

Detained - slillibri
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1243

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nopinsight
The fact that someone with a PhD from a top university in the world (Stanford)
is almost deported for no reason for trying to enter UK shows how foolish &
ridiculous the immigration rules in many developed countries have become.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Cham>)

Any country will benefit from having someone intelligent and dedicated enough
to earn such a PhD living in the country--whatever profession he happens to
choose* . _Many countries (China, Singapore, etc) are actively trying to lure
these people in._

Such an event would never happen in, say, Singapore or South Korea, where
academic excellence is valued highly (sometimes even more so than wealth).

In East Asia, if you are bookish and excel at school work, you're never looked
down upon or become unpopular (as in <http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html>).
Adults will always praise you; friends, awe and sometimes jealousy. But most
people will feel alright and enjoy being your friend. In fact, there is a
fairly strong positive correlation between intelligence and popularity at
school (as long as you're not too introverted).

The culture of highly valuing academic excellence is one of the reasons that
East Asia (esp those under Confucius influence) will likely dominate more and
more areas of hi-tech industries over the next few decades (esp. the less
creative areas--a likely drawback from working too hard at traditional
academic excellence from too young an age is tunnel vision and perhaps getting
your creative organs stifled.)

* Of course, there are exceptions like the Unabomber, but that's a very rare case. And if you want to filter out someone as intelligent as that when he intentionally wants to break the system, you might need to filter out 90+% of entering travelers anyway.

~~~
cperciva
_almost deported for no reason_

It seems to be that there was a very good reason: He was planning on working
in the UK, and didn't have a work visa. There are exceptions for academic
visitors and medical doctors, but none of them apply in this case.

~~~
wooster
Speaking tours, artistic performances, etc are generally exempted from this.

You shouldn't need a work visa to, for example, speak at a conference for
which you are being paid.

~~~
adw
Visa waivers probably complicate this, but on the face of it, it depends on
what a "reasonable honorarium" is:

'[you must] not receive funding for your work from any United Kingdom source
(payments of expenses or reasonable honoraria may be disregarded, as may
payments on an exchange basis)'

<http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/en/howtoapply/infs/inf2visitors>

Whether this is a good policy is another matter.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905127>

My comment from there:

So he earns a living as a cartoonist. Because of that he's invited to give
talks. He gets money for these talks. How is this not working?

I can just imagine doing the same in the USA. Not.

Not so long ago when my wife (British) and I (Australian) went to Melbourne
she was invited to give a lecture related to her work. The advice we were
given was - accept no money at all, even for expenses.

If he didn't bother to check on these things then I have very little sympathy.
The other countries almost certainly have similar conditions, and mostly
things are fine if you check in advance.

------
human_v2
One day people might get sick of it. But not before American Idol is over.

