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It is a shame that the best and brightest get funneled into zero sum laptop jobs in this era of financialization. Imagine the outcomes that an educated, civic-minded intellectual powerhouse could create in their home country if they were properly educated and pushed towards making an effective difference. It'd be a real shame if a series of checkboxes just led to this raw genius sitting optimizing financial transactions instead of contributing at all to any sort of human development.
Shame I agree, alas the state doesn't fund jobs where these people can actually make a difference with salaries anywhere near the ballpark of what high finance pays. They don't even have to match the pay, just provide something that doesn't make it look like one is working for free and is "respectable", even paying 50-60% of high finance would be enough to pull a lot of people over to working for the public good rather than playing zero sum financial games. But hey, the common man would throw a tantrum if it turned out the British state was paying clever 22 year olds 3x the salary of the prime minister to improve things and generate an order of magnitude extra value for society than what they're getting paid, even if it were below what that 22 year could get on the open market. I don't blame the government, at least not directly; they still have enough smart people to know what's what. I blame the populace who make it politically impossible for the government to do what's optimal.
A man could take a year's savings or even less and try to make effective changes to their place of origin, as well. Instead of abandoning it in favor of zero sum absurdities.
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