post:

CFO to CEO: What if we train our people, and they leave?

CEO to CFO: What if we don't train them, and they stay?

[vondur]

My wife worked for a company that really trained their sales people. However, they also payed very poorly compared to their peers. So people would get trained stay for a year and then go to another company that was happy to such well trained employees and pay them better.

[Wolfenstein98k]

A charity running a company as the front.

[doubleg72]

Or any rural hospital

[slt2021]

thats basically AWS

[MichaelZuo]

There’s another option, spend huge amounts to hire the very best and don’t provide any training.

That’s what the top end hedge funds do with seven figure starting compensation.

[snapplebobapple]

That comp uaually iant gauranteed. Itsusually some decent base salary and a bonus based on some foemula around performance

[MichaelZuo]

It is practically guaranteed for all the prospective super geniuses working there for the first year, because the bar is set to be intentionally easy relative to their potential. Sometimes it is even literally guaranteed in writing for the most desirable hires.

[tsimionescu]

> And they'd be far more likely to come back in future and reinvest their overseas earnings in a country that they felt warmth towards than one that had forced them to play life in hard mode and was actively hostile towards them.

A country can't live off a few expats making it big. It doesn't need investors so much as it needs doctors, good administrators, good managers, good financiers, good builders, good plumbers and so on.

Sure, this requires money, but just coming in and throwing money at a country dominated by idiots won't make anything better, it will just lead to corruption. Idiots in positions of power actively discourage better people coming in even more so than a lack of resources. It's one thing to take a low paying job to hope to improve conditions for your parents and extended family. It's another thing to fight with a boss who has no idea what they're doing but still thinks they're better than you every single day. Plus idiotic regulations from others like him in other places of the administrative state.

[FredPret]

I'm part of the brain drain from my developing country-of-birth.

It's more than just money. To me, the money is a symptom of the real issue.

The real issue for me was the culture that exists in my birthplace. It just isn't welcoming to nerds or rich people. It doesn't lend itself to ever becoming developed.

When I compare and contrast to the New World: I find a much more welcoming culture that encourages personal progress. And not only are nerds welcome, but all sorts of productive folk. It's absolutely no surprise to me that the US is outperforming the rest of the world economically to a comical degree.

[dayvid]

Yes, I've traveled to a good amount of countries and the overwhelming corruption or culture which doesn't support fair enterprise is soul crushing. You can say America has it to some extent, but in a lot of places you really don't have a chance at all unless you're born into the right family.

[FredPret]

Travel is such an important part of a well-rounded education because it forces things into perspective. I’m glad it’s becoming cheaper. I dream of the day all kids can do it.

[ronjakoi]

Cheap travel is a horrible thing for the world. Mass tourism has destroyed a lot.

[Wolfenstein98k]

Another, less pleasant way to say this:

You don't want everyone to travel - many people don't have a sense of respect and "light foot" that it takes to travel to foreign places without degrading or damaging them.

[FredPret]

This amounts to “only rich people should be able to travel”

[xenospn]

Wait until you hear what the Soviet Union did to its own lands without any tourists whatsoever.

[dfkasdfksdf]

This is the more correct answer. It's also answers why developed nations became developed and undeveloped nations did not. The west advanced just fine without "brain drain" in the centuries prior.

That being said, I wouldn't use the US as some bastion of progress. Technically, we haven't progressed much since the 70s? 80s? outside of GDP going up, but that's just a number on a chart. Most of us today could go back to the 70s and live not much different than now (compared to the any earlier decade). It's mostly a side effect of being the world's reserve currency.

[_DeadFred_]

Food has improved dramatically. Quality and availability. We now have fresh produce year round, not seasonally. Meat consumption is up something like 30-40lbs a year. For is also vastly more interesting (unless various jello molds are your thing).

Houses are much more comfortable, energy efficient, and larger. Air-conditioned in summer, heated to a reasonable temp in winter.

Healthcare while it has become unaffordable has greatly improved.

Car reliability/safety has improved insanely. The average car now has A/C unlike the 70s.

Compute power. The average person has the knowledge of the ENTIRE world at their fingertips. But totally no progress has been made???

We have weather satellites to prepare for meteorological disasters/storms saving so many lives.

We can talk to family whenever we want, not a 5 minute conversation the first Sunday of the month.

We have vastly more free time. My family made most of their close in the 1970s. Washed by hand. Hang out to dry. Now we have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave, an air cooker, all freeing up time to do other things.

Your comment is like the people that watch American movies white eating pop-corn, wear blue jeans and sneakers, and say 'America doesn't have a culture'.

[76SlashDolphin]

All right, I'll bite

> Food has improved dramatically.

Not necessarily. While accessibility is far better, it comes at the cost of having monocultures, mass farming, and heavy importation during off-seasons. This has made, say, the average tomato cheaper and more accessible year-round but substantially worse than the seasonal tomatoes you would have 40 years ago.

> Houses are larger...

But more and more people live in cramped apartments in big cities so that point is moot.

> Healthcare...

