Feb 4, 17 / Pis 07, 01 20:20 UTC

Travel ban  

Recently, US president Donald Trump have imposes a 90-day ban on travellers from 7 Muslim-majority countries. Although the ban is clumsy and poorly thought out (I guess most people would agree). The reason behind it "protect the United States from foreign nationals entering from countries compromised by terrorism and a more rigorous vetting process." is understandable.

Now let's assume we will face sort of the same situation after Asgardia have been establish, for example: There's a country A, which have been identified there's a terrorist group who vow to destroy any one who touches 'God'(This is just an assumption, don't need to be serious on it). And our national security found they might cause a threat to our Country, but there's too much travellers or people apply visa, which we may not carefully vet them and keep the one who cause a threat out. One logical way to solve this is to temporary stop immigrant or refugees by a travel ban. The question is, how should we issue a travel ban(or other policy you guys could think of) that would not cause huge protests (e.g. What currently happens in the US right now) and also can meet our cause efficiently?

Feb 9, 17 / Pis 12, 01 13:01 UTC

The problem with the US travel ban was how Trump worded things before the election. Instead of saying we need to look at countries that have high rates of terrorism he said ban Muslims. This instantly made anything he did come off as anti-Muslim no matter what the reasons for the policy are. This is what happens when you say stuff to rile up people to vote using base fears. Whether Trump really believes what he said as a candidate or not what he said will now influence how people view his policies and not whether they make sense for national security or not. To avoid this Asgardia should state the logical reasons for any travel ban, foreign policy decision, ect.

Feb 20, 17 / Pis 23, 01 16:58 UTC

The protests against Trump's travel ban were mainly a political crisis coming to a head, rather than anything to do with the particular policies. This is why opponents argued, in court, that it was a Muslim ban rather than focusing their arguments on the obvious due process violations.

Other stays on visa issuance around the world have never generated notable protests, though such stays have almost always happened during war time between belligerent countries. Incidentally, most such stays have been far broader and often illegal under domestic laws, but nonetheless had popular support.

This kind of peace time stay only really makes sense to deal with terrorism and with the difficulty in traveling to space, I don't think broad travel bans like this will ever make sense for Asgardia. If terrorists are going to attack us, they'll probably target ships going up rather than trying to directly infiltrate with a saboteur. For that kind of attack, it'd be easier to win over an Asgardian to the terrorists' cause. Domestic lone wolves could destroy Asgardia in a single explosion before they even raised an eyebrow.

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 02:23 UTC

Domestic lone wolves could destroy Asgardia in a single explosion before they even raised an eyebrow.

Another reason why it's f'kin stupid to think of only ever building one. There's lots of lessons available for the learning, to the observant. One is the importance of multiple backups in geographically remote locations. Assuming you care about it being there tomorrow. If you don't learn this lesson from observation, then you will learn it from loss - and ideally, observation saves the inital loss.

But, that said, explosives... on a space station... Even if the inner pressure hull resisted the inital kinetic and thermal transfer - one I'd design would be looking to eat the forces applicable from the yeild one person could feasibly conceal - and was to survive the sudden adjustments in pressure, it's unlikely the organics will. I can't build a system that could adapt fast enough to cope. Maybe fast enough to not kill everyone, everywhere, maybe leave them deaf or something as the pressure rose fast enough to burst their eardrums but dropped quick enough by already lowering the pressure before the wave arrived to save their lives but there'd still be those closer with liquified internal organs from the pressure wave etc. and in a sealed box this would be really easy to do. Perhaps by the time this is happening it might be possible, or someone else would have a better idea of "how" but, the general environmental support systems are more likely than not to depend heavily on a massive sensor network. This is incredibly likely to include air quality measuring. To the point where one atom in ten billion atoms or more is detectable. This sort of system is already in use for detection of explosives - and can be sensitive enough to pick up that someone has been in contact with. People can have two perfectly harmless chemicals under their sink, the second they mix them, the environmental support systems should be aware. This should cover a lot more than explosives, too. For example a seperate subsystem is likey to be monitoring this data in order to track and mitigate infection spread. Kitted thusly, It should be difficult to get into a facility with - and Earth-based facilities already use such technologies so they shouldn't even get on a transport - and they should make equallly difficult to manufacture on site. The only obvious failure here would be places that natively have this chemical signiture blacklisted from alert states due to things like this is where it is stored, or used in some particular legitimate process. I can't imagine there would be much call for explosives use in residential facilities tho so it's possibly not a concern for here. Surely these would be stored elsewhere. The general damage possible to be caused by a "lone wolf" should be natively limited by sensible systems design, any attempts noted and in most cases directly compensated for by the "AI".

