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University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

deanblundell.substack.com

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Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#11

Post by mnky9800n »

trhway wrote: post #9
mnky9800n wrote: post #2

I find this generally a narrative that is easy to buy into but I wonder how many will actually make the jump. I’m unsure about salaries in Canada but I’ve heard some American academics talking about moving to Europe to find academic jobs there. i think the salary would kill the idea for most americans who would want to move. according to this chart: https://oira.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/297/2024/05/Fa... the…

>how many people would be willing to take a 25-30% salary reduction to move across the world? the wild card variable here is the value of dollar. The actions like protectionist tariffs and isolating of the economy with resulting inflation would be significant factors weakening the currency globally and domestically. So, it isn't the situation when there are countries better than US, it is just US is on track to becom…

That is a really good point that I didn't consider in my post. I agree with you. If the dollar tanks, it becomes easy to go find a similar salary.

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#12

Post by readthenotes1 »

krapp wrote: post #6
Freedom2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No reason for any of the US top intellectuals to stay here. Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, which might be appealing for some of the top intellectuals (mostly Y Combinator founders, I think?)

>Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, (...) I question the intellectual capacity of anyone who actually buys into this mythology. Especially given the number of countries - presumably without freedom of speech or a right to bear arms - which have been far more successful at dealing with tyrannical governments t…

Were they supplied arms by the USA or USSR?

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#13

Post by Kim_Bruning »

mnky9800n wrote: post #2

I find this generally a narrative that is easy to buy into but I wonder how many will actually make the jump. I’m unsure about salaries in Canada but I’ve heard some American academics talking about moving to Europe to find academic jobs there. i think the salary would kill the idea for most americans who would want to move. according to this chart: https://oira.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/297/2024/05/Fa... the…

Mind, salaries often tend to be indexed to the local cost of living. So you could have a pretty decent standard of living even if your nominal salary is a bit lower.

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#14

Post by Freedom2 »

sundaeofshock wrote: post #8
Freedom2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No reason for any of the US top intellectuals to stay here. Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, which might be appealing for some of the top intellectuals (mostly Y Combinator founders, I think?)

Having you been paying attention to the news? People are being disappeared today for exercising their free speech.

I'm not saying I personally agree with the statement, but to be chartiable there is definitely a non-zero amount of commenters here who believe that the US is the only "real" democracy in the world.

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#15

Post by MattGrommes »

One of Germany's biggest mistakes in WWII was pushing out scientists / intellectuals and I fear the US is headed down the same road. Between anti-intellectualism in general, political censorship, and the new Gestapo rounding up student immigrants there's less and less reason for smart people to come to the US or stay and put up with it.

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#16

Post by sebazzz »

Freedom2 wrote: post #5
jmclnx wrote: post #3

Given the choice, I would move also. No reason for any of the US top intellectuals to stay here. I am not a prof, I had a similar opportunity 40 years ago, but it was a different time back then. Now, I would have jumped.

> No reason for any of the US top intellectuals to stay here. Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, which might be appealing for some of the top intellectuals (mostly Y Combinator founders, I think?)

[flagged]

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#17

Post by linguae »

derbOac wrote: post #4
mnky9800n wrote: post #2

I find this generally a narrative that is easy to buy into but I wonder how many will actually make the jump. I’m unsure about salaries in Canada but I’ve heard some American academics talking about moving to Europe to find academic jobs there. i think the salary would kill the idea for most americans who would want to move. according to this chart: https://oira.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/297/2024/05/Fa... the…

I think it remains to be seen what happens with this, but so far I think there's been more noise than fundamental shifts. I don't mean this as a criticism — I sympathized with the essay and agree with a lot of the points it makes — I'm just saying when I've looked at things more closely and discussed things with colleagues migrations are harder than they seem for reasons on both sides of the Atlantic, Pacific, or nor…

“There just isn't a huge pool of money for academics anywhere. Maybe the EU, Canada, or Australia or NZ can step up to the plate, but pretty much everyone I've talked to in those areas have been in financial crises of their own.”

This is congruent with what I’ve heard from my colleagues about this topic, as well as from my own research.

If our worst fears are realized in America, who else is capable of absorbing all of the scholars in America who want to continue pursuing scholarly work?

Even before MAGA’s freezing of NIH and NSF funds, I was already disillusioned with the funding milieu, which is one of the reasons why I am a tenure-track instructor at a community college (100% teaching and service) instead of aiming for a professorship at a university where fundraising is often vital for tenure.

Industry, where I used to work as a researcher before changing careers to teaching, is not a panacea for those who want to do long-term research that is not dictated by short- and medium-term business needs. The days of places like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs ended roughly 30 years ago, and since then industry research has been increasingly focused on the short- and medium-term.

Between the high-debt fiscal situations that the governments of many developing nations face and the unwillingness for industry and the wealthy these days to fund long-term research projects that are not tied to any specific gains, I don’t see the situation improving for academics soon.

One way out of this is to convince millionaires and billionaires that academic pursuits are worth funding. We need more places like the Institute for Advanced Study, more grants like the MacArthur Fellowship.

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#18

Post by Ar-Curunir »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #12
krapp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, (...) I question the intellectual capacity of anyone who actually buys into this mythology. Especially given the number of countries - presumably without freedom of speech or a right to bear arms - which have been far more successful at dealing with tyrannical governments t…

Were they supplied arms by the USA or USSR?

Just take South Korea for an example. The president tried to enforce martial law, and got his ass handed back to him. Can you imagine anything similar to that happening to Trump?

Re: University of Toronto Snags Yale Professors as Canada Raids American Brain Trust

#19

Post by krapp »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #12
krapp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Depending on who you ask, the US is still the only country to have freedom of speech and the right to bear arms against a tyrannical government, (...) I question the intellectual capacity of anyone who actually buys into this mythology. Especially given the number of countries - presumably without freedom of speech or a right to bear arms - which have been far more successful at dealing with tyrannical governments t…

Were they supplied arms by the USA or USSR?

I don't know. It does turn out that one can find guns if one needs them, legally or not, and revolution doesn't require a Constitutionally mandated right to keep and bear arms. Not that a tyrannical government would respect such a right anyway, unless they had the gun owners on their side. The only things guaranteed by the Second Amendment are a market for guns and some irreducible amount of societal gun violence.

Even in Japan, where the gun laws are so onerous even the Yakuza supposedly avoid dealing with them, that guy managed to build his own and shoot Abe Shinzo.

Meanwhile in the US that tree of liberty they love to go on about is getting real thirsty.

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