These are bad things but I have a hard time seeing these as the reason why science is lagging.

Science is lagging in the US because the US has destroyed viable careers in science.

Who does the hard work to get PHd in a scientific field knowing that they'll be saddled with hundreds of thousands of jobs in debt and that there's a good chance that they'll have no employment opportunities after the fact. Especially with the recent destruction of the public sector in scientific jobs, it's probably the worst time ever to get a degree in a field of science.

The US is the world leader in suing in general, and yet it produces a lot more research than most other legally friendly places... how's that?

Similar to Apple Vision Pro being called a development kit. Ironically it was closed from top to bottom.

Doesn't everyone else have things like this too?

In fairness that sounds like extending capabilities of something that already exists. For personal use that should be okay. For commercial use, that would run afoul of IP -unless we’re talking about open source, though even then you might have obligations depending on the license.

If you want to start from square 1, using your own IP, you should be able to.

Now, sure it sucks that you can’t do those things you mention for ordinary use, which we should, but you are still able to come up with your own ground-up solution for commercial purposes.

The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why would anybody think stopping that would lead to a 'Golden Age'.

By what metric is the US lagging? By any objective measure we can see the dominance of US technology. I think it’s most of the rest of the world that’s being left behind; Europe in particular. If what you’re saying is true the US economy would also be flagging but it’s not. If what you’re saying is true, you’d see the list of the world’s most valuable companies dominated by non-US firms.

I think you are confusing the current climate of immigration enforcement and reform with being anti-immigration. The US will continue to draw top talent because the US is where the bulk of the opportunities are and will be for at least the next 5 years.

It’s been widely discussed that the immigration system has been abused, especially by the tech industry. This reform started under Obama. The current outcry is a reaction to the most recent federal election. Reform does not mean the US is anti-immigrant. It may mean lower levels of immigration that’s more selective for talent.

3) We've exported scientific talent.

4) We've destroyed the public scientific job sector.

If your field of science isn't related to something the US military is interested in, you better have a degree in something directly related to pharmaceuticals.

A lot of the US's leadership in science was based purely on the momentum it gained from the progressive era and the cheap education we used to have. Ever since roughly Reagan, it's been slowly eroded to today's sorry state.

When I went to school, the promise was "get a degree in anything, it'll pay for itself". Now, gen z is actively choosing to avoid college because the ROI is horrendous.

Not really, there's been a pretty effective culture war saying, "STEM degrees are actually useless, you need to know how to have a human connection." Only around 25% of Bachelor's and Master's degrees are in STEM fields, though it shoots up to 65% of PhDs. It seems to be pointing towards most people not supporting STEM, and advocating for students to not go into STEM, despite having some of the most lucrative (in expected value) majors.

In my experience, it’s the opposite. Virtually everyone supports using data to make decisions, unless the data could harm them or their tribe.

For example, requiring elaborate experiments and trials to help develop medicine so you or a loved one bear cancer? Sure.

But if you can make money hawking berries to cure cancer? No data needed.

If casting doubt on vaccines without data helps you feel superior? No problem. If it can help you win elections and get into a position of power? Even better.

I read that as people support science, but not so much that they're willing to support academia along the way.

Americans think "supporting universities" is not necessarily the same as "supporting science."

I support the idea of science, but absolutely not its current incarnation.

Too many ideas are now beyond challenge; flawed ideas are validated through violence and deception, not scientific rigor or reasoning.

It isn't Science anymore. It's Lysenkoism in all but name.

On the average, 7/10 people also either didn't vote for Trump or didn't vote. Weird how framing votes in the favor of your argument works like that.

Are those two groups of people’s opinions on the subject equally valid?

Some religious groups may not support science

> Others will say that real science is denying global warming, creationism, anti-vaxers or homeopathy.

I haven't heard their advocates refer to those things as science, but rather they criticize science's validity.

I think you need to update your opposing science positions to human biology/race science. Creationism and homeopathy is a tiny minority.

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Seven of the eight authors of the influential 2017 AI paper "Attention Is All You Need" are immigrants to the United States. The remaining author is the grandson of refugees.

And the majority of them didn’t get their degrees from US universities.

No doubt Google was the catalyst though.