U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs
291 points
7 hours ago
| 21 comments
| science.org
| HN
collabs
5 hours ago
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It makes no sense. Foreign scientists usually can't work on classified projects because they require clearance that is very difficult if not impossible for non citizens to obtain. Restricting foreign scientists from US labs is in my opinion a stupid move. What am I missing?
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lukan
5 hours ago
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"What am I missing?"

That nationalism is the new state doctrin? Foreigners are inferior by definition, so they cannot really help with research anyway, all they want to do is steal secrets. If you think like that, then it makes sense.

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butterbomb
1 hour ago
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God, maybe I could buy if it it came with significant work to repair US education and investment in a domestic science workforce, but unfortunately in the US, these nationalist waves have to also come with a strong air of anti-intellectualism.
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Tangurena2
4 minutes ago
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Also, obedience to "right think". Which is why the need to force social media billionaires to tell the feds who is "a political enemy."
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terminalshort
34 minutes ago
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Some anti-intellectualism might be a good thing given that the intellectuals have completely ruined our education system by removing all academic standards.
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Retric
16 minutes ago
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It’s not the intellectuals who are pushing standards down. High standards inherently reject people, that’s inherent to the concept. The push for ever higher percentage of the population to get degrees means the average student keeps getting worse, as fewer of them are really seeking to be educated vs get a piece of paper.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Educatio...

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terminalshort
5 minutes ago
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You are 100% correct, but it is absolutely a bunch of useless intellectuals and their endless yapping who have pushed this crap on us. You are confusing intellectuals with smart people.
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5upplied_demand
21 minutes ago
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Isn't this the type of attitude that is giving cover to the types of actions the OP mentions, i.e. throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
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terminalshort
7 minutes ago
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That's not anti-intellectualism. That's nationalism combined with justified anger that we are importing foreigners to paper over the fact that we have ruined our own education system. I disagree with the decision, but I understand the motives.
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5upplied_demand
3 minutes ago
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> we are importing foreigners to paper over the fact that we have ruined our own education system.

Are you familiar with any of these scientists we "imported" during the 1930s? Was that also a sign of a failed education system?

- Albert Einstein - Enrico Fermi - Leo Szilard - Hans Bethe - Edward Teller - John von Neumann - Eugene Wigner - Felix Bloch

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epgui
24 minutes ago
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That's a completely non-sensical take.
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piokoch
2 hours ago
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"Foreigners are inferior by definition" - but USA approach says exactly the opposite. Foreigners are capable, so it is better not to share secrets and technology with them.
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InitialLastName
1 hour ago
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    The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy. [0]
[0] Umberto Eco, *Ur-Fascism* https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
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monooso
1 hour ago
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I assume the reasoning is if they're so capable, why would they need to steal secrets and technology?

I use "reasoning" in the broadest possible sense.

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peyton
2 hours ago
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Exactly, why were these guys wandering around on nights and weekends?
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lukan
1 hour ago
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Because they likely have no family there and on nights and weekends there is less trouble and noise, so better conditions to get into an uninterrupted flow state to get things done?

Is that really something in need of explaining on a hacker site?

(Or were you ironic? I cannot tell anymore)

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dboreham
3 hours ago
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There's a one-word shortcut for all that: fascism.
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sgnelson
2 hours ago
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Got to love the fact that a large amount of users of HN still refuse to see the truth before their very eyes.
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epolanski
2 hours ago
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The issue is that when people start abusing words like "fascism" out of context they make those words lose meaning.

The US is definitely undergoing authoritarian tendencies, but it remains structurally constrained by separation of powers, federalism, and independent courts and media, features that fascist regimes systematically dismantle.

If you start calling everything fascism you are essentially helping those you call fascists because they can easily refute your thesis and gaslight you on the very realities of the authoritarian descent the country is going through.

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monooso
1 hour ago
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Thank heavens for that separation of powers, otherwise the President would be declaring wars and levying tariffs willy-nilly, without even bothering to check with Congress first.
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SoftTalker
53 minutes ago
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Presidents have been doing the undeclared war thing since the end of WWII. Nothing new there, the tariffs and other EOs have maybe increased markedly in the last few presidencies.
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beej71
10 minutes ago
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It's not just the war, obviously. This time the President has immunity levels that are unprecedented. And his cronies in Congress and SCOTUS don't seem inclined to rein him in on much.
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collinmcnulty
19 minutes ago
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George W Bush sought and received authorization for Iraq from Congress.
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throwaway173738
2 hours ago
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What do you call it when the authoritarians start, then? Are we not allowed to call it that until we’re not allowed to go to the courts or to speak about what’s happening?
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epolanski
2 hours ago
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You call it for what it is: an executive with authoritarian tendencies.

Democracy is not an on/off light bulb, it's a material under constant stress that can bend a lot before breaking.

But if you start calling it broken, while it's bending your thesis is easily refutable and you get called out for being a radical whatever.

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hypeatei
1 hour ago
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> You call it for what it is: an executive with authoritarian tendencies.

Okay, but that's beating around the bush and a very milquetoast way to describe it.

> easily refutable and you get called out for being a radical whatever.

This is equivalent to being punched repeatedly by a bully and being scared that he'll cry "assault!" when you punch him back. At some point, you cease to exist if you don't act.

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satvikpendem
2 hours ago
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Authoritarianism? Dictatorship? Fascism is a specific form of those that doesn't necessarily map to current forms.
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kergonath
1 hour ago
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How does it not map? Read Umberto Eco and I don’t really see any point that is not present at all in trumpism. Or, in more words: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-... .
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orwin
1 hour ago
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Fascism is just a nationalism authoritarianism that is very hierarchical and believe in an "interior enemy" (for MAGA it's the deep state) that is the root cause of all their country isseus, and once it's purged the country can take its rightfull place at the top, and you with it.

I agree that US is not fascist yet, the hierarchy isn't set, and the economy isn't close to an extractive autarky, but philosophically, it's close, don't you think? I mean, ranting against traitors all the time is to me a very, very big point in favor of this being fascism.

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DFHippie
39 minutes ago
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> believe in an "interior enemy" (for MAGA it's the deep state)

It's their neighbors, not the "deep state". Renee Good and Alex Pretti were the enemy within. People in inflatable costumes or pussy hats are the enemy within. Uppity kids in high school who get thrown to the drown and put in a choke hold. People filming ice on public streets. They are the enemy within to MAGA. It isn't distant and abstract. It's personal.

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kergonath
1 hour ago
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> ranting against traitors all the time

And the "enemy of the people", rhetoric, and the vermin that corrupts the nation’s blood. I mean, these people are not exactly subtle.

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pickleglitch
48 minutes ago
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Checks and balances have almost completely collapsed, we've got masked, lawless paramilitary forces executing citizens in the streets, kicking in doors without warrants, spending billions of dollars building concentration camps, ignoring habeas corpus, accelerating media capture by friendly oligarchs, the national security apparatus labeling anyone who criticizes this stuff as domestic terrorists, and you're here quibbling over semantics.
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donkeybeer
2 hours ago
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Then better stop them before it comes to that stage.
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epolanski
2 hours ago
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How?

