First they came for the Iranians
I’m sure there were weeks, in February or March 1933, when the educated, liberal Germans commiserated with each other over the latest outrages of their new Chancellor, but consoled themselves that at least none of it was going to affect them personally.
This time, it’s taken just five days, since the hostile takeover of the US by its worst elements, for edicts from above to have actually hurt my life and (much more directly) the lives of my students, friends, and colleagues.
Today, we learned that Trump is suspending the issuance of US visas to people from seven majority-Islamic countries, including Iran (but strangely not Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Wahhabist terrorism). This suspension might last just 30 days, but might also continue indefinitely—particularly if, as seems likely, the Iranian government thumbs its nose at whatever Trump demands that it do to get the suspension rescinded.
So the upshot is that, until further notice, science departments at American universities can no longer recruit PhD students from Iran—a country that, along with China, India, and a few others, has long been the source of some of our best talent. This will directly affect this year’s recruiting season, which is just now getting underway. (If Canada and Australia have any brains, they’ll snatch these students, and make the loss America’s.)
But what about the thousands of Iranian students who are already here? So far, no one’s rounding them up and deporting them. But their futures have suddenly been thrown into jeopardy.
Right now, I have an Iranian PhD student who came to MIT on a student visa in 2013. He started working with me two years ago, on the power of a rudimentary quantum computing model inspired by (1+1)-dimensional integrable quantum field theory. You can read our paper about it, with Adam Bouland and Greg Kuperberg, here. It so happens that this week, my student is visiting us in Austin and staying at our home. He’s spent the whole day pacing around, terrified about his future. His original plan, to do a postdoc in the US after he finishes his PhD, now seems impossible (since it would require a visa renewal).
Look: in the 11-year history of this blog, there have been only a few occasions when I felt so strongly about something that I stood my ground, even in the face of widespread attacks from people who I otherwise respected. One, of course, was when I spoke out for shy nerdy males, and for a vision of feminism broad enough to recognize their suffering as a problem. A second was when I was more blunt about D-Wave, and about its and its supporters’ quantum speedup claims, than some of my colleagues were comfortable with. But the remaining occasions almost all involved my defending the values of the United States, Israel, Zionism, or “the West,” or condemning Islamic fundamentalism, radical leftism, or the worldviews of such individuals as Noam Chomsky or my “good friend” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Which is simply to say: I don’t think anyone on earth can accuse me of secret sympathies for the Iranian government.
But when it comes to student visas, I can’t see that my feelings about the mullahs have anything to do with the matter. We’re talking about people who happen to have been born in Iran, who came to the US to do math and science. Would we rather have these young scientists here, filled with gratitude for the opportunities we’ve given them, or back in Iran filled with justified anger over our having expelled them?
To the Trump regime, I make one request: if you ever decide that it’s the policy of the US government to deport my PhD students, then deport me first. I’m practically begging you: come to my house, arrest me, revoke my citizenship, and tear up the awards I’ve accepted at the White House and the State Department. I’d consider that to be the greatest honor of my career.
And to those who cheered Trump’s campaign in the comments of this blog: go ahead, let me hear you defend this.
Comment #1 January 25th, 2017 at 11:55 pm
Let’s hope that things don’t turn out as bad as they might. Trump is promising so many impossible things that his entire program of buffoonery is likely to grind to a halt. My mental picture of this is like a tractor pull at a county fair. The contraption being pulled ratchets an increasing mass over the skids that pretty soon the tractor engine chokes and quits.
For some mental relaxation, are there any blunt updates about D-Wave? They seem to have lost the “Loony Tech” leadership to Elon Musk, who is about to start running cruise ships to Mars and digging traffic tunnels under LA.
Comment #2 January 26th, 2017 at 12:06 am
Completely agree! I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do as scientists to resist this insanity. I think continuing to do our work as best we can is important, we can’t let them destroy who we are, but there must be more we can do. I’ve belatedly been learning about the story of Max von Laue, which seems relevant. And we certainly should protect vulnerable members of our communities, as you say. But this all seems negligible given how badly we’ve apparently done in educating society about the importance of facts and logic…
Comment #3 January 26th, 2017 at 12:16 am
Raoul #1: Based on the “chatter” in my inbox, it looks possible that another D-Wave hype tsunami could crash ashore sometime soon, but I’ll wait until that happens (if it happens) to blog about it.
