A Princeton nuclear physicist. A mechanical engineer who helped NASA explore manufacturing in space. A US National Institutes of Health neurobiologist. Celebrated mathematicians. And over half a dozen AI experts. The list of research talent leaving the US to work in China is glittering – and growing.

  • jaschen306@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    81·
    18 hours ago

    Errrr, you can’t pay me enough to work in China. Why go from an county starting to go towards authoritarianism to a country that is ALREADY authoritarianism. China is def not the lesser of the two evils.

    • krooklochurm@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Like. I get it. China is absolutely an authoritarian state. But it also isn’t coming apart at the fucking seams, really seems to have its shit together, and offers a very good quality of life if you make enough money, from what I’ve heard.

      It isn’t a glittering wonderland or anything but you’re not going to be deported for no fucking reason if you’re an expert in your field (unless you get on the wrong side of the government).

      The USA is coming apart at the seams. It isn’t just authoritarianism, it’s ineptitude and implosion. They’re totally different situations.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      China’s authoritarianism is more palatable for the people who live in it because they don’t deport people to random 3rd world countries’ terrorist prisons. If you’re valued, they make your life exceptional. But this all comes with the looming threat of “speak out against us and you’ll go to jail without trial”. So basically you live under fear in both China and the US, but in China you know what to do to avoid being a target and in the US it can be pretty random

      Honestly, if they offered me a million euro per year salary, I’d go and be quiet as a lamb. But I don’t think they want me in the first place and also they probably know my opinion of the country.

      • jaschen306@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        There is a literal concentration camp for theUyghurs because of their religion. They are sending jets and navy ships to sovereign nations all over south east Asia. Even building man made island to build bases to do so. There is a social points system that is designed to punish the poor and middle class.

        You’re watching too much TikTok bro. China is brainwashing you.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 hours ago

          Lol I have never installed the TikTok app even. I can show you a screenshot from the App Store if you don’t believe me.

          They are sending jets and navy ships to sovereign nations all over south east Asia.

          Definitely an issue regionally (and globally because TSMC), but a non-issue to anyone living in China (unless they have family at one of those countries)

          Even building man made island to build bases to do so

          I agreed, it’s bullshit bad faith diplomacy.

          There is a social points system that is designed to punish the poor and middle class.

          Same as the credit score system in the US then. It’s provincial, anyway, not a centralized system. A lot of people in China are saying it doesn’t affect their lives too much. Many haven’t heard of it.

          There is a literal concentration camp for theUyghurs because of their religion.

          So this is the worst of them all. But then nearly every single article about it is written by, or cites, Adrian Zenz, a notoriously anti-China reporter. The multi-million person concentration camps might be a myth. There’s definitely some human rights abuses going on there though, even the UN has reported on that. But again, this doesn’t affect most people.

          We’re talking about over a billion people in one country. 99.9% of them aren’t going to be affected by any of this. Can you say the same regarding the systemic racism, the ICE raids, etc, in the US? And those are accelerating, China seems to be keeping their authoritarianism stable.

      • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        31·
        8 hours ago

        In China they also imprison the wealthy that exploit people. I may not agree with how China treats their citizens but they have some things right.

        • jaschen306@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          3 hours ago

          No they don’t. They only do that if you become too powerful. Nobody can be more than Xi Ping. If you are then you get punished…

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          Ehhhh so and so. They imprison you once it gets too public. Otherwise they’re happy about the money.

        • RenLinwood@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Absolutely!

          The US was born from genocide and built by slavery. We’ve been at war constantly for close to three centuries now. We have a long and extremely well documented history of invading and overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world to further our foreign policy that is still verifiably ongoing. We have military bases occupying every habitable continent. We have the largest prison population on earth both total and per capita, and we have explicit allowance in our constitution for slavery as a punishment, this is not a coincidence. We let our law enforcement murder people with impunity. Our elected officials engage in blatant bribery and open corruption without consequence, and we’re finding new ways to lower the bar on that front every day. We surveil our own citizens and the rest of the world constantly, and we use that information to bully and blackmail dissenters into submission, and when that fails we assassinate them. Our government knowingly allowed Epstein to sex traffic children for years unimpeded because it gave us an easy way to control a bunch of celebrities and foreign dignitaries, and when he became a liability he was extrajudicially murdered. We spend billions maintaining our surveillance and military occupation networks while our own citizens die from preventable illnesses and the breakdown of basic infrastructure. We’re actively gutting our education system, medical care is increasingly unaffordable and for people outside of major urban centers straight up unavailable as more hospitals are closed entirely. Economic inequality is worse than it’s ever been, many americans have no hope of ever actually owning a home and are a paycheck or two away from financial ruin. We’ve always been fucking evil and we’re getting worse at an accelerating rate.

