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The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

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Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#191

Post by jdietrich »

Xylakant wrote: post #119
danmaz74 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well in Europe you usually get your 2 weeks Are there EU nations that give so little paid vacation? At least in the West, I think at least 3 weeks (non contiguous) is the norm...

In Europe 4 weeks of PTO is the minimum by law IIRC. I'm inclined to think the parent meant "2 continuous weeks" (I'd have to check but AFAIK at least in germany your employer has to grant that as well, either by law or by court interpretation of the law. Take this with a grain of salt, no legal advice, yadda yadda...)

The legal minimum across the EU is four weeks of paid annual leave.

Source (article 7):

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#192

Post by 0xfaded »

I'm leaving after 3 years working for SV start ups. It's time for me to do my own thing, and there's just no viable way for me to stay here during the "figuring it out phase". Spain, France and the Netherlands have attractive entrepreneur visas, or I could easily go home to Australia, to New Zealand or Canada. I will miss living near Stanford and the people around here, but there are other top universities to go camp out next to.

There was similar discussion on proberts AMA, there's simply no easy way to hang out here to work on cool side projects. The closest thing is the E2 visa, which would require all of my savings.

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#193

Post by holydude »

kartan wrote: post #186
holydude wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this to be pretty much a very biased subjective analogy. I am a european so I hope my "anti-european-rant" will be better accepted but lets see... Europeans often have this illusion of a working social democracy compared to the US suggesting their by default offered benefits to be superior to the offers from the US. That's not the case. In a lot of middle-income-class positions you get most of the things you…

You are comparing the worst of Europe (companies can be very exploitative even if it's ILLEGA) with the best of USA (a lot of middle-income-class positions) and not even the complete thing (you get most of the things). That's not a fair comparison.

These things cannot really be compared. As i said some people prefer the social benefits to be the norm some other (myself included) prefer the money. A lot of middle income positions in many places in europe are treated like a mere bricklayers

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#194

Post by gozur88 »

glenndebacker wrote: post #190
gozur88 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say the US defends "the world", but certainly countries like Germany and Japan are getting a pretty good deal from the US taxpayer.

Yeah seeing the refugee crisis, the uprising of ISIS, terrorist attacks that are indirectly related to a lot of American invasions we Europeans are getting definitely the long end of the stick. I find it really weird how over the ocean they are always pounding the self on the chest but they never think about how some of us need to deal with the consequences of the decisions they made in the past. You can bicker a who…

>You can bicker a whole day of keeping people out and travel bans but you need to ask yourself what is one of the reasons we have them in the first place.

Because they know you're a soft touch? How many 30 year old "Syrian children" from Pakistan and North Africa are you going to settle before you realize most of the people coming to Europe are coming for the free benefits and not because they're fleeing war? Shouldn't Syria be pretty much empty by now?

Besides, there was a country which kept migrants bottled up in Africa until France and the UK decided to settle old scores.

>Military spending is also not about the bill but funding the American military complex by forcing shoddy products (JSF) to other countries. I know this is the reason why this country is still debating about replacing our old F16 fleet.

Nobody's forcing you to do anything. You could buy from the Swedes, or the French, or even the Russians. And no, the JSF is not a "shoddy" product. It's just too expensive. Do you expect the US will bomb your country if you don't buy it? Don't buy it.

>America is not perfect in that regards that they only brings safety to the world or they do everything because they have high moral values.

Nobody's claiming to be perfect. All I'm saying is we're wasting money protecting Europeans who are perfectly capable of defending themselves. Europeans who refuse to spend more than a token amount on defense and then expect the US to "take the lead" whenever something bad happens. If it were up to me you'd be on your own.

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#195

Post by refurb »

aioprisan wrote: post #183
refurb wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug makers spend more in marketing than R&D Absolutely untrue. It's amazing how this "fact" continues to be shared even when shown to be false.

A simple search would have saved you some embarrassment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...

I knew you'd reference that study, it is really poorly done. Lumping all SG&A into "marketing" is wrong.

SG&A is a catch all. It included things like staplers, secretaries, etc. it's not purely marketing.

