Europe launches program to lure scientists away from the US
es.wired.com
es.wired.com
Some of the details are still being ironed out. The beauracracy is real! Even so, I guess the first emails will go out late next week.
Full disclosure, I know that this isn’t everyone’s goal, but this is HN after all!
I guess don’t try to contribute to society then.
What you are describing isnt a hacker mentality, it’s one of an MBA graduate whose sole purpose in life is to maximize their own wealth. The idea that such a mentality is linked to this forum shows how far hacker culture has fallen and is deeply sad.
If you raise a second round at $15M, next year you owe $76k, so on. This creates an impossible situation for a founder of, let’s say, a fission reactor startup.
I could be wrong also, I was curious to hear a real life Norwegian’s thought about it.
A system like this only serves entrenched interests, not entrepreneurs or workers. Want to make a life saving drug? Have to sell off ownership of your company or use runway to pay taxes on something that could be absolutely worthless in the end or wind up losing control. Better off selling to Novonordisk!
The Draghi Report on EU Competitiveness raised lots of these red flags and, at last, some politicians are listening. Still, too little and too late.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/dragh...
It doesn't really discourage people from building their wealth and buying homes. It does a tiny bit - I've heard people say they rent to avoid property taxes. But barely.
So, if the middle class who do not have a lot of wealth can deal with it, I would imagine the wealthy can, too. Or, maybe they can't, because they have so much more mobility.
On the other hand, valuations for startups and even some large companies like Tesla seem to have absolutely no relation to the actual value of the company. Whereas home appraisals are, generally, based on the actual value as calculated by real metrics - like square footage and zipcode.
So, maybe it's just easier to deduce the value of a home, I don't know. Or maybe the stock market is just too irrational. Part of me wonders if the stock market is so irrational because there's no wealth tax.
It's not normally a very large issue, but I really don't like it. Most companies on the exchange makes money, and those who are not on the exchange are taxed on their assets. So in most cases it works out, but not always.
Usually owners use dividends to withdraw money to pay the tax, but that means even more tax as you have to pay tax on the dividends too.
The right side wants to remove the tax on investments, and maybe compensate by increasing the corporate tax. That way the tax on the annual result will be a bit higher, but there will be no wealth tax. This also levels the playing ground when it comes to Norwegian and foreign investors as the tax won't be based on where the owner is from.
I have worked at startups and got some worthless equity. I've also launched some (small) things on my own and am very interested in building large things, raising some money, etc.
Given OOP is actively recruiting I'm really just curious how this could effect your/their/someone in or interested in Norway's thinking when they could go anywhere in the EU or from TFA, remain in the US.
Society is not entitled to value. If you have the skills to create value for others, then you will inevitably have to use capital to actually scale it. In the process, through voluntary transactions, that enterprise might profit and grow - creating more value for others in the process. The question is really: who profits? I think your perspective is exceedingly misplaced in that, by necessity, it intrinsically hands control of each new innovation to said MBA-types. If a society drafts policies that make it extremely difficult to take control of your own innovation and scale it according to your own wishes, then you are implicitly leaving that work to others who (more often than not) will not share your philosophies. If a society wants to enact policies that make it difficult for a person to take ownership over their own innovations, then they should not be shocked when it becomes extremely difficult to appeal to innovators in the first place. Instead of realizing that the commentor wants to take command of the destiny of their innovations, you go down this peculiar moralizing argument that's orthogonal to their entire point. How do you know they haven't created more value for society than you have, and why are you so comfortable demanding the nature of that value creation happen on your terms?
Also, this forum is managed by a VC firm. They explicitly support people taking charge of their own creations and scaling that to society. People are allowed to ask if a society has created legitimate bottlenecks to accomplishing that.
However, your critique of the wealth tax on unrealized gains is a big problem more generally. I have some interaction with the startup ecosystem these days here. Anecdotally, I have seen several founders choose to incorporate elsewhere in Europe or the US because of it. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to quantify how many do not stay here because of it.
This aspect of the tax has had significant opposition for years, but nothing ever seems to come from it.
Opposition to tax on realized gains/assets is less vocal. Someone else here characterized that part as similar to property taxes in the US and I think that is fairly accurate.
Details on what is taxed how much, if you are interesed: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/get-the-taxes-ri...