Recently, as part of a conference that I attended, I had the opportunity to tour the SpaceX factory in California. I know that Greg Kuperberg, for one, puts D-Wave and SpaceX into the same category. But one obvious difference is that, along with the humans-on-Mars talk, SpaceX also has a more-or-less steady, profitable core business: sending commercial satellites into orbit, usually without blowing them up. I.e., they have something that their customers buy for functional rather than aspirational reasons.
Comment #4 January 26th, 2017 at 12:17 am
This policy would be ridiculous and disgusting regardless, but nobody has been killed in America by an act of terrorism committed by a citizen of any of these countries (based on my ability to check this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States). So, it’s not even a well-targeted ridiculous and disgusting policy. It’s literally just a ban on immigration from countries that people feel like might produce terrorists.
Comment #5 January 26th, 2017 at 12:42 am
I am also in the US on a student visa. I read the news every day with trepidation, as I worry that the next executive order will force me to leave the US sooner than expected. I have frequent moments of panic in which I think I should try quickly finding a job outside the US before it’s too late. I feel like my future is up in the air.
I feel like this despite being from a western country. I can only imagine how people from places like Iran must be feeling.
Comment #6 January 26th, 2017 at 12:44 am
Noah #4: Yes, my Iranian friends made the same point! The Iranian regime funds Hezbollah, which the US considers a terrorist group; and (according to the interesting link you provided) it assassinated an Iranian dissident living in the US; and it might have tried to bomb the Israeli and Saudi US embassies. But what makes this disgusting policy particularly ironic is that, unlike with Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Georgia, Pakistan, etc., there’s no history—zero, zilch!—of individual Iranians coming to the US on student visas or whatever and then turning out to be “self-radicalized poisoned jellybeans” who kill innocents.
Comment #7 January 26th, 2017 at 12:44 am
Only one thing to say: Thank you, thank you for standing up for us when no one else did.
Comment #8 January 26th, 2017 at 12:55 am
Thank you Scott! The world needs more humans like you.
Comment #9 January 26th, 2017 at 12:56 am
This hateful and willfully ignorant policy must not stand (because this, among many reasons). Appreciation and thanks are extended to all citizens who speak out publicly … Scott and Shtetl Optimized in particular.
Comment #10 January 26th, 2017 at 1:04 am
I really appreciate your support..
Comment #11 January 26th, 2017 at 1:30 am
I’m quite impressed by your statement, Scott! It’s brave and important that US citizens, especially ones with some scientific awards to their names, stand up like this to such absurd indiscriminate policies that immediately harm both innocent people’s life and US scientific output.
(This from a non-US person from abroad who has not always liked all your other positions over the years).
Comment #12 January 26th, 2017 at 2:08 am
Thanks a lot, Scott ! well-said!
Comment #13 January 26th, 2017 at 2:13 am
Only thing wrong here is I’d swap Iran and Saudi Arabia, those choices are obviously motivated by hidden forces rather than safety. Reasons…we were constantly lied to about the quality of the vetting process. Just don’t care anymore. Nobody has a right to come here. Either start running these processes honestly, and for the benefit of the people that already live here, or people will get fed up enough that they vote for someone that will shut them down. Plenty of countries heavily restrict this and actually have vetting processes based around eliminating probable risk, nobody cries creeping fascism and they still get their foreign students.
People are getting more upset by this than when we were just outright killing people from some of these countries a couple months ago, what changed since then…
Comment #14 January 26th, 2017 at 2:17 am
Such a great advisor and most importantly a real human being 🙂
Do you have any practical solution for stopping scapegoating Iranian citizens? I do not have any for the following reasons:
– Iran is a diverse country and the regime tries to suppress minorities…As a result, people are so divided and you cannot find a reliable activist group (or lobby) in US to support Iranian’s right..
– Obviously, the Iranian regime is the biggest threat for Iranian citizens and they would not take real productive & diplomatic actions for supporting their citizens…
– Israel influence on US policies make the situation worse…I mainly blame Iranian regime on such widespread belief that Iran is planning to destroy Israel…The supreme leader talks are like a stupid rebel child who wants to show off that he is really powerful! (US has Trump, I think you know what I am talking about 😉 )… Most Iranian intellectuals I met (in both Iran and US) are against violence and they would support a peaceful solution for both Israel and Palestine…
Still, is there any solution to help Iranian citizens? 🙁
Comment #15 January 26th, 2017 at 2:18 am
Thank you Scott for standing up for us. Just like your student, I spent today in panic. I was in the middle of writing a great paper with a tight deadline, but I just can’t do anything. I am paralyzed, just checking social media for more news.
