Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/tripling-down-against-conference.html

by robin_reala • 9 years ago

242 175 9 years ago

robert.ocallahan.org

Just the first ripples against the shore of what I expect to be a tsunami of unexpected consequences.

Seems like a golden opportunity for another country to step up and become the "conference center of the world". I'd LOL extra hard if it turned out to be Mexico.

petercooper2• 9 years ago

A few years ago I raised the idea (on Twitter) of Iceland being a nice "neutral" venue that's equally (in)convenient for both US and European attendees, very liberal and progressive, and, at the time, cheap for a Nordic country.

I have since seen a handful of industry conferences take place there, but it hasn't really blown up (one reason, I suspect, is it's reasonably expensive to stay there now - Iceland's decline did not last long!)

xiaoma3• 9 years ago

The next most important start-up hub after SF is Beijing. It's much more affordable than SF, but there are other concerns with hosting conferences there such as pollution, speech and media controls and a lot of regulation in general.

edit: I had no idea there was so much China hate here. I'm no fan of certain policies of the government, believe me. I hate the GFW with a passion. But the entrepreneurial community is incredible. There's a lot of skill at the high end and awe-inspiring levels of fearlessness and ambition.

labster• 9 years ago

While the idea of Iceland is great, being in the middle of the Atlantic. But this means that it's close to no one, including likely conference organizers.

widforss• 9 years ago

While it is a great location, Iceland is not "cheap for a Nordic country" anymore. They picked up, and isolation does not come for free.

deong• 9 years ago

I've actually organized a machine learning conference in Iceland (AISTATS and MLSS 2014), and I can probably shed some light on this.

One, it's hideously expensive now, for almost anyone in the world. Second, it's incredibly small -- 320,000 people in the entire country, and maybe 220,000 of those in the Reykjavik area. Due to the "big fish in a small pond" aspect of Reykjavik being the capital, there's more infrastructure than you'd expect from a city of 200,000 people, but not that much more.

NIPS draws something like 3500 attendees now. I'm not sure there are 3500 hotel rooms in the country of Iceland. I struggled to find a venue that could host 10% of that for AISTATS. AISTATS is single-track which requires one big room, but there would have been very few options for finding a room big enough for just the deep learning breakaways at NIPS.

Aside from that, it's great. We did draw more people from the US than typical AISTATS European years had done, and it's a beautiful country for visitors to enjoy. But I don't think it's capable of becoming a major world conference center at the moment.

astrodust6• 9 years ago

It better fucking not be Dubai.

cperciva5• 9 years ago

Seems like a golden opportunity for another country to step up and become the "conference center of the world". I'd LOL extra hard if it turned out to be Mexico.

Can I suggest Canada for this purpose? We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan; have a fluently English-speaking population anywhere conferences would be held (most people in Montreal are bilingual); have good infrastructure; and most international visitors to the USA already fly over Canada anyway.

This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

wattt• 9 years ago

Why do you think Canada wouldn't be as good for Central or South Americans? There are flights to Central and South America from almost everywhere in Canada. I speak Spanish in Canada often.

santaclaus• 9 years ago

We're a cheaper conference destination than the USA, Europe, or Japan

Errr, our field's major conf is in Vancouver every other year and those hotel rooms are crazy pants expensive.

Buge2• 9 years ago

Canada can require you to give up your phone password when entering. As far as I heard, the US does not require that (but can confiscate your phone). Is there possibly another country that doesn't require it?

toothbrush• 9 years ago

This would be unfortunate for conference attendees from Central and South America, but they're far outnumbered by the conference attendees from Europe and Asia.

Then surely, somewhere in Europe or Asia or perhaps wherever the centre of mass of the conference participants happened to fall would be the cheapest destination? I, for one, do not live in the USA, so Canada would definitely not be cheaper than Europe to visit.

lazaroclapp• 9 years ago

Well, Mexico and Chile also have visa free entry into Canada now, so it would actually be a net improvement for Latin American countries as well (and I see no reason, specially with the current government, that Canada could not eventually negotiate visa-free transit with Argentina and/or Brazil next)

Symbiote2• 9 years ago

already fly over Canada anyway

But holding conferences in Canada would leave many people with few good options, other than to transfer in the USA.

Transiting through an American airport requires a visa, and [1] had her transit visa cancelled last week, leaving her stranded in Costa Rica.

