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Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attrac

Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. I think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s.

bigDinosaur 2y ago
This is the obvious conclusion. As the US trashes its own research ability other countries can offer good conditions to the scientists. I've never seen an own-goal so great.
robbiewxyz 2y ago
I hold the idea that brain drain, i.e. emigration of skilled people, is one of only a small handful of real methods to hold fascism to account. With that, as things start to get real bad it seems leaving is something of a moral duty for anyone who cares, has skills that hold real weight, and can still afford to do so. Obviously where this "real bad" point is is hard to say, and there's important tradeoffs to consider. I also could be talked out of this position but from what I see it seems about accurate.
- nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
  There were skilled people in the French and Dutch resistances, as well.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    At this point it's a question of whether the fundie extremists take out the broligarchs first, or vice versa. You can't run a modern economy by being anti-science and anti-education. Believing otherwise is a self-harming absurdity. There will absolutely be a brain drain, and the EU is already thinking about how to take advantage of it.
- lanstin 2y ago
  And really who would choose to stay in 1938 Germany if you could leave. Even if you are some rich upper class Herr Doktor Professor, life for the next 20 years in Germany wasn't that great compared to England or the US. Why risk having your children killed paratrooping into Greenland. The world is still quite beautiful and quite full of kind people.
  - nmfisher 2y ago
    Interestingly, Werner Heisenberg was decidedly non-Nazi (and was regularly attacked as a “white jew”), and even though he had ample opportunity to leave, he chose to stay to work on the German nuclear fission program. I don’t think it tarnished his scientific legacy, but it definitely created some friction in the post-war years.
    - meowface 2y ago
      It's funny how the politicization of science in Nazi Germany led to things like "Aryan physics" to counter the "Jewish physics" of Einstein's relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik Along with the flight/expulsion/imprisonment/murder of top scientists who weren't ideologically or racially "pure", it's no wonder their nuclear program was such a failure.
- spacemanspiff01 2y ago
  I am withdrawing my money from the US stock market. Other people might not give a shit, but I want to invest my money in a functional democracy.
  - _t9ow 2y ago
    Out of curiosity, where are you moving your money to?
- tc4v 2y ago
  It works better when there is some viable alternative. Research job market is terrible in Europe right now because our governments are trying to make a US like system (project driven and without stability) but without putting the money. There isn't a lot of space in the world to accomodate US brain drain. A bit in Japan, a bit in Europe, most of it in China maybe.
ggm 2y ago
I want to believe some will move for lifestyle reasons, but the problem is the post war IPO landscape (post 1980s really) across biotech and ICT has made one stark barrier: USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy. You have to be socially smart enough to see that a $100k salary and lifestyle outcome for your remaining working career is enough, if not better than the prospect of uplift into mega-wealth, if your IPR pans out the right way. For career scientists who were on the NSF grant train, they'd cracked a magic egg open. Beneficial to both them and us, society at large. Well, the other economies do fund research. They fund it badly compared to the NSF, the paperwork burden is less I am sure, but so is the size of the pot and the duration. You may well spend more time hassling next grant, than doing the grant funded work. I've known US scientists who moved to my economy (OZ) and they say its a great place to live, but they keep ties to US funded research because its what made them attractive to the non-US university or corporate research environment. If that tie is going to be cut, they're competing against one quality only: skill. Sure, a more level playing field. But that, and english language competency aside, it will be a competition against scientists from the rest of the world, who also used to go to the USA and now are seeking jobs in other economies.
- michaelbarton 2y ago
  I totally agree with you. Scientist originally from the UK who moved to the Bay Area. Salaries are much much better here I will say that for myself, money is a means to an end for living a “good” life. I am starting to wonder personally where the line is for the trade off between salary and its ability to translate into a good life here in the US
  - ggm 2y ago
    I should say $100k was a terribly bad choice of salary, for either $USD or "$plausible other economy" -the key point came across I think. Your decision to move on would be made even harder by the IRS: you have a very long tail of consequence for your 401k/roth, property, and even just income: they want to know worldwide income for a long, long time. I almost took a gig in the US from Australia and realized I'd drop out of lifetime rating in the Australian private health insurance model, I'd lose payment to australian superannuation and the US versions I made would not be considered tax friendly income, unless I spent a lot of time and money with an accountant. I decided against the move for other reasons but financial complexity paid it's part. Having said that, I got stung by 49c in the doller on my British USS Pension transfer in (I'm 63) for the lump sum. Sometimes, you just can't win.
sseagull 2y ago
I’m a scientist currently on an NSF grant. I am certainly poking around other countries to see what’s out there, and I’m not the only one. A lot of scientists (at least in my field, computational chemistry) have decent skills that are transferrable to other areas. So I expect quite a few to move on.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- qwe----3 2y ago
