14 ms·

Am I the only one here who thinks that a person has a basic right to work with whoever and wherever they want regardless of their birthplace? Is discriminating

Am I the only one here who thinks that a person has a basic right to work with whoever and wherever they want regardless of their birthplace? Is discriminating against someone based on where they were born somehow less of a fallacy than discriminating based on skin color, etc. ?

WildUtah 10y ago
No. Lots of people who haven't thought about the consequences for their nation or their families or who simply don't care agree with you. It's especially common among young people that want to display their virtuous radicalism and who haven't ever really had to pay for the bad consequences of anyone's actions.
- themagician 10y ago
  It's more common among young people because they aren't yet invested in entitlements. Most people think of SS and other entitlements as being something they have earned and they don't want them shared with others. Everyone wants a handout. Most people just want to pretend like they earned it.
  - ap3 10y ago
    How else would one view the Social Security program that you are paying into? You can even go into SSA.gov and see how much you have "earned".
    - lend000 10y ago
      Except that it won't be around when I qualify. World's biggest ponzi scheme.
    - ajdlinux 10y ago
      It's interesting looking at the US Social Security system coming from a country (Australia) where the social security system doesn't have the facade of being a contributory system and is funded entirely out of general tax revenue - there's no such thing as "paying in" to the social security system. There's still a bit of an attitude of "I've paid my taxes, now I deserve my pension", but the system doesn't act as a piggy bank for you to save up over time. (For that, we have a mandatory minimum 9.5% superannuation/401k-equivalent contribution that you invest in shares/property/bonds etc.) In my mind, this is fairer than the US system, but there is a good case to be made that keeping elements of a "contributory" system helps to maintain political support for the welfare state among people who are a bit more, um, selfish. (An interesting piece I read a while ago that describes how the "contributory" nature of Australia's social security system in the 1940s was actually just a cover for a general tax increase: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/berg-chifleys-political-time-bomb-70-years-in-the-making/5480154 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/berg-chifleys-politica...)
      - davidgay 10y ago
        > where the social security system doesn't have the facade of being a contributory system and is funded entirely out of general tax revenue So I'm curious: can you move to Australia at 64, work for one year, retire, and receive a full income from social security?
        jamestnz 10y ago
        Not certain about Australia, but here in NZ we call it "NZ Super" (or just "the pension") instead of "social security". It is a universal superannuation which kicks in at age 65, is not means-tested, and is paid in the same amount to everyone who qualifies. The money that the fund invests/disburses comes from an annual government contribution to the NZ Super Fund, determined by some legislated formula. Individual workers/earners don't "pay into" it in any way that is separately taxed or monitored. To collect the pension you simply need to be lawfully living in the country (e.g. citizen or permanent resident status), have made NZ your primary/main country of residence (usually by living and working here), and you must have lived in New Zealand for 10 years since the age of 20, of which five of the years must have been since the aged of 50 years. If the above applies to you, you should sign on and start getting your $792.34 per fortnight :-)
        ajdlinux 10y ago
        Over in Australia, "social security" is merely the technical name for all of the government welfare programs handled by the Department of Human Services, including Age Pension, Youth Allowance (study benefits), Newstart Allowance (unemployment benefits), Disability Support Pension and so on and so forth. No-one really uses the term "social security" unless you're reading the legislation. With no further qualification, "the pension" means the Age Pension. What we call "super" you'd call KiwiSaver, except over here it's mandatory. I suspect the NZ use of the term "superannuation" is probably closer to the original/traditional use of the term.
        ajdlinux 10y ago
        There is a residency requirement. But no requirement that during that residency period you actually need to be working or otherwise "contributing" to the system.
    - jamestnz 10y ago
      >How else would one view the Social Security program that you are paying into? I'm certainly no expert, but that sounds more like a description of an IRA or 401K, I think. As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this). In fact, the SS taxes being collected right now from you and the entire current generation of earners, are going directly to the current generation of retirees. So rather than being a career-long savings/investment scheme where your own money comes back to you at the end, it is actually implemented as a wealth transfer scheme from the current generation of earners to the current generation of retirees. Some years the fund might book a surplus (more taxes raised than benefits paid) and in some years a deficit. But I agree that it seems to be a common view (or perhaps just metaphor) that people's own SS taxes are being accrued against their name for later payback as benefits. But as far as I can tell, social security has never worked that way and wasn't designed to.
