So.

[Secular Sanity]

Is it 'cause we're all friends here? That's a topic in itself, y'know....

Friends?  Yazata has never even responded to me before.

[stryder]

One reason why I was attracted to this board is that it gave me an opportunity to discuss things like the philosophy of science that interest me, without all the political divisiveness and hostility that's so prevalent on Sciforums. I don't enjoy getting into angry political arguments. It just poisons the board.

I agree with that sentiment. Both Politics and Religion tend to be very upset and angry Elephants in the room.

[Secular Sanity]

One reason why I was attracted to this board is that it gave me an opportunity to discuss things like the philosophy of science that interest me, without all the political divisiveness and hostility that's so prevalent on Sciforums. I don't enjoy getting into angry political arguments. It just poisons the board.

I agree with that sentiment.  Both Politics and Religion tend to be very upset and angry Elephants in the room.

Not me. I prefer to engage, to have an open and honest discussion.  Someone asked me once, why do I keeping touching hot stoves over there, referring to Sciforums. Confused2 then asked, if it’s irrational to hope that others will (ultimately) behave rationally? I think that conflict avoidance is irrational.  Do avoidance strategies really work for you?

A friend will tell you unpleasant truths.  Sure, it involves risk.  It’s intimidating, scary, uncomfortable, and even painful at times, but the hurt is good.

Come on baby, make it hurt so good.  Earworm…sorry.

The reason I asked Yazata about the other countries that were excluded from the ban is because some people are saying that it’s because of his business interests, while others are saying it’s a strategic anti-terrorist move.

"The seven countries targeted by the executive order exclude Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Muslim-majority countries where The Trump Organization has conducted business or pursued business opportunities. This prompted criticism; legal scholar David G. Post, for example, suggested that Trump had "allowed business interests to interfere with his public policymaking" and that this could constitute an impeachable offense." [1] [2]

Most people that throw in their two cents don’t even know what ISIS or ISIL stand for, much less their underlying cause and motivation.  Yazata does.

[Yazata]

It's a temporary 30-day hold on admission of aliens

Actually I think that it's 90 days. But it isn't permanent and it doesn't extend to the entire Muslim world.

It’s alien nationals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.  Why didn't he include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, or Lebanon?

The President doesn't confide in me. But I'd guess it's because reasonable methods of vetting entrants from those countries already exist. The United States can check with the security agencies in those places and learn what they have on particular individuals who show up here wanting in. Libya, Somalia and Yemen don't really have governments, Syria is torn by civil war, ISIS controls much of Iraq, and Iran refuses to help us.

---

One reason why I was attracted to this board is that it gave me an opportunity to discuss things like the philosophy of science that interest me, without all the political divisiveness and hostility that's so prevalent on Sciforums. I don't enjoy getting into angry political arguments. It just poisons the board.

I agree with that sentiment.  Both Politics and Religion tend to be very upset and angry Elephants in the room.

I like to discuss religion. Maybe that's because I feel a lot more confident discussing it than I feel discussing physics (which I know relatively little about). And maybe part of it is because I'm an agnostic and emotionally speaking, I don't really feel very strongly about religion. It's a more cerebral subject for me than for many people and I enjoy thinking about things like religious epistemology, religious language, religious experience and the whole idea of transcendence in general.

[Ben the Donkey]

If not for the fascination others have about such topics indirectly influencing me, I could probably say that I don't even much come here for politics and social issues (it's primarily a science board after all).

Ah, but CC - observing human behaviour is about as scientific as it gets. And politics is nothing if not a fascinating little sport one watching from the stands can enjoy immensely.

[Zinjanthropos]

If not for the fascination others have about such topics indirectly influencing me, I could probably say that I don't even much come here for politics and social issues (it's primarily a science board after all).

Ah, but CC - observing human behaviour is about as scientific as it gets. And politics is nothing if not a fascinating little sport one watching from the stands can enjoy immensely.