ETA: we are looking for evolutionary biologists. Not many entrepreneurial personalities here, more like a lot of bird watchers (I say this lovingly). Over in the groups with translation potential is a different story of course.
> ETA: we are looking for evolutionary biologists. Not many entrepreneurial personalities here, more like a lot of bird watchers
In this case I’m sure that I’d be tempted to come to Norway and learn how ø is pronounced.
How much does—or did, recently—the United States federal government invest in scientists in the USA? Is it ~$70 billion a year? [0]
Europe can achieve America's (past) results when Europe starts talking with money. Science migration has historically gone in one direction across the Atlantic, and it is 100% about who pays better. The EU isn't remotely close to funding its own scientists properly—let alone attract new ones from abroad!
If European science benefits from the ongoing government implosion in the USA, that'd be entirely due to the US' unforced error. EU's politicians deserve no credit.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy_of_the_United_S... ("Science policy of the United States")
Such is life when you can't infinitely print money for being the world reserve currency. When the whole world is buying your debt no questions asked, it's much easier to write some larger checks you know.
I asked ChatGPT:
"Combining both EU-level and national R&D expenditures, the total R&D spending across the EU in 2023 was approximately €505 billion." But that appears to be total, both government and industry.
Spending by national government was apparently around € 123 billion. In addition, the EU spent ~ € 13 billion a year. So a total of € 136 billion in government spending.
https://www.eureporter.co/economy/eurostat-economy/2024/08/0...
The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.
My problem is the statement from chatgpt. I have seen it invent enough bullshit that if it was a person I would have labeled them as untrustworthy a long time ago. Yes yes, it's also amazing and all that jazz, but I still don't know how to trust a 'Chatgpt told me this' - quote.
Of course a 'Chatgpt told me this' disclaimer does indicate something, i.e. either that person has no clue about the topic and is unable to verify the answer at least to some extent on their own and is just blindly copy pasting something and/or believes that anything LLMs say is inherently credible on its own without extra verification.
It's exactly the opposite.
The Guardian found a article attributed to them, generated (not "written") by chatgpt.
A silly lawyer got into trouble trying to use chatgpt-generated precedences in court.
Everything chatgpt prints out is made up, and that includes links.
Seriously, heed the warning the company itself prominently prints I app and in the webui.
Chatgpt may print out mostly true made-up sentences, but by definition, because oh how it works, it doesn't generate truth. It generates tokens that make up words.
Chatgpt is not a RAG, come on, it's 2025!
"Really trust"? Nope. But I think it gives me a good ballpark estimate and ways to check if that estimate is about right or not.
Checking the answer is quicker and potentially less error-prone than compiling the answer.
Chatgpt is a glorified autocomplete. Don't share it's output unverified like that was some sort of an oracle.
If you really HAVE TO resort to "AI", at least use Perplexity.
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246/cross-national-compariso... ("Cross-National Comparisons of R&D Performance" (2024))
In the NSF's specific definition, the US greatly outspends the EU even normalizing by GDP—3.46% of GDP in the USA, against 2.16% in the EU-27.
(Notably, China also recently surpassed the EU, at 2.43%).
Now that was 2015, but the number is very similar the EU figure of €136 billion.
There will be be differences, but the point stands that comparing the tiny delta provided by this specific program to total spending is not serious.
The nsf.gov page has a breakdown table, too, of government vs. industry spending.
irony alert
(Which is besides the point even, as the comment referencing chatgpt also provided links to sources)
what you did is like farting in a crowded space. STINKY AND RUDE
Funny I asked it about your info and it says it has discrepancies. :-))
NOBODY CARES what chatgpt says, and EVERYONE has the ability to ask it themselves.
You aren't adding to the conversation, you're just taking up space.
From a purely financial perspective, a country like Denmark for example, would need to pay more than the US to be as attractive, to account for the fact that it is a tiny country where the main language is not English and where the overall career prospects are more limited.
For people who value money over everything else
Consider a post doc or junior professor who do not know if they will ever get a tenure position or if you even want to remain in academia their whole life. Their plan B is to get an job in industry. Now consider having access to the whole US job market vs. having access to one tiny EU country. Not to mention that when you bias for cutting edge industry R&D there are industries which only have a significant presence in the US.
People value not having to step over the homeless to get to work, lower crime, free healthcare, no risk of deportation for having a view on Palestine etc etc
The US isn't that pleasant of a place to live.