      - toast0 10y ago
        > As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this). It's not structured that way, but you do need to 'earn credits' to establish eligibility for benefits, and the benefits are calculated with a formula based on the amount of your wages that were subject to social security tax; and the official name is old age insurance. It certainly feels like it's retirement insurance that you pay into while you're working, and get the benefits should you live long enough.
    - closeparen 10y ago
      As a wealth transfer from the young to the old. I don't think any Millennial pays into Social Security under the delusion that they will ever get anything back. The program is on track to be insolvent once it's done serving the generation currently in power.
      - meddlepal 10y ago
        Agreed. I see thousands of dollars go into SS that I will never see come back.
- geofft 10y ago
  This seems like a reply with relatively little information content: lots of people who haven't thought about consequences agree with all sorts of political opinions. I could easily accuse young people who wear any candidate's or political concept's apparel of wanting to display their virtuous radicalism, but that's hardly a useful criticism of the candidate or concept. I suppose you're attempting to imply that people who have thought about the consequences, or who do care, or who are old people who have had to pay for the bad consequences of people's actions, are unlikely to agree. Is there a reason, is there evidence, to believe that much more interesting claim? Or is this merely an accusation of "virtue signaling"?
- Curious42 10y ago
  I'm not sure I fully understand your POV right, but I hope you're not suggesting that a person born within the confinement of certain national border should have the privilege of being a bigger priority when chosen for work within the same border confinement. That's a bit ridiculous. A Syrian Software Engineer shouldn't have to work 1000x more than an American SE to get a job at Google HQ. Let the deserving be decided by their ability for the job rather than their birthplace. It bothers me how we neglect to work towards a borderless planet. Sure, it wouldn't make sense in terms of economy, politics, and a lot of other things in the beginning, but shouldn't we at least be talking about it and envisioning it, and we even work towards formulating the logistics involved?
  - RestlessMind 10y ago
    If you want to disregard economics, politics and a lot of other things (which is a big assumption, but let's continue with it), lets start with the first principles - why do you advocate borderless planet? Whats so compelling about it?
    - Curious42 10y ago
      I'm not disregarding it. I'm suggesting we should be working towards formulating economics, politics and everything else which works out for a borderless planet. In regards to why I advocate it - like I said, the way the system works today, some people have more privilege than the others, and this isn't by choice. We should be trying to bring everyone upto the same datum, not the other way around. While the current visa systems are not the texbook definition of discrimination, we are in some way still limiting people's choices based on the land they were born in. If we're talking first principles, a human should be able to roam wherever he chooses. Of course, this isn't an ideal world, and I'm not advocating for terrorists to be able to make it through wherever they wish, but I'm sure if thought hard enough, we'll be able to come up with a system that ensures that a couple of groups of terrorist, and a few other kinds of knobheads don't pull their entire nations down. But right now, we're working in the opposite direction.
      - 10y ago
geofft 10y ago
I saw the text of Jimmy Carter's Voyager message recently, and I was struck by the introduction: "This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization." It wasn't very long ago that the idea that it was desirable for borders to one day disappear was common enough that the President could say so on behalf of Earth. I suppose this was also the era where things like the Schengen visa came into existence. I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything.
- flukus 10y ago
  > I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything. Because there are some really big problems in practice. The biggest is wealth inequality at a global scale, there are several billion people in poor countries who would happily move to western nations, likely causing negatives for the poor and rich countries. The other is that the more me learn about each other the bigger the cultural divide is/seems. The religious right is often derided in the west, but imagine if it was the whole world voting on things like gay marriage and women's rights, animal rights, etc.
  - geofft 10y ago
    I'm curious to learn more, especially if there have been studies about the effects of border rule changes. Do we expect poor people who take the initiative to move (i.e., not refugees) to remain poor? My impression is that poverty is mostly about opportunity and access to resources, not about personal desire to be poor. I don't see how social issues would be particularly different from the status quo in the US. If you asked individual states to vote on gay marriage (which was the case until 2015), they'd vote differently. Different states still have wildly different rules on abortion, including places where abortion is effectively inaccessible. And that's not a disaster for the Union. It's even possible for people to move between states en masse and tilt voting one way or another, but that seems never to happen in practice. Even organized efforts with this explicit goal, like the Free State Project, seem to not be succeeding.