And is it more important that a poor 25 year-old young person with their whole productive tax-paying life ahead of them can seek care appropriately Vs the hospitals keeping 80+ year-old fossils alive with their "better healthcare". The only exception is ozempic and the likes but that didn't use to be necessary before cars killed most public spaces.

> Car reliability/safety...

By turning them into huge monstrosities and widening roads, again destroying public spaces and walkability. The only major breakthrough here is lead-free fuel.

> Compute power. The average person has the knowledge of the ENTIRE world at their fingertips. But totally no progress has been made???

I'll give you that one but it's at the cost of turning a computer into an addiction machine. I still think it's a net positive but it isn't so clear cut.

> We have weather satellites

True but now we're have much more extreme weather thanks too climate change.

> We can talk to family whenever we want...

We can but when do we? I keep in touch with family often but it definitely feels less special than how it was even in the 00s.

> We have vastly more free time...

Assuming you have the same sized family and roles. Now's your need both parents in a family to work to make ends meet for the average young person so the freed time has mostly gone to the older generation.

Overall zoomers and gen alpha definitely have it worse than their parents. And this is coming from someone with a middle class background who now gets paid well to program -everyone I know my age feels this way. The main lifestyle change we got recently is cheap travel which is amazing but the basics are definitely harder (and this is why birthrates are down).

[_DeadFred_]

Wow, cheaper food is bad? I want people to be fed.

People live with more square footage than they did in the past. In the 1980s a lot of people still lived in 'Hotel' style places in the city with roommates and the bathroom down the hall shared by the floor.

Keeping fossils alive? Like with your food comment, not seeing a lot of compassion for others. The general wellbeing has been lifted, sorry it's not to your liking.

Monstrosities that keep people alive. Again, huge lack of compassion in your argument. Did you know that incest was reduced in huge part by general availability of automobiles?

I mean I was a latch key kid, zoomers and alpha have it way better than we did. They can at least keep in touch with others while they are locked away at home. Sorry you don't want to connect. I still find it awesome I can call my kids whenever without having to think ahead/plan it out/coordinate, and if that call is missed wait another month.

This entire post sounds like a pitty party and not a rational comparison to reality. I was born in the 70s, live through a lot up until now, things are WAY WAY better. Yes they need to improve even more, but you won't get there with a 'the world is just crap and nothing gets better' attitude, especially when it's just factually incorrect.

[xenospn]

Is improved food the reason most people are obese?

[gopher_space]

Now do rent.

[_DeadFred_]

Home loan interest rates in 1982 were 16%, on top of a very bad economy.

[varelaseb]

You pay more. Boohoo

[cardanome]

> The west advanced just fine without "brain drain" in the centuries prior.

Centuries prior they had a global slave trade going on. The wealth of the West is build on colonialism.

Culture just reflects the underlying material conditions that people live in. There is nothing inherently superior about Western culture. Wealth is cumulative and first mover advantages are strong. And if anyone threatens the current hegemony, there is always the use of force.

But yes, you are right there has been a stagnation since the 80s and things are slowly changing ins favor of countries like China and India.

[aliasxneo]

> There is nothing inherently superior about Western culture.

I'm not necessarily intending to contradict this outright, but after having just spent a summer reading through the history of the collectivist cultures in Russia/China during the last century, all I could think of is how lucky I was not to be born into that.

So, sure, nothing "inherently" superior, but certainly comparatively superior, in my opinion.

[namaria]

The locus of fast development will always develop superiority narratives. The fact is that there will always be a locus of concentrated development and it's not because it has a special culture.

[myworkinisgood]

Russia did have some problems, but China suffered badly due to colonialism.

[pphysch]

People in Russia and China are saying the same thing about the West, having read critical histories of the modern West (e.g. Wang Huning, America Against America).

Based on the data, a lower/middle class person born in PRC almost certainly has better prospects of upward mobility and avoiding poverty.

[FredPret]

So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, and next thing you know the US is a global superpower, and that’s all there is to it?

Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that?

[com2kid]

> So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south,

Slaves built the irrigation systems that made rice farming possible in the south. (People forget that the other huge slavery cash crop was rice).

Without the engineering and agricultural knowledge of slaves, many of the farms would have failed (and many did fail early on until the knowledge was spread around to plantation owners).

The image of slaves being from nomadic hunter gatherer tribes is a false narrative put into place by racists centuries ago.

> Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that?

The US's short history is absurdly violent, but it also includes the US getting some of the best minds from basically all over the world to move here and build up a century's worth of IP.

[kiba]

The North crushed the South, which clung to its slavery system which was unable to economically compete with the northern states' industrial power.

If anything, slavery was probably was a weight around the US's neck, the legacy of which we're still dealing with today.

[throwaway0123_5]

Colonial-esque behavior by the US was (is?) hardly limited to plantation slavery in the US south. For much of the late 1800s and most of the 1900s the US government was more than happy to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries to protect corporate profits. One particularly egregious example is the CIA-aided overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in the 50s, largely to protect the profits of US fruit companies, but you don't have to look far to find more.

