if you "genuinely" want to understand, start considering the opposite - what is the easiest way to defend policy like this?
"science with outside helps the other side" - done.
Current administration sees US as losing its positions, so the main answer is to close the leaks that feed its opponents with US effort
I don't understand the argument. Imagine flipping positions. You're saying that if an American researcher goes to China, gets employed by a Chinese university, and do research funded by China which is then commercialized by Chinese companies, the researcher is actually aiding America in expense of China.
The missing piece is an ethnic and political identity which gives allegiance to the US in that “tables turned” analogy.
Fine, imagine that the researcher is a black American then.
Yes, if a Saudi went to Chinese university, worked in china, sent money home to his family, and then returned to consult for Saudi government or business, that would indeed be beneficial for Saudia Arabia.
It would also be beneficial even if he didn’t do that, but helped others do that.
I don't think I said "Saudi". Why aren't you engaging with the hypothetical as presented?
Yeah you made up a completely irrelevant case. Why are you not engaging the following aspects:
- ethnic identity tying one to country of origin (Chinese people identify as Chinese and see their country of origin as their people, Americans rarely hold the same view)
- asymmetry (America is best for education and business)
- strong national government which pursues its interests
I chose a black American specifically because they are as closely identified with America as any other group. The natives were here before them, but they don't have the same relationship with the state or the abstract national project.
Saudi Arabia is a bizarre choice because it isn't exactly a research powerhouse. America might be ahead, but China is the clear runner up and is catching up thanks to what might as well be an intentional effort to undermine American science.
I am genuinely unable to understand because even if the United States is descending into fascism or whatever, research is the last thing that an effective state wants to disrupt and scientists are one of the last groups that an effective state wants to alienate.
I'm not just referring to restrictions on collaborations with foreign researchers, although I frankly do not see how that meaningfully reduces the ability of opponents to benefit from US research unless we kill open publishing as well. I'm talking about the last year and a half of destroying the ability of every basic researcher I know to work in a stable and predictable environment.
1. Much of US policy toward science is backlash to Covid vaccinations. Being anti-Science is a way of preventing Science from inflicting itself on the populace again in the future.
2. Science trends toward meritocracy, which is bad if your goal is to promote a particular social hierarchy.
It's been there so much longer, even Carl Sagan talked about it, and its inherently tied to religion.
We just did a 30 year run of “religious people are dumb and holding bus back” and it didn’t start a science boom and just made people more unhappy and disaffected.
And 2020 further revealed that science is not immune from politics or its own religious ideals.
Do you imply that last 30 years lacked significant science progress? Even if I ignore the tech ones (simpler to associate with the US), there were quite some impressive progress I heard of in other fields (in which US was significantly involved).
When did this ever happen?
After your formative years when you were done adopting new ideas.
They are concerned with their first objective which is consolidate power. Running an "effective state" is not their goal at this point in time. Infact it helps them as thingn get worse, because every bad thing that happens they spin into being their oppositions fault, which helps with objective no 1