Yes, I believe we have it easier in Europe. I realize my other post sounds rantish but the reason I'm still in academia, beyond the very valid points you've men

Yes, I believe we have it easier in Europe. I realize my other post sounds rantish but the reason I'm still in academia, beyond the very valid points you've mentioned, is that I don't believe the nepotism and dishonesty issues are specific to academia. >You get to meet interesting people. I want to stress that part because I don't feel it does the environment justice. You get to meet fantastic and very intelligent people from all countries in the world. During gathering events, meetings, parties, etc. I've been to, it's not rare to see eight different nationalities out of eight people around a dining table. You talk about science at first but very quickly discussions derail into comparisons between such and such country's perspective, differences in culture, jokes about the language, and so on. And it happens every time. Not all environments provide this. Of course, you may argue that this diversity of culture and insights is counterbalanced by the community's homogeneity in many other aspects (e.g. the overwhelming majority of scientists are very liberal, even by European standards), and it's pretty obvious that your view of, say, Iranian or Russian people is going to be skewed if the only ones you've talked to are very educated and liberal 20- or 30-somethings working as expats. Scientists are known for their insularity, and while they're a demographic that's among the most susceptible to date outside their country, they're also very prone to date inside the community. The 'ivory tower' stereotype is not completely wrong.