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Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

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Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#341

Post by nl »

coldtea wrote: post #287
tptacek wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported. In particular, the outcome tracked the national polls, and upsets were targeted and involved very narrow margins. But, of course, none of your comment answers the questions I posed. I'm less interested in litigating abstractions and more in the specifics. Care to take a whack at addressing them?

> Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported. The polls about The Donald losing were also heavily reported: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/26/polls-shatter-myth-pr... In any case, unlike you, I'm more interested in abstractions based on large historical body of evidence (for not trusting pollsters in general) than in specifics (evaluating a particular poll, especially in hot political and pa…

Which polls were so far in error? The presidential vote polls were ~2% out and I think most in this thread on this topic will concede a 2% error either way.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#342

Post by erichocean »

mikeash wrote: post #219
cpcat wrote: post #106

It's really hypocritical that you only start noticing this happening now. The same has happened under Obama. I have a friend who was denied going back to University of Chicago last year https://www.facebook.com/ridakoon/posts/10158098402210427?pn...

Individual injustices are not new. Wholesale bans of everyone from certain countries are. Both are bad, both deserve to be fought, but they are on completely different levels.

> Wholesale bans of everyone from certain countries are.

The actual 120 day ban is bad enough, there's no reason to lie about it. People with green cards/existing visas need to be re-approved, they're not "banned". There's no intention AFAICT to keep people who should be in the US out of the US.

FFS people, Trump needs actual opposition, not knee-jerk virtue signaling, hyperbole, and hashtag protests!

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#343

Post by tzs »

hallman76 wrote: post #326

WOW. @daxorid shared his view - which wasn't inflammatory. The comment was downvoted, then flagged before I could reply. Terrifying, how? This is what Trump promised, and the reason we voted for him. Half of us are quite happy to see campaign promises actually implemented. HN is acting as if this was capricious and unplanned. In fact, it's what half of us wanted. @daxorid voted for a political party that you disagree…

Based on the discussion on /r/republican and /r/conservative, there appear to be very few in the GOP who thought that this was what Trump promised or are happy with it. Many wanted more curbs on illegal immigrants, and more vetting of new applicants for legal immigration from certain countries...but not many thought that people who are already here legally on temporary or permanent visas should be blocked from reentering if they leave temporarily, such to visit family over a holiday.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#344

Post by nl »

cmurf wrote: post #205
becarefulyo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazism should be swiftly kicked in the ass whenever it rears itself. This is naked white supremacism. For as much bullshit as we've heard about political correctness, why not just come out and say this is straight up religious and racial discrimination?

The easy time to do this was the election. It is much harder to deal with now. The president's Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor is a white nationalist, who used to run Breitbart.com, where there is a distinction made between white supremacists and white nationalists (I cannot explain the distinction, for I don't see one). A site all about how awful multiculturalism is, separation of races is necessary for the su…

This is a wise and sensible comment. Having said that, I'll caution that in the long term we are all dead anyway.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#345

Post by erichocean »

titomc wrote: post #170
lazyant wrote: post #50

Proud to be Canadian, see our PM's latest tweets https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/825438460265762816

Proud to be a permanent resident of Canada now. I left US (H1B visa) some months back.

You don't need a visa (H1B or otherwise), the Canadian border is just like the US border with Mexico: open. Anyone can migrate to Canada from the US, just walk across (or drive on up). If "caught", they won't send you back to the US (or wherever). You can get a job, get (free) healthcare, a driver's license, the works—you don't need documentation at all (or can fake it, just like in the US). Why people migrating from Mexico stop in the US is beyond me—Canada has a way better policy towards immigrants, they love undocumented workers! Canada even has sanctuary cities (like Toronto), and unlike the US, Trudeau isn't attacking them, he's praising them!

Canada completely rocks when it comes to immigration policy and is exactly how globalism in the US should be: welcome everyone, from anywhere—no papers, no problem! We're all people after all.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#346

Post by crispinb »

mikeash wrote: post #303
crispinb wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they're responsible too. But mass-scale movements come from somewhere. They have systematic causes. The tech industry, and the ideology driving it, is manifestly amongst those causes.

Then we have a cause too, so why point the finger at us? Something else caused it! Or, I have a better idea: point the finger at the people who cast the votes.

