How Not to Design a World Without Borders (2014) | Hacker News Reader

How Not to Design a World Without Borders (2014)

theatlantic.com

21 pointsmonort45 comments

They begin with an odd argument made by the US - Ecuador's open borders have increased human trafficing. The concept of human trafficing only exists because there are closed borders that people want to cross. If the US opened its borders, it would surely have a huge influx of people, but it would also stop having human trafficing.

The other neighboring countries claiming that Ecuador's policies were destabilizing the whole area could perhaps have meant "Those bad people are escaping the confines of their bad-people country and spreading to ours"

Sarcastic comparison: Maybe the US should close its internal borders with high crime neighborhoods so those bad people can remain trapped among their deserving neighbors instead of robbing the more privileged classes.

You're using "human trafficking" to mean illegal migration. When in fact it actually means:

the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage,[3][4][5] or the extraction of organs or tissues,[6][7] including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

Thanks for the correction. In that case it doesn't really seem to be an issue of borders. People can surely be exploited in those ways within their own country too.

It's worth pointing out that trafficking operations, like drug cartels, take advantage of the legal situation. That's not to say that if borders were fully open impoverished foreigners wouldn't still be exploited by organisations promising wonderful opportunities overseas with an arrangement that is effectively indentured servitude (see: conditions attached to migrant workers in some Middle Eastern countries).

But closed borders and restrictive visa rules mean that people desperate to leave their own country don't have the option of simply saving for a plane ticket, and trafficked people have the fear of punishment for their illegal status hanging over their heads which makes them that little bit more afraid to try to escape their situation.

From the same Wikipedia article:

"Sexual trafficking includes coercing a migrant into a sexual act as a condition of allowing or arranging the migration. […] Trafficked women and children, for instance, are often promised work in the domestic or service industry, but instead are sometimes taken to brothels where they are required to undertake sex work, while their passports and other identification papers confiscated."

Here the closed boarders play a role. When those people won't even try to contact the police because of beeing afraid that they will be put in jail and then sent back, the closed boarders are a good thing for human traffickers, even though it makes getting in and out of a country a bit harder.

Also I could imagine, if the boarders where open, people would be more likely to just try their luck in an other country than getting in touch with some creep promising wonderland for a fee.

I don't think rgbrenner's response was in favor of closed borders, but in correcting the previous poster's confusion over what human trafficking is. As it were, if the borders were open folks wouldn't have to use shady agencies and immigration traffickers to get in at all, but could rather just save some money for a ticket and finding a job.

| Maybe the US should close its internal borders with high crime neighborhoods so those bad people can remain trapped among their deserving neighbors instead of robbing the more privileged classes.

Sadly, that is exactly the case. It is nearly impossible for people with no or bad credit history and bad records to move to a better neighborhood, so they stay "out there", with the other "criminals". How do you expect them to change if there's no one better to help them?

I guess you're right. Town planning enforces this too with section sizes too big for low-priced high density housing. Thus forcing poor people out.

What's weird, is people often complain these segregations are unfair or keep people trapped in poverty but don't think twice about the segregation between countries. Those Colombians kind of are being suppressed by the US and everyone else except Ecuador briefly.

Less than 100 years ago it was considered NORMAL to segregate black people and prevent access to certain locations in the US. Now it's illegal and considered totally unacceptable.

Is it possible that in the future it will be considered as unacceptable and illegal to discriminate based on your country of origin?

I mean why should a black person from the US have access to different locations than a black person from Nigeria? Or why should a white person from France have access to different locations than a white person from Ukraine?

Because a white person from Ukraine will work for cheaper than me, a white person from France. How long before it's impossible to work for a decent salary (which are already not that decent in France).

And there's the problem of welfare, look at what's happening in Calais. All the illegal immigrants from Africa are trying to reach England from this French Port since they believe England is the best welfare state.

So yeah I agree we're all brothers, but I'd rather see French in France and Ukrainians in Ukraine.

As a matter of national security, some things may never come to pass. But as the world progresses towards a better future, the boundaries will vanish, if they haven't already. Who would have thought the EU was possible just 60 years back? The European countries have a long history of wars and hostile relationships stretching from the medivial ages up to 1945.

