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Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

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Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#171
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about money and everything else too. US is a really nice country to live in for high skilled individuals. An immigrant nation who speaks the international language, a fast growing economy, especially in cutting edge tech, with overall taxes lower than Europe and even the housing market crisis is not at bad as what you will encounter in many European cities. And its huge so for a lot of emigrants looking for a ne…

Don't most people in Denmark - and pretty much all Nordic countries - speak English?

For work yes, when forced to do so.

In any other gathering they will obviously prefer their own language. In countries like France, Germany, Italy out is not possible to live a normal life without being at least moderately fluent in the national language.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#172
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think money is the ultimate motivator? It's proven that after some salary amount, you no longer get (much, if at all) happier. And if US politics is affecting you in a bad way, a salary hit will be totally fine.

I guess the question is how close European scientist wages are to "some salary amount", where you no longer have money troubles. I would say that in Europe that's something like 80k euros per year. How much does, say, a starting research assistant get in France? 28,600. To add insult to injury, you get excluded from both of the major social benefits in France: you don't build up pension, you don't get medical coverag…

Having your children under your insurance (and, more importantly, the extra insurance (mutuelle)) if often at no costs to parents.

It depends on the company, though. In my case I do not pay anything more for having my adult children under my insurance.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#173

You people are too good at critical thinking to read "an investment of 500 million euros between 2025 and 2027" and not instantly write this off as empty grandstanding. How much does—or did, recently—the United States federal government invest in scientists in the USA? Is it ~$70 billion a year? [0] Europe can achieve America's (past) results when Europe starts talking with money. Science migration has historically g…

100% about everything you said. My cousin studied at Ecole Polytechnique, then did a phd at another top french school and become a professor there. He has 6 articles publishes in the top 3 Math/CS/AI conferences. He was literally paid 45k€ a year, before taxes and other things, that's 2300€ a month after taxes, his rent was 1100€ because it's Paris, now Polytechnique has one of the hardest math/physics entrance exams…

I can understand him.

Now, there are the French who come back home to profit from the social safety net once there is a serious problem where they are. Somehow they do not chose to be homeless but rather be where a human life counts more.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#174
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the wealth tax is based on your assets. 51% ownership of your $10M early stage startup is $5.1M in wealth, not a liquid asset. Nevertheless, you will owe $51k/yr to the Norwegian government. If you raise a second round at $15M, next year you owe $76k, so on. This creates an impossible situation for a founder of, let’s say, a fission reactor startup. I could be wrong also, I was curious to hear a r…

The US has a wealth tax that predominantly affects the middle class - property taxes. In some states, like mine, it can be 10K+ a year for a typical home! It doesn't really discourage people from building their wealth and buying homes. It does a tiny bit - I've heard people say they rent to avoid property taxes. But barely. So, if the middle class who do not have a lot of wealth can deal with it, I would imagine the…

I see your point and it is similar when you consider a profitable company but think it is different from startup equity because you are raising capital you’re assigning a speculative dollar amount to build the business.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not good, but it is necessary when a government acts the way the Kremlin does. I'm glad to hear there are serious measures in place. Surely you saw the writing on the wall and could have taken citizenship in your host country? All the signs were there since 2014.

Oh I would be the most happy person to do it. The writing was on the wall since 2008, and I am painfully aware of it. However, my host country is Switzerland, where if you are not already a EU citizen, you have to live 10 years basically working on the same permanent job before even getting a permanent residence, _without interruptions_, and years in the academia up and including to the postdoc level do not count. Bo…

This is a particularly sad situation.

I was often wondering how Russians living in the EU feel being pointed at because of what Putin does.

Unfortunately the only Russian I know is a woman living in France for 20 years, married with a French guy and claiming that Russia was attacked and is just defending against agressiin and Nazis. This is sad, I have not talked to her since.

You may want to consider France: you speak French, your daughter is integrated with the culture (I guess you are around Geneva), so it may be an easier place to live in.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#176
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something…

> I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag. Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed: 1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge i…

The problem is social life and informal discussions. I France or Germany you cannot have a normal life without a fairly good knowledge of the language.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#177
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question is how close European scientist wages are to "some salary amount", where you no longer have money troubles. I would say that in Europe that's something like 80k euros per year. How much does, say, a starting research assistant get in France? 28,600. To add insult to injury, you get excluded from both of the major social benefits in France: you don't build up pension, you don't get medical coverag…

Having your children under your insurance (and, more importantly, the extra insurance ( mutuelle )) if often at no costs to parents. It depends on the company, though. In my case I do not pay anything more for having my adult children under my insurance.

I thought in France there's an age limit and then you have to pay, it was 25 at one point (more than a decade ago). Not sure how it works now.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#178
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your children under your insurance (and, more importantly, the extra insurance ( mutuelle )) if often at no costs to parents. It depends on the company, though. In my case I do not pay anything more for having my adult children under my insurance.

I thought in France there's an age limit and then you have to pay, it was 25 at one point (more than a decade ago). Not sure how it works now.

I had a quick look and you are right. Ah la la, it is complicated - Fortunately, I still have a few years before getting that problem.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The Palestinians are not being "punished". That would actually be illegal and is not what Israel is doing. Israel is trying to destroy the party that attacked them, which is a legitimate war aim. 2. Being the civilian population of a dictatorship waging a brutal war of annihilation against its neighbors sucks, but is not the fault of the party being attacked and defending itself from said brutal attack. 3. Particu…

So you're telling me that Israel have not been stopping aid from getting into Gaza for three weeks now? That is definitely a war crime. And basically Hamas are fighting a guerrilla war and engaging in acts of terror similar to what the Zionists engaged in pre 48. If that was ok, then surely what Hamas are doing is fine? I'm really confused about your notion that the Israeli state is being attacked. It's more accurate…

Yeah, it's not a war crime.

Israel is not required to supply its enemy.

If the enemy takes control of humanitarian aid shipments, which Hamas has done consistently from the start, the requirement to supply aid no longer applies.

So Israel has been over-fulfilling its requirements. And when it stops over-fulfilling people start accusing it of war crimes.

You know what's a war crime?

- Using your own civilian population as human shields

- Commandeering humanitarian aid

- Unprovoked attacks targeting civilians

- Using hospitals and schools to launch attacks (including rocket attacks)

Nothing about war is "OK", and neither is your attempt at framing. War is horrible.

Pro-Tip: don't start wars.

Free bonus pro-tip: don't start wars and then cry victim when you start losing.

However, neither Dresden nor the nuclear attacks were "genocide". Look it up.

And last I checked, the consensus is that they were not war crimes, although a vocal minority claims otherwise.

Re: Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US

#180
post #82
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that does not change anything really. I assert the trustworthyness of the webpage as usual. My problem is the statement from chatgpt. I have seen it invent enough bullshit that if it was a person I would have labeled them as untrustworthy a long time ago. Yes yes, it's also amazing and all that jazz, but I still don't know how to trust a 'Chatgpt told me this' - quote.

I do get it. However it's hardly any different or less trustworthy than a random person making a random claim identical to what ChatGPT would say. Of course a 'Chatgpt told me this' disclaimer does indicate something, i.e. either that person has no clue about the topic and is unable to verify the answer at least to some extent on their own and is just blindly copy pasting something and/or believes that anything LLMs…

Good grief.

It's exactly the opposite.

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