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It's possible that by providing a fraction of the population with greater luxury than an equal allocation of resources would allow for, those people are able to

It's possible that by providing a fraction of the population with greater luxury than an equal allocation of resources would allow for, those people are able to achieve greater advances in technology than otherwise, which lead to better results in the long run. Or more pithily: Maybe we need gardens to cultivate civilisation. That said, I am very aware that this is probably a post-rationalisation for my tribal intuition that nearby people are more important than distant ones.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
This is a plausible argument, and a favored one among some neoreactionaries. But those folks point out that if we accept the "garden" premise, many folks currently in the garden (non-Asian minorities, various lower class white people) should be ejected. Do you have any argument against this? Coming up with arguments to keep out foreigners is easy. Coming up with arguments that don't also suggest kicking out blacks/hispanics/west virginia is tougher.
- naveen99 10y ago
  Just playing devils advocate. You can't kick people out because of existing contracts / promises based on citizenship. Currently borders are leakier for big corporations / the rich, then they are for the individuals / poor. Corporations do have walled gardens across borders. A google employee is better off than a us citizen on average regardless of physical location in Palo Alto or Hyderabad. If you did have open borders, you would probably end up with more privatized cities where all the land is spoken for by rich people. Eventually countries would be replaced by cities or corporations... I think we are kind of headed that way anyway in effect.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  I don't see how ejecting anyone follows from the premise? The idea is just vaguely that wealth imbalances between arbitrary groups could be beneficial overall. That in itself doesn't specify anything about the size of those groups, or who should be in them. And if we were setting out to create such arbitrary divisions, geography seems like a fairly practical way to do it. It's easy to keep people in separate areas separate, whereas segregating currently integrated races would be a significant undertaking.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

This is a plausible argument, and a favored one among some neoreactionaries. But those folks point out that if we accept the "garden" premise, many folks currently in the garden (non-Asian minorities, various lower class white people) should be ejected. Do you have any argument against this? Coming up with arguments to keep out foreigners is easy. Coming up with arguments that don't also suggest kicking out blacks/hispanics/west virginia is tougher.

naveen99 10y ago
Just playing devils advocate. You can't kick people out because of existing contracts / promises based on citizenship. Currently borders are leakier for big corporations / the rich, then they are for the individuals / poor. Corporations do have walled gardens across borders. A google employee is better off than a us citizen on average regardless of physical location in Palo Alto or Hyderabad. If you did have open borders, you would probably end up with more privatized cities where all the land is spoken for by rich people. Eventually countries would be replaced by cities or corporations... I think we are kind of headed that way anyway in effect.
aninhumer 10y ago
I don't see how ejecting anyone follows from the premise? The idea is just vaguely that wealth imbalances between arbitrary groups could be beneficial overall. That in itself doesn't specify anything about the size of those groups, or who should be in them. And if we were setting out to create such arbitrary divisions, geography seems like a fairly practical way to do it. It's easy to keep people in separate areas separate, whereas segregating currently integrated races would be a significant undertaking.