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

theguardian.com

171–180 of 606 posts

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

#171
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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The US government is now more authoritarian than the Chinese government. Half of what you've been told is propaganda, like the "social credit score" story.

In China they put people to death for corruption, here they just get a well-paid lobbying job.

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

#172
post #25

>"Billions of dollars have been wiped from research budgets, almost 8,000 grants have been cancelled at NIH and the US National Science Foundation alone, and more than 1,000 NIH employees have been fired." ---------------- Scientists go where science is funded. A large proportion of U.S. scientists are also immigrants, who will tend to go where immigrants are welcomed.

> Scientists go where science is funded.

DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic pay quite well for research and have better "labs" than most places on Earth. I don't believe they're struggling to hire either.

This article is using a relatively outdated definition, functionally speaking, of "research institute".

Traditional research institutions, especially academia, have been declining for decades and current funding problems are just another one of many problems thrown into the mix.

I remember well a world where most serious research happened in universities and was publicly funded. I personally think that was a better world, but that is not the world we live in today and I don't see us going back. Even China's most impressive research is not coming from publicly controlled research institutes or universities but from VCs and large corporations.

To be fair, the time of open public science was a relatively brief in it's long history.

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

#173
post #61

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…

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

#175
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.

It bears repeating: for everyone who insists that the US Executive Branch isn't compromised by our enemies, what different actions would someone who was compromised and trying to speedrun the destruction of American power, influence, and hegemony have taken?

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

#176

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 a color, not a culture. Quebec and Newfoundland are very different than Alberta and Saskatchewan.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

77,302,580 people voted for Trump in 2024. That is not "half the country". Nor does he or ever did have the support of "(over) half the country". His maximum approval level in 2025 was at the beginning of his term at 47% "approve" and is currently around 36%, according to the Gallup poll.

It's over half the electorate. Stop changing the standards for democracy and holding the current ex-wrestling valet and game show host to standards than literally no one has been held to in history. It's a desperate, dishonest way to cover up the failure of the opposition to be any better.

No, it was under half the electorate too (27% of the electorate didn't vote after all).

It was under half of the voters in the election itself as well. He won with a plurality, not a majority.

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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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.

And you don't see a difference between detaining visitors versus invading other nations?

They are quite literally opposites.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There are a multitude of current examples to the contrary. I see negative opinions of government officials constantly. It's basically all I see whenever I have the misfortune of turning on the TV.

Have you tried OAN or Fox News?
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