  Good luck getting 500k+ grants in other countries. If you leave there won't be a shortage of postdocs looking for a new tenure track position.
  - bilbo0s 2y ago
    Yeah that's kind of the thing. I think a lot of these guys and gals are fooling themselves with the whole, "find another country" thing. There is no other country that is A) doing research at these levels, B) Flush with cash, and C) needs you because they don't have a population that produces the necessary thinkers. That's basically only the US.
    - bad_haircut72 2y ago
      Is the USA flush with cash? Last I checked they were deep in debt and its getting worse
      - lanstin 2y ago
        I think GDP/economic output/labor productivity continues to rise briskly. The government accounts are in debt because people in the US refuse to consistently vote for [people advocating] high enough taxes. But we could tax more (still less than Europe) and get balanced budget.
        2y ago
willvarfar 2y ago
China, for example, could set up a very European-style English-speaking institute in Hong Kong or Macau with high salaries to attract scientists. Singapore and South Korea too. One day Americans might well follow the money and the research freedom?
- UncleOxidant 2y ago
  Heck, China has a reproduction of Jackson Hole, Wy. (See the documentary Americaville)
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  China's drowning in their own PhD's. The competition is fierce, and the pressure is enormous. The best and brightest over there are insanely capable men and women. In all honesty, it's hard to see China wanting many of the PhD's that would be available from the US in a worst case scenario NSF/NIH funding collapse. There may be a place for the top 0.1%? But for 99.9% of PhD's, there are Chinese replacements that are, frankly, better and cheaper. Hate to bring it back to money like that, but there it is.
  - jimmydoe 2y ago
    China has been funding students from global south, that has big room to grow if China can overcome xenophobia problem in its culture. As for PhD from developed countries, it’s gonna be hard as you said.
  - willvarfar 2y ago
    There's also the angle that enticing the brains away from 'the west' is about denying the west something.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    I see Chinese nationals in US labs thinking a return to China is a more attractive now than it was a few weeks ago. Chinese institutions should absolutely capitalize on this.
    - 2y ago
ocschwar 2y ago
Some of my favorite novels are David Lodge's campus novels, and an element in them is the never-ending lure of American academia for British scholars. Now it's the EU's turn. Computer science is already becoming very, very French. See you guys in Grenoble.
- yodsanklai 2y ago
  France is extremely unattractive for research. Lecturers positions suck (high teaching load and you need to speak French). Full-time researcher positions are extremely hard to get, and they pay very little, especially junior position. 2500 euros per month, which isn't enough in Paris and just ok in a smaller city.
  - ocschwar 2y ago
    What kind of employment does INRIA offer?
hinkley 2y ago
The World Wide Web essentially exits due to grants from the NSF and alumni from those grants starting Netscape.
- caycep 2y ago
  the irony of Andreesen now being one of those now gloating over its destruction
  - hinkley 2y ago
    Is he really? Where? I'm no Eric Bina but I ate from the same table and would be happy to remind him of the petulant brat reputation he left behind in the halls of NCSA.
    - caycep 2y ago
      start w/ his twitter feed (@pmarca)...
      - hinkley 2y ago
        I’m not going on one arrogant asshole’s platform to make jabs at another.
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      I've heard several interviews about the decisions he made at that time and came from a neutral opinion to hating his guts. It's like he was surrounded by knowledgeable people and decided to make wrong decision upon wrong decision just to spite them because he resented them being better than him.
      - hinkley 2y ago
        I got to sign an MOU from NCSA about wage ranges about a year after he left because Marc was trying to extort more money out of them to stay there working on Mosaic. He left in a huff is the story, after they paid him a bunch including his tuition. The plus side was I was already making 10% more than any of my other friends and got another 7% for signing it.
throwawaymaths 2y ago
it would be a dumb move. any scientist who moves on a whim so easily to chase money is more likely to not be doing good science.
- chabska 2y ago
  This is a funny take. As researchers, half of their job was just writing grant applications to get more money. Lab supplies don't grow on trees.
zzzeek 2y ago
as an American I'd be sad to see science move out of my country at the same time I'd be happy and relieved that science continues to flourish and treated with the respect it deserves in other countries (hoping these would be democratic countries with a high regard for human rights such as those of Europe or elsewhere), decentralizing itself away from the US's chronic political issues that show no sign of abating likely for the next few decades at least.
AndrewKemendo 2y ago
As a seventh generation American and 17 year Air Force veteran (long separated), I’m suggesting everybody the US who has any skills, talent, sociability or empathy to leave the United States as quickly as possible. I think that that’s probably the best route for anybody who is currently in America and doesn’t want to deal with the next 20 to 50 years of total deprivation. Unfortunately some of us can’t leave so the best most people can do is find some place safe to land.
anddeclinemaybe 2y ago
Are we to tether it's decline to the different immigrant groups that came after then?
whycome 2y ago
I don't think Operation Paperclip was about "attracting".
- biofox 2y ago
  Hundreds of high-ranking scientists left Germany in the 1930s. The exodus had nothing to do with Operation Paperclip. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/5299/The-scientific-exodus-from-Nazi-Germany https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/5299/The-scientific...
ctrlp 2y ago
