[trhway]

Lets say an American scientist in a strategic area was offered a boatload of money (or some other piece of mice) from China or similar. Legally probably he can move, though export control probably applies to the brain content too. How sure the said scientist would be that he isn't going to have a car accident? Gerald Bull would have a word on it. So, "disappear" may start to look like an attractive alternative. A related example - Russia has put a bunch of top hypersonic missile related scientists into prison for supposedly working with China (and may be they worked, though official charges have so far been obviously fabricated - like for publishing in a journal of an research article on a non-secret project with that article making all the typical rounds for months through peer-review, etc) as well as making a law giving FSB full control over any scientific interaction between domestic and foreign scientists and institutions.

I suppose the top AI talent may become subjects of a similar game.

[b112]

It doesn't have to be China or Russia. As others have mentioned, the current political climate in the US is... "weird". At least, as an outsider, I just don't know how else to describe it. It's like watching/listening to gibberish.

So I can imagine American allies recruiting scientists en-mass, to protect themselves from America. The US has currently demonstrated a desire to take over allies completely (Canada, Greenland), and I'm sure few know who may be next. Some scientists may have simply wished to move abroad, and also, have quite valuable skills which are restricted in some way, hence them "disappearing".

[trhway]

>to protect themselves from America.

not necessarily from America. The goal #1 of the US dominated NATO for example was to prevent Germany from getting nuclear weapons in exchange for protection by US. Now with US de-facto withdrawing, Germany would have to quickly get nukes (as well as missiles to carry them) - i don't see other option for Germany here giving the environment in Europe and MidEast. So they would also need such scientists. South Korea, Japan, Australia seem to be in the similar situation too. (and everybody understands that a nuclear weapons program can't be a long multi-year endeavor - somebody will try to stop you - and so it must be very fast once started, and thus you have to have ready-to-use skills and knowledge)

[greedo]

Keeping the FRG from getting nukes wasn't part of NATO strategy. The succinct reason for NATO was to keep the Soviets from marching to the Atlantic. The more pragmatic was expressed as "Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

[trhway]

You're overlooking the fact that Europe started 2 World Wars and keeping Europe at peace was a major NATO goal.

[greedo]

Hence the part about "...the Germans down."

[PearlRiver]

The whole point of NATO was always to present a united front. Even the slightest HINT of doubt could embolden the enemy to test resolve.

And at this point NATO has pretty much collapsed. Trump turned his back on Ukraine and nobody wants to join operation Epstein Fury.

[vasac]

> Germany would have to quickly get nukes

No shit? Why would they have to? Is someone ready to nuke them if it turns out they’re no longer under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, or are they some special snowflakes who should have them while Iran (and most other countries) shouldn’t?

[trhway]

>Is someone ready to nuke them

No. The nukes prevent the aggression even by a conventionally armed aggressor. Nukes ins't to win a war, it is to prevent one. Lets say Germany has successfully repelled Russian tank-and-soldiers invasion - it would still be a devastating thing for Germany which the nukes would help prevent from starting at all.

>are they some special snowflakes who should have them while Iran (and most other countries) shouldn’t?

Yes, i listed those several special snowflakes who were kept safe by the US nukes, and would need their own umbrella with US no longer providing the one. Iran's situation is obviously very different.

[vasac]

> Iran's situation is obviously very different.

Yes, very different as in 'Our blessed homeland vs their barbarous wastes' meme.

We (and our allies) should have nukes because we want to prevent wars. But no one else should have them, since the situation is obviously very different (we wouldn’t want them to be able to prevent wars).

And I used to think that Little Rocketman was a crazy bastard, but it looks like I was wrong.

[trhway]

>Yes, very different as in 'Our blessed homeland vs their barbarous wastes' meme.

exactly. Iran's policy declaration of destroying whole countries (US and Israel in this case) and conducting of actual proxy-wars in order to achieve those goals make them barbarians from whom the civilization must be defended.

>we wouldn’t want them to be able to prevent wars

they don't even try. They want nukes to be able to conduct wars.

>And I used to think that Little Rocketman was a crazy bastard, but it looks like I was wrong.

absolutely. For all their tremendous faults, NK uses their nukes for deterrence as they want to genocide their own people in the comfort of personal safety. Whereis ayatollahs are hellbent on waging wars and destruction in order to spread their Islamic Revolution.

[Melatonic]

Or the scientists and engineers themselves are wanting out of the US and were offered secret offers to "dissapear" and live elsewhere under a new identity

[brador]

We’ve just looped back to the first idea this brain dump came up with.