And we’re soon to be a second world backwater
For decades, Bangalore, India, has been an incubator for scientific talent, sending newly minted Ph.D.s around the world to do groundbreaking research. In an ordinary year, many aim their sights at labs in the United States.
“These are our students, and we want them to go and do something amazing,” said a professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, Raj Ladher.
But this is not an ordinary year.
When Professor Ladher queried some 30 graduates in the city recently about their plans, only one had certain employment in the United States. For many of the others, the political turmoil in Washington has dried up job opportunities in what Professor Ladher calls “the best research ecosystem in the world.” Some decided they would now rather take their skills elsewhere, including Austria, Japan and Australia, while others opted to stay in India.
As the Trump administration moves with abandon to deny visas, expel foreign students and slash spending on research, scientists in the United States are becoming increasingly alarmed. The global supremacy that the United States has long enjoyed in health, biology, the physical sciences and other fields, they warn, may be coming to an end.
I don’t know why so many Americans seem to want this —why they find no value in America’s leadership as the world’s best for scientific research and innovation. But I guess it’s finally been decided that we are going to be a second rate country full of conspiracy theorists and theocrats, shitty schools and crappy, low level manufacturing of cheap commercial goods for other, richer places to buy from us.
It won’t happen overnight but it’s happening much faster than anyone could have predicted it would.
Is it all because of this?
There’s certainly something to this in terms of Stephen Miller, whose status envy goes all the way back to his days at Santa Monica High. As for the cult, they’ve been trained for years to reject science, either because of of fundamentalist religion which reject basic tenets of science like evolution and hey believe in conspiracy theories going all the way back to the 1950s with fluoride being a Communist plot. These people are now in power.
It all works together to ensure the destruction of our deeply flawed but ultimately successful, progressive country that was a magnet for people from all over the world because they wanted to be a part of it.
At the 250 year mark we apparently just ran out of gas.