I'm European, and from my point of view:

- despite the current executive and its lackeys clearly stating they were going to do exactly what's happening (the dismantling of institutions, the violent, word-wise, targeting of any criticism, the tariffs, etc).

- despite the open attack to US democracy on January 6th 2021

Americans voted for all of this to happen.

What's happening isn't exposing a fault in a particular individual, that's way too convenient.

Not only they voted all of this, but keep believing this paranormal constitutional nonsense where winner-takes-all elections where you rule under no oversight, you have no opposition, and don't even depend on your own party support is actually a sane democratic system.

Of all the countries that slid in authoritarianism during the last 4 decades (from the Philippines to Russia, from Nicaragua to Belarus, etc) not one was a parliamentary republic.

All of them, literally all, where presidential republics.

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donkeybeer
1 hour ago
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I didn't say anything about what steps to take. All I said is that the word fits and it's time to give suitable treatment to the magas by whatever means necessary before its too late.
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butterbomb
1 hour ago
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> Not only they voted all of this, but keep believing this paranormal constitutional nonsense where winner-takes-all elections where you rule under no oversight, you have no opposition, and don't even depend on your own party support is actually a sane democratic system.

Honestly I’ve been filled schadenfreude with as the American civic religion collapse. Even the right is giving it up as they view it as too obstructionist.

The silver lining in all this is that the American people might come out a bit less retarded. It’s been fascinating to see the explosion of political thought amongst Americans in the last few years.

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donkeybeer
1 hour ago
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The right have always had racetardism in them, they are just more blatant about it now.
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butterbomb
1 hour ago
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It’s less about any of that. It’s more that I’m glad I won’t have to hear them deify the constitution anymore because they don’t care for it much anymore.
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5upplied_demand
14 minutes ago
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I don't believe that will happen. The Constitution will continue to be paraded as a tool to attack perceived enemies and protect allies. We already see it all over the place when MAGA talks about the 1st and 2nd Amendments.

The hypocrisy doesn't matter to them because it isn't (and never was) about the "ideals" of the Constitution, it is about punishing enemies.

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epolanski
1 hour ago
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> The silver lining in all this is that the American people might come out a bit less retarded

I don't buy it, after January 6th and Trump getting re-elected, despite everything it will have to get much much worse before there's a conscious change.

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bdangubic
1 hour ago
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difficult to have a change when you control just about all of the media. every decision now has a “reasonable” explanation and we past the point where people will en masse admit they fucked up. I have numerous friends who voted to the right in 2024 and it is fascinating to hear narrative after narrative and “excuses” why this is all good for us. nevermind that we had discussion in 2024 before election where just about every single reason they debated for voting to right has been shown that it was all BS… I am past the point where I believe there will be a change (it is not helping that alternative to this madness ain’t that great either)
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NoMoreNicksLeft
1 hour ago
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>Americans voted for all of this to happen.

We did. And if anyone would stop to actually analyze it, instead of just insinuating that we're all yucky poopooheads for doing so (in the futile attempt to shame us into stopping), they might come to understand why. Whatever the alternative is to how we're voting, as exemplified by Europe, we don't want it. Maybe there are more options besides those two, but no one's offered those or even described what they could be. Europe certainly hasn't.

>not one was a parliamentary republic.

And thank god that we're not one then. We'd truly be hopeless.

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donkeybeer
1 hour ago
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I am glad the stupids show themselves. I'd be much worried if they were smart enough to look sane.
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Vegenoid
17 minutes ago
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> it remains structurally constrained by separation of powers, federalism, and independent courts and media, features that fascist regimes systematically dismantle.

But the Trump administration (a.k.a. the executive branch) is trying to systematically dismantle these things. When people refer to fascism in the U.S. government, they don’t mean the entire government. They mean the Trump administration, which is the face of the U.S. government, has a great deal of the share of power, and is seeking more. The brand of far right nationalism, that the nation is in decline and violence must be used to restore it, along with the economic policies and deference to corporations and the wealthy, are things that make them more fascist than just authoritarian.

Saying that we cannot call it fascism until the transformation is complete doesn’t make sense - if a group of people have beliefs and goals that align with fascism, and are taking steps to impose them, you can call them fascist, even if they have not yet realized the full set of conditions that make the government fully fascist.

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kergonath
1 hour ago
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> The issue is that when people start abusing words like "fascism" out of context they make those words lose meaning.

So, rhetorical question: was Hitler a fascist during the failed Munich coup? Or did he suddenly became one when he was appointed chancellor? Are we not allowed to see what’s in front of our eyes until they build gas chambers?

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epolanski
8 minutes ago
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Are you using fascism as an ideology or a governing structure?
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Glyptodon
1 hour ago
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The US is not significantly constrained - the current SCOTUS is more like an agreived clerical council than serious arbiter of the Constitution, while Trump has clearly been hoping to do away with meaningful elections (and the failures are more so because of how oddly ineffective/silly his faction can be than real systemic resilience). Similarly, he has majorities in Congress, which are just enough to let him do whatever he wants. I will grant that these MAGATs haven't fully succeeded, but it's more like they're 2/3ds of the way there and oddly bad at parts of the game than separation of powers, the courts, etc., working.

On a different level I've been unsure whether it'sgood to call it facsism. But it's effectively at least a stepchild.

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lordnacho
1 hour ago
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> If you start calling everything fascism

Ok, but who is calling everything fascism? He's talking about one particular country at a particular time.

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orwin
1 hour ago
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Fascist mythos is simple: you're in the greatest nation, and the greatest "type" of human (genetics for the nazis, cultural for the Italian fascists, christian for some South american fascists early 20th century, your choice, but but beware one type of superiority easily bleed into others), but yet, inferior humans (neighbors) seems to have better lives. It's because of internal traitors(jews and communists mostly, "judeoblochevism" as a word exist for a reason, and it isn't because it was a material reality) that are bringing their own country down. We must purge them to finally take our rightfull place.

Fascism cannot exist without internal enemies, nationalist authoritarianism can. If your president/dictator is whining about internal enemies that infiltrated the government and capitalist society to bring it down, congratulation, it's not simple nationalist authoritarian tendencies, it's fascist tendencies.

Basically: if you add an "interior enemy" narrative to a right-wing authoritarism, you have fascism.

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KPGv2
1 hour ago
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> when people start abusing words like "fascism" out of context they make those words lose meaning

The thing is, fascism has always been a bit of a loose term. It doesn't have a strict meaning. It was invented by one guy to name his government, not describe it analytically.

Mussolini invented the word "fascismo" to describe his movement, Fasci Italiani di Combattimeto.

So any use of "fascism" outside this one instance is by loose comparison to his government (because tight comparison would inevitably be unproductive: no government is exact the same as another).

