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Not really. Immigration has become an issue lately because a human (or a bare-human) is worth much less. 1.000 years ago a bare illiterate human had some consi

• onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce. At some point (I imagine in my lifetime) - the straw will break the camel's back.
  • csomar 5y ago
    > And as retirees continue to make up a larger portion of the popular vote - they'll continue to demand more from a shrinking workforce. Sure, if you fail to outsource to other countries; or automate your economy enough. > There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. For most countries, you can get access with a job offer. Countries are not against people who can get employment where they have shortages. But a "bare human" is barely employable which is how he turns into a liability. ie: immigrating more people (randomly) will generate a negative return at least in the short-term.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though. For the developed world, where a lot of the wealth coming in is capital returns from global corps whose ability to generate wealth isn’t constrained by local population size, that just means you need to tap that more effectively. It’s a problem for the payroll tax model of social support funding, perhaps, but unless you are emotionally attached to that model, I don't see that as a big cost.
    • Retric 5y ago
      Yes, similarly retiree savings isn’t limited to your economy. A country could have a continuous stream of goods imported that’s supported by past investments, which is more or less the goal of sovereign wealth funds. However, it requires great long term management making the system overall less stable.
  • slothtrop 5y ago
    Automation is progressing faster than new 'types' of jobs are created. In many sectors they'll be poised to be oversaturated with workers. Owners are happy to remove the human element wherever reasonably possible.
    • spothedog1 5y ago
      Except the US has a large labor shortage that predates covid in construction, agriculture, domestic work, scientists, engineers and more. If automation comes then great but the basic principals of more people in an economy means more demand for goods and services still applies.
      • slothtrop 5y ago
        Pay more and the labor shortage will disappear. Every industry exploiting temporary visas or undocumented workers claims there's a shortage.
      • idiotsecant 5y ago
        There is no labor shortage. When wages increase in all those areas those labor 'shortages' mysteriously end.
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Except the US has a large labor shortage No, it has less labor supplied at current prices than purchasers would prefer. Market clearing quantity at current prices being less than buyers would prefer is...the normal case of a market economy. It's only a shortage if buyers paying more wouldn't increase market clearing quantity, because of some constraint besides “you haven't offered enough money to convince more people to sell their labor”.
        • rossjudson 5y ago
          I agree with you. The critical question here is, on a broad scale, whether the competitiveness of the American economy depends on lack of choice for low-wage workers. Example: The health insurance system reduces choice for workers, who are legitimately terrified of losing healthcare.
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  • sandworm101 5y ago
    >> juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce On the assumption that the economy is based on a workforce. An economy can be based on paper assets. An "innovation nation" that makes GDP out of intellectual property assets, banking and offshore investments could sustain itself without the need for an ever-growing labor force. SK isn't Luxembourg, but nor is it India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Luxembourg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Luxembourg
    • luckylion 5y ago
      As a tax haven, Luxembourg depends on France + Germany's tolerance for tax evasion though. Granted, it has worked out great for them, but it's not necessarily a long-term strategy.
  • jimbob45 5y ago
    I hate this viewpoint. It makes it seem like retirees are a nefarious bunch who are taking advantage of youngsters. In reality, age discrimination makes it nigh impossible to land a meaningful job once you're over the age of 60.
    • paulryanrogers 5y ago
      Agree that age discrimination is a big, complicating factor. Saw this impact a very qualified family member who had to tap some connections in their network of past coworkers just to find a mediocre role. (They're massively over qualified.) I think another reason for some negative feelings is the appearance that some generations have pulled up the ladder after their accent: in real estate, pensions, healthcare, etc.
• jorblumesea 5y ago
  Automation isn't at the point where you can get economic and productivity growth with a declining population. Maybe in the future this will be true, but it's not true now. Even highly automated economies will see contraction and tax base decreases. The current solution, ala the Bank of Japan, is to run huge deficits, and they are on the cutting edge of what an aging population looks like.
• spothedog1 5y ago
  This is inaccurate. More people, even low skilled ones are still a huge benefit to your society. They buy goods and services in the local economy increasing demand and work tax paying jobs. Immigrants children grow up to greatly out earn their parents pay way more in taxes than they their parents. The only immigrant group that could be considered a liability are older low skilled workers who have passed the age to have kids and live a couple of decades of working years. The reason certain countries don’t like immigration is because a conservative faction wants to keep society in place.
