It’s driving everyone away. No demographic is better off, other than obscenely rich people, under this administration. We have effectively killed what the brain “gain” we’ve been benefitting from for decades.
> In 2025, only 2.6 million people immigrated to the United States, a sharp decline from the 5.8 million who entered in 2023 and the 4.6 million who entered in 2024.
Key finding: "We conclude that net migration was likely close to zero or negative over calendar year 2025 for the first time in at least half a century. For 2026, we project net migration is likely to remain in negative territory."
You misunderstand me. I'm not discrediting. I'm not one to dismiss data just because of where it comes from, without looking at its merits.
My point was there are other credible sources that come to a different conclusion (e.g. net inmigration). Most official trackers still estimate positive net migration rather than a net outmigration. Over the last year or so, Brookings estimates up to -300K, while US Census estimates +1.3M, CBO estimates +410K, Goldman Sachs estimates +500K, and CIS estimates positive (in)migration.
Money of course. that doesn't mean this is a good place to live let alone do science.
I personally am still very bullish on living in America compare compared to a lot of places, but it's getting harder to ignore the stresses and costs of living here compared to the money that once made this place worth it
Because the comment you replied to is wishful thinking and not facts. Highly qualified people are still falling over each other trying to secure US visas, whereas the international press loves to print headlines like “scientists are leaving America in droves”, naming a grand total of three specific scientists who left.
The world doesn’t operate the way we want it to, and US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world. That’s what people really care about, and not the news cycle surrounding the current administration.
> Highly qualified people are still falling over each other trying to secure US visas, whereas the international press loves to print headlines like “scientists are leaving America in droves”, naming a grand total of three specific scientists who left.
Not from my group of colleagues. The only person who actually did end up going for a green card is actually the most politically unaware and least competent.
> US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world.
This may be the case but the cost of health care, child care and homeownership are so much higher now than they used to be that for a lot of people it doesn't make any economic sense anymore.
I see a lot of people going for a few years, working their assess off, then leaving before they even have to start thinking about a mortgage.
Immigrant scientists may be leaving America, because federal funding for some sciences areas have been rather abruptly cut. But, scientists are a small portion of high-skilled migrants.
You can have a significant downward trend in quality of life in the US and still be an appealing destination for people in war zones or whose families have been killed by gangs.
The US isn't the worst place to live, by any means, but we are currently machine-gunning ourselves in the foot and it would be nice to stop doing that.
Much the same reason why millions play the lottery each year. There is a chance, however small, that you'll win and join the obscenely rich mentioned earlier.
They're saying that asking why millions still come here if it's a worse place to be is analogous to asking why it can be cold outside if global temperatures are rising.
You can generalize if it makes you feel better, but the reality is that US has significantly fewer scientists in federal service than even 5-10 years ago when that number has always been going up. I am one of them, from federal service to private industry after my grants were first frozen then revoked by DOGE. Not any one field was as impacted as scientists, and I used to do viral work on COVID, you'd have thought they would hold onto people with such limited, restricted knowledge.
For all of America's many problems, if you're a 20's-30's high performer, moving to the US can absolutely make sense. Do you want to make $400k a year, have great investment options, and retire at 40, or make €80-100k a year with extremely heavy taxes?
(Bias disclosure: grew up in norcal, moved to Europe from California in 2013. I like living here but it certainly wasn't great for my career. It's like living in a forgotten backwater. You watch the future being built from abroad.)
It seems the optimal solution is to move to the US for your early earning years, build a nest egg, then leave once you get older and especially once you plan to start a family, for a number of (non-exhaustive) reasons:
* Vacation time in the US is paltry and often downright exploitative.
* Our for-profit healthcare system can easily wipe out any wealth you've accumulated upon a major medical episode, depending on what kind of coverage your insurance provides. Said coverage is usually determined by your employer.
* Education in the US is a joke compared to virtually every other developed nation.
* The homocide rate in the US is higher than 75% of other countries.
* Consumer protections in the US are virtually non-existent.
* Food quality is poor - e.g., virtually all foods have tons of corn syrup and other sugars added.
* The country as a whole is overly car-centric. Your day-to-day in the US virtually requires the use of a car, as most cities are not designed with walking or biking in mind, and only a few have useful public transportation.
Yeah, big part of why I live in the Netherlands. Though having lived in NL and IE I wouldn't say the health care I've had here has been particularly good.
Food - well that varies. Dutch food is... unexciting, to say the least.
