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Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#141

Post by FabHK »

Spooky23 wrote: post #136
FabHK wrote: post #116

I think one good criterion (among others) for deciding in what country to hold a conference is the number of countries whose citizen can enter without visa. There's a list on Wikipedia that you can sort by that criterion [1]. For the USA, it's 42 (what else). Canada, 52. For Schengen area (most of EU), 92. Hong Kong, 148, Indonesia, Cambodia even more. China only 12. So, South East Asia or Europe seem reasonable on t…

The best criterion is "where are the customers"? The probability of most US based people attending an international conference is dramatically lower.

Sure, I was thinking international conferences. More domestically oriented ones do domestically, obviously, unless the purpose is more of a funded vacation.

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#142

Post by jza00425 »

nickpeterson wrote: post #86

Wouldn't hosting in the US still make the most practical sense because it has by far the most software developers, and the middle Eastern countries involved don't really contain many at all? I don't like the EO, but doesn't this just ignore reality?

Agree, like it or not, America is still the center of technology. The best of the best is still here. Other countries need to chill out for at least 20 more years

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#144

Post by antientropic »

chopin wrote: post #101
Beltiras wrote: post #82

I'm voting for Amsterdam. My fav conference of the year is Django under the Hood. The Dutch are supernice and the restaurant scene fabulous.

Schiphol has a very bad reputation for its security theater, either.

Can you elaborate? In what sense is the security theater at Schiphol worse than the average (European) airport?

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#145

Post by delinka »

alistairSH wrote: post #140
delinka wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking if I were organizing a conference outside my country of residence, I'd keep payment arrangements for speakers & paid guests outside the conference country, and instruct speakers on The Right Things To Say on visiting the country.

Eek. I would never counsel a somebody to lie at the border. That's a recipe for trouble. My understanding is legal advice is usually along the lines of "tell the truth in as few words as possible."

If you're assuming that I'd espouse lying, how are the "lies of omission" that you imply any different? The Right Thing To Say does not involve lying. It involves being careful; not oversharing.

"Tell the truth in as few words as possible." Exactly this. No need to ramble on about your detailed itinerary. For example: You're here for "education." Will you be the teacher or the learner? You'll be sharing your experience in programming just as you will listen to others sharing the same. It's a "conference" - we will confer on the topic of the event.

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#146

Post by ryandamm »

lkrubner wrote: post #53
ryandamm wrote: post #38

I fear this is the warning shot across the bow of those tech executives who supported this president. First, they come for your conferences. Then, your H1B visa-holding employees. Then...? Innovation thrives on freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of markets. And tech, in its best form, is about freedom, rather than market-capture and rent-seeking. Needless to say, none of these recent develop…

Innovation thrives on the rule of law, independent courts and neutral arbiters of contracts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, and the right to uncoerced testimony. Consider Jethro Tull, the farmer. In 1700 he was 26 and he was taking over the family farm. He hired some local hands to seed the fields that spring. As had happened for thousands of years, the workers took bags of seed and cast handfu…

Regardless of whether or not Jethro Tull is a perfect example, the larger point about rule of law is absolutely correct. Any catchphrase or byword can be co-opted, none more so than 'freedom.' Rule of law is a much better way to think about this, so thank you.

It's also generically true that having a good legal system is a prerequisite for a stable economy and good growth, not just innovation. I recall an article in, I think, the Economist that contrated mango farming in Haiti from the Dominican Republic -- same climate, same island, huge difference in productivity. Because in DR, farmers believed they would benefit from their hard work. In Haiti, unclear land title and corrupt courts meant a productive mango orchard could be confiscated by those in power, so the farmers had no incentive to invest in their own farms' productivity. Subsistence farming becomes the norm, and everyone loses.

Not sure why both examples that spring to mind are agricultural, but there you go.

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#147

Post by ryandamm »

chx wrote: post #90
lkrubner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innovation thrives on the rule of law, independent courts and neutral arbiters of contracts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, and the right to uncoerced testimony. Consider Jethro Tull, the farmer. In 1700 he was 26 and he was taking over the family farm. He hired some local hands to seed the fields that spring. As had happened for thousands of years, the workers took bags of seed and cast handfu…

And yet, people book Uber still. Unfathomable.

