4 ms·

Social safety nets, open borders, future ongoing existence of an orderly nation. Pick two.

cameronbrown 7y ago
This. Things are not good everywhere in the world right now, we have to make trade offs. Humanity will progress and eventually things will be much much fairer, where we could have all of these things simultaneously, but we've got a long way to go as a species.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  To add further, it would be horrible if inequality were perpetuated forever. But we have made a lot of progress by instituting liberal order and Western values in our own demarcated nations. This order is uplifting the world and other nations are able to copy it at their own pace. To eliminate the demarcations threatens a race to the bottom wherein the system has to accept people who do not know how to participate in our way of life, in greater numbers than it can accept.
LegitShady 7y ago
If you think open borders and ongoing orderly nationare an option you're wrong. Whoever walks into your nation will shape it. Your children's voices don't matter. There are far more children outside the country than in it and democracy can't work with open borders.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  I think for most any given policy you could find some constellation of trade-offs and counterbalances that would make it work. Maybe for a certain value of "work" because in many cases those trade-offs would have to violate values or principles that we consider more important. I think that a nation could in theory have open borders and prosper, but the trade-offs would have to be such that only like-minded people who can fit in and succeed would have an incentive to immigrate. This means that their children's voices would be saying the same thing as your children's, but there would be e.g. no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. So I agree with you that borders are preferable, but I don't think getting rid of them is totally impossible, but I do think that doing so would be even worse for the compassion that makes people want to in the first place.
  - LegitShady 7y ago
    >I think that a nation could in theory have open borders and prosper, but the trade-offs would have to be such that only like-minded people who can fit in and succeed would have an incentive to immigrate. You have no control over who comes in when you build a system that requires like minded people. It makes it just as easy for people completely against those like minds to come in, in any number, and vote with equal voice. If you have a successful nation/economy, people will want to come whether like minded or not. >This means that their children's voices would be saying the same thing as your children's, but there would be e.g. no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. The Cartels would take over the the southern united states in a hurry. It would turn the "border" into a series of criminal empires even beyond what exists now. Asian and other gangs would experience massive surges as they import members from overseas. Insane policies that have no connection to reality and assume there are no bad people. >no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. while I agree that you cannot incentivize "free riders", I don't think your system is viable with open borders either way. You will be conquered and you will have no national unity because everyone will bring with them their own ideals and concepts, regardless of your belief that only people who agree with you will come. And it will be a massive betrayal of your citizens to give away their future to anyone who walks in, all in a massive self sabotaging effort of malignant empathy.

This. Things are not good everywhere in the world right now, we have to make trade offs. Humanity will progress and eventually things will be much much fairer, where we could have all of these things simultaneously, but we've got a long way to go as a species.

homonculus1 7y ago
To add further, it would be horrible if inequality were perpetuated forever. But we have made a lot of progress by instituting liberal order and Western values in our own demarcated nations. This order is uplifting the world and other nations are able to copy it at their own pace. To eliminate the demarcations threatens a race to the bottom wherein the system has to accept people who do not know how to participate in our way of life, in greater numbers than it can accept.

LegitShady 7y ago

If you think open borders and ongoing orderly nationare an option you're wrong. Whoever walks into your nation will shape it. Your children's voices don't matter. There are far more children outside the country than in it and democracy can't work with open borders.

homonculus1 7y ago
I think for most any given policy you could find some constellation of trade-offs and counterbalances that would make it work. Maybe for a certain value of "work" because in many cases those trade-offs would have to violate values or principles that we consider more important. I think that a nation could in theory have open borders and prosper, but the trade-offs would have to be such that only like-minded people who can fit in and succeed would have an incentive to immigrate. This means that their children's voices would be saying the same thing as your children's, but there would be e.g. no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. So I agree with you that borders are preferable, but I don't think getting rid of them is totally impossible, but I do think that doing so would be even worse for the compassion that makes people want to in the first place.
- LegitShady 7y ago
  >I think that a nation could in theory have open borders and prosper, but the trade-offs would have to be such that only like-minded people who can fit in and succeed would have an incentive to immigrate. You have no control over who comes in when you build a system that requires like minded people. It makes it just as easy for people completely against those like minds to come in, in any number, and vote with equal voice. If you have a successful nation/economy, people will want to come whether like minded or not. >This means that their children's voices would be saying the same thing as your children's, but there would be e.g. no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. The Cartels would take over the the southern united states in a hurry. It would turn the "border" into a series of criminal empires even beyond what exists now. Asian and other gangs would experience massive surges as they import members from overseas. Insane policies that have no connection to reality and assume there are no bad people. >no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose. while I agree that you cannot incentivize "free riders", I don't think your system is viable with open borders either way. You will be conquered and you will have no national unity because everyone will bring with them their own ideals and concepts, regardless of your belief that only people who agree with you will come. And it will be a massive betrayal of your citizens to give away their future to anyone who walks in, all in a massive self sabotaging effort of malignant empathy.