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You're mistaken about borders being some kind of fact of human nature, and you're mistaken about different countries having some kind of fundamental "different cultures".

Nation states are an invention of the last few hundred years. Before that, kingdoms had borders between the lands they controlled militarily, and while they would certainly stop an invading army, they didn't have the administrative capacity or desire to stop small scale migration of individuals.

Historically, the culture and language of people living on the Baltic in what is now Germany would certainly differ greatly from the language and culture of people living on the Mediterranean in what is now France. But there was not some magic dividing line between those 2 points, between "the French" and "the Germans". People living around what is now the border of France and Germany would have had a very similar culture and spoken a very similar language.

In the last few hundred years, with the help of such technologies as the telegraph, the railroad, and the radio, nation-building rulers enforced speaking of the Parisian dialect in what is now France, and the Bavarian dialect in what is now Germany. They also created a lot of propaganda and myths about their "national culture" and invented far-fetched stories about the greatness of their national ancestors. In Germany's case, this went way too far and had disastrous results. The French national myths were much more benign, mostly centering around arrogance about cheese.

> The French national myths were much more benign, mostly centering around arrogance about cheese.

I'm not sure if it was your intent, but this sentence made me smile. =))

I’m always amused when people dismiss something because it is merely “an invention of the past few hundred years.”

People often want to believe that modern social structures are based on human nature. That's sad rather than amusing.

I think the EU is a good example of how the border as 'a thing that prevents people from moving about' has been eliminated (via the Schengen Agreement) while it still maintains them when it comes to nation states, voting and so on. I think that's exactly the right way to do it - I think people should be able to move about, but it's also important to let people vote on a small enough scale that it is meaningful, and within a small enough group to share a culture and world-view.

Borders being primarily geography and culture is a very western perspective on things - in Africa for example a huge proportion of borders were arbitrarily drawn by colonisers. And even in Europe and other western regions, certain borders are the way they are more for political reasons than because of true distinctiveness.

Also, different regions within countries tend to be able to maintain their distinctiveness rather well despite a lack of internal borders, and in parts of Asia and Africa were borders were recently enforced by external intervention, culture continues to exist across them and despite them, so it feels like cultural differences and borders are not as closely correlated on a global scale as one may at first think.

> the border of France and Germany, for example, is very real and those countries have different cultures.

You'd be hard-pressed to identify a more artificial border in Europe than that one (maybe the former Yugoslavia). Curious if you've ever been to Alsace-Lorraine, and if so why you think the culture there is distinctly French versus their German neighbors.

I have but only as a tourist. I called out that border because Alsace and Lorraine have gone back and forth quite a few times. I don’t think that’s a “natural” border but I think being exchanged by war and treaty is a pretty purposeful expression of local and national desires. So it’s not random. That wasn’t kind of what I was trying to express.

Some borders are arbitrary (Kenya and Tanzania) and some are based on rivers or natural borders (France and Spain, Nepal and India).

But curiously the people are different in Alsace than Germany. And also different from Alsace and France. Some differences are the result of French laws and culture, some differences are the result of local custom, some differences are the result of historical German laws and culture. This doesn’t mean that people here are alien or have no commonalities. I think that people have much more in common than they have different.

> a pretty purposeful expression of local and national desires

I don't think local desires have anything to do with that.

woah's explanation is much better than mine, and getting at the same thing.

Incidentally, the EU also provides examples of where the borders are completely arbitrary. Consider the border at Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau:

> The town is the site of a complicated borderline between Belgium and Netherlands, with numerous small exclaves of Belgium, of which some contain counter-exclaves of the Netherlands.

> Some houses in the town of Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau are divided between the two countries. At one time, according to Dutch laws restaurants had to close earlier. For some restaurants on the border, this simply meant that the customers had to move to a table on the Belgian side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Nassau / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog

Culture isn't artificial, but lines in the sand create hard disconnects where culture is much more fluid. I'm a Seattlite, and I can tell you I feel more cultural similarity to British Columbians than I do to Texans. And people from Miami have a lot more cultural similarity to Cubans and Veneuzuelans than they do Alabamans. And Guatamalans have a ton of cultural similarity to Hondurans and Salvadorans, but northern Mexico might as well be Thailand to them. Cultures didn't define our borders, Manifest Destiny did...and cultures transcended those borders.

