zlacker

> That makes zero sense, governments invest in education to improve their own country

The idea is precisely that not having SV types around _improves_ the country, i.e. makes it closer to the preferences of Canadians.

And yes, having a foreign tech worker doing 9-to-5 in a large legacy company for thoroughly average salaries is very different from having a SV-style startup culture. There is very little process in Canada to make life difficult for the former style of company, and plenty of process to make operations difficult for the latter.

If not having SV folk improves Canada for Canadians, and hqving SV folks improves America for Americans, then this is just mutually beneficial trade. Efforts to try and stop brain drain still makes sense: it's even better if you can convince the citizens you trained to engage in the economic activity you actually want instead of economic activity that you find undesirable, but if you're unable to convince most of them, letting them go is still better than having them stay and engage in their undesirable behavior anyway.

Compare: if a large minority of Icelanders wanted to work for the Baby (which Iceland doesn't have), theb stopping the brain drain (convincing them to work in the Merchant Fleet) is the best outcome, but funneling them out (training them in merchant navigation and watching them join the Danish Navy) would still be preferable to them engaging in their desired behavior anyway (form their own pirate gang preying on the very Merchant Fleet you're trying to advantage).

>>saitho+(OP)
> And yes, having a foreign tech worker doing 9-to-5 in a large legacy company for thoroughly average salaries is very different from having a SV-style startup culture

Immigrants coming into countries start companies at a disproportionate rate compared to natives.

Other than unquantifiable statements about what "Canadians want" everything you mentioned so far to justify this idea of "canada doesnt care if tech graduates leave" is falsifiable by data.

>>vasco+R
One last time, the claim is not that "Canada doesn't care". It's that it prefers it to the alternative of SV-style companies operating from Canada. Which is consistent both with data, facts on the ground (yes, Canada has laws and administrative processes designed to make SV-style startups difficult to start there, that's precisely what people complain about above!), and the comments of actual Canadians in this very thread.

You're welcome to present data falsifying the actual claim if you think you have it (instead of the "Canada doesn't care" straw man or misunderstanding that you repeat above, noting that so far you have not even refuted your own straw man by presenting any data).

>>saitho+R3
> Maybe the majority of Canadians think that (...) having Silicon Valley companies and people making SV salaries around epuld (sic) make their lives worse

This is your claim that I engaged with. If your claim is true it literally means that Canadians do not care if those people leave, in fact they would prefer it. My argument is that you're wrong and Canada and it's people would rather have more tech workers and more tech companies.

I don't believe I'm misunderstanding so I think we should probably both give up at this point.

>>vasco+95
I don't tuink it implies that they don't care, it only implies that they find it preferable to one certain alternative (staying AND turning Vancouver into north-SF; the conjunction is load-bearing), and I think this much looks true and well-supported by the facts and revealed preferences. They're not willing to change the rules and procedures that people complain about here, and if you propose they do so, as many have, they say no to that explicitly.

But I agree that we should probably disengage, so (barring exceptional new insights on my end) will leave this as my last post in the thread. Thanks for the chat.

>>saitho+(OP)
> Compare: if a large minority of Icelanders wanted to work for the Baby (which Iceland doesn't have), theb stopping the brain drain (convincing them to work in the Merchant Fleet) is the best outcome, but funneling them out (training them in merchant navigation and watching them join the Danish Navy) would still be preferable to them engaging in their desired behavior anyway (form their own pirate gang preying on the very Merchant Fleet you're trying to advantage).

I read this as if you'd be concerned of Canadians using their tech skills run malware groups, if Canada wouldn't let them leave and join SV companies.

>>vasco+95
The problem is that Canada is basically a european country on the american continent - SV is possible in a place where you can have risk and reward. But also you might lose everything. In Canada, it is hard to become rich - so no worth trying, there is also less risk due to better social security and the base level is pretty decent. Would not be surprised if there are tons of regulations in Canada too (more than in USA).

There is a reason why there are not many startups in Europe - if you can have a decent life, secure job and a nice social security - no worth playing risky games. I would not be surprised if just sheer layoffs in USA led to more startups than in the whole Europe.

>>manuel+LJ
I see why you'd read it that way, but it's meant as a metaphor, not an analogy, to help elucidate that a government may take steps to try and bring about their preferred outcome of retaining people, while not bringing about what is, from their perspective, even more undesirable outcome.

It's not perfect, but neither is anything else I couls.come up with. Take the following:

- Persia would prefer many trained accountants so that PersianAccountants, the shah's preferred supplier of accounting technology, can hire cheaply from a large talent pool.

- Ambitious, trained accountants leave for the U.S. to work on DisruptiveAccounting.io, earning big bucks and disrupting the U.S. accounting sector.

- If Persia changes the kingdom's procedures and incentives, the same accountants would stay and found DisruptiveAccounting East, instead of working for PersianAccountants. This would be strictly worse for the shah than letting them leave.

The problem is, if I were to use this metaphor, people would get hung up on the difference between democracy and monarchy (preferences of one autocrat vs. that of the majority) and most Americans just straught up do not understand why anybody, much less the majority, would prefer not disrupting the accounting sector.

I.e. if they don't understand what I'm saying about Canada not liking the third option, the metaphor falls flat: they also won't see why the shah doesn't like the third option.

So I had to look for a metaphor where the obvious alternative is undesirable to most Americans. Hence piracy. The problem is that there's another reading now (the software engineers will become criminals).

Do you have a metaphor that would avoid both issues? I'd love to hear it!