I seriously considered it at some point, as in my (former) field many top researchers lived in Philly, New York, Boston + Toronto. Becoming a top researcher means travelling where other top researchers are. It was definitely not about money, pay is often equivalent between the EU and the US.

Eventually decided it was not worth it for me (had other priorities in life), but this is a sacrifice many EU researchers make (or should I say, made) to become top researchers.

I’m not an apologist for any US company, particularly Google. But they are not the same as Musk. They didn’t campaign for this. Yes, they’ve “bent the knee” if you will, donated, and attended the innaguration. Can you imagine the alternative? The threats they got? Suddenly all these top tech companies donated exactly 1 million and their CEOs showed up there. Pretty sure they were told this was the bare minimum donation and that if they didn’t show up, you know…

Plus, they are not throwing nazi salutes, promoting nazis online and offline, or actively dismantling the US democracy. If anything, them not standing out and keeping as low a profile as possible is a good thing because they still hold significant power (for now) and the alternative is the US admin criminalizing them.

There might be clever ways of doing this: Having volunteers help with the vetting process, allowing a certain number of members per day + a queue and then vetting them along the way…

Edit: Didn’t know about his other views. I no longer consider his views forgivable.

He is remarkably progressive and lucid for his age, so I’m inclined to cut him some slack for the topics I wholeheartedly disagree about with him.

For example, his support for Brexit I find hard to forgive… but unlike most of the ghouls that supported it, he seems genuine in his opinions and remains at odds and vocally against the Global Far Right.

I mean, he had a point, particularly at the time.

It is not two things, it is several things. Life expectancy in the US is lower mainly because of one thing though.