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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

#301

Post by jmcgough »

rayiner wrote: post #224
jmcgough wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not about this - it's that for decades we've been able to draw top global talent to the US. We've cut research funding so heavy that we can't even support post docs who are American citizens now. My friends are going to Europe, Canada, Hong Kong.

How important can that be? America’s only real competitor technologically is China. And they’ve had essentially no immigration of “top talent.”

Ask this again in 40 years. The people we're losing are early career researchers, so this is really a generational loss of talent that we've created. Brain drains can become self-perpetuating once they start.

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

#302

Post by autoexec »

almosthere wrote: post #295
autoexec wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't want there to be good schools that some people can get into and and garbage schools for everyone else. What you need is a high minimum standard that every last school in the nation has to adhere to and it shouldn't be possible to graduate from any of them without being able to read at grade level.

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

#303

Post by maximus-decimus »

p-e-w wrote: post #288
light_hue_1 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And his point is that's a false dichotomy.

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

#304

Post by _lvbh »

jjmarr wrote: post #284
mr_00ff00 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 for…

100% agree even as someone who grew up around people speaking mandarin. I still cannot write despite having taken the language in both GCSEs and IB, while also living in the country for 3+ years.

i can speak the language just enough to get by but once you get into technical terms, i'm once again completely lost. Unless they do a Singapore or Dubai and make business in English, i dont see any chance of them attracting talent

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

#305

Post by [deleted] »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #50
tehjoker wrote: post #21

I understand that the government is now too coarse to use soft power, and maybe it wasn't even working as well as it used to, but it is bizarre to undercut the sciences when their military capability is derived almost entirely from high technology since they can't field or lose lots of soldiers. I get they want to be Rome 3.0 or some bullshit, but Rome was famous for investing in engineering. A bunch of dunces. Or pe…

They're happy to fund the military, they have a list of words [1][2] that they use to flag grant applications, including "female", "bias", "political" and others. Cuts seem to be directed at biomedicine, health and social studies. [1] https://grant-witness.us/ [2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...

[deleted]

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

#306

Post by Terr_ »

jmcgough wrote: post #171
jazz9k wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

Speaking as an American with some personal history in Hong Kong (on both sides of the PRC handover), saying "is now" is not accurate.

That said, I would agree to "may soon become if we don't stop it." We aren't there yet, but we're on a bad trajectory.

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

#307

Post by tsunamifury »

jjmarr wrote: post #284
mr_00ff00 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 for…

I have worked in with the Chinese now for two years in technical fields. I have a strict requirement that they learn English as it is a more technical and specific language and less prone to the use of metaphorical weasel words that slow progress.

I have openly stated that it is a strictly less technical language and often draws teams in to vague specifications and much more verbose language to find specificity. I have billions of dollars in progress to back that up.

There is a lot about Chinese and American culture that will surprise you when the rubber meets the road.

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

#308

Post by rayiner »

autoexec wrote: post #302
almosthere wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You don't want there to be good schools that some people can get into and and garbage schools for everyone else. What you need is a high minimum standard that every last school in the nation has to adhere to and it shouldn't be possible to graduate from any of them without being able to read at grade level.

Whether you want that or not depends on what you're trying to achieve. China has pursued basically the approach you're talking about: focusing on key province to advance them to the cutting edge. The last time China participated international high-school testing, they published scores only four Beijing and three other wealthy provinces: https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/are-chinas-students-re.... And those scores were spectacular! Clearly that approach has some merit if your concern is competing with other countries rather than domestic equity.

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

#309

Post by deepsun »

yladiz wrote: post #256
deepsun wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not rich, I'm just an entrepreneur, so most of my income is from capital gains. And most (almost all) of my expenses is paying salaries and vendors.

So you have a business with no revenue that you fund through capital gains? I'm not sure I get the connection between the two.

With revenue of course, how else would I be able to pay the salaries and bills?

But I'm not going to move to a country if I know that every quarterly dividend would leave me with 25-50% less money on my bank account.

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

#310

Post by helterskelter »

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 they succeed, it’s purely with their own talent.

I wouldn't go that far, Chinese espionage is a very real thing, with industry secrets being some of the top targets.

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