patrick.net

The audio is from his appearance on The Daily Show. Well, half of it.

The one thing that Tyson doesn't realize is that no amount of dreaming about tomorrow is going to get people into science and engineering if all the jobs are outsourced to China, India, and other third world nations where there is for all practical slave labor.

We can encourage children to study science and engineering till the cows come home. If they see all the high tech jobs going to Chindia, they aren't going to become scientists and engineers, and rightfully so.

Science and engineering are mental labor, and mental labor doesn't require a physical presence, and so it is the first thing to get outsourced. Until that stops, America's brain drain will continue. And America will not be the leader in anything: not science, not math, not engineering, not computing, not the Internet, not economics, and not even politics. All our political power will crumble as we lose those other things. This is why politicians who reward companies for outsourcing are short-sighted.