earnestquestion 10y ago
Should we send ships and bring the entire population of Somalia here? It really is a difficult life there, there's no functioning government. I mean that as a sincere question for the open borders folks. Seriously if that's what everyone wants, and it's democratically chosen, it's the right choice. But I wonder if that's really what the open borders folks want. And how much of the world have you visited?
planetjones 10y ago
I don't think so many people would disagree with you i.e. Hire the best person for the job irrespective of where they come from. However that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas. Here cheaper foreign workers irrespective of skill are being recruited instead of more expensive local workers. With your global outlook how do you solve this problem? Or do you just let it be and let the cheaper workers depress the wages of the local workers, thereby making the local workers struggle financially and bringing unhappiness to many ?
- piyush_soni 10y ago
  >> that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas That looks like a speculation, and a justification that a less skillful local worker might want to use. There are all kinds of H-1B Visa holders out there. More, equally, or less skilled compared to the local workers - but they are invariably less expensive than their local counterparts with same skillset. That's why companies are using them. Low quality software has a cost associated to it as well in the long run, so we can safely assume that the companies are deciding what's financially best for them. It's equivalent to competition in any market. Same argument is used by the less developed nations when an American multinational company begins their business there and kills all small local players in the market. Then these local companies bring their fake nationalism/patriotism in picture, but with globalization it's bound to happen and whining about it is not going to help.
  - planetjones 10y ago
    We can assume that companies are deciding what's financially best for them, but not what is best for the country they have a social responsibility to. Look at some of the monumental IT failures we have seen recently and will see in the future (some UK banks for example). And with globalisation it's not bound to happen anymore because people are finding a voice. Do you think trump or brexit would have happened if people thought globalisation was working for them. There's more than low income people supporting these 'movements'. And your argument for full globalisation doesn't work for me. Should we send all manufacturing to a country in the Far East with questionable labour laws and regulations. I don't feel comfortable with that. Certainly not the level playing field you think it is.
yehi 10y ago
You probably aren't the only one, but I can try to explain the other side. When you live and work in (let's say) America, you are paying taxes and following the law. If suddenly, anyone could come to America, America would probably experience a huge population increase from Africa and Asia. While some of them may be productive people, there will definitely be a lot of them who will not necessarily follow the law or find useful jobs. In addition, if it was so easy to enter America, what's stopping them from entering, committing a huge crime, and then leaving? Another reason to be against what you are proposing is because it is in a nation's interest to make sure that the people living there aren't poor or starving. If an American doesn't have that many skills and can only work in a specific field, by allowing anyone in the world to compete with them increases the likelihood that they will be out of a job.
- scholia 10y ago
  Immigrants are actually more law-abiding than US citizens and they are less likely to end up in jail. [1,2] Immigrants and the children of immigrants are also disproportionately likely to be productive citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if half the current Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants and the children of immigrants. (The figure for 2010 was 40%.) See my comment below. [3] It's certainly possible that the majority of America's wealth is generated by relatively recent immigrants. Of course, this is controlled immigration. No country anywhere lets just anybody in. [1] http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922783/immigrants-crime-donald-trump http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922783/immigrants-crime-donald-... [2] https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminal... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13576840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13576840
  - WildUtah 10y ago
    Immigrants are less likely to get caught, not more law abiding. In my city we have persistent problems where crime victims won't report to the police because they're illegal just like the criminals. That quickly adds up to lower crime statistics in illegal communities. It does not mean less crime in those communities. In fact, it creates conditions for ongoing gang crime operations unchallenged in those communities.
ap3 10y ago
Forget about working, what about mobility ? do you think that a person has a basic right to live wherever they want? Think about that and try to scale it - at some point the idea breaks down.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
colordrops 10y ago
Your statement is only consistent if you believe that nation states and borders are wrong and should be dissolved.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
RestlessMind 10y ago
