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U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

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Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#281
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you "genuinely" want to understand, start considering the opposite - what is the easiest way to defend policy like this? "science with outside helps the other side" - done. Current administration sees US as losing its positions, so the main answer is to close the leaks that feed its opponents with US effort

I don't understand the argument. Imagine flipping positions. You're saying that if an American researcher goes to China, gets employed by a Chinese university, and do research funded by China which is then commercialized by Chinese companies, the researcher is actually aiding America in expense of China.

> which is then commercialized by Chinese companies

here lies hidden assumption that host country is better at commercializing its education results than origin country at onshoring

try substituting Nauru (tiny island nation) in that sentence and ask yourself a question - is it more likely for (hypothetical) "graduates of Nauru University" to find work on tiny island - or to fly home with newly learned skills?

when you aren't in adversarial position, "any chance is worth it". As soon as you start thinking "us vs them" - details and assumptions start to matter and math may point in the other direction

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh we have to worship our ex presidents like kings? It’s possible to criticize both Trump and Obama. For example my top criticism of Obama is that he killed a 15 year old American child without trial. His press secretary was not only was unapologetic he said “ I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children.” https://en.wikipedia.or…

Drone strikes would be my top Obama criticism, followed by not closing Guantanamo, but I can use the man's name without some clever nickname. That's just not worthy of the actual conversation. It a very Trumpian thing to do

Oh I see a unilateral execution program does not warrant a vaguely rude nickname. A bridge too far. Glad you’re concerning yourself with the important issues (while Gitmo remains open and holds people)

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#283
post #272

We were told by some very brilliant people (Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and to a lesser extent Demis Hassabis), that AI will shortly automate much of Research and we won't need that many researchers anymore. Therefore, these personnel restrictions shouldn't matter, right?

I think they are hoping for a speedup more than less researchers.

No, they were pretty clear that researchers will get replaced. By the AGI in the year no other than 2026.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#284
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Straw man. In a free market where people knew they could not depend on the government to "regulate" (and, as I've pointed out, it didn't in this case), people would refuse to fly on airplanes whose safety records were not well-documented and attested public knowledge. To do otherwise would be obviously foolish. The only reason people don't seek out more such information now is that they believe the government has t…

> there's this not-that-little country called Indonesia whose airlines were banned from operating in the West for a long time because of an extremely well known lack of adequate safety standards, and an accompanying tendency to plunge passengers to a fiery death. It was one of the fastest growing air transport markets in the world. So why is that? Because Indonesians don't value human life the way people in the US do…

Maybe it's just because the libertarian fantasy that if the government doesn't regulate something the private sector will do a much better job is slightly less plausible and well evidenced than the average story involving wizards and magic.

Honestly, if you're so naive about how the adult world works that you think the most likely reason why unconnected third parties don't get access to all the information required to properly audit an airline's safety practices (even if they've somehow found a B2C business model to conduct such audits) is that the government stops them, you're precisely the sort of uworldly person such regulation is intended to protect. Well, you and the people that don't trust in unregulated airlines but run the risk of being hit by their aircraft anyway....

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#285
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's this not-that-little country called Indonesia whose airlines were banned from operating in the West for a long time because of an extremely well known lack of adequate safety standards, and an accompanying tendency to plunge passengers to a fiery death. It was one of the fastest growing air transport markets in the world. So why is that? Because Indonesians don't value human life the way people in the US do…

Maybe it's just because the libertarian fantasy that if the government doesn't regulate something the private sector will do a much better job is slightly less plausible and well evidenced than the average story involving wizards and magic. Honestly, if you're so naive about how the adult world works that you think the most likely reason why unconnected third parties don't get access to all the information required t…

> the libertarian fantasy that if the government doesn't regulate something the private sector will do a much better job

I have never claimed "much better". But given the overall track record of government regulation in actually protecting people from the harmful things it's supposed to protect them from, it would be hard for any private effort to do worse. If you disagree with that, evidently we don't live on the same planet and there's not enough common ground between us for a useful discussion.

That said, perhaps it might help if I rephrase things somewhat. I'm accepting, at least for the sake of argument, your claim that, for example, Indonesians have no way of getting any reliable information about which buses, ferries, etc. are safe (and that the same was true of airplanes for many years, but perhaps that's changing now).

And that makes me wonder: why do people even use these things, if they have no information about their safety? Or why don't they find some way of getting the information? Why can't someone start a business that provides it? Would people just not pay for it because they think such information should be free? What's the mindset here? Am I really that much of an outlier, that it seems obviously foolish to me to be using these things if you have no way of getting reliable information about their safety? Is Indonesia, for example, really full of such "unworldly" people who need to be protected from their own unworldliness?

You call such ideas as starting a business to provide people with such information a "libertarian fantasy". To me the fantasy is the idea that government regulation can be depended on to "protect" the "unworldly" people who otherwise will happily do unsafe things. As I said above, the overall track record of government regulation gives no basis for any such belief.

> you're precisely the sort of uworldly person such regulation is intended to protect

I don't know where you're getting this from, since I've already said elsewhere in this thread that I personally would not fly on an airplane whose safety record I have no reliable information about. It's quite true that my current best source of such information is the US government. But that doesn't mean that situation is the best that can be done.