The case of cheap labour isn't a valid argument anymore. If the value-add is significant, then certain things will happen, thanks to the capitalistic nature of businesses in the West.

I agree, people are always saying they want to abolish borders but in reality, there are hard consequences to that, you need to have some border for countries to improve. Otherwise everyone is just going to move somewhere else with a better quality of life and this is providing a race to the bottom with giant slums in those places whereas some countries would be almost empty because everyone would move.

Studies show that increased immigration is actually good for the economy. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/03/bernie-... has a bunch of sources for that.

Besides, if extremely large numbers of immigrants would be harmful, you can open up borders gradually.

I don't doubt that, it's just I don't believe in opening borders in one go, it would be too brutal and it would do more harm than good but indeed if we open the borders slowly little by little and improve the conditions in other countries in the mean time (to reduce inequality between countries) it could be much better. Otherwise you are going to have 15M Chinese and Indians moving into the same city in just a few months, it would be way too brutal. So maybe one day it will work but for now, there is way too much inequality for this to work.

>> Studies show that increased immigration is actually good for the economy.

Yes, but I believe the jury is still out on whether it actually benefits the ordinary workers in that economy, or if just benefits business by providing a cheaper workforce.

One study I saw suggested that 90% of workers saw improvements.

Edit: see https://www.nber.org/papers/w12497.pdf

Well, that's certainly interesting.

It does say there seemed to be a small negative effect on the least educated, who are presumably competing for jobs at the low end.

Yes, those without a high-school degree saw a small decrease. Although even that may be countered by lower prices, I've seen that argument somewhere.

Quite likely, there will be a feedback mechanism allowing businesses to produce cheaper products if they have access to a larger (and therefore cheaper) labour pool.

> How long before it's impossible to work for a decent salary (which are already not that decent in France).

So, it is already impossible for the person in Ukraine to work for what you consider a decent salary.

The people above you on this scale are using politics to make sure your salary and opportunities stay low as well. You get a monopoly type of advantage here, but you can't compete fairly in other countries and in other situations, when you are a consumer.

This is a power structure that should not be something you seek to maintain. I doubt closed borders benefit you, except on a very short-term scale.

On the one hand, I support open borders and immigration, but on the other hand, it's human nature to go where it's easier to live instead of trying to better your current place of residence.

Without borders, people will just flock from one place to another, destabilizing and draining the cities of resources until other places become more desirable, and when that happens, they'll just move to other, better places.

It's very much like all the nomadic tribes of old (incl. North American Indians), and the gypsies today, only the world is overcrowded and we can't maintain a progressing, stable civilization with that kind of lifestyle.

I believe education plays a key factor, people need to change their worldviews and culture to live together on Earth, and that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

Maybe if the rich would invest in infrastructure all over the world, to better everyone at the same time.

Too many times I've seen millionaires living in huge mansions while the neighborhoods around them crumble. But they won't invest in their local community because there's no ROI (They really need $24 million in their bank accounts, 1 million less would be catastrophic, right? /s), and they can always move somewhere better. This mentality is destructive...

> "Without borders, people will just flock from one place to another, destabilizing and draining the cities of resources..."

I'm not sure about that. After all, even within countries there are huge disparities between regions and we don't see this effect take place.

Where are there larger disparities inside of a country than from a large emigrating country? The reason people from Mississippi don't all pack up and move to California is they are per capita richer than the UK, even though in the US that state is considered the poorest.

Off the top of my head I don't know of any one country that has a huge disparity (though I'm sure examples exist), but the EU is a good case study.

Legal Economic migration within the EU is definitely an issue, however it hasn't resulted in "destabilizing and draining the cities of resources".

E.g. Estonia's GDP is 99.07% smaller than the UK's[1], and Estonia is not empty. Edit - as pointed out below a per-capita comparison makes much more sense... oops

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=estonia+gdp+vs+uk+

Edit: I know that GDP is not a measure of standard of living, but they are correlated and it servers as a reasonable proxy

Raw GDP is an absurd proxy for standard of living, you're comparing a country of 70 million to a country of 1.5 million. At the very least you'd need it to be per capita. Maybe PPP adjusted.

