Opinion: Brain drain

It’s not like we don’t have any smart people. It’s just that they all have to leave town to be smart. You don’t get banner headlines here for inventing some gee-whizz tech. Nope. You get banner headlines for glassing your girlfriend.

Now before you get all haughty, I’m not anti-sport, but why is everyone so surprised when boofheads, whose only skill is kicking things, end up in all sorts of trouble when they’re let loose with their pockets stuffed with cash? What they’re doing is what they always did – get down the pub with their mates and indulge in a bit of biffo. It’s just that now someone cares enough to stalk them and publish the pictures. Meanwhile, nerds get nowhere. But that’s not the case everywhere.

If you’re an Asian nerd, particularly if you’re Korean or Japanese, you can become truly rich and famous just for being a nerd. The Koreans even celebrate their best video gamers as national heroes – and they don’t glass anyone in real life, only on the video battlefield. Why can’t we raise the profile of our very own nerds? The government of the day seems well aware that the magic mineral mining machine will one day grind to an eerie halt. How about spreading the word about nerds instead? Never mind faster, higher, stronger – how about smarter?

Meanwhile, lets hope the new Aussie NASDAQ gets some much needed cash flowing into our nascent technology companies before they’re all enticed overseas and lost forever. Yeah, well, I’m still bitter about that rotary clothes hoist thing. We wuz robbed I tell you!