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First they came for the Iranians

scottaaronson.com

211–220 of 460 posts

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#211
post #111
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi is a big buyer of US weapons. Considering how hard Trump tries to please and borrow influence from military, I doubt he is going to do anything about it. Race and religion matters, if you are not in the league, you better make sure you have power or money, or something to offer. At least to me, that is what Trump believes.

Why would the US military care about selling weapons? They are made by private companies.

It's about jobs, jobs. Programs building weapons that other countries buy keep jobs. And the Saudi's buy a ton of weapons.

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#212
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the hijackers motives, Saudi Arabia is by far the worst country when it comes to exporting and supporting terror. Iran is an island of sanity by comparison, and there are no Shia terrorist organizations nowadays (Hezbollah are not terrorists - they don't blow up random civilians).

Saeed Malekpour is still in prison, that alone for me makes Iran a no-go country. http://thenextweb.com/me/2012/01/19/death-sentence-for-irani...

Iran is horrible. It's a nightmare to live but it's much much better than Saudi

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On behalf of my fellow Americans, please allow me to offer you our deepest apology. Please know that most of our country doesn't hate or fear you. We will continue to do everything we can to fight this policy and others like it.

> We will continue to do everything we can to fight this policy and others like it. You say that, but I'm afraid the implication might be "short of doing anything that matters". Where are the protests? Why aren't people in the streets? Don't make the same mistake Germans did under Hitler. The government relies on each step affecting few enough people that nobody will be bothered enough to march, and after a thousand…

There are fairly large and violent protests against Trump. His supporters are regularly attacked. This has been true ever since he was a serious candidate.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/riots-break-out-wash... http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/inauguration-2017/anti-trum... http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/hillary-supporters-c... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/0...

In addition to violent (and some non-violent) protests, you also have direct action targeting his supporters. People who support Trump, or are mistakenly believed to support him, or just random passerby, are being assaulted (and in some cases, kidnapped or shot).

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/richard-spenc... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/04/facebook-liv... http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/police-releas...

Do these things count as "anything that matters"?

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#214

I am an Iranian CS student. I had a fully funded PhD admission at one of the US universities. I was admitted for the Fall 2016 semester. I am currently in Iran due to my visa not being issued despite the 7 months I have waited for it. I was able to defer my admission to Spring 2017 semester, but then _this_ happened. I am quite sure that I will never be able to attend this program. I had very high hopes for my future…

This might sound like a crazy idea, but why not try applying to a few Israeli universities: Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University and Technion are considered to pretty top notch for Computer science and have a few Turing award winners. You'd be surprised that Israeli academics tend to be very welcoming of students from all over the world.

Israeli society, however, is increasingly less and less tolerant of non-Jews. For example: http://www.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi-non-jews-shouldnt-b...

But an even bigger problem is going to be the Iranian government, which is really not keen on Iranians consorting with the Zionist entity. Even if the OP by some miracle managed to pull this off, they would run a very real risk of ending up in prison as a suspected Israeli spy.

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations. But as long as Saudis are omitted from this regulation, it's pretty ineffective. Then again, how much of "terrorism legislation" is actually preventing terrorism, as opposed to extending the powers of police and p…

Regardless of the hijackers motives, Saudi Arabia is by far the worst country when it comes to exporting and supporting terror. Iran is an island of sanity by comparison, and there are no Shia terrorist organizations nowadays (Hezbollah are not terrorists - they don't blow up random civilians).

I suppose Rafic Hariri isn't "random" as he was after all Lebanon's democratically elect Prime Minister when Hezbollah assassinated him, but how about the 21 people who also died in that bombing?

I personally know a man who lost his wife (mother of their 3 kids) when Hezbollah bombed the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. 85 civilians were killed, but then again mostly Jewish so not exactly "random" either.

It always amazes me how many Western activists approach the world like a Hollywood movie. If Saudis are bad, and Trump is bad, then obviously their Shia rivals must be good!

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know any interview or documentary of talking to samples of these populations? I wonder very much what they think. The interviews so far for me personally were showing that they are "morally deaf", but I am sure that this is not all the story (I probably living in my bubble).

Pardon the generalization here, but I know a lot of "non-college people" who support things like Trump and Brexit and would like to offer up an interpretation as to what many of them are thinking. Bear in mind they skew a bit older as well so they've seen a lot change. If you're a college educated person and/or a tech person and you live in a big coastal city the past few decades have probably been pretty great, thes…

According to you, the people outside these booming cities suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, failure to use birth control, failure to build healthy stable relationships and joblessness. (Strangely, the illegals Trump wants to deport don't seem to have trouble finding a job - weird how looking for a job and accepting one when found solves that problem.)

