Hot button issues like this are really a test of how confused people are. If you are too uncomfortable at the thought of taking seriously the possibility that your own government is not evil, but has a valid concern with security, (which is not to say it should go unscrutinized), then instead of pretending to argue, why not just say "BOO!" and save us the rest. My favorite this time was, "security must not be gained at the sacrifice of our morals." (--our morals, right). When feminist peace protesters somehow got into the federal legislature to heckel Rumsfield with anti-war cries, he made the simple observation that, "What they don't realize is that they wouldn't be allowed to do that in Iraq." Without security, you could not have a government which is designed around *securing* rights for the people, to live as they see fit, so long as it does not jeopardize those 'rights'. Contradictions make for poor reasoning. Science is not harmless. "AI of military value? Nooooo, it couldn't possibly be."... "But there are brilliant foreigners who want to learn about this and advance the state of the research." Of course there are, but does that somehow make them holy? It is probably very rare that the actual issue is the character of a given scientist. Most scientists only care about science, and otherwise they are politically disinterested, and likely for that reason naive--they don't have time to think about politics, but because they know they are smart in their field and politics is a 'value' field, they are likely to presume they know more about politics than they they do. Is it inconceivable that the advancement of learning ought to take into political circumstances under consideration? Try reading the book by that title, or the New Atlantis, that's a shorter one. The great thinkers who founded modern science (and created the conditions to subvert fanaticism) did not believe things out of convenience, but only as a result of rigorous thinking. I'm sure most/. readers are quite competent at this at their jobs, but it would be nice to see some of that cool-headed, sober and visionary reasoning spill over. At the same time, from a political standpoint (self-interested as it is) it should be recognized that the research of innocent and more or less patriotic scientists can be used to bring about results which are dangerous for enemies of that state. Most of the 'arguments' here are premised on that very fear, that the US government is dangerous, while presumably, say the Chinese government, is harmless, or at least that no research done by a foreign national could possibly fall into the wrong hands. To say that it is "just as likely" that the research done by an American national could fall into the wrong hands here misses the point. Americans still have enemies, within and without...
Slashdot Mirror
Hot button issues like this are really a test of how confused people are. If you are too uncomfortable at the thought of taking seriously the possibility that your own government is not evil, but has a valid concern with security, (which is not to say it should go unscrutinized), then instead of pretending to argue, why not just say "BOO!" and save us the rest. My favorite this time was, "security must not be gained at the sacrifice of our morals." (--our morals, right). When feminist peace protesters somehow got into the federal legislature to heckel Rumsfield with anti-war cries, he made the simple observation that, "What they don't realize is that they wouldn't be allowed to do that in Iraq." Without security, you could not have a government which is designed around *securing* rights for the people, to live as they see fit, so long as it does not jeopardize those 'rights'. Contradictions make for poor reasoning. Science is not harmless. "AI of military value? Nooooo, it couldn't possibly be." ... "But there are brilliant foreigners who want to learn about this and advance the state of the research." Of course there are, but does that somehow make them holy? It is probably very rare that the actual issue is the character of a given scientist. Most scientists only care about science, and otherwise they are politically disinterested, and likely for that reason naive--they don't have time to think about politics, but because they know they are smart in their field and politics is a 'value' field, they are likely to presume they know more about politics than they they do. Is it inconceivable that the advancement of learning ought to take into political circumstances under consideration? Try reading the book by that title, or the New Atlantis, that's a shorter one. The great thinkers who founded modern science (and created the conditions to subvert fanaticism) did not believe things out of convenience, but only as a result of rigorous thinking. I'm sure most /. readers are quite competent at this at their jobs, but it would be nice to see some of that cool-headed, sober and visionary reasoning spill over. At the same time, from a political standpoint (self-interested as it is) it should be recognized that the research of innocent and more or less patriotic scientists can be used to bring about results which are dangerous for enemies of that state. Most of the 'arguments' here are premised on that very fear, that the US government is dangerous, while presumably, say the Chinese government, is harmless, or at least that no research done by a foreign national could possibly fall into the wrong hands. To say that it is "just as likely" that the research done by an American national could fall into the wrong hands here misses the point. Americans still have enemies, within and without...