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

theguardian.com

281–290 of 606 posts

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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that wherever you're getting your news from is lying by omission and you have no idea what's actually happening out there. Alternatively, you're engaging in willful ignorance. Yes, it's reasonable to want to enforce immigration laws, but ICE has been engaging in outright criminal behavior. Arresting and imprisoning US citizens, denying due process, then ignoring court orders to release them. Meanwhile,…

[flagged]

I guess I wasn't specific enough.

Sure, ICE does have the authority to perform arrests for some crimes unrelated to immigration, that's not what I'm referring to. ICE is arresting US citizens based on immigration charges.

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The need for things exists independent of the standalone economic viability of those things. That is the entire point of public funding of various resources, including scientific funding. The “available” resources is a political decision. Further, reduction in funds for public resources or increase in misery for scientists are not in and of themselves evidence that those resources were over-funded or too cushy. For t…

It invariably always is. Sure, but there is only so long that can go on funding studying of rather pointless stuff[1] ( added UK example to not be accused of hating on anything in particular US-wise ). [1] https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/5272/1/g... I am not suggesting that. I am literally saying: there is only so much money. That is it. And if push comes to shove, studies of whether chicken finds…

There is a (perhaps apocryphal) story of Michael Faraday showing his new invention of an electric motor to a politician in 1821. He had invented it after investigating strange twitching of a magnetic compass needle.

After seeing the motor, the politician asked “what good is it?” and based on what I can find Faraday either said “what use is a newborn baby” or “one day you’ll be able to tax it”.

So two points: One, you don’t always know things will have a high ROI from the start. Sometimes you just have to be curious. And two, politicians care about the next election in two/four years, not planting trees that won’t bear fruit for 30 years.

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

#283
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.

Don't get it twisted. While what is happening is not right, explain to me what happens when there is criticism of China from within China on their treatment of Uyghurs.

The existence of concentration camps in China does not disprove their existence in the United States.

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

#284

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.

Chinese is too difficult of a language.

I have spent 5 years learning it part-time and have gotten to a level I can understand 30% of a TV show and 20% of a newspaper.

Unfortunately it's two different languages and both are unlike almost anywhere else. The spoken language is tonal and the consonants don't easily match English. If I have a heavy English accent, I just don't speak Chinese instead of sounding like a foreigner. And having to memorize the tones is brutal.

Meanwhile the written language has almost no correlation with the spoken language. You're just drawing a bunch of symbols on a paper in geometrical arrangements. Which is beautiful but difficult if you're used to being able to spell words based on how they sound.

Unless, of course, you're typing on a computer. In that case you must type the latinised spelling of the characters without tones, then scroll through all the homonyms that match the spelling. Which is still extremely difficult because the consonants don't match Latin languages. And you must still learn the characters to know which one to pick.

Once you get through that, every sentence structure is different as well. Instead of "whose book is this", you say 这本书是谁的 which is like saying "this book is his" but you replace "his/他" with a generic word who/谁 representing that you want to know the person the pronoun was referring to. I can even write 这个什么是谁的 where I have replaced the word "book/书" with "what/什么", meaning I am simultaneously asking what the object is and who it belongs to.

You can effectively do this with any sentence or object. It's a much better designed language since sentences don't magically change the order of everything but it means I cannot think words in English and translate them piecemeal to Chinese. I have to know the whole sentence immediately.

Of course, once you learn this, you have to learn the Chinese idioms. And then everything gets worse because there's so many homonyms everything's a pun, which is why I'm stuck. According to Deepseek, 这个什么是谁的 actually means "what is this thing" and you don't care what the thing is, so it's not really the question. You have to reorder it and ask 这是谁的什么 which glosses as "this is whose what" which is a compound question that's grammatically impossible.

Also, I'd be taking a 50% paycut. Otherwise I'd do it anyways.

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

#285
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is trying. Around the time the US announced restrictions on the H-1B visa, China announced the K visa for attracting immigrants [1]. At this point in time, I don't think people are lining up to get K visa to go live in China. But if the current trajectory continues in the US, who knows how things will be in 5 years? [1] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-entry-exit-k-visa...

