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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

#151

Post by danmaz74 »

derping69 wrote: post #113
landryraccoon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US chooses to do this though. The US can stop doing this anytime it wants to, nobody is forcing us to. If we don't like subsidizing Pharma companies maybe it should just stop doing it. It's not like Europe is asking us to. Similarly, I'm all for closing bases. If the US wants to close bases and cut military spending, who's stopping us?

Russia invading Europe is what's stopping us.

Russia has 144 million people and a GDP on par with Italy. The EU has 500 million people and - even without NATO and the UK - French nukes, with the ability to develop them in other countries if necessary. Russians aren't stupid, they would never attack us.

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

#152

Post by simplify »

e59d134d wrote: post #70
CorvusCrypto wrote: post #8

While I don't feel that there is risk of brain drain because of the reasons listed in the article, I do believe there is that risk. To be honest, even though many European countries don't pay as much as the US for the same job, I found much more comfort around the ideas pushed in those countries. The culture I found in Sweden for instance is one that is much better for the employees than the fast-paced top-gun style…

What you say is so true even that micro-level. At my company, we were driven by by high code quality. We would try our best to minimize escalations, we will never release new code on Friday or late in a day because people have lives. We really made sure no one was working late or on weekends. And we were still competitive and profitable business. Then we get bought by a Fortune 500 company. Slowly new rules come in.…

Can you describe what you mean by escalations?

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

#153

Post by spaceseaman »

dragonwriter wrote: post #125
derping69 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is able to do this because the US subsidizes their existence. 1. Pharma companies develop drugs with US subsidies and make their profits off US citizens while European countries put price ceilings on their drugs. 2. US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe-...

> US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money elsewhere. The US doesn't “defend the world” by any stretch of the imagination. As for what it does commit to defending, well, other countries wouldn't let the US put the forces and facilities in their countries that the US wants there for global force protection of the US didn't also make a credible commitment to mutual defense; the US doesn…

I can tell you're someone who has actually read the core objectives of branches of the military and has experience with their relationships with other countries.

If you're reading this and would like a concrete example of what the guy above me means, take a look at the U.S. history in major foreign bases like Okinawa. Okinawa does not exist so we can defend Japan. It serves as an Asian FOB, helps contain North Korea / China, secures our access to important shipping routes, and of course "projects force".

The "U.S. protects Europe and the rest of the world" is just some jingoist narrative with no factual basis.

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

#154

Post by jacobush »

simplify wrote: post #152
e59d134d wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is so true even that micro-level. At my company, we were driven by by high code quality. We would try our best to minimize escalations, we will never release new code on Friday or late in a day because people have lives. We really made sure no one was working late or on weekends. And we were still competitive and profitable business. Then we get bought by a Fortune 500 company. Slowly new rules come in.…

Can you describe what you mean by escalations?

Probably incidents which are escalated all the way to rapid fix by programmers.

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

#155

Post by sjg007 »

leggomylibro wrote: post #132
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).

It's not just academia and a bleak social outlook. I've been playing around with starting a business, and the USA is not, not, NOT a good place to bootstrap anything involving R&D or manufacturing. Without enormous capital reserves to back you or political connections, you're dead before you leave the gate. Case in point; my state offers a 40% tax break to manufacturing companies. No, sorry, the governor vetoed that.…

You have to play the politics, some way, any way.

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

#156

Post by jacobush »

bussierem wrote: post #56
CorvusCrypto wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then I guess my takeaway is then that there's great and poor working expectations and conditions in both areas. I found the US to be a highly negative experience and don't wish the stress on anyone. Being able to go home at night and not have to be on call or work overtime because it's expected is a great relief. I'll take that over a 100k salary any day. And certainly over my middle income job in California. Howe…

Despite the fact that all we can do here is argue using anecdotes, I'll toss mine in - I live in the US, not on the west coast (midwest for me). I make over 100k a year, I have excellent benefits, lots of vacation time, and when I leave work after 8 hours, nobody bothers me. I do feel incredibly lucky in this situation - I know not everyone gets the stuff I do. But I feel like maybe you might be mistaking "programmin…

But in Sweden almost EVERYONE (full time workers) gets 5 weeks vacation, 4 weeks contiguous, no questions asked. Not just engineers at great companies.