Only if they are EU citizens.
> People value not having to step over the homeless to get to work
Better stay away from Paris, then.
Paris is bad in some places, and great in others. Like every other major country.
Now assume they are not American citizens, and travel internationally and re-evaluate the whole proposition that "everything else" is better.
In any other gathering they will obviously prefer their own language. In countries like France, Germany, Italy out is not possible to live a normal life without being at least moderately fluent in the national language.
My cousin studied at Ecole Polytechnique, then did a phd at another top french school and become a professor there.
He has 6 articles publishes in the top 3 Math/CS/AI conferences.
He was literally paid 45k€ a year, before taxes and other things, that's 2300€ a month after taxes, his rent was 1100€ because it's Paris, now Polytechnique has one of the hardest math/physics entrance exams in the world, and he published more papers and in more prestigious conferences than most of his colleagues.
He took a couple months to leetcode then got the fuck out to the US, his salary now is legit an order of magnitude higher than what it was, doesn'r have to think about food, transportation, still gets to do research, etc.
I mean you can be as patriotic as you want but when it's that different who's gonna stay here...
In your typical US setup you're going to be paying a lot more of your salary. Suppose no public transit, there goes ~15% of your salary for an automobile. Maybe an extra 5% to healthcare and health insurance, if you're healthy. If you're chronically ill or spontaneously get cancer go ahead and bump that up to 20%. Retirement, another 5% at least. And there's probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.
Point is: it's apples and oranges. It's nice if you're someone who is young, healthy, has no problem commuting two hours a day, etc. As soon as this is no longer true, it becomes a little bit tricky.
Well first off, I don't think we are.
Sure if you compare FAANG to a European company. I'm in Texas, and your typical software engineer is making 80k-120k at almost all companies. The higher paying ones are a very small percentage.
And, it's not like taxes are low in the US. Income tax alone for 100k is ~25k, which, bear in mind, Texas doesn't collect state income tax. But then we also have a sales tax, and Texas has really high property taxes. The tax burden, I'm estimating, is closer to 40%. We just have a convoluted system that makes it hard to see that.
And then, on top of this, our cost of living can be very high. You might be shocked to learn that the last time I went to Europe (London, Paris), food was half the price of food in Texas. I was quite shocked, I thought for sure food would be more expensive.
And then, when we DO consider those very lucky software engineers making 250k - 400k at FAANG, you also have to consider that they're living in some of the highest cost of living places in the world. It's a trade-off. Yes, you're making more than rinky-dink DFW engineer making 80k, but then instead of your apartment being 1200 dollars a month it's 3200. And your Erewhon Japanese strawberry is 19 dollars.
Now, there are the French who come back home to profit from the social safety net once there is a serious problem where they are. Somehow they do not chose to be homeless but rather be where a human life counts more.
How much does, say, a starting research assistant get in France? 28,600. To add insult to injury, you get excluded from both of the major social benefits in France: you don't build up pension, you don't get medical coverage (or "you stay on your parents insurance" if you prefer. I'm not sure, but that isn't free for your parents). You are still classified as a student, until you get a professorship (maybe 3% eventually get a professorship). Also, you're excluded from other social services: if you try to claim unemployment or "existence minimum" support, the state will demand you quit research. A lot of "independent" (read: Catholic) universities support researchers from their own money, with free housing or the like, because they have to. Frankly, the Catholic church is STILL a big reason there is serious scientific research in Europe, frankly bigger than state support.
To put it bluntly, university wages in Europe need to more than triple (MORE than a 300% raise) before we start talking about "a salary hit" compared to the US. Research in Europe is a job you take to bridge the gap between finishing university and finding a job then abandon when you get a job (like Yann Lecun did. And no he didn't abandon his PhD for his current job, but for a beginner job at Bell Labs). Staying in research when you find an industry job is financial lunacy. Only the job of professor is somewhat decently paid, but perhaps you should visit Silicon Valley: there's plenty of people who quit a postdoc (midway through) to join US industry (for example, Yann Lecun), or even a professorship, like Jürgen Schmidhuber (he's back to professor, he has a reputation for being very hard to work with)
What people are saying here is that the investment the EU is making is barely 1% of what is required to fix the situation of scientists in the EU. I think, with this investment (with 10x this investment too btw) the EU brain drain TOWARDS the US will continue, Trump or no Trump. It won't even slow.
