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Originally Posted by Rain Man
The flip side of that, though, is that the most ambitious of the third-worlders come here, giving us both a short-term advantage and a long-term edge. It's not so much about the people, it's about the political, social, and physical infrastructure that allows people to thrive. I'm not sure that China has that infrastructure.
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I don't argue that we won't see a lot of benefit from the sudden inflow of knowledge workers into the world's workforce. It's not so much about who is the "best off;" we'll all be better as more knowledge is put into society. However, I do think we'll see the playing field being leveled significantly in terms of who controlls things overall. I'm certainly no expert, but the simple strength in numbers gives China and India a pretty big advantage if they can get their infrastructures worked out. As virtual environments emerge as being as important if not more so than physical environments, they may have a significant advantage.