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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

#541

Post by zbentley »

rayiner wrote: post #351
zbentley wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or train (and appropriately credential) more teachers and pay them like the critical specialists they are.

If teacher pay made a big difference in outcomes, expensive private schools would have very well paid teachers. But private schools typically have lower teacher pay than public schools.

You need to have both. Training/credentialing and pay. Just one is insufficient.

Longer/better educator training both increases skills/outcomes and is a gate for the poorly-suited. Higher pay makes the training seem worthwhile and increases stickiness/tenure.

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

#542

Post by Herring »

jjmarr wrote: post #379
tired-turtle wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lear…

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

China is terrible at diversity. They don't look like it because they don't have a history of foreign colonialism or slavery like the West. It's not based on greed/hate. But look at how they treat indigenous minorities (Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols). Banning minority language instruction, banning religious texts, mass surveillance, etc. They have a very hard time even integrating their own rural Han population (hukou system)!

In the CCP's worldview, diversity is not a strength. Historically to them, diversity=fragmentation=weakness (Warlord Era, Century of Humiliation). In contrast, Unity+Homogeneity is real strength. They want everyone moving to the exact same beat. (And maybe they're right, what the fuck do I know about running a population of 1.4B people)

In much of America and Europe especially the large cities you can become a citizen, because that's a legal construct. In China you'll never become Chinese. Look at how Africans were targeted in Guangzhou during the early stages of Covid, regardless of visa status. Evicted from apartments/hotels/restaurants, etc.

They have the hardest permanent residency system in the world. Between 2004 and 2013, they issued only ~7000 green cards total (the US issuing ~1M per year!)

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

#543

Post by tsunamifury »

numpad0 wrote: post #510
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…

Say what you want about Sapir-Whorf, but it's just the reality that translation of anything to anything is generally gibberish . It's just a fact. The more literal it gets, the less coherent it will be. A complete word-for-word "translation" is just garbage out. Was that Chinese text actually being ambiguous, or was that translations you were given being nonsensical/having so much context errors? The latter is kind o…

This is only true when one has a near autistic level of specificity required to make sense of anything.

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

#544

Post by specialist »

csomar wrote: post #325
Arainach wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are massively under-estimating the destructiveness of idiocy. It's more destructive than whatever your enemy or a compromise could achieve.

I learned from playing Diplomacy that a competent enemy is preferrable to an incompetent ally.

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

#545

Post by expedition32 »

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…

The Netherlands solved the language problem by switching to English.

Nobody has any delusional ideas about it- xenophobia is a luxury the country cannot afford.

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

#546

Post by specialist »

ei8ths wrote: post #140
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.

have you seen our school systems, k12. Its terrible and in dire need of a revamp. No child left behind really screwed kids over that want to learn. We cant just let kids pass because of feelings. Made schools better, have alternative paths for kids that are not excelling like some of their peers and find school hard to sit through.

Yes and: USA has been reverting education to its pre-Sputnik arrangement since the end of the Cold War. Without an external motivation, our domestic reactionaries have regained the advantage. Its been a generations long fight to roll back the New Deal (including public and hogher education). I have no clue if / when the pendullum will swing back.

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

#547

Post by lisdexan »

alex43578 wrote: post #493
pantalaimon wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also did annex large parts of what used to be Mexico in the 19th century, so you don't even technically have so be an immigrant to speak Spanish

Unless you're 126 years old, that excuse doesn't really hold up. Plenty of immigrants came from Italy, Poland, and Russia more recently than your mentioned time, but you don't hear Press 3 for Italian too often.

Well... they weren't immigrants, they were annexed. Why should they speak English?

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

#548

Post by almosthere »

autoexec wrote: post #302
almosthere wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have gone the voucher route many years ago - competition for the best schools.

You don't want there to be good schools that some people can get into and and garbage schools for everyone else. What you need is a high minimum standard that every last school in the nation has to adhere to and it shouldn't be possible to graduate from any of them without being able to read at grade level.

Yeah, actually you do. What you think Ivy Leagues don't exist? (even though they're crap now because they DEI'd everything)

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

#549

Post by alex43578 »

lisdexan wrote: post #547
alex43578 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're 126 years old, that excuse doesn't really hold up. Plenty of immigrants came from Italy, Poland, and Russia more recently than your mentioned time, but you don't hear Press 3 for Italian too often.

Well... they weren't immigrants, they were annexed. Why should they speak English?

They didn't have to. But they also shouldn't expect the annexing government or populace to accommodate them.

Their country lost the war, lost the territory, and those that stayed and chose to take American citizenship should've learned English, the (de facto) language of the country they chose to join.

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

#550

Post by lordnacho »

entropyneur wrote: post #473
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.

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

How is it that the form of government comes up so often when discussing the decisions of ordinary people?

I would think for most people, you care about whether you can fit economically before you consider something that is unlikely to matter.

Obviously don't go and try to immigrate to China if you are planning to be a political commentator.

But for most people in most places, what will you notice? Are there jobs, how is tax, are the streets clean, are there homeless people, can I see a doctor, is there a lot of paperwork? Will I find friends?

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