This is a joke, and these politicians should be ridiculed for making this absurd "gesture".
And yes, I'm frustrated about this. A career in research, like so many have in the US, is absolutely impossible unless you're born rich in Europe.
It depends on the company, though. In my case I do not pay anything more for having my adult children under my insurance.
Not just for this, same for finding startups, helping Ukraine or Palestine.
Or maybe we should lift sanctions off russia? I have a hunch a lot of pro-hamas people would love that.
Just like Hamas is.
Israel is defending itself against that aggression.
And yeah, being the civilian population of a brutal dictatorship that wages war against neighbor(s) without regard to the well-being of its own population sucks. It's horrible.
Should Ukraine stop defending itself because some Russians may get hurt?
Should the allies not have conquered Germany and Japan in WW2, because of the toll on the German civilian population?
Yes, war is horrible.
Pro Tip: don't start wars.
And I am not talking about basic humanitarian aid such as food and medicines. I am talking about the high-level assistance, construction aid. Famously, water pipes paid for by the EU were torn out and used to make rockets and/or rocket launchers.
The EU broke off formal relations with Hamas in 2007, aid is different though.
2. Being the civilian population of a dictatorship waging a brutal war of annihilation against its neighbors sucks, but is not the fault of the party being attacked and defending itself from said brutal attack.
3. Particularly if that dictatorship very explicitly uses the civilian population as human shields (an actual war crime) and does everything to maximize civilian casualties. Again, this is horrible, but not on the party that was attacked by said dictatorship, but rather on the dictatorship
4. Unlike, say, Nazi Germany, the last election produced a very solid majority for the party that is now running the dictatorship. And polls as well as public display, as much as those can be trusted, show a significant if not overwhelming majority in support of the war of annihilation waged against Israel.
That is definitely a war crime.
And basically Hamas are fighting a guerrilla war and engaging in acts of terror similar to what the Zionists engaged in pre 48. If that was ok, then surely what Hamas are doing is fine?
I'm really confused about your notion that the Israeli state is being attacked. It's more accurate to say that both sides are being attacked, and only one side is engaging in plans to displace one side.
The last election was in 2007, half the Gaza population wasn't even born then.
By your logic the carbrt bombing of Dresden and nuking Japan were fine, is that a fair summation of your position?
Israel is not required to supply its enemy.
If the enemy takes control of humanitarian aid shipments, which Hamas has done consistently from the start, the requirement to supply aid no longer applies.
So Israel has been over-fulfilling its requirements. And when it stops over-fulfilling people start accusing it of war crimes.
You know what's a war crime?
- Using your own civilian population as human shields
- Commandeering humanitarian aid
- Unprovoked attacks targeting civilians
- Using hospitals and schools to launch attacks (including rocket attacks)
Nothing about war is "OK", and neither is your attempt at framing. War is horrible.
Pro-Tip: don't start wars.
Free bonus pro-tip: don't start wars and then cry victim when you start losing.
However, neither Dresden nor the nuclear attacks were "genocide". Look it up.
And last I checked, the consensus is that they were not war crimes, although a vocal minority claims otherwise.
in 1948, when partition of the last remaining sliver of the mandate regions was announced, with the vast bulk already having gone to the Arabs, the Jews weren't happy, but immediately accepted. Because their goal was to have a Jewish state.
All the Arabs had to do to gain a Palestinian state (in addition to Syria and Jordan, the other mandate regions) was to also accept.
Peace.
Instead, the Arabs immediately attacked from all sides in a war of annihilation against the newly formed Jewish state. And despite the overwhelming odds the Arabs lost that genocidal war of aggression. And rebranded their own war of annihilation as the "nakba" supposedly perpetrated against them. "Woe is me".
Because the Arab goal never was "a Palestinian state". The Arab goal was always "no Jewish state". And of course for the rest of the Arabs the Palestinians are just the useful idiots who do their bidding and suffer the consequences.
But this is slowly coming to an end. Egypt recognized Israel a long time ago. So did Jordan. A bunch of the emirates also did recently (the Abraham accords). The new Syrian government has indicated that they will also recognize Israel. Saudi Arabia was also close to recognition and economic cooporation when their regional rival Iran used their proxies Hamas and Hizbollah to throw a violent spanner into the gears of peaceful diplomacy.