The best we can do in a literalist manner is identify that the etymology is related to fasces, a bundle of rods tied together in Roman times (tying rods together make them far more difficult to snap in half), and recognize that the implication here is that a fascist government is focused on strength through unity.

It was then broadly adopted by Mussolini's adherents.

So, unless we only want to restrict "fascist" to an identifier for Mussolini's party and government, we have motivation to come up with elements of similar politics/government/partisanship by looking at the elements that made up Mussolini's movement:

- nationalism

- right-wing

- totalitarian

- violence as a means of control

etc.

Personally, I like Umberto Eco's delineation of what makes fascism (because he was an intellectual and grew up in Mussolini's Italy): https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci...

He elucidates fourteen elements that make up fascism:

1. cult of tradition

2. rejection of modernism

3. cult of action for its own sake (i.e., intellectual reflection doesn't contribute value)

4. disagreement is treason

5. fear of difference

6. appeal to frustrated middle class

7. obsession with a plot (e.g., "there is a plot by foreigners to destroy us from within)

8. cast their enemies as both too weak and too strong

9. life is permanent warfare (i.e., there is always an enemy to fight)

10. contempt for the weak

11. everyone is educated to become a hero

12. machismo

13. selective populism

14. newspeak

I honestly feel like #11 is the only one we don't definitely have in the US right now. I wold prefer not to waste my time giving examples of the other thirteen, but if someone doesn't think it's obvious, I will respond at some point.

At its essence, if you take these fourteen points holistically, the vibe is "the 'right kind of' citizenry is in a constant state of hatred toward some other, and they should be pressured to take action without thought"

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terminalshort
28 minutes ago
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This is an overfit model that contains many basic parts of human behavior and then tags them part of fascism just because the fascists did it.
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joering2
2 hours ago
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> You call it for what it is: an executive with authoritarian tendencies.

I think you misunderstand fascism. Fascism is not gassing certain minority group of people in concentration camps, that's called crimes against humanity. It might be an endgame to fascism if you are government that is allowed to commit those crimes without consequences, but the road to it is still fascism regardless whether you historically know how it ends. Calling press "the enemy of the people" as Trump did (also known as "Lügenpresse") IS a form of fascism. You don't need to push Democrats and immigrants into gas chambers to be full blown fascist. Overwhelming amount of actions taken by this democratic government ARE what most historians call fascism.

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epolanski
1 hour ago
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> I think you misunderstand fascism.

I think you're projecting.

Fascism, in political science, has some clear requirements: a government that controls all branches of power, lack of elections and effective ban of free speech and other political parties.

It also requires ideological aspects such as nationalism and far right politics, otherwise fascism would apply to far left dictatorships which didn't have these traits.

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kergonath
1 hour ago
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And how do you call someone who advocates for the advent of such a government? A fascist. Which Trump and the MAGA right clearly are.
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joering2
1 hour ago
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I suggest to learn what projecting means.

You really going to say that Trump and his Administration does not control all branches of power?

During Third Reich neither press was banned nor elections. Look it up, Google is still free to research. Unless of course you want to endup at conclusion that Nazism and Third Reich wasn't fascism.

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HelloNurse
24 minutes ago
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As an example of the likely future of science in the USA, read about Trofim Lysenko.
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hypeatei
3 hours ago
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That word makes a lot of people uncomfortable and many will shut their brains off when they see it. It's a perfect word to describe what's happening, but sometimes describing the characteristics of it is better for engagement.

There are a lot of reactionaries in today's political landscape.

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Ygg2
2 hours ago
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> It's a perfect word to describe what's happening

I don't think it really fits, but the US is sliding towards illiberal democracy.

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Spivak
2 hours ago
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Fascism isn't really a form of government though, it's a political ideology and aesthetics that we see echoed through different regimes. You can be a democracy on paper while in practice being a single party corporate oligarchy with a cult of personality surrounding the head of state.

Ur-Fascism describes the ideology of MAGA exactly. Clearly there's some apprehension admitting this, it's a strong-man political ideology that has evolved many times organically throughout history. It doesn't necessarily imply that the regime is bad or evil or anything but the problem ends up being that the term exists because governments that adopt this ideology end up converging on the same unsavory behaviors despite any initial differences. That convergence is I think what a lot of Americans are afraid of because we're already doing most of them.

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hypeatei
2 hours ago
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Ultra nationalist, cult of personality, using violence to suppress opposition... you don't see any parallels, really?

EDIT: Illiberalism is a tenet of fascism as well.

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gadflyinyoureye
2 hours ago
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You forgot to couple with that the oligarchy. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

So yes, the US has enough of the hallmarks to be considered a fascist state. It doesn't need to tick every single box for that title.

Edit from Wikipedia: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe.[1][2][3] Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.[3][4] Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism,[5][6] fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum.[1][6][7] What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.

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Ygg2
2 hours ago
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Ok, but what are the hallmarks of a fascist state?
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maxfurman
2 hours ago
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Look up "On Fascism" by Umberto Eco, it's not that long and was written long enough ago that you can't say it was influenced by any of our current leaders.
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Ygg2
2 hours ago
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Sure, I see ultranationalism. And if I squint, I can see that a huge chunk of the US population is pro-Trump, but that's not culty overall.

You can still speak against him, as far as I can tell. Compare this to, say, Mao Zedong. If you spoke against him, your life was forfeit, and even that's not fascism.

If this is one of those fuzzy definitions, it definitely isn't on the strong side. Where is the rampant militarism, the worship of death, and of the military?

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alistairSH
2 hours ago
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Where is the rampant militarism

ICE budget increases.

NG deployed domestically several times.

Renaming DoD to DoW.

Invasion of ~2 sovereign nations

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voidUpdate
2 hours ago
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There's been quite a lot of worship of the military in america... Also haven't armed forces been deployed domestically a few times in the current presidency?
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philk10
1 hour ago
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the worship of death? try all the videos of 'lethal kinetic strikes' on speedboats
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donkeybeer
2 hours ago
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Are you fucking kidding me? I doubt even soviets were this cult like the way magas are about trump. He may not have managed to bring america to soviet levels yet, but the acolytes are absolutely a trump cult.
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miltonlost
2 hours ago
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> Where is the rampant militarism

ICE

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hypeatei
2 hours ago
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> rampant militarism, the worship of death, and of the military?

See: the recent events in Minneapolis and the massive increase in funding for ICE. You don't have to look very hard to see what the new brownshirts are doing in blue cities and the MAGAs covering for them.

Oh also the federalization of the National Guard and US Marine deployment to Los Angeles. Things move quickly and people forget but that's exactly their playbook: flooding the zone with so much shit that it's hard to keep track.