You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? A popular rebuttal is that immigrants will contribute to the growing economy and will pay taxes. But we are talking about completely open borders here (anything else is just some fiddling around current system), where anyone willing to do even minimum wage job can migrate. How can such people contribute enough in taxes, when the welfare cost needed to support them (schools, roads, sewers, hospitals...) and their families far exceeds the taxes paid by them? And while I admit that I don't have any stats to support my argument, I am just going by my gut feeling that generous welfare is usually paid for by the richest and not by the poorest. Another offered solution is to cap welfare for new migrants until they pay enough taxes. But that just creates a two-tier society and is a separate can of worms in itself.
- geofft 10y ago
  What is to stop millions of poor masses from being born? (And why does our inability to stop it not inhibit a welfare state?) The amount of a welfare state you can sustain is certainly dependent on your tax revenue, and in turn on the quality of your economy, on political willingness to set high enough taxes, etc. But I don't think there's a point at which a welfare state is flatly impossible. And there are certainly lots of unforeseen possibilities. Perhaps an economy where employers can hire anyone without bureaucracy will grow companies that generate enough revenue, even without lots of human employees on payroll, to sustain the welfare state.
  - Buge 10y ago
    People can't choose what country to be born in. But they can choose to move to a country with better welfare. If you're thinking of women/couples having a lot of kids to collect those kids' welfare, it depends on how the welfare for those kids compares to the cost of raising the kid. Also many people would be morally against bringing a kid into a life of potential suffering just for their own monetary gain. But for someone with no dependents, moving to a new country poses no risks to anyone except themselves.
lend000 10y ago
Same could be said about the minimum wage. Who am I to tell a homeless person that they can't sign a voluntary contract to work for less than $15/hr? We won't let them live on starvation wages, we will just ensure they never get a job.
obthrow 10y ago
The people of Yugoslavia once believed a similar thing.
throw2016 10y ago
I think I can agree with your basic premise, as human beings we have a fundamental, basic even inalienable right to any part of our planet. The fact is humans living in a particular generation are far more connected to each other than to our ancestors. The problem is this is classic utopianism completely divorced from the historical development of our political and economic systems, property rights and the structure of nation states and societies. Tribalism will always perpetuate the concept of the outsider and a natural suspicion, and often with good reason. That's how colonialism happened. In any time going and being accepted in other societies is 2 different things. In other times we would need technology and resources to travel, account for disease and the reception of native populations. Now we have nation states and rule of law that governs movement of people for travel and emigration. These rules can be improved but there is no alternative that does not impose controls, even if we have post nation states there will still be controls. What I would like is significantly less restrictions and more 'openness' and good faith policies that acknowleged every human being's right to travel and see the rest of 'their world' unhindered.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
smspillaz 10y ago
No, you're not alone. There's actually an entire page maintained by a few economists on the case for open borders: http://openborders.info http://openborders.info
jupiter90000 10y ago
It sounds like a good idea and I have considered it myself for a while. It may not seem like a great idea to have an immigration and importation process and controls at first. However, consider the realities that are encountered. A few examples: Years ago, the European pioneers showed up 'freely' and for all intents destroyed the Native Americans' way of living (and many of their lives). There have been areas with diseases in humans and animals in certain countries that are much less common in others, that could cause disastrous scenarios for livestock, agriculture, and humans if introduced haphazardly. People also showed up 'freely' and kidnapped humans from Africa and sold them as slaves in the US. If one argues that there should be rules in place to prevent such things from happening, then you essentially need a process by which to discriminate whether 'outsiders', and how many, should be allowed in one's physical space (edit: along with sufficient military force to repel a large group that will attempt to forcefully ignore such a process).
jsa24aisc2 10y ago
I don't believe this (H-1B Visa issue, not the article) is about discrimination based on birthplace. Personally, I have absolutely no problems with bringing in workers into this country. After all, that is one of the founding principles behind this country. My issue is... those that do it for the sole purpose of saving money. In other words, companies that cut "american employees" for H-1B visa holders because they'll be spending a fraction of the salary in the long term. Since I am an Indian, I also happen to know that those that come here are willing to take anything (unfair treatment) to immigrate here. To sum up, 1) If US companies want to import employees, pay them US market rate for their skill-level and what their responsibilities are. 2) Those that exploit the H-1B visa sponsorship should not be given this leverage over their new employees simply because they were able to work in the US because they were sponsored.