Because a Saudi/Israeli alliance is as much a nightmare-scenario for the Mullahs as it is a dream for the region.
This was a last ditch attempt that ultimately failed: Saudi Arabia has indicated that their plans are only delayed, Iran's proxies Hamas and Hizbollah have been all but destroyed, their ally Syria (land-route to their proxies) has fallen and wants to recognize Israel and their non-proxy attacks on Israel backfired so massively that it was embarrassing to watch from the outside.
After the direct Iranian attacks, Israel demonstrated that they have complete and total air superiority over Iran, took out their main air-defense just as a demonstration and then left. So Iran is in no position to do anything.
Without their backers, Hamas will not be able to resume their usual terror regime.
It won't happen overnight, but there is hope that the nightmare situation in the Middle East is slowly drawing to a close.
Given that you believe that blockading an entire country is a legitimate act of war I'm not sure there's much basis for a productive conversation.
I would note that terror/liberation movements like Hamas have basically never been defeated with these tactics so I really think that Israel are digging their own grave here.
It's a marriage of convenience between states that know they are ignored if they speak on their own. But each of them sees all others as a way to amplify their own voice but surely not have an independent thought. It's the penultimate example of trying to herd cats.
Europe is good at commerce because it has to, the member states want to sell to each other. In the same way, it's bad at politics, military and vision because it still can afford to.
Is this some kind of political bot post?
- Europe has, sadly, also been the main sender of aid to, effectively, Hamas. I wish they would stop.
I don’t have an answer, but there has to be some other option.
> the US has sent more grants, while the EU sent more loans.
While more money has come from the EU they are more in the form of loans which isn't really providing aid in the traditional sense.
> EU loans will have been on generous terms - so Ukraine will be repaying less interest than it would normally. In some cases, Ukraine isn't expected to pay anything, with repayments coming from revenues from frozen Russian assets.
If that seems unlikely to work to you, then you possess critical thinking.
The US spends more on R&D (Private and Public) than the next 5 countries combined. Public research is and since the 70s has been a small fraction of research spending in the US. That's why their companies actually innovate.
If Europe doesn't change the inventive structures that are preventing investment in R&D, no amount of government money is going to fill that void...
That being said, I find Europe's research and industrial capacity to be underrated. Europe is very competitive in industries like cars and tooling. You don't really see American cars in Asia, but still tons of European luxury cars. Europe does well in boring tech that does not receive infinite VC money.
IMHO, this creates some strange dynamics and doesn't favor new ideas.
American investors prefer spending other people's money too, they just happen to capture most of the returns, and the public gets just enough dregs through their 401k or pension funds to keep the cycle going.
Private companies used to understand and value this and fund relatively open-ended research arms without the requirement to deliver immediate investor value. As investors have become more and more myopic, government funding has been essential to keep foundational research alive.
As just one example, think about the Large Hadron Collider. It's pretty expensive with no immediate commercial application, no ROI focused private investor in the world would support it. But it's an essential tool for conducting research into the very foundations of physical existence with who knows what implications for human progress. I'm good with the "European mindset" approach to those kinds of problems since private investors would certain drop the ball if left up to them.
(Archived: https://archive.is/20250508090733/https://www.wired.com/stor...)
Anyway, I think this is smart. I live in Berlin and I noticed a bit of an uptick in the amount of US people coming this way lately. The politics in the US might have something to do with that. There's definitely an interest for people to leave there.
Also, the US has been leaning a lot on foreigners to keep its research departments going for decades now. Indians, Chinese, and indeed Europeans. If you look at Silicon Valley, there are a lot of immigrants running companies there. With all the madness around immigration in the US, it has become a bit less attractive as a country to move to. I think this is as much about making the EU a more attractive place to that group of people than it is about luring actual US citizens this way.
The EU has its own issues on immigration. But it's there and there are a lot of opportunities here. I noticed a sharp uptick in Indian job applications recently. There's a lot of talk about money. But most academics aren't on the huge fees you would need to sustain yourself in places with extremely high cost of living on the East and West coast.
Academics don't earn a lot in Europe. I used to be one. But you can live well on what you earn nevertheless.
