5 ms·

It just means you think that people from other countries are less deserving of job opportunities than people from your country. Society is a hierarch

by pdx 9y ago

It just means you think that people from other countries are less deserving of job opportunities than people from your country. Society is a hierarchy of loyalty. Unless you're a self-absorbed, autistic, single 20 something, you have loyalty to others in various degrees. You support your family above my family. You support your company above my company. You support your neighbors above my neighbors, and yes, you should support the citizens of your country above the citizens of my country. It's very fashionable to virtue signal that you have no loyalty to your country and that we should all live under a one world government. I do not share that wish. I love that we do not have a mono-culture of government in the world, but have 195 different decentralized experiments happening on how to best run the world. I would hate to have a single experiment running with nowhere to look to or flee to, if it all goes awry. But I live in one of those 195 experiments, and my fellows that share that with me, my countrymen, I support above the other 194. That's called being human.

belltaco 9y ago
To discriminate against someone born across a completely imaginary and arbitrarily drawn line is being human? Huh?
- rtx 9y ago
  It is, but now we know better.
- DanAndersen 9y ago
  Ingroup/outgroup dynamics are a pretty deeply-rooted aspect of human social behavior. Maybe it doesn't always manifest itself in the form of a Westphalian nation-state, but it does point to something deep inside us that we manifest at various levels. This sort of tactical nihilism is honestly pretty confusing to me. Borders, whether national, ideological, social, tribal, linguistic, etc. always have some level of arbitrariness to them, and yet they still represent useful categories. The house door that you lock every evening is merely a collection of arbitrary atoms arranged to separate what you imagine to be your property from others. In the framework of nations, the idea of treating citizens differently from non-citizens as being "discrimination" is an odd one. A country belongs to its people; it doesn't belong to those across the arbitrary border. We all make (sometimes arbitrary) restrictions on access to that which we value; humans who don't do that usually end up losing them to those who do.
  - baddox 9y ago
    I haven't seen anyone in this thread argue for dissolving borders or having a single world government (although a few people have been arguing vehemently against it). It's perfectly reasonable to support national borders with strong checks for safety, while still supporting an extremely welcoming immigrant worker policy.
MarkMc 9y ago
How do you feel about loyalty based on race? Is there a difference between race-based loyalty and citizenship-based loyalty?
ssalazar 9y ago
> But I live in one of those 195 experiments, and my fellows that share that with me, my countrymen, I support above the other 194. That's called being human. Nice try, but nationalism is not an intrinsic trait of being a human.
- olewhalehunter 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism#Biological_relationship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism#Biological...
  - ssalazar 9y ago
    Even admitting biological propensity, is that really a quality to aspire to at the level of a nation-state? Is that how we should define and measure our "human-ness"?
- baddox 9y ago
  And even if it were, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
chickenfries 9y ago
Right? What harm has nationalism ever caused?
baddox 9y ago
Huh? Now it's virtue signaling to say that people from other countries deserve the same opportunities as people from my country? Of course I don't deny personally valuing my family and friends more than strangers, but that doesn't mean I think they fundamentally are more deserving of jobs than strangers. I would personally help a friend get a job before I would help a stranger, but I still think that Americans are no more deserving of jobs than non-Americans, and I don't believe that is a contradiction. Edit: I also don't think we should be under a one-world government, and I don't see how that follows.
- laretluval 9y ago
  The argument is that if the American government doesn't enact policies that protect and favor Americans, but rather enacts policies that equally protect and favor everyone in the world, then it is effectively acting as a world government or an international charity.
  - baddox 9y ago
    Well, we're talking specifically about the USA's own policies for immigrants entering the USA and working. I have different opinions if we're talking about military and foreign policy.
- nql 9y ago
  Because over the long run policies adopted by your country should be scoped to help the members of your country. If politicians/corporations can make a decision that harms our young, and then dig us out by saying there should be a fair playing ground with foreigners, then the consequences of those decisions are externalized.
  - baddox 9y ago
    > Because over the long run policies adopted by your country should be scoped to help the members of your country. I am fairly convinced that economic protectionism is bad for economic growth, particularly in the long run. And even if I'm a direct beneficiary of a certain protectionist policy, I'd like to think I will oppose it, because it's essentially equivalent to the government taking resources from a non-protected job sector and giving them to the protected job sector.
eregorn 9y ago
Is no one going to challenge your first part? You mention family, neighbors, and company and completely ignored one of these is not like the others. Someone that has loyalty to family and friends is socially competent, but someone loyal to a company these days is just a sucker. That has always been my aversion to nationalism, because to me it occupies the second group in trying not only create loyalty, but much like the company, try to usurp natural loyalty. The power of which I've seen a family member go into nationalism's deep end and strain our relationship with them because I didn't agree.

