
From Asylum Seeker to Fields Medal Winner at Cambridge - rbanffy
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caucher-birkar-from-asylum-seeker-to-fields-medal-winner-at-cambridge-xrz5t7ktj
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Hasz
Just think -- there's people like Caucher Birkar the world over, especially in
places that might not fully recognize the talent and drive. Without access to
higher education, and the connections attached, talented individuals will have
a very hard time realizing their full potential.

Developed countries around the world should be tripping over themselves to
offer asylum, motivated not only by humanitarian concerns but by considering
asylum as an investment in the brainpower of a nation.

~~~
jcriddle4
There are thousands of Einsteins or Thomas Edisons that were never born
because someone had a headache that evening. Should countries be tripping over
themselves to encourage more babies? Is there some reason that you think an
asylum seeker is more likely to be a Fields Medal Winner then a regular
citizen? What about the country these people come from do you think we should
strip theses countries of their brain power? Do you support regime change wars
if the powers that be give you a good story about wanting "freedom" for there
people while taking action that will likely kill maybe a hundred thousand
people?

Say a small city has about 50 new job opening per year at there current growth
rate and already has about 100 people looking for work. Do you believe,
because your intentions and character are good and you mean well that somehow
a magic fairy is going to come down and create more jobs just because more
people show up? Do believe in type of job theory where if the wealthy are
allowed to keep wages low, because of competition, that we all will be better
off in the long run because of some "trickle down theory of labor"?

~~~
sparky_z
Those people that show up will require goods and services. The economy will
act to meet that demand if it is not restrained from doing so. So yes, in
broad strokes, if more people show up, more work will need doing and more jobs
will be created. No magic fairy required.

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enitihas
Another article on the same topic without paywall:
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/caucher-birkar-who-fled-
war-a...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/caucher-birkar-who-fled-war-and-
found-asylum-wins-fields-medal-20180801/)

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MagicPropmaker
There were other asylum seekers who won Fields Medals.

For example Klaus Roth and Alexander Grothendieck

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Roth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Roth)

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hi41
How does Iran consistently produce so many great mathematicians? Few years
there was Maryam Mirzakhani too.

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walrus01
I understand that there is an HN rule against complaining about paywalls, but
I think it would be helpful for everyone as a general practice, if somebody
posts a paywall article, the first comment on it should be from the poster
with a link to the full article text or a tool to bypass it.

~~~
neilv
I think that neither of those would constitute fair use, in the copyright
conventions most of us are under.

I like what happened on this post: someone posted a link to a non-paywall
article on the same topic.

~~~
Havoc
Agreed. If you're allergic to paywalls the last thing you want to do is drive
traffic towards them

~~~
Turukawa
I'm curious about your opposition to paywalls. With journalists losing their
jobs, and quality newspapers closing, what would your ideal means of both
reading these stories, and funding the production of them, look like?

~~~
Havoc
>I'm curious about your opposition to paywalls.

It creates walled gardens & excludes the poor.

e.g. Some poor kid in Kenya googles info that could have life changing
impact...and hits a paywall that demands more than he earns in a year.

The internet became great exactly because it's the wild west where crazy
things like community driven wikipedia thrive.

It's not that I oppose the whole pay for quality directly (family members are
journalists)...but rather that the internet has become a bit of a core pillar
of human knowledge & we really can't afford that to end in a maze of corporate
walled gardens - it'll crush the thing that makes it great.

>what would your ideal means of both reading these stories,

The internet was fine before paywalls - in fact it grew & thrived. The whole
you have to pay or there is no quality content seems quite false to me.

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dhruvrrp
>excludes the poor

This isn’t how it works though. I was in India recently and i found that NYT
or WSJ didn’t have the 10 article limit that I’m usually accustomed to seeing.

>the internet was fine before paywalls

That is because people used to pay for quality content and the internet was
just a medium to get more exposure. Now since the internet has matured and
there is an abundance of information available for free, people have stopped
paying for quality content.

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kss238
Paywall and outline does not work.