> an investment of 500 million euros between 2025 and 2027
That seems like nowhere near enough money, though. But I suppose it's better than nothing.
When Russian scientists were escaping the horrible realities of Putin's regime, had someone in Europe attempted to "lure" them? No, they were fired by hundreds [1] and students were not allowed anymore [2]. Not counting the immense indirect pressure like closing their bank accounts and not prolonging their existing residence documents even when they had jobs.
When Ukrainian scientists tried to escape the horrible war of aggression and cruelty that Russia brought on them, did someone try to "lure" them in? No, they had some charity help and some temporary programs, but mostly they get "emergency temporary" permits with the condition they have to go home afterwards. These temporary protection measures are now being phased out [3] and many Ukrainian scientists will be shown the door.
Now, American scientists are escaping the horrible realities of their regime. But for them, EU is much more friendlier and welcoming.
What is the difference?
[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/cern-to-expel-500-russi...
[2] https://t-invariant.org/2024/12/swiss-cross-on-russian-stude...
[3] https://www.icmpd.org/blog/2025/phasing-out-temporary-protec...
I am a Russian scientist too (not CERN affiliated). I live in a European country since 2005. I donated many thousands dollars to Ukrainian causes, and brought hundreds of thousands of value with donations I organized. Now, my bank account is blocked just for the reason of my nationality, and my residence permit is not being renewed. Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs continue managing shadow fleets from European countries, and exchange millions of dollars freely (e.g. with Raiffeisen bank), and everybody knows that (I am not allowed, of course, to open any bank account, neither in Raiffeisen, not anywhere else in Europe). And many EU countries still pay hundreds of millions for Russian natural gas, and this money directly finance Russian military power.
I personally know Ukrainian scientists who lost their temporary protection permits too. Some of them moved back to war-thorn Ukraine, others went to other countries to try their luck there.
You can say "well, tough luck". But tough luck will be for many other people. Some Americans are now wondering why they are being turned away, asking "but we never voted for him!" And they weren't indeed. Judging people by their nationality is not good for everyone involved.
Surely you saw the writing on the wall and could have taken citizenship in your host country? All the signs were there since 2014.
However, my host country is Switzerland, where if you are not already a EU citizen, you have to live 10 years basically working on the same permanent job before even getting a permanent residence, _without interruptions_, and years in the academia up and including to the postdoc level do not count. Both me and my wife are researchers. Our life was all about academia and interruptions and temporary contracts and travel. And they kept resetting the counter. For _twenty years_. Even though my daughter was born here more than ten years ago, goes to local school, speaks French and never has been in Russia. They don't care.
And what I, personally, have to do with what Kremlin is doing? I live in Switzerland since 2005 (and I am as far away from citizenship as when I just came here). I left Russia because I hate authoritarianism and Putin. Last time I even was in Russia (for five days or so) was in 2014, and I noped out of there and vowed never to come there again specifically for that reason, as I have seen the writing on the wall as clearly as anyone else. I always publicly supported Ukraine and donated a lot to her cause, so it is not a good idea to ever go back.
And now you are telling me that what is done to me is "necessary", while true perpetrators keep opening their shadow companies and earning money from gas exports to Europe. How come?
I was often wondering how Russians living in the EU feel being pointed at because of what Putin does.
Unfortunately the only Russian I know is a woman living in France for 20 years, married with a French guy and claiming that Russia was attacked and is just defending against agressiin and Nazis. This is sad, I have not talked to her since.
You may want to consider France: you speak French, your daughter is integrated with the culture (I guess you are around Geneva), so it may be an easier place to live in.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are currently known for their bleeding-edge scientific research, and I'm saying this as a Russian myself. I'm sorry but almost everyone who was worth their salt left both countries long before 2022.
Maybe the difference is the fact that russia invaded Ukraine and is murdering, raping and pillaging there? Or maybe the fact that most of russian society is actively supporting that invasion? But those are just my opinion. I guess we'll never now what's the difference :)
No, "Russian society" is not a monolith supporting the war of aggression. Just like American society is not all like their government officials and quite many people there do not support the autocratic course. Though yes, even here on Hacker News you can meet supporters of both. Sadly.
Yes, it is alarming that many people in Russia support their government. Just as it is alarming for the US. Or any other autocratic country. This isn't a blanket permission to call "all Russians" or "all Americans" or "all Israeli" or "all Palestinians" or "all immigrants" (insert your pejorative of the day).