It was policy at my previous employer, which had lots of work in Central America and an international staff, to avoid transiting through Florida, and use Madrid or Panama instead. The hassle wasn't worth at most a minor saving in cost or time.

Southern Europe would be a cheaper location for conferences, with few visa issues, and is also a lot closer to Asia.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-38786119

Theodores• 9 years ago

Let the market decide. There are conferences and trade shows for everything and anything all the time, all over the world. Take your favourite programming thing, there may be some meet up in your local town, it may be just a couple of people, not exactly a 'conference'. You might not be able to go to the big conference in Las Vegas (or wherever) but the conference in Berlin (or wherever) might be the one to attend this year anyway.

There is money in conferences and, if the USA wants to make itself as attractive as North Korea for foreign visitors, then the 'second tier' conferences held elsewhere will become the more important events to attend for non-Americans.

I think this is progress in a way, too many industries have some big U.S. trade show event as the focal point of the year and it is a long way to go to get new customers from your own country/town.

allengeorge• 9 years ago

A strong "+1" to this. Plus, there are quite a few strong CS and engineering universities in Canada, so it's not as if the intellectual environment will have to be created from scratch.

mirimir2• 9 years ago

Spain makes the most sense. Geographically, more or less. And economically too, I think.

toomanybeersies• 9 years ago

Unfortunately for me, being in New Zealand, Spain is literally as far away as you can get.

atomwaffel• 9 years ago

I was thinking of Spain too. I went to a conference in Madrid last year and was pleasantly surprised by how many people there were from Spanish-speaking Latin America, far more than I usually see at conferences. At the same time, it's easy enough to get to for most of Europe and not too far from North America either.

Then again, I'm sure it's a nightmare for people from Oceania. Our planet is really inconvenient in that regard, what with being round and all…

corford• 9 years ago

Agree. Barcelona has huge hotel and conference infrastructure (plus easy to fly to directly from most places or connect via Madrid).

thisrod• 9 years ago

No one has mentioned Singapore yet. It's easier for most people to get there than to Australasia. And, in the scheme of hereditary fascist dictators, the Lees are comparatively sane ;-)

kika• 9 years ago

The part about an initiative to look up visitors phones and social media is BS. This measure was introduced in June last year when the president wasn't Trump. Went into effect in December, when Trump already won but had no authority. One random link from google: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/foreign-travelers-soci...

tritosomal• 9 years ago

Either way, it is NIGHTMARE MODE stupidity.

It will net only the most retarded entrapment arrests possible. It's tantamount to searching people's bags for postcards and magazines, because there might be terrorist postcards or terrorist magazines.

Yes, there may be terrorists who send postcards and read magazines (even newspapers!) but, ah... how does that prevent violent actions?

pessimizer2• 9 years ago

Virtually all of what Trump is being called out on has been consistent bipartisan policy, or at the least supported consistently by recent Republican administrations and by every Republican primary candidate, all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic and anti-science. I think it's a good thing. Finally an ugly, stupid face on ugly, stupid policies.

kefka• 9 years ago

I'd go further than that. Given trump's recent actions regarding immigration ban, and INS/ICE going against federal judges, it seems like he's testing for a coup.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e...

Congress, which is majority republicans, are doing little to stop him. Democrats are still skittering, unsure what to do or how to regroup. And if judges are being ignored, it leaves the Executive branch pretty wide open. After all, they are the ones who control the military. Congress just OK's the budget.

refurb• 9 years ago

all of whom were openly racist, xenophobic

Thank you for taking the first step at bringing both sides together! If we can just convince one side they are wrong and frankly evil, we can start the healing process.

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

Virtually all of what Trump is being called out on has been consistent bipartisan policy

No, it isn't. Any of it, really.

or at the least supported consistently by recent Republican administrations

A very few of the things he's been called out for fit this category, e.g., the Mexico City policy.

and by every Republican primary candidat

A few more fit this category, but a lot of the things he's been criticized for miss all of them. One might fantasize that others might have, had they had the chance, done some of the things he's been called out for, but, e.g., no past administration or primary candidate of either party has suggested kicking the Joint Chiefs and DNI out of the NSC in favor of additional White House staffers.

wodenokoto• 9 years ago

It would only be bullshit if it wasn't an actual measure. It still counts as a con when considering the US for an international conference.

uiri• 9 years ago

Side note: Could the mods remove "?m=1" from the URL? On a mobile device, the URL without that GET parameter redirects to the URL with that parameter to show the mobile site. On a non-mobile device, the URL with the parameter looks rather different from the URL without the parameter.

sandworm101• 9 years ago

Im heading to a US security conference in a couple weeks. I really dont want to go but have to meet with a client there. If i am given any guff at the boarder im going to tell that client why we can no longer do business.

jimjimjim• 9 years ago

Australia and New Zealand.

