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U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

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Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#341
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are this user of HackerNews a left wing or right wing? What are his opinions on the current US government Please justify in topics https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dewey --- Based on the public comments available from the HackerNews user dewey, here is an overview of their opinions and perspectives related to government, politics, and the US: Political Leanings and Philosophy * Skepticism of the "Left/Right"…

Funny how the quotes it pulls for "dewey"...are for completely different users. > They noted that "it's no different on either side with how willing they are to believe something horrendous about the other side," which they believe interferes with objective interpretation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43134319

Is being correct really matter for certain purposes?

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#342

The problem with these threads is everyone wants to complain about Trump, but support drops drastically when you talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons. Economics on its own is probably not…

You’re right to be thinking of second- and third-order solutions to these problems, which unfortunately the commenters in these threads aren’t prepared to engage with. But the “economic anxiety” angle is well debunked at this point. Grievance, stoked by the right wing takeover of the media, is the answer. And we’ll need to go a lot further along the vector of solutions you’ve started down to fix that.

Any sources on that debunking? I can't say I've seen anything like that, but I'm open to read about it. Intuitively any societal problems like cost of living will feed into the far-right recruitment narrative that the elites are incompetent. All kinds of incumbents lost ground worldwide after Covid. And last I read the consensus is housing is a big contributor to the far-right issues in Denmark and the Netherlands.

But sure, if you want to add "break up big tech" and "regulate social media" to the shopping cart I'm absolutely up for it.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want you to go to your favorite frontier LLM and ask how much it would cost the US to implement Vienna-style public housing. Figure in paying off current homeowners to get their support. Restrict it to major cities where housing is the worst, just to make it easier. I bet you it's well over $10T long-term. Iraq was $2-3T long term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

You know what? I'll bite. I just went to Gemini and asked this and the answer was between 2.5 and 5 trillion. So less than 2 Iraq wars. Deff a tractable problem if so.

I hope so.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#344
post #227
post #163

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

European researcher here. There is an other thing that should make America worry. Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields. That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...) My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is b…

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Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands is taking action against the brain drain by rapidly importing highly skilled migrants through various tax lowering schemes in the first five years of living here. However plenty of those people leave after that period. Especially with the upcoming 36% unrealized capital gains tax on all your savings and investments. Feels a bit like ISPs giving discounts to new customers only.

On unrealized gains, wait, what??

It's every bit as stupid as it sounds, and IMHO it's probably why we have Donald Trump in the White House today. Harris started talking about taxing unrealized capital gains almost immediately after she was nominated, and that's when the billionaires -- including the ones that own all the media outlets -- started switching sides.

Brought to you by the same party of self-defeating geniuses who thought they could win elections in Texas on a gun-control platform.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple house in the South Bay is $2 million or more. Is this a win for humanity?

It’s one of the most desirable places to live in the world, why wouldn’t it be one of the most expensive?

The people who can afford to live here spend all their time working, and no time participating in the community, much less enjoying and appreciating the things that make the area special.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#347
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your guy has armed goons with "absolute immunity" literally executing people in the streets, after threatening to invade neighbours and allies, appointing shockingly-unqualified loyalists at the very top of national institutions, and generally gutting the rule of law. It's a bit past "tolerating political disagreement", man.

Well, that went south quickly! Glad to hear a British viewpoint now and then, but of course any problems stateside will be handled and voted on by Americans rather than Brits. Unless possibly you have dual citizenship (Brit & USA) perhaps? FWIW Britain has plenty of history of what you term "armed goons with "absolute immunity" literally executing people in the streets, after threatening to invade neighbours and alli…

> but of course any problems stateside will be handled and voted on by Americans rather than Brits

Sure. That doesn't mean that an external viewpoint is any less valid. It's like saying "of course any problems in Teheran will be handled by Iranians" or "any problems in Venezuela will be handled by Venezuelans", when someone points out the issues in those regimes. You also assume you will get another meaningful vote, something that does not seem so assured when the supposed head of internal law enforcement starts asking for lists of voters.

The world is watching you, and it sees something really sinister happening. I would suggest to be humble and take stock - when innocent lives are lost to political fevers, you are in a very dark place, and whoever led you there should be suspected.

For the record, although I do live in England, I'm actually Italian; my great-grandfather lived under fascism, and I grew up in places deeply scarred by those times - as well as from the Cold War. That doesn't mean I'm innocent, just that I know a thing or two about what a regime looks like.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#348
post #221

This is a tale as old as time. Anyone who's followed AI research has seen this happen. Take Geoffrey Hinton and his students, for one example. Moved from the USA to Canada in the Regan era. Hinton (and Canada in general) saw an influx of otherwise USA-bound students from 2016 on. And it's just happening again. I was a PhD student in deep learning ("AI") in the US from 2018 through 2022. The "Muslim ban" at the time s…

> This is a tale as old as time. > But the Project 2025 changes we saw were unique. I'm not sure what you're saying. Until the last paragraph, you seem to say that it's just the same thing continuing. As an academic you know that such claims are irrelevant without quantifying them. For example, the US has had inflation continuously for decades; does that mean recent inflation is not significant? How about 1980 compar…

> As an academic you know that such claims are irrelevant without quantifying them.

This is a principle which means nothing and it's not one I share, and I don't think you share it either. HackerNews is not academia, and academia does not deal exclusively in quant, (even though my corner of academia was indeed 100% numbers 100% of the time). I'm only expressing the impression I have from my perspective as someone who still has ties to academia.

> I'm not sure what you're saying.

It's already been common for the allure of the United States shift depending on the politics of the country and the politics of the specific academic. But that hadn't been enough to shake the crown off our head, so to speak. I am saying that I believe we are no longer number 1.

> If my town is washed away by a flood, I don't say, 'we've always had rain'.

To extend this analogy, I am saying "We've always had rain, we've even had floods. This is the first flood to wash away much of my town. I am sad about that and I don't think it will recover."

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#349
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? Currently I wouldn't dare to enter the US, while I'm sure I would be relatively safe in China. And: even before Trump the TSA had elements of despotism. All the while I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!

> I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts! Yeah. Also lets not forget: - Citizens from most EU countries can now enter China visa free. No ESTA and no other administrative crap. Generally no problem to enter and leave the country as long as you respect the law there. - The Chinese authority are very cooperative when it is about granting some visting Visa to researchers.…

If you dig into my comment history, i've been pretty pro China (despite a ding i will do every time: China rural areas are decaying faster than in the west. I think the main contributor is the difference between contryside/rural pay (80-100€ when i was there) and city/industrial pay (700-800€ with no qualification at the time)).

I will still add a caveat with what you've said: China make/unmake rules pretty fast, and while not hidden, those are not easy to find and understand (especially when you take into account enforcement). When those rules touch on immigration policy or on societal stuff change, it can surprise you. As a westerner you should always be OK, but this is a country with no rule of law, you should always keep that in mind.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have said the same for folks doing NLP circa 2015?

these folks were already associated with FAANG. Most of deep learning progress comes from industry funding, not academia

And where did those people get their Masters degrees and PhDs from?
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