My parents are going to miss my PhD hooding ceremony because of this order. I am not sure what will happen to my green card and OPT application. Everything is up in the air after several years of hard work…
Comment #16 January 26th, 2017 at 2:19 am
Bravo for your frankness and honesty. You’ve crystalized thoughts that I am sure are on the minds of many.
Comment #17 January 26th, 2017 at 2:41 am
Shabnam #14: I wish I had a better answer! But I can’t understate the importance of actually meeting people from the groups that we want to avoid being scapegoated—and not in some staged way but for real.
To take an example: I grew up in an environment where I’d hardly ever meet anyone of Muslim background, and where, if such people ever came up in conversation, then it was likely to be in the context of their killing Jews or wanting to kill Jews. And I mean, it’s not that another radical imam’s “kill the Jews” proclamation can’t be pretty salient to a Jewish person!
But crucially, if that’s the main or only context in which Muslims come up, then you’re going to be left with an extremely skewed impression—no matter how well you understand intellectually that it’s skewed.
Later, though, once I’d become an academic traveling all over the place for talks and conferences, I had occasions to meet dozens of wonderful people from Muslim backgrounds, Iranians and others—to befriend them, crash at their houses, eat their food, coauthor papers with them, have intellectual conversations with them about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, etc. etc. So then there’s a completely different set of salient examples to draw from.
Comment #18 January 26th, 2017 at 2:41 am
One thing I have to ask, because it’s been bugging me:
When is it time for revolution? Revolution, assuming success, would allow regime change while paying a cost in stability and likelihood of further revolutions toppling better governments. Here’s the problem: revolt too early, and later on violence becomes the norm and we have a dictatorship or civil war. Revolt too late, and we have a dictatorship like Weimar became, without firing a shot.
If Trump ignores a court ruling on emoulments, for example, is it time for the citizens of DC to use violence to make him comply?
Obviously these are questions without an answer, and I’m not trying to be the crazy anarchist guy. I just don’t know at what point revolution becomes the least bad option, and I don’t want to realize too late that we missed or chance for revolution.
Comment #19 January 26th, 2017 at 2:42 am
but strangely not Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Wahhabist terrorism
You are not lesser ignorant and full with hatred than Trump. It means that if it was done against Saudia you were happy with it?
And BTW, what is Wahabist Terrorism? What world witnessed in Syria is nothing but Shia terrorism in the region.
Comment #20 January 26th, 2017 at 2:46 am
Adnan #19: I didn’t say I’d be OK with it if it was done against Saudi Arabian students, and I wouldn’t be. My point was more like that of Noah #4: “it’s not even a well-targeted ridiculous and disgusting policy.”
Comment #21 January 26th, 2017 at 2:46 am
It’s truly heartbreaking to hear all these responses from international students, and for what it’s worth, good luck
Comment #22 January 26th, 2017 at 2:46 am
If you’ve read Art of the Deal Trump likes to overstate as a negotiating tactic.
Comment #23 January 26th, 2017 at 2:58 am
Big words, I’m practically begging you- blah blah blah.
I’ve seen a lot of this rhetoric from “celebs” but nobody made true on their promises. You’ll just raise the bar when he starts deporting people.
Why not go to a muslim majority country right now? Like Pakistan?
Comment #24 January 26th, 2017 at 3:10 am
Shawn #23: Huh? I didn’t say I had any intention at this time to leave the US. I dared Trump to make me leave, if that’s what he’s going to do to my students. And if he did, the first places I’d think of going would probably be Israel or Canada, followed by Singapore, the UK, Australia, …
I’ll pass on Pakistan (does disgust about Trump imply that I think Pakistan is a better place to do science? carefully reread my post for clues!).
Comment #25 January 26th, 2017 at 3:16 am
as an Iranian 20 years old man who born in Iran and live there yet, I Always dreaming myself in usa and silicon valley. ancient cliche: land of opportunities. it’s not a simple dream. I put all my effort on learning ML and it’s really hard when you have to learn it by yourself and now all of my dreams, seems so far away. I konw in compare with an Iranian who lives in US my problem does not matter but it isn’t just me. there is lots of talentet student, programmer etc who are under pressure of regime and now there is no hope for them. and the things that sacres me is all things happen in west seems like a domino.berxit, trump… whats next? ww3? holocuast for muslims?
