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

theguardian.com

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

#291

Post by endemic »

zmgsabst wrote: post #255
Terr_ wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seem evil for enforcing immigration law When people living otherwise-blameless lives begin getting accosted, beaten, or killed on suspicion of the legal equivalent of unpaid parking tickets , then yes, the new enforcement occurring is indeed "evil." When they start willfully breaking all sorts of other major laws and violating court-orders to enforce the minor law, yes, that's usually evil. When rationales last-use…

Go try the same in a non-Western country and report the comparative experience. Histrionics over normal law enforcement that is tame and well-regulated by global standards is embarrassing — it makes Americans look uneducated and childish.

Eh, I used to think we had standards in the US, such as “no masked goons roaming the streets asking for papers.”

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

#292

Post by jedberg »

ptero wrote: post #275
jedberg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German universities are now telling any US researcher who looses their funding that they will be funded at a Germany university and get help with their visa application.

> German universities are now telling any US researcher who looses their funding that they will be funded at a Germany university Is this true? Is there a link to the policy? Anything is possible, but this sounds fishy. German research funding isn't known for either generosity or particularly wide reach.

It’s apparently Pan-European now: https://apnews.com/article/europe-us-science-funding-researc...

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

#293

Post by drecked »

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.

If the U.S. is losing talent to anywhere else in the world isn’t it losing a relative advantage or increasing a relative disadvantage with China, even if China is not the one benefiting from the lost talent?

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

#294

Post by mulmen »

paulddraper wrote: post #196
dragonwriter wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Yes. For example, the U.S. also had ethnically-based "concentration camps" (but not extermination camps) during WWII. But these are not like the concentration camps of the 1940s. "Detention camps" are a more accurate descriptor -- both technically and connotatively -- when they are holding foreign nationals prior to repatriation.

I’m having a hard time understanding how the ICE detention facilities do not meet the Wikipedia definition of concentration camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp. Can you help me out?

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

#295

Post by almosthere »

autoexec wrote: post #267
rayiner wrote: post #191

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.

They should have gone the voucher route many years ago - competition for the best schools.

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

#296

Post by msy »

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.

They're to migrating to America any more either, that's the point. So no, the US has no advantage, on current trajectory it'll increasingly only have 'native' talent and some of that may choose to move elsewhere.

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

p-e-w wrote: post #286
King-Aaron wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by materielle »

jojomodding wrote: post #223
shiroiuma wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Depends on if the Chinese can get over foreigners messing up the tones all the time. English has the advantage that it already had a lot of different ways of pronouncing it before becoming the world language, so the expectations for how perfect people's pronunciation should be was lower.

That’s just not true though. Sure English doesn’t have tones, but there are other tricky parts of the language. Additionally, Russian is another “difficult” language, but all the satellite nations had no problem picking it up.

The real reason people learn English isn’t because it’s easy. It’s because they need to. As someone who is married to an immigrant, it’s not easy for them. They’ve just worked really hard over decades.

Americans will do fine learning Chinese if it ever becomes an economic necessity.

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

#299

Post by msy »

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…

This is a lagging indicator, it is still one of the top no question, but the point is that is shifting materially.

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #254
dboreham wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has 3X more people, and America has a relatively terrible education system, so they have to import talented people who were educated elsewhere.

America has a very good education system against the backdrop of challenging sociological factors and mass low-skill immigration. In the PISA exam, white American kids outperform kids in Hong Kong and Korea, as well as western european kids of non-immigrant ancestry. The American education system has major and important challenges, such as how to educate the large share of kids whose parents are economic migrants fro…

[deleted]
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