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133 points yowzadave | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.295s | source
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dotnet00 ◴[] No.44450558[source]
This has definitely been my feeling too as a fresh postdoc. For a while it has been feeling more and more like the US isn't worth the effort and stress.

Sure, I make more money here, but is it worth dealing with nonsensical immigration policies, haphazard funding cuts, crumbling infrastructure, completely random rulemaking, and demoralized colleagues facing severe and nonsensical budget cuts when various other countries with a good standard of living and competitive research labs make immigration very easy for skilled people like scientists?

It isn't specifically a Trump thing, but he's certainly proving to be the straw that broke the camel's back, and it's likely I'll go elsewhere once my postdoc appointment ends.

I can imagine that the decision is even easier for people from countries like China. Why deal with the stress of the government suddenly deciding that you aren't allowed to work at your institution anymore regardless of track record or background, (many chinese colleagues have been worried about the proposed legislation and it comes up often), when you can work at a similarly cutting edge institution back home? You just have to determine if the US being less authoritarian on certain things is valuable enough to put up with the awful treatment through the long immigration process.

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senectus1 ◴[] No.44451211[source]
I see Trump as being a socially acceptable widening of this sort of behavior.

AI is just an enabling of the the imagination of the now widened bracket of behavior.

As has been often remarked on. this is a really shit timeline to exist in.

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1. illiac786 ◴[] No.44458441[source]
I keep my sanity by imagining how it could be much worse. But I have to admit, all my “much worse timelines” feel more and more like the future of this timeline…