I would think if you are a European national this situation would have a silver lining in perhaps incentivizing European scientific investment to remain at home and strengthen those nations' scientific research institutions and grant programs. If the U.S. sees fit to rework its institutions, that's its own business. If funding in the U.S. dries up, then doesn't it make sense to go your own way and seek funding in your home country? So I think you're right. This could be a big opportunity for countries to poach some of these scientists or to repatriate those scientists who have left their home countries.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
baq 2y ago
Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country and the dollar is the safest currency to get paid in. Not convinced the desperate folks who want to move despite these are good hires. Anecdotally the only people working any job at all outside of USA that I’ve met were doing that because of their non-US wives not liking it stateside. This isn’t a large group as you can imagine.
- skissane 2y ago
  > Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country There are literally millions of people around the world who earn significantly more than US$100K and don’t work in the US. e.g. in Australia, many medical specialists earn more than US$200k - it is common for experienced oncologists, cardiologists, paediatricians, gastroenterologists, etc, to earn more than US$200k.
  - baq 2y ago
    'most careers' and Australia is a special snowflake, too, though yes, a valid example. on the other hand you have Eastern Europe, 6h drive to the 'West' from approximately anywhere and salaries in the shitter except for some professions in capitals (cardiologists would probably also qualify).
  - XajniN 2y ago
    That’s spare change for a US doctor.
- aaplok 2y ago
  > the only people working any job at all outside of USA that I’ve met were doing that because of their non-US wives not liking it stateside. Did you accidentally a word? Because if you cross any border literally the first people you meet are border control officers, who work a job outside the USA, most of whom with no interest in living or working in the US. Incidentally if you travel abroad you will also meet heterosexual women and homosexual men, who don't generally have a wife at all.
tc4v 2y ago
> Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. would be if any other country actually put money in research... Well there is China, but in Europe we already have more PhD than research position.
taurknaut 2y ago
> i think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s. if you're going to boil down our "success", if you must call it that, to a root cause, it has a lot more to do with our insatiable greed and lack of respect for, well, anything. The talent is just a small detail in the narrative of America and that narrative is driven far more by capital than it is by interesting people. The talent narrative makes for excellent propaganda, though, neatly whitewashing a violent and hateful culture.
refurb 2y ago
I think this comment confused a few things. First off, there is no evidence the US will never fund science again. Second, top scientific positions in the US are at academic labs, not at NIH (bare a few top people spending some time there). The top academic labs in the US get some funding from NIH, but the top ones get it from a ton of sources with NIH not being the bulk of it.
- nicce 2y ago
  But does anyone take any science seriously anymore, if the conditions of the US funding would be that don't even mention the topics related to women or climate change?
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    But those aren’t real research anyway /s
- Fomite 2y ago
  "The top academic labs in the US get some funding from NIH, but the top ones get it from a ton of sources with NIH not being the bulk of it." This is wildly field specific.
barrenko 2y ago
No one other than the USA was really doing that. That's what makes US, US.
neilv 2y ago
> Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. Also, some top scientists who previously would have come to the US, will decide not to. That's not going to be negative feedback that registers for the decision-makers in the US. But it's good news for competing countries and their institutions. And it's possibly better quality of life, overall, for the scientists who decide to go work somewhere currently more sensible.
queuebert 2y ago
I might move somewhere that gave me a person grant. The U.S. works primarily on project grants, where you are funded to do a thing, but that thing doesn't always work, and most of the time it's a bit contrived in order to appeal to the funding agency. (This is probably so the bureaucrats can exert power over what is studied.) The system would work much better if individual scientists got guaranteed salaries to study whatever seemed appropriate, and if you needed money for equipment you can request it. This would lead to more crazy ideas being explored and less derivative, p-hacked slop carried out by graduate student slave labor.
Bhilai 2y ago
I think that might be an implicit goal here. With antics around H1B, birthright citizenship, general worsening sentiment against "people who dont look white" and "experts bad, podcasters good" its probably worth while for researchers, scientists and professors to start looking elsewhere outside of the US.
shirro 2y ago
Not just that but capital is attracted there as well to the point there is a glut of it which is probably where at least some of the political problems arise. They literally have more money than sense while innovators elsewhere can't get funding.
FilosofumRex 2y ago
Please, do take the US "talent" away. Most of real world progress and wealth creation comes from engineering style tinkering and copycatting, and not from pure academic style science research. But the latter gets all the hype, media coverage and the Noble prizes. This system of glorified scientific research is a vestige of anti-communist, anti-Soviet era, which is no longer useful, if it ever were. The smart thing is to outsource pure science research where it's the cheapest, but commercialize it where it's most profitable - that's what China is doing and doing it very well too.