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rayiner
2 hours ago
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The irony is that almost every single one of the countries these foreigners come from would do exactly the same thing were the shoe on the other foot. If running government-funded research to maximize the opportunities for native born people is “fascism,” then every country in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East is “fascist.” Borderless universalism is a niche idea even in the west, and virtually non-existent outside it.
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satao
2 hours ago
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you present a lot of conviction yet there is not a single source for your opinion that was presented.
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busterarm
2 hours ago
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He's from one of those countries.
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zombot
3 hours ago
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Trump hates science anyway, so why not fire all scientists? Problem solved. /s
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AlecSchueler
3 hours ago
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Isn't what they're basically doing with the massive funding cuts and cover-ups?
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joering2
2 hours ago
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I don't think its about hate, its more like he doesn't believe in taking away something he cannot see with his own eye. Here his idea is that research and development will still continue happening even if overwhelming majority of people responsible for it in the past, will be gone.

Take COVID for example. We were fine with minor breakouts prior to Trump administration. They came in and Trump saw we are spending $3.7 million on safety measures in Wuhan Lab, fund designated by Obama (here comes first red flag right?) By his standard you could not SEE the protection so he wanted to look like Champion and save tax payers 3.7 million by removing that protection. We all know what came next and boy was damage more financially painful than mere 3.7 mil?

Its like a person who doesn't wear a seat belt because they never been in a car accident so they don't see the point. If given power they would remove mandates to wear seatbelts and have insurance companies deal with the outcome.

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lysace
3 hours ago
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Every time I see something specific like this I wonder if there was something very similar and specific happening in Berlin ~90-93 years ago.

I've tried reviewing online archives of German books/newspapers but it's obviously very time consuming. The large LLM:s don't seem to index this area sufficiently.

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johanvts
2 hours ago
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Next up, “American science”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik
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beej71
5 minutes ago
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It makes no sense to people who want to live in a globally-competitive democracy. But other people don't share that goal, and the moves make perfect sense in their context.
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epistasis
2 minutes ago
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I think this is an important point. Think about the mindset it takes to understand this proposal as a "great" thing for America. What would you have to believe? What values would you have to change in order for a foreign scientist ban to be "great". Be sure to try to limit you understanding of science to wha you might receive from watching the most popular cable news channel as your definitive source of information.

This is not the mindset of all MAGA but it's a difficult exercise for most thoughtful engineers to try to live in that mind space for a while. It's a very different world, and I can only do it because I have many conversations with family members to draw on.

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jfengel
4 hours ago
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It is often asked what an actual foreign agent would do differently if he were trying to destroy the country.

I don't think that's entirely valid. Nonetheless, there is enough overlap that the question keeps getting raised.

So... perhaps that's what you're missing?

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Tangurena2
58 seconds ago
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Hanlon's razor still applies: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" [0]. He might be such a foreign agents, however we know that he is unintelligent and narcissistic, therefore everyone who makes him look stupid/bad is suddenly "public enemy number one."

Notes:

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

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sigwinch
3 hours ago
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Or, as the Canadian press wonders, right now, today and continuously, how can we tell if he’s lost his mind?
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daveguy
2 hours ago
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When he forgets to tell us how smart he is, and how many very difficult dementia tests he's passed. That's when he'll be fully scrambled.
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thrance
55 minutes ago
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It's easy to pin this all on a foreign enemy, but this "theory" is completely invalidated by noticing that Trump receives support from all the most powerful person of the country: Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Ellison, Bezos... America doesn't need foreign adversaries to destroy itself.
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tokai
15 minutes ago
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Two of the big names in your list there are not even americans.
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JohnTHaller
3 minutes ago
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> What am I missing?

Racism and Christian Nationalism

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davidw
2 hours ago
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Their goal is to destroy science in the US because it comes up with results that are inconvenient for them.
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cue_the_strings
4 hours ago
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You're missing the preparation for WW3.
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est
2 hours ago
[-]
like how WWII started after excluding Jewish scientists?
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throwaway5752
2 hours ago
[-]
It did in Germany.
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pempem
46 minutes ago
[-]
The goal is the grift + outrage. If you can get both, great. If you can get just one, a very solid win. Each time something is thrown into full chaos there stands a private actor or dozens to make 7-8 figures.
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epolanski
2 hours ago
[-]
> What am I missing?

The age of counter productive selfishness which escalates to national and international politics.

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throwaway5752
2 hours ago
[-]
The administration has done nothing but be loudly and proudly racist and ant-science.

It mades all the sense in the world. It is terrible, but it makes sense.

They have brought incalculable shame and future suffering on the US.

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ndsipa_pomu
2 hours ago
[-]
Don't forget about the murders, illegal wars and covering up for rich pedophiles/rapists.
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piokoch
2 hours ago
[-]
USA does not want to train scientists from other countries, who come home and can use that knowledge against interest of US companies, as a competition, or security. There are vast areas of science that are "double use". Will it help to keep stuff out of range of unwanted foreign actors? Hard to tell. Does it hurt USA soft power, sure. So the net result is to be seen.
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hobofan
2 hours ago
[-]
Anything that's "double use" is already treated with a distinct level of scrutiny.
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gigatexal
2 hours ago
[-]
You’re missing nothing. This is just another boneheaded footgun by this admin. What a time to be live and be an American. I’m ashamed to be one and living internationally. Everyone is either pitying me or laughing at me because my government is so corrupt, stupid and incompetent.

More problematic than my own ridicule is what this will portend for US science and the US for leading science research. We must fight to keep the US a destination for cutting edge science and research and one way to do that is to attract the best and brightest from all parts of the globe.

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croes
4 hours ago
[-]
Did you miss who was elected president?

There isn’t much rationality since then.

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chazftw
3 hours ago
[-]
The fact that there are many American citizens willing to do that work
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dangus
2 hours ago
[-]
Used to be that America was great because the smartest researchers in the world wanted to come here, often escaping oppressive regimes to do so, and become American citizens (e.g., Albert Einstein)

So now all the world’s best and brightest scientists will move to China where they’ll be welcomed in open arms, enjoy living in a modern society with affordable electric cars, the world’s premier high speed train network, glimmering new subway systems, and ample affordable housing.

They’ll work on cutting-edge research projects that receive ample funding and support while American scientists wrestle with a federal government torn apart by anti-intellectual strongmen.

You ever see a Tesla robot demo like this? https://youtu.be/mUmlv814aJo

Are we tired of winning yet? It sounds like we are beyond tired of winning, we’d rather lose from here on out.

Seems like Russia and the USA are hell-bent on destroying themselves fighting forever wars to allow China and the EU to take the reins as the beacons of global stability and strength.

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terminalshort
22 minutes ago
[-]
I've seen a much more impressive Tesla robot demo: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8vsTNFUFJEU

Large scale movements are much easier.

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nixon_why69
2 hours ago
[-]
The language is still a barrier to that so it will happen slower than one would think. Top scientists from everywhere outside China generally know English and not Chinese.

That said, China is sponsoring lots of foreign students from belt and road countries to come there and learn Chinese, so its a work in progress.