WildUtah 10y ago

No. Lots of people who haven't thought about the consequences for their nation or their families or who simply don't care agree with you. It's especially common among young people that want to display their virtuous radicalism and who haven't ever really had to pay for the bad consequences of anyone's actions.

themagician 10y ago
It's more common among young people because they aren't yet invested in entitlements. Most people think of SS and other entitlements as being something they have earned and they don't want them shared with others. Everyone wants a handout. Most people just want to pretend like they earned it.
- ap3 10y ago
  How else would one view the Social Security program that you are paying into? You can even go into SSA.gov and see how much you have "earned".
  - lend000 10y ago
    Except that it won't be around when I qualify. World's biggest ponzi scheme.
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    It's interesting looking at the US Social Security system coming from a country (Australia) where the social security system doesn't have the facade of being a contributory system and is funded entirely out of general tax revenue - there's no such thing as "paying in" to the social security system. There's still a bit of an attitude of "I've paid my taxes, now I deserve my pension", but the system doesn't act as a piggy bank for you to save up over time. (For that, we have a mandatory minimum 9.5% superannuation/401k-equivalent contribution that you invest in shares/property/bonds etc.) In my mind, this is fairer than the US system, but there is a good case to be made that keeping elements of a "contributory" system helps to maintain political support for the welfare state among people who are a bit more, um, selfish. (An interesting piece I read a while ago that describes how the "contributory" nature of Australia's social security system in the 1940s was actually just a cover for a general tax increase: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/berg-chifleys-political-time-bomb-70-years-in-the-making/5480154 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/berg-chifleys-politica...)
    - davidgay 10y ago
      > where the social security system doesn't have the facade of being a contributory system and is funded entirely out of general tax revenue So I'm curious: can you move to Australia at 64, work for one year, retire, and receive a full income from social security?
      - jamestnz 10y ago
        Not certain about Australia, but here in NZ we call it "NZ Super" (or just "the pension") instead of "social security". It is a universal superannuation which kicks in at age 65, is not means-tested, and is paid in the same amount to everyone who qualifies. The money that the fund invests/disburses comes from an annual government contribution to the NZ Super Fund, determined by some legislated formula. Individual workers/earners don't "pay into" it in any way that is separately taxed or monitored. To collect the pension you simply need to be lawfully living in the country (e.g. citizen or permanent resident status), have made NZ your primary/main country of residence (usually by living and working here), and you must have lived in New Zealand for 10 years since the age of 20, of which five of the years must have been since the aged of 50 years. If the above applies to you, you should sign on and start getting your $792.34 per fortnight :-)
        ajdlinux 10y ago
        Over in Australia, "social security" is merely the technical name for all of the government welfare programs handled by the Department of Human Services, including Age Pension, Youth Allowance (study benefits), Newstart Allowance (unemployment benefits), Disability Support Pension and so on and so forth. No-one really uses the term "social security" unless you're reading the legislation. With no further qualification, "the pension" means the Age Pension. What we call "super" you'd call KiwiSaver, except over here it's mandatory. I suspect the NZ use of the term "superannuation" is probably closer to the original/traditional use of the term.
      - ajdlinux 10y ago
        There is a residency requirement. But no requirement that during that residency period you actually need to be working or otherwise "contributing" to the system.
  - jamestnz 10y ago
    >How else would one view the Social Security program that you are paying into? I'm certainly no expert, but that sounds more like a description of an IRA or 401K, I think. As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this). In fact, the SS taxes being collected right now from you and the entire current generation of earners, are going directly to the current generation of retirees. So rather than being a career-long savings/investment scheme where your own money comes back to you at the end, it is actually implemented as a wealth transfer scheme from the current generation of earners to the current generation of retirees. Some years the fund might book a surplus (more taxes raised than benefits paid) and in some years a deficit. But I agree that it seems to be a common view (or perhaps just metaphor) that people's own SS taxes are being accrued against their name for later payback as benefits. But as far as I can tell, social security has never worked that way and wasn't designed to.
    - toast0 10y ago
      > As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this). It's not structured that way, but you do need to 'earn credits' to establish eligibility for benefits, and the benefits are calculated with a formula based on the amount of your wages that were subject to social security tax; and the official name is old age insurance. It certainly feels like it's retirement insurance that you pay into while you're working, and get the benefits should you live long enough.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    As a wealth transfer from the young to the old. I don't think any Millennial pays into Social Security under the delusion that they will ever get anything back. The program is on track to be insolvent once it's done serving the generation currently in power.
    - meddlepal 10y ago
      Agreed. I see thousands of dollars go into SS that I will never see come back.
geofft 10y ago
This seems like a reply with relatively little information content: lots of people who haven't thought about consequences agree with all sorts of political opinions. I could easily accuse young people who wear any candidate's or political concept's apparel of wanting to display their virtuous radicalism, but that's hardly a useful criticism of the candidate or concept. I suppose you're attempting to imply that people who have thought about the consequences, or who do care, or who are old people who have had to pay for the bad consequences of people's actions, are unlikely to agree. Is there a reason, is there evidence, to believe that much more interesting claim? Or is this merely an accusation of "virtue signaling"?
Curious42 10y ago
I'm not sure I fully understand your POV right, but I hope you're not suggesting that a person born within the confinement of certain national border should have the privilege of being a bigger priority when chosen for work within the same border confinement. That's a bit ridiculous. A Syrian Software Engineer shouldn't have to work 1000x more than an American SE to get a job at Google HQ. Let the deserving be decided by their ability for the job rather than their birthplace. It bothers me how we neglect to work towards a borderless planet. Sure, it wouldn't make sense in terms of economy, politics, and a lot of other things in the beginning, but shouldn't we at least be talking about it and envisioning it, and we even work towards formulating the logistics involved?
- RestlessMind 10y ago
  If you want to disregard economics, politics and a lot of other things (which is a big assumption, but let's continue with it), lets start with the first principles - why do you advocate borderless planet? Whats so compelling about it?
  - Curious42 10y ago
    I'm not disregarding it. I'm suggesting we should be working towards formulating economics, politics and everything else which works out for a borderless planet. In regards to why I advocate it - like I said, the way the system works today, some people have more privilege than the others, and this isn't by choice. We should be trying to bring everyone upto the same datum, not the other way around. While the current visa systems are not the texbook definition of discrimination, we are in some way still limiting people's choices based on the land they were born in. If we're talking first principles, a human should be able to roam wherever he chooses. Of course, this isn't an ideal world, and I'm not advocating for terrorists to be able to make it through wherever they wish, but I'm sure if thought hard enough, we'll be able to come up with a system that ensures that a couple of groups of terrorist, and a few other kinds of knobheads don't pull their entire nations down. But right now, we're working in the opposite direction.
    - 10y ago

