11 ms·

People feel entitled to what they have and don't want to lost it. You don't need to be an expert in psychology to realize that. If you have to compete with peo

People feel entitled to what they have and don't want to lost it. You don't need to be an expert in psychology to realize that. If you have to compete with people that are more desperate that you, you are not going to like that. This is true for Brits and for Indians. But I suppose it's easy (but lazy) to make a moral play of this. Downward pressure on wages is good for some people but not most people. Of course the immigrants have a right to the good things of life also, and I don't have a solution, but don't make these issues more simpler than they are.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
"Of course the immigrants have a right to the good things of life also" Maybe we should be fixing their societies? Because letting 0,1% of people in third-world countries come and enjoy good things does nothing for their society in a long run, while it can do considerable harm (or good, for sure!) for the receiving society.
- RobertoG 11y ago
  Well yes. If we can do that, I totally agree. But, is that politically possible? I would vote for serious resource investment in a plan for finishing the world poverty but I suspect it's not in the program of the political parties. We prefer to organize military operations ¿!??, like the current European one against the "mafias" that "exploit" the Libyan illegal immigrants, instead of facing the roots of the problem.
- icebraining 11y ago
  letting 0,1% of people in third-world countries come and enjoy good things does nothing for their society in a long run Sure it does. It alleviates the problem of the (often) explosive population growth, it brings in billions of dollars in remittances, and it allows future returnees to come with education and work experience which is, if not better, at least different from what the origin country provides. There's a nice example in this week's TAL episode, regarding Kaiser Kuo, the American-born son of Chinese immigrants who "brought rock and roll to China" (by being one of the founders of Tang Dynasty). I think it's clear that the immigration of his parents was essential for his accomplishments.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Taking away 0,1% of people sure doesn't solve the problem of population growth, it's statistically insignificant. Your other points stand, but only if donor society is in relatively good shape. Indian emigrants may help India but I doubt Somalian or Libyan emigrants help countries they fled.
    - ido 11y ago
      Why don't you move to Somalia or Libya and try your best to help them? The pure accident of chance that someone was born in one country and you were born in another does not change your or their obligation to either country. We are only beholden to our own actions, not those of our ancestors or people who carry the same passport as us.
      - guard-of-terra 11y ago
        "We are only beholden to our own actions" That's now how the world works now, and the only way to get what you declare is fixing all the countries and uniting Earth.
        ido 11y ago
        You are welcome to pursue fixing the world. Doesn't change my opinion that an Indian/Somali/whatever has the same right to a life of comfort as you, since they didn't choose to be born where they did and neither did you.
        guard-of-terra 11y ago
        Do they also have right to money already in my wallet? Because, rights and privileges (for example, developed country social safety net) is a kind of capital.
        ido 11y ago
        Despite having the good fortune of being born into quite significant privilege (I'm a white, tall, straight guy born to middle class parents in a western country - if anyone has been playing life on the easiest difficulty level it's me) I'm actually a socialist & believe in income redistribution (choosing to live in Germany has something to do with it - it's much more of a socialist welfare state with high taxes & wealth redistribution than the country I was born in - I would have been making more money and paying less taxes if I stayed there). Obviously we can't completely equalize the playing field (like tall, good looking people getting better opportunities etc), but I do think we should do as much as we practically can. That's why yes, I do think we should strive for open borders even though it will be significantly non-beneficial to me as a birth-lottery winner. Although practically I think it will only work out if all or almost all countries will open their borders at the same time, to prevent 100s of millions of people moving into any single country at once. I don't think this will happen in my life time but I sure hope it does. And on a more concrete note - if I'll have a chance of helping someone from a poor country come to Germany e.g. via offering them employment/visa sponsorship - I will prefer doing that compared to hiring a local.
- MagicWishMonkey 11y ago
  Yea someone should totally press that magic button to fix all of the things wrong with Indian society. That's a realistic way to look at things.
- deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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shiven 11y ago
...but don't make these issues more simpler than they are. It makes more sense if you take a Darwinian viewpoint. Survival of the fittest and all that. In the US this happened a couple of hundred years ago as the native population got wiped out by European immigrants (or invaders). In case of the UK, as an Indian, I consider it fair comeuppance for the two centuries that Brits enslaved my country! And, by the way, I'll have some fish-n-chips with that NHS plan, thankyouverymuch.
- berntb 11y ago
  An Indian eating fish and chips?! A couple of good friends of mine were depressed, because their kid preferred Western food. I told them to relax. "If she ends up like a native Swede, consider what food we native Swedes really love -- Indian! You can't lose. :-)"
