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We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

theguardian.com

151–160 of 606 posts

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#151
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader. I mean we are literally putting people in concentration camps right now. Kinda hard to take the moral high ground at the moment. Scientists are fleeing the United States for their safety, just like they did from 1930s Germany.

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I’m not sure who told you that the Nazis only killed German citizens, considering that they famously invaded Poland (a sovereign nation at the time) and started executing Jews there.

I also don’t know who told you that they’re only putting illegal migrants in Alligator Alcatraz. It’s not hard to find examples of people who had legal visas being rounded up because of the Trump administration’s idiotic quota policy.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is about money. The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free. China or Saudi Arabia can wave their money around, but at least some people will be repulsed by the obligation to keep their mouths shut and praise the Dear Leader. Their cultural insularity does not help either. You can live in China, but you will never be accepted as Chines…

Are you suggesting that anyone who lives and works here in the US can be accepted as “American”? Are you also implying that in the US anyone is free to speak negatively of “dear leader”? There are a multitude of current examples to the contrary.

Born here.

And yeah, used to. Past tense.

Not any more with der fuhrer.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#153
post #111
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a thing that you don’t notice until you experience it. No more compelling argument that we’re doing something wrong as a nation than that first time stepping onto an American street after visiting a civilized country.

I live in a civilized European country and gravely miss the freedom of speech I had in the USA that I don't here. I'm terrified one tweet will get me jailed for 30 months.

Considering the degree of "hate speech" a Tweet would have to contain to land someone in jail includes direct incitements of violence, I'm scared to ask what sort of opinion you'd like to share that you feel you legally cannot.

The claim that you get thrown in jail in London "just for sharing your opinion" is a myth, unless your opinion is, "round up everyone of race X, put them in a hotel, and burn the hotel down."

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#154
post #143
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, China has "genius camps" for young people, to skim off the cream of the cream of the crop, so they can go on to do amazing things for their country. It blows my mind what we've done in the last year, to damage our ability to compete on the world stage.

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I mean, they're both authoritarian right now. But at least one of them doesn't think science is woke. So....

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is not ethnically or culturally homogeneous at all.

Canada is 70% white where the US is close to 50%. That 20% puts them far above the majority line though. Not at all homogeneous, just much more so than the US.

"White" is not one ethnicity or culture -- a lot of that 70% are French-speaking Quebeckers who surely cannot be considered part of a homogeneous mass with Anglo-Canadians.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#156
post #7

> In the normal trajectory of a life in science, Morgan would be planning to set up his own laboratory conducting groundbreaking research designed to win the war on superbugs. But with an ongoing hiring freeze at NIH, his options are limited. That seems a bit too optimistic to be a valid argument.

> That seems a bit too optimistic to be a valid argument.

I think you misunderstood, since that's not about optimism. Years ago, smart students from all over the world could hope for a successful career in American research. Now, in the USA many doors are closing in most academic domains, and few (potential) researchers dare plan any success story.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#158
post #143
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, China has "genius camps" for young people, to skim off the cream of the cream of the crop, so they can go on to do amazing things for their country. It blows my mind what we've done in the last year, to damage our ability to compete on the world stage.

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Don't be an ass. Someone can be an ethically bad person and still do things that you can learn and benefit from. Moreover, saying China is doing good at research does not somehow mean you support their government.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#159
post #27

This kind of Level 1 analysis misses what is really going on. "Brain drain" is not really a concern. There is a tremendous glut of talented biomedical researchers. We have been overproducing them for decades. Even before the cuts, it was incredibly hard to go from a PhD to a tenured professorship. 5-15% would achieve that, depending how you measured. The cuts have made things worse, but European/RoW funding is even s…

This kind of analysis isn't much better. First, many countries are increasing funding substantially (e.g. [1]). Secondly, it's about more than funding. The US is also no longer safe for a great many of the scientists that would normally choose come to the US to work. And even for those that aren't too worried about ICE, scientists tend to be very liberal and value freedom and democracy a great deal. The US has sudden…

it's all about funding. for every 1 person nervous about intellectual safety in the US, there are 50–100 waiting to fill that spot, if not 1,000–10,000. Funding has been cut in academia, and less positions are available as a result. No country is remarkably filling this gap, aside from a hilariously few more availabilities and some more graduate student positions (who operate as the scientific labor in Europe and other countries, before graduating and having to come to the US for job opportunity).

As others have pointed out, presumably the outcome is that higher value scientists are favored, and higher impact research is demanded. When industry demands certain research, the funding appears because private entities will fund those positions and those grants. The widespread funding of all avenues of science is a great feature of American intellectual culture and hopefully it doesn't vanish. But it was a remarkably uneconomical arrangement and a total aberration of history, so I wouldn't hold my breath about it sticking around through the tides of history, it was more of a fluke, and many in academia wishing to regenerate that fluke are a bit delusional and a bit tied to the idea of a golden era like the boomers dreaming of the 1950s suburbs. A great deal of research is important science, but totally worthless for the foreseeable future on an economic basis. We might not yet conceive of why this research does have economic value, but it's so abstracted that as it stands, the value isn't tangible and it's thus impossible to defend reasonably.

Scientific freedom doesn't mean the freedom to expect a subsidized career on the basis of non-lucrative research. It's more of a privilege to have such a lifestyle that is downstream of a wealthy empire. Since America is going bankrupt, the dollar-reaper is coming for the superfluous. So, there goes your funding for conure breeding or the health benefits of community gardens and expect more stability if you're researching crop diseases or livestock vector research.

Re: We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is largely still homogeneous but still welcoming to immigrants and very close to the US. Rather than China totally changing cultures, I think it’s more likely that US-based companies will have large satellite offices in middle powers.

Canada is not ethnically or culturally homogeneous at all.

Data at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada
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