by pdx 9y ago

belltaco 9y ago

To discriminate against someone born across a completely imaginary and arbitrarily drawn line is being human? Huh?

rtx 9y ago
It is, but now we know better.
DanAndersen 9y ago
Ingroup/outgroup dynamics are a pretty deeply-rooted aspect of human social behavior. Maybe it doesn't always manifest itself in the form of a Westphalian nation-state, but it does point to something deep inside us that we manifest at various levels. This sort of tactical nihilism is honestly pretty confusing to me. Borders, whether national, ideological, social, tribal, linguistic, etc. always have some level of arbitrariness to them, and yet they still represent useful categories. The house door that you lock every evening is merely a collection of arbitrary atoms arranged to separate what you imagine to be your property from others. In the framework of nations, the idea of treating citizens differently from non-citizens as being "discrimination" is an odd one. A country belongs to its people; it doesn't belong to those across the arbitrary border. We all make (sometimes arbitrary) restrictions on access to that which we value; humans who don't do that usually end up losing them to those who do.
- baddox 9y ago
  I haven't seen anyone in this thread argue for dissolving borders or having a single world government (although a few people have been arguing vehemently against it). It's perfectly reasonable to support national borders with strong checks for safety, while still supporting an extremely welcoming immigrant worker policy.

MarkMc 9y ago

How do you feel about loyalty based on race? Is there a difference between race-based loyalty and citizenship-based loyalty?

ssalazar 9y ago

> But I live in one of those 195 experiments, and my fellows that share that with me, my countrymen, I support above the other 194. That's called being human. Nice try, but nationalism is not an intrinsic trait of being a human.

olewhalehunter 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism#Biological_relationship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism#Biological...
- ssalazar 9y ago
  Even admitting biological propensity, is that really a quality to aspire to at the level of a nation-state? Is that how we should define and measure our "human-ness"?
baddox 9y ago
And even if it were, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

chickenfries 9y ago

Right? What harm has nationalism ever caused?

baddox 9y ago

Huh? Now it's virtue signaling to say that people from other countries deserve the same opportunities as people from my country? Of course I don't deny personally valuing my family and friends more than strangers, but that doesn't mean I think they fundamentally are more deserving of jobs than strangers. I would personally help a friend get a job before I would help a stranger, but I still think that Americans are no more deserving of jobs than non-Americans, and I don't believe that is a contradiction. Edit: I also don't think we should be under a one-world government, and I don't see how that follows.

laretluval 9y ago
The argument is that if the American government doesn't enact policies that protect and favor Americans, but rather enacts policies that equally protect and favor everyone in the world, then it is effectively acting as a world government or an international charity.
- baddox 9y ago
  Well, we're talking specifically about the USA's own policies for immigrants entering the USA and working. I have different opinions if we're talking about military and foreign policy.
nql 9y ago
Because over the long run policies adopted by your country should be scoped to help the members of your country. If politicians/corporations can make a decision that harms our young, and then dig us out by saying there should be a fair playing ground with foreigners, then the consequences of those decisions are externalized.
- baddox 9y ago
  > Because over the long run policies adopted by your country should be scoped to help the members of your country. I am fairly convinced that economic protectionism is bad for economic growth, particularly in the long run. And even if I'm a direct beneficiary of a certain protectionist policy, I'd like to think I will oppose it, because it's essentially equivalent to the government taking resources from a non-protected job sector and giving them to the protected job sector.

eregorn 9y ago

Is no one going to challenge your first part? You mention family, neighbors, and company and completely ignored one of these is not like the others. Someone that has loyalty to family and friends is socially competent, but someone loyal to a company these days is just a sucker. That has always been my aversion to nationalism, because to me it occupies the second group in trying not only create loyalty, but much like the company, try to usurp natural loyalty. The power of which I've seen a family member go into nationalism's deep end and strain our relationship with them because I didn't agree.