bigDinosaur 2y ago

This is the obvious conclusion. As the US trashes its own research ability other countries can offer good conditions to the scientists. I've never seen an own-goal so great.

robbiewxyz 2y ago

I hold the idea that brain drain, i.e. emigration of skilled people, is one of only a small handful of real methods to hold fascism to account. With that, as things start to get real bad it seems leaving is something of a moral duty for anyone who cares, has skills that hold real weight, and can still afford to do so. Obviously where this "real bad" point is is hard to say, and there's important tradeoffs to consider. I also could be talked out of this position but from what I see it seems about accurate.

nyc_data_geek1 2y ago
There were skilled people in the French and Dutch resistances, as well.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
[flagged]
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  At this point it's a question of whether the fundie extremists take out the broligarchs first, or vice versa. You can't run a modern economy by being anti-science and anti-education. Believing otherwise is a self-harming absurdity. There will absolutely be a brain drain, and the EU is already thinking about how to take advantage of it.
lanstin 2y ago
And really who would choose to stay in 1938 Germany if you could leave. Even if you are some rich upper class Herr Doktor Professor, life for the next 20 years in Germany wasn't that great compared to England or the US. Why risk having your children killed paratrooping into Greenland. The world is still quite beautiful and quite full of kind people.
- nmfisher 2y ago
  Interestingly, Werner Heisenberg was decidedly non-Nazi (and was regularly attacked as a “white jew”), and even though he had ample opportunity to leave, he chose to stay to work on the German nuclear fission program. I don’t think it tarnished his scientific legacy, but it definitely created some friction in the post-war years.
  - meowface 2y ago
    It's funny how the politicization of science in Nazi Germany led to things like "Aryan physics" to counter the "Jewish physics" of Einstein's relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik Along with the flight/expulsion/imprisonment/murder of top scientists who weren't ideologically or racially "pure", it's no wonder their nuclear program was such a failure.
spacemanspiff01 2y ago
I am withdrawing my money from the US stock market. Other people might not give a shit, but I want to invest my money in a functional democracy.
- _t9ow 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, where are you moving your money to?
tc4v 2y ago
It works better when there is some viable alternative. Research job market is terrible in Europe right now because our governments are trying to make a US like system (project driven and without stability) but without putting the money. There isn't a lot of space in the world to accomodate US brain drain. A bit in Japan, a bit in Europe, most of it in China maybe.