Wth are you on? How is the unhinged and massively unpopular president comparable to the majority of the Russian society consistently showing the support to rape and war crimes?
Small minority of the American residents support kidnapping and trafficking of the other residents and citizens.
These two are not comparable.
[1] unless we add steadfast support for the genocide and war crimes of the Israel, but then we could add all the atrocities Russia supports in Syria and Africa in general.
If you want to get paid, by American standards, lower middle class wages, then sure, come to Europe. You can also enjoy arcane organizations and bureaucratic nightmares.
Europe keeps a ton of jobs gated behind language requirements. Sure, you'll get the most desperate people who need a visa this way, but Europe isn’t attracting top of the crop like the US this way.
Also, the red tape is brutal and everything requires six layers of bureaucracy. Even Amazon orders and customer service suck, but that's beside the point. It's way easier to get into a great US university and get funding for research. It's also easier to get a job afterward. The sheer number of opportunities, combined with the lack of a language barrier and less bureaucracy, makes the US better than all the other alternatives despite the poor transportation, weak social safety net, and terrible healthcare.
My problem with the post is that the claims are too broad to refute, but too FUD to not respond to.
Not where it isn't strictly necessary and I believe it is a good thing but I've seen english being used whenever people from multiple european countries are working with each other.
It is the case in IT and definitely the case in research too. Even 27 years ago when I was an intern in France, my office was next to the office of some mathematicians, I believe one japanese, a russian and another one I don't remember and they were all speaking in english.
There are plenty of European countries that do use English as the working language for technical fields, if there is not enough domestic talent.
What you say about the US research ecosystem may have been true until January 2025 but it is unfortuantely no longer the case. At the same time, the EU is finally getting its act together in both defense AND research funding. So I would forecast a sunnier future in Europe for scientists than the the US, at least for the next generation.
Care to elaborate? Last time I was in the US my prime order took over a week to be delivered because it had to get shipped from a warehouse in rural Ohio to San Diego. Here in Germany you get absolutely everything next day because the country is about the size of an average US state.
The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed.
> Even Amazon orders
That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).
I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag.
Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed:
1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge is that their English is top notch and anecdotally it was the case as well, I also got by purely with English.
2. Germany -- their English is also good but I needed German in edge cases. One edge case was finding an apartment (not speaking German simply pushed you down the list of candidates, even with a full time job in academia). Another one were university rules and announcements; not every email was in English, but arguably easy to get by with modern translation tools.
3. Czechia & Poland -- English is good among the professors but the percentage of locals at the university level is so high that most internal meetings, announcements, local seminars take place in the local language. In my experience, non-faculty university staff (department secretaries, payroll, entrance security) usually strongly dislike speaking English or outright do not speak it at all.
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I've omitted some more cases where local languages are required. If you live in a country, you will eventually interact with the healthcare sector, where the language experience will likely mimic the experience at the workplace (for the countries above, it would be in the same order for the healthcare sector).
Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them.
In my experience, the helpful/good ones may try to communicate with you in English but if you need something from them or if the bureaucrat had a bad day, you better start talking in the official language.
This is true, and something I have indeed experienced. However, this is likely true for _any_ country where English is not the official language, not just those in the EU. Besides, understanding bureaucratic lingo is not just a matter of pure linguistics. Governmental concepts rarely translate 1:1 to another nation, even those with the same official language. If you migrate to another country, part and parcel of the experience is that you _must_ contend with bureaucratic principles, rules and institutes with which you are not familiar. There is no escaping that.
That said, at least here in the Netherlands, there is certainly a movement to provide more and more governmental information in English as well. I'm not going to dox myself, but for example my muni's English website looks nigh-identical to the Dutch one.
Indeed: German is the most common first language of the EU, and French is the second-most common first language of the EU. [1] Let's from now on decide that all EU citizens have to speak one of these two languages. Language fragmentation problem solved. :-)
Or are you one of the nerds who lobbies for the idea that everybody should speak Esperanto.
Concerning the idea that "everybody in the EU should speak English": since UK left the EU, there exists no EU country anymore in which English is the only official language: only in Ireland and Malta, English is one of the official languages.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...
Languages are lot more than speak, it also describes people and the way they interact each other.