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thrance
50 minutes ago
[-]
A scientist moving to a country isn't usually expected to learn the local language, the vast majority of laboratories speak English.
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leptons
1 hour ago
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>So now all the world’s best and brightest scientists will move to China where they’ll be welcomed in open arms

They'll also get to experience as much or more racism than they would have in America, but likely far more racism. In America you find racism in some (usually rural) areas, and people who are very accepting in other areas (big cities where most science research is typically done). I'm not sure China is going to be the easiest place to build a life for foreigners.

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Ray20
1 hour ago
[-]
> Used to be that America was great because the smartest researchers in the world wanted to come here, often escaping oppressive regimes to do so, and become American citizens (e.g., Albert Einstein)

By this measure, America is now greater than ever.

Of course, it's convenient to pretend that Trump is building a racist dictatorship with a Gestapo, and that's why no one wants to move to the US. But the true is that the number of people around the world who would like to move to the US is higher than ever. Especially when the current administration is trying to purge society of foreign criminals.

> So now all the world’s best and brightest scientists will move to China

Yes, of course. It's practically the same thing. The only reason scientists go to China is because they are not allowed into the US.

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muddi900
1 hour ago
[-]
There are a lot of leaps in this comment
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DiogenesKynikos
51 minutes ago
[-]
The American citizens with top academic performance are already getting those jobs.

What you're effectively proposing is to prefer Americans with mediocre academic performance over top-tier international talent.

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kgwxd
3 hours ago
[-]
The one that couldn't afford a decent education? The ones that will be in debt for life (bribery risk)? The ones that paid money to be handed a degree, and wouldn't do an honest days work if their life depended on it?
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xvector
3 hours ago
[-]
No offense but born-in-the-US citizens are... not great at the most demanding knowledge work. The ones that are have all been hired. Our education system is trash and normalizes getting Bs/Cs.

I see so many people complaining about H1Bs at tech jobs. At least the H1Bs pass the interviews!

Disclaimer: born and raised in the US myself.

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terminalshort
25 minutes ago
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Not quite right. The US doesn't normalize getting Bs and Cs, it just gives As to everyone.
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orochimaaru
1 hour ago
[-]
I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate classification (as a former H1B and a naturalized citizen).

The leetcode nature of the whole process doesn’t lend itself to be motivating for people who aren’t really hungry for a job. As a US citizen you can say fuck it, I don’t need to deal with this shit. As an H1B you’re forced to deal with it otherwise you need to leave the country.

I’ve hired plenty of sharp and talented folks who were born here.

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xvector
17 minutes ago
[-]
I am not saying that sharp and talented folks aren't born in the US.

I am saying that our culture generally has resulted in fewer talented folks than the H1B population because we have a cultural focus on education.

For example, it is culturally acceptable in the US to get poor grades throughout K-12.

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htx80nerd
1 hour ago
[-]
>What am I missing?

I will answer this question honestly. I used to be friends with a group of PhD students work worked in labs. Every week I heard their complaints. One relayed a story in which a Chinese lab mate / co-worker was refusing to following their boss (PI) directions or request, and shared secret results with another Chinese student in a competing lab.

- Their boss (the PI) had asked the Chinese student to train other labmates on some specific testing methods, they refused.

- The Chinese PhD student would simply ignore the PI emails.

- Then magically their study results end up leaked to another Chinese PhD candidate.

Chinese PhD types can 'buy' their way into labs. They have so much money no one wants to turn them away. Only the government can force it.

Most people have no idea what day-to-day life is actually like in PhD life / labs. It's a lot less "science" and way more "human drama" than you could imagine.

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DiogenesKynikos
53 minutes ago
[-]
Are we supposed to generalize your third-hand anecdote about one Chinese PhD student to all Chinese PhD students?

> Chinese PhD types can 'buy' their way into labs. They have so much money no one wants to turn them away.

The way it works in the US is that labs pay the PhD students, not the other way around. I have never heard of a student paying the lab, ever.

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hnthrowaway0315
4 hours ago
[-]
> Scientists from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria are considered “high risk.”

I think this makes sense from a national security perspective (although I doubt there is any scientist coming from these countries who are working on sensitive projects, maybe except China). Since there is too much trouble to figure out who is a spy, might as well ban all of them for the moment.

I do feel a strong nostalgia about the globalization era between the 90s and the 2010s, when I spent most of my life. But I understand it comes to an end, and I'm going to spend my second half of life in a much more splintered world.

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rsfern
4 hours ago
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This list of high risk countries is not new (with the exception of maybe Venezuela being recently added, I’m not sure). Researchers with these citizenships have faced extra security review before joining NIST for years, and last year the lab increased the level of security review for everyone (not just this list)

I can understand a clearly communicated need for additional security requirements. But NIST operates almost totally in open science mode, with the main exceptions of being industry cooperative agreements. I don’t think this move to shed international researchers by reneging on commitments from the lab has been at all justified from a security standpoint.

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niam
40 minutes ago
[-]
So as to not mislead anyone who didn't read the article, the section following your quoted text is:

> Researchers from lower risk countries have been told they could lose access beginning in either September or December if at that point they have been at the lab more than 2 years or, under a waiver, 3 years.

In other words: they're also looking to bar foreign nationals outside of that quoted list, which to my mind is less understandable.

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danny_codes
1 hour ago
[-]
It doesn’t make sense from a national security perspective actually.

A better plan would be to encourage skilled immigration and offer compelling benefits and stability like family visas, free movement, and so on. That way, the best people would make their contributions to science and society here. It’s actually a masterstroke because it deprives other countries of their best people.

The current administration is filled with weak men and therefore chose policies that look “strong” but are actually rooted in personal insecurity

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_joel
2 hours ago
[-]
There have been many cases of US born citizens selling secrets to foeign powers (same here in UK).

As a side note (tangentailly related) I wonder if the US would have gained nuclear capabilities if it wasn't for foreign scientists.

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burkaman
1 hour ago
[-]
It makes sense to stop poaching talented scientists and instead let them continue working for your adversaries? I don't understand how this improves national security. The proposed rule is actually worse than this:

> The changes are part of proposed rules aimed at increasing security that would limit, to 3 years, the maximum length of time visiting international researchers can work at NIST.

If researchers know that they cannot stay in the US permanently and will be forced to return to their home country in a few years, it guarantees that they must maintain ties to that home country and dramatically increases their incentive to spy. What would you do if your government asked you to spy during a temporary stay abroad, and threatened you with arrest upon your return if you refuse?

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hmry
2 hours ago
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>makes sense from a national security perspective

Does it? AFAIK NIST doesn't work on national security relevant research.

