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Watching the new approach Germany is taking by closing borders, this seems like it might be a more viable option. 34k in some of the countries they fled from ca

Watching the new approach Germany is taking by closing borders, this seems like it might be a more viable option. 34k in some of the countries they fled from can move people to a new class of standing. Obviously that presupposes that they have a somewhat functional country to go back to (Yemen, Syria, etc) but I suppose it can’t hurt to try. It’s expensive to deport people anyway, so perhaps using the carrot instead of the stick will work more favorably. The reality is that countries and governments are made of people. If you piss them off long enough, bad stuff is going to fester and violence will eventually come forth as the “only viable solution”. It’s up to policy makers and politicians to lead public discourse and try to find a solution. I think the other thing though is that governments need to be more open about the consequences. We’re seeing this now in the Netherlands with the push of the new right wing government to cut immigration visas. But whoops, now we don’t have enough people to fill jobs and the tax base is being pushed to the edge to pay for social services that are only going to get more and more strained. Without some form of immigration, the west as we know it will cease to function as the population ages and jobs are not filled. So sure, you can vote to keep the immigrants out, but just know you’ll probably die alone from a preventable complication because the home health nurse is stretched between 30 patients in a 24 hour period. Elections and choices alike have consequences and not voting is also a choice. To end on Sweden again, im sure the rest of Europe will be watching this experiment very closely, though cynically I don’t think it will matter or have much of an effect.

ethbr1 2y ago
What surprises me is how undiscussed the actual underlying issues are. Cultural stability and assimilation rate are real processes, that can be influenced by various policies. Similar, economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. Yet these things aren't part of most of these discussions: instead it's sound bites and hyping extreme scenarios (on all sides) as common occurrences. -- In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration. Yet immigration and assimilation create cultural friction with the then-dominant national culture, so that needs to be managed. Ultimately, I'd like to see more honest communication around "We're encouraging immigration to drive our economy" and "Here are the things that immigrants are having to deal with, as they adjust to living in our country, and what you can do to help them." It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible?
- fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
  >economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. [...] In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration. It is possible to make the argument that negative birth rates are either (1) a result of overpopulation correcting itself or (2) a result of social problems relating to factors like marriage and career goals. I would consider (1) to be a strong form of this argument and (2) to be a weak form. (1) being true implies that there is essentially no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries, and that the population actually should go down in the short term (say over the next few decades or so) until it reaches some balanced level at which the birth rate would likely naturally return to ~2.1 This seems like it may actually be the case in certain countries like Japan and Korea where most of the population lives in high density cities and it is even more clear in cities like Hong Kong which has a population density of 7,060 people per square kilometer[0] and a birth rate of 0.7.[1] and Singapore. If (1) is true, high immigration would always be a net negative in the long term. If (2) is true immigration is acting as a band-aid for solving that problem, and once that problem is solved the specific argument you gave in favor of immigration would not be valid anymore. I think both (1) and (2) are true to different degrees in different countries. It is hard to argue that the issue with eg. Singapore's low birth rate has nothing to do with it having the third highest population density in the world.[2-3] Some European cities also have extremely high density cities such as Paris, but there is considerable variability, which leads me to the conclusion that the answer involves both (1) and (2). >It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible? One reason might be that immigrants are willing to work for less pay. Additionally immigrant families are more likely to live in denser housing, for example in multi-generational or multi-family households, to reduce cost of living,[4-6] which is something non-immigrants generally do not want to do. These are just two among perhaps dozens of factors. The two above factors are related to my earlier point about there potentially being "no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries." [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=H... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=S... [3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [4] https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overcrowding.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overc... - California. Data broken down by race rather than immigration status but should correlate with immigration status. [5] https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 - US. See "1.01 or more occupants per room." Also compare average household size and average number of rooms. [6] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 - Finland

ethbr1 2y ago

What surprises me is how undiscussed the actual underlying issues are. Cultural stability and assimilation rate are real processes, that can be influenced by various policies. Similar, economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. Yet these things aren't part of most of these discussions: instead it's sound bites and hyping extreme scenarios (on all sides) as common occurrences. -- In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration. Yet immigration and assimilation create cultural friction with the then-dominant national culture, so that needs to be managed. Ultimately, I'd like to see more honest communication around "We're encouraging immigration to drive our economy" and "Here are the things that immigrants are having to deal with, as they adjust to living in our country, and what you can do to help them." It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible?

fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
>economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. [...] In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration. It is possible to make the argument that negative birth rates are either (1) a result of overpopulation correcting itself or (2) a result of social problems relating to factors like marriage and career goals. I would consider (1) to be a strong form of this argument and (2) to be a weak form. (1) being true implies that there is essentially no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries, and that the population actually should go down in the short term (say over the next few decades or so) until it reaches some balanced level at which the birth rate would likely naturally return to ~2.1 This seems like it may actually be the case in certain countries like Japan and Korea where most of the population lives in high density cities and it is even more clear in cities like Hong Kong which has a population density of 7,060 people per square kilometer[0] and a birth rate of 0.7.[1] and Singapore. If (1) is true, high immigration would always be a net negative in the long term. If (2) is true immigration is acting as a band-aid for solving that problem, and once that problem is solved the specific argument you gave in favor of immigration would not be valid anymore. I think both (1) and (2) are true to different degrees in different countries. It is hard to argue that the issue with eg. Singapore's low birth rate has nothing to do with it having the third highest population density in the world.[2-3] Some European cities also have extremely high density cities such as Paris, but there is considerable variability, which leads me to the conclusion that the answer involves both (1) and (2). >It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible? One reason might be that immigrants are willing to work for less pay. Additionally immigrant families are more likely to live in denser housing, for example in multi-generational or multi-family households, to reduce cost of living,[4-6] which is something non-immigrants generally do not want to do. These are just two among perhaps dozens of factors. The two above factors are related to my earlier point about there potentially being "no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries." [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=H... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=S... [3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [4] https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overcrowding.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overc... - California. Data broken down by race rather than immigration status but should correlate with immigration status. [5] https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 - US. See "1.01 or more occupants per room." Also compare average household size and average number of rooms. [6] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 - Finland