From General Smedley Butler, most decorated marine at the time of his death and the only marine with two medals of honor:

> I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

[blackhawkC17]

> The wealth of the West is build on colonialism.

It's built on rule of law, stability, low corruption, and good governance. Most countries lack these factors, making them stay poor.

Signed: Someone from a poor, developing country (Nigeria).

[synecdoche]

There is no basis for the claim that different things of some category would progress exactly the same given the same set of circumstances. Those different things, like culture, have significant impact on everything, including economic growth.

I'm sure you can think of a culture or policy, which you consider backwards, and counterproductive. Well, there you go.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Now everyone but the west is practicing slavery, yet the supposed economic benefits of slavery seem to elude them. Why might that be?

[Axsuul]

> Most of us today could go back to the 70s and live not much different than now (compared to the any earlier decade). It's mostly a side effect of being the world's reserve currency.

There's been 50 years of technological innovation since then. The entire fabric of society has been changed by it and has affected how we communicate and do business.

[myworkinisgood]

You cannot forget about the money drained from the undeveloped world during colonialism and the subsequent effect which continued during cold war.

[o11c]

Money is made up and doesn't matter. This applies even to gold during colonialism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution

[FredPret]

The undeveloped world doesn't have, and never had, enough money to be "drained" into a pool as large as the current US economy

[dingnuts]

Uh, what you said is only true if you ignore all of the American technology invented since the 1980s.

Just the iPhone alone acts as a counterpoint. The world has changed massively in fifty years because of American inventions made possible by our developed economy

With all due respect I have no idea what you're talking about

[Gigablah]

Did you just claim all the technology behind the iPhone as American inventions?

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Think you missed the massive explosion during the 1990's (the birth of the internet) and the precursor during the Reagan years (basically gargantuan deficit spending on defense).

Factories and farming took a huge hit in 1970's and 1980's due to the rise of globalization (and shift from decades of hot wars to a cooled off one) and a trade war with Japan.

[StefanBatory]

Culture aspect is way underrated.

It's not only fact that in Western Europe I could earn a lot more. But also that I don't have to deal with massive corruption. I don't have to deal with feeling I have to be constantly on guard. I don't have to deal with failing education. I don't have to hide who I am in fear of being ostracized by society. (even if for that point we made a lot of progress - but still, why wait endlessly while I can get it right away somewhere else?)

[namaria]

Culture is not the cause of development. It's the result. The complex human system always has a central area of development and an extended periphery. You can't have homogeneous development because development is the concentration of resources. Wherever these resources concentrate will have a privileged economy, and culture (because it can afford it) and it will develop a superiority complex. And it will keep moving. In 2100 when the center of the world economy has moved on from the US, the new center will have beautifully constructed narratives about how their culture is superior and their rise inevitable.

[StefanBatory]

I live in a country where I am called rainbow disease by the prominent priests for being bi, and the previous de facto leader said that I'm only "Polish-speaking person" and not a Pole because I do not believe in God.

Thing is, that while what you're saying could be true, from a perspective of a person living in it - I don't care.

[namaria]

I have no idea what point you're trying to make

[prisonality]

Like you: I too - is part of said brain drain.

Though, my reason - or rather: my litmus test, is much simpler.

For me, it all comes down to drinkable / potable tap water. That's it. That's all I care.

[rrr_oh_man]

> For me, it all comes down to drinkable / potable tap water. That's it. That's all I care.

And water pressure. It’s a decent proxy for many things.

[akudha]

U.S is outperforming everyone else economically. At what cost though? And for how long?

There is an insane wealth gap. People always seem to be stressed. There is plenty of food, but quality isn’t great. We don’t even need to start on healthcare and housing and college tuition. Then there is gun violence. Women’s rights are going away slowly too.

Sure, developing countries have lots of problems too. I suppose each person has to decide what kind of problems they are ok dealing with?

Sad part is - most of these problems are man made. Even sadder is that just a few dozen people seem to be the cause for most problems

[psunavy03]

The violent crime rate in the US is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago. The only difference is that now every crime is getting blasted from the rooftops by the news media as propaganda to generate clicks on ads.

There is a violent crime problem in specific neighborhoods of specific cities, largely tied to gangs and the drug trade. But there is zero empirical data to suggest that it is more of a nationwide problem than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

The majority of gun deaths in this country (60-80 percent jurisdiction-dependent) are people committing suicide, often middle-aged men. Beyond that, the average gun murder is a young man with a criminal record killing another young man with a criminal record using an illegally-possessed handgun.

[returningfory2]

There's also the fact that way more Americans are killed by cars than in homicides. This is not to diminish the importance of tackling homicides. But the high level picture of "what is most wrong in America" is definitely skewed in weird ways that is independent of the underlying reality.

[fuzztester]

>The violent crime rate in the US is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago. The only difference is that now every crime is getting blasted from the rooftops by the news media as propaganda to generate clicks on ads.

