U.S. science agency moves to restrict foreign scientists from its labs

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

There isn’t much rationality since then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Racism and Christian Nationalism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just feels like side effects of poorly thought out rules from above.

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

I don't know how long ago the library of Alexandria was burned down. But what I do know is that we never learn the lesson. It's rather stupid to store public research data (i.e, excluding classified info) at a single location. There are any number of unpredictable future scenarios that can lead to this same unfortunate outcome.

Scientists and politicians should work together and agree to store and host such research data in multiple countries, including with rival nations. That should make it a lot more resilient against such eventualities. It won't cause any security risk. After all, you were going to publish it anyway. Why waste the information worth a lot of money and effort?

But instead of that, many governments and greedy corporations go after independent groups who do exactly that - scihub and internet archive, for example. We as a species possess the stupidity of stubbornly avoiding the obvious right path.

And the bit about collusion with secessionists ... while be ultra nationalist - is conspiratorial and nonsensical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the crux of the issue.

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

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

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

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

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