On Jul 6, 8:33 pm, "Mark T.B. Carroll" <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Scott Jensen <RecreationalPo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> > On Jul 6, 1:52 pm, "Mark T.B. Carroll" <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> (snip)
> >> You seemed to be comparing the rest of the world with the US without
> >> noting that the US wouldn't be so far ahead without such help from
the
> >> rest of the world.
>
> > Do explain.
>
> A significant fraction of the people doing innovative R&D in the US got
> a lot of education and culture overseas before they ever lived in the
> US. The `brain drain' is, in a sense, help from the rest of the world.
No, this doesn't mean America owes jack **** to the rest of the world
for what we have been able to accomplish. I know you think you're
im****tant and that us Americans should be thankful that you're here,
but that just isn't the case. I have heard so many foreigners like
you over-inflate your im****tance while at the same time putting us
Americans down. You're just like any other immigrant. This country
offers a better op****tunity than what you had at home and you took
it. I have no problem with that. My ancestors were immigrants as
well and they came here for a better op****tunity. The only difference
appears to be that they were thankful for the op****tunity and didn't
put down Americans because they thought they were better than them.
> >> So, it was kind of begging to be noted, so that people don't
> >> mistakenly make the leap toward assuming that it's simply
> >> something inherent to do with the wonderfulness of Americans.
>
> > Likewise, you haven't given any evidence why that isn't so. Again, do
> > explain. I will wait to respond until I hear your argument.
>
> I've already cited Bill Gates' testimony, which sup****ts...
Why people think Bill Gates can talk about ANYTHING is what is
amazing. If you want a good laugh, google his predictions of the
future.
Additionally, Gates has a self-serving interest in keeping high-tech
labor costs from rising, so the more high-tech people who flood the
labor markets in the U.S. and abroad, the better for keeping software
development costs from rising into the stratosphere.
> Americans are falling further behind on
> graduating with science and engineering degrees - for some time now
> around half, maybe more, of the science PhDs in American universities
> are foreign students, and very many of them stay afterward.
Right. And such college education is funded by our government. Any
foreign student that is right now studying in a US college lab is
doing so at the expense of American taxpayers. The university itself
was made possible with American taxes, tax exempt status, land grants,
and so forth. Additionally, the grant that lab got and which it is
using to pay for that foreign graduate student to be a grad lad for
seven years comes from us Americans. Sure, they cannot get
scholar****ps or grants, but most get their tuition covered plus get a
stipend and can receive college housing. In other words, they get a
free graduate education. You should be thanking us for educating you
foreigners, especially those of you that then return home. Thus it is
the US that is making the world a better place, NOT the other way
around. We take raw talent from everywhere and not just own soil. We
then educate, shape and refine it for YEARS. That we don't then
require foreigners to become US citizens so this country can benefit
from the investment we made into them is what is amazing. That the
vast majority want to become US citizen is great but hasn't been a
requirement for them to get into our universities.
> (One might reasonably guess that ability to do advanced original
> research in technical fields is linked with ability to do technical
> innovation.)
No, not really. It is actually the engineers that bring about
technical innovation, not the scientists. Scientists do a LOT of
research that has little to do with anything that is applicable to
life. It is the engineers that look over what the scientists have
done and then devise ways of applying it to life and industry.
Oh, and it is us marketers that actually enable such innovations to
become successes. Engineers believe in the myth that if you build a
better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Sorry, but
it is us marketers that gets the world to beat a path to anyone's
door. And you don't even need the best "mousetrap" to succeed. You
just need a product that meets the needs of the target market and then
a good marketer to make those customers aware of it.
> (A reason for some pessimism about the medium term are the increasing
> factors that are causing foreigners not to remain in the US.)
The biggest factor is the US kicking your ass back home. Just because
you got yourself a student visa doesn't mean you will get citizen****p
here. Even getting a green card is hard. I know many foreign
graduate students that want to remain but the US won't let them.
Unfortunately, it is hard to become a US citizen these days and is
only getting harder.
Also, if a research position has any connection to DoE or DoD then
being a U.S. citizen may be a requirement (along with a security
clearance if DoD). This especially so since 9/11.
> A whole bunch of innovative American companies have non-natives
> as im****tant technical co-founders, that then go on to create jobs for
> Americans.
Now if you could back up your "whole bunch" with actual numbers that
are truly significant, you might win this point.
> You can kind of see where this is going. (I can probably find citations
> for specific points that you doubt.)
Go for it.
> I'm an immigrant co-founder of an innovative business that employs
> only Americans
In America. You can thank us Americans now for letting you do so. I
know you think the ledger balance in in your favor, but it isn't.
> ...that grew out of a US university laboratory headed by an Indian
> guy.
Paid for by us American taxpayers.
Now I know you think us Americans are too dumb to fill all those
student spots and faculty openings, but you would be wrong. Actually,
we're a lot smarter than you and just have better job op****tunities
than you did in your home country. Universities commonly bemoan that
they cannot interest enough Americans to enter graduate school, but
that isn't an indictment of American students but the lousy job
universities do to recruit Americans to attend graduate school and the
not-so-hot prospects of actually being a scientist. Most Americans
are smart enough to take a second and consider what it would mean to
do either.