That way if the world ends while you're away you'll be able to read about it in the morning

flukus2• 9 years ago

Do we need conferences at all?

Noseshine4• 9 years ago

Define "need". Do you need to breathe? Only if you think you need to live, and the only reason you want to live is that you are wired that way (selection bias, all those who didn't care enough have been removed). Life isn't something objective, you can just decide on what's important to you, as long as it doesn't interfere with your ability to go on living it does not matter. Some people like cats, some people like ice cream. Some people like to talk to other people in their field in person and go to conferences or far-away meetings. Some people go far away for no reason at all (vacation)!

flukus2• 9 years ago

Need as in "do they offer worthwhile value", which I'm sure anyone not being overly pedantic would assume.

You don't gain anything by seeing a live talk that you wouldn't on YouTube for instance. It's weird that so many of us work from home but insist on traveling to see a stage show.

jza004252• 9 years ago

Probably it is time for VR to kick in.

ryandamm7• 9 years ago

I fear this is the warning shot across the bow of those tech executives who supported this president. First, they come for your conferences. Then, your H1B visa-holding employees. Then...?

Innovation thrives on freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of markets. And tech, in its best form, is about freedom, rather than market-capture and rent-seeking. Needless to say, none of these recent developments are good.

lkrubner3• 9 years ago

Innovation thrives on the rule of law, independent courts and neutral arbiters of contracts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, and the right to uncoerced testimony.

Consider Jethro Tull, the farmer. In 1700 he was 26 and he was taking over the family farm. He hired some local hands to seed the fields that spring. As had happened for thousands of years, the workers took bags of seed and cast handfuls on the ground. Jethro Tull became angry, because there were patches of ground that had too much seed, and other patches of ground that had too little seed. He went over to the workers and asked them to be more careful. But they proceeded as before. Tull became more angry, and went to speak with them again. But they still ignored him, and kept doing their work in the traditional manner, as they had since they were children, and as had their parents before them, and their parents before that. Tull was in a rage, but saw he could not change how the workers did their work. Instead, he decided to build a machine that would plant seeds at regular intervals. This was the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist)

But now ask, why did this happen in 1700, and not in 1680 or 1660 or 1500, for that matter? Was Tull simply smarter than any farmer that had ever lived before that time? Or was their a new legal system on his side?

In the time of Tull's father, England was still burning witches. The last great spasm of irrational fear and witch burning swept over Britain in the mid 1600s. But then Britain passed the Bill Of Rights, in 1688. Now everyone had the right to a fair trial, and a right to a lawyer, and no one could be tortured into confessing to a crime, such as witchcraft. And Tull belonged to the first generation of entrepreneurs in history knowing that they could depend on the rule of law -- the government could not take arbitrary action against him, but was constrained by its own processes. Therefore Tull could shatter tradition, and do completely new things, without the threat of being burned as a witch.

I could cite an endless number of examples. Galileo made brilliant discoveries in an illiberal nation, and was put under house arrest, Newtown made discoveries in a nation of laws, and he became a national hero. Simply knowing that laws will be enforced fairly defeats a lot of the kinds of evil scheming that spring up under authoritarian regimes.

"Freedom" is an empty word. When talking about the kinds of environments that cultivate innovation, it's best to try to be specific about that environment. History teach us the raw ingredients: the rule of law, fair and independent courts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, the right to uncoerced testimony.

onion2k• 9 years ago

That would be a compelling line of reasoning if Jethro Tull had actually invented the seed drill, but he didn't. He perfected the design but the device had been around Europe for 150 years before Tull's version, and in China for 2000 years before that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_drill

adrianN• 9 years ago

I'm not very convinced by your argument. I don't see how the rule of law affected Tull. I think it's more important that he was influenced by the rise of scientific thinking during the Enlightenment and sought more efficient means of agriculture using the scientific method. Also, the Wikipedia says that the seed drill was known in Europe for about a hundred years before Tull refined it and it took another one hundred and fifty years before it was in widespread use. The correlation with the rule of law seems pretty weak to me.

chx2• 9 years ago

And yet, people book Uber still. Unfathomable.

gm-conspiracy• 9 years ago

How about mp3.coms "Beam-It' offering:

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/1999-...

