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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

#371

Post by foxglacier »

Arainach wrote: post #147
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.

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?

You clearly haven't thought about that question at all yourself and are just repeating mindless political rhetoric. Why even say it? Other people have proposed obvious answers. I hope you learn those answers and stop asking.

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

#372

Post by mulmen »

paulddraper wrote: post #367
mulmen wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Certainly! “A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for internment” Internment is long-term (see Wikipedia), whereas the ICE detention centers are short-term (average stay < 30 days but depends on time for deportation ).

> Internment is long-term (see Wikipedia),

The Wikipedia page for Internment [1] doesn't include the words long-term when I view it.

  Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime.
> ICE detention centers are short-term (average stay Seamus Culleton has been held for 5 months so far [2]. I'm willing to accept this is an outlier but to my knowledge ICE isn't providing transparency on much of anything, including how long they are holding people. Do you have a source for your average 30 days claim?

E: According to AP [3] this is not an outlier:

  With the number of people in ICE detention topping 70,000 for the first time, 7,252 people had been in custody at least six months in mid-January, including 79 held for more than two years, according to agency data. That’s more than double the 2,849 who were in ICE custody at least six months in December 2024, the last full month of Joe Biden’s presidency.
This looks even worse when we consider [4]:

  Bond eligibility changed drastically in July 2025. ICE issued a memo eliminating bond hearings for most people who entered without inspection. They’re now classified as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention.

  Cases moved faster before 2025. New policies have expanded mandatory detention. Court backlogs grew worse. The detained docket now averages 60-90 days for initial hearings, but stretches to years for final decisions.  

  As of November 2025, ICE held over 65,000 people. Three-quarters had no criminal convictions. Average detention length climbed from 47 days in FY2024 to over 50 days by mid-2025. Complex cases take much longer.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment

[2]: https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2026/02/12/seamus-cullet...

[3]: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-migrants-detention-tr...

[4]: https://blog.immigrationquestion.com/ice-detention-process-e...

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

#373

Post by dash2 »

The article provides absolutely no data to support any claims of a brain drain away from America, towards Europe or anywhere else. You’d think they would have found evidence if there was any. So after reading this, my prior on substantial numbers of researchers moving to Europe has gone down.

There is an obvious plausible reason why there might not be much brain drain to Europe: salaries are much lower there, because Europe is poorer.

Academics love to believe they don’t care about money, and Guardian readers love to believe that the US is doomed by its moral failings. I’ll believe both those things when I see evidence for them.

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

#374

Post by jimbokun »

tsunamifury wrote: post #338
gyomu wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese engineers clearly have no problems building specific, technical things; just like Chinese surgeons have no problems carrying out specific, technical surgeries, etc. So how is the language "strictly less technical and specific"? Can you give specific and technical examples?

Mandarin is a courtly language full of back out vagueness and high context construction. This is simply a product of the society. It’s not a judgement of right or wrong it simply just is. Rote Surgery is not a good example compared to say writing a PRD about an unknown feature. I am in no way saying Chinese people cannot do these things. I am saying in mandarin it is less specific and more circumspect ways of getting…

You are talking about culture, not the language.

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

#375

Post by jimbokun »

e40 wrote: post #114
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.

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.

In the US education for talented students is under attack from the left as well as the right (just in different ways).

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

#376

Post by jimbokun »

Arainach wrote: post #147
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.

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?

This suggests that our executive branch has fallen under the influence of foreign agents through blackmail or coercion of some sort.

Whereas the simpler and more obvious explanation is that the US President shares the general outlook and values of America’s enemies and thus naturally acts in their interests without persuasion needed.

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

#377

Post by jimbokun »

rayiner wrote: post #290
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.

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,…

TLDR: Western Europeans are dumber than an American 6th grader.

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

#378

Post by iamlintaoz »

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…

It’s true that learning Chinese as an adult—especially if you come from an English or other European language background—can be extremely challenging. I have several colleagues who have lived in Beijing for more than a decade, are married to Chinese spouses, and still can barely speak the language, it becomes even more challenging for reading.

This creates real difficulties in daily life. Today, almost all routine activities—online shopping, digital payments, banking, ride-hailing—are conducted through smartphone apps. If you can’t read Chinese, even basic tasks become complicated. In recent years, the number of foreigners living in China has declined compared to a decade ago. While political and economic factors clearly play a role, I suspect that the language barrier has also become a more significant obstacle.

Many Chinese people, especially younger generations, can speak some basic English, since it is a mandatory subject in school. As a result, interpersonal communication is usually manageable, and traveling in China is relatively easy. However, living there long-term is a very different experience from visiting as a tourist.

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

#379

Post by jjmarr »

tired-turtle wrote: post #314
jjmarr wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Chinese is not too difficult a language, but it’s likely very different from your native language. Chinese morphology, tense, and overall grammar are far easier to learn than most European languages. Chinese speakers are extremely forgiving too because modern Chinese speakers span dozens of dialects but all (except 东北人) learn a second dialect: Mandarin. The characters are indeed a nuisance, but can be overcome with A…

The question is why European/Arabs/Africans aren't moving to China.

> Chinese is not too difficult a language, but it’s likely very different from your native language.

It is much easier for me, as a Canadian, to move to basically any European country and learn the language there than to move to China. I would also earn more money than in China. This is true for much of the world.

Chinese is a better language to learn initially but that's like APL being better than ALGOL. Most of the world doesn't want to learn "{⍵[⍋⍵]}X" to sort an array "X". The network effects are key.

I'm still learning Chinese because it is obvious that with the demographic crunch there will be heavy incentives to migrate in the near future. I also have to work with Chinese suppliers and colleagues on a regular basis; it is rapidly growing in %age of workforce.

But I'd have to earn American salaries to move there, because otherwise I would just move to the USA and speak English, a language I already know and can be highly productive in.

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

#380

Post by jjmarr »

iamlintaoz wrote: post #378
jjmarr wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s true that learning Chinese as an adult—especially if you come from an English or other European language background—can be extremely challenging. I have several colleagues who have lived in Beijing for more than a decade, are married to Chinese spouses, and still can barely speak the language, it becomes even more challenging for reading. This creates real difficulties in daily life. Today, almost all routine ac…

I actually love the smartphone appification.

Whenever I get lunch or dinner north of Toronto with colleagues, the restaurant has no English signage. But because the Chinese restaurants have no waiter and all orders are through a website I can translate the ordering interface on my phone.

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