Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 606 posts

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

#181

Post by mr_00ff00 »

lateforwork wrote: post #112

In all important areas such as clean energy, fusion energy, biotechnology and AI the Chinese government is heavily investing in and pushing Chinese companies to lead the world. China Is Outspending the U.S. to Achieve the ‘Holy Grail’ of Clean Energy: Fusion See: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/climate/china-us-fusion-e... America's lead in biotechnology is slipping, while China has made synthetic biology a nation…

But related to this article, is China winning in terms of accumulating talent?

I don’t think people all over Europe/Asia/Africa migrate to China.

If they succeed, it’s purely with their own talent. The US still has that advantage even if it has less of it, unless I am mistaken.

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

#183

Post by dragonwriter »

paulddraper wrote: post #173
mulmen wrote: 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.

[flagged]

"Concentration camp” is a term that predates its (somewhat euphemistic, when done in retrospect) use for the camps eventually used in the extermnation campaign by the Nazis (which also started out as concentration camps, in the more usual sense, as part of what was nominally a deportation program.)

Though concentration camps are almost always part of systematic, ethnically-targetted abuse, even when they aren't part of genocide campaigns.

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

#184

Post by jmward01 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #79

USA is still one of the top countries for scientists. Just as an example Europe had a few years of exporting the best GLP-1 drugs (finally something in which Europe was leader in science), Eli Lily quickly took it over. In software San Francisco is still the top for AI research: even when Peter Steinberger didn't know what he will do with OpenClaw, it was clear to him that the only place to move to was USA. Terrence…

I fled SF and I know a bunch of similar people. Startups are still founded there for the address, not the local talent pool. The address is there because of inertia, not because of inherent advantage. If I were to create a startup I wouldn't even consider doing it in SF now. It is a waste of money that could be put towards the idea. The US is clearly on an ant-intellectual path. People default to here because of inertia but every attack on immigrants, every high level decision based on quack science and personal gain and every attack on our institutions supporting the development of the next generation is putting inertia elsewhere. It is clear as day that the US is only keeping any kind of advantage right now due to inertia and threat and not innovation and effort.

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

#185

Post by ikrenji »

inglor_cz wrote: post #58
dheera wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everything is about money. It is when researchers can't make enough money to eat and live, which is an actual reality in the US right now. Researchers at top institutions often make less than Uber drivers. There are other countries where you can live on less and the government isn't dipping their hands into your pockets every 5 seconds.

Some people will switch careers, but I do doubt that in an economy with very low unemployment amongst qualified people, any actual scientist will literally starve and become homeless.

maybe not starve, but should scientists live in poverty?

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

#186

Post by conception »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #181
lateforwork wrote: post #112

In all important areas such as clean energy, fusion energy, biotechnology and AI the Chinese government is heavily investing in and pushing Chinese companies to lead the world. China Is Outspending the U.S. to Achieve the ‘Holy Grail’ of Clean Energy: Fusion See: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/climate/china-us-fusion-e... America's lead in biotechnology is slipping, while China has made synthetic biology a nation…

But related to this article, is China winning in terms of accumulating talent? I don’t think people all over Europe/Asia/Africa migrate to China. If they succeed, it’s purely with their own talent. The US still has that advantage even if it has less of it, unless I am mistaken.

Well, China has a tremendous pool of people to pull talent from. Do they need immigrants? Or just continue the path of “building it in-house”?

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

#187

Post by direwolf20 »

torstenvl wrote: post #175
Arainach wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[flagged]

Idk, I think a much more effective way to destroy the US would be to send armed gangs through the streets and have them kidnap people from their houses at random.

That would cause far more destruction than merely telling people you were doing that without actually doing it.

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

#188

Post by dragonwriter »

inglor_cz wrote: post #40
beloch wrote: 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.

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…

> The killer app of the US used to be that the US was rich and welcoming to foreigners and politically quite free.

Yeah, it used to be the that the US only committed ethnic cleansing against people that were here first, not foreigners, and was so welcoming to foreigners that it would expend resources to have them shipped here as property.

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

#189

Post by tr4477 »

noosphr wrote: post #115
xiphias2 wrote: post #79

USA is still one of the top countries for scientists. Just as an example Europe had a few years of exporting the best GLP-1 drugs (finally something in which Europe was leader in science), Eli Lily quickly took it over. In software San Francisco is still the top for AI research: even when Peter Steinberger didn't know what he will do with OpenClaw, it was clear to him that the only place to move to was USA. Terrence…

>In software San Francisco is still the top for AI research What was the last thing that a major US Lab published? It's all trade secrets. Chinese labs are the only ones publishing results as they happen. The US is in the position it was for semiconductor manufacturing, first it was labs and open science. Then by the 80s fabs started costing millions and universities stopped being able to contribute and nothing got p…

>What was the last thing that a major US Lab published? It's all trade secrets.

>Chinese labs are the only ones publishing results as they happen.

Google published the transformer architecture. Facebook published llama.

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

#190

Post by direwolf20 »

jazz9k wrote: post #143
e40 wrote: 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.

[flagged]

Did you miss Trump's plan to censor the internet except for party approved propaganda? It was on the front page here a few days ago. The propaganda site will be called freedom.gov.
Post reply on HN