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.

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[–] 15 points 1 year ago (52 children)

I mean… it’s not exactly an upgrade.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago* (14 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Do they get to bypass the "great firewall"?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I don't think that's necessarily the case, but either way the firewall isn't impregnable if you put your mind to it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    How do you get through the American firewall that blocks American access to sites the government doesn't like?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    VPNs. You do know that that's a real thing people of multiple states need to do to access pornographic material and circumvent age restriction tech right?

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The scientists clearly disagree, and they'd definitely know better than you would

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (20 children)

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

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    So much worse than being jailed for talking about democracy? At least in the United States we can all run to a blue state… For now. However, I am curious to see if Trump does anything with his super special banned words.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (18 children)

    Not really.

    China doesn't protect freedom of speech. They don't even allow citizens to own their houses.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    America doesn't protect freedom of speech already, and we're not even a full year into our fascist takeover

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Dude, are you stupid? Have you not seen what Trump is doing?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    The sueing people for reporting the truth, the threatening networks for people saying things they don't like, various attacks on schools (Harvard in particular) to silence protests (and force indoctrination), attacking law firms for working for people they don't like, targeting private individuals who are pro Palestine, and more that I'm not going to look up for you. The Trump administration is the worst thing we've ever had for free speech in America and, if they actually get their way, it'll be worse than China.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Yeah no, I'm not playing this game with a troll account made two days ago.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Bull. You are clearly acting in bad faith or are otherwise so uninformed of basic, common news that you are worthless to speak with in the first place.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    The very second thing you said was an insult. Yes you're acting in bad faith, troll, and we can all see it.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Really? Then why didn't you say that at the beginning?

    Why did you say a bunch of things that amounted to nothing and then pivot to calling me a troll when I didn't take your word at face value?

    Funny how much effort your putting into this versus just providing a source for your information. It really shows me why you're getting so upset. You can't provide citations and think I should be stupid enough to "trust you, bro."

    You could be telling the truth, but only a moron/child would accept what you say as fact based solely on what you've presented.

    I'm going to ignore you now since you're an idiot with no argument.

    Go back to school and learn how to cite properly. You're behaving exactly like qanon.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Anything's possible when you make shit up

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Have you ever read the list of words you can’t use when applying for grants in the US? Here’s the list: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/

    Imagine not being able to make research just because it focuses in the wrong topics according to the current government, topics like females, the climate crisis, mental health, racism and inequality.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    The Gulf of Mexico being in there is the icing on the cake of some people in this world are too fucking stupid and toxic to be trusted in any kind of position where they'll have influence over other people's lives.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Anything's possible when you make shit up

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Saying something is made up doesn’t mean it’s made up

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Lol no but the complete absence of substantiating evidence does

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If it wasn't an upgrade they wouldn't be successfully recruiting well-educated expats

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