Self-centered American here, but wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees? Not clear why, say, Suriname (to pick a country out of a hat) should rank equally with Japan.
That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest of the developed world on all sorts of indices; we're so strange. Strangely illiberal, even before November. (I mean 'illiberal' in the political theory sense of the word, not left/right political sense of the word.)
That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is.
One of the most alarming things about this whole issue is that it's taken this long for "normal people" to realise something is wrong and do something about it.
We're seeing mass protests now, when large numbers of people are literally being held in handcuffs for extended periods despite obviously doing nothing wrong. However, it's not as if border security at the US (and, to be fair, here in the UK and in various other countries) hadn't completely lost the plot already before Trump arrived.
Then again, I have long said things would have to get worse before they got better. Let's hope that at least we have now reached that point and ordinary people start questioning the whole way we look at security again.
> wouldn't it make sense to weight it by population, or even population of likely attendees?
You're right, of course.
> the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is.
Yes, getting visa can be a time-consuming, expensive, even humiliating hassle - I've seen it with
* friends (one friend was planning to visit the USA for the first time this Christmas, was twice denied visa (no reasons provided), so did not go),
* colleagues (a colleague working in Hong Kong could not get permission for his wife to join him there), and
* myself (and I travel on a German passport, which is the best in that regard: 177 countries visa free/visa on arrival).
So, I genuinely think that among the things to consider (among others) when planning an international conference is easy entry for attendees.
However, the sad thing is that it's not a sudden policy swerve. The USA has had a rather restrictive visa policy for decades. It has obviously historically been wide open, but increasing suspicion of economic migrants, and then after 9/11 increasing suspicion of terrorists seems to have made it more and more defensive of the borders.
I personally find US CBP (custom and border protection) among the potentially least pleasant (and I've been to 100+ countries). ("Potentially" because you can be lucky and have a friendly reception and no problems at all, but you sure can have grumpy questions and more serious problems.)
The Recurse Center, a great programming retreat in NY, used to be called Hacker School. With the old name, attendees regularly had trouble with CBP (the dreaded secondary inspection), and I seem to recall that some have been denied entry. I believe that was one of the factors behind the name change.
So, yes, your perceptive observation that this is another index on which the US compares less favourably to the rest of the developed world as sometimes assumed also contributed to the post. Recent events have made it even worse - and I'm glad to see that the resistance is rising :-)
That said, I think the point of your post (and the original post) is just to call out how ridiculous and sad the US's sudden policy swerve is. I hate how often the US compares unfavorably with the rest of the developed world on all sorts of indices; we're so strange. Strangely illiberal, even before November. (I mean 'illiberal' in the political theory sense of the word, not left/right political sense of the word.)