> the people that don't trust in unregulated airlines but run the risk of being hit by their aircraft anyway

I don't know what you mean by this.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#286
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people are willing to be drive drunk. In addition to all the other things I pointed out, there's a very simple and obvious difference between this and the airplane case: a person choosing to drive drunk imposes some risk on everyone else who uses the same road they do. But a person choosing to fly on an unsafe airplane imposes no risk on anyone but themselves; their choice doesn't force anyone else to fly on t…

> In addition to all the other things I pointed out, there's a very simple and obvious difference between this and the airplane case: a person choosing to drive drunk imposes some risk on everyone else who uses the same road they do. But a person choosing to fly on an unsafe airplane imposes no risk on anyone but themselves; their choice doesn't force anyone else to fly on the same airplane. There is a very simple an…

> people do not consent to be hit by drunk drivers

True.

> or poorly maintained aeroplanes

But that's not something a person can affect by their choice of whether to fly on such an airplane, which is what we've been talking about, assuming the airplane is already in operation. That risk is being imposed by the airline that's skimping on the maintenance.

People can affect this indirectly, by choosing not to fly on unsafe airplanes, which will cause airlines that try to operate such airplanes to go out of business (as well as manufacturers who try to build them). Indeed, that's what I was describing when I described how a free market would result in unsafe airplanes not being flown.

Your position, in the other subthread where I responded to you a little bit ago, appears to be that people are too stupid (excuse me, "unworldly") to be trusted to regulate such things as I've described in a free market, so governments have to regulate instead. Have I got that right?

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#287

Love reading all the TDS comments about Americans are the new Nazis and Orange Man is bad. However, this article isn't very good: NIH has publish guidance: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-1... It seems like the intent here is to prevent "subawards" going to foreign linked entities where the USG can't track it. The NIH is introducing a new linked award system where the foreign entity receive…

Sometimes it is a lot to wallow through the comments here, to find the few insightful ones. Thanks!

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#288
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In addition to all the other things I pointed out, there's a very simple and obvious difference between this and the airplane case: a person choosing to drive drunk imposes some risk on everyone else who uses the same road they do. But a person choosing to fly on an unsafe airplane imposes no risk on anyone but themselves; their choice doesn't force anyone else to fly on the same airplane. There is a very simple an…

> people do not consent to be hit by drunk drivers True. > or poorly maintained aeroplanes But that's not something a person can affect by their choice of whether to fly on such an airplane, which is what we've been talking about, assuming the airplane is already in operation. That risk is being imposed by the airline that's skimping on the maintenance. People can affect this indirectly, by choosing not to fly on uns…

> But that's not something a person can affect by their choice of whether to fly on such an airplane, which is what we've been talking about

No, that's something you are talking about as you avoid the actual argument that badly flown and maintained aircraft represent a threat to people that didn't make an informed choice to fly on them.

One could also argue that drink driving regulation is unnecessary because in a free market nobody will choose to drive drunk, and this would be somewhat less stupid than arguing that it's unnecessary to regulate aviation safety because it would be impossible to operate an airline without equivalent or better safety records in a free market.

> Your position, in the other subthread where I responded to you a little bit ago, appears to be that people are too stupid (excuse me, "unworldly") to be trusted to regulate such things as I've described in a free market, so governments have to regulate instead. Have I got that right?

My actual argument is that badly flown and maintained aircraft represent a threat to people that didn't make an informed choice to fly on them

But yes, governments also protect people whose confidence they know better than the stupid experts is exceeded only by their ignorance.

Re: U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

#289
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just because the libertarian fantasy that if the government doesn't regulate something the private sector will do a much better job is slightly less plausible and well evidenced than the average story involving wizards and magic. Honestly, if you're so naive about how the adult world works that you think the most likely reason why unconnected third parties don't get access to all the information required t…

> the libertarian fantasy that if the government doesn't regulate something the private sector will do a much better job I have never claimed "much better". But given the overall track record of government regulation in actually protecting people from the harmful things it's supposed to protect them from, it would be hard for any private effort to do worse. If you disagree with that, evidently we don't live on the sa…

> But given the overall track record of government regulation in actually protecting people from the harmful things it's supposed to protect them from, it would be hard for any private effort to do worse. If you disagree with that, evidently we don't live on the same planet and there's not enough common ground between us for a useful discussion.

Yes, evidently we don't. On the one hand, I live in a world in which regulation has ensured that a thin aluminium tube fuel of highly flammable fuel which takes off and lands at several hundred mph and is the paradigm example of "how metal fatigue causes things to break in unexpected ways" on engineering courses is actually the safest form of transport by some margin, with aviation safety records being strongly correlated with levels of regulation. On the other hand you think the Wild West and Somalia represent safety models it should move towards.

Honestly, if you have so little grasp of how the world of business works that you think the biggest obstacle to some random third party conducting an audit of an airline's operations, maintenance and safety practices to share with consumers is the government (you honestly can't grasp that the airline needs to cooperate and almost certainly doesn't want to?!?!) maybe it's for the best we don't take your advice on how to improve the industry...

> I don't know what you mean by this.

I can see how the concept that unregulated airlines' planes can crash into people who didn't choose to fly with them is very difficult to understand if you are either four years old or four comments deep into insisting that poorly maintained aircraft crashing isn't a problem because the people on the plane made rational and informed choices to be there

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