Generalised travel ban most unlikley. We should have no excuses to "act on fear" or to attempt to "rile people up" ergo exhibition of such behaviours isn't likley to favour much in the way of generalised support. Specific travel ban on individuals is a sincere possibility but I'd like to think there would be some genuine and applicable reasoning applied.

Attacking "ships going up" is definitely the "weakest link" - with chemical rockets that's a lot of bang sat in one place. A lot of fragile bang. There are many low tech and high tech methods to cause RUD. When it's quite close to the floor, it's "easy" to get to, big heavy things take a little while to speed up. Once it gets seriously moving, however, it should be difficult to catch.

Feb 21, 17 / Pis 24, 01 05:51 UTC

  1. Some is. Some operate under the premise that the best form of defence is offence, and in order to remain unseen in this offensive capacity will fund/supply parties with similarly aligned interests in order to achieve a goal without directly acting, and far more devious methods have been employed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism is by no means a complete list - or even a vague outline.
  2. They are already serious, as evidenced by the success of various middle eastern initatives, many south american initatives etc.
  3. Whilst absorbing the positive features on another system is certainly worthy of consideration when building ours, I feel more supporting evidence is required to how this act within itself should result in improved security.
  4. I fail to understand the question, I would suggest some translational issues. Perhaps you are able to phrase it differently?
  5. Certianly, "the government" should not be above the law, in any aspect. If our government would form as a direct democracy, as I would hope, then the government would be the common citizen, I can't quite envision capacity for much wrongdoing with such a system, but they would very much be subject to our laws - but also these are able to have say in their formation to ensure they remain fair and able to sufficiently address appropriate concerns. Such a structure should also minimise "lone wolf" activity of our citizens, by virtue of they are not independantly isolated and able to be part of procedings themselves they can adjust the shape of the lesser tollerable features - if it's a reasonable adjustment they will not be alone in this viewpoint most likely.

Feb 23, 17 / Pis 26, 01 21:55 UTC

deleted

  Updated  on May 25, 17 / Can 05, 01 19:01 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: leaving asgardia

Mar 23, 17 / Ari 26, 01 17:44 UTC

As Asgardia is an international effort that should be disconnected from power struggles of earthly nations, most terrorists don't have any motivation to attack Asgardia. Except for extremely lunatic fanatics that want to destroy our bid to explore space. Which implores that said fanatic is totally anti-science. Difficult to fly under radar with that preconditions.

It's like a total moron tries to destroy Mensa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensa_International) from within.

Mar 23, 17 / Ari 26, 01 20:48 UTC

While a good idea on paper, a travel ban either aimed at specific groups of people or individuals is pointless. There is a way around everything and people find those ways when they really want to. The best thing we can do is be dilligent and put the proper vetting procedures and other security measures in place. So, those who immigrate to or visit Asgardia for whatever reason/s. Are cleared as not being safety risks. We could for example, create an organization that is solely responsible for the nation's safety and give them tools like, a database of all known terrorist groups and extremist individuals, proper funding, and everything else they would need to do their jobs. It is a much simpler solution and does not require any tap dancing to avoid creating unintended cultural or other issues

@Vosla,

I not only disagree with you, but guarantee you at some point some extremists nutjob or terrorist organization will try to attack Asgardia. Because once the nation is in place their will indeed be reasons for them doing so. For example Asgardia will have a very lucrative mining operation in place, Asgardia will also be in a position to attack a nation of Earth in relative safety, Asgardia will by nsture also be insanely remote and out of the juridstiction of Earthly law enforcement agencies, making it the best place to go for escaping those agencies

@EyeR,

The point of any system designed to protect a structure and the people inside of it from an explosion, is to NOT harm those same people. Any system you devise that does that is in all regards a failure even if the structure survives the blast. Remember, the goal of terrorists is to cause terror and they do so by harming people. If your system would cause people harm that resulted in them going deaf, in an attempt to save the space station that will be Asgardia from being destroyed. The terrorists would basically have succeeded in their plans. People would still have gotten hurt and fear would have been spread as a result

  Updated  on Mar 23, 17 / Ari 26, 01 21:05 UTC, Total number of edits: 4 times

Jun 20, 17 / Leo 03, 01 20:05 UTC

I feel that a travel ban based on religion is not fair. Beside people can do anything whether Christian or Moslem. Extreme screening and verification process should be put in place to assure the safety of Asgardians. We should be vigilant and watch out for each other.