Comment #26 January 26th, 2017 at 3:24 am
I’m very glad hearing such an outstanding scientist, Scott Aaronson, strongly stands up and speaks out bravely. THANK YOU so much. Thank to all of you who are showing your continuous supports into such minor communities and let their voices be heard by others.
I’d like to point out a broader issue, which I guess will show up sooner or later. Now, the conversations with people and media began with “lies” and changing them to “alternative facts”, then establishing indiscriminate laws against the least powerful communities (such as oil pipelines in native american lands, Mexican wall, ban on visa from specific countries, and etc.). By looking at the trends, they’re not only changing the true FACT concepts, but also constituting DISCRIMINATIVE executive orders. In the next couple of months or year, I afraid they’ll begin to shrink the ring by other policies among US citizens as well through distorting the facts and various void reasons. Unfortunately, the IDEOLOGY won’t change and eventually affect all US citizen and non-citizen. People in Iran experienced a similar situation some years ago and also similar footsteps have been clearly demonstrated in the famous book of George Orwell “1984”.
Comment #27 January 26th, 2017 at 3:25 am
I’m from the Netherlands, where a lunatic called Geert Wilders has been bashing muslims and riding a populist wave for the last 10 years. Between 1950 and 2009 there were only 30 people killed in an act of terrorism, with only 1 by a muslim extremist (he killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh).
A lot of people are officially voting because of “terrorism” and Geert Wilders is certainly riding this populist wave. But I think a larger part of his electorate are voting for him simply because they see that their cities are changing. There are a lot of areas where white people are now a minority and that makes them afraid. They have the feeling that their cities are slowly taken over by foreign forces and that soon the countryside will be next.
People generally don’t like change. It isn’t simply about embracing something unknown — it’s about giving up something old (and therefore good) for something new (and therefore not good).
The more educated people are not as likely to be afraid of the unknown. We see the world as our playing field, not just our neighborhood. We are more likely to come into contact with other cultures, through study, work or by traveling. We know that people in other countries are not that different from us.
But educated people are a minority. If we force our vision of a tolerant, borderless world upon our fellow countrymen, they will resist. If change doesn’t come very gradually, they will resist. That is what we’re seeing right now. My grandpa has a saying that translates into something like “Where intelligence is lacking, emotions reign”. Trump (or more likely: his team) knew that this was his chance to come to power and now he is making good on the illogical things he promised, something Obama was not able to do. His supporters are cheering right now, believe it or not.
But, when he is done pleasing his supporters, he will probably use his power to further his own agenda. As he said himself: “The point is, you can never be too greedy”. Trump being his greedy self is your best chance of seeing him impeached. Let’s hope he slips up soon.
Comment #28 January 26th, 2017 at 3:25 am
One question: where were the Iranian nuclear scientists, working on new nuclear weapons for religious fanatics openly proclaiming their desire to destroy Israel and the U.S., trained?
Comment #29 January 26th, 2017 at 4:00 am
JohnG #28: From a bit of googling, it appears that yes, some of Iran’s nuclear scientists did train at MIT in the 1970s, through an exchange program designed specifically for that purpose. But of course, that was when Iran was still a US ally! And then the 1979 revolution totally blindsided the US intelligence community—and while most of the MIT-trained Iranian nuclear scientists chose not to help the now-Islamic-Republic build nuclear weapons, a few did.
You didn’t ask, but I do think there’s a strong case to be made for carefully monitoring who gets expertise that could be operationally relevant for building nuclear weapons. And I predict you’ll find that most scientists agree: if there’s any place to carve out an exception to the general philosophy of scientific openness, nuclear weapons are that place.
Quantum complexity theory? Not so much.
Comment #30 January 26th, 2017 at 4:08 am
Scott,
Recognize Trump for what he is foremost, and it will begin to make sense: he is a businessman. For all the lack of evidence that he has shown for his business acumen, he certainly believes strongly that he knows how to do business.
Thus, if you have the power to make good on your bigotry while ensuring business interests are not hurt, what do you do? You do this, so that the innocents are hurt the most, while the international banker of Islamic Terrorism goes scot-free (I am sorry, the pun is unintended), thus protecting the vile economic interests that exists between the US establishment and Saudi Arabia.
The ONLY effect of this executive order will be a tragic depletion of intellectual resources in the US, while having zero effect on Islamic Terrorism (indeed, as you point out, it may lead to increase in radicalism among some of the smartest people in those societies, which is as tragic as it is horrific).