How about all the mass shootings that we read about, happening every few weeks or even more frequently, sometimes back-to-back, on average, in the US? That's not violent crime? Of course it is.

>a fraction of what it was 30 years ago

And statistics don't paint the full picture, not by a long chalk, unless all you are is a bean counter. What about the personal and family and friends' trauma of all the victims and their circles? We can dismiss that as negligible, right? /s

Check these:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_th...

There were so many that I got tired of scrolling.

JFC.

[compiler-guy]

Don’t confuse, “the overall crime rate is down signicantly in very good ways” with “and therefore the remainder is fine”.

[psunavy03]

What about the personal and family and friends' trauma of all the victims of drunken driving, alcoholism, and their circles?

Should we re-enact Prohibition, given that there are orders of magnitude more people who've been victimized by alcohol than firearms? No, that's absurd. You regulate the problem through hard, data-driven analysis, not waving the bloody shirt. Be that violent crime or addiction.

[FredPret]

> There is an insane wealth gap.

Your unexamined prior is that this is a bad and unsustainable thing. It was always thus.

> People always seem to be stressed.

They really aren't. Americans are extremely happy and relaxed compared to where I'm from.

> We don’t even need to start on healthcare and housing and college tuition.

I think we do. Healthcare in the US has more red tape and expense than would be optimal, but the actual outcomes are still good. Keep in mind some caveats:

- US healthcare spend drives a ton of medical innovation that then benefits the rest of the world

- North America is going through a Fentanyl crisis that's cutting life expectancies

> Then there is gun violence. Women’s rights are going away slowly too.

This is a problem but not with the economy.

[BehindBlueEyes]

Women's rights may be more of a problem with the economy than one thinks - pressure on those rights aren't necessarily just ideological. Zooming in on this one aspect within the bigger picture, at a country level you can shape the economy via controlling immigration (do we welcome brains? do we welcome labor?) and via controlling natality (do we need to make our own labor?). If a country is hostile to immigration or limits immigration to an elite, I can well imagine eroding women's rights for purely economical reasons - needing labourers the country is not willing to welcome from abroad. Could also be done with incentives instead of taking away rights but different debate. Womens' rights determine if/how/where women can contribute to the economy, and how easily.

[sifar]

>> There is an insane wealth gap.

Relative wealth gap in developing countries dwarfs that of the developed ones.

Source: Personal observation.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...

tl;dr as of 2021 Gini coefficents, Brazil is the worst and Japan is best large nation... (there's tons of nuance missing here, but that's the basics)

[Timon3]

Is there a reason to trust your anecdote instead of looking at data? I'm sure this topic has been researched.

[baq]

Yeah it’s called the gini index. US isn’t great but isn’t anywhere near the worst.

In absolute terms though just look at pictures of e.g. rural Russia va Moscow.

[returningfory2]

> I suppose each person has to decide what kind of problems they are ok dealing with?

What problems do you think people in the United States have that people in Mexico don't? Of this list you gave, most of them seem to apply to people in Mexico.

[akudha]

I was talking about immigrants. If you are deciding between two countries, each one is likely going to have a different type or level of problems - man made or otherwise. Australia is too hot, Canada is too cold. Scandinavia might be too progressive for some, Saudi Arabia might be too regressive for some.

And so on. What kind/level of issues to put up with - I suppose that varies from person to person

[BehindBlueEyes]

I agree with you, but for anyone reading this who considers immigration: that's just a third of the decision - another third of the problems is only visible once you live there a while, and the last third is the same problems you had before that you take with you.

[ericmcer]

I was lucky enough to be a computer nerd who landed in Silicon valley/San Francisco in 2012 and it was a pretty special place culturally. It was pretentious and idealistic and confused, but the atmosphere where everyone seemed to be building something and sharing ideas was pretty intoxicating. Probably felt similar to being in Hollywood back during that 1920-1950s period (except everyone was less attractive lol).

[benji-york]

I'm not the OP, but I'm very curious why people are downvoting this comment.

Is it that they don't agree that "the New World [...is...] much more welcoming [...of...] all sorts of productive folk"?

[hoppyhoppy2]

>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[samatman]

About the downvoting per se, it has a way of canceling out. This is one of the reasons the guidelines ask that voting on the comments not be discussed: just because you see a good comment greyed out, doesn't mean it will end up that way.

There's a faction of HN commenters who are somewhat reflexively anti-American, anti-capitalist, or both. In my experience they're also censorious by nature, and like to downvote and even flag comments which are perfectly polite, and simply express opinions they don't agree with. I consider the latter specifically to be very bad form, I vouch for comments which fit that profile almost daily now.

This has been exacerbated by the recent election, which has, understandably, upset people.

[aspenmayer]

> simply express opinions they don't agree with

Dang has said that downvoting for disagreement is allowed. Whether this is a good practice or not is probably a personal opinion. I don’t know how you would even correct for this if you wanted to. If someone is making normative statements especially, and you disagree, a downvote seems entirely appropriate?

