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Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US

forbes.com

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Re: Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US

#21

Post by arthur_trudeau »

theGimp wrote: post #19
arthur_trudeau wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely can be asking why the US apparently has an interest in spending vast amounts of money and lives, mostly from flyover country or Afghanistan itself, in the interest of changing Afghan society in a direction most Afghans aren't down with. It's extremely non obvious to me. I'm guessing you have some moral premise about it being virtuous to spend other people's lives and money to help "the oppressed", by som…

You can ask and claim whatever you want. That was never in question. What I do question is whether you're serious or just trying to bait a response. As for the moral premise you're presuming I hold, please spare me your intellectual gymnastics. Explain to me how Afghan society would be changed by allowing a small group of girls into the United States for a few days -- so they can participate in a robotics competition…

I am in dead seriousness not interested in playing just-the-tip with social engineering in central Asia; nor am I interested in wielding one segment of their population as a weapon against another in an attempt to "reform" their society, which is exactly what PR exercises like the story in question are aiming to support.

You owe me an explanation as far as why we should be messing around with their society in any respect, not the opposite.

Re: Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US

#22

Post by arthur_trudeau »

papaf wrote: post #15
arthur_trudeau wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely can be asking why the US apparently has an interest in spending vast amounts of money and lives, mostly from flyover country or Afghanistan itself, in the interest of changing Afghan society in a direction most Afghans aren't down with. It's extremely non obvious to me. I'm guessing you have some moral premise about it being virtuous to spend other people's lives and money to help "the oppressed", by som…

changing Afghan society in a direction most Afghans aren't down with Is that really so? Before the Russia invasion, Afghanistan was a relaxed country that attracted hippies. I have also yet to meet an Afghan in the West who would be against women working in robotics. You might find this of interest if you weren't aware of it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/weekinreview/18bumiller.ht...

The Russian invasion was in a large part driven by the population of Afghanistan rebelling against the central government attempting to impose that sort of liberalism. This isn't particularly controversial, even the baseline Wikipedia article about the invasion mentions this in the first couple paragraphs.

Afghans in the West are a ridiculously unrepresentative sample; you might as well talk about the views of Americans in Mecca.

Re: Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US

#23

Post by dang »

arthur_trudeau wrote: post #3

Why in the world should we care, especially when the overwhelming majority of their countrymen don't believe they should be engaged in the activity at all?

It seems your account has been using HN exclusively for political battle. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't. Instead, see the following about the intended use of this site:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: Afghanistan's All-Girl Robotics Team Can't Get Visas to the US

#24

Post by mcv »

Why do organizations still organize international events in the US? I've heard of to many events hangstrung because their attendees were denied entry into the US these past couple of months. Move these events to Canada, Mexico or Europe until US border policy becomes a bit saner again.
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