I'm with CC on this one. I'm just an apolitical personality. Being so makes it difficult for me to discuss politics, especially when my wife's political science professor friend visits. It's one of those moments when one knows they're being talked down to, she dumbs it down for me. Doesn't matter, I still nod no when I should have nodded yes. I get the feeling that you CC and B the D are too sharp for someone to be condescending towards you in conversation.

[Ben the Donkey]

Executive Order 13769

It’s alien nationals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.  Why didn't he include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, or Lebanon?

If you read the rest of the replies even in here (not that I'm casting doubt that you have, of course), you'll get a fair sort of cross-section of current news reports on the subject. Everyone wants to wash the data to arrive at whatever conclusion supports their particular bent of the moment. Muslim ban, hidden agendas, political manoeuvering etc. The article you linked covers a fair amount of the underlying political reasons, and they're not necessarily incorrect - any more than those saying it's a "muslim ban" aren't necessarily incorrect, with regard to motivation if nothing else. 

But the one thing everyone always seems to miss, even practised journalists, is simple practicality.
Yazata has already covered some of it - the processing of refugees, visitors and immigrants from the "banned" countries is tedious, time consuming and a huge waste of resources - not to mention a bottleneck which helps prevent more easily processed applicants from being finalised. At the end of the day, all of these government employees need to be paid. And if a significant proportion of them are fruitlessly trying to determine backgrounds on visa applicants who either don't have them or have thrown them away in the hopes of making things easier, then a lot of money is gurgling down the drain. It's one of the main problems we have here in Australia. If processing is done on a first come, first served basis, then a huge amount of legitimate applications are being delayed simply because the resources are either unavailable or overworked. 
Essentially, asking that someone be able to prove who they are is not an unreasonable expectation, is it. 

Some people, when confronted with a snake living under the house, will say all animals are precious and we should leave it alone. Some will say "kill it, it's a snake". 
And then there are those who will ask what species it is first. Because, you know, quite a few of them just want to hang out where it's cool, and eat rats and mice. 
Is it too much to ask we take a photo of the thing and identify it before we decide on a course of action?


Other than that, I really just wanted to know what everyone wanted to say about it. I realise we have a fairly small community here, but the cross-section of ideals and thought here is actually quite good considering the size. 
So I'm compiling reports cards, for my own personal use. Heh. 

There is actually more I wanted to say but I haven't quite organised it all in my head yet. Apart from noting that times are changing. One cannot really point to the immigrant roots of the USA without also considering that, back then, there was no inherent danger to the nation as a whole from one country or another. While it may have been true that policy was designed to prevent those from one immigrant background or another - Irish, Chinese, or what have you - from entering, one must also acknowledge that these policies were idealistic in nature, and didn't really reflect any "clear and present danger", per se.

But they do now, don't they. Pointing to tradition and ideological roots is becoming, unfortunately, irreverent.

[C C]

If not for the fascination others have about such topics indirectly influencing me, I could probably say that I don't even much come here for politics and social issues (it's primarily a science board after all).

Ah, but CC - observing human behaviour is about as scientific as it gets.

Even in the vein of observing the activity like entomologists documenting insect behavior, what I meant a bit between the lines is that those days are over. When scientists and/or their entourage were metaphorically shielded behind a contagion-proof glass as they studied social phenomena impartially (or so the idealized stories of the past go).

Politics has infected science or its public marketing foot-servants (or both). So that even if there was a social science category in the upper section specifically devoted to being about the study of human interactions in that context (including the abusive feuds transpiring in the discussions of online forums), it would be a kind of antithesis to the standard of emotional and ideological detachment ("objectivity") that the upper section of the board supposedly represented.

Which is not to say (since it's accommodating a "casual" resonance of interest) that those conceptual filters and thought-viruses of political ilk are not being exemplified in the upper section via a variety of science categories, anyway. [* Bottom section of this post offers a mere haphazard glazing of examples].

And politics is nothing if not a fascinating little sport one watching from the stands can enjoy immensely.