ggm 2y ago

I want to believe some will move for lifestyle reasons, but the problem is the post war IPO landscape (post 1980s really) across biotech and ICT has made one stark barrier: USA is a place where you can go from $100k to $100m vesting if you are lucky. That very few do achieve this isn't the point: you cannot do it, in almost any other economy. You have to be socially smart enough to see that a $100k salary and lifestyle outcome for your remaining working career is enough, if not better than the prospect of uplift into mega-wealth, if your IPR pans out the right way. For career scientists who were on the NSF grant train, they'd cracked a magic egg open. Beneficial to both them and us, society at large. Well, the other economies do fund research. They fund it badly compared to the NSF, the paperwork burden is less I am sure, but so is the size of the pot and the duration. You may well spend more time hassling next grant, than doing the grant funded work. I've known US scientists who moved to my economy (OZ) and they say its a great place to live, but they keep ties to US funded research because its what made them attractive to the non-US university or corporate research environment. If that tie is going to be cut, they're competing against one quality only: skill. Sure, a more level playing field. But that, and english language competency aside, it will be a competition against scientists from the rest of the world, who also used to go to the USA and now are seeking jobs in other economies.

michaelbarton 2y ago
I totally agree with you. Scientist originally from the UK who moved to the Bay Area. Salaries are much much better here I will say that for myself, money is a means to an end for living a “good” life. I am starting to wonder personally where the line is for the trade off between salary and its ability to translate into a good life here in the US
- ggm 2y ago
  I should say $100k was a terribly bad choice of salary, for either $USD or "$plausible other economy" -the key point came across I think. Your decision to move on would be made even harder by the IRS: you have a very long tail of consequence for your 401k/roth, property, and even just income: they want to know worldwide income for a long, long time. I almost took a gig in the US from Australia and realized I'd drop out of lifetime rating in the Australian private health insurance model, I'd lose payment to australian superannuation and the US versions I made would not be considered tax friendly income, unless I spent a lot of time and money with an accountant. I decided against the move for other reasons but financial complexity paid it's part. Having said that, I got stung by 49c in the doller on my British USS Pension transfer in (I'm 63) for the lump sum. Sometimes, you just can't win.

sseagull 2y ago

I’m a scientist currently on an NSF grant. I am certainly poking around other countries to see what’s out there, and I’m not the only one. A lot of scientists (at least in my field, computational chemistry) have decent skills that are transferrable to other areas. So I expect quite a few to move on.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
qwe----3 2y ago
Good luck getting 500k+ grants in other countries. If you leave there won't be a shortage of postdocs looking for a new tenure track position.
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Yeah that's kind of the thing. I think a lot of these guys and gals are fooling themselves with the whole, "find another country" thing. There is no other country that is A) doing research at these levels, B) Flush with cash, and C) needs you because they don't have a population that produces the necessary thinkers. That's basically only the US.
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    Is the USA flush with cash? Last I checked they were deep in debt and its getting worse
    - lanstin 2y ago
      I think GDP/economic output/labor productivity continues to rise briskly. The government accounts are in debt because people in the US refuse to consistently vote for [people advocating] high enough taxes. But we could tax more (still less than Europe) and get balanced budget.
      - 2y ago

willvarfar 2y ago

China, for example, could set up a very European-style English-speaking institute in Hong Kong or Macau with high salaries to attract scientists. Singapore and South Korea too. One day Americans might well follow the money and the research freedom?

UncleOxidant 2y ago
Heck, China has a reproduction of Jackson Hole, Wy. (See the documentary Americaville)
bilbo0s 2y ago
China's drowning in their own PhD's. The competition is fierce, and the pressure is enormous. The best and brightest over there are insanely capable men and women. In all honesty, it's hard to see China wanting many of the PhD's that would be available from the US in a worst case scenario NSF/NIH funding collapse. There may be a place for the top 0.1%? But for 99.9% of PhD's, there are Chinese replacements that are, frankly, better and cheaper. Hate to bring it back to money like that, but there it is.
- jimmydoe 2y ago
  China has been funding students from global south, that has big room to grow if China can overcome xenophobia problem in its culture. As for PhD from developed countries, it’s gonna be hard as you said.
- willvarfar 2y ago
  There's also the angle that enticing the brains away from 'the west' is about denying the west something.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  I see Chinese nationals in US labs thinking a return to China is a more attractive now than it was a few weeks ago. Chinese institutions should absolutely capitalize on this.
  - 2y ago

ocschwar 2y ago

Some of my favorite novels are David Lodge's campus novels, and an element in them is the never-ending lure of American academia for British scholars. Now it's the EU's turn. Computer science is already becoming very, very French. See you guys in Grenoble.

