This is an old revision of the document!
Will Bioinformaticians facing sanctions at wartime?
For tolerance (and you must remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called “modern world” are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters as do not interest them very much. ― Hendrik Willem van Loon, The Story of Mankind
I learned a lot of words from News during these days: Ukrainian seeking NATO admission, Russian attack, Economic sanctions and SWIFT limitation, etc, which triggered me to learn more specifics about European present and past. Beforehand, I am not militant, and I believe war is guilty no matter in what forms and should be the last choice. However, the world is complex and never will be equal in nationalities, races, and religions etc. That explains people born differently but fight for the same goal of better life including you at the times of reading. In a less tolerant world, it might be not fair to blame others who fight for the life you already have. It is also not fair to sacrifice others’ life for the life you are fighting for. Fortunately, bioinformaticians do not involve too many political topics at least for non-military research and play no harm to territory sovereignty.
During the Spring and Autumn period in Chinese history (771 - 476 BCE), dukes and marquesses obtained de facto regional autonomy and they preserved their forces through intermarriages between the royal clans when no one can be the immediate hegemon. It is also due to the relationship among nobles, no one want to destroy other completely which is same to the European in history. However, the results we have known that Qin unified the seven states of China in 221 BC under Qin Shi Huang who firstly cut-off the nobles who against him. In a modern world, the globalization trade has become much more common, the more one country has involved in the world trade, the more reluctant to leave, which is why the Economic sanctions and SWIFT limitation seems like nuclear weapon.
For Bioinformaticians, can you imagine one day the NCBI, KEGG, or other databases are limiting the usage because of certain sanctions? I hope that day won’t come but again it is a complex world depending on weapons on whose hand.
<Xi Zhang, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow, Archibald Lab, Dalhousie University>
<Last updated by Xi Zhang on Feb 28th,2022>