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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

#441

Post by gizzlon »

oytis wrote: post #110
nerevarthelame wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrence Tao expressed sentiments are at odds with you and which align with the article: > The U.S. used to be sort of the default, the no brainer, option. If you got an offer from a top U.S. university, this was like almost the best thing that could happen to you as an academic ... If it's just a less welcoming, atmosphere for science in general here, the best and brightest may not automatically come to the US as th…

He has a point, but there are no obvious alternatives. It's still a long way towards fascism for USA to actually lose its attractiveness, and it's not that other countries are getting more democratic either

> I's still a long way towards fascism for USA to actually lose its attractiveness

Hard disagree. They are on a road to totalitarianism. Unless there's a quite violent change of course, it's just going to get much worse.

Have you not seen the president and his people go after: Political opponents, Attorneys, Leaders and workers in the government who dare to disagree, Immigrants and tourists with the wrong opinions, Journalists (because they power and can expose some of the lies and corruption).

Have you not seen the Trump family and friends becoming very rich, and giving out contracts to their friends?

Have you not seen the government being weaponist against the maga "enemies" ?

This is what fascism looks like.

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

#442

Post by frm88 »

dash2 wrote: post #373

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…

The article provides absolutely no data to support any claims of a brain drain away from America, towards Europe or anywhere else.

There are no actual numbers for emigree PhDs. Government losses across all agencies are some 10900 scientists [0] or ~14%. Whether they retire, emigrate or no longer do science doesn't matter for the outcome.

[0]https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-government-has-l...

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

#443

Post by chickenbig »

neither_color wrote: post #364
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 not just about language. There's no common practical path to becoming "Chinese", either in a legal or cultural sense. Save for a few rare exceptions, you cannot move there, join the culture, become a citizen, etc even if you're fluent. The western systems arent perfect but they allow a greater number of people who really want to assimilate do so regardless of background.

> regardless of background

I seem to recall that is a problem with Switzerland too; people can be refused citizenship by bureaucracy at the local level. Yet people still flock there (perhaps because of the money).

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

#444

Post by eunos »

shiroiuma wrote: post #345
lateforwork wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is trying. Around the time the US announced restrictions on the H-1B visa, China announced the K visa for attracting immigrants [1]. At this point in time, I don't think people are lining up to get K visa to go live in China. But if the current trajectory continues in the US, who knows how things will be in 5 years? [1] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-entry-exit-k-visa...

Exactly. And what is the EU doing to attract American talent that doesn't want to live under the Trump regime with his ICE stormtroopers? Nothing really. Meanwhile, highly accomplished people in the US with Chinese ancestry are being wooed to China to do important R&D there.

For EU it's quite difficult since it's harder to outmuscle American money in the first place

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

#445

Post by oytis »

gizzlon wrote: post #441
oytis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point, but there are no obvious alternatives. It's still a long way towards fascism for USA to actually lose its attractiveness, and it's not that other countries are getting more democratic either

> I's still a long way towards fascism for USA to actually lose its attractiveness Hard disagree. They are on a road to totalitarianism. Unless there's a quite violent change of course, it's just going to get much worse. Have you not seen the president and his people go after: Political opponents, Attorneys, Leaders and workers in the government who dare to disagree, Immigrants and tourists with the wrong opinions, J…

This is all bad, but the real test will be the next presidential elections and, to a lesser extent, midterms. If you can vote a dictator out, it's not a real dictatorship.

And again, I'm not really seeing Europe staying democratic for long after the fall of the USA

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

#446

Post by eunos »

rayiner wrote: post #268
conception wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, China has a tremendous pool of people to pull talent from. Do they need immigrants? Or just continue the path of “building it in-house”?

China’s pool is smaller than it seems. China has pursued a development trajectory that focuses on the leading provinces first. That is reasonable. Better to get Beijing and a few other key places to the leading edge first, instead of trying to incrementally move all 1.4 billion people together at the same pace. But the flip side of that is that China’s talent pool is a lot smaller, in practice, than 1.4 billion. Beca…

But even if you combine Tier 1 and New Tier 1 Chinese cities alone, their populations are around 200M. That's close to 66% of the US. Besides Tier 2 cities like Xiamen, Hefei, Foshan and Zhuhai are still excellent.

So quantitatively, China’s pool is still very strong.

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

#447

Post by [deleted] »

afavour wrote: post #122
titanomachy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think diversity policies are what made America diverse.

How could they not be? If people cannot emigrate to the US then they won’t settle there. A relatively open immigration policy absolutely helped make America diverse. I’m pretty sure that’s what OP is referring to, not DEI or whatever the latest boogeyman is.

[deleted]

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

#449

Post by titanomachy »

afavour wrote: post #122
titanomachy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think diversity policies are what made America diverse.

How could they not be? If people cannot emigrate to the US then they won’t settle there. A relatively open immigration policy absolutely helped make America diverse. I’m pretty sure that’s what OP is referring to, not DEI or whatever the latest boogeyman is.

I don't think open immigration in America's earlier years stemmed from a desire for diversity. It was more like "holy shit we need workers, I guess we can tolerate some Irish and Chinese people if we have to". It seems like a reach to call that a "diversity policy".

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

#450

Post by vortegne »

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…

I'm sorry, but LLM startups isn't science, it's the current gold rush. As impactful LLM stuff might or might not be in the future, it's just the current startup cash chase cycle.

Dodging work regulations is also not really "attracting talent". SF is an insane bubble and views itself as a much more intelletually important than it actually is.

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