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#196

Post by somethingsimple »

sjg007 wrote: post #140
deong wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm a US citizen with an American PhD in CS. I did a five year stint at a research lab in Iceland, and after two years back in the states, we're in the process of moving back to Reykjavik now, for most of the reasons you're discussing (as well as the bleak outlook for US science funding, and well, the overall bleak outlook for the US as just a suitable place to live at this point, but hey).

Iceland is great.. most likely place to survive a nuclear winter.

Do you have a source for that?

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#197

Post by amag »

robotresearcher wrote: post #148
amag wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to my calculations 60k in Sweden would land you some 43k after taxes. At 60k the progressive taxes in Sweden are just starting to hurt. Somewhere north of 80k, it starts to feel like you only work for the government...

If you don't understand how progressive taxation works, maybe. High taxes on the marginal dollar after your middle-class life expenses are met isn't so bad.

Well, there are progressive taxes and there are progressive taxes. In Sweden, the taxes were a bit too "progressive" a couple of decades ago, when you could have a margin tax rate above 100%. It's a bit better now though...

But if I understand you correctly, your argument is that once my expenses are met, I might as well give the rest of my money to the government?

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#198

Post by asclepi »

forapurpose wrote: post #49

Another way the U.S. is risking a brain drain: I've read that in more than one state college enrollment is going down. Education seems to be going backward. People assume the U.S. is a first-world country, but there's no reason it can't be like Russia or other nations with poor government, corruption, and a culture that doesn't value education.

That's not necessarily true if it means that more Americans are pursuing skills-based training instead of college. Many of our vacant jobs do not have a college program to prepare for them [1]. Valuing education doesn't mean you need to chase ever-increasing college enrollment numbers, especially if you are unable to provide every college graduate with a matching job.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/22/help-wanted-americans-don... (featured on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651019)

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#199

Post by mickronome »

gozur88 wrote: post #194
glenndebacker wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah seeing the refugee crisis, the uprising of ISIS, terrorist attacks that are indirectly related to a lot of American invasions we Europeans are getting definitely the long end of the stick. I find it really weird how over the ocean they are always pounding the self on the chest but they never think about how some of us need to deal with the consequences of the decisions they made in the past. You can bicker a who…

>You can bicker a whole day of keeping people out and travel bans but you need to ask yourself what is one of the reasons we have them in the first place. Because they know you're a soft touch? How many 30 year old "Syrian children" from Pakistan and North Africa are you going to settle before you realize most of the people coming to Europe are coming for the free benefits and not because they're fleeing war? Shouldn…

"... before you realize most of the people coming to Europe are coming for the free benefits and not because they're fleeing war? "

The majority is definitely not coming for what you call 'free benefits', and most of those who do will be sent back home in due time, if their home countries accept them back. Unfortunately it's quite common that they don't, and then there's not much left to do but allow also these people to stay. Can't really deport people when their home countries won't let them through the border control.

Re: The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

#200

Post by forapurpose »

asclepi wrote: post #198
forapurpose wrote: post #49

Another way the U.S. is risking a brain drain: I've read that in more than one state college enrollment is going down. Education seems to be going backward. People assume the U.S. is a first-world country, but there's no reason it can't be like Russia or other nations with poor government, corruption, and a culture that doesn't value education.

That's not necessarily true if it means that more Americans are pursuing skills-based training instead of college. Many of our vacant jobs do not have a college program to prepare for them [1]. Valuing education doesn't mean you need to chase ever-increasing college enrollment numbers, especially if you are unable to provide every college graduate with a matching job. [1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/22/help-wante…

That assumes that the only purpose of college is job skills, a recent phenomenon. College is to teach people about the world and how to reason - the ability that separates humans from beasts, civilization from barbarism, the Enlightenment from the Medieval, fact from fiction (a skill desperately needed these days) - by studying the great reason and 'reasoners' of the world, current and past, in all different fields from science to literature to math to political science. If you think you can reason as well without that, with only coding school, I think you're kidding yourself.

Also, the lifetime wages of college degree holders shows demand is pretty high for them.

Finally, when people say college isn't necessary, they meant 'not necessary for lower class kids'. I assure you that every Senator who proposes cutting education funding is sending their own kids to college, as is almost everyone reading this on HN.

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