Pedro Domingos

Well, a former PhD student of mine from Mongolia is now a research scientist at FAIR-Paris. He wanted to stay in NYC, but the US wouldn't give him an H1-B visa. Pretty much invalidates your entire claim ;-)

I am not surprised.. the US govt is mostly a bureaucratic organization. But the meritocratic culture in the US is much better compared to other countries. This is why your student "wanted to stay in NYC". I bet you he will eventually get his visa and move here ;-)

I very much disagree with your claim about meritocracy. Western European countries are *much* more meritocratic than the US. In the US talented-but-poor kids don't stand a chance. And there is this indecently immoral thing called "legacy admissions" in top universities.

In fact, social mobility is higher in most European countries than in the US. It's even higher in the UK than in the US, despite the UK's legacy class system!

Which is mainly a problem if you think that everyone has equal talent, and the only cause of differential achievement is discrimination. (BTW, I've lived in the US and two very different European countries, and America is a classless society in a way that Europe will never be.)

We should not worry too much about social mobility unless "*everyone* has equal talent". What kind of argument is this?

I didn't say that. Stop making up straw men. Once you take ability into account, the difference in mobility between the US and European countries largely disappears. Refute that or admit it.

How did you not say that? And why is the burden on me to refute such as silly claim? It is your burden to support your claim. I'm not even sure what your claim is. Is it your claim that the distribution of talent is different in US and Europe?