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While indeed a positive outlook, I think alot of Americans are beginning to wonder what the benefit will be to them. The isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric o
by SimianSci 10mo ago
While indeed a positive outlook, I think alot of Americans are beginning to wonder what the benefit will be to them.
The isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric of recent years is mostly a reaction to a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development. While I dont agree with the sentiment, its not entirely incorrect to describe such relationships are parasitic more then symbiotic when they become increasingly one-sided.
Why should Americans be exporting PHDs to other countries when they dont seem to be reaping the benefits?
- integralid 10mo agoThe US is not "exporting" anything. PhDs are people, they pay for their education and they leave. Nevertheless responding to your question: >Contrary to common perceptions, US technology benefits from these graduates' work even if they leave: though the US share of global patent citations to graduates' science drops from 70% to 50% after migrating, it remains five times larger than the destination country share
- ribosometronome 10mo agoIsn't that how exporting works? People buy something in one place and take it another?
- selimthegrim 10mo agoSTEM PhD students do not pay for their education
- vannevar 10mo agoThis is manifestly not true. What leads you to believe this? Certainly there are some who don't, just as with undergraduate education. But there's no blanket program in the US to pay for all STEM PhDs.
- kragen 10mo agoAll of the dozens of US STEM PhDs I know from recent decades had to pay their tuition by working as TAs, RAs, or usually both. They didn't walk in the door with a trust fund, work through the coursework, and then write up a dissertation. I'm not sure that's even a possibility in most STEM fields: you need access to millions of dollars of ultra-specialized equipment which you can realistically only get by working in an existing lab, which means being an RA.
- donkyrf 10mo agoSTEM PhD students typically pay with labor rather than cash. Labor to teach undergrads, and to perform other university research. (though they typically pay their undergrad with large piles of cash). That is, very much, a substantial form of payment.
- neuah 10mo agoTrue, but I would say a large fraction of foreign nationals who do PhDs in the US were undergrad educated at least partially in the US.
- kelipso 10mo agoThey work like a 120k a year job for 30k a year.
- nutjob2 10mo agoSo let me see: a person from another country receives a service that is exclusive, very limited and in high demand (PhD), pays for it, and that person eventually takes it back to country of origin. US education must be in a woeful state because that is the definition of export. Given the exclusivity and value of the service you'd think you'd want to hang on to it, but I guess xenophobia is one thing that is more important than money.
- almosthere 10mo agoI've been hearing nothing but bad things about the actual education in US institutions. I think they've tarnished their name at this point to no return.
- bdangubic 10mo agoexactly. that is why everyone is lining up to try to get in US colleges and acceptance rates of top schools is in the single digits :)
- netsharc 10mo ago> they dont seem to be reaping the benefits "they" as in the USA or its people? Germany has taxpayer-subsidized education even for foreign students. They may stay, the may leave. One of its views is that the time the student spent in the country helps foster cultural ties and understanding, and generates goodwill towards the country... I suppose "goodwill" is hard to translate to cold hard cash, so America doesn't really like it ;-)
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- exceptione 10mo agoThe US got talent for free for years; young people whose upbringing and education has been paid by/in a foreign country. The most expensive formative years had been paid for by the sponsoring country. > The isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric of recent years is mostly a reaction to a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development The rhetoric is learned from a well balanced media diet, served for free by the 0.0001% "Increasingly few Americans are" getting to evade the consequence of wealth concentration and monopolies. Large parts of the US economy have been starved by monopolist practices in the past decennia. I recently linked a very approachable documentary¹ from ARTE, in thee parts, if you want to understand what is really happening. 1. https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/103517-001-A/capitalism-in-america-the-cult-of-wealth-1-3/ https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/103517-001-A/capitalism-in-ame...
- cjbenedikt 10mo agoTried to follow your link. It says: "This program is not available in your country". Wonder why...censorship?
- exceptione 10mo agoMaybe try a vpn? It is an European production, I am not sure, but there could be some rights limitation. It is available till end of January. Protonvpn is free and has EUR servers. Bit of a shame for the hassle though, the documentary is very good and the topics it touches are rarely highlighted. So give it an other try.
- cjbenedikt 10mo agoThanks. Will give it a try.
- tshaddox 10mo ago> The isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric of recent years is mostly a reaction to a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development. I'm not sure I buy your claim that this is the reason for the rhetoric. And if you're right that this is the reason for the rhetoric, it's extremely flawed reasoning.
- komali2 10mo agoDiminishing material conditions makes a fertil breeding ground for right wing nationalism (isolationism and xenophobia). It's a pattern being replicated all over the world. UK citizens don't have high heat bills and sewage leaking into their rivers because of privatization and Brexit, it's because there's too many refugees! Of course it's incorrect, but without the diminishing material conditions, it's a lot harder to get people to drum up the energy to be racist.
- tshaddox 10mo ago> Diminishing material conditions makes a fertil breeding ground for right wing nationalism And imagined diminishing material conditions are just as effective as actual diminishing material conditions!
- AndrewKemendo 10mo ago> global goodwill and development Is that what we’re calling the $8-9 TRILLION spent killing millions of people across the world from the failed “Global War or Terror?” Tell me where all this goodwill and development is happening
- vannevar 10mo ago"...a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development" That "growing sense" is not growing organically, it's being energetically fertilized. The problem isn't that most Americans aren't benefiting from global goodwill and development, it's that they aren't benefiting from domestic development. And the minority who are benefiting disproportionately from domestic economic growth are expending significant resources to convince everybody else that the problem lies with the rest of the world.
- strken 10mo agoGiven that most PhD students pay for their earlier education and then do underpaid grunt work as part of their program, the US should already be reaping the benefits. It's only failing to reap them in the sense that more could be gained if they stayed, and that a citizen would be more likely to stay.
- mothballed 10mo agoHaving a fraction of US PhD leave might be a good thing for cross-pollination. The fact that they've left doesn't mean their contacts and relationships vaporize. This could help America stay abreast and integrated with foreign research.
- mmooss 10mo ago> isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric of recent years is mostly a reaction to a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development I think the rhetoric is the cause, not the response to that sense (besides the obvious feedback loop). Internationalism created a world of unprecendented - literally in human history - freedom, peace and prosperity. You can see what things look like with even the beginnings of nationalism.
- SimianSci 10mo agoI would implore you to empathize with the American working class, who have seen their living standards continuously deteriorate over multiple generations. I know the hackernews audience skews more affluent and wealthy, with demographics pulling from more developed coastal cities, but the vast majority of citizens do not exist in such living conditions. Focusing entirely on the development an prosperity of only a handful of our cities is what has created the perfect fertile soil for Xenophobia to grow. I dont see the rhetoric as the cause, just the motions of opportunists taking advantage of a situation that we are all at fault for. Despite all the freedom, peace, and prosperity, its so unevenly distributed that many citizens live in squalor rivaling some destitute underdeveloped nations.
- selimthegrim 10mo agoI think you’re making a lot of unjustified assumptions about the HN audience
- mmooss 10mo agoAnd about me.
- selimthegrim 10mo agoI wasn’t addressing you but the comment replying to you.
- nathan_compton 10mo agoThe idea that Americans don't get any benefit from the global order is absolutely ridiculous. There isn't a stick we ARE getting the short end of.