[tamimio]

> It's not a partisan thing. It's not liberal vs conservative vs whatever. It's just some weird mindset that wants to see credentials for everything, and the best credential you can have is your proximity to already existing power privilege or wealth.

Bingo, you nailed it! I like how you described it in few words as I have been trying to articulate that for a while, as some people I know they blame it in liberal or whatever, but the reality it has nothing to do with that, it’s just the overall mindset in here. A lot of people here like to hate on Americans or at least have an anti-American identity somehow, but the reality is, Americans are miles better when it comes to practicality of work, diversity of thoughts, and openness to new opportunities. My friend who owns a big drone company in the US told me before how he started the company years ago, it sounds like a movie where all you needed is some determination only, he had zero money and zero connections zero VC investors, and started it after being rejected on something related. Meanwhile it’s almost impossible to achieve that in Canada the same way how he started it. Add to that, Canadian economy is mostly services and real-estate, so anything outside of these two must be directly or indirectly sponsored by one of the companies you mentioned. It’s funny because while doing my business I ended up either that I have to be “blessed” by rogers or bell to actually get going :)

[cmrdporcupine]

To be fair, Americans have their own equally strong dysfunctions, and there's a lot of variance from state to state, industry to industry.

And the education system in the US is way less egalitarian and if you're talking about access to investment, etc. or jobs, proximity to an "Ivy League" school is super important blah blah blah.

I mean, it's a dangerous game to be playing stereotypes generally. But there's structurally economic factors at work.