Comment by counters
9 hours ago
> This is a blunt instrument, yes. But things were going very poorly overall, and we needed a shake-up.
You do understand that what's happening isn't merely a "shake up", right? It's the coordinated dismantling of structural components of America's innovation economy in ways that will take decades to recover from, if it all (can't do much if emigrants take their talents to China instead of the USA).
Strong "cut off your nose to spite your face" vibes. Hope that works out for you. It's not working out for many of my colleagues, especially early-career scientists at federal labs who are hemorrhaging from the system, often moving completely out of science altogether. Great return on investment we're getting for all those GRFPs!
Is China actually particularly interested in allowing non-Chinese foreigners to immigrate there ostensibly to do science but really so they can permanently settle in China and have children who are considered fully Chinese under law?
Yes. Myself and colleagues used to get outreach fairly regularly to join new faculty at universities trying to establish themselves in China. I'm in industry these days, but some of my colleagues report a significant uptick in these types of outreach over the past year.
> It's the coordinated dismantling of structural components of America's innovation economy in ways that will take decades to recover from,
No, that is just your opinion.
I'm not the big Lebowski but this is the "opinion" of the majority of scientific societies in the US as well as watchdog organizations who have long followed science regulatory and spending action.
It's not exactly new. We've been through this with the crackdown on climate science during the W Bush administration, with sequestration during the early/mid 2010's, and with the budget shenanigans during the first Trump administration. Denying the painfully obvious impact of our contemporary science policy is like fiddling while Rome is burning.