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once you get past the xenophobia, most americans will realize that the only way to continue the properity and global power we've enjoyed over the past century i
by clairity 6y ago
once you get past the xenophobia, most americans will realize that the only way to continue the properity and global power we've enjoyed over the past century is to import more people because we're not making enough here. it's literally the playbook for sustainably growing an otherwise mature and stagnating economy.
moreover, incumbent americans are just too risk-averse to innovate or invest in real innovation vs paper gains. the wealthy and powerful among us have been in hardcore harvest mode for 40 years and we're gradually, collectively losing our knowledge and ability to plow and sow. instead, we're all on social media trying to out-shizzle each other.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago> incumbent americans are just too risk-averse to innovate or invest in real innovation vs paper gains Can you expand on this? Native born Americans prefer to play the stock market than starting new businesses?
- rsync 6y ago"... most americans will realize that the only way to continue the properity and global power we've enjoyed over the past century is to import more people ..." Given the global externalities produced by that prosperity and global power, why is it obvious that "most americans" would want that to continue ? It may, in fact, be the case that importing citizens is the only way to continue this, but it's not obvious that there aren't other modes of living and growing. Living things are born, they mature, then grow old and die ... mature living things don't consume the same resources or create the same outputs as juvenile living things. That's not necessarily bad ...
- clairity 6y ago> "...why is it obvious that "most americans" would want that to continue ?" because the pie doesn't grow otherwise, and folks are fighting over the pie we have already. also, a growing pie doesn't mean maintaining the same inefficiencies/externalities we've gotten used to. part of the imported innovation will have to go towards mitigating those very problems if the growth is to be sustainable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- esoterae 6y agoI think at issue is this economic concept of eternal growth. It's rather plainly obvious endless growth isn't sustainable, for myriad reasons. Continuing to believe growth will get us out of our growth-induced nightmare is the equivalent of plugging ones ears and chanting "la la la la la"
- throwaway5752 6y agoThe entire history of the country is thus. The Alien and Sedition Act, then there was the Know Nothing Party, the Immigration Act. There is serious scholarship in this area of history, smart people have devoted lifetimes of hard work to researching and writing about it. We import people and then we oscillate the other way. The case for .7B more Americans isn't worth reading. The human species is alread above the carrying capacity of the Earth, and this is a title that's too stupid to warrant reading the article below it.
- throwaway316943 6y agoSounds more like the only way to keep a ponzie scheme running. If you want real growth you need to invent new things and develop new resources. Only rent seekers want more people / suckers.
- clairity 6y agothat's nowhere near a novel observation. the baby boomers, for instance, mortgaged our futures in the form of real estate, education, finance, insurance, and healthcare (and more) for their own wealth indulgences. that's all paper growth, not real growth.
- pas 6y agoBigger markets have the possibility to be more efficient. This is a very important and overlooked factor. Simply lifting many US folks out of poverty would help tremendously.