geofft 10y ago

I saw the text of Jimmy Carter's Voyager message recently, and I was struck by the introduction: "This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization." It wasn't very long ago that the idea that it was desirable for borders to one day disappear was common enough that the President could say so on behalf of Earth. I suppose this was also the era where things like the Schengen visa came into existence. I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything.

flukus 10y ago
> I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything. Because there are some really big problems in practice. The biggest is wealth inequality at a global scale, there are several billion people in poor countries who would happily move to western nations, likely causing negatives for the poor and rich countries. The other is that the more me learn about each other the bigger the cultural divide is/seems. The religious right is often derided in the west, but imagine if it was the whole world voting on things like gay marriage and women's rights, animal rights, etc.
- geofft 10y ago
  I'm curious to learn more, especially if there have been studies about the effects of border rule changes. Do we expect poor people who take the initiative to move (i.e., not refugees) to remain poor? My impression is that poverty is mostly about opportunity and access to resources, not about personal desire to be poor. I don't see how social issues would be particularly different from the status quo in the US. If you asked individual states to vote on gay marriage (which was the case until 2015), they'd vote differently. Different states still have wildly different rules on abortion, including places where abortion is effectively inaccessible. And that's not a disaster for the Union. It's even possible for people to move between states en masse and tilt voting one way or another, but that seems never to happen in practice. Even organized efforts with this explicit goal, like the Free State Project, seem to not be succeeding.