yodsanklai 2y ago
France is extremely unattractive for research. Lecturers positions suck (high teaching load and you need to speak French). Full-time researcher positions are extremely hard to get, and they pay very little, especially junior position. 2500 euros per month, which isn't enough in Paris and just ok in a smaller city.
- ocschwar 2y ago
  What kind of employment does INRIA offer?

hinkley 2y ago

The World Wide Web essentially exits due to grants from the NSF and alumni from those grants starting Netscape.

caycep 2y ago
the irony of Andreesen now being one of those now gloating over its destruction
- hinkley 2y ago
  Is he really? Where? I'm no Eric Bina but I ate from the same table and would be happy to remind him of the petulant brat reputation he left behind in the halls of NCSA.
  - caycep 2y ago
    start w/ his twitter feed (@pmarca)...
    - hinkley 2y ago
      I’m not going on one arrogant asshole’s platform to make jabs at another.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    I've heard several interviews about the decisions he made at that time and came from a neutral opinion to hating his guts. It's like he was surrounded by knowledgeable people and decided to make wrong decision upon wrong decision just to spite them because he resented them being better than him.
    - hinkley 2y ago
      I got to sign an MOU from NCSA about wage ranges about a year after he left because Marc was trying to extort more money out of them to stay there working on Mosaic. He left in a huff is the story, after they paid him a bunch including his tuition. The plus side was I was already making 10% more than any of my other friends and got another 7% for signing it.

throwawaymaths 2y ago

it would be a dumb move. any scientist who moves on a whim so easily to chase money is more likely to not be doing good science.

chabska 2y ago
This is a funny take. As researchers, half of their job was just writing grant applications to get more money. Lab supplies don't grow on trees.

zzzeek 2y ago

as an American I'd be sad to see science move out of my country at the same time I'd be happy and relieved that science continues to flourish and treated with the respect it deserves in other countries (hoping these would be democratic countries with a high regard for human rights such as those of Europe or elsewhere), decentralizing itself away from the US's chronic political issues that show no sign of abating likely for the next few decades at least.

AndrewKemendo 2y ago

As a seventh generation American and 17 year Air Force veteran (long separated), I’m suggesting everybody the US who has any skills, talent, sociability or empathy to leave the United States as quickly as possible. I think that that’s probably the best route for anybody who is currently in America and doesn’t want to deal with the next 20 to 50 years of total deprivation. Unfortunately some of us can’t leave so the best most people can do is find some place safe to land.

anddeclinemaybe 2y ago

Are we to tether it's decline to the different immigrant groups that came after then?

whycome 2y ago

I don't think Operation Paperclip was about "attracting".

biofox 2y ago
Hundreds of high-ranking scientists left Germany in the 1930s. The exodus had nothing to do with Operation Paperclip. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/5299/The-scientific-exodus-from-Nazi-Germany https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/online/5299/The-scientific...

ctrlp 2y ago

I would think if you are a European national this situation would have a silver lining in perhaps incentivizing European scientific investment to remain at home and strengthen those nations' scientific research institutions and grant programs. If the U.S. sees fit to rework its institutions, that's its own business. If funding in the U.S. dries up, then doesn't it make sense to go your own way and seek funding in your home country? So I think you're right. This could be a big opportunity for countries to poach some of these scientists or to repatriate those scientists who have left their home countries.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

baq 2y ago

Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country and the dollar is the safest currency to get paid in. Not convinced the desperate folks who want to move despite these are good hires. Anecdotally the only people working any job at all outside of USA that I’ve met were doing that because of their non-US wives not liking it stateside. This isn’t a large group as you can imagine.