Why can't something as complex as a historical change have multiple causes? And when the rise of social/economic inequality is such a clearly-evidenced part of the mix, why should those who have reaped unsustainable benefits from an unfair system not share part of the responsibility?

I'm not exculpating the ethno-nationalist forces (leaders or followers). They are dangerous and wrong (and their more moderate fellow travellers have allowed, for ignoble motives, nasty stuff to fester now for decades).

But when you have a rising class allocating ever rising shares of the world's wealth to itself, resentments will build. The Gates & Thiels of this world are fairly invulnerable and can buy themselves more fiercely guarded and gilded palaces to hide in (ever higher as the oceans rise). But for the rest, you would think even self-interest (let alone ethics) would have encouraged them to use their wealth and power to argue for a fairer polity. They didn't, and it's too late now: here comes the backlash with dizzying speed. It looks to me like we're beyond reason and are headed for widening violence and wars. I hope I'm wrong.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#347

Post by sratner »

WildUtah wrote: post #301
enraged_camel wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

You can be a loyal citizen to only one country. Maintaining two passports is an open declaration of disloyalty and lack of solidarity. And immigrants shouldn't get special privileges that natural citizens cannot, especially special privileges conferred by foreign princes and potentates.

Are US natural citizens denied the ability to get a foreign citizenship?

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#348

Post by crispinb »

mikeash wrote: post #334
concinds wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That again ignores that these people are operating inside a system, not in a vacuum. If you want to assign blame, fine, but don't confuse that with problem-solving. The blame game will not make American democracy functional again, it'll make it even worse.

When you point at techies as the cause, are you problem-solving, or playing the blame game? Sure looks like the latter to me. Edit: I get it. This doesn't help. The thing is, I don't know how to fix it. It looks like we're just fucked. I'm thinking and trying to come up with a fix but it's not working yet. And in the mean time, when someone tries to blame me for this mess I didn't cause and argued against, I'm going…

Hmm. There's enough despair around and if my sharp wording added to it in your case I apologise. We're all bleeding and I need a longer posting delay. The causes of this mess are so widely distributed, finger-pointing is pointless (except von Clownstick -- I will not use his brand name -- and his crazed apparachniks who need blame aplenty)

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#349

Post by concinds »

mikeash wrote: post #334
concinds wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That again ignores that these people are operating inside a system, not in a vacuum. If you want to assign blame, fine, but don't confuse that with problem-solving. The blame game will not make American democracy functional again, it'll make it even worse.

When you point at techies as the cause, are you problem-solving, or playing the blame game? Sure looks like the latter to me. Edit: I get it. This doesn't help. The thing is, I don't know how to fix it. It looks like we're just fucked. I'm thinking and trying to come up with a fix but it's not working yet. And in the mean time, when someone tries to blame me for this mess I didn't cause and argued against, I'm going…

For the record I never blamed "techies". It's simple: political discourse is dysfunctional (in the sense: conflict-laden, and the conflicts don't get resolved effectively; that's all dysfunctional means). The best way to improve democracy is for each to improve the way they communicate.

2 necessary skills, that everybody can improve, are:

- empathic listening (always using the most generous interpretation of the other person's argument, and then walking back from there to your own opinion, to find common ground)

- problem-solving (look at the big picture, find the problem, and think of a good solution)

> And in the mean time, when someone tries to blame me for this mess I didn't cause and argued against, I'm going to push back.

There's nothing to push back against. This is just political conflict, and it's resolved the same way as any other conflict. If someone calls you crazy, and you reply: "well clearly I'm not crazy!" you may feel right but it's not effective communication.

Re: Iranian MIT student goes home over break, denied return for spring semester

#350

Post by mikeash »

erichocean wrote: post #342
mikeash wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual injustices are not new. Wholesale bans of everyone from certain countries are. Both are bad, both deserve to be fought, but they are on completely different levels.

> Wholesale bans of everyone from certain countries are. The actual 120 day ban is bad enough, there's no reason to lie about it. People with green cards/existing visas need to be re-approved, they're not "banned". There's no intention AFAICT to keep people who should be in the US out of the US. FFS people, Trump needs actual opposition, not knee-jerk virtue signaling, hyperbole, and hashtag protests!

All those people being detained in Customs facilities at airports across the country must really be comforted that the intent isn't to keep anyone out who should be here.

You can say that, but I don't believe it. And you're not going to shut down my legitimate outrage and distress by pretending like it's not sincere.

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