- jkyle 11y ago
  > Survival of the fittest and all that Darwin never made this claim, nor is it part of natural selection. Natural selection doesn't select for the 'fittest', it selects for the 'fit enough'. It's a minimum threshold, not a maximizing algorithm. Secondly, the native population of the Americas was mostly killed off by Smallpox. Though military superiority played a role, second to the pox was load bearing animals such as horses. Interestingly enough, husbandry of large livestock like horses is where diseases like the pox come from. . . and Eurasia is where all of the world's largest domesticated animals come from. So, Eurasians were able to slowly and gradually build resistance to these livestock oriented diseases. Short story: Why did all the native americans die off? Pure random chance. Not that Europeans are guilt free, they did some horrible, morally reprehensible shit. They just, even at their height, couldn't hold a candle to unadulterated, random cruelty of mother nature. That being said, there is some sweet, sweet irony when the nations that soaked up the entire world's wealth through theft, murder, and subjugation then used it to build empires on the backs of slaves complain about cheap labor taking their stuff. So enjoy the fish & chips and NHS!
- deleted 11y ago
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- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
logicchains 11y ago
>But I suppose it's easy (but lazy) to make a moral play of this. Lazier than assuming that because by chance you were born in a particular country you're somehow entitled to get paid more per unit work than people born in other countries?
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > by chance you were born in a particular country It's not chance that I was born in a country with world-class freedoms, infrastructure, and and wealth. Previous generations of Americans made decisions, many good and many bad, that resulted in the current state of America. I would argue that it's mostly fair for Americans to expect that their children, friends, and neighbors reap the benefits of their ingenuity and sacrifice. I also think Americans should be exceptionally generous (I think they could do a log better), but to believe that everyone just rolled the dice so many decades ago and current Americans just happened to end up on top is to have a real nihilistic approach to history, governance, and culture. To put it another way, people make sacrifices now to benefit future generations. I'd argue that it's lazy to ignore the influence of history on current affairs.
  - logicchains 11y ago
    >I also think Americans should be exceptionally generous (I think they could do a log better), but to believe that everyone just rolled the dice so many decades ago and current Americans just happened to end up on top is to have a real nihilistic approach to history, governance, and culture. For the record I wasn't implying that the wealth of nations is due to chance. I just meant roll of the dice in that, if there are N babies being born in a given moment, and K of those births are in a well-off country, then a given baby has a K/N chance of being born in a well-off country. Which country it's born in is not the result of any decisions on the baby's part, although I suppose as you point out it could be a result of decisions made by its parents. >I would argue that it's mostly fair for Americans to expect that their children, friends, and neighbors reap the benefits of their ingenuity and sacrifice. According to Forbes[1], 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, and if one assumes those companies are a net benefit to America then immigration isn't necessarily a zero-sum game. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-percent-of-fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-per...
yummyfajitas 11y ago
Yes, this is the same reason why folks opposed the end of Jim Crow - who wants to face economic competition from black people more desperate than you? I guess it's also lazy to make a moral argument against Jim Crow?
- innguest 11y ago
  I'll remind everyone that it was Democrats who passed the Jim Crow laws. Those laws were passed because racist, leftist people didn't want to compete (i.e. they were against the free market). That's what you get when leftists legislate.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    The actual human beings who passed the Jim Crow laws weren't "leftists", at least, not if you judge by: * Articulated leftist principles, as written in, say, the Communist Manifesto, AND * The fact that these people mostly switched to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act was passed, and gave us the Southern Strategy of Nixon and Reagan that basically became modern "conservatism".
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      It's a bit silly to cite Nixon as a non-leftist, at least as a counterpoint to innguest claiming left wing andi-free market types are pro-segregation. Nixon was a Republican mainly because he was anti-soviet. His domestic policies included wage and price controls, ending the gold standard, creating the EPA, federalizing medicaid and proposing an Obamacare-like health law. Nixon seems to support innguest's (unnecessarily partisan) point - opposition to civil rights does seem to require opposition to free markets.
      - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        If we are going by the political map in usage at the time when Nixon ran and governed, then he was a right-winger. That today's political spectrum is far to the right of Nixon is not a fact about Nixon at all, but instead a fact about history after Nixon.

guard-of-terra 11y ago

"Of course the immigrants have a right to the good things of life also" Maybe we should be fixing their societies? Because letting 0,1% of people in third-world countries come and enjoy good things does nothing for their society in a long run, while it can do considerable harm (or good, for sure!) for the receiving society.