[samatman]

I'm not sure how I could have phrased I consider the latter specifically to be very bad form any better? It's one thing to downvote a comment because you don't like it, flagging is quite another.

There's a difference between downvoting something substantively wrong, fatuous and/or cantankerous, bad faith, and so on, and simply doing so to punish the sort of person one doesn't like for speaking their mind. That difference is subjective, but I know it when I see it. There's no need to police this, or any way to really, but I think rather poorly of such behavior and would be gratified if they would knock it off.

[kelnos]

To be fair, though, pg has said in the distant past that it's fine to downvote to express disagreement.

I personally try not to do this too much (unless something is egregiously, probably wrong), but it's a thing that I think we should just accept as a norm.

[derektank]

>Offering great and free education will always backfire for developing nations.

This isn't necessarily the case, even with brain drain. Remittances (financial transfers from migrants to family and friends at home) can actually represent a large percent of GDP for developing nations, upwards of 10 or 20 percent.

[slibhb]

Brain drain is a real thing, but there are other issues preventing poor countries from being rich. Most of all political dysfunction.

As far as brain drain goes, I don't think there's much point in fighting it. Cities like Singapore and Dubai demonstrate that you can quickly build a city/country people want to live. Why shouldn't Bhutan have to compete with the rest of the world to attract young, talented people? They should! And they can do fine at it, they just have to prioritize it. And from the article, that's exactly what they're doing.

[throwaways_ind]

> It is just the rational best decision for a young people to try their luck abroad and earn more money that they could ever dream of in their home country. Why shouldn't they? Idealism?

Money is only second or third factor that pushes people abroad. People leave countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh to escape rampant and total corruption, hooliganism, lack of safety and security. Then come better roads, better infra, less traffic, etc.

When you call 911, the police actually come. An ambulance actually arrive. In India, police first find if the perpetrator is from the local ruling party or under a local crime lord. They come only if the answer is negative. Then they push the perpetrator for hefty bribes. If they pay, again, no case. If they don't pay, you are at the mercy of local courts, which will give you justice in, say, 25 years.

In India, there is no basic human decency allotted for you. Only government officials of very high rank, hooligans, political leaders enjoy treatment with respect (like the Mafia).

Nothing to say about horrific roads, horrible hospitals, poor hygiene, and everything else.

And things are worse in Bangladesh, Pakistan.

When we think about going abroad, we are trying to escape these. Money comes later.

Income in the same economic strata in India will give you maid, cook, driver, car, nanny, all- not accessible to you in Europe or the USA.

If someone is not going abroad from India, it's either because they can't or they don't want to leave their aging parents behind.

[selimthegrim]

I should probably tell this to the Indian student I met in New Orleans who went to the community college here and he’s now going back to India because he finds it easier to run his small businesses and hire there.

[jimbohn]

I thought about the "work for X-years" solution a few times. While it looks attractive, it also removes some pressure from the country (or local employers) to get better. Some countries need a kick in the head, like the one I emigrated from. Perhaps a couple of "developed" countries failing due to brain drain will be a wake-up call for the rest about the value of the younger generation.

[StefanBatory]

Absolutely!

Since you're forced to stay here, why shouldn't we abuse you? What are you going to do, run away?

I remember in secondary school, my deeply patriotic teacher asked us who wants to emigrate. And she deeply condemned us for it, calling us leeches that stole from the country. It was obligatory education! We didn't even had an option to choose by then. And also, my parents also could say that yes, they paid for it in their taxes.

[int_19h]

I recall running into similar attitudes in my country of origin, including, yes, teachers.

Ironically, this ends up being one of those things that contribute towards the desire to leave.

[insane_dreamer]

> striving for a better life

the problem here is that you're directly equating earning more money with a "better life"

once you have enough to have your needs met, then earning multiples times that doesn't make your life better; at that point, "better life" is much more impacted by other factors than money

[cherryteastain]

Indices that try to capture aspects of life other than money have also been made, such as Human Development Index [1]. Europe and North America lead these too. Nobody thinks Bhutan, on average, is a better place to live in than Norway. It might be better for a particular person due to cultural and familial reasons, but ceteris paribus Norway is better in all aspects.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

[waffleiron]

Do note that HDI does indeed depend on some assumptions and those includes "equating earning more money with a "better life"" as GNI (PPP) per capita. With no further increases after 75k USD (International dollar), unadjusted for inflation since introduction more than a decade ago. It also does give large amount of value to traditional education (i.e. total amount of years in full time schooling) and not outcomes of that (e.g. literacy). Schooling is also capped at 18 years, which is in line with a Master in most western countries; if schooling is this important then why cap it?

[paganel]

I'm not sure about Bhutan, because I've never been there, but for sure I think that middle-class life here in Romania (for those that can afford it) is a lot better and more relaxed than middle-class life in Norway (for starters, people here in Romania don't have to fear the State taking away their kid at a moment's notice, as it happens in Norway). Which is to say that those "charts" are very deceptive.

