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Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

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Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#51

Post by baddox »

nolok wrote: post #38
baddox wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that many US states also have sodomy laws, so in those states you’ve just got to hope that the 2003 Supreme Court decision sticks around.

Note that for a lot of people (me included), Africa is a social and legal black box and that is a major cause of concern for such issues (justified or not). Some countries have unreliable courts and/or people/tribal justice on the street is common, other are more modern, and except for a few specific countries I don't know which ones falls into which group. (what I'm saying is, you're more scared of the unknown, and…

I’m afraid I was misunderstood. I didn’t intend to minimize the threat to LGBT people in Ethiopia. I meant to point out that the threat is also still potentially just around the corner in many places.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#52

Post by zeist »

elil17 wrote: post #50
jfk13 wrote: post #47

Why would the issue even come up? Do people go to AI conferences expecting to have sex there?

Because you don’t have to actually have sex to be arrested for homosexuality

Sure, because they would try to prosecute a foreigner for his sexuality during a science conference.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#53

Post by andybak »

gsich wrote: post #48
andybak wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt that you apply this principle consistently yourself. In fact I just skimmed your comment history and there's a wealth of arguments presented without supporting evidence.

Very true. But you made a controversial statement without backing it up. Then you replied with a typical "just a forum" excuse. Which probably means: You can't find sources to back up your statement, or available sources contradict your statement. If someone wants a source to my comments, I'll provide it as best I can.

> But you made a controversial statement without backing it up.

1. I didn't make the original statement

2. The reason I became involved in this debate is because the original statement seemed very far from controversial to me and I was rather dumbfounded that anyone felt the need to ask for supporting evidence.

The original claim was "things are not where they should be" and the context was "a person's ability to practice science to the best of their potential" irrespective of their nationality, gender, ethnicity etc.

For this to be controversial someone would have to be making the rather extreme counter-claim that scientific achievement is based solely on ability.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#54

Post by andybak »

logicchains wrote: post #41
andybak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. So I put it to you again, do you agree with the statement or do you disagree?

>If this was an academic paper then maybe but it's a comment on a forum on a website and life is too short to marshal supporting evidence for every stated opinion. The reason academic papers require rigour is because such rigour is necessary to make a convincing argument. Without rigour, people end up just talking past, misunderstanding or shouting at eachother; nobody's going to convince someone else to change their…

> I've never met a scientist I could imagine making a hiring decision based on race.

Do you mean "race would never have any effect on their hiring decision" - even unconsciously? There's a fairly robust body of work on the topic of unconscious bias that would have to be almost entirely invalid for that statement to be true.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#55

Post by gsich »

andybak wrote: post #53
gsich wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. But you made a controversial statement without backing it up. Then you replied with a typical "just a forum" excuse. Which probably means: You can't find sources to back up your statement, or available sources contradict your statement. If someone wants a source to my comments, I'll provide it as best I can.

> But you made a controversial statement without backing it up. 1. I didn't make the original statement 2. The reason I became involved in this debate is because the original statement seemed very far from controversial to me and I was rather dumbfounded that anyone felt the need to ask for supporting evidence. The original claim was "things are not where they should be" and the context was "a person's ability to pra…

You can see by the reponses that this is quite controversial.

Maybe, but the burden of proof lies with the person who made the argument. ("things are not where they should be")

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#56

Post by baybal2 »

Radim wrote: post #17

Lest you think this is a problem only for Africans & USA: I was denied visa, going to present my paper at NIPS 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. Czech citizen (EU), PhD student at the time, with obvious ties to CZ. I fully respect each country's right to refuse anyone, including without providing a reason (as was the case with me). I see it as "their loss" :-) You pesky computer scientists, stay away!

Yes, this distresses me the most, these random refusal are 99% caused by the person failing some arbitrary checkbox list, or edicts like "reduce number of visas to country N by N percents" so they feel pain

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#57

Post by Filligree »

zeist wrote: post #52
elil17 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you don’t have to actually have sex to be arrested for homosexuality

Sure, because they would try to prosecute a foreigner for his sexuality during a science conference.

They might. Going somewhere where your existence is illegal is a dumb idea.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#58

Post by andybak »

gsich wrote: post #55
andybak wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you made a controversial statement without backing it up. 1. I didn't make the original statement 2. The reason I became involved in this debate is because the original statement seemed very far from controversial to me and I was rather dumbfounded that anyone felt the need to ask for supporting evidence. The original claim was "things are not where they should be" and the context was "a person's ability to pra…

You can see by the reponses that this is quite controversial. Maybe, but the burden of proof lies with the person who made the argument. ("things are not where they should be")

> You can see by the responses that this is quite controversial.

I don't think the tangent this discussion has taken is any indication that the original claim was controversial - merely that it's very easy to get bogged down in meta-discussions that detract from the actual issue being discussed. I don't think anyone could reasonably dispute the original statement - unless their interpretation of it was wildly different to mine. If that's the case then it's not lack of supporting evidence that's the problem - it's clarity of communication.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#59

Post by A2017U1 »

andybak wrote: post #24
logicchains wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>things are not where they should be Citation needed. >There is nothing unscientific about it, but maybe you have data to prove otherwise. If you make a claim that something should be done, the burden on proof is on you to substantiate that claim.

> things are not where they should be Are you seriously trying to claim that science is a perfect meritocracy? Seriously?

Not sure about perfect but it's probably close.

If you can solve any of the outstanding problems no one is going to care where you come from, gender, political views, socioeconomic status etc.

That seems quite meritocratic to me. Compare that to say a distinguished position such as a Supreme Court judge appointment.

Re: Major AI conference is moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues

#60

Post by logicchains »

baddox wrote: post #39
logicchains wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you seriously trying to claim that science is a perfect meritocracy? I'm not making any particular claim about science. I'm making a general claim about reason: someone making a moral argument must provide some reason or evidence to support that argument. In this particular case, it means that if someone wants to make a claim that there is something morally wrong with the distribution of scientists with respect…

That’s a bit silly though. A citation can’t somehow “prove” a moral statement. I think it’s clear that the commenter was assuming the reasonable moral claim that ethnicity/gender/etc. should not affect one’s opportunities in science, and then claiming that there is still work to be done in achieving that goal.

>A citation can’t somehow “prove” a moral statement.

A moral statement doesn't prove itself. Someone has to prove it, either by providing an argument themselves, which the poster didn't do, or citing an external source of proof.

>ethnicity/gender/etc. should not affect one’s opportunities in science, and then claiming that there is still work to be done in achieving that goal.

That claim still requires a supporting argument: evidence to support that ethnicity/gender/etc. is affecting peoples' opportunities in science.

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