Hacker News Reader

I'm against this order and generally agree with you, but the conflict-of-interest article is BS. The list of countries is the same as was targeted under Obama for extra screening:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/visa-waiver-libya-somali...

This needs more emphasis.

These countries were already hard for US citizens to do business in (hence no Trump holidings). I don't think Trump cares much about money - he is interested in Power.

"Corruption" is a distraction. I also think the thing about his tax returns is the same.

While I agree with your point, I disagree with this:

> I don't think Trump cares much about money - he is interested in Power.

It's hard to know what his true interests are. But based on his actions, and his lack of desire for publicly stating his net worth or tax returns, I think he is very interested in maintaining not only his worth but also his companies'.

Trump is the first President in a long time that can directly be influenced by foreign governments through his business and property holdings.

This is true to some extent of course. But it seems to me - based on the amount of debt his businesses carry - that it is the prestige and power that is associated with money that drives Trump.

I think that his tax returns are a huge distraction. When they leak, what will change? Everyone already knows he doesn't pay much tax. His fans see that as a good thing.

The only thing that could change out of it is if there is a line item "Russian bribes". But that's unlikely, especially since I tend to think his ties with Russia are philosophical, not financial.

I think your president has figured out a way to

1)piss everyone off except his core vote base

2) be forced out of office

3) launch a movie/book/tv show

4) profit

I don't think his original plan was to win the election.

Not my President.

(For real: I'm not from the US)

I agree with your comment though.

Oh, c'mon. The scope and impact of the EO is totally unprecedented; the President obviously felt unconstrained by precedent, unintended consequences, and arguably even the Constitution.

So, let's not pretend that he was constrained by some list from the Obama administration. It's an executive order, and President Trump owns the whole thing.

I don't think that the parent comment disagrees with you. It's just pointing out that the business links thing is a distraction. This is a purely evil policy, unconstrained by financial concerns.

Eh conflicts of interests. The US has long been “allied” with exactly Turkey (NATO), Egypt and Saudi specifically.

"Allied" in the sense that the Saudi crime family can sponsor 9-11 and their catspaw the Bush administration can exploit the occasion to supplicate even more to them.

And the opposition and the media are so deep in Saud pockets, they can't even call Bush out for it.

And in the sense that when KSA fighters sortie to bomb Yemen, US forces are right there to refuel them. That's a military cooperation.

See https://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/08/08/us-a...

Up to this point, it has been possible for supporters and apologists to waive away his vague or careless remarks during the campaign as political rhetoric, jokes, or leverage for future negotiation. Now we start to see the mean (in every sense of the word) instinct that informed them and the harm they can do.

If you poll this issue, you'll find at least 80% of Americans don't care how inconvenient our immigration policy is for those countries affected. And a very large majority wants no immigration whatsoever from any of those nations affected nor from any of their neighbors save Israel. Probably a majority of Hillary voters would approve if they could be reassured it would go no further than that.

A majority of Americans want to allow refugees from Muslim countries, including Syria: http://www.voanews.com/a/poll-americans-divided-along-party-...

Democrats (who voted 89% for Hillary) are strongly in support.

Overall 59% of Americans believe immigrants make the country stronger: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/15/americans-vi...

Since the actual facts seem so starkly in opposition to 'WildUtah's point, I'd be really interested in seeing what evidence he expected to use to support his argument --- if only to see whether I'm misunderstanding his point.

The facts being some polls? Because those don't lie, right?

How that poll is taken:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfkTwY6aalg

I'm sorry but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Which specific poll are you referring to and what specific problem do you have with its methodology? What poll more accurately describes public opinion, or is public opinion on this subject either "unknowable" or in some other way clear?

How are these polls unlike all the other polls that e.g. predicted Trump will lose by a large margin?

Most polls are quite vague approximations, when they aren't just lying with statistics. And you can easily frame them in all kinds of ways by how one asks the questions and how they present an issue.

Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported. In particular, the outcome tracked the national polls, and upsets were targeted and involved very narrow margins.

But, of course, none of your comment answers the questions I posed. I'm less interested in litigating abstractions and more in the specifics. Care to take a whack at addressing them?

>Those polls were broadly accurate, as has been heavily reported.

The polls about The Donald losing were also heavily reported: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/26/polls-shatter-myth-pr...

In any case, unlike you, I'm more interested in abstractions based on large historical body of evidence (for not trusting pollsters in general) than in specifics (evaluating a particular poll, especially in hot political and partisan issues, which presupposes that I can trust what those that created it say, that is not only trusting the methodology as they describe it, but also that they followed it -- and we obviously have no way of knowing the latter).

