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Brain Drain Across the United States

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Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#121

Post by DoingIsLearning »

balls187 wrote: post #86
defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

> This doesn't bode well for future generations. It hasn't impacted any generations thus far. Low income and/or poorly educated Americans have always had more children than higher income/well educated Americans. From back when health standards were terrible, to when having more kids meant more hands to work the farm. Yet society still has found a way not to collapse on itself.

> Americans have always had more children than higher income/well educated Americans.

But is this Universally true? 250 years of US history is a blip in Human history.

You could argue that lower classes used to have a lot of children because child mortality rate and morbility rate was very high. Also children were needed as labour, with a role in the household or working along side their mother or father. With modern healthcare, social security, and children rights legislation none of the previous pattern is true.

In comparison higher income people or more accurately land owning ruling class had the luxary of better nutrition and several children were a way of reducing the risk of having no heir to handover to.

Another fundamental difference for higher income families introduced with Christianity is that the ruling class was now (officially) restricted to a single wife. In comparison if you look at several empiries in Asia and Africa, the biggest benefit of power and wealth (from a patriarch perspective) was the ability to 'acquire' multiple wifes and to maximise your genetic descent, the most brutal example of this was probably Genghis Khan.

The point I wanted to make is that having several (surviving) children used to be a privilege reserved for the rich and powerful of whatever society at the time. However with our science/social/legal achievements and progress this is no longer true in our social fabric and I am unsure we can accurately predict how this 'recent' change will impact humans as a whole.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#122

Post by volkl48 »

defen wrote: post #51

Now, consider the "meta-brain-drain" of 1) increased assortative mating (people are increasingly more likely to marry someone of similar educational and professional achievement) and 2) college-educated women delaying childbirth and having fewer children than non-college-educated women. The net result is that more educated people tend to have fewer children than the less educated. If we assume educational attainment…

What we can basically dub the "idiocracy hypothesis" is becoming less true than it was in the past, not more true.

Take a look at the second section for 1995-2010 changes: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/02/lets-not-p...

Yes, the less educated still have more children than the more educated, but that gap is getting smaller.

----------

In more current data:

Teenage pregnancies are down by 55% since 2007, which is an enormous public health success that no one seems to have noticed.

And while I can't find more recent data by educational attainment, there does appear to be racial data, which given the enormous differences in average educational attainment between racial groups, are something you can make inferences from.

The groups which are statistically lower educational attainment have seen 2-6x larger drops in fertility than the groups which are statistically higher educational attainment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/us/fertility-rate-decline... (last sections for figures).

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#123

Post by kgarten »

JamesBarney wrote: post #106
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is hardly a heritable genetic trait. Most of the education differences you see among families is environmental, and can be compensated for by improving public education.

Intelligence and conscientousness are both very heritable and highly correlated with success. And there are no educational interventions that come close to the effect size of intelligence or conscientousness.

What do you mean by intelligence and conscientiousness? If you are referring to IQ scores, yes it seems there’s a factor that’s inherited. For intelligence, I would like to know your definition and the research you are basing it on.

Even for IQ scores it‘s not so clear, as our measure of IQ is variable and there are no longitudinal studies to my knowledge showing what you claim.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#124

Post by skookumchuck »

phamilton wrote: post #117
shmageggy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like we as a society need to figure out a way to make "have children at a reasonable age" not be a low-status move for highly educated / driven / intelligent women. Isn't the obvious answer better maternity leave laws? Ambitious women in the US don't have kids because it fucks their career. The US is literally last among OECD countries, offering zero guaranteed maternity pay [1]. [1] https://money.cnn.com/…

One big part of this is that even if you have guaranteed maternity pay, it still hurts your career. In a highly competitive environment, I don't see how not working for X amount of time doesn't lead to being X amount of time behind in career growth. The answer is to have less competitive environments. In Sweden, jantelagen (a cultural sentiment that discourages overt personal ambition) is a huge part of what enables…

As I recall, Sweden has had problems in the past where the ambitious people leave the country.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#125

Post by kgarten »

reredacted wrote: post #110
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is hardly a heritable genetic trait. Most of the education differences you see among families is environmental, and can be compensated for by improving public education.

Lmfao, it may not be genetic, but it's obviously inheritable.