[FredPret]

The marginal utility of an extra dollar goes down as you get more of them, but it never reaches zero, especially if you have big dreams.

Just look at Musk and his startups - I bet he's very glad to have that 200 billionth dollar, because now he can have the space program he always wanted. This wouldn't have been possible in the third-world country where he grew up.

[throwaway2037]

First, HN consistently misuses the term "third world". In 2024, this term is now very out of date to describe developing economies (and below). Also, the original meaning was not at all what most people think -- it was about Soviet vs US alignment. And, no, South Africa was definitely middle income when he grew up there -- and it still is (sadly). For a long time (maybe still true?), the GDP per capita in SA nearly the highest amoung all African countries. (I think Seychelles is the richest African country now.)

[FredPret]

"Third world" was a geopolitical term but now it's economic and cultural.

I assure you South Africa is third world by any measure. The GDP of SA (a large country with tons of resources and a population of 60m) is roughly on par with that of the Toronto metro area (population 7m) or the Phoenix metro (population 5m). It's middle income... and it probably will ~always be.

None of this really matters though - what Musk has done in the US (like it - or him - or not) was only possible in the US.

[kjkjadksj]

GDP is a kind of screwed up measure because the buying power of the dollar in the US is so much worse than most other countries. Case in point you can find a little san jose neighborhood where the gdp is an order of magnitude higher than a little mexico city neighborhood with more or less the exact same sorts of homes on the same sort of street. Now you might argue the sj homes are that much more valuable because of what they offer beyond the home via location proximity to opportunities, but its not like everyone benefits from such things or even that these opportunities are equally available to everyone. Yet everyone shoulders the costs of others success and position.

[PittleyDunkin]

It's really hard to take people who use the term "third world" this way seriously. There are more precise ways to clarify your opinion without resorting to meaningless pejoratives.

[bluGill]

Nearly everybody does when it is there own money. Sure you can show studies that more money doesn't make you happy, but almost everyone regularly has times they don't buy something just because they can't afford it and all think that thing would make them happier. I've know people making minimum wage, and people making nearly $million/year and both find money tight at the end of the month despite the vast difference in income. My personal wish list of things to buy totals more than my likely lifetime income, and your probably does too.

[Marsymars]

> My personal wish list of things to buy totals more than my likely lifetime income, and your probably does too.

I dunno, I'm really more bottlenecked by time than by income. >50% of my household income goes to savings, so I could comfortably buy more things, but I'm already backlogged on dealing with the things I've already purchased.

I guess the obvious answer would be to turn some of the money into more free time, but I've already picked all the low-hanging fruit there, so the remaining options are considerably higher effort/cost.

[bluGill]

Time is a limit as well. I don't have time to learn to use that tig welder I haven't bought yet, but it is on my list and I have a few projects not done because I don't have one.

[blackhawkC17]

We could try explaining this to someone in a poor country scraping by on $50 monthly. Hint: They'll laugh at us in the face.

There's a reason people take huge risks to flee to the West, including traveling on unsafe boats, crisscrossing areas controlled by bandits, or crossing the environmentally harsh Darien Gap.

[insane_dreamer]

> once you have enough to have your needs met

you missed this part

[ta988]

Brain drain is not just about money. it is also simply about beeing able to get a life doing what we like with people alike and know how to do while beeing recognized doing it. I left my country for this exact reason, there was a culture of doing the minimum and making sure others can't organize to do great things. And trying to go back you get a lot of opposition, bureaucratic, social (jealousy and resentment is more than palpable in interviews), cultural... It is more like a one-way brain valve.

[abecedarius]

Catch-up growth being easier than growth in a "developed" country implies that the less-developed country "should" be easier to get rich in -- a better opportunity, not worse. In principle. Yes, we don't live in the in-principle world, but the logic "they're richer over there, so here is inherently stuck unable to compete for talent" is wrong. You need to address whatever the actual structural problem is.

[cardanome]

It is easier to have higher relative economic growth, yes, as seen with China in the last decades but that doesn't translate to better opportunities for the individual.

A working class US American probably has a higher standard of living then an upper-class entrepreneur in Bhutan.

[abecedarius]

China over 1980s-2000s was an example I had in mind, yes. A poor country and a relatively great place to get rich.

There's always emigrating after you make your pile.

[brailsafe]

Well, it's a more complex economic thing from what I'm learning. It's a systems issue rather than a discrete resource/physical capital/human capital thing, ultimately it comes down to incentives. If you have an extremely educated workforce but broadly no incentive to invest in the future, no way to capitalize on those hypothetical investments through access to market, for whichever reasons, then trying to tweak one variable like education will just overflow your shallow tub and the water will spill into countries that do have incentives and where the feedback loop works.

If that system breaks down, even for developing countries, it's worrying. For example Canada has a highly educated workforce with mobility, and has hamstrung itself by disincentivising productive investments, instead overvaluing real estate to the point where people entering the workforce now might not see a path to owning even a small condo by their 40s, unless you have a particularly rare and valuable skill, luck, or money from parents, which isn't a high prospect for the circulation of financial prosperity.