          What little military conflict China has been involved in over the same time frame, and the rest of their history for that matter, has been limited to their immediate surroundings, regardless of arguable justifiability the scope and scale are significantly smaller than the US. For per capita incarceration rate China isn’t even in the top 100 globally, and their total prison population is lower than ours despite having more than 4 times our population. Chinese law enforcement and elected officials who abuse their positions are actually punished for it, up to and including execution, as are their billionaires. Clearly they also have a robust surveillance apparatus and aren’t afraid to use it in support of their own foreign policy and domestic security, but we’ve got no evidence to suggest they’re up to anything close to the sort of degenerate fuckery we’ve been committing. Their level of investment in domestic infrastructure is absolutely unmatched, they’re actively prioritizing reducuction of wealth inequality and regional disparity, directly improving rural areas, and and their allies benefit from similar improvements via the Belt & Road Initiative & similar programs. Their citizens have one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world, around 90%. However imperfect they may be they’re causing far less harm overall than the US and are steadily improving.

    • sifar@lemmy.mlEnglish
      21·
      18 hours ago

      This is relevant for immigrants who are trying to escape poverty, almost with no future in their own countries either for their personal or professional aspirations. I am not a China fan, but when you look at countries around the world, many of which are very poor and underdeveloped but with lots of brilliant, hard-working people with dreams and potential, they would rather go to a place where they have at least some stability, predicted living and working conditions, and a future, rather than to a place where one doesn’t know whether the potential future mayor of New York City, born and brought up in the USA and hence of course a citizen who happens to be the son of a world-famous filmmaker and a well-known academic, will actually be deported or not. I mean that’s a real possibility at this point - let that sink in. (I am not even going for more extreme examples)

      I wish things were better, and I wish we didn’t live in a world where China, yes, China – of all the countries, might become a viable alternative for people from the developing or underdeveloped world compared to the USA.

      • jaschen306@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        The dude is brainwashed by TikTok. As a person who’s family has a factory in china, it’s a terrible place to live.

      • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        18 hours ago

        Yeah, but there are other and much better places to go than China. The world doesn’t consist of only the US and China.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          21·
          8 hours ago

          The money, however, is in the US and China. You’ll have a better life on average in Europe, but if you’re super aspirational about your career and total compensation, Europe sucks.

            • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              1·
              6 hours ago

              Trust me. I’m a software engineer in EU. I could make 4-5x as much in the US. The truly high level compmaxers make even more.

              • jaschen306@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                3 hours ago

                Try asking how much China parts for SWE right now. Then look up what the 996 culture is in China.

                Being the 2nd most riches country doesn’t mean you get paid more for your skills.

                China has the lowest GDP relative to the country’s wealth. They simply exploit their people way more than the USA.

                • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  1·
                  2 hours ago

                  There was literally a thread somewhere on the fediverse where someone said their friend (scientist) got invited to China for a 7 figure salary job. That’s not a thing in most countries.

                  I know what the 996 culture is. These are also mostly people working in the private sector. This article is more about government-paid people.

                  So what country you want to be in depends on whether you’re a researcher (China good, US becoming increasingly shit), software engineer (China bad, US good), etc. But it still holds true that the US and China have the highest salary ceilings if you’re strategic about it. If you’re a scientist here in Estonia, you need to take foreign assignments to make any real money. Otherwise you don’t earn shit, especially before you finish your PhD.

  • njm1314@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    19 hours ago

    Is it really gaining on someone if the other racer ahead of you stops turns around and runs back toward you going the wrong way? I mean I guess that’s gaining but it doesn’t feel like the right word.

  • Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    2·
    17 hours ago

    There are always isolated exceptions, but the idea to move from the US to China because the US is becoming more and more autocratic is baseless. China has been a dictatorship for decades, and it doesn’t get better because the US getting worse.

    The list of researchers and others professionals leaving the US for Canada, Australia, Europe, and other democratic states is much longer. This article doesn’t make sense.

    As an addition, a report citing a Chinese state-controlled media:

    Chinese professionals eye Europe as US visa uncertainty grows

    According to the South China Morning Post, recent uncertainty over the U.S. H-1B visa program has led many Chinese professionals to consider leaving the United States for Europe. Confusion followed a U.S. government proposal to introduce a US$100,000 application fee for H-1B visas. Although later clarified to apply only to new visas, the announcement triggered panic among skilled workers and their families.

  • Ziggurat@jlai.luEnglish
    39·
    2 days ago

    You mean that when US starts blocking visa and cutting science budget, scientists look for another place?

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      333·
      2 days ago

      I don’t know. China is smart enough to realize that a country needs science and scientists should be enabled to do science. There will be censorship in some areas, but there’s not a government that’s just hostile to science in general and trying to shut it down because of some idiotically regressive dogma, as in the USA. Going to a country that considers it a good thing, and worth investing in, to lead the world in science would be an upgrade.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
        191·
        2 days ago

        That’s right. It’s an upgrade by virtue of supplying the material means to do large amounts of science. To provide the education people need, give them labs, tools and materials to work with. All of us would benefit from those scientific discoveries.

      • sadfitzy@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        25·
        1 day ago

        There will be censorship in some areas, but there’s not a government that’s just hostile to science in general and trying to shut it down because of some idiotically regressive dogma, as in the USA.

        You are actually stupid if you think scientists will have more freedom in China than the US.

        • frustrated@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          1 day ago

          I suppose it really depends on what freedoms you consider important and how much you weigh things. It is true, in china, you cant be openly critical of the regime. FWIW, that is increasingly true in the US.

          However, in china, you are free to not be killed by violence. You are free to get affordable healthcare. You are free to get affordable high quality food. You are free to get affordable housing (outside of Beijing and a few other financial centers). You are free to get an affordable high quality education. I dunno. There are tradeoffs. The US is increasingly offering less and less by way of substantive freedoms and is becoming more and more authoritarian.

          Also, have you actually been to china? How much of what you know about china is based in outdated information from 30 years ago or might just be straight up propaganda? I have been in the last 10 years and it blew my mind and changed a lot about how viewed the country.

      • whiwake@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        39·
        2 days ago

        Some areas lol. China is the same thing as the US. All government is the same it does not matter where you are, they always turn against their people.

        • knowone@slrpnk.netEnglish
          7·
          1 day ago

          I’m very anti authoritarian and anti statist but this doesn’t always happen. You can’t look at say Burkina Faso with Thomas Sankara at it’s head and Nazi Germany and say they’re the same in how the government treated the people

    • shani66@ani.socialEnglish
      132·
      2 days ago

      Kinda is. America is on its way to being as authoritarian as China, just with a Christian bent, which is so much worse.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      103·
      2 days ago

      In terms of getting to do science without harassment, it absolutely is. Now I wouldn’t go myself because I’m basically allergic to authoritarianism, but if I was another “I just wanna make rockets” guy it’d be a pretty tempting offer.

      • whiwake@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        91·
        2 days ago

        Ummm… In China, prohibited or heavily restricted areas of research include democracy, human rights, Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tiananmen, criticism of the Communist Party, censorship circumvention tools, human reproductive cloning, genetic modification of human embryos for reproduction, stem cell work beyond 14 days of embryo development, unapproved clinical stem cell applications, organ transplantation outside regulated systems, unauthorized cryptography, dual-use or national-security technologies, nuclear technology, unrestricted sharing of genomic or health data, foreign collaboration on sensitive datasets, and archaeological or historical research that challenges official state narratives.

      • sadfitzy@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        13·
        1 day ago

        You are actually stupid if you think scientists will have more freedom in China than the US.