  • whoaisme 5y ago
    Meanwhile people who live in the real world know what you just said is a crock of nonsense.
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  • nostromo 5y ago
    Their point is that is becoming less and less true and will likely be false soon. Most labor simply isn't worth as much as it used to be. This is evident in stagnant wages and the view of large families not as assets but as liabilities. You can try to spur local demand by expanding your population (via birth or immigration) but what we really care about is GDP per capita. Most very populous countries are not wealthy.
    • wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > Most labor simply isn't worth as much as it used to be. This is evident in stagnant wages You're assuming an efficient market, which we've long known is a flawed assumption.
      • jeffreyrogers 5y ago
        Where is that assumption? I'm not seeing it in the claim.
• cheriot 5y ago
  Every child born is a "bare illiterate human". Are you also making an argument against having children? If you want to be really draconian about it, immigration can select for people with skills where the home populate will always have the same average of innate abilities.
  • ilammy 5y ago
    Children have a lifetime ahead to learn and grow, as opposed to illiterate adults who are handicapped at that since they are past their prime neurological and societal plasticity.
    • cheriot 5y ago
      Except for the immigrants that created the Pfizer vaccine, right? Those two worked out. Also, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951620300705 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109095162... There's more than enough research that we don't need this, "prime neurological and societal plasticity" pseudoscience.
• yongjik 5y ago
  The real world is not some dystopian SF ruled by cool kids wearing shiny armor. The world's economy is still run by people consuming goods and services, creating demands - declining population is not an insurmountable problem but it does pose a huge challenge for any nation's economy. Fewer people -> fewer sales for Ioniq and Galaxy S -> less money made by these companies -> less money available for industrial research -> worse technology for your servers, drones, military satellites, submarines, whatever -> lose the war.
• acituan 5y ago
  One of the most nihilistic takes I’ve seen in a long while. With “worth”, “value”, “liability” you are only talking about the narrow, economic definitions of those words. The problem is not everything valuable is captured in economic expression, not everything is readily marketable, which doesn’t mean they are not valuable. And I am not being romantic here; for the longest time we suffered for not measuring the value of childbirth, mothering a newborn and general domestic labor for example. (Surrogacy being new aside, also doesn’t make a reliable proxy because it doesn’t measure mothering in situ, contractual asymmetries get priced into the transaction.) Hyperindividualistic western fantasy assumes even attachment and emotional needs can be marketed (eg therapy), but suicide rates show that traditional close-knit societies fare much better. Just because you can’t measure the dollar amount of small talk and care from your neighborhood grocer, doesn’t mean it is worthlessness. People are worthless only if you waste them. You risk wasting them when you instrumentalize and objectify them excessively, when you interject the market into relationships you shouldn’t. The waste theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy of neoliberalism. And I agree that we might be getting there if we don’t awaken from the normativity of market thinking.
• hackeraccount 5y ago
  If true it's a mistake. Education is a piss poor measure of people's ability to contribute.
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• fierro 5y ago
  cue amateur historian pontification
• ken47 5y ago
  In 100 years, educated, intelligent people like us could easily be a "liability," as even budget AI far exceeds human intellect on every conceivable dimension. Through their robotic bodies, which they can produce themselves, they can exceed human physical limitations in every imaginable way. It's going to happen. Ambitious, power-hungry humans are like moths to a flame. So if you want to imply that you possess some level of intelligence, then take a small inductive step, and then, consider reevaluating your moral outlook on the value of human life.
• rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  This is delusional. We're extremely far away from automating the entirety of society. As people have less kids, age out of the workforce, and live longer, who's going to pick the crops? People far away in 3rd world nations? Who's going to be working the jobs to pay them? Do we expect the small amount of working-age people to support themselves + their kids + retired parents + grandparents? Who's going to be the nurses and the firefighters? Japan and Germany both have aging populaces and low birth rates. Germany is taking the immigration route, and Japan is taking the automation route (as it's much more xenophobic). From a macroeconomic perspective, Germany's strategy seems to be winning. And I don't know about you, but when I'm old, I'll take a human nurse over a robot nurse any day of the week.
• ahoy 5y ago
  This is nihilistic and terribly misinformed. A LOT of foundational economic activity is what we derisively call "unskilled labor," performed by the very "semi-educated humans" you're talking about. In the US alone, we literally import seasonal workers to prop up our agriculture industry. We pay them just enough to survive, give them few rights and little stability, and generally tread them as an underclass. People like this undergird the whole of the modern global economy.
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