It's hard to make 400k, even in NYC or SF. Not impossible or rare, but hard. Even more so at 25. And when you achieve that, how much are you spending on rent and life expenses? Do you have kids? There are a lot of factors here, and the only people I know close to retirement at 40 have no kids and won big in the startup lottery (a few mil in RSUs before 40) or hard core OCD (known colloquially as FIRE: meaning you meticulously keep a budget, fly economy, don't drink or go out to eat). Again, not saying that you can't save, but after taxes (which are going to be 45% in California or New York) and rent (5K for a one bedroom) and life expenses (dinner is now 100 dollars per person), you'll definitely save money, but you're not retiring in 10-15 years.
It's hard not to make more money and spend it such that you're not saving a lot, because you unconsciously live like your peers.
> if you're a 20's-30's high performer, moving to the US can absolutely make sense. Do you want to make $400k a year
The 20-30-somethings making 400K a year are few and far between. If you joined a high-flying tech company at just the right time to get cheap options (or RSUs), then sure, you're making way more. That's not the norm.
Approximately nobody is making 400K+ on salary as a junior or mid-career person. If you're lucky and in the right company in a very senior role you can, but you're probably not in your 30s at that point.
Of course there are exceptions, but that's why we call them exceptions.
Ignoring the economic aspects, California feels a lot like a forgotten backwater. Compared to any other center of economic activity, California feels like it's at the edge of the world. You have a few cities and plenty of towns and suburbs, but everything else is far away. To go anywhere else, you have to take a plane and fly for hours.
And the ocean is empty, which is the most shocking part. You rarely see any ships outside the major ports. There are no ships, because it's not a convenient way to go anywhere. Because there is nothing out there.
> if you're a 20's-30's high performer, moving to the US can absolutely make sense
I entirely agree with this conclusion, especially if you don't plan to raise a family in the US, but still I think the difference isn't as great as what you say.
You have similar investment options in the EU vs US. Tax is high in California. And you probably won't retire at 40 with $400 a year unless you've been very agressive and lucky with your investment.
I can talk about my person situation, big tech in EU, I contemplated relocation in the US (which my company would sponsor). I'd be better off financially in the US after a few years but worse job security and WLB, but it's not night and day. Main issue in EU + UK is lack opportunities compared other US, but there are some.
Retirement is going to be pretty boring for a high performer, so you either have to convert that cash into starting your own business or likely keep working the same job you already have. Entrepreneurship might have a certain appeal, so I wouldn't discount that to those who have that dream, but if you stay in a job then you have to start asking what all that money is going to actually buy you. Both incomes are going to get you to a point where you already won't be able to spend it all.
Realistically, the question isn't meaningfully answered in isolation. One would have to see the bigger picture to put it into context.
"Both incomes are going to get you to a point where you already won't be able to spend it all."
I mean, 100k isn't what it used to be...
In the Netherlands that's ~€5220 after tax
Mortgage or rent (~2500)
Childcare (~200-300 but depends a lot on Kinderopvangtoeslag etc)
Transport (~100-200 depending on if you use mostly public transport, bike etc. For a car it's much more)
utilities ~200
...
And you're at <2000 left before you've even bought any food or had any fun.
Of course my example is for a single parent but even so, the money goes fast.
It is unfortunate you left out food as a core cost so that we could see what you think is the true discretionary income, but the internet suggests €450 is a reasonable figure for a single parent. It's what we have so we we'll have to run with it.
That leaves nearly 20,000 per year after the essentials are paid for. I wouldn't have a clue how to spend that much, aside from investing it which only serves to push your income even higher later. What are you buying, exactly?
It's a valid criticism but no, it actually did not "kill" research, as evidenced by the US's extreme concentration and outperformance on any relevant scientific metric per capita.
and which metric per capita is this?
i could not quickly find any metrics per capita besides this one, where the us does infact not outperform per capita.
instead of comparing country-to-country, why not compare within the same country over all time: it's pretty unique to the US in the post-1980s ish era.
Politicking for grants is unique post 1980? How did folks get awarded grants before? Folks just popped by to say “hey really appreciate all the heads down work you told nobody about here’s a million dollars?”
I’d want to compare grant funding and sources pre and post, as well as the diversity of institutions receiving funding, etc. my hypothesis would be that in order to build up institutions across the country politicians did try to steer grants to regional institutions, etc but it’s still a ton more money. (But I am not an academic)
... and a culture that couldn't explain to the public why half of these experiments were worth a single tax dollar.