Thanks for pointing this out and you're absolutely right. The per capita comparison is much better, and shows Estonia's economy at 54% smaller [1] (Bulgaria makes for an even starker contrast at 82% smaller per capita [3])

Edit - As a final edit, the largest disparity across standard of living in the EU is between Luxembourg and Bulgaria, and comparing their per-capita GDP shows that Bulgaria's economy is 93.2% smaller [4]

This is still a considerable difference between the two countries and yet not everyone has fled from Estonia/Bulgaria.

The point though is that there is a very big spread in the standard of living [2] across the EU and yet mass migration is not occurring.

[1] - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=estonia+per+capita+gdp+...

[2] - http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/dec/11/uk-living-stand...

[3] - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bulgaria+per+capita+gdp...

[4] - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bulgaria+per+capita+gdp...

Apart from what merpnderp said about per capita income, I'd guess there are at least two important things at work here.

The first is that the disparities between regions within a country like the US are quite different from the disparities between countries across the world. In particular, wealthy regions and cities in rich countries tend to have lots of poor people. I think they might even have disproportionate shares of the poor.

Then there's the redistributive effects of things like having a single currency, single regulatory regimes, and explicit central government redistributive taxation. These all (especially the last) work to prevent disparities between regions within rich countries from becoming as big as disparities between countries across the world.

> "The first is that the disparities between regions within a country like the US are quite different from the disparities between countries across the world."

That's a fair point, I'm sure there are differences which make looking at a country in isolation not very useful.

What about the EU? There is free travel across the EU and the economic disparity between member states is huge. For example look at UK/Germany as compared to Estonia/Bulgaria.

This hasn't resulted in catastrophic mass migration across the union.

The European jury is out on whether or not there is ongoing catastrophic mass migration across the EU.

Anti-immigration sentiment has been surging in the EU over the last few years in large part because of perceptions of excessive migration from eastern European countries like Estonia and Bulgaria ("the periphery", as they call them) to western and northern European countries like the UK and Germany ("the core countries", as they call themselves). In the UK, for instance, the UK Independence Party got something like 13% of the popular vote (though only 1 seat, because as bad as UKIP is, the first-past-the-post electoral system in modern Britain is worse) in this year's general election, and they're a single-issue, anti-European-immigration party. Word is that similar things are happening in other rich European countries, as seen with the National Front in France, the Danish People's Party in Denmark, and the AfD in Germany.[1]

To zoom in a bit on the UK (where I live), there is evidence that migration from the EU is high and growing[2][3]. But I don't think that anyone outside of those who are right-of-mainstream on this issue think it's catastrophically high. I'd guess at three main reasons for that. Firstly, accession to the EU requires certain "convergence criteria", which include levels of economic prosperity and social stability which, while not strict enough to mean that all the joining countries are virtually the same on these things, are strict enough to mean that they aren't as far apart as, say, the US and Haiti -- or even the US and Mexico. Secondly, the EU has a good few common institutions, including ones that do things along the lines of redistributive taxation.[4] And thirdly, there are differences in language and culture which might be restrictions to many people, especially in a continent as linguistically (if not culturally) diverse as Europe. (I'm guessing that and size are parts of why everyone isn't flocking to Luxembourg.)

1. Germany's Angela Merkel under threat from Pegida rallies -- http://www.cnbc.com/2015/01/06/threat-to-merkel-from-right-w...

2. British and other EU migration -- http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/britains-70-million...

3. Bulgarian and Romanian migration to the UK -- http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistic...

4. EU contractors and beneficiaries of funding from the EU budget -- http://ec.europa.eu/contracts_grants/beneficiaries_en.htm

Thanks for your European perspective. I live in Southern Australia, so about as far away from Europe as possible, so all of my knowledge on the issue is anecdotal.

In the EU, hasn't the net result (across Europe) been a positive one? I.e. the positive impacts on weaker economies have outweighed the negative impacts on the more developed, core, countries?