RobertoG 11y ago
Well yes. If we can do that, I totally agree. But, is that politically possible? I would vote for serious resource investment in a plan for finishing the world poverty but I suspect it's not in the program of the political parties. We prefer to organize military operations ¿!??, like the current European one against the "mafias" that "exploit" the Libyan illegal immigrants, instead of facing the roots of the problem.
icebraining 11y ago
letting 0,1% of people in third-world countries come and enjoy good things does nothing for their society in a long run Sure it does. It alleviates the problem of the (often) explosive population growth, it brings in billions of dollars in remittances, and it allows future returnees to come with education and work experience which is, if not better, at least different from what the origin country provides. There's a nice example in this week's TAL episode, regarding Kaiser Kuo, the American-born son of Chinese immigrants who "brought rock and roll to China" (by being one of the founders of Tang Dynasty). I think it's clear that the immigration of his parents was essential for his accomplishments.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  Taking away 0,1% of people sure doesn't solve the problem of population growth, it's statistically insignificant. Your other points stand, but only if donor society is in relatively good shape. Indian emigrants may help India but I doubt Somalian or Libyan emigrants help countries they fled.
  - ido 11y ago
    Why don't you move to Somalia or Libya and try your best to help them? The pure accident of chance that someone was born in one country and you were born in another does not change your or their obligation to either country. We are only beholden to our own actions, not those of our ancestors or people who carry the same passport as us.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      "We are only beholden to our own actions" That's now how the world works now, and the only way to get what you declare is fixing all the countries and uniting Earth.
      - ido 11y ago
        You are welcome to pursue fixing the world. Doesn't change my opinion that an Indian/Somali/whatever has the same right to a life of comfort as you, since they didn't choose to be born where they did and neither did you.
        guard-of-terra 11y ago
        Do they also have right to money already in my wallet? Because, rights and privileges (for example, developed country social safety net) is a kind of capital.
        ido 11y ago
        Despite having the good fortune of being born into quite significant privilege (I'm a white, tall, straight guy born to middle class parents in a western country - if anyone has been playing life on the easiest difficulty level it's me) I'm actually a socialist & believe in income redistribution (choosing to live in Germany has something to do with it - it's much more of a socialist welfare state with high taxes & wealth redistribution than the country I was born in - I would have been making more money and paying less taxes if I stayed there). Obviously we can't completely equalize the playing field (like tall, good looking people getting better opportunities etc), but I do think we should do as much as we practically can. That's why yes, I do think we should strive for open borders even though it will be significantly non-beneficial to me as a birth-lottery winner. Although practically I think it will only work out if all or almost all countries will open their borders at the same time, to prevent 100s of millions of people moving into any single country at once. I don't think this will happen in my life time but I sure hope it does. And on a more concrete note - if I'll have a chance of helping someone from a poor country come to Germany e.g. via offering them employment/visa sponsorship - I will prefer doing that compared to hiring a local.
MagicWishMonkey 11y ago
Yea someone should totally press that magic button to fix all of the things wrong with Indian society. That's a realistic way to look at things.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

shiven 11y ago

...but don't make these issues more simpler than they are. It makes more sense if you take a Darwinian viewpoint. Survival of the fittest and all that. In the US this happened a couple of hundred years ago as the native population got wiped out by European immigrants (or invaders). In case of the UK, as an Indian, I consider it fair comeuppance for the two centuries that Brits enslaved my country! And, by the way, I'll have some fish-n-chips with that NHS plan, thankyouverymuch.

