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I'm genuinely curious, what's the difference between robots replacing American jobs and foreigners replacing American jobs? Politicians go to great lengths to

I'm genuinely curious, what's the difference between robots replacing American jobs and foreigners replacing American jobs? Politicians go to great lengths to protect the sanctity of American jobs by passing strict immigration regulations and instantiating border checkpoints hundreds of miles inside the border. They don't seem to be mirroring their actions for robots.

grondilu 10y ago
> what's the difference between robots replacing American jobs and foreigners replacing American jobs? Complaining about the latter makes you sound xenophobic.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Its less about xenonorphism and more about lower standards and willingness to work for wages that require 5 people to share an apartment.
ZoeZoeBee 10y ago
Inevitability and lack of resources. We can all agree that robots are in the process of replacing many careers regardless of immigration. When the robot needs replacing you purchase a new robot. When the low skilled worker you imported is made obsolete by an even cheaper robot, now that worker must be taken care of by the state. Chances are that worker also plans on reproducing during their life, creating more unnecessary workers
thaumasiotes 10y ago
Foreigners bring their own culture along with them; robots can't do that. http://www.unz.com/gnxp/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-no-rapin/ http://www.unz.com/gnxp/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-no-r... > Migrants themselves can often be quite frank and astute observers of cross-cultural differences: > “Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” Mr. Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police. Outsourcing would be a much closer parallel.
force_reboot 10y ago
When it comes to outsourcing or moving manufacturing overseas, there is no difference between robots and foreigners. Some economists who study international trade like to emphasize this point, that there is no fundamental difference between trade and technology. On the other hand, immigrants interact with the country they migrate to in a whole bunch of ways. E.g. someone who earns below minimum wage is very unlikely to pay taxes that account for their increased burden on the government. This issue is often ignored by pro-immigration economists who only consider some narrowly defined set of govt services like welfare. Furthermore (and I acknowledge that here I am going against mainstream economic opinion) economists often justify immigration using ponzi-scheme like logic [1]: even if the immigrant is a net economic negative, they are younger and therefore are a net positive while they are working, and presumably even more immigration in the future will pay for this generation's retirement. [1] Technically this is referred to as "overlapping generation" models. While these models are not all ponzi-like, a lot of the popular models assume that the net production of humankind for all time has infinite present value, so we can borrow a (finite) amount from the infinite future and make everyone better off.

grondilu 10y ago

> what's the difference between robots replacing American jobs and foreigners replacing American jobs? Complaining about the latter makes you sound xenophobic.

goldenkey 10y ago
Its less about xenonorphism and more about lower standards and willingness to work for wages that require 5 people to share an apartment.

ZoeZoeBee 10y ago

Inevitability and lack of resources. We can all agree that robots are in the process of replacing many careers regardless of immigration. When the robot needs replacing you purchase a new robot. When the low skilled worker you imported is made obsolete by an even cheaper robot, now that worker must be taken care of by the state. Chances are that worker also plans on reproducing during their life, creating more unnecessary workers

thaumasiotes 10y ago

Foreigners bring their own culture along with them; robots can't do that. http://www.unz.com/gnxp/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-no-rapin/ http://www.unz.com/gnxp/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-no-r... > Migrants themselves can often be quite frank and astute observers of cross-cultural differences: > “Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” Mr. Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police. Outsourcing would be a much closer parallel.

force_reboot 10y ago

When it comes to outsourcing or moving manufacturing overseas, there is no difference between robots and foreigners. Some economists who study international trade like to emphasize this point, that there is no fundamental difference between trade and technology. On the other hand, immigrants interact with the country they migrate to in a whole bunch of ways. E.g. someone who earns below minimum wage is very unlikely to pay taxes that account for their increased burden on the government. This issue is often ignored by pro-immigration economists who only consider some narrowly defined set of govt services like welfare. Furthermore (and I acknowledge that here I am going against mainstream economic opinion) economists often justify immigration using ponzi-scheme like logic [1]: even if the immigrant is a net economic negative, they are younger and therefore are a net positive while they are working, and presumably even more immigration in the future will pay for this generation's retirement. [1] Technically this is referred to as "overlapping generation" models. While these models are not all ponzi-like, a lot of the popular models assume that the net production of humankind for all time has infinite present value, so we can borrow a (finite) amount from the infinite future and make everyone better off.