earnestquestion 10y ago

Should we send ships and bring the entire population of Somalia here? It really is a difficult life there, there's no functioning government. I mean that as a sincere question for the open borders folks. Seriously if that's what everyone wants, and it's democratically chosen, it's the right choice. But I wonder if that's really what the open borders folks want. And how much of the world have you visited?

planetjones 10y ago

I don't think so many people would disagree with you i.e. Hire the best person for the job irrespective of where they come from. However that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas. Here cheaper foreign workers irrespective of skill are being recruited instead of more expensive local workers. With your global outlook how do you solve this problem? Or do you just let it be and let the cheaper workers depress the wages of the local workers, thereby making the local workers struggle financially and bringing unhappiness to many ?

piyush_soni 10y ago
>> that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas That looks like a speculation, and a justification that a less skillful local worker might want to use. There are all kinds of H-1B Visa holders out there. More, equally, or less skilled compared to the local workers - but they are invariably less expensive than their local counterparts with same skillset. That's why companies are using them. Low quality software has a cost associated to it as well in the long run, so we can safely assume that the companies are deciding what's financially best for them. It's equivalent to competition in any market. Same argument is used by the less developed nations when an American multinational company begins their business there and kills all small local players in the market. Then these local companies bring their fake nationalism/patriotism in picture, but with globalization it's bound to happen and whining about it is not going to help.
- planetjones 10y ago
  We can assume that companies are deciding what's financially best for them, but not what is best for the country they have a social responsibility to. Look at some of the monumental IT failures we have seen recently and will see in the future (some UK banks for example). And with globalisation it's not bound to happen anymore because people are finding a voice. Do you think trump or brexit would have happened if people thought globalisation was working for them. There's more than low income people supporting these 'movements'. And your argument for full globalisation doesn't work for me. Should we send all manufacturing to a country in the Far East with questionable labour laws and regulations. I don't feel comfortable with that. Certainly not the level playing field you think it is.

yehi 10y ago

You probably aren't the only one, but I can try to explain the other side. When you live and work in (let's say) America, you are paying taxes and following the law. If suddenly, anyone could come to America, America would probably experience a huge population increase from Africa and Asia. While some of them may be productive people, there will definitely be a lot of them who will not necessarily follow the law or find useful jobs. In addition, if it was so easy to enter America, what's stopping them from entering, committing a huge crime, and then leaving? Another reason to be against what you are proposing is because it is in a nation's interest to make sure that the people living there aren't poor or starving. If an American doesn't have that many skills and can only work in a specific field, by allowing anyone in the world to compete with them increases the likelihood that they will be out of a job.

scholia 10y ago
Immigrants are actually more law-abiding than US citizens and they are less likely to end up in jail. [1,2] Immigrants and the children of immigrants are also disproportionately likely to be productive citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if half the current Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants and the children of immigrants. (The figure for 2010 was 40%.) See my comment below. [3] It's certainly possible that the majority of America's wealth is generated by relatively recent immigrants. Of course, this is controlled immigration. No country anywhere lets just anybody in. [1] http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922783/immigrants-crime-donald-trump http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922783/immigrants-crime-donald-... [2] https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminal... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13576840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13576840
- WildUtah 10y ago
  Immigrants are less likely to get caught, not more law abiding. In my city we have persistent problems where crime victims won't report to the police because they're illegal just like the criminals. That quickly adds up to lower crime statistics in illegal communities. It does not mean less crime in those communities. In fact, it creates conditions for ongoing gang crime operations unchallenged in those communities.

ap3 10y ago

Forget about working, what about mobility ? do you think that a person has a basic right to live wherever they want? Think about that and try to scale it - at some point the idea breaks down.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

colordrops 10y ago

Your statement is only consistent if you believe that nation states and borders are wrong and should be dissolved.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