If you're barely making ends meet, can barely afford gas, and hear that $390,000 just went to some scientists to stick plastic dinosaur tails on chickens to study walking dynamics, with zero practical applications for the knowledge gained, you're angry. Also this example actually happened, it's not hyperbole.
Malarkey, San Francisco tried to spend $1.7M on a single-stall toilet. There's plenty of blame on both sides, and much of the mud they throw at each other is true.
Again, if you are someone who can barely afford gas and hear about this... you don't care about strict principles, you just want to set those in power on fire. You're also not going to be easily convinced the government cares about spending your tax dollars wisely, or that all of this planning and research and science is worth it.
I personally believe that we should have a crystal ball which will tell us the result and future applications of all currently-contemplated research projects. Then we just need to look into the crystal ball and pick the silly lizard venom studies that lead to life-changing and life-saving results for hundreds of millions of people, and we can ignore the silly lizard venom studies that yield nothing!
"We shouldn't be funding all this frivolous stuff!"
"Okay, how would you figure out what to fund?"
"We could assemble a panel of experts in the field, who have proven their merit by doing impactful research, and have them decide ultimately based on the merits of each proposal, the people who proposed it, the institutions backing them, the likelihood of success, whether they're worthy of funding. We should also make them explain as part of the proposal exactly how this will benefit not just their research area but also the broader community and world. Finally, we should meticulously track how they spend their money to make sure there's no funny business, and only give continued support to researchers who have proven they spend it wisely and their research has impact."
(If people don't understand, this is currently how it's done)
> We could assemble a panel of experts in the field, who have proven their merit by doing impactful research, and have them decide ultimately based on the merits of each proposal, the people who proposed it, the institutions backing them, the likelihood of success, whether they're worthy of funding. We should also make them explain as part of the proposal exactly how this will benefit not just their research area but also the broader community and world. Finally, we should meticulously track how they spend their money to make sure there's no funny business, and only give continued support to researchers who have proven they spend it wisely and their research"
This is not accurate. There is the first gatekeeper which is program managers and junior program managers which have to gloss over your project and pick you. They (especially the juniors) don't necessarily have a the sophistication to judge your project and so are easily swayed by hot topics or reaching claims of national security/health applications.
Grants get awarded to people in the habit of telling little white lies about what their research is good for, then its people who are awarded grants that get promoted, and then those are the people who are reviewing projects, so being dishonest becomes cultural. Disastrous for science.
The glp-1 story is super overblown. GLP-1s were a highly desired target LONG before gila monster venom was discovered to be an agonist. And it really was around the same time that lipid attachments were becoming appreciated for their half-life attenuation, so even if amylin (the company) never took on exenatide as a (shitty) drug candidate, proper glp-1s with lipid attachements were kind of inevitable. Obviously we can't know this for sure, but cmon. How much did gila monsters buy? Maybe a year or two?
so, you should really recalibrate being taken in by just-so stories of basic science being SUPER important.
the point was about the nonsensical nature of dismissing things out of hand just because you can't imagine a "practical application" for it on the spot.
the earlier habener results that actually got us to glp-1s via anglerfish pancreas would have been similarly derided. substitute that in if it helps.
Your rebuttal is that GLP was a highly desirable target for a long time before we stumbled upon a way to hit it... and this is evidence that the "stumbling upon a way to hit it" was not a super critical and super fortunate event...?
> How much did gila monsters buy? Maybe a year or two?
Why'd you put "a year or two?" here and not "a decade or two?" or "a century or two?" Do you have reason to believe it was a year or two away, sans Gila monster? If so, can you provide your reasoning? Per your own point, GLP was a desirable target for a long time without successful hits. We have plenty of targets that are desirable for decades without figuring out a way to actually drug them.
Do you know the full story of glp-1 from a pharmacokinetic point of view? It seems not, since I explained clearly why I assigned a short time in my above comment.
> couldn't explain to the public why half of these experiments were worth a single tax dollar.
The funny thing about that is the controversial “impact statements” that are part of grant funding are supposed to be the part where you explain how your research matters to the broad community. But it’s become so political the only thing you can feel safe writing is “we will help people learn about science” because “we’ll start an after school program for disadvantaged youth to learn about science” is too DEI for some folks.
There is no good way to measure quality of life. Honest measures of Norway and the US (picking two "rich countries" at random) will have a lot of "it depends" and error bars and in the end concluding they are statistically equal.
If your information doesn't have those error bars it is just a feel good headline to make someone feel better about themselves by putting others down - this is EVIL and you shouldn't fall for it!
