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U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

science.org

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Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#21

Post by noncoml »

d4mi3n wrote: post #10
chronny903 wrote: post #3

[flagged]

What problem are you hoping to fix by doing this? I think for any proposal to change policy that has serious impacts on the economics of the country, we should really be very clear on what problem we see, how we plan to solve it, and what specific trade-offs we're making with our solutions.

> What problem are you hoping to fix by doing this?

He/she is saying the quiet part out loud. It was never about illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is just the start.

The underlying theme is xenophobia, racism and bigotry.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#22

Post by JuniperMesos »

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontroversial statement among people I know in academia - or who were in academia but left - and this should absolutely affect the degree to which federal government agencies are willing to hire people who have formal credentials like a STEM PhD.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#25

Post by giraffe_lady »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

Do you think that's what is going on here?

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#26

Post by ixtli »

BrenBarn wrote: post #11

The scarier part is that a lot of people will see this as good news.

I came here to see if the comments could explain to my why this obviously bad thing is actually good. Its somewhat comforting to see others worried about the implication. The fact is that governments (aka public funding) is really what drives the biggest most impactful sorts of scientific breakthroughs. Think: NASA spinoffs, the internet, rocketry, MRNA, etc.

I know that the US has been failing to fund important things like Fusion for more than 40 years now but its sad and scary to see it halting.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#28

Post by lotsofpulp »

TacoCommander wrote: post #17
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, so that we can loose our innovation edge and loose the next Apple, Google or Nvidia. Amazing plan.

A simple house in the South Bay is $2 million or more. Is this a win for humanity?

It’s one of the most desirable places to live in the world, why wouldn’t it be one of the most expensive?

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#30

Post by ixtli »

TacoCommander wrote: post #17
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, so that we can loose our innovation edge and loose the next Apple, Google or Nvidia. Amazing plan.

A simple house in the South Bay is $2 million or more. Is this a win for humanity?

This is a non-sequitur. Making immigration impossible or stopping science funding or whatever is not going to change the behavior of a market profiting off of housing.
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