Yeah, it does serve a gladiator spectator-ship from the mid or upper rows of the coliseum. Ironically, the uncivil extremes and "being on the wrong side" of political piety might be less likely to get one in ban trouble here as opposed to SciForums; and yet it probably tends to be more passive here in comparison.

- - - - - - - --

[*] Scientists exploring how conservatives are troglodyte idiots (in a discreet or roundabout way), but the latter can't help it because of their inherited "disgust reactions": https://www.scivillage.com/thread-182.html

Although John Tierney is a journalist, he hobnobs with enough scientists of libertarian and conservative stripe to be a summary mouthpiece here for their views, when exploring how liberals are idiots (in a discreet or roundabout way): https://www.scivillage.com/thread-3164.html

In regard to some Republican commentators who view Trump as an independent who hijacked their party, that "outside the establishments" faction would be depicted vicariously here by extrapolations about their "tycoon superman" (these could have as much been posted in General Science rather than Style and Fashion):

Forecasts on the impending Trump apocalypse in science
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-3169.html

Round 2 of the Trump science apocalypse
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-3190.html

Meteorology & Climatology hardly needs to be mentioned as an abundant repository for an oscillating rivalry: https://www.scivillage.com/thread-966.html

Even without narrowing down to its political genre.... The claims, replication problems, and conceptual filters balance of the social / psychological sciences in general would be notorious:

Do the social sciences border on being junk science?
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-1602.html

Psychology study fails to replicate
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-3085.html

Social psychology: A lack of political diversity?
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-193.html

Political Diversity Will Improve Social Psychological Science
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-1004.html

Let's Abolish Social Science
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-1295.html

[Secular Sanity]

So I'm compiling reports cards, for my own personal use. Heh. 

Aren't we all?

---

If not for the fascination others have about such topics indirectly influencing me, I could probably say that I don't even much come here for politics and social issues (it's primarily a science board after all).

Ah, but CC - observing human behaviour is about as scientific as it gets.

When scientists and/or their entourage were metaphorically shielded behind a contagion-proof glass as they studied social phenomena impartially (or so the idealized stories of the past go).

Behind a contagion-proof glass vs. a computer screen, what’s the difference?


Friends of Reply Relationship

"We use this feature to describe how users are influenced by the numbers of neighbors with whom they have ever had any reply relationship. Although the reply relationship is not exactly the same as a real friendship, this is usually the most common and explicit user-user relationship that canbe extracted from a forum dataset.

The most obvious relationship among users in online forums is the reply relationship between users. Instead of reflecting strong friendship, the reasons people are linked together by online replies may be because of common interests or different opinions." [1]

[C C]

Behind a contagion-proof glass vs. a computer screen, what’s the difference?

Mmmm.... It was more a metaphor for the classic image of science adhering to a maintenance of objectivity. Of the researchers not getting contaminated, influenced or "irradiated" by the very passions, credos / beliefs, and activities which they're studying. Or projecting their own private life / worldviews / agenda into the target of investigation, thereby infecting it. Computer screens (as a symbolic barrier for impartiality) wouldn't have existed in those days when science was heavily idealized (with such depictions of one sort or another dispensed to an audience).

Participation in a political discussion or feud might usually be the wrong end of the telescope. The investigator could participate by a submitting a poll, questionnaire, or survey to a forum. But going beyond that by engaging in a gonzo version of science would be kind of like dumping a few tons of garbage in a tribal area just to see how the inhabitants react to their lifestyle being disturbed by foreign intrusion. As opposed to seeking to apprehend something from their normal routines.

But if the project or experiment was about, say, how "capitalists react to the propaganda of a marxist thrown into their midst", then the interference might have merit since the very goal would be placing them in an artificial setup to test them (active interrogation of nature rather passively cataloguing / indexing it).

Of course, as hinted in the reply to Ben, if an idealized portrayal of science (especially the social sciences) was ever actually the case in the past, then it doesn't so much apply now (or always had one foot planted in myth).