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righthand
2 hours ago
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Oh my god the national security! Someone make up the hypothetical situations the national security might be compromised without proof of any of it! Let me pull out my wallet and take out my national security detector…yep it’s lower than before! Quick pile on the propaganda!
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ajewhere
4 hours ago
[-]
But aren't they happy you bring them democracy? I am confused..
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goku12
3 minutes ago
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I'm aware of the political landscape in the US right now. But I must ask. What exactly are the policy makers thinking? Do they hold some sort of delusions about the intellectual superiority of their race? Or do they believe that they don't need scientific talent, research and knowledge to be a great nation and civilization? Or do they believe that these deficiencies can be resolved with money alone?

I'm puzzled by autocrats beyond a certain limit. Their actions don't really seem to fit any logic, if their intention is to be become unchallengeable and unassailable. This seems like ceding the advantage to any future rivals.

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ggm
5 hours ago
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> NIST researchers do not carry out classified research. As a result, Gallagher says, “It’s very difficult to see the security benefit this might have.”
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dghughes
2 hours ago
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Here in Canada when the new CPC took power its leader PM Harper muzzled scientists from speaking about most things but most of all anything about climate change. It also destroyed climate data claiming the ledgers were old fashioned, but they were the only copies.

The CPC political are the old centre-right PC party that combined with more right secessionist and (evangelical) Christian political parties.

Harper is still lurking in the shadows and pulling strings decade after being ousted as Prime Minister.

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e40
54 minutes ago
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> Harper is still lurking in the shadows and pulling strings decade after being ousted as Prime Minister.

Do you mean he still has an impact or he is actively impacting things now?

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samrus
5 hours ago
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> Sources at NIST contacted by ScienceInsider say they have yet to see any written versions of the proposed rules, which have been conveyed in meetings. Patrick Gallagher, a former NIST director now at the University of Pittsburgh, says the lack of clear communication and the short notice being given to foreign scientists is creating a sense of chaos. “I’m as disappointed as to how this is unfolding as to what is unfolding,” Gallagher says. “At the very least NIST owes an explanation to the country. If there is a good reason for what they are doing, they should flat out say what it is.”

This is the sort of "high agency", not waiting for permission mentality that works great for a startup thats making tinder for cats, but is really bad for foundational institutions that provide a critical service to not just the nation but humanity in general. I feel like musk and his DOGE initiative infected the government with this move fast and break things bullshit. Or they were at least correlational with it

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avs733
3 hours ago
[-]
not only that but they leveraged the 'compliance' mindset that comes with government institutions to do so.

This was first reported at least a week or two ago and only now are they getting aroun dto thinking about making it an actual rule (which takes time and process). The rules that aren't really rules for plausible deniability serve several purposes including normalizing compliance in advance.

I'll set aside opinions of the rule because people can really feel differently about the long and short term balance of security and soft power...but not rule rules is an approach to government I really struggle to see both sides of.

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mrtesthah
3 hours ago
[-]
Read about the administrative state vs prerogative state. This is what the latter looks like.
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mikkupikku
5 hours ago
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Probably the most direct way to kick out the people they're actually worried about without invoking legal process for each one specifically, not least because if they did it on a case by case basis there would likely be an undeniable ethnic/national signal that right now is getting hidden in the noise. In other words, instead of targetting researchers for being Chinese nationals, and then subsequently having to defend ethnic discrimination in court, they're just going to throw the baby out with the bath water.

That's my guess anyway.

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this-is-why
5 hours ago
[-]
It’s the trump admin. They don’t care about the decorum you’ve described. They would have no qualms about looking racist. Have you not seen what ICE has been doing? Racism is a badge of honor, and so is flipping off the courts and public opinion. No I believe this is simply paranoia and racism driven by Miller and his cronies.
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titanomachy
5 hours ago
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It's not about "looking racist"; or at least, it's not about public opinion. A racially targeted measure would violate specific laws and would be challenged in court, likely successfully.
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rolandog
5 hours ago
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It could also be a signal that they intend to take on the world; so they could technically not be racist if "everyone else is a threat".
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sigwinch
3 hours ago
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The Kavanaugh rule specifically permits it. If you’re taking odds that this Supreme Court will challenge the Kavanaugh rule, I’ll wager 1:1 against.
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watwut
3 hours ago
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Not sure if you noticed, lower courts ruled against administration many times ... they were ignored.

And as a bonus upreme court practically ruled president can be lawless as he pleases.

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pixl97
3 hours ago
[-]
That was so years ago, this is the point we're at now.

SCOTUS: Nothing Trump does is illegal.

Trump: "does illegal things"

Courts: You can't do this, it is illegal.

Trump: "ignores courts"

Courts: "shocked pikachu face"

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ReptileMan
4 hours ago
[-]
There have been cases of British, Bulgarian, Canadian, German and Irish nationals also gotten in their claws. Seems pretty race agnostic to me.
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agrounds
3 hours ago
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This is a naive take. Are there specific instances involving individuals of many nationalities/ethnicities? Yes. Is ICE then ignoring race during its operations? Absolutely not. ICE agents are arresting people based solely on their physical appearance and accents. It is band faced racism.
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ReptileMan
3 hours ago
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If it was racism there would be extremely high false positive ratios. Is it observed?
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mrguyorama
8 minutes ago
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Are you fucking kidding me? Pay attention.

ICE came into Maine with almost 2000 "targets". They arrested about 200 people. They ended up bragging about 17 "bad guys", and even that list is possibly filled with lies.

Some of the 200 arrested that weren't actually immigrants include a brown man who passed a background check and flew to Texas recently to fulfill immigration requirements to work for our local Law Enforcement. It includes tons of people who are legal residents and had papers on their person to that effect. Those papers are often left behind when the person gets kidnapped, which includes an unmarked van filled with ICE nuts screeching in front of someone's SUV in city traffic, jumping out, breaking the window to the SUV, dragging the man out, and speeding off, leaving a still running SUV sitting in the middle of the street, with papers. A literal kidnapping scene from a movie, but sure, totally normal and upstanding law enforcement activity. Our own cops, not exactly liberals, are finding it hard not to publicly call them stupid assholes. These cops are mostly Trump voters.

Don't stick your head in the sand and cry when people point out how uninformed you are. Their entire operation is almost entirely false positives. They've sent people who live here legally to other countries without authority.

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somenameforme
3 hours ago
[-]
It would be rather nonsensical to completely ignore ethnicity in your operations when the wide majority of illegal immigrants are going to be of that ethnicity. Obviously that would not justify widespread harassment of that group, but nothing like that seems to be happening. Mostly people seem to be trying to stop them from deporting people genuinely in the country illegally, which is divisive - independent of partisanship.

If the DNC has chosen this hill to die on, I don't think they're going to do anywhere as near good as they should do in November given Trump is engaging in some extremely unpopular and foolish behavior that people, again going beyond partisan lines, could easily rally together against.

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watwut
3 hours ago
[-]
> Obviously that would not justify widespread harassment of that group, but nothing like that seems to be happening.

Exactly that is happening in places ICE focuses on. Kawanaugh stops with, like, beating or multi day/week/months imprisonment are a thing.

With legal immigrants, strategy seems to be to hold them in as bad conditions as possible until they sign off own deportation.