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued both MP3.com and Napster on behalf of the record labels that they represent (Sony, BMG, EMI, Universal, and Warner). They are keen to point out thought that they are not against MP3 technology, but against the illegal use of it. MP3.com is being sued for their Beam-it online service which allows users to insert a CD into their disc drive, and then download those songs in mp3 format from MP3.com's database of over 80,000 CD's. The RIAA sued them claiming that the company was violating copyright laws by allowing users to download copyright-protected songs. On April 28th, New York District Court Judge Jed Rakoff sided in favor of the RIAA, ruling that MP3.com was liable for copyright infringement. On May 4th, a federal court also sided with the RIAA. According to Cary Sherman, general counsel for the RIAA, "The foundation on which these services are built is an unauthorized digital archive of the most valuable copyrighted recordings in the world. Frankly, it's astonishing that a publicly-traded company would behave so recklessly."

ryandamm7• 9 years ago

Regardless of whether or not Jethro Tull is a perfect example, the larger point about rule of law is absolutely correct. Any catchphrase or byword can be co-opted, none more so than 'freedom.' Rule of law is a much better way to think about this, so thank you.

It's also generically true that having a good legal system is a prerequisite for a stable economy and good growth, not just innovation. I recall an article in, I think, the Economist that contrated mango farming in Haiti from the Dominican Republic -- same climate, same island, huge difference in productivity. Because in DR, farmers believed they would benefit from their hard work. In Haiti, unclear land title and corrupt courts meant a productive mango orchard could be confiscated by those in power, so the farmers had no incentive to invest in their own farms' productivity. Subsistence farming becomes the norm, and everyone loses.

Not sure why both examples that spring to mind are agricultural, but there you go.

wahern• 9 years ago

Innovation thrives on the rule of law, independent courts and neutral arbiters of contracts, habeas corpus and due process, the right to a lawyer, and the right to uncoerced testimony.

Those are some of the bare requirements, just like agriculture is a requirement for civilization. Thrive isn't really the right word to describe subsistence living.

Also, it's not even clear whether they're requirements. We should be wary about confusing correlation with causation. The UK enjoys those things only at the pleasure of their elected Parliament. How long do you think those rights would have been maintained in America without a written constitution? Maybe the real requirements are more obscure cultural phenomena, and that there exists a wider universe of systems that could equally undergird widespread wealth creation in the presence of those same cultural forces. Don't discount the path dependent behavior of political evolution.

briandear2• 9 years ago

How many H1s are from Somalia or the Sudan?

I agree with your basic points, but on a practical level, how much does this actually affect things for H1 companies? We are talking 7 countries very few of which produce many H1 employees.

NTDF92• 9 years ago

This is a great opportunity for Canadian, Australian and top European universities to step up their game.

Some universities in these regions have solid reputations but lacked the star-power of top US univs. Hosting a few ACM conferences will shoot them on top of global map.

Just checked, ACM is already on it: https://www.acm.org/conferences

Noseshine4• 9 years ago

Do universities that don't have to rely on the money they get form international students have the same incentives as US universities?

From what I read that's a major consideration for US universities why they want to attract foreign students. For German universities that would only be of marginal concern, even if/when they take some money from foreign students it's just pocket change and not nearly enough to finance the institution to a substantial extend. Sure they still have an incentive, but it's much less and not monetary.

I think, that's what I get from what I've been reading in comments over the years.

jon-wood2• 9 years ago

At least in the UK international students are a big chunk of a decent university's income. Tuition fees for UK residents are capped, while there's no limit to how much a good university can charge Russian oligarchs to educate their children.

There are some issues around that, specifically with business departments being disproportionately well funded, but it does mean that other departments also have more money to work with than they would otherwise.

ldp01• 9 years ago

It's a similar situation for Australian universities. Foreign students are considered a major cash cow.