RestlessMind 10y ago

You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? A popular rebuttal is that immigrants will contribute to the growing economy and will pay taxes. But we are talking about completely open borders here (anything else is just some fiddling around current system), where anyone willing to do even minimum wage job can migrate. How can such people contribute enough in taxes, when the welfare cost needed to support them (schools, roads, sewers, hospitals...) and their families far exceeds the taxes paid by them? And while I admit that I don't have any stats to support my argument, I am just going by my gut feeling that generous welfare is usually paid for by the richest and not by the poorest. Another offered solution is to cap welfare for new migrants until they pay enough taxes. But that just creates a two-tier society and is a separate can of worms in itself.

geofft 10y ago
What is to stop millions of poor masses from being born? (And why does our inability to stop it not inhibit a welfare state?) The amount of a welfare state you can sustain is certainly dependent on your tax revenue, and in turn on the quality of your economy, on political willingness to set high enough taxes, etc. But I don't think there's a point at which a welfare state is flatly impossible. And there are certainly lots of unforeseen possibilities. Perhaps an economy where employers can hire anyone without bureaucracy will grow companies that generate enough revenue, even without lots of human employees on payroll, to sustain the welfare state.
- Buge 10y ago
  People can't choose what country to be born in. But they can choose to move to a country with better welfare. If you're thinking of women/couples having a lot of kids to collect those kids' welfare, it depends on how the welfare for those kids compares to the cost of raising the kid. Also many people would be morally against bringing a kid into a life of potential suffering just for their own monetary gain. But for someone with no dependents, moving to a new country poses no risks to anyone except themselves.

lend000 10y ago

Same could be said about the minimum wage. Who am I to tell a homeless person that they can't sign a voluntary contract to work for less than $15/hr? We won't let them live on starvation wages, we will just ensure they never get a job.

obthrow 10y ago

The people of Yugoslavia once believed a similar thing.

throw2016 10y ago

I think I can agree with your basic premise, as human beings we have a fundamental, basic even inalienable right to any part of our planet. The fact is humans living in a particular generation are far more connected to each other than to our ancestors. The problem is this is classic utopianism completely divorced from the historical development of our political and economic systems, property rights and the structure of nation states and societies. Tribalism will always perpetuate the concept of the outsider and a natural suspicion, and often with good reason. That's how colonialism happened. In any time going and being accepted in other societies is 2 different things. In other times we would need technology and resources to travel, account for disease and the reception of native populations. Now we have nation states and rule of law that governs movement of people for travel and emigration. These rules can be improved but there is no alternative that does not impose controls, even if we have post nation states there will still be controls. What I would like is significantly less restrictions and more 'openness' and good faith policies that acknowleged every human being's right to travel and see the rest of 'their world' unhindered.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

smspillaz 10y ago

No, you're not alone. There's actually an entire page maintained by a few economists on the case for open borders: http://openborders.info http://openborders.info

jupiter90000 10y ago

It sounds like a good idea and I have considered it myself for a while. It may not seem like a great idea to have an immigration and importation process and controls at first. However, consider the realities that are encountered. A few examples: Years ago, the European pioneers showed up 'freely' and for all intents destroyed the Native Americans' way of living (and many of their lives). There have been areas with diseases in humans and animals in certain countries that are much less common in others, that could cause disastrous scenarios for livestock, agriculture, and humans if introduced haphazardly. People also showed up 'freely' and kidnapped humans from Africa and sold them as slaves in the US. If one argues that there should be rules in place to prevent such things from happening, then you essentially need a process by which to discriminate whether 'outsiders', and how many, should be allowed in one's physical space (edit: along with sufficient military force to repel a large group that will attempt to forcefully ignore such a process).

jsa24aisc2 10y ago

I don't believe this (H-1B Visa issue, not the article) is about discrimination based on birthplace. Personally, I have absolutely no problems with bringing in workers into this country. After all, that is one of the founding principles behind this country. My issue is... those that do it for the sole purpose of saving money. In other words, companies that cut "american employees" for H-1B visa holders because they'll be spending a fraction of the salary in the long term. Since I am an Indian, I also happen to know that those that come here are willing to take anything (unfair treatment) to immigrate here. To sum up, 1) If US companies want to import employees, pay them US market rate for their skill-level and what their responsibilities are. 2) Those that exploit the H-1B visa sponsorship should not be given this leverage over their new employees simply because they were able to work in the US because they were sponsored.