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somenameforme
2 hours ago
[-]
I completely agree they're a thing, but at what scale? The current administration has deported something like 600,000 illegal immigrants. What do you think their accuracy rate is carrying out those deportations? An accuracy rate of 50% would mean there'd be 600,000 errors. An accuracy rate of 70% would mean we'd expect to see around 250,000 errors. An accuracy rate of 90% would mean we'd expect to see around 67,000 errors.

A quick search [1] on this topic showed 50 people have been wrongfully detained. Even if we increase that figure substantially, it implies an extremely high success rate, which isn't really possible if you're just engaging in widespread fishing expeditions.

[1] - https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...

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malshe
35 minutes ago
[-]
Stopped ≠ detained. The government doesn't release stats on who was stopped. Kavanaugh stops are literally about using race as a criterion for the stop. No other probable cause is required.
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whizzter
3 hours ago
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Researchers from "low risk countries" will be thrown out later this year.
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foolserrandboy
3 hours ago
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Are ethnic Chinese from Taiwan still allowed? If so it's probably just about the US' geopolitical rivals not being allowed perceived competitive advantages.
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ibejoeb
1 hour ago
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I don't find any materials on ethnic prohibitions. There are a lot of problems with that. Among them, it would either fail to achieve the goal. For example, let's say there was a Turk born and raised in PRC and totally aligned with the CCP: prohibiting Han from working in labs doesn't work.
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ajross
4 hours ago
[-]
> kick out the people they're actually worried about without invoking legal process for each one specifically

Why are we assuming either/both good faith and competence here? Is there anything about the policymaking of this administration that lends credence to that hypothesis? Are there pre-existing policy proposals you're imagining that have weighed pros and cons about this? Existing abuses you're imagining that this curtails?

No, let's be real here: this is yet another impulsive idea that some crank sold the president/cabinet on.

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mikkupikku
2 hours ago
[-]
> Why are we assuming either/both good faith and competence here

There is obviously a breakdown in either communication or understanding here. I have assumed neither good faith nor competence. On the contrary, the strategy I supposed above would be in bad faith and a symptom of incompetence.

Deporting researchers from every country to make it look like they aren't ethnically targetting people is in bad faith, and resorting to such measures instead of simply identifying and deporting the problematic individuals demonstrates their incompetence.

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TacticalCoder
5 hours ago
[-]
The problem with China anyway is that during the many decades when China was badly lagging, they already stole every secret they could. But now China has a very serious education system, motivated and intelligent people, lots of universities and researchers and China isn't lagging behind anymore.

So even if the goal was to prevent chinese from spying on US companies, it's too little, decades too late, because China is now at the very top too.

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pyuser583
4 hours ago
[-]
I’m not seeing any ambitious people trying to get into Chinese undergrad universities.

I know a handful of folks who worked at them, and then found a more permanent position in the US.

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kelipso
4 hours ago
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Comes in stages. Used to be ambitious Chinese people wouldn’t go to Chinese universities for grad school (undergrad Chinese university to overseas grad school was a usual route). Now they definitely do. Next there might be foreign grad students in Chinese universities, then foreign undergrad students. Though you would have to learn Chinese I imagine, so that barrier is there.
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mikkupikku
2 hours ago
[-]
Virtually nobody who isn't ethnically Chinese will be able to become a naturalized Chinese citizen, no matter how sincerely they dedicate their life to productively fitting into Chinese society. On paper it's legally possible, but in practice it just doesn't happen. There is also the matter of global comprehension of the English language vs Chinese. I think these factors together severely limits the number of foreigners trying to get into Chinese universities.
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RobotToaster
3 hours ago
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> I’m not seeing any ambitious people trying to get into Chinese undergrad universities.

If you mean internationally, there are some, mostly from Africa.

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999900000999
51 minutes ago
[-]
This has been happening for decades.

China spends a lot of money on international Chinese education. According to some , the top schools are now Chinese.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/06/18/...

Honestly the best thing about America, historically has been diversity. Mei can come here and become American within a few years. That’s only possible in America( and probably Canada too).

But now we don’t want international students. The world’s smartest will go elsewhere.

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mc32
4 hours ago
[-]
In geopolitics you are forced to make deals with the devil. We armed and supplied the USSR to defeat Germany in WWII. In the 90s we gave an out of work China a wold franchise so we could make a few extra bucks with cheap labor and one billion consumers. Our blu collar workers would put down their dangerous and heavy machinery on the dank shop floor so they could take snazzy white collar jobs that were healthier and paid better because they use their American education to skill up their brains.

People were sold on that and many bought it. And now here we are living in the aftermath of us propping up systems incongruous to our own and living it down. It comes down to jockeying politicians like J Kerry and company who pretend they work for the people but in all honesty only work for themselves (remember Kerry never threw out his own war medals but rather reproductions he bought in the PX). Jane Fonda, her vanity sunk the nuclear energy industry for fifty years.

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notaharvardmba
2 hours ago
[-]
Nixon (R) was the one to open China, fool. Your swift boating doesn’t work here.
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mc32
1 hour ago
[-]
Nixon was also wrong. The people who pushed this design over the finish line were the likes of GHW and Clinton, to the protest of the likes of Bernie back then.
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danny_codes
59 minutes ago
[-]
Stephen Miller is a racist xenophobe. If you aren’t a white “westerner” (or the “help”) he wants you out. And shockingly currently has the power to do so, since we’re run by the incel administration
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est
2 hours ago
[-]
History rhymes. The same happened in the 30s to Albert Einstein, Max Born, Lise Meitner, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, etc.
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analog31
2 hours ago
[-]
This is part of a plan to bring back inches, pounds, and the quarter-twenty.
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bronlund
4 hours ago
[-]
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lo_zamoyski
2 hours ago
[-]
I am noting two extremes in the comments which miss essential truths.

The first extreme begins with a true premise, but arrives at a false conclusion. The premise: as with manufacturing, the US should be minting more of its own scientists.

This is true. The US should have a more robust manufacturing base of its own. It should be educating more scientists.

However, the conclusion does not follow, namely, that the US should ban collaboration with, invitation, or employment of foreign scientists.

You don't build such things by going cold turkey. You cannot rebuild American manufacturing overnight, and you can't increase the number of home-grown scientists overnight either. This takes time and requires deeper shifts in the culture.

The second extreme is one that denies the premise above, or at least seems to deny its importance.

Collaboration with foreign scientists is good. That is unquestionable. There's also nothing wrong with attracting scientists. The problem is not collaboration or attracting talent, but rather a kind of parasitism that tries to make up for a country's own deficiencies in this manner as a permanent policy.

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trimethylpurine
2 hours ago
[-]
Misleading headline. They are moving specifically to restrict high risk countries like China, Syria, North Korea, etc. Not all foreign countries, as the headline threatens.
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fsh
13 minutes ago
[-]
From the article:

> Researchers from lower risk countries have been told they could lose access beginning in either September or December if at that point they have been at the lab more than 2 years or, under a waiver, 3 years.