There are at least four widely accepted measures of quality of life, and the US ranks at the bottom of the top 10 of one of them. Are you really sure that you're smarter than all the economist and sociologists who put those measures together? Or maybe we've screwed it up and needs to purge a lot of poison from our system.
Top 10 isn't bad. There are roughly 30 countries (a debatable number) with really great quality of life. The difference between 1 and 30 is not very great. The bottom of the list is really bad. The top is all really good
Almost certainly. Quality of life for well educated people is absolutely higher in many parts of the world. Whether you are in parts of Europe, New Zealand, east Asia, you can definitely land in better places.
The idea that the US is "the best place to live" is a persistent cultural myth. It's mostly good for a lot of classes of people, but even that's changing as of late.
Western Europe and New Zealand are great places to live (east Asia is too big - I had to qualify Europe as well for similar reasons). However the US is also a great place to live. You cannot make any universal statement that one is better than another. There are pros and cons, but for the most part things are similar, and the difference is only slightly different sets of trade offs. In the US you will probably make more income which can lead to better quality of life in the form of things you can buy - but things you can buy isn't everything (and there are people who would make less in the US)
Yeah, from what I understand those that leave are living much better lives. Wive has a Masters in Biotech and is being pulled to European opportunities.
Those who are leaving are certainly leaving for better opportunities and better lives. Otherwise they would stay, or at least not be away for long.
But would everyone except for "obscenely rich people" be better off somewhere else? If so, then where, and why aren't they leaving by the tens of millions for those places?
It's funny how blatantly clear it is that corruption was engineered by the extreme rich to serve their own interest at the cost of everyone else. And yet, somehow, I still get comments debating that fact -- people actively defending the status quo of this late capitalist hellscape. It's like these idiot want to protect a system of abuse, hoping one day they will be the abuser. It will not ever happen. The game has been rigged against you.
I think, for some people, it just takes a long time for them to finally see the light. You can coast a long time on what you were raised to believe and what you want to believe.
Its fine, QoL is anyway in many aspects higher in many parts of Europe (no, not salaries but overall quality and happiness definitely, triple that if you have family with kids or ever plan one).
Maybe smart folks don't want to be in racist xenophobic regime which marks them as undesirables from Day 1, run by publicly voted-in outright senile pedophile who managed to insult every single human being currently living at least once, mostly much more. It happens with narcistic egomaniacs, quite a lot in fact.
Since folks willingly voted in such person twice as the best person under the sun to represent and rule them, it tells something not-so-nice about future that even many not-too-smart folks catch easily.
At least that would be my logic if I would be in such situation. I never was since US was never an option for me, Switzerland offers much more for me than US ever could. And my taxes are not used for mass murder and start failed wars half around the globe, a small but significant detail. Most scientists have more morals than typical faaangs of these days from my experience.
QoL in Europe is better if you are a below average to average earner. Many excellent perks and social benefits to cover things that are usually very expensive.
QoL in the US is better if you are an average to above earner, and dramatically better if you are are high earner (like SWE's). In large part why the US brain drained so much talent from Europe over the last 30 years.
> dramatically better if you are are high earner (like SWE's)
Can't agree. The US is better if you are extremely rich, but nearly all SWEs are not that. Even at 200K-500K income range, in the US you're still just a laborer on a paycheck, one disease away from bankrupcy, stuck with enormous school costs for your kids.
If you're making many millions a year then yes, the US is pretty good.
If you think that the comment you're responding to is even a tiny bit objective, I'd encourage you to take a break from Internet ragebait. I'm no friend of the Trump regime, but that doesn't mean I have to endorse people posting furious substance-free rants.
They explicitly said that they're not living in the US! This what I mean when I call the comment substance-free; it's made up of words and sentences, like any other comment, but you immediately recognized that it would be silly to engage with the text in detail. What the commenter means is "RAAAAGH", so a person living in the US might agree because they also feel "RAAAAGH".
Key difference though is that the people/lobbies using libertarianism as a platform for support don’t actually care about free speech, etc etc. They care about money.
People are extremely sensitive to anti wfh because it threatens their ability to work from wherever they want.
Having a community of coworkers you see everyday and build relationships with is healthy for humans. Spending 40 hours a week in a room by yourself with only digital interaction, surprisingly, is not great for many people.
As a parent the 40hr thing isn’t reality though. I get to see my kids more when I wfh.
Different people need different things at the end of the day. The reason wfh people are more intense about it is because wfh jobs are less common than in-office and most companies are actively trying to drive all of us back into offices after so many of us finally got what worked better for us. It’s hard to be sympathetic to the in-office fans in this environment. Doesn’t mean we don’t know they exist in large numbers or don’t want them to work the way they want.