Comment #31 January 26th, 2017 at 4:35 am
Look at the list of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, 50 nationalities including American, Australian and British, NO single Iranian. Look at 9/11, 15 out of 19 terrorists were Saudi citizens. Now do the maths! Iranian government has openly supported Hezbollah and Hamas. They are considered terrorist organisations by the US government but many people around the world including some Jewish people see them legitimate forces of resistance against occupation. Nevertheless, terrorist or not, Hizbollah has a political agenda in its fight with Israel and they have been at war. Even Hizbollah has changed its policies in recent years and is now part of Lebanon government. Majority of Iranians disagree with Iran’s policy of supporting Hezbollah or Palestinian groups. What is strangely ignored is that all International Jihadist groups who kill for ideological reasons including Al Qaeda, IS, Boko Haram, Alshabab, Taliban,… follow Wahhabist -Salafist ideology who see Shia Iran as their greatest enemy. Please don’t forget that the only countries which recognised Taliban were Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Iranians have no record of ideological international terrorism. The only cases of proved terrorism has been the government of Iran assassinating Iranian opposition leaders in Europe. An appalling policy but not unique to Iran and definitely no threat to US
Comment #32 January 26th, 2017 at 5:43 am
Oh, and the US doesn’t stand a chance at solving any of these problems if those who can actually contribute to their solutions offer to be deported.
Stand your ground and stay your course. If not for yourself, then for those who need your voice.
Comment #33 January 26th, 2017 at 7:13 am
As always, THANKS for speaking out loud & clear Scott. I understand that many in science feel constrained by their positions or employers in what they can say publicly on political matters, and many simply never foresaw a Trump victory so felt no real need to speak out earlier… but still I’m ashamed at how timid and unorganized the STEM outreach was during the campaign. Now, any such timidity is complicity.
Comment #34 January 26th, 2017 at 7:36 am
This is indeed terrible news and I have little to add to it, except that if worst happens, I doubt that many of these students would go back to Iran instead of going to a third country. (Btw, why don’t you recommend Europe for them?)
Comment #35 January 26th, 2017 at 7:52 am
I think Trump is right about an awful lot of things and I would support him, but this is certainly not one of them. No defense. He should reverse his decision forthwith.
Comment #36 January 26th, 2017 at 7:53 am
Allow me to suggest to young colleagues concerned by this that they learn French, German, Spanish, etc. Of course every job market is non-trivial, but the silver lining of this is that it could be good for the scientific communities of countries ruled by non-idiots.
Comment #37 January 26th, 2017 at 8:21 am
Thank you very much for being such a kind human being and supporting us. I hope people with such high standards one day take back White house from the populist who has grabbed it now. It would be great if you tell us your opinion on how he actually got elected and people who voted for him. Many of those people justify his cruel actions
Comment #38 January 26th, 2017 at 8:40 am
I intended to apply for a US university next year. This new policy is really disappointing to me. The reason is not that I cannot come to the USA, however, I have real doubts about the country itself. Once I believed the USA is “the land of the free and the home of the brave” where the they don’t judge you based on the thing you cannot control (e.g. the country you were born in or the tyrant regime of that country). Now it gives me shivers to think that the land of freedom and golden opportunities is ruled by a racist. What happened to the american people?!
Comment #39 January 26th, 2017 at 8:48 am
[…] According to Scott Aaronson, it’s taken just five days, since the hostile takeover of the US by its worst elements, for edicts from above to have actually hurt his life and (much more directly) the lives of his students, friends, and colleagues. […]
Comment #40 January 26th, 2017 at 9:04 am
Humanity, in the long run, is the biggest threat to its own existence. The likes of Trump in the US, Farage in the UK, and retarded Muslim dictators of the Middle East, are just catalysts who speed up the process of human demise.
From the nature perspective, we as humans are doomed to extinction. No living mechanism stays put while some other living mechanisms keep destroying it systematically, and the good mother nature is not exempt. We are the worst parasites the nature has ever witnessed, some being worse than others, but when the flood comes, the good and the bad die all the same. Just to say that Trump is also dust in the wind …
Comment #41 January 26th, 2017 at 9:07 am
Yes, Scott, cry now like a little baby because it affects you. When the US bombed these countries and killed countless innocent people it was none of your business and you even advocated such acts by publicly supporting Hillary Clinton. Shame.
Comment #42 January 26th, 2017 at 9:12 am
The autobiographies of Eric Kandel and Erwin Chargaff, who have intimate knowledge of Vienna in the 1930’s, give stark testimony to how quickly and surprisingly what seems like loutish buffoonery can turn to tyranny and murderous repression.