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

#157

Post by sjg007 »

jubabuba wrote: post #95
sverige wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. The US should withdraw all its military personnel and equipment from Europe as quickly as feasible.

The US will never do that because then Russia will fill the power vacuum and that is something the US leadership will not tolerate

Europe would not tolerate it either.

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

#158

Post by dv_dt »

corporateslave3 wrote: post #150
dv_dt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain that the biggest inefficiency of how we practice capitalism today is that it is casting aside the ability for people to contribute to society to their full potential. And as we advance economically, it seems that inefficiency is expanding to more and more people.

Inefficiency compared to what? Look at what capitalism has done to standards of living and life expectancy across the world over the last 100 years. In terms of the quality of human life, it is so staggering how effective capitalism has been. I think your view point of certain people being disadvantaged with regards to our current form of capitalism is short sighted. Sure, some physics phd may not be fully utilized,…

Inefficiency at delivering improvements in life quality compared to even a couple of decades ago in the US.

I look at the characteristics of capitalism across two different zones of operation. One a sort of pre-industrial/pre-buildout phase and the other a post-buildout phase. The performance was great in pre-buildout where it's pretty easy to direct just about any additional economic activity to creating new value. So just about any activity that increase profits - increases general well being in the region.

But for nations in the post-buildout it's pretty sketchy, mostly more and more capital allocation going to momentum activity (three years of provable ROI...) instead of fundamental value creation. Increased profits don't necessarily spread out to general well being.

Nations like China, and many African nations, etc are in the earlier phase and it is certainly improving human quality of life in those kinds of regions - but other nations in post-buildout it's a very mixed bag where fundamental improvements are flat or even reversing. China is arguably in the middle of build out and may have another decade or two to go where current capitalistic tools work well for it. Africa is even earlier on that curve - but the US is definitely in the post phase.

I'm not even advocating any specific change - just observing that there's a big difference in the effects of economic activity in the two phases. And that the US in the second phase is really not delivering quality of life improvements to society at large in the same way as earlier. If one agrees with my observations though - it is easy to think that some sort of change is warranted.

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

#159

Post by jackpirate »

hosh wrote: post #79

My father was a postdoc in the 90s, having gotten his master's and Ph.D. here in the states. Mother has a Ph.D. as well. My family and Taiwanese, and I knew about this issue growing up. This doesn't just affect our family, it also affects the other Taiwanese families I am aware of. The difference was that, back then, if we were to go back to Taiwan, there wasn't a guarantee that a US-trained Ph.D. would get any sort…

>shut down their massive network of steel foundries

I'm only passingly familiar with the Ming dynasty's attempts to isolate itself from the outside world. But I've never heard anyone describe it as a rejection of technology the way you're implying here. I'd love to read more about "Chinese Ludites" if you have links.

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

#160

Post by noetic_techy »

250K for a house. How exactly do you expect any country, let alone the US, to compete with that kind of offer.

Sure you can expand research grant money, as the article mentions, but what more than that? A guaranteed job? A blank check? The author should have spelled out some realistic reforms.

I'd hardly call 140+ out of 3000+ applicant returnees a brain drain. Sounds like they don't offer this to foreigners either. Someone forgot to tell them how politically incorrect that is. Plenty of smart people from other countries would love to take their place.

And so what if they go to Canada, our friendly northern neighbor, ally, partner in this hemisphere, and subscriber to our intellectual property laws. I don't necessarily consider that a "drain", more like just living in "alternative version USA". Not like they can't easily return to the US if a better opportunity came up and or the political climate shifted more to their liking.

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