Yes, so change the public education system that more people get a better education? Look at Sweden/Norway etc., or do you argue that their genes are different ;) I mean education in the US sucks ... you need to be rich to give your kids a good one (comparable to what’s free in Europe)

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#126

Post by Pokepokalypse »

vinayan3 wrote: post #55
zdmc wrote: post #39

Brain Drain is about networking. Why would most give up the opportunity to relocate around the top thinkers in their field? Inhibiting this movement would arguably slow down progress, while making the country more robust (much like the pros/cons associated with most centralization vs. de-centralization topics). People from my hometown (pop. ~7500 in Midwest), do not realize that they are falling behind at an almost e…

> Inhibiting this movement would arguably slow down progress. Don't think the lawmakers want to inhibit movement rather, probably they want to use these conclusions to encourage people to stay. The prosperity brought by progress can be spread across many regions. > People from my hometown (pop. ~7500 in Midwest), do not realize that they are falling behind at an almost exponential rate. Many are working jobs that req…

Education, and lack of opportunity for those who are educated and talented. (They will go where they can reap the most benefits for themselves). That top talent - will also educate their co-workers. Not just the people they work closely with, but everyone in their organization will receive great benefits from collaborating with the people who collaborate with that top talent.

But most people working in the tech industry; (which is very highly stovepiped) - will never experience that, and may only read about it.

When you're not fortunate enough to be employed in one of the top tech industry companies, or in one of the hotspots where the industry is focused (Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Austin, Virginia, maybe Provo, Seattle) - then you have to do all you can to use the internet to constantly learn and grow your skills; but also, you have to try to constantly evangelize the same attitude to your co-workers, and management. It is an exhausting job.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#127

Post by kgarten »

arvinsim wrote: post #84
ausbah wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds exactly like the plot of "Idiocracy" - people who aren't 'smart' are having more children then those who are 'smart' so society is ruined. How about trying to make education and other opportunities more accessible to the less educated instead of bashing them for having a couple more kids?

More educated women having more children is not mutually exclusive to less educated women having more children.

How about educating everybody more ... instead making the breeding argument.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#128

Post by skookumchuck »

taurath wrote: post #11

Brain drain within the US is just as frequently about cultural rather than economic issues. The culture wars the republicans have been running on since the 80s turns off thoughtful people - anti-intellectualism is killing these states. That said, it’s incredibly underserved and there’s tons of very capable and friendly people. Edit: maybe I didn’t get the intended point across - I’d ask though, how many people do you…

> The culture wars the republicans have been running on since the 80s turns off thoughtful people - anti-intellectualism

There was plenty of anti-intellectualism in the US in the 70s. The movie "Revenge of the Nerds" wasn't made in a cultural vacuum. Neither was "Animal House". Sports heros have always been worshiped, not so with intellectuals (other than Einstein).

Much of this changed with Bill Gates. He was derided for being a nerd for years, until he made so much money people stopped laughing at him.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#129

Post by bellerose »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #44
threatofrain wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why should kids with the opportunity to leave choose to stay?

I'm a little shocked at the proposition. The notion that 'you could feasibly make more money elsewhere, and therefore should leave' is not obvious to me, or I think to most people. Chicago may have more opportunity than Michigan overall, but that doesn't mean there are not great opportunities in Michigan. But that's within the context of your imperative. The real answer is that for most people, their job is not the d…

Michigan is awful for a LGBT person and the state isn't approaching modern lifestyle for the young since I've last been there; it's more of just a catering state for the age-group approaching retiring or already retired. The outdoor activities "the only thing it has going for the state" become tiring and when any decent city in a non-brain drain state has YMCAs that are built to facilitate fun social/active activities. The winters are awful as well.

Re: Brain Drain Across the United States

#130

Post by Pokepokalypse »

briandear wrote: post #102
sonnyblarney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Level of education is a decent proxy for intelligence, in anything resembling an academic context. More education is usually better. It's why companies prefer hiring people with more education. That said, I think many roles should not require a college degree for application. That one single thing might make a big difference - because as you hint there are tons of otherwise great people who don't specifically have th…

Is the IQ of a person with a masters degree in sociology higher than the IQ of a non-degreee naval nuclear power technician? Yet the non-degrees nuke tech would be considered “less educated” by the measures being used in this discussion. A journeyman electrician often doesn’t have a degree, but they do more intellectually challenging work/calculations than some Master of Social Work person working at a local non-prof…

Considered by whom? OPM - who sets the contractor pay-rate for these positions? The classification system is very detailed and carefully calibrated and it considers professional experience, certifications, and postsecondary and graduate degrees, and the PhD or MA is not always necessarily higher than an experienced technical engineer.
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