Well, to be fair, it's because someone's handing out free money in the form of subsidized rides. The fact that hailing a taxi is more expensive (nevermind less convenient) is a strong argument when the consumer is making a choice.

Wrapped in that argument is the obvious idea that Uber is burning investor money to capture the market, but you can't expect consumers to protest by paying more. That's what's so insidious about market capture; everyone is behaving rationally in their own self interest, but the outcome can become monopolistic, with increasing returns to the monopolist.

That's why it's traditionally been the role of the government to break up monopolies, because the market won't sort itself out. It's just that today's digital monopolies smell a little different, and the appetite for government intervention is lower than it used to be (perhaps because we don't remember catastrophic failings of the market quite as sharply as we used to -- 401ks being decimated is one thing, but bread lines and starvation are another).

So yeah, I think Uber's potentially dangerous. But I use it. Definitely some mental frisson, but I've spent time trying to fathom it and this is the best mental gymnastics I can manage.

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#148

Post by ryandamm »

FabHK wrote: post #116

I think one good criterion (among others) for deciding in what country to hold a conference is the number of countries whose citizen can enter without visa. There's a list on Wikipedia that you can sort by that criterion [1]. For the USA, it's 42 (what else). Canada, 52. For Schengen area (most of EU), 92. Hong Kong, 148, Indonesia, Cambodia even more. China only 12. So, South East Asia or Europe seem reasonable on t…

Self-centered American here, but wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees? Not clear why, say, Suriname (to pick a country out of a hat) should rank equally with Japan.

That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest of the developed world on all sorts of indices; we're so strange. Strangely illiberal, even before November. (I mean 'illiberal' in the political theory sense of the word, not left/right political sense of the word.)

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#149

Post by ryandamm »

refurb wrote: post #128
pessimizer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually all of what Trump is being called out on has been consistent bipartisan policy, or at the least supported consistently by recent Republican administrations and by every Republican primary candidate, all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic and anti-science. I think it's a good thing. Finally an ugly, stupid face on ugly, stupid policies.

all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic Thank you for taking the first step at bringing both sides together! If we can just convince one side they are wrong and frankly evil, we can start the healing process.

I actually think we suffer from false equivalency in the US. The two parties are radically different, the rhetoric is radically different. It's not that we suffer from a lack of consensus, it's that the right in the US has swerved sharply right, while the left has meandered a little left lately (but rightward across a ~30 year time span).

The first source I could find, it's not universally agreed upon, but here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/yes-pola...

It's really easy to try to be bipartisan and blame both sides, but the Republican party has been changing rapidly. You could argue the Democrats haven't been changing fast enough... but whatever is going on, it's not symmetrical.

Re: Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

#150

Post by Silhouette »

ryandamm wrote: post #148
FabHK wrote: post #116

I think one good criterion (among others) for deciding in what country to hold a conference is the number of countries whose citizen can enter without visa. There's a list on Wikipedia that you can sort by that criterion [1]. For the USA, it's 42 (what else). Canada, 52. For Schengen area (most of EU), 92. Hong Kong, 148, Indonesia, Cambodia even more. China only 12. So, South East Asia or Europe seem reasonable on t…

Self-centered American here, but wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees? Not clear why, say, Suriname (to pick a country out of a hat) should rank equally with Japan. That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest…

That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is.

One of the most alarming things about this whole issue is that it's taken this long for "normal people" to realise something is wrong and do something about it.

We're seeing mass protests now, when large numbers of people are literally being held in handcuffs for extended periods despite obviously doing nothing wrong. However, it's not as if border security at the US (and, to be fair, here in the UK and in various other countries) hadn't completely lost the plot already before Trump arrived.

Then again, I have long said things would have to get worse before they got better. Let's hope that at least we have now reached that point and ordinary people start questioning the whole way we look at security again.

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