I think you're absolutely right that the difference between US and Haiti can't really be compared with the differences between EU member states.

I really hope the EU experiment does end up working. A world without borders would be amazing.

Yeah, I think -- and just about everything I've seen on it says -- that the net effect of the EU has been positive for all European countries and most European people involved.

I also hope the experiment works, and not just because I'm a migrant to Europe who's annoyed at needing visas to work and, in some cases, even just visit! The European project's going through a bit of a rough patch now, though, with Greece and the rise of anti-immigration sentiment. I think it needs serious reform to work and be good.

There are many arguments made to support the case of global open borders. The main premise for worry comes from waves of destitute migrants overwhelming the infrastructure and natural carrying capacity of rich cities and dragging them down; however, the megacities of the developing world are a case study in what actually happens in such a situation, and although it presents major challenges, it's not all bad. Cities and economies benefit when they get bigger, even as extreme dysfunctions creep in.

However, it's ultimately moot as long as leaders look towards questions of immigration, nationality, and origin as useful wedge issues.

Another concern is a lower per capita federal tax base.

> The main premise for worry comes from waves of destitute migrants overwhelming the infrastructure and natural carrying capacity of rich cities and dragging them down

I always wondered: are the people in the US asking for the establishment of closed borders to prevent people from moving from the poor Mississippi to the rich California?

We're not all the same and people aren't interchangeable. Some cultures think owning women is a good thing. Some cultures think homosexuality is a crime. And some cultures don't want to let those cultures have influence over their lives.

It's interesting how we normal people discuss and debate the merits and justifications for various policies that we have no say in.

We automatically assume that our Dear Leaders are doing the same, weighing the pros and cons of whatever decisions they're making, and trying to choose wisely.

But in reality, they're just pursuing their personal gain at our expense.

For example, a free trade agreement is really simple: just "agree" to let people trade freely. Can you guess if people would like that? But politicians want their bribes and various business conglomerates want obstacles to competing with them.

Lots of people are happy with Uber's service, and lots of other ordinary people are happy to drive for them. Who benefits from Uber being banned?

Lots of people are happy using AirBnB's, and others are happy renting their apartments for extra income. Who benefits from AirBnB being banned?

See how this works? Does it look like our hallowed leaders are working in our interest?

Do you think they have a reason to? I mean, if they just get out of the way and let people produce wealth and trade freely, what's in it for them?

>> Lots of people are happy with Uber's service, and lots of other ordinary people are happy to drive for them. Who benefits from Uber being banned?

I'm sorry but this ignores the converse side of this.

Our system of laws and protections has been built up over many years and if there are rules that prevent an Uber-like service from starting up then there was probably a bloody good reason they were put in place.

That reason may be buried in layers of legal cruft. It may be obscured entirely. It may not even be relevant any more.

Perhaps that means that laws should be reviewed more often, but it doesn't mean throwing out the rulebook in its entirety and then going on to repeat the same mistakes that lead us to have the rules in the first place.

>> Lots of people are happy using AirBnB's, and others are happy renting their apartments for extra income. Who benefits from AirBnB being banned?

This one's easy - people who live in a residential block who didn't sign up to live in a hotel.

> if there are rules that prevent an Uber-like service from starting up then there was probably a bloody good reason they were put in place

That's quite an assumption. Care to back that up somehow?

Consider that free(er) competition results in quality increasing and prices decreasing. That's how it works when providers have to please their customers more than their competitors. It's extremely simple, and axiomatic.

So when you see that Uber is just one service provider in the market for paid transportation, how do you think it could possibly be better for us that "regulations" prevent Uber from operating, i.e. competing with government-approved taxi services?

> This one's easy - people who live in a residential block who didn't sign up to live in a hotel.

It's like, you could have some.. rules about how to behave in rental apartments, and they could even be included in the contracts!

"Dear Customer. Because lots of ordinary people live in this building and have to wake up early, it's important that you behave nicely and don't make noise after 22:00. If you find this unacceptable, we can't rent this apartment to you".