Comment #43 January 26th, 2017 at 9:16 am
This is indeed very sad, but in some way, the same argument could be made regarding the other sanctions imposed on Iran. Economic sanctions on Iran could easily have made innocent Iranians lose their jobs, all because their whacky Islamic dictatorship decided they want to become a nuclear power.
So how do these sanctions help? I guess the logic is to make things worst before the become better: if poor normal people suffer enough in Iran, at some point it will fire back at their policy makers.
In this respect deporting Iranian students may act to achieve the same goal. It’s sad that super smart and innocent people have to pay the price, but if there’s a small chance those people would come back and revolt, perhaps someday Iran will be free.
Comment #44 January 26th, 2017 at 9:20 am
Thanks for writing this. One thing we can all do is join the scientists’ march on Washington DC, which is also being mirrored in other cities.
http://www.scientistsmarchonwashington.com/
Comment #45 January 26th, 2017 at 9:24 am
@Christopher Silvia:
revolt too early, and later on violence becomes the norm and we have a dictatorship or civil war. Revolt too late, and we have a dictatorship like Weimar became, without firing a shot.
The problem in the late days of the Weimar Republic was definitely not too little revolt and violence. The problem was that the Nazis were better at violence than the Communists.
Only escalate if you can win.
Comment #46 January 26th, 2017 at 9:24 am
To any Iranians who are concerned, you will be welcomed in Canada, I am sure of it.
We have terrific institutions, as well as excellent Iranian communities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
While this set back will likely last 4 years, no adventure comes without unexpected forks in the road.
Come join us up north for a few years while the Americans work through their “emotional” issues. Things are calm up here. Everyone is doing well.
Comment #47 January 26th, 2017 at 9:35 am
Scott, thank you so much for standing up so strongly. I didn’t get to take your classes when I was at MIT. But reading this blog over the years has taught me a lot more than any single class would.
Comment #48 January 26th, 2017 at 9:38 am
Also working with someone from Iran, also extremely angry about this. With you 100% on this, Scott.
Comment #49 January 26th, 2017 at 9:56 am
I agree with the sentiment, however I think it’s silly to suggest that the situation of Iranians, students or not, is in any way similar to the situation of the Jews. Their situation is more like the situation of the Germans in 1930. Iran is a large fascist country, it murders gay people and persecutes political opposition. It’s a country that is using know-how its citizens obtain in Western colleges to build weapons and threaten it’s neighbors. Depending on your point of view, it might not be doing anything worse than the US, but US government has no obligation to help fascist countries like Iran to increase their military potential. Yes, many Iranian citizens contribute to the growth of knowledge, but, even more so did many Nazi Germans, not reason . Those who want to escape from Iran should be given a fair hearing, but Iranians who want to go back should study in other fascist places, places like Saudi Arabia
Comment #50 January 26th, 2017 at 10:20 am
If he is willing to stay in the US until the end of his postdoctoral (tall order, I know), he can possibly apply for a change of status from F to J while in the US, without needing to get a new visa.
Comment #51 January 26th, 2017 at 11:05 am
There are plenty of reasons that this order is horrifying, but one worth mentioning is that it can be quite literally dangerous to Iranian students to return to their native country. See the case of Omid Kokabee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Kokabee . I have heard other Persian students express that they also are not sure they could safely return to Iran.
How can we resist this?
Comment #52 January 26th, 2017 at 11:14 am
Thank you for your support
We need to be together today more than ever
Comment #53 January 26th, 2017 at 11:27 am
We need more scientists like you to stand up and speak out! A visa ban will be waved, or a trashed economy will recover but a destroyed environment will not be fixed. He doesn’t approve climate change and his executive orders are going to destroy the planet as a whole.
Comment #54 January 26th, 2017 at 11:30 am
#49 melanoga: learn to base your comments on facts. Iran although considers adultery punishable, sometimes at the extremest level by death, is not actively enforcing this law. How many gays have you heard being executed? And opposition leaders? None, not even the ones in the 2009 uprising were sentenced to death. I’m saying by Middle Eastern standards Iran is one of the few stable and democratic countries, which has security and an active opposition inside the country. And guess what? It actually can control extremisim inside its borders so it doesn’t pour wahhabi’s all over the world. How many other countries in the region can you find like Iran?