China has a global reputational problem that will take decades to fix. The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does. Nobody sane is going to believe rhetoric claiming that the US is somehow worse than a country that keeps 1.5 million people in concentration camps, and where people work 70 hours per week, no matter how many times…

> The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does.

As a former academic at a top US university, no, the US no longer has that strong reputation. 10 years ago, if you were someone, you wanted to come to the US. The best students in the world came and stayed.

Things are radically different now. Much of the best talent no longer comes and when they do come they leave. It's night and day.

It's not a binary choice. It's not the US or China. It's the US or Canada/EU/etc. And if you're from China, you used to stay, now you leave.

This isn't reddit. I saw this first hand.

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

#286
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has a global reputational problem that will take decades to fix. The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does. Nobody sane is going to believe rhetoric claiming that the US is somehow worse than a country that keeps 1.5 million people in concentration camps, and where people work 70 hours per week, no matter how many times…

> The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China I don't think this is the case at all.

People already said that 25 years ago when the US started officially torturing prisoners. And 25 years later, highly qualified immigrants are still lining up to move to the US.

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

#287
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is trying. Around the time the US announced restrictions on the H-1B visa, China announced the K visa for attracting immigrants [1]. At this point in time, I don't think people are lining up to get K visa to go live in China. But if the current trajectory continues in the US, who knows how things will be in 5 years? [1] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-entry-exit-k-visa...

China has a global reputational problem that will take decades to fix. The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does. Nobody sane is going to believe rhetoric claiming that the US is somehow worse than a country that keeps 1.5 million people in concentration camps, and where people work 70 hours per week, no matter how many times…

This reads like vague posturing instead of accepting (or even just looking at...) the reality on the ground.

I have about a dozen friends spread across 8 different mid-to-high level universities around the country in biomed. Europe and Canada are definitely a preference but China is entering conversation and has been for the last few years.

The alternative is to abandon an entire career or field of interest because the funding is held up by irrational national political policy.

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

#288
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has a global reputational problem that will take decades to fix. The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does. Nobody sane is going to believe rhetoric claiming that the US is somehow worse than a country that keeps 1.5 million people in concentration camps, and where people work 70 hours per week, no matter how many times…

> The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does. As a former academic at a top US university, no, the US no longer has that strong reputation. 10 years ago, if you were someone, you wanted to come to the US. The best students in the world came and stayed. Things are radically different now. Much of the best talent no longer comes…

> It's not a binary choice. It's not the US or China. It's the US or Canada/EU/etc.

This discussion thread is very specifically about the US vs China, however.

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I guess I wasn't specific enough. Sure, ICE does have the authority to perform arrests for some crimes unrelated to immigration, that's not what I'm referring to. ICE is arresting US citizens based on immigration charges.

Tacking on: I feel that is also just secondary "icing on the cake" versus the bigger problem you identified in the rest of your sentence, a portion which they ignored.

Actually, hold up for a second... What kind of self-described "lawyer" could possibly ignore that portion... except by operating in bad-faith?:

> denying due process, then ignoring court orders to release them.

Right, even if ICE/CBP were somehow only grabbing non-citizens and only for reasons vaguely within their legal mandate, that other behavior is still criminal. Those constitutional rights, and protections from the court system, apply to everyone in US jurisdiction regardless of their immigration status.

For anyone interested in more detail: "How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees, step by step" [0].

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/10/ice-immigration-det...

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No child left behind really screwed kids over that want to learn. We cant just let kids pass because of feelings The whole point of no child left behind was to actually measure student performance instead of relying on feelings: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-child-left-behind-wo... If you try to disaggregate the effects of e.g. immigration, you can see that American education is actually good: https://www…

Over half of the adults in the US can't read at a 6th-grade level. They aren't all immigrants. Clearly American education is not actually good.

Even looking at the entire population, the U.S. has higher reading scores on PISA than the big western european countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy): https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2019/12/pisa-2018-resul.... In reading, the U.S. was basically tied with Japan and the Scandinavian countries.

That is consistent with other international measurements: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1. For example, the U.S. is one of the top performers in the world in the 4th grade literacy--behind Hong Kong but ahead of Macau. In 4th grade math, the U.S. isn't as good, well behind Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. But still comfortably ahead of Germany, Italy, Spain, and France.

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