Is that so difficult? Or do we genuinely need some distant, nebulous organization to prevent people from being able to voluntarily accept terms and trades like that?

>> That's quite an assumption. Care to back that up somehow?

Well there was, for instance, the rule brought in a few years ago in London that minicabs have to be called from a registered business, they can't just hang around soliciting for business. This was in direct response to women being picked up by unregistered drivers and raped. That's just one example of regulation that has sprung up to protect the public.

>> Consider that free(er) competition results in quality increasing and prices decreasing.

It can result in a race to the bottom just as easily.

>> That's how it works when providers have to please their customers more than their competitors. It's extremely simple, and axiomatic.

Pleasing customers is not the be-all and end-all of ... anything really. I like to use the example of hygiene ratings and checks in restaurants. This is a government function that makes sure people don't die. It is absolutely not good enough to leave this to the market. It is absolutely not good enough to say that if people get poisoned then the business will fail. Firstly because people already got poisoned and secondly because we have a whole heap of history to show us that dodgy operators keep going!

>> So when you see that Uber is just one service provider in the market for paid transportation, how do you think it could possibly be better for us that "regulations" prevent Uber from operating, i.e. competing with government-approved taxi services?

I'm not necessarily taking on Uber specifically, but your underlying point that all regulation is bad. I gave an example above of a regulation that came in for a reason. If Uber are falling foul of regulations like this then as I said, it's a good reason to take a look at what might be wrong with the regulations, not throw them out completely just to facilitate the new cab company in town.

>> It's like, you could have some.. rules about how to behave in rental apartments, and they could even be included in the contracts!

Right, behave or we won't rent to you next time! Never mind that this time they caused hell to the other residents. And the next group do it too. But it's OK because you won't rent to them next time either. And never mind that having a never-ending stream of new people in and out of the building fundamentally changes the nature of a residential block. No, fuck everyone else and what they wanted out of a place to live.

This is the very kernel of the problem - the negative externalities are ignored. That's why prices are cheaper, that's why there are problems with these businesses flouting laws that protect people.

I also find it very interesting that you chose to say this -

"That's how it works when providers have to please their customers more than their competitors."

You clearly have a preconceived notion that all opposition to these sorts of businesses comes from their competitors. It does not. I don't give a shit about taxi medallions or whether hotels don't like the competition.

I do give a shit about consumer protection, fire regulations, safety, hygiene requirements, workers rights and many, many other things that have been hard won over many, many years. Things we're not all clamouring to discard for a slightly cheaper cab ride or bed to sleep in.

> Well there was, for instance, the rule brought in a few years ago in London that minicabs have to be called from a registered business, they can't just hang around soliciting for business. This was in direct response to women being picked up by unregistered drivers and raped. That's just one example of regulation that has sprung up to protect the public.

That makes no sense. I don’t see how regulation might conceivably make it more difficult for “unregistered drivers” to rape women. All you need to understand is that even if it did, the rapists would just move on to more opportune circumstances for finding victims.

Therefore, the regulation is not justified by the idea of preventing rape. It’s just not going to. I doubt you sincerely thought it would either.

>> Consider that free(er) competition results in quality increasing and prices decreasing.

> It can result in a race to the bottom just as easily.

Free competition certainly does cause a race to the bottom of economically viable prices. I’m not sure what you’re getting at there, but “can” is just not enough when the way competition works is clear to anyone with half a brain.

> Pleasing customers is not the be-all and end-all of ... anything really.

Um.. I guess not? So what?

> I like to use the example of hygiene ratings and checks in restaurants. This is a government function that makes sure people don't die.

Alright, that’s it. I’m withdrawing your benefit of the doubt. Do you want me to believe you have no idea how people make successful sales on eBay, for example?

> I gave an example above of a regulation that came in for a reason.

There’s always a reason. It’s just that it’s never to benefit the public, because there’s no point in ruling over people besides to benefit at their expense.

> Right, behave or we won't rent to you next time!

How about: ”adhere to this contract, or we’ll sue you”?

> This is the very kernel of the problem - the negative externalities are ignored.

