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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

#421

Post by rossjudson »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #330
materielle wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not easy to become highly proficient in english but it's quite easy to speak just barely well enough to communicate effectively in a professional context. Importantly, the written form follows naturally from the spoken. You won't get all the edge cases right (that's incredibly difficult even for native speakers) but getting in the ballpark can be done purely phonetically with a fairly small set of rules. Combine…

Pinyin converts reading into a vocabulary exercise. China might decide to Pinyin all the things.

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

#422

Post by [deleted] »

viking123 wrote: post #397
jimbokun wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#423

Post by _carbyau_ »

rayiner wrote: post #343
koito17 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more importantly, there's just a lot of people in China. New York City's population is approximately 8.8 million; that is the scale of a mid-sized Chinese city. The population exceeds 1 billion, which is difficult to comprehend in terms of scale. The reference I like to use is: 1 million seconds is ~11 days, whereas 1 billion seconds is ~31 years. To put it bluntly, China quite literally doesn't need (nor wants)…

Size isn’t that important either, or else India would be rich and Taiwan wouldn’t be. It’s just not a numbers game.

It isn't just a numbers game or investment (money, reputation) game but both.

China is working multiple technologies hard.

Taiwan doesn't have the people to match that breadth.

India isn't matching that investment.

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

#424

Post by RupertSalt »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #386
hermanzegerman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody would stop him from working 6-7 days a week. Only for forcing his employees to do this involuntarily for him.

Pretty sure the US doesn’t allow involuntary servitude.

The Thirteenth Amendment makes it clear that it is permitted only by exception.

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

#425

Post by oreally »

gyomu wrote: post #342
tsunamifury wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I’m guessing you don’t really know what your talking about here though and are knee jerking a response. I'm not sure why you're getting so defensive; I indeed don't speak Chinese, hence why I'm asking a question. A claim like "Chinese as a language is less technical and specific than English and slows progress" seems pretty grand; and if Chinese people failed to launch satellites in orbit or do brain surgery you co…

The "slows progress" part has some bits of truth in it. This is coming from a from-young bilingual chinese/english speaker. Chinese is harder to learn, ceteris paribus, all other things being equal (especially regarding exposure).

English has 26 characters you can put in a buttoned keyboard. You recurse upon these letters to create new words & meanings. Chinese has what, a thousand? And you'd have to create a stroke system first if you don't have hanyu pinyin. Recursing Chinese characters has problems too, the chinese word for 'good', when split to it's sub-characters represent different meanings.

There were also some Chinese historians that specifically pointed out the chinese language was part of the cause of their worst slices of history despite the chinese having invented gunpowder and whatnot first. They also noted chinese was confined to the elite, who made the language even more complex (in contrast to other civilizations), during certain dynastic periods. Today, the chinese government are trying to simplify the language.

I get that there is pride in people's native languages, but they'll repeat the same mistakes if they don't recognize the weaknesses. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

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

#426

Post by Fricken »

jimbokun wrote: post #377
rayiner wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read my first Stephen King novel in grade 6. That seems to me more than sufficient aptitude for reading the things an average person needs to read to get through life.

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

#427

Post by Herring »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #262
roughly wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a thing that you don’t notice until you experience it. No more compelling argument that we’re doing something wrong as a nation than that first time stepping onto an American street after visiting a civilized country.

True, after you visit a country where the cities are entirely safe and there aren't really any bad parts, it's disheartening to return to American cities where people say: "It's really safe! Just ignore these areas, don't go out late out night, keep an eye out when you walk around, and just ignore the crazy people yelling threats at you, they probably won't do anything." Americans really put up with low standards in…

I think it’s more than that. Surveys show the whole US is gradually becoming more and more unhappy. https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart

It’s mainly because income isn’t keeping up with rent/mortgages/healthcare/inflation etc. But there’s no collective will to solve it, the solutions are all individual, like “work harder”. But lots of people are already working 2 jobs.

It sucks to live in a society that doesn’t care about you, and many are angry, but they don’t know what to do because they were trained to hate socialism. Half this country won’t even wear a simple mask to save your life, nevermind pay Europe-style taxes.

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

#428

Post by fyredge »

almosthere wrote: post #273
shiroiuma wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is kind of crazy that a lot of those moves that are so massively successful is a social media and other actions to specifically destabilize the US. And it was only possible to do BECAUSE we're so open. In China you can't get past the firewall and you can't migrate there without being on watch lists and very easily removed in a way that would make ICE look like an Ice Cream parlor.

The right moves are state control, long horizon policies and regulations, all things the US willingly throw out in the name of freedom. For all its restrictions on human rights and personal freedom, the Chinese people and government have a mutual understanding. As long as the government better the lives of the people, they will be given free reign to do as they wish. This gives the government a long leash to enact far sighted policies to improve themselves. On the other hand, US politics is based on mistrust and the default assumption that anyone with power will abuse it, culminating in the "small government" rhetoric. Idealistic at best, but entirely crippling in the face of powerful organisations and corporations.

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

#429

Post by fyredge »

foxglacier wrote: post #359
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.

China doesn't need those other people because Chinese people are naturally smarter than them, generally. If that idea makes you uncomfortable, just look at the data and you'll agree.

It may look that way on the surface, but they are absolutely no better than other ethnicities. The main difference is the culture of pragmatism and the constant strive to better their lives. Education is seen as a path to better opportunities, which becomes a major focus for their youth of all social standing.

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

#430

Post by deaux »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #411
deaux wrote: post #401

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. Whatever makes you sleep at night. > no matter how many times Reddit tells them so. Oh god, are we still stuck in that "Reddit is a niche US nerd cave" mindset? In most countries where the youth speaks good English you'll see more under 30s on Reddit than on Facebook or Twitter. On…

This is untrue: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/reddit-us... https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/facebook-... Reddit has far fewer users in most countries outside the US than facebook. Also, I don’t like the current US administration, but you cannot make the claim somehow China is better, especially to minorities.

No, it is true. You missed the "under 30s" qualifier. Facebook indeed remains incredibly popular in the 40+ category, which is dominant given demographics in most countries of the subset I mentioned: "youth speaks good English".

> Also, I don’t like the current US administration, but you cannot make the claim somehow China is better, especially to minorities.

Luckily I didn't make such a claim, instead just rejecting the premise that "The US has a global reputational advantage that will take decades to fall behind China, regardless of what any US administration does.". That global reputational advantage has been cratering with no signs of stopping, and is indeed on pace to run out long before "decades".

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