We have a 250 year precedent as an immigrant nation. We have always been at least somewhat tolerant of massive waves of migration, whether they were Germans, Italians, Irish, British, Chinese, etc. We have already lost any claim that our borders are lines in the sand for our socioethnic culture.

The only aspect of "American" culture that seems to be represented by our borders is a love of capitalism. And considering the fact that you can't really have capitalism with restricted trade and restricted movement of labor, it seems to me that Trump is more of a cultural invader than Salvadorans are.

> We have always been at least somewhat tolerant of massive waves of migration, whether they were Germans, Italians, Irish, British, Chinese

The US wasn't tolerant. I don't even know where to begin. A single comment cannot convey how anti-immigrant the US was.

Nativism took hold of the US when the Irish and Germans arrived (mainly due to religious reasons & also fear of cheaper labour) Given that Italians were majority Catholics, they'd have the same intolerance shown. The Chinese were also hounded.

Laws were passed to discriminate against all those groups.

The only people who possibly got off lightly were the British (due to same religion & culture)

Yes, I'm well aware of the racist sentiments and actions of the past in the US. The simple fact of the matter is that we still let them in the country.

But that attitude resulted in much less allowed into the country than desired to enter.

I think it’s weird that the US seems to always have a struggle where there’s lots of racism but still makes some progress. For example, I figured that the current vitriol against immigration meant the US was some sort of racist hellhole limiting immigration but this article [0]states the census estimates 13.7% of the US wasn’t born in the US. And this Pew [1] article shows this as near the historic highs of 14.8% at the end of the 19th century. I think this is pretty cool and refreshing. So despite lots of heated statements, the US is improving in the number and quality of people immigrating.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-data-idUS... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/30/immigrant-s...

I agree with everything you said except this: > borders are also created by geography and culture

It seems to me that borders exist because certain people could wield power, and gain benefits from controlling land.

When we were hunter gatherers, the idea of "territory" makes more sense, because different clans were taking things from the land (including the ability to traverse it without getting into conflicts).

Also, there weren't enough people to fill the entire Earth, and no one had a house filled with every model of Playstation, so being Nomadic wasn't a huge burden compared to staying in one place.

Later, when we had organized militaries, and food came from working the ground for months, Kings could benefit by stealing land and serfs from other Kings that had rightfully stolen them from some other King, and so on.

I don't think too many land-grab wars started with the thinking, "You know what the French need? Culture. And boy, are we gonna give it to 'em".

And also this: > the border of France and Germany, for example, is very real and those countries have different cultures

I hear that near the border, the Germans are even allowed to make wine, and the French are allowed to make bier! ;)

> I hear that near the border, the Germans are even allowed to make wine, and the French are allowed to make bier! ;)

Of course. My point was not that cultures create entirely different species with absolutely no commonalities. I think people have much more in common than different. But there are differences and customizations that are real and not arbitrary. Although I think they might have been triggered and evolved from arbitrary factors (ie weather in one region is kind of arbitrary because it exists whether people are there or not).

So while Germans may make wine and French make bier (these are both done far away from the borders as well btw) that doesn’t make Germany and France the same. It just means they have lots in common.

What I struggle with is how to think about what the right relationship is between different groups that have many things in common but aren’t the same, and don’t necessarily need to be the same.

The thing is, everyone should have a right to change countries/cultures as they want - it shouldn't be determined by the birth lottery.

The "birth lottery" is a metaphysical construct. There is no such lottery, in which souls are assigned at random to bodies. Each human being is a rooted thing with a multigenerational history which is (in the typical case) deliberately created. Some stochastic variability is at work in this process, but it is by no means random.