There’s a certain group of “people” that sure likes talking about “externalities”.. :P

> I do give a shit about consumer protection, fire regulations, safety, hygiene requirements, workers rights and many, many other things that have been hard won over many, many years. Things we're not all clamouring to discard for a slightly cheaper cab ride or bed to sleep in.

Oh you managed to sneak in some shaming too! Well done!

>> That makes no sense. I don’t see how regulation might conceivably make it more difficult for “unregistered drivers” to rape women.

Easy - minicabs are not allowed to hang around outside clubs and pubs looking for business. Therefore drunk women are less likely to just stumble into any old car outside the venue, because they know the legal operators are a call (or app-click or whatever) away. They call a cab service, the call is on record, the company is licensed, the car that picked her up is recorded, the driver is a known individual.

>> All you need to understand is that even if it did, the rapists would just move on to more opportune circumstances for finding victims.

Maybe so, maybe not, it certainly takes away one comparatively easy avenue of attack.

>> Therefore, the regulation is not justified by the idea of preventing rape. It’s just not going to. I doubt you sincerely thought it would either.

Actually people think that in general it has helped. I'm not sure how possible it is to say definitely that is has or it hasn't helped the overall number of rapes, there's certainly no solid ground for you to say "Therefore the regulation is not justified".

>> Alright, that’s it. I’m withdrawing your benefit of the doubt. Do you want me to believe you have no idea how people make successful sales on eBay, for example?

I withdrew yours some time ago, you're clearly driven by ideology rather than reality. Yes, I know about ebay and rating services. No, I don't agree they're fit for purpose in all instances, sorry.

>> There’s always a reason. It’s just that it’s never to benefit the public, because there’s no point in ruling over people besides to benefit at their expense.

More ideologically driven nonsense. It's very often to benefit the public.

>> How about: ”adhere to this contract, or we’ll sue you”?

Again, the action has already happened, already made other lives worse. And that still doesn't address the change in usage pattern and how that impacts the other residents.

>> There’s a certain group of “people” that sure likes talking about “externalities”.. :P

I don't even know what you mean by this.

>> Oh you managed to sneak in some shaming too! Well done!

No, there was no shaming implied there, simply stating that very often rules and regs have grown in these areas for good reasons that protect people and listing a few areas in which I consider them both useful and important.

--edit-- Please note I'm not saying Uber fall foul of that particular taxi regulation, it was just an example of a regulation that was put in place to protect the public even if you think it was misguided. Uber's model of using an app to request a car certainly seems to fall within the law there.

> minicabs are not allowed to hang around outside clubs and pubs looking for business. Therefore drunk women are less likely to just stumble into any old car outside the venue

If you're going to rape someone, do you want to wait for victims in front of security cameras, in a car with a license plate number on it? .. With plenty of people around?

That should be enough.

> I mean why should a black person from the US have access to different locations than a black person from Nigeria? Or why should a white person from France have access to different locations than a white person from Ukraine?

Because "the US" and "Nigeria" and "France" and "Ukraine" are political communities that have set up rules about membership in those communities and access to the territory and property of those communities, and while some of those rules are no doubt unjust -- the strong British and French preference for their wealthy, mostly white European neighbours over their poor, mostly non-white former colonial subjects being two examples -- justice probably allows these communities quite a lot of this kind of space in making these rules.

This is what's bizarre about self-professed high-morals people. They say gays should be treated equally, blacks too, and even people with all kinds of diseases. There's even a human right called "freedom of movement". But somehow all concept of morals and treating people fairly goes out the window when it comes to the wrong kind of outsiders - foreigners.

Imagine if civil rights activists had said "equal treatment of blacks and whites is important! But let's not do it too quickly because the flood of blacks into the former white-only areas will create too much disruption. It might wreck our polite society. Let's gradually give blacks more and more freedoms as long as the civilized people can retain their comfortable positions."

the corporate media always speaks with reverence regarding the idea of doing away with borders....gosh, I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that the corporate media is funded by advertising purchases made by big business, the same big business that buys labor.

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