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Comment by q3k | Hacker News Reader

It's the 'than anywhere else' part that I have an issue with. If that's the way you see it, you're doing this at the explicit detriment of everyone outside your country.

There's ways to grow that 'intelligence pool' locally, without having to see the rest of the world as just a pool of immigration candidates. Not to mention, just because someone travels to the US doesn't mean they want to actually immigrate there...

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Maybe you are learning that being actually "nationalistic" (ie maximizing the prosperity of the nation) implies supporting strong high skilled immigration pipelines because of the incredible benefits these immigrants have for the nation and it's native inhabitants.

It's a great irony that those who reject taking the best and brightest are the "nationalists" and those who want to take the best and brightest are the "globalists".

The "globalists" are also in favor of illegal immigration, because it provides them with cheap labor (gardeners, nanny's, construction workers), while never providing any threat to their livelihood - the illegal immigrants are not competing for white-collar and professional jobs. The people whose livelihoods are adversely affected are the poorest people in the US, working unskilled and minimally skilled jobs

More often than not, I've heard so-called "globalists" being in favor of substantially open borders so that the immigration you describe would be legal.

From an economic perspective, having a specific person in your economy is zero sum; either they’re in your country or they’re not in your country.

This doesn't make sense. Their labor can benefit your economy even if they don't live there, and they can consume your countries goods without living there.

Yes, but the effect is magnified if they're in your country. You would collect local taxes, and the majority of money spent would circulate inside the economy, rather leaving.

That isn't zero sum though. Plus, I doubt Stenberg living in the US would noticeably alter his contributions to the US economy.

Taxes are absolutely zero sum. In most cases only one country gets to collect the taxes from a person.

Stenberg is one of those rare cases where he has a huge impact on multiple companies in multiple countries. Most of us aren’t like that; I personally work for a US company paying US taxes, consume in the US paying more taxes and enriching US companies, and I don’t make any libraries or services with international impact. My contributions to the economy is so lop sided that it’s almost zero sum. If I were to move to another country, I’d deprive the US of my tax revenue & consumption, and provide all of that to my new country.

> If I were to move to another country, I’d deprive the US of my tax revenue & consumption, and provide all of that to my new country.

Your labor could still be used by an American company, and your labor is by far your biggest contribution to the economy. This isn't even close to zero sum, that's why globalism and colonialism are things.

I guess that's true in some sense, but I wouldn't frame it that way. When I say I'd like my company to hire some great engineer, that doesn't mean I see other companies as just a pool of job candidates or that I'm trying to stick them with bad employees.

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