Every nation must have the right to choose the people it wishes to assimilate and those it doesn't. I should not be allowed to go kicking in doors and demanding acceptance. This is the fundamental basis of sovereignty.

The only exception is that a nation must accept those born to its own members, as stateless persons create a potential burden to others.

> Every nation must have the right to choose the people it wishes to assimilate and those it doesn't. I should not be allowed to go kicking in doors and demanding acceptance. This is the fundamental basis of sovereignty.

I don't necessarily disagree with this notion, but it has its limits. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, Sodomy laws, and voting restrictions on females have all been reflections of sovereignty...and they were all fucking terrible decisions. And they were eventually overthrown not by a peaceful process of deliberative change, but through massive grassroots dissent that was absolutely illegal in every respect.

If our sovereign decision is to decide that we don't want rapists and terrorists in our country, I don't have a problem with that. But if terrorist or rapist becomes conflated with brown people, restricting all of their entry regardless of their individual merits, that's gonna be a big fucking no from me dawg. I will gladly and willingly help subvert those laws, because they are unjust laws motivated by pure racism. They deserve to be subverted.

What if it were "we don't want poor, unskilled people"? Is that really anyone's fault either?

Try to think in terms of individuals, not nations. As for your sovereignty - it ends outside of your condo - you can't restrict someone from Oklahoma to move to SF.

I prefer to think in terms of nations.

There is no such thing as a sovereign individual. Unless you refer to the Libertarian cranks hassling cops on YouTube.

In practice, nations can restrict people from moving if they choose to. Perhaps mine won't, but China certainly will.

The reason, by the way, that Oklahoma and California can't restrict migration between them is that US states are not sovereign. The original colonies ceded essential parts of their sovereignty to form a national federal government. This is US history 101.

>>> As for your sovereignty - it ends outside of your condo

Why do you have sovereignty over your condo? Why can't I express my right to sleep on your couch, regardless of your consent? If you can express access control rights over a particular piece of territory or property that you consider your own, then why can't a collective group of people also express access control rights over their common, government-managed and administered property/territory?

To eliminate the birth lottery. Remember, we are talking about the reasons - restricting the movement of someone only because he/she was born in the "wrong" coordinates on the map (and in the "wrong" time) is simply inhuman.

I'm slightly confused regarding your position, are you seeking open borders, or solely the elimination of birthright citizenship?

I think there's enough responses in the thread regarding open borders that I won't belabor that point again. To the question of birthright citizenship, I'd probably be ok with eliminating it if we replaced it with service-based citizenship a la Starship Troopers (to include volunteering in the Peace Corps, volunteer firefighting, and maybe law enforcement). But it leads to the question of: if people (including native-born ones) don't meet the citizenship requirements, do they become stateless persons? Do we deport them? To where?

There are many angles/perspectives. Lets consider two categories for whom it is declared that we need them or they are allowed to enter: high-skilled workforce and refugees. We all know (here at HN) about the huge bureaucracy and obstacles when it comes to work permits. As for the refugees - everyone declares that they are allowed to enter, but in order to qualify for such status they need to be [almost] drown in the sea or [almost] killed at the border.

https://www.liberties.eu/en/news/why-refugees-do-not-take-th...

https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2016/02/11/why-dont-refugees-fly/

So....all of the problems you've mentioned, and they ARE legitimate issues....can be resolved via means other than eliminating birthright citizenship, or adopting open borders. So can we agree to attempt implementing other measures and policies first before jumping to a drastic and likely highly-disruptive policy shift?

>>>but in order to qualify for such status they need to be [almost] drown in the sea or [almost] killed at the border.

There's not much we can do about natural geography. I'm not sure what alternative course of action is suggested in the case of, say, Cuban or Haitian refugees attempting access by boat. Secondly, no one is "almost killing" refugees that show up at designated legal points of entry to the country. Finally, anyone other than Mexican citizens attempting to seek asylum/refugee status by crossing the US-Mexico border is probably in error (I wouldn't go so far as to say "not acting in good faith").

Consider this from: [1] "Once refugees or asylum seekers