At the same Gracenet dinner that I met Paul, I learned a thing or two from the visiting speaker, AnnaLee Saxenian. The brain-drain of high-skill technology graduates from China and India to Silicon Valley is only half the story. The brains also go back home, taking their newfound ideas with them. Saxenian writes of “brain circulation”, the trans-Pacific process of cross-fertilization, through which Silicon Valley gets socially networked to urban centres throughout Asia.
Compelling evidence that Asia is being Californianised can be found at this new site, which seeks to establish and document India’s standing in the ranks of countries whose citizens have been abducted by aliens.
Seems a bit pointless, though. Everyone knows, and any of my family will attest, that UFOs have been visiting India since before Europeans could write. Ask a Hindu. Not only do the ancient Vedas speak of visits by aliens but they also lay out, in attenuated form, the basis for superstring theory, genetic modification, sidereal engineering, time travel and microwave ovens.