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stogot
3 hours ago
[-]
That’s not what the headline says. Changing headline is a violation of hackers news rules
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notaharvardmba
2 hours ago
[-]
This whole thing feels like a troll. We should assume any new HN account created in the last 18 months is much more likely to be a bot, and now we got OpenClaw to worry about. Nothing stopping our true adversary or troublemakers from giving OpenClaw a plausible new identity and telling it to argue about given world view. Or pass whatever false information it can to try to change public opinion. Can you tell which replies in this thread are real vs propaganda?
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TomMasz
3 hours ago
[-]
Isn't this the same sort of thing that the Nazi's did?
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iso1631
1 hour ago
[-]
No, Nazis kicked out German citizens who they deemed to be Jewish

There are enough "enemies of the people" in the US at the moment that the MAGA leadership doesn't have to go after American citizens.

There's been rhetoric about how some Americans are not "real americans" but America seems a way off 1934 yet, and they're going about it in a different order. History never repeats, but it usually rhymes

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leptons
59 minutes ago
[-]
>There are enough "enemies of the people" in the US at the moment that the MAGA leadership doesn't have to go after American citizens.

Tell that to any trans person that is an American citizen. They are literally trying to make "trans" into a terrorist designation.

Tell that to the many Latino American citizens who have been arrested by masked armed ICE agents, thrown into unmarked cars and taken away simply because of the color of their skin.

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righthand
2 hours ago
[-]
America loves Nazis they’ve been obsessing over them for decades to the point they’ve been romanticized. And if there’s one thing Americans love more than not-thinking it’s romanticism and propaganda.
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OutOfHere
3 hours ago
[-]
Nothing that NIST produces can be trusted. In modern times, NIST is effectively an arm of the NSA. The job of NIST is to add vulnerabilities to everything for NSA to exploit. It's no wonder that they don't want foreign workers. Industry would be better off completely ignoring them.
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DudeOpotomus
2 hours ago
[-]
Trumpers are the dumbest, most gullible people in society. The only good thing about them is they self identify.

They have shown you who they are, over and over and over... Makes it much easier to avoid them.

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jmyeet
3 hours ago
[-]
Some years ago I came to the conclusion that the US would ultimately consider it a security risk to employ mainland Chinese born people (or even just people who had family in mainland China still) in any classified or sensitive industry.

I think I've now reached the point where it doesn't matter. Capitalism itself has made maintaining any kind of technological or scientific edge impossible. You don't need to break into some lab or plant sleeper agents or even coerce someone who has family back in the home country. No, it's far simpler than that.

When the US developed the atomic bomb some in American policy and military circles thought the Soviets would never get the bomb or it would take 20 years. It took 4. The Soviet hydrogen bomb was detonated th eyear after the US detonated ours.

In that case, the Soviets did run a sophisticated operations but also a bunch of people just gave them stuff for ideological reasons.

Let's compare that to EUV. The US restricted both the export of EUV lithography machines from ASML to China as well as the most advanced chips. The second was a mistake (IMHO) because it created a captive market for Chinese alternatives and it became clear to China that it was in their national security interest not to be dependent upon the US for chipmaking or chipsd.

Now China doesn't need to do anything sophisticated. It just needs to throw a bunch of money at some key reserarchers and engineers from ASML and elsewhere and say "hey, come work for us". What are you going to do?

Also, the US likes to paint this picture that China engaged in industrial espionage. And maybe they did. But they did so with the full knowledge and cooperation of US businesses who outsourced to China knowing this was going to happen but hey, it increased short-term profits, so who cares?

At the same time as the US cuts science funding so Jeff Bezos can be slightly wealthier, Chinese universities are surging in global rankings for research [1].

There's no getting this genie back in the bottle. It's too late.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/harvard-global-ranking...

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orbital-decay
42 minutes ago
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>but also a bunch of people just gave them stuff for ideological reasons

Which was rather infamously not used in the actual research but was gatekept and used to verify the work of the domestic scientists.

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NickC25
2 hours ago
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>Also, the US likes to paint this picture that China engaged in industrial espionage. And maybe they did. But they did so with the full knowledge and cooperation of US businesses who outsourced to China knowing this was going to happen but hey, it increased short-term profits, so who cares?

At the same time as the US cuts science funding so Jeff Bezos can be slightly wealthier, Chinese universities are surging in global rankings for research [1].

This is the crux of the issue.

We've allowed extremely short term capitalistic interests of the wealthiest of the wealthiest to dictate our national policy in a great many areas, including taxation, academics, immigration, etc.

I liken the situation to a game of chess - on one hand, you have a team of Grandmasters and a supercomputer taking the time to evaluate each move and understand the positives and negatives of any possible move. On the other hand, you have a pigeon, who is there because someone who has already been the beneficiary of tremendous luck has convinced their side that putting a pigeon on the board is good for everyone involved.

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bdangubic
4 hours ago
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President Biden’s Executive Order 14117 is related

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-03-01/pdf/2024-0...

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MyHonestOpinon
53 minutes ago
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If it was done by any other administration you can assume it went through a few layers of professional bureaucrats that considered multiple alternatives. But based on persistent observed behavior of the current president you just have to assume the worst possible intent.
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bdangubic
51 minutes ago
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I am not the defend the worst president in the history of the presidents of all mankind but I work in scientific community and this particular news is not “new” - spans both parties.

EO 14117 resulted in 6+ months of work for my team

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yieldcrv
5 hours ago
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its real war time now, so makes sense

I know the administration was already doing that and largely xenophobic, it just also makes sense now that the same administration went to war

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j16sdiz
4 hours ago
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Last time I checked, only congress can declare a war.
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rcruzeiro
3 hours ago
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Remind me again when was the last time congress declared war and how many other wars the US was involved in since then.
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devin
35 minutes ago
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Do you think this is a good thing?
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yieldcrv
16 minutes ago
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and the President has complete control over the executive branch to lay off scientists

unrelated nuance then yeah?

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AreShoesFeet000
5 hours ago
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The administration is doing what’s called “pragmatism”. Xenophobic will the reaction within society to justify it.
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FpUser
5 hours ago
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Not administration sympathizer but:

I think there are of course valid security concerns and this could be logical solution free of way more problematic issues of dealing on case by case basis.

On the other hand this will play more to people choosing some other country to advance their science aspiration and slowly but surely erode pool of talent for the US to help it stay dominant.

Practically the US have used people like Wernher von Braun on good scale and very sensitive areas and it worked just fine for the country. Qian Xuesen might of course have couple of words on the subject of course

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RobotToaster
4 hours ago
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Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society

Here to save our country from a communistic plot

Join the John Birch Society, help us fill the ranks

To get this movement started we need lots of tools and cranks

https://youtu.be/pG6taS9R1KM?si=QqquYHFG2S7o7-73

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