On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 4:39 PM, Michael Richardson <mcr+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Barry, you said that you live there half the time.
I think that the anxiety is that we do not hear good things about the state
of the justice system. (There are many other countries and US states were I
think foreigners would equally anxious).
I think that we are comfortable with Japan (for instance) because we have
some idea of what, worse case, we could expect from the justice and medical
apparatus.
I'm comfortable with Japan. It has a very low crime rate. I have relatives who live there and my great-great grandfather, William Clark Eastlake, is buried in Tokyo. But comfortable with what could be expected for justice in Japan in the "worst case"? I assume you are joking:
And those articles doesn't even describe how harsh Japanese prisons are.
All courses in life involve risk. All nations have problems. There is no hope for any policies that ignore probabilities and the weighing of different considerations. As the IETF becomes increasingly diverse, we will soon reach a point, if we are not there already, where every IETF meeting will be boycotted by some potential attendee because of the country where it is held.
Judging from postings, people think that Buenos Aires was fine. but I found it to be, from the point of view of crimes against our our attendees, the most crime ridden place I have ever attended any kind of meeting. IETF meeting attendees were actually assaulted and robbed. At least a half dozen and probably a lot more were squirted with fake bird poo. ATMs run by banks inside bank offices spewed forth counterfeit money. People (including myself) were routinely scammed by taxi drivers. But apparently, based on most what most posters say, this is all fine because we have never been there before and it gave a bunch of new people an opportunity to attend. So it all depends on what weight you give to what factors....
Donald
Maybe you could speak to this part.