So we're just subsidizing U.S growth at this point, and so are many other countries, even though we and many immigrants would (often but not always) rather live here, either because this is where our lives are or this is where the vibes are, which is tough to reconcile if there's next to no economic opportunity inside the country.

This happens on a micro level as well, my home city's highest prospect is basically moving to a different city; people can be highly educated there, but unless you're going back into the academic system and your highest goal is basically getting a mcmansion (but probably not an actual mansion) you're gunna have to go elsewhere. Electricians probably do just fine though, nothing against that, but it's not really a force for innovation.

[closeparen]

Are developing countries bottlenecked technical aptitude? Or are they bound by social, economic, and political structures that would prevent capable people from generating wealth anyway? Maybe some of both, but to the extent it's the latter, someone being stuck in their country of origin to languish in some undifferentiated low-productivity job is a travesty.

[salomonk_mur]

Only the most rational concerning income. There are many other factors at stake such as staying close to family, keeping your contact network, 0 or low discrimination towards you in your home country, among others.

Source: I am one of those people that could leave but decided to stay.

[insane_dreamer]

> Offering great and free education will always backfire for developing nations.

nonsense; this is how developing nations become developed nations. peolpe seem to forget that Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, HK were all "developing" nations not too long ago

[slt2021]

immigrating is very hard, smart people would love to stay where they were born.

unfortunately developing countries make it impossible for smart people to stay due to corruption and small market/economy

[dmafreezone]

> nothing wrong with striving for a better life

Yes, but there are many things wrong with equating "better" with "more money" without sparing half a thought to introspection.

[skeeter2020]

Well it's a least starting to change, as countries like Canada, and to an extent the US, see the people several generations after their immigrants look back or outside their countries of birth. There are lots of opportunities outside the US for someone who doesn't feel super-comfortable because of the culture or ethnicity, but is educated and ready to move around the globe.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Could it be argued that we in the west have some degree of moral responsibility to prevent brain drain from developing countries?

I don’t see the point of giving out tons of foreign aid when we’re just going to pull the rug out from underneath of them anyway.

[vivekd]

I mean it's not like developing countries are doing much to steward their best and brightest. Counties with brain drains also have serious issues with nepotism and cronyism limiting the ability of talent to rise up.

My parents are from Sri Lanka the former leaders family filled up the cabinet and ministry positions. They put forward wonderful plans like banning fertilizer imports. I think we need to accept that they're their own worst enemy here

[Tabular-Iceberg]

That must be what foreign aid is for. They can’t steward their own resources, and they don’t like it when we go there in person and do it for them, so we have to give them a portion of our own.

But then we hoover up all the people who could conceivably do the stewardship, perpetuating the cycle.

[Mistletoe]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the brain drain goes the opposite way from America the next four years. I’m looking to live in Europe and so are lots of people I know that are fatFIREd with their American bucks.

[kjkjadksj]

The tax situation isn’t nearly as favorable for americans doing it elsewhere as it is for anyone to do it here in america. Unless you rip up your american citizenship.

[D-Coder]

"Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement is followed by those who want to quit working before reaching traditional retirement age.

"FatFIRE promotes abundance. The goal is to have enough funds to enjoy freedom and flexibility when you retire early."

[Wolfenstein98k]

Brain drain isn't what keeps poor countries poor - if only it was so simple. India would ban out migration in an instant if that was the key to US levels of GDP.

[yoyohello13]

What about making education free only if you stay in the country. If you leave then you owe the cost of school.

[Viliam1234]

That sounds fair only if you imagine that getting education is something like buying a product: if you like it, you take it and agree to pay the cost; and if you don't like, you don't take it.

But sometimes the education is mandatory, inefficient, and it sucks. Then the people who want to leave the country would be required to pay a lot of money for something they didn't want and that wasn't worth it.

Basically, any country that wants to prevent their people from leaving could just assign an absurdly high cost to its mandatory education, and say: "hey, anyone is free to leave, they just need to pay us more than they will ever make".

[paganel]

> Idealism?

From some point on, yes, because the modern world was born on many past such idealists. Fetishising material goods and materialism as a whole are a very big explanation for the mess we're now all in at the civilisational level.

[aleph_minus_one]

> The best people leave the country because the can earn orders of magnitude more money in the developed world. This is why countries like the US keep being so successful while developing countries stay poor.

> It is just the rational best decision for a young people to try their luck abroad and earn more money that they could ever dream of in their home country. Why shouldn't they? Idealism? There is nothing wrong with striving for a better life, it is what moves humanity forward.

I rather believe that the central reason why they leave is not because of the possibility of earning much more money, but because the existing country keeps such people on a short leash with respect to implementing their ambitions. In other words: if you want idealistic people (who stay in their country), better ensure that the country has a culture in which such idealism does not backfire and make such people's life harder.

[gsuuon]

> ~9% of young people leave Bhutan

It's worse than that:

> 9% of the country's population, most of them young people

Young people want adventure, but all their homeland is offering is contentment. They need to account for the desire for opportunity in their GNH metric.