Graduate school means more years in college and either putting more
financial strain on their parents and/or going deeper and deeper into
debt. College debt that you then have to pay back once you're out of
college and paid out of the career that degree got you. If the job
is high paying (thus worth the investment of time and money),
Americans eagerly go into it. For example, this country is
overflowing with law school graduates.
On top of the above and if that wasn't bad enough, being a scientist
sucks. It doesn't pay overly well, it requires long hours, no one at
a party really wants to hear you talk about what you do (can you say
"geek"?), and, due to those three things alone, it just isn't that
respected of a profession in America. And then us Americans do talk
to scientists while at college and see their lives. If a scientist is
honest, they'll tell you that they can spend their entire careers and
never accomplish a scientific break-through. The truth is that the
VAST majority of scientific experiments end in failure. And what
success you do achieve is rarely newsworthy or even mildly im****tant.
Scientific journals have a hierarchy. That hierarchy is based on the
significance of the discovery. At the top is Science and Nature. If
you can get your research results published in either of those, you've
achieved something great and you'll get universities bidding for you
to come work at them. The only thing better would be getting a Noble
Prize. However, only a few get published in either of those journals
each month. If your research results are not significant enough to
get into those journals, you cry to your spouse and then submit your
results to lesser scientific journals and hope one will accept it.
And you HAVE to get your results published somewhere. "Publish or
perish" is the mantra you will hear scientists chant. And that's not
a joke. If you don't get published, you don't get tenure and you're
"let go".
Given all the above, the Americans that become scientists become
scientists because they want to become scientists. Unlike foreigners,
they're not becoming it because it represents a path to a better
life. It is more like a hobby to Americans. Talk to Americans that
become scientists and engineers and you'll hear that they were
scientists or engineers their whole lives. Future scientists
collected bugs as kids and begged their parents for a more powerful
microscope for Christmas. Future engineers drove their parents crazy
by taking apart the watch they got for Christmas and they opened up
every household contraption (from toasters to computers to law mowers)
they could get their hands on to see what was inside and how it
worked. This is the reality here in America.
For example, I'm a marketer. Now being a marketer is very well paying
(unlike being a scientist), but I would be a marketer even if it
wasn't well paying. I just love marketing. I get a kick out of it.
My aptitudes and such are very high. On some such tests, I'm in the
"genius" category. However, so what? I live in America where I have
almost unlimited job op****tunities so I can do what I enjoy and thus
I'm a marketer. You would probably think that I should have become a
scientist. Thankfully, I didn't have to be that to live a good life.
I am very thankful that I am not in China, India, or other countries
where good job op****tunities are limited and thus one must do what one
can to get the best op****tunity one can get. For example, I was in a
long-term relation****p with a woman from China and we met while she
was getting her doctorate in genetics. Did she like genetics? Hell,
no. She hated it. But she went into it to get to America. This
country was her dream. To be a citizen here. Her route to getting
here was going to graduate school. If she had been an American, she
would have been an astronomer as that was what she enjoyed most, but
that wouldn't have gotten her here so she went into genetics instead.
She succeeded and was a grad student at one of this country's top
genetic laboratories. However, when Bush Senior sign legislation to
allow Chinese students to get green cards due to Tiananmen Square
Massacre, she jumped at the chance and wanted to quit graduate school
right there and then. She would have left with a master's degree and
her plan was to be a high school science teacher. It was I that kept
her in graduate school and it was a hard struggle. She did graduate
with a doctorate in genetics (with two royalty-paying patents to her
name) and left to work for a major biotech company (that's when we
parted ways), but, when she finally did marry, she quit her job and
became a housewife and mother. To you, you probably think she is
wasting her life. Not to me. She's happy and, to this silly dumb
American, that's more im****tant.
And she the rule and not the exception. All the foreign students and
post-docs in that major lab (actually several labs under one "roof")
viewed America as a goal in and of itself. All told me about how it
was through education that they could get a better life than what was
available back in their home countries. They had endless discussions
on how to get a green card. And these weren't just those from China,
India, and Russia but also Germany, Australia, and even a couple
(husband and wife) from UK.
> Being educated in Britain meant that before I even started college I
> had had [listing of secondary education]
And you think none of us Americans receive the same or better. You
just keep thinking that and you'll remain happy.
> One of the difficulties I
> have in hiring in the US is actually finding people who have a good,
> broad science and engineering background - our work often involves
> applying our techniques to a new field, which means some fast learning
> is required.
Move it out of the US then. PLEASE do so. Move it back to Britain
where we all know the work ethic is so strong. *LOL*
> >> (I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Native American influence, though:
> >> there's some evidence that their culture had more impact on what
> >> became modern-day American culture than might be popularly
> >> recognized.)
>
> > That evidence being?
>
> Ha, I don't have time to hunt now - I actually just shed most of my
> library, [snip] I'm not an anthropologist, I'm afraid. (-:
In other words, you don't have the evidence to back such a politically-
correct claim.
Scott Jensen
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