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Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

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Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#71

Post by chaosbolt »

perihelions wrote: post #21

You people are too good at critical thinking to read "an investment of 500 million euros between 2025 and 2027" and not instantly write this off as empty grandstanding. How much does—or did, recently—the United States federal government invest in scientists in the USA? Is it ~$70 billion a year? [0] Europe can achieve America's (past) results when Europe starts talking with money. Science migration has historically g…

100% about everything you said.

My cousin studied at Ecole Polytechnique, then did a phd at another top french school and become a professor there.

He has 6 articles publishes in the top 3 Math/CS/AI conferences.

He was literally paid 45k€ a year, before taxes and other things, that's 2300€ a month after taxes, his rent was 1100€ because it's Paris, now Polytechnique has one of the hardest math/physics entrance exams in the world, and he published more papers and in more prestigious conferences than most of his colleagues.

He took a couple months to leetcode then got the fuck out to the US, his salary now is legit an order of magnitude higher than what it was, doesn'r have to think about food, transportation, still gets to do research, etc.

I mean you can be as patriotic as you want but when it's that different who's gonna stay here...

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#72

Post by Epa095 »

pqtyw wrote: post #49
Epa095 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I salute you for being open about the chatgpt use! Do you really trust what it says? That quoted chatgpt-number has zero value to me. The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.

What if the links came from the ChatGPT answer as well?

For me that does not change anything really. I assert the trustworthyness of the webpage as usual.

My problem is the statement from chatgpt. I have seen it invent enough bullshit that if it was a person I would have labeled them as untrustworthy a long time ago. Yes yes, it's also amazing and all that jazz, but I still don't know how to trust a 'Chatgpt told me this' - quote.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#73

Post by Epa095 »

mpweiher wrote: post #54
Epa095 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I salute you for being open about the chatgpt use! Do you really trust what it says? That quoted chatgpt-number has zero value to me. The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.

> Do you really trust what it says? "Really trust"? Nope. But I think it gives me a good ballpark estimate and ways to check if that estimate is about right or not. Checking the answer is quicker and potentially less error-prone than compiling the answer.

Ok, so did you verify the 500 billion? If so, then that's really the relevant part for me. But then I trust you, not Chatgpt.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#74

Post by atemerev »

egisspegis wrote: post #64
atemerev wrote: post #29

Oh well. When Russian scientists were escaping the horrible realities of Putin's regime, had someone in Europe attempted to "lure" them? No, they were fired by hundreds [1] and students were not allowed anymore [2]. Not counting the immense indirect pressure like closing their bank accounts and not prolonging their existing residence documents even when they had jobs. When Ukrainian scientists tried to escape the hor…

> What is the difference? Maybe the difference is the fact that russia invaded Ukraine and is murdering, raping and pillaging there? Or maybe the fact that most of russian society is actively supporting that invasion? But those are just my opinion. I guess we'll never now what's the difference :)

Well, American society supports Trump, right? and Trump wants to invade Canada and Denmark.

No, "Russian society" is not a monolith supporting the war of aggression. Just like American society is not all like their government officials and quite many people there do not support the autocratic course. Though yes, even here on Hacker News you can meet supporters of both. Sadly.

Yes, it is alarming that many people in Russia support their government. Just as it is alarming for the US. Or any other autocratic country. This isn't a blanket permission to call "all Russians" or "all Americans" or "all Israeli" or "all Palestinians" or "all immigrants" (insert your pejorative of the day).

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#75

Post by Onavo »

perihelions wrote: post #21

You people are too good at critical thinking to read "an investment of 500 million euros between 2025 and 2027" and not instantly write this off as empty grandstanding. How much does—or did, recently—the United States federal government invest in scientists in the USA? Is it ~$70 billion a year? [0] Europe can achieve America's (past) results when Europe starts talking with money. Science migration has historically g…

How does China's compare in absolute terms after adjusting for purchasing power?

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#77

Post by aden1ne »

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #50
aden1ne wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something…

> I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag. Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed: 1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge i…

> Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them.

This is true, and something I have indeed experienced. However, this is likely true for _any_ country where English is not the official language, not just those in the EU. Besides, understanding bureaucratic lingo is not just a matter of pure linguistics. Governmental concepts rarely translate 1:1 to another nation, even those with the same official language. If you migrate to another country, part and parcel of the experience is that you _must_ contend with bureaucratic principles, rules and institutes with which you are not familiar. There is no escaping that.

That said, at least here in the Netherlands, there is certainly a movement to provide more and more governmental information in English as well. I'm not going to dox myself, but for example my muni's English website looks nigh-identical to the Dutch one.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#78

Post by subscribed »

mpweiher wrote: post #54
Epa095 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I salute you for being open about the chatgpt use! Do you really trust what it says? That quoted chatgpt-number has zero value to me. The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.

> Do you really trust what it says? "Really trust"? Nope. But I think it gives me a good ballpark estimate and ways to check if that estimate is about right or not. Checking the answer is quicker and potentially less error-prone than compiling the answer.

Unless you verify the ballpark figure you shouldn't really use it in the conversation.

Chatgpt is a glorified autocomplete. Don't share it's output unverified like that was some sort of an oracle.

If you really HAVE TO resort to "AI", at least use Perplexity.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#79

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

perihelions wrote: post #48
mpweiher wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not EU R&D budget. This is a small delta, extra funding specifically for attracting US scientists who are looking to move. Comparing this to the total expenditure by the US federal government seems...odd. I asked ChatGPT: "Combining both EU-level and national R&D expenditures, the total R&D spending across the EU in 2023 was approximately €505 billion." But that appears to be total, both government and indust…

I think that the US strongly outperforms the EU by that metric too, https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246/cross-national-compariso... ( "Cross-National Comparisons of R&D Performance" (2024)) In the NSF's specific definition, the US greatly outspends the EU even normalizing by GDP—3.46% of GDP in the USA, against 2.16% in the EU-27. (Notably, China also recently surpassed the EU, at 2.43%).

The US is undoubtedly ahead at the moment, but the point is that this moment is developing into a turning point where the US is reducing science funding while simultaneously being openly hostile to both scientists and very concept of science itself. If US scientists feel this not just a transitory bump but a genuine change in the political climate going forward, then Europe is going to look inviting, especially if they start offering incentives.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#80

Post by Gud »

pqtyw wrote: post #49
Epa095 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I salute you for being open about the chatgpt use! Do you really trust what it says? That quoted chatgpt-number has zero value to me. The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.

What if the links came from the ChatGPT answer as well?

Then why even bother with the "I asked chatgpt"? Just cross reference the links and credit the original sources. It just adds verbosity and doubt to the statement.
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