i know we have this kind of backwards concept of this in canada, because we're culturally used to sending our best students to american schools. or, even, just to a different city - we "go away to college", and that means we're good students, when we do.

but, most countries in the world actually want to retain their best students, not send them away to a different country. china doesn't want to send it's best students to yale, although it loses some of them. rather, it wants to get rid of the worst students, by sending them to canada. we could maybe learn something from that.

but, at the same time, we're also the "new world" - we're the colony. and, that's what colonies have always been used as - a way to release excess population.

it's just a necessary mental shift - the chinese and indians don't send us their best and brightest, they do everything they can to hold on to them. isn't that rational, actually? what they send us is their overflow...as the british did before them...