Comment #55 January 26th, 2017 at 11:40 am
I am certainly no fan of the new president or his policies. But I can imagine him or his supporters, given their “America First” slogan, saying that those spots should be going to domestic PhD applicants instead.
Comment #56 January 26th, 2017 at 12:12 pm
Thank you for your support.
Comment #57 January 26th, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Thanks for speaking out.
Mr. Trump said he would do all the things he is now doing. This is what his supporters voted for. Absent evidence, absent a clear-eyed reasoning of risks and rewards and pay-offs and consistency with values – this is what they voted for.
Here’s an example. Drowning is the #1 cause of unintentional death amongst kids aged 1-4 in the US. The annual average hovers around 375 kids. That is orders of magnitude larger than the deaths of kids in the US due to terrorism. This is an entirely preventable set of deaths, and inexpensive at that.
That’s insane that the US is losing hundreds of kids each year to drowning. It wouldn’t take much funding for little walls to be built around in-ground pools to prevent kids toppling in, this will substantially cut the number of unnecessary deaths.
But this is not how people think. It is far easier to latch onto very low-risk events which are dramatic, get whipped into a frenzy, and vote for the guy who promises to spend trillions rendering these low-risk events into zero-risk events.
Guess what, Trump supporters. Nothing your President will do will render the risk of deaths by terrorism to be zero. Nothing. There are many forms of terrorism, and some you may not even categorize as such for yourselves. The urge to use dramatic violence to achieve political gains is old, old, old. Within the US, this is also a very small risk. You are dismantling your own principled democracy in a bid to gain ever-more safety from this very small risk event, ignoring other, substantially higher-risk threats. You are turning towards fascist principles.
It makes no sense. Then again, neither does the way people voted for Mr. Trump.
Comment #58 January 26th, 2017 at 12:16 pm
@Ehsan,
You might want to read up on American history: the country was founded by racists. You should probably stay where you are. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it either if millions of Americans started moving to your country.
Comment #59 January 26th, 2017 at 12:24 pm
If you have any stock holdings and are able to, consider donating some of the recent (Trump-related?) gains to effective organizations that will oppose nonsense like this, via lawsuits or other means. The ACLU and National Immigration Law Center are two good examples.
The Executive may be bonkers and Congress may roll over, but we still (for now) have an independent Judiciary.
Comment #60 January 26th, 2017 at 12:31 pm
Domotor #34:
Btw, why don’t you recommend Europe for them?
Yes, of course, Europe too!
Comment #61 January 26th, 2017 at 12:36 pm
Sure, let me give it a shot.
All Trump is doing is reiterating that we don’t live in the world of John Lennon’s _Imagine_. If we did, American citizens and Iranian citizens would be exactly the same thing. Iran would be a state. And we’d be wondering how many electoral votes it got. Do you want Iranians voting in our next election? If so, say so.
If you’re concerned about international law, it helps to know something about the subject. I recommend the text that was the standard summary of international law for the 18th and 19th centuries, Vattel’s _Law of Nations_ (https://books.google.com/books?id=z8b8rrzRc7AC).
Vattel TLDR: the law of nations is natural law as applied to countries. Reciprocity is an essential aspect of making the system work. And individuals are not direct actors in the law of nations, any more than quarks are direct actors in the laws of chemistry.
Your student is not a citizen of science or a citizen of the world. He’s a citizen of Iran. If Iran wants to be a member of the greater community of nations, and (for instance) renounce blowing up synagogues in Argentina, and (in this exact case) give us background information about its citizens who wish to travel to the US, that’s great.
If not, why can’t Iranians stay in Iran? One, Iran is a beautiful country with an amazing, rich history. Two, exactly what kind of a favor are we doing Iran by extracting their smartest and most diligent young people and turning them into Americans? The damage you’re doing to Iranian physics is far greater than the value added to American physics.
An American nationalist, a Jacksonian like Trump, might say that’s fine. One, who cares about Iran? Two, especially considering that Iranian physics seems to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make things go boom, maybe advancing Iranian physics isn’t exactly the best thing for America.
I may be an American nationalist. But I don’t think you are. Especially in the emotional arena of politics, thinking clearly and consistently is incredibly important.
Comment #62 January 26th, 2017 at 12:42 pm
Maryam #37:
It would be great if you tell us your opinion on how he actually got elected and people who voted for him.
