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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

#471

Post by gwd »

Pooge wrote: post #434
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…

> Meanwhile the written language has almost no correlation with the spoken language. Oh, just like English! /s sorry I'm only half-joking but written English makes no sense

I've been learning Greek at the same time my son has been learning to write. By my count, Greek has like 40 basic pronunciation rules; English has something like 500.

But I also spent over a decade learning Mandarin and am still trying to maintain it... the characters are just another level. My son at least can take a stab at reading words he hasn't seen before; having to look up basically every new character is quite a grind.

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

#472

Post by LunaSea »

tsoukase wrote: post #419
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…

China doesn't want as a prime goal to become world leader. They just want to expand their infrastructure, science, production, everything for their own prosperity. If there is no other competitor left, then world leadership will be a by product. They don't suppress foreign countries for that goal (see military presence, coups and secret diplomatic deals in foreign countries that the US was doing after WWII in order t…

> They don't suppress foreign countries for that goal

They are just pacifically planning on invading Taiwan at the moment.

They also install secret police stations in foreign countries to chase and pressure Chinese citizens or people of Chinese decent into doing their bidding.

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

#473

Post by entropyneur »

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.

Why would anyone want to become a Chinese citizen? How's everyone discussing linguistics while completely ignoring the authoritarian elephant in the room?

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

#474

Post by gwd »

noirscape wrote: post #454
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?

It's not related to Chinese in specific, but in civilian air traffic, the lingua franca is specifically English[0]. The reason for this is because other languages leave too much room for interpretation. One incident not mentioned in that page that's worth bringing up is Korean Air Flight 801; the crew recognized an issue with the instruments quite a bit before the crash, but because the flight crew essentially was to…

But that's more psychological than linguistic: The Korean language could certainly express, "we're about to crash"; and a foreigner in that cockpit would certainly have found a way to be more direct. It's much easier to break social restrictions in another language.

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

#475

Post by hurflmurfl »

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…

Since everything is essentially opening WebApps via QR codes on your WeChat/AliPay app, it's actually great for tourists. The apps have a built-in option to do machine translation of the screen to English, which I used when I took a trip to China. In the case where it doesn't translate some part of the UI, I could still use screenshot translation on my phone, so overall it's very easy to get around speaking/reading zero Chinese.

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

#476

Post by oytis »

gizzlon wrote: post #451
oytis wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> but the real test will be the next presidential elections and, to a lesser extent, midterm Sorry, but that is just extremely naive. Just look at how this usually works. Or look at what the orange fuckhead tried the last time. Now, repeat, but with much more power and influence in all the right places, from government to big tech.

Sorry, I am not from the USA, but like many people know a lot more about it than I would like - still might be missing some context because of that. I am not sure how it really works - all these people who now support Trump in achieving their goals - why would they want to support him in staying in power indefinitely? Isn't it clear that when there is no democracy, their opinion doesn't matter anymore? It's still very non-obvious to me that US as a whole will let that happen.

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

#477

Post by gunnihinn »

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…

> Terrence Tao was a good example of what happens when an exceptionally smart person stops getting funded by an American University: not moving to another country, but got VC money and created a new company.

What company did Tao fund with VC money?

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

#478

Post by Pooge »

gwd wrote: post #471
Pooge wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile the written language has almost no correlation with the spoken language. Oh, just like English! /s sorry I'm only half-joking but written English makes no sense

I've been learning Greek at the same time my son has been learning to write. By my count, Greek has like 40 basic pronunciation rules; English has something like 500. But I also spent over a decade learning Mandarin and am still trying to maintain it... the characters are just another level. My son at least can take a stab at reading words he hasn't seen before; having to look up basically every new character is quit…

I've learned Japanese and I understand your point completely. I can't say for Chinese but in Japanese there are some words (and even kanji) that you can read even if you see it for the first time–if you get better at reading kanji. Some words just make no sense but that's true even for native speakers–especially for place names.

They put more emphasis on the meaning of the word than reading itself. As opposed to French where you know how to read it instantly–but you don't necessarily understand it.

In English, I realized that there are words I mispronounced/misread my entire life before hearing a native person say it outloud. That's because I only ever encountered the word in its written form.

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

#479

Post by operation_moose »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #251
operation_moose wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland is solid, especially for any sort of biotech/medical. Strong critical skills immigration path, good wages, pretty much every major company has a facility there (many rivaling the US sites in size), friendly and welcoming place. Housing is a bit of struggle, mainly for renters. I made the leap this year. No regrets.

Tell me more. As someone with dual Canadian/US citizenship (former EU citizen that I gave up 20+ years ago) - how hard is it to get in?

It wasn't terribly difficult, you just have to find a company to hire you. Weirdly the biggest issue I ran into was companies not believing I was willing to relocate and assumed I was just some idiot looking for a remote role. The paragraph about it in my cover letter didn't seem to matter.

Apparently I was initially rejected for that reason, but my boss dug me out of the file for a potential discussion about a US based role. He told me that 6 months later over pints.

Once you've got an offer the critical skills employment permit (CSEP) is quick and painless.

All in all it was basically a lateral move lifestyle-wise. "Federal" income taxes are high-ish, but there isn't another level of state and local taxes eating away more; and property taxes are practically nonexistent (€280/year I think?). There are a handful of schemes which will shield a decent chunk of income from the highest tax rates, and the company benefits are fantastic (medical 100% paid for for my entire family, good bonus, 2:1 "401k" match).

As mentioned, housing is absolutely horrible right now, especially for renters. Luckily home prices are still somewhat reasonable compared to the US - we made enough selling our US home that we could buy an Irish property outright. Can't get a mortgage or any sort of credit until you've been in the country for 6 months. Probably won't stay in this place more than 2 years (when I get permanent residence on the CSEP route) but its a comfortable enough spot to get settled.

I wish it was a bit less car-focused, but there will be a train that drops me off basically at my office door in ~2 years, so they're trying and improving pretty quickly.

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

#480

Post by michaelscott »

chickenbig wrote: post #443
neither_color wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Switzerland's draw is the money. It's true that a significant proportion of the population is foreign born, but the whole country is smaller than some tier 2 cities in China and many foreigners do not stay longterm. If China paid Swiss-level salaries there would be more people going for sure, but the country is so big that at a relative level I'm not sure if the proportion would change significantly
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