NTDF92• 9 years ago

For top schools, money is secondary to building and maintaining reputation and leadership in research. Money comes as a consequence of being leaders,

Think of Carnegie Mellon Robotics professors and grad students poached by Uber. Think of top graph computer scientists who joined Facebook and Google early on.

A lot of this men and women were bright international students/professors flocking to top US univs. These bright people (directly and indirectly) invited budding geniuses from their home countries to come to these univs in the US.

A lot of countries would love to have such a concentration of bright talent (and the network effects) in their univs.

nraynaud• 9 years ago

I know from a reliable source that foreign student enrollment for the spring semester is way down in one significant university in the US.

oliwarner• 9 years ago

It's not just tuition fees.

Consider that cities with top-league universities also have deep links with industry. Oxford and Cambridge —as examples I'm familiar with— both have off-site science parks, secondary research centres. Many tech companies host labs there and operate PhD programmes that link in with the universities.

That has driven the growth of these cities for a century.

All because these universities have the best and brightest. Take away those, and I can only imagine the business support will dwindle.

masklinn• 9 years ago

The funny story is after friday's EO this is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't": if you hold the conference in the US, people with links to banned countries can not attend (and anyone arab-looking will get hassled), if you hold it outside US residents with links to banned countries can not attend either as there's a significant chance they would not be able to return.

I suspect the latter population is much smaller than the former, but still a shit situation for a conference organiser, no matter how you do it you will effectively prevent a fraction of possible attendees out, unless you have your conf' right on a border I guess but I doubt that's really possible.

What is the "border status" of Puerto Rico, could that be an option? Or maybe a nearby carribean island which US residents could reach by board from Puerto Rico without hassle going back?

danpalmer• 9 years ago

You're right that it's an unpleasant situation to be in, but I think it's a fairly easy decision. One option excludes attendees, condones racist border policies, and brings business to the US, the other option does not condone the policies, makes it clear that inclusivity matters to the conference organisers, and to a small extent, boycotts US business.

dragonzooord• 9 years ago

The EO is cruel and irrational and is something I'm firmly against. It makes sense to not host your conference in the USA for moral reasons.

But, on the other hand, a lot of Americans don't have passports or their employment contracts will only reimburse a number of domestic (non-international) conferences a year. The set of those people who would be excluded probably exceeds the set of attendees from the 7 countries in question. So I'm not convinced it makes sense to do this just from a conference attendance standpoint.

MagnumOpus• 9 years ago

a lot of Americans don't have passports [...] set of people who would be excluded

Let's keep it real: The contributors to a global science conference are unlikely to be people who don't have passports - and in case that happens, getting passports in the US is as easy as filling in a form and driving down to the local post office.

Whereas even getting a business travel visa to the US is a month-long bureaucratic nightmare for 80% of the world's population (basically everyone bar EU, Japan, Korea and AU/NZ/CA).

Beltiras2• 9 years ago

I'm voting for Amsterdam. My fav conference of the year is Django under the Hood. The Dutch are supernice and the restaurant scene fabulous.

chopin3• 9 years ago

Schiphol has a very bad reputation for its security theater, either.

Beltiras2• 9 years ago

I don't know if it's a different experience for people traveling from outside Schengen but the comparison between JFK and Schiphol is stark. Schiphol is friendly in comparison.

antientropic• 9 years ago

Can you elaborate? In what sense is the security theater at Schiphol worse than the average (European) airport?

nickpeterson• 9 years ago

Wouldn't hosting in the US still make the most practical sense because it has by far the most software developers, and the middle Eastern countries involved don't really contain many at all?

I don't like the EO, but doesn't this just ignore reality?

ntelson1s• 9 years ago

Just like all of these heated political posts today and lately, yes, it does ignore reality.

jza004252• 9 years ago

Agree, like it or not, America is still the center of technology. The best of the best is still here. Other countries need to chill out for at least 20 more years

peterwwillis• 9 years ago

So... It's impossible to just hold two conferences? One in the States and one outside? Call me unreasonable, but it seems like then you could just go to the one that's safe for you.

misja111• 9 years ago

I'm a bit amazed by the panic here on HN about the blocked Visa's. I mean, I do agree that the initiative is retarded, but it's not like under Obama residents from Iran or Sudan could get in an out of the USA whenever they wanted.