berntb 11y ago
An Indian eating fish and chips?! A couple of good friends of mine were depressed, because their kid preferred Western food. I told them to relax. "If she ends up like a native Swede, consider what food we native Swedes really love -- Indian! You can't lose. :-)"
jkyle 11y ago
> Survival of the fittest and all that Darwin never made this claim, nor is it part of natural selection. Natural selection doesn't select for the 'fittest', it selects for the 'fit enough'. It's a minimum threshold, not a maximizing algorithm. Secondly, the native population of the Americas was mostly killed off by Smallpox. Though military superiority played a role, second to the pox was load bearing animals such as horses. Interestingly enough, husbandry of large livestock like horses is where diseases like the pox come from. . . and Eurasia is where all of the world's largest domesticated animals come from. So, Eurasians were able to slowly and gradually build resistance to these livestock oriented diseases. Short story: Why did all the native americans die off? Pure random chance. Not that Europeans are guilt free, they did some horrible, morally reprehensible shit. They just, even at their height, couldn't hold a candle to unadulterated, random cruelty of mother nature. That being said, there is some sweet, sweet irony when the nations that soaked up the entire world's wealth through theft, murder, and subjugation then used it to build empires on the backs of slaves complain about cheap labor taking their stuff. So enjoy the fish & chips and NHS!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
eli_gottlieb 11y ago

logicchains 11y ago

>But I suppose it's easy (but lazy) to make a moral play of this. Lazier than assuming that because by chance you were born in a particular country you're somehow entitled to get paid more per unit work than people born in other countries?

humanrebar 11y ago
> by chance you were born in a particular country It's not chance that I was born in a country with world-class freedoms, infrastructure, and and wealth. Previous generations of Americans made decisions, many good and many bad, that resulted in the current state of America. I would argue that it's mostly fair for Americans to expect that their children, friends, and neighbors reap the benefits of their ingenuity and sacrifice. I also think Americans should be exceptionally generous (I think they could do a log better), but to believe that everyone just rolled the dice so many decades ago and current Americans just happened to end up on top is to have a real nihilistic approach to history, governance, and culture. To put it another way, people make sacrifices now to benefit future generations. I'd argue that it's lazy to ignore the influence of history on current affairs.
- logicchains 11y ago
  >I also think Americans should be exceptionally generous (I think they could do a log better), but to believe that everyone just rolled the dice so many decades ago and current Americans just happened to end up on top is to have a real nihilistic approach to history, governance, and culture. For the record I wasn't implying that the wealth of nations is due to chance. I just meant roll of the dice in that, if there are N babies being born in a given moment, and K of those births are in a well-off country, then a given baby has a K/N chance of being born in a well-off country. Which country it's born in is not the result of any decisions on the baby's part, although I suppose as you point out it could be a result of decisions made by its parents. >I would argue that it's mostly fair for Americans to expect that their children, friends, and neighbors reap the benefits of their ingenuity and sacrifice. According to Forbes[1], 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, and if one assumes those companies are a net benefit to America then immigration isn't necessarily a zero-sum game. 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-percent-of-fortune-500-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-per...

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Yes, this is the same reason why folks opposed the end of Jim Crow - who wants to face economic competition from black people more desperate than you? I guess it's also lazy to make a moral argument against Jim Crow?

innguest 11y ago
I'll remind everyone that it was Democrats who passed the Jim Crow laws. Those laws were passed because racist, leftist people didn't want to compete (i.e. they were against the free market). That's what you get when leftists legislate.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  The actual human beings who passed the Jim Crow laws weren't "leftists", at least, not if you judge by: * Articulated leftist principles, as written in, say, the Communist Manifesto, AND * The fact that these people mostly switched to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act was passed, and gave us the Southern Strategy of Nixon and Reagan that basically became modern "conservatism".
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    It's a bit silly to cite Nixon as a non-leftist, at least as a counterpoint to innguest claiming left wing andi-free market types are pro-segregation. Nixon was a Republican mainly because he was anti-soviet. His domestic policies included wage and price controls, ending the gold standard, creating the EPA, federalizing medicaid and proposing an Obamacare-like health law. Nixon seems to support innguest's (unnecessarily partisan) point - opposition to civil rights does seem to require opposition to free markets.
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      If we are going by the political map in usage at the time when Nixon ran and governed, then he was a right-winger. That today's political spectrum is far to the right of Nixon is not a fact about Nixon at all, but instead a fact about history after Nixon.