1mo ago

U.S. Scientists Warn That Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain | As the United States cuts budgets and restricts immigration, China and Europe are offering researchers money and stability.

www.nytimes.com

As the Trump Administration Slashes Federal Spending, Scientists Consider Leaving the U.S.

23 comments

Anecdotally, a lot of my friends are doctors (/humblebrag) and are looking to gtfo of the states/have been looking do so since election night.
I would myself but uhhhh, my spouse and I haven’t got any kids and I’d rather stay and fight/do what I can within the community we have here.
- You do exist. Capable people with very particular skill sets do exists but many of us would put others at risk by acting. People like you and those with nothing to lose will be all that keep kids from growing up orphans. There's honor in that if such a thing exists.
  
  I know it’s hella cheesy and there’s a masculinity joke about the fantasy of wanting to live out the cliche that is sacrificing yourself to buy time for others to run off and live, but honestly with fascism at everyone’s doorstep and me without ever having had a retirement plan or sense of purpose, I can’t think of a better opportunity to line myself up to live out that fantasy.
  …mind you I am not actively seeking to speed up that process right now/I’d like to live as long as I could, but I’ve just kind of been bracing for mental impact that that’s probably going to be the equivalent of my retirement plan.
Remember when Germany removed every intellectual in the entire country and then had to deal with having zero intellectuals for a generation after they lost two wars?
- Remember when German was the language of science and technology, and then suddenly it wasn't?
  There is no better of faster way to irrelevance than fascism.
  
  I can't express how much I hate that I'm going to have to learn mandarin to read white papers 🤬
  
  The defeat of German Nazism was not a foregone conclusion. It was the Soviets behind 70% of Nazi casualties that defeated German Nazism - at tremendous cost I might add.
  Fascism isn't some fad that inevitably falls out of fashion because people magically start seeing the contradictions, but a cancer that has to be militantly suppressed with utmost prejudice.
And Canada, we will welcome scientists, doctors and other people in the medical care industry.
- I just submitted an application to the British Columbia College of Nursing and Midwives. I am going to get another license in another country.
  
  Good luck!
- Great! I'm mailing my application tomorrow. No sarcasm, packet is by the door to send UPS international. I've marked it as urgent processing. Hoping they listen.
  
  Good luck!
There's been a brain drain here for a while. Turns out those with the means to go to a place that treats workers better will do that.
yea. if i had money and in-demand skills i'd be gone too
cries in librarian
- Yeah I would leave too if I had the money and a place that wanted me
  cries in being a broke student
- My wife refuses to think about leaving. I won't go without her. So, I stay here, and one day sooner rather than later, Homeland or a private "militia" will break my door in, and i will go missing.
Brain drain includes medicine, psychiatry, health care.
It's part of the Republican plan. Crash the economy, destabilize what little is left of our sense of community. Use the chaos as an excuse to end all public goods: education, health care, infrastructure. Then, while tech bros reap the benefits of technology, the rest of us exist as low-tech worker drones.
It's already started. Even if this shit ended today, there are things about our country that are likely gone forever.
30 years from now we'll all be roofers. And it'll be a good time for roofing since so many new roofs are going to be leaking by then.

23 comments