How did you verify the poll? Because this is not some scientific paper where one can retract the steps and redo the numbers. Just trusting the methodology reported (a meagre page with a 10-mile high view of the procedure and no specifics in the case of Pew Research Center, for example?) and having faith that no poll and/or research center would ever misreport or falsify?

Maybe my mistrust is wrong, but I don't see the trust as being any better, especially with so many off the mark polls that been shown in practice to be so (the actually verifiable and falsifiable ones, like the ones on voting preferences).

I'm really sorry, I'm not sure I follow what you're saying here, but I am confident that you're pursuing a different argument than the one I was, and I'm just not interested in it.

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

>And a very large majority wants no immigration whatsoever from any of those nations affected nor from any of their neighbors save Israel.

American immigration policy towards Israelis is essentially the same as towards anyone else. My (Jewish Israeli) coworker from grad-school wanted to work for Google in Mountain View, but the company couldn't swing him a visa. He stayed at Technion to do a PhD.

He now says that he doesn't want to come to the USA with Trump in power.

You tell me how a Jewish Israeli computer scientist poses a threat to the United States. And if you think you can, be aware that I'm such a person, on top of being American, so you had better explain to me how I'm a foreign threat to my own home country.

If you're one the best and brightest abroad, why would you trust staking a future in this country anymore? Even if what we're seeing now recedes and fades. Huge damage to our future of this country, beyond just the "temporary"-so-far order.

I agree, and that's what I have to say to my former (I graduated) coworker. I'm very much inclined to pack bags, ship my possessions, and leave this country myself. If this is how this government behaves one week in, violating human rights and the Constitution already, what can I expect as a minority who was born here?

And what about the people I know without second passports? Should a certain friend refuse to visit China with her parents because Trump might decide to ban her (with an American passport!) from returning home over some spat about trade policy?

The Department of Homeland Security should have refused this order.

> Trump might decide to ban her (with an American passport!)

Trump can't do that. That would take something way beyond an executive order.

Given that Steve Bannon actively wants us in a shooting war with China, I'd say your friend should make up Plans B,C,D and E immediately.

A patriotic American can simply renounce a foreign passport.

Some countries do not allow renunciation of their passports.

I'm not sure it's that easy. For one, it might not be a lot better where you're from. But more importantly, your presence also can influence (small impact on an individual's level of course) where things are going. There's also the issue that depending on your field there's simply more interesting jobs available locally in the US than in a lot of other countries.

I moved to the US ~a year ago, now as a permanent resident. Debating on what to do if things continue going down along the current course.

I believe Google would be happy to have him in London, Zurich, or Canada. We have solid engineering teams in all of them.

However, my view on that is a bit different - if he can avoid, working on his own for his own future instead of a big corp is the way to go.

PS: goog emp.

> I believe Google would be happy to have him in London, Zurich, or Canada. We have solid engineering teams in all of them.

As I understood it, he had gone through the interview process and been offered a specific role in Mountain View, for which they then couldn't get the visa. This was back in 2015, so no Trump craziness yet then, just the ordinary bureaucratic stuff.

And just to express my butthurt, Israelis don't even get visa-free tourism to the United States.

The h1b cap is crazy, unfortunately. If he has a phd he could have gone through eb1 route, but i am not an expert on that.

That said, it looks like it's past now. Good luck to your friend.

I doubt a Jewish Israeli computer scientist poses a threat. But posing a threat isn't the criterion. We don't just take anyone that isn't especially dangerous.

America is a nation and only those that further the aims of the existing nation should come. Even then it should be very few of those because America is already full.

We can't build enough space to live and infrastructure for the people that are already here. And our natural environment is already threatened by overdevelopment.

What do you mean "America is full?" Our population density is 182 of ~250 on a global scale. We have more space, money, and food per person than almost every other country on the planet.

The world is ridiculously overfull and Americans didn't make it that way. And the rest of the world is headed for rapid population increases to make it much worse. Americans shouldn't have to suffer for that; we've got a little space left and we should guard it jealously.

And just try driving in any major prosperous city at rush hour or riding the subway. Or renting an apartment in SF or NY. We can't expand housing or infrastructure in those cities and we're admitting millions of foreigners overfilling them even further.

if they could be reassured it would go no further than that.

We're 6 days in. At this point, can anyone really assure them of that?