As Paul Krugman said, this is a global calamity that almost didn’t happen. It took a perfect storm of racism, xenophobia, voter ignorance about basic facts and statistics (e.g., the unemployment rate is currently good, crime is low, and net illegal immigration is roughly zero), a compliant and trivializing news media, the incredible lie-spreading power of Facebook and Twitter, Hillary being so widely disliked (~95% of the hatred irrational), apathy in many of the young/urban voters who turned out for Obama, the disenfranchisement of millions of poor and minority voters, the quisling behavior of Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and all the other Republican “leaders,” Wikileaks, the unprecedented Russian interference in the election, James Comey, and the idiocy of the Electoral College itself. Change a single one of those things and you change the outcome.
Comment #63 January 26th, 2017 at 12:44 pm
The cynic in me sees this as a feature, rather than a bug, of Trump’s decree. He has no love for scientists, mathematicians, or scholars in general. Not only are they not his people, but they’re dangerous to his MO.
Comment #64 January 26th, 2017 at 12:53 pm
[…] this from Yann LeCun, Director of AI Research at Facebook & “First they came for the Iranians” […]
Comment #65 January 26th, 2017 at 12:53 pm
(A) #41:
Yes, Scott, cry now like a little baby because it affects you. When the US bombed these countries and killed countless innocent people it was none of your business and you even advocated such acts by publicly supporting Hillary Clinton. Shame.
Three different points to disentangle:
(1) Just because I strongly supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump (!!), doesn’t mean that I supported all of Hillary’s views and decisions, and I was perfectly clear about that at the time.
(2) Sometimes launching a cruise missile is a crime against humanity. Other times it’s desirable or necessary to prevent a greater evil. We ought to evaluate such things on a case-by-case basis, taking into account where the missile actually comes down, where it was meant to come down, the broader context, and what the decision-makers knew at the time.
(3) I’m not a pure utilitarian. I long ago reconciled myself to a moral calculus that values the lives of all sentient beings, but that also places a special value on people who I know personally, people who contribute to math and science, and certainly my students, who I know personally and who also contribute to math and science!
Comment #66 January 26th, 2017 at 12:55 pm
As an MIT alum (Course 6 PhD, ’09), I applaud you for taking a stand on this matter. Intellectualism in the public discourse might have died on Jan. 20th – or perhaps even in the preceding campaign – but may it live long and prosper in arenas such as this blog.
Comment #67 January 26th, 2017 at 12:57 pm
> the unemployment rate is currently *good*
Look at the labor force participation rate (falling for a decade), not the rate of people seeking unemployment benefits. Just because the USG calls the latter the “unemployment rate” doesn’t mean we have to.
> crime is *low*
Crime in Japan is *low*.
Crime in the US is two orders of magnitude higher than in Japan (eg: 119 robberies per 100,000, versus 1.1). It’s also two orders of magnitude higher than in Victorian England. All the graphs you see that tell you “crime is low” are showing the US since the cultural revolution of the ’60s — they don’t dare push it back even to 1950.
> illegal immigration is roughly zero
As with illegals voting, we have no reliable information at all on this subject. There is no solid evidence that illegals vote in elections, or that they don’t. In most states, they can if they want to. That’s what you get with the honor system.
Etc. It seems like you may want to broaden your set of epistemic inputs — it doesn’t seem very critical.
Comment #68 January 26th, 2017 at 1:00 pm
“Once I believed the USA is “the land of the free and the home of the brave” where the they don’t judge you based on the thing you cannot control (e.g. the country you were born in or the tyrant regime of that country). Now it gives me shivers to think that the land of freedom and golden opportunities is ruled by a racist. What happened to the american people?!”
Re: your last question, see above in your own comment.
Comment #69 January 26th, 2017 at 1:05 pm
I don’t understand why anger at being asked to leave a country that is enemies with your country of origin is justified. Wouldn’t Iran be justified in expelling Americans if it noticed that it’s national resources were being used to personally enrich citizens of a hostile foreign power? What if Iran’s ethnic minorities (or majorities) were rioting in the streets demanding better training for high paying scientific jobs?
Saudi Arabia should have topped the list.
Comment #70 January 26th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
Thanks for staying on the right side of the history. We all need to stay united against bigotry and hatred.
Comment #71 January 26th, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Thank you!
Comment #72 January 26th, 2017 at 1:32 pm
Together we stand, divided we fall.
Comment #73 January 26th, 2017 at 1:46 pm
You see the “bad” of Trump, but you did not see the “worse” of Obama. Unwise people…
Comment #74 January 26th, 2017 at 1:51 pm
So appreciate for your support. You are Really a gentleman.