[Tomis02]

> IMHO this is what drove American superiority in software engineering for several decades. The people who self selected into software engineering really loved the field.

IMO it was funding that made the difference. People outside of USA did not have any less passion towards the field.

[tightbookkeeper]

Any amount of funding gets immediately sucked into the abyss. The entire mathematical research community in Soviet Union probably cost less than a series C startup.

The only sense in which this is true is if choosing that field is a death sentence relative to other society outcomes due to lack of resources.

[eru]

I think the comment you replied to is not so much comparing USA vs rest of the world, but USA then and now.