skissane 2y ago
> Not happening. Getting significantly more than $100k is close to impossible in most careers in any other country There are literally millions of people around the world who earn significantly more than US$100K and don’t work in the US. e.g. in Australia, many medical specialists earn more than US$200k - it is common for experienced oncologists, cardiologists, paediatricians, gastroenterologists, etc, to earn more than US$200k.
- baq 2y ago
  'most careers' and Australia is a special snowflake, too, though yes, a valid example. on the other hand you have Eastern Europe, 6h drive to the 'West' from approximately anywhere and salaries in the shitter except for some professions in capitals (cardiologists would probably also qualify).
- XajniN 2y ago
  That’s spare change for a US doctor.
aaplok 2y ago
> the only people working any job at all outside of USA that I’ve met were doing that because of their non-US wives not liking it stateside. Did you accidentally a word? Because if you cross any border literally the first people you meet are border control officers, who work a job outside the USA, most of whom with no interest in living or working in the US. Incidentally if you travel abroad you will also meet heterosexual women and homosexual men, who don't generally have a wife at all.

tc4v 2y ago

> Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. would be if any other country actually put money in research... Well there is China, but in Europe we already have more PhD than research position.

taurknaut 2y ago

> i think its underappreciated how much of America's modern success comes down to attracting scientists and intellectuals from war torn europe in the 30s-50s. if you're going to boil down our "success", if you must call it that, to a root cause, it has a lot more to do with our insatiable greed and lack of respect for, well, anything. The talent is just a small detail in the narrative of America and that narrative is driven far more by capital than it is by interesting people. The talent narrative makes for excellent propaganda, though, neatly whitewashing a violent and hateful culture.

refurb 2y ago

I think this comment confused a few things. First off, there is no evidence the US will never fund science again. Second, top scientific positions in the US are at academic labs, not at NIH (bare a few top people spending some time there). The top academic labs in the US get some funding from NIH, but the top ones get it from a ton of sources with NIH not being the bulk of it.

nicce 2y ago
But does anyone take any science seriously anymore, if the conditions of the US funding would be that don't even mention the topics related to women or climate change?
- Sharlin 2y ago
  But those aren’t real research anyway /s
Fomite 2y ago
"The top academic labs in the US get some funding from NIH, but the top ones get it from a ton of sources with NIH not being the bulk of it." This is wildly field specific.

barrenko 2y ago

No one other than the USA was really doing that. That's what makes US, US.

neilv 2y ago

> Seems like a good opportunity for other countries to recruit scientists. Also, some top scientists who previously would have come to the US, will decide not to. That's not going to be negative feedback that registers for the decision-makers in the US. But it's good news for competing countries and their institutions. And it's possibly better quality of life, overall, for the scientists who decide to go work somewhere currently more sensible.

queuebert 2y ago

I might move somewhere that gave me a person grant. The U.S. works primarily on project grants, where you are funded to do a thing, but that thing doesn't always work, and most of the time it's a bit contrived in order to appeal to the funding agency. (This is probably so the bureaucrats can exert power over what is studied.) The system would work much better if individual scientists got guaranteed salaries to study whatever seemed appropriate, and if you needed money for equipment you can request it. This would lead to more crazy ideas being explored and less derivative, p-hacked slop carried out by graduate student slave labor.

Bhilai 2y ago

I think that might be an implicit goal here. With antics around H1B, birthright citizenship, general worsening sentiment against "people who dont look white" and "experts bad, podcasters good" its probably worth while for researchers, scientists and professors to start looking elsewhere outside of the US.

shirro 2y ago

Not just that but capital is attracted there as well to the point there is a glut of it which is probably where at least some of the political problems arise. They literally have more money than sense while innovators elsewhere can't get funding.

FilosofumRex 2y ago

Please, do take the US "talent" away. Most of real world progress and wealth creation comes from engineering style tinkering and copycatting, and not from pure academic style science research. But the latter gets all the hype, media coverage and the Noble prizes. This system of glorified scientific research is a vestige of anti-communist, anti-Soviet era, which is no longer useful, if it ever were. The smart thing is to outsource pure science research where it's the cheapest, but commercialize it where it's most profitable - that's what China is doing and doing it very well too.