In my last job in the Netherlands I had an Iranian colleague who tried for seven years in a row to get a Visum to go to the USA, without success. The situation was already very difficult under Obama, Trump's recent initiative is not as big a change as some make it appear.

semi-extrinsic2• 9 years ago

I agree this is overlooked. I know of a research group at a high-profile university in Europe that had to hide the fact they had a key team member from Iran when they applied for using a large US supercomputer. IIRC this was back in 2013. So they got a user account for one European-born team member, who gave the login details to the Iranian person who then did the actual work on the supercomputer.

Neliquat• 9 years ago

You should not post details of international fraud in public forums buddy.

Jare• 9 years ago

Situation A: it's hard for me to get a VISA.

Situation B: I have been a permanent resident for years, own a house and a cat, my family are citizens, I went to Europe for a few days and now the border authorities detain me and want to send me to Iran.

How big does it have to be?

harlanlewis• 9 years ago

Horrible as B is, it's even worse than that:

Even though they were ignorant of the termination [of their visas while in transit], they were still charged with violating U.S. immigration law and given a five-year ban to future admission.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/29/trumps-muslim-ban-trigge...

watson• 9 years ago

My colleague is from Iran but live and work in my country (in the EU). Last year my company were sponsoring a tech conference in the US and him and a few of my other colleagues were going to attend the conference (he's the lead engeener on a product that we were going to publicise at the conference). He was denied entry to the US simply because he was from Iran, so it hasn't been all roses. But now it has just reached insane levels.

baby• 9 years ago

Even coming from Europe it can be hard getting in the US (source: romanian gf).

nodamage4• 9 years ago

The uproar is not about blocked visas.

imron3• 9 years ago

That's right, surely the uproar is about all the bombing and killing that the US has been doing in 5 of the 7 countries listed on the visa ban list.

I mean human lives are worth more than visas right? And if that bombing had never happened, we wouldn't have the humanitarian crisis that led to so many refugees coming from those countries.

Well, at least that's what I wish more people were concerned about, but where were the protests when the Nobel peace prize winning president was doing those things? It was met largely with silence, and definitely not large scale protests.

FabHK5• 9 years ago

I think one good criterion (among others) for deciding in what country to hold a conference is the number of countries whose citizen can enter without visa. There's a list on Wikipedia that you can sort by that criterion [1].

For the USA, it's 42 (what else). Canada, 52. For Schengen area (most of EU), 92. Hong Kong, 148, Indonesia, Cambodia even more. China only 12.

So, South East Asia or Europe seem reasonable on that score.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_visa#Visa_policies

alistairSH3• 9 years ago

Be careful with those numbers.

While they are likely accurate for simply attending a conference, they might not be for presenting at a conference (that often changes the reason for the visit from "education" to "paid work" which can impact the need for a visa).

That said, Schengen area is probably still easier than the US for attending AND presenting.

delinka2• 9 years ago

I'm thinking if I were organizing a conference outside my country of residence, I'd keep payment arrangements for speakers & paid guests outside the conference country, and instruct speakers on The Right Things To Say on visiting the country.

deerpig• 9 years ago

As an American citizen living in Cambodia -- book events here. It's cheaper and the conference facilities are getting better every year.

It's time for Americans to stop thinking all roads lead to them.

virmundi• 9 years ago

I'd like Americans to think all road lead to them because we offer the best destination. Presently we think all roads lead to the US because they do, but we've forgotten why. We think that is just the way of the world. We need to pursue the solid, innovative research in all fields and disseminate that accordingly.

mjolk• 9 years ago

You're speaking as if getting to Cambodia is the same as a quick/cheap flight for most people, especially those who use English as a lingua franca. You're suggesting a very unrealistic alternative to NYC, Seattle, or Austin.

Americans don't think that "all roads lead to them", but America is a hugely important country with a large number of its population working in the tech field and "convenient to get to" is impossible to underestimate as a priority when organizing a conference.

Spooky23• 9 years ago

The best criterion is "where are the customers"?

The probability of most US based people attending an international conference is dramatically lower.

FabHK5• 9 years ago

Sure, I was thinking international conferences. More domestically oriented ones do domestically, obviously, unless the purpose is more of a funded vacation.

ryandamm7• 9 years ago

Self-centered American here, but wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees? Not clear why, say, Suriname (to pick a country out of a hat) should rank equally with Japan.

