71–80 of 121 posts
It's easy to just blame the authorities, but people should also see that almost any existing hurdle in the visa applying process is set up to solve a problem, while it's unfortuanate that these measures have unintended/undesirable effects, it also forestalled many visa fraud attempts. People from certain effectively balck-listed Chinese regions are much harder to get it done. I know here in China people would exploit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is kind of sad that we have this way of carving up the world into arbitrary pieces and calling us "us" and them "the enemy". It's not arbitrary, our ancestors in many cases fought and died to establish those lines so that they could live their lives how they wanted within those lines. They worked hard so that their children and grandchildren and fellow citizens could have better lives within those lines. To disco…
The reality of these lines are usually less noble than you describe in many cases. As an example, if you read about the motivations of specific actors in the American revolutionary war, many of the top dissenters were basically interested in not paying taxes and being the boss of their own piece of land (instead of having oversight from across the pond). Nobody is ethically pure, of course, but the main push for the…
They might just be "lines on a map" but they mean something to people, just 50 years ago those "lines" were the difference between living in a communist hellhole and freedom and prosperity. There's a lot of cubans and eastern europeans who risked their lives to get on the other side of some lines on a map and get a better life for themselves and their children.
If people hadn't been willing to fight and die to defend those lines and their ability to live how they want, we wouldn't be able to have this discussion right now
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!
SO i guess life balances out. Sort of.
But yes. Denied visa after getting accepted really sucks. Do u still get "published in NIPS" credit or is the paper withdrawn ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The locations seem like gimmicks to me quite a lot of times, and I don't mean ICLR conferences specifically. This time it happens to be politically motivated. At other times, it seems like they are picking exotic locations (Hawaii, Bahamas, etc.) because they know their university or company is going to fund it.
Exotic locations make sense - no matter where on globe you put the conference pretty much everyone has to fly there, and half of the people have to fly around half the world; and renting a large venue in such a location generally is cheaper than the major metropolises, where costs sometimes are extreme.
I welcome the choice of moving the conference to a place where there are no logistic problems. As a scientist, however, I abhor organizations such as BlacksInAI: in science there’s no place for identity politics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is kind of sad that we have this way of carving up the world into arbitrary pieces and calling us "us" and them "the enemy". It's not arbitrary, our ancestors in many cases fought and died to establish those lines so that they could live their lives how they wanted within those lines. They worked hard so that their children and grandchildren and fellow citizens could have better lives within those lines. To disco…
The reality of these lines are usually less noble than you describe in many cases. As an example, if you read about the motivations of specific actors in the American revolutionary war, many of the top dissenters were basically interested in not paying taxes and being the boss of their own piece of land (instead of having oversight from across the pond). Nobody is ethically pure, of course, but the main push for the…
he might've been from europe though, and we really did have ... a lot of blood wasted to draw out these lines... we kept killing each other for them
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.
Keep in mind that official enforcement isn't the only concern. Illegality can make people feel justified in taking matters into their own hands, and there have been anti-homosexual mobs and attacks in countries that recently criminalized homosexuality.
not sure why they dont do India - has significant consular presence in African countries (african medical tourism is huge in India) as well as being much easier to reach from Western countries. We also have constitutional protection for LGBT communities and privacy - something that Ethiopia lacks. The Indian govt will throw money at you if you do something like this here.