I was one of the people who believed it was "just an awkward gesture". Egg on my face when a few days later he went and spoke at the far right German parties conference
You should have seen his Twitter feed. Just fuming, virulent white supremacy 24/7. (Of course, he wiped a lot of it after the election. Fucking coward.)
"A federal court today ruled that the Trump-Vance administration unlawfully compelled civil servants at the U.S. Department of Education to transmit partisan political messaging from their government email accounts during the ongoing federal shutdown — violating core First Amendment protections."
> Rabid, senseless, confusing opposition to gun rights, a civil right in the U.S.
As is their First Amendment right. Do you oppose that civil right?
> Totally opposing widespread, bipartisan support for voter ID
I can understand having strong feelings, but the question was about the Democrats so my answer was about the Democrats. The "what about"s aren't compelling.
- Jan 6 was bad. People who were charged, put on trial, and convicted for being part of that very, very clearly did not get a fair trial. Some went to prison for years for ... walking in to a building, looking around a bit, taking some pictures, and walking out. This does not come close to comparing to the scale of destruction visited on American cities by the Floyd riots. Almost none of those people were punished. We're talking a 100x difference, maybe more. Don't forget the "oh jk jk gathering is fine if it's for political purposes we approve of" move by the dems during covid too.
- This is a really specific case! Seems like they shouldn't have done that. It does not compare to, "We're going to create this category of speech we'll call "hate speech", and make that illegal for everyone. Also, we'll force everyone to say stuff they don't want to say". That specific case hinges on what the Dept. of Ed's remit is. It's totally cool to ask your gov't employees to send emails promoting things they don't agree with, it's not cool to ask them to do it if it's too partisan.
- I don't understand the 1A comment about 2A rights. I support 1A rights?
Another propagandized fool who thinks they see the world for what it is and the rest of us don't. The real nazis did show up. They are wearing the same red hat you have in your closet.
You mean like creating an autonomous paramilitary force that operates masked agents across multiple state lines kidnapping people without due process or any regard to the constitution?
And in this iteration, they murdered, intentionally and proudly abused, treated whole cities as occupied territories, lied to courts, beated citizens (and murdered them) ....
... while republican party and administration openly supported it.
The guy literally tweets and retweets neo-nazis and white nationalist content on a regular basis. He celebrates an election win with a literal nazi salute. He openly supports fascist parties and politicians. Being aghast at someone calling him a nazi is ridiculous.
If someone’s “different ideas” involve literally praising hitler then it is logical to call them a nazi. The only way someone believe what you said is if they have not listened to a word Elon has uttered for the last 8 years.
So what happens when someone like musk spends a few hundred million to skew what the probability looks like? Suddenly people see that a politician has a 90% chance of winning, and they feel silly voting for the operation?
These are not polling places, they are places for capital to influence odds.
Eh, sounds like the excuse I kept hearing as to why Trump had favorable odds in the last election. Supposedly a foreigner trying to influence our elections, totally not the Democrats kinda not having a candidate. It would be a very expensive (on average) way to probably not make a difference. Cheaper to just buy up some media companies, which do the same thing, saying their preferred candidate is going to win.
Small elections are susceptible to corruption this way, though.
There’s been plenty of blatant voter interference, and billions spent influencing American voters, not really seeing where your point is based. More handles to steer democracy with money is not better, period.
That’s not what prediction markets give you though. They give you capital-adjusted, human perception-based odds of future events. You aren’t “seeing the probably of future events”.
You can link me studies that are paid and bought for by these companies all day long. Find me one where the guy is not a consultant to the companies themselves.
Cowen was talking up prediction markets before they existed. Both kalshi and polymarket were founded because they listened to cowens thoughts on them. He is absolutely a true believer in prediction markets. Whether that makes him trustworthy is a different issue, but he’s not bought and paid for.
> longshots lose 6.3 cents per dollar when each contract is weighted equally but gain 4.1 cents when related contracts are first grouped by parent event; the two-sided pattern is robust in Crypto and Politics but surprisingly absent in Sports.
This seems like a relatively small inefficiency in the markets, no? If the margin of error notable in a prediction markets is <10 cents per dollar, that implies that they are pricing events pretty accurately. Especially post publication of this paper, when sophisticated traders could trade away this inefficiency.
Yes. It’s pretty trivial to pivot to, for these non-training/inference roles it’s just building systems where agents are the core implementation detail.
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