Why we should work with people in places we disagree with | The Healthiest Goldfish

The case against disengagement with Red America.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, I wrote a piece addressing the issue of working with scientists from countries which are engaged in actions that run counter to our values. Russia's invasion is a profound injustice, causing harm to those in the region and amplifying the global risk of nuclear war. This raises the question of whether, by continuing to collaborate with Russian scholars—and by continuing to engage with Russian cultural products more broadly—we are in some way complicit in the country's continued aggression towards its neighbor. This question does not lend itself to easy or comfortable answers. In science, we are centrally concerned with the pursuit of truth, and the truth is that actions that undermine the creation of a just world place at risk the conditions of freedom and equality that sustain human progress and science itself. It is our mission, then, to take seriously the possibility of disengaging with countries and organizations whose actions undermine the shaping of such a world.

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