These people are morally deaf. They want to blame others their choice not to work, their choice to do drugs, their choice not to use a condom. Trump isn't proposing to fix the problem of people making bad choices. He's just telling these people that he's one of them and he blames others for their choices.

(Note: the same critique applies to many solid-blue subgroups, including groups who's inherent virtue is treated as a sacred cow within Blue America. I am explicitly NOT claiming Trump voters are somehow uniquely bad in this way.)

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#217

It's unclear what Trump is trying to accomplish here. It seems stupid and I feel bad for the people whose lives it diverts or puts in hold. But the Nazi comparison either trivializes the Holocaust or unfairly hitlerizes Donald Trump for what may be a legitimate concern over technology transfer to a country that actively opposes US interests. There are plenty of countries that suspend student visas without going on to…

> But the Nazi comparison either trivializes the Holocaust or unfairly hitlerizes Donald Trump for what may be a legitimate concern over technology transfer to a country that actively opposes US interests. It does neither. Warning that "that's how Germany started" doesn't mean that banning visas is as severe as burning people, or saying that trump will burn people. It means that one should be careful because these ar…

Meh. Hyperbole bothers me. But as long as you're using a healthcare analogy, allow me to suggest the possibility of negative side effects to the strong medicine. For example it is widely accepted that antibiotics are currently overprescribed, making them less of a strong and powerful weapon against disease over time.

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On behalf of my fellow Americans, please allow me to offer you our deepest apology. Please know that most of our country doesn't hate or fear you. We will continue to do everything we can to fight this policy and others like it.

> We will continue to do everything we can to fight this policy and others like it. You say that, but I'm afraid the implication might be "short of doing anything that matters". Where are the protests? Why aren't people in the streets? Don't make the same mistake Germans did under Hitler. The government relies on each step affecting few enough people that nobody will be bothered enough to march, and after a thousand…

There were already many different large scale protests across the nation several days ago. Those took months to organize and set up. Logistics alone makes another immediate large scale protest unlikely. The exception is unless there is clear and demonstrable malfeasance like in the case of S. Korea's president.

If Trump's draft executive order had said something like "permanent ban of all Muslims" then I have no doubts people would start protesting immediately. Careful reading of the draft though shows the following:

1) It's limited to seven countries. Notably missing Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan.

2) The ban on entry from these countries is 30 days to "reduce investigative burdens".

3) After that point all countries on that list need to provide additional screening info in order for visas to be accepted.

4) If the countries do not agree to provide said info after 60 days from notification, all nationals from that country will not be allowed entry unless under certain circumstances. Compliance will reverse this.

5) More countries may be added to this list based on recommendation by SecState (Tillerson) and SecDef (Mattis).

6) On a case by case basis, visas may be granted to nationals from banned countries.

I wouldn't call any of the above great, but calling this the precursor to Kristallnacht is a reach. Instead of losing your mind over everything objectionable that Trump does, it might be best to conserve your strength. Remember that fatiguing the people you want to support you with a constant state of emergency is a real thing. Proportional responses are best.

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#219

I am an Iranian CS student. I had a fully funded PhD admission at one of the US universities. I was admitted for the Fall 2016 semester. I am currently in Iran due to my visa not being issued despite the 7 months I have waited for it. I was able to defer my admission to Spring 2017 semester, but then _this_ happened. I am quite sure that I will never be able to attend this program. I had very high hopes for my future…

Come to Australia, we need you!

Re: First they came for the Iranians

#220

I am an Iranian CS student. I had a fully funded PhD admission at one of the US universities. I was admitted for the Fall 2016 semester. I am currently in Iran due to my visa not being issued despite the 7 months I have waited for it. I was able to defer my admission to Spring 2017 semester, but then _this_ happened. I am quite sure that I will never be able to attend this program. I had very high hopes for my future…

I can personally recommend the University of Waterloo, here in Canada. I did my Master's degree there in electrical engineering. The school has an excellent, and well recognized, CS program, and a significant percentage of both the graduate student body and the faculty (at least when I was there 8 years ago or so) were from Iran. Waterloo itself isn't a particularly large city, but with two universities it has a sign…

^ This!

Or if you are into AI, university of Montreal is also a hot bed right now with Mr Bengio.

Canadians will gladly take you, in fact I know an Iranian who just finished his math phd...

Courage! :)

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