It's much easier to say "I'm going to make it impossible for us to have to worry about the Australian government filing a lawsuit against $my-state-agency, beca

It's much easier to say "I'm going to make it impossible for us to have to worry about the Australian government filing a lawsuit against $my-state-agency, because legal said so" than "Well, if we allow Australian IPs to access this website, there's a 0.x% chance that we get sued by Australia, but it's worth it for the sake of the 0.00x% of American expats in Australia." Here's a analogously real example from current US-Ukraine policy: > For example, one current social goal in the U.S., given the geopolitical conflict with Russia, is to avoid facilitating activities that could aid the adversary. As Russia has invaded Ukraine, the U.S. has positioned itself in opposition to Russia but not Ukraine. Banks, therefore, need to align with these geopolitical stances, leading to decisions that might catch some individuals in the crossfire, even if they’re not directly involved. > Financial institutions often interpret this as: if they're not deeply specialized in doing business in Ukraine, they should avoid it altogether. They fear they won’t be able to consistently ensure compliance with these complex directives from the government [especially because there's a chance those directives might change in a week, or a month, or 3 months]. > This creates a split-brain problem within U.S. decision-making. The government intends to say, "Please cut down on oligarch money laundering that supports Russia’s war effort." However, financial institutions hear this as, "Under no circumstances should you fund anything related to Ukraine," including, for example, scholarships for Ukrainian high schoolers—a slight exaggeration, but not far from the reality in some cases. (source: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/true-crime-banking-edition/ https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/true-crime-ba...)