[konschubert]

Re-branding poverty as "contentment" may whoo some westerners, but probably not the people living off substinence farming.

[abdullahkhalids]

Depends entirely on the outlook of the person. I have met poor farmers in Pakistan who emphatically told me that my big city life was filled with work and devoid of meaning, while their slow village life was worth living. The sons had studied in the big city, had access to good employment opportunities, but told me they were desperately trying to get back to the village. It did seem that with access to technology, these farmers were working less per day than city workers.

These exist at the same time as other farming families who were trying to escape to the big city or other countries in search of employment and better life. The latter category is larger than the former, but still it all depends on outlook.

[selimthegrim]

And where exactly are these farmers living? Is it somewhere in Punjab with law and order situation, or a safe place?

[abdullahkhalids]

Inner Sindh, but not the worst parts of it, or the best. They did not report any law and order situation. Had access to the nearest city with a well built road. I think the biggest problem was poor quality drinking water and sewage treatment.

[selimthegrim]

My mom lived in Guddu for few years growing up in 70s (and other family in Daharki) so I often wonder what work had been done since then.

[rob74]

Well, I'm pretty sure the people living off subsistence farming in Europe during the Middle Ages were mostly content with their lives too (at least during peacetime), despite much worse education and health care than the modern Bhutanese are getting. The difference is that this was simply their way of life and they didn't have any alternatives. "Contentment" means being content with what you have - no matter if it's because you consciously decide that it's enough for you or because you simply don't know any better.

[konschubert]

We probably don’t disagree, but just to state the obvious: Being content with suffering through ignorance is still suffering.

Medieval subsistence farmers had to bury half of their children before the age of 5.

[blackeyeblitzar]

I find it weird that this article didn’t mention China’s aggressive invasions of Bhutan and settlement tactics violating their sovereignty. The fear of China’s CCP government stealing from Bhutan or taking over Bhutan is a big reason for people to want to leave and seek refuge and stability elsewhere. See https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/05/asia/china-bhutan-border-dst-...

[misja111]

> it seems the problem is not with happiness, but with the seductive appeal of materialism and the effects of exposing one culture to another.

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but what struck me is that your comment would fit seamlessly into a text from the DDR regime, when it was still alive. (You know, the former communist republic of East Germany, which needed a wall to keep its citizens within the socialist paradise)

I'm not saying that this makes your comment wrong, I'm just wondering what this means with regard to former communism.

[Analemma_]

I mean it would also fit seamlessly into an Islamist lecture from Sayyid Qutb, or a primitivist rant from Ted Kaczynski, and so on. Anyone ideologically opposed to the Western "capitalism plus liberal democracy" combo pretty much has to form their opposition on anti-materialist and/or anti-integration grounds, because those are the only ones where it isn't an overwhelming, crushing victory over every alternative.

[0x1ceb00da]

> Will they then see a net influx of people through immigration

Bhutan has very strict immigration laws. You basically need to be employed in a government scheme or make a huge investment in the local economy to immigrate.

[cen4]

There are lots of young people who are not ambitious. And as soon as you say that, there is a reactionary group that will come running to say well the problem is with teachers not being inspiring, curriculum being poor, society not creating the right environment etc etc. But these kids are never the issue. They are quite satisfied and accepting with whatever the universe throws in their lap.

The real issue is Ambitious kids. Not the ones who have enough looks, contacts, knowledge, skill, intelligence, creativity and imagination to meet their goals but the ones who don't.

Materialism exploits such people more than anyone else. It tells them Donald if you are not admired, respected, loved just work hard, don't stop, keep grinding, keep hustling, accumulate material wealth, accumulate status, accumulate luxury goods and you will get the affection, respect, admiration and love you crave. Its pure bullshit.

This is the stuff that has to stop. We have to take care of these people better and channel their infinite energies into things beyond consumption and materialism. Its the hardest thing to do cause they are an extremely annoying group to deal with constantly craving attention, praise, sympathy and love. But thats the only path to a better, healthier and sustainable society. No Free Lunch.

[rangestransform]

huh? do you remember what type of organization owns the site you are on right now? it specifically caters toward ambitious people who want to create things and provide services that nobody does as well in the status quo.

if societies historically cut down those who wanted change and put their energy into finding better ways to do things, we would still be hunting and gathering.

i don't want to share a world with people who believe the ambitious, creative, and industrious should be cut down from their full potential.

[mantas]

You're missing the part about abuse of wannabe-ambitious. Vast majority of YC crowd is ambitious people who do have the means.

Today's world is happy to sell shovels to wanna-be gold diggers ain't truly ambitious, creative nor industrious. But first educational system and propaganda industry makes it look like this must be the goal. Then the modern economy runs them into the ground.

Whose who're truly ambitious/creative/industrious/etc will go for it no matter what society tells them. Even in the darkest ages of soviet union those people found ways to live up to their ambitions. But those who ain't may find ways-of-life which suits them better.