Well, sure. If you're a skilled professional in a coastal metropolis globalization is great. Your company is making record profits and you can buy all the cheap gadgets you want. And then Trump gets elected and you can't even fathom how or why.
Perhaps I'm a bit jaded from my experience living in Vancouver, but historically Canadians had the option to move here and accept a somewhat lower standard of living in exchange for the nicer climate we enjoy. That option is now largely gone, and I expect it to be completely gone within 10 years, and after that it will be the other most desirable locations in the rest of Canada. It is simple economics. Aussies and New Zealanders among others are experiencing the same thing.
Of course, detractors can easily point to government "statistics" (that completely ignore blind corporations, proxy purchases, etc) showing foreign activity in real estate to be <5%, but I suspect the main reason most everyone (or at least voters) chooses to "believe" this obviously fake data is because a lot of people are making a loooooot of money from this shift in world order. For now. Let's see how happy are when it is their (and their children's) turn to pay the piper. You made a couple million bucks on your house? Great! Better hope you have only one child, because you cannot buy a home in Vancouver with earned income any longer. Oh sure, you can get a condo, for now, but soon even that option will be beyond reach. Luckily for Canadians we have a near infinite amount of beautiful land (weather, not so much), so there will always be somewhere for us to go, other countries I'm not so sure are similarly blessed. But either way, I'd have rather we retained our sovereignty.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
It does not follow from not valuing some people more than others that free movement would benefit any of these people; IMO part of a "moral" position involves trying to guess the likely consequences of things in the real world. An argument that people from different cultures don't get along very well, particularly when there's a large and sudden change in the numbers of one of the groups, is not antithetical to your position of valuing people equally; the only point of disagreement is wrt likely outcomes.
To me, it is quite analogous to one's home - while some people might be personally ok with strangers letting themselves in and sleeping on the couch, I am personally not ok with it. Perhaps you've spent considerable time and money putting things into a state that you find pleasant, I'd rather keep it more or less in that state, otherwise maybe I'd have just sat around and relaxed rather than expending all the effort and money.
I'm fine with others personally disagreeing with this philosophy, but I'm not ok with the fairly common claim that "it doesn't make any difference", or having to pay for the consequences of alternative philosophies. But then to be fair, the west has saddled many parts of the rest of the world with "extreme inconvenience" to put it mildly, so you could certainly argue that this is our just desserts.
To answer both you and the other commenter, I'm a consequentialist. That is, I genuinely believe the world would be a better place without modern day nationalism. There would be less wars and more cooperation. Cultures would win by merit. Nationalism is not far removed from racism (which I assume you do not support) when you think deeply and honestly about it. Your nationality is for the most part an accident of birth, doesn't define you and is very difficult to change.
I could keep going without changing your mind. Nationalism is such a deeply emotional, entrenched notion that is taught from childhood, from Hollywood movies to popular songs, and almost never challenged (you may have thought about the subject more deeply, but you'd be in a minority). Plus, even if you agreed with me on a philosophical level, being Canadian and all, it'd probably still be in your best self interest not to join the anti-nationalist ranks :) In the spirit of full disclosure, I traveled a lot and lived in a few countries (including China), so I can't pretend to be completely unbiased.
Agreed, but until we have a massive enlightenment in overall society as well as removing those from power who play on people's fear and emotions, we'll have to make do with what we have. Until then, nationalism matters.
> Nationalism is not far removed from racism (which I assume you do not support) when you think deeply and honestly about it.
Yes and no. Racism, taken literally, is idiotic. Racism as a description for culturalism, does in fact define you, or the aggregate behavior of a group is what "culture" is. People are largely (but not entirely) a product of their environment, that is a fact. So the notion of "supporting it" or not makes no sense, it is simply a description of objective reality, a classification. Now, turning your brain off and making decisions solely based on what culture someone appears to belong to of course is prone to error so should be used with caution, but the progressive liberal fear mongering that dishonestly interprets this as bordering on genocide is a big part of the problem why we can never seem to make any progress imho. And again, this matural human behavior (classification based on objective reality) is abused by those in power for their personal gain.
And obviously, everyone could become a computer engineer with enough training? No, not really. And that goes for every job. The idea that if some job is no longer valued by the market we can just retrain people to <job of the week> is so wrong it isn't funny anymore. People have different talents. Not everyone can be everything.
> These tech companies cannot hire enough engineers. They had to bring H1B workers from India, for example.
This has been refuted at least half a dozen times on HN already. They brought those people in as cheap labor forces, not because of some shortage.
Might want to modify that to a 'skilled professional under 35'. The H1B, offshoring, and the race to the bottom with younger and foreign workers is something that you'll think you won't have to worry about for a while.
And then you get older. With a family, kids, mortgage - a life full of things that leave little room for the next JS package manager or version of Angular.
Not to discount your point, just to say there's more than one way to look at it. For some, they reach a point in their lives / careers where constant change is wearisome. Others continue to adapt and thrive. I have no idea what underlying factors would cause this.