That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest of the developed world on all sorts of indices; we're so strange. Strangely illiberal, even before November. (I mean 'illiberal' in the political theory sense of the word, not left/right political sense of the word.)

Silhouette2• 9 years ago

That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is.

One of the most alarming things about this whole issue is that it's taken this long for "normal people" to realise something is wrong and do something about it.

We're seeing mass protests now, when large numbers of people are literally being held in handcuffs for extended periods despite obviously doing nothing wrong. However, it's not as if border security at the US (and, to be fair, here in the UK and in various other countries) hadn't completely lost the plot already before Trump arrived.

Then again, I have long said things would have to get worse before they got better. Let's hope that at least we have now reached that point and ordinary people start questioning the whole way we look at security again.

FabHK5• 9 years ago

wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees?

You're right, of course.

the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is.

Yes, getting visa can be a time-consuming, expensive, even humiliating hassle - I've seen it with

* friends (one friend was planning to visit the USA for the first time this Christmas, was twice denied visa (no reasons provided), so did not go),

* colleagues (a colleague working in Hong Kong could not get permission for his wife to join him there), and

* myself (and I travel on a German passport, which is the best in that regard: 177 countries visa free/visa on arrival).

So, I genuinely think that among the things to consider (among others) when planning an international conference is easy entry for attendees.

However, the sad thing is that it's not a sudden policy swerve. The USA has had a rather restrictive visa policy for decades. It has obviously historically been wide open, but increasing suspicion of economic migrants, and then after 9/11 increasing suspicion of terrorists seems to have made it more and more defensive of the borders.

I personally find US CBP (custom and border protection) among the potentially least pleasant (and I've been to 100+ countries). ("Potentially" because you can be lucky and have a friendly reception and no problems at all, but you sure can have grumpy questions and more serious problems.)

The Recurse Center, a great programming retreat in NY, used to be called Hacker School. With the old name, attendees regularly had trouble with CBP (the dreaded secondary inspection), and I seem to recall that some have been denied entry. I believe that was one of the factors behind the name change.

So, yes, your perceptive observation that this is another index on which the US compares less favourably to the rest of the developed world as sometimes assumed also contributed to the post. Recent events have made it even worse - and I'm glad to see that the resistance is rising :-)

matt4077• 9 years ago

Having organised a pretty large student conference in the past, here are some further considerations:

- Obviously the specific countries behind those numbers matter. If you're organising a conference on 14th century Flemish literature, the Netherlands will be more important than North Korea

- Not all restrictions are created equal. Specifically, the activity I was involved in (University Debating) has a sizeable Israeli community, who would argue that travel restrictions that jews encounter across the muslim world should be considered more harshly than most other travel restrictions, which tend to emanate from a fear of economic migration.

- beware self-fulfilling prophecies: If you chose a location that is hard for sub-saharan african nationals to reach because they're underrepresented in your audience, you are also perpetuating that underrepresentation.

dragonwriter2• 9 years ago

Seems to me "proportion of your target community that can attend without a visa" would be a more valid metric than "number of countries from which people can enter without a visa".

But even better would be to also factor in the difficulty of getting the necessary visa for others.

tannhaeuser• 9 years ago

This isn't some abstract thing, it already affects participation of key people right now ([1]). Tragedy is, the chair/hoster of eg. the Balisage conference (what [1] is about) is as much opposed against Trump policies as could be (eg. [2] which is really devastating). This doesn't look well for US cloud ventures, at all.

[1] http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/201701/maillist.html

[2] https://norman.walsh.name/

MollyR• 9 years ago

Every country should have their own primary tech conference, in a de-globalizing world. It's pretty clear. The return of nation state sovereignty and de-globalization is on the rise from the brexit, trump, le pen, modi, duarte, putin are all anti-globalists.

kapauldo• 9 years ago

He loses all credibility by boastfully declaring himself "christian." He is guilty of the same elitism he decries the u.s. policy for.

grzm• 9 years ago

Give him the benefit of the doubt. It's something he's proud of and wants to be identified with. Besides, it's not even in the post itself. I don't see at all that this is some kind of declaration of elitism, any more than the "Hacker" and "Repatriated Kiwi" are. I could interpret those uncharitably as well, but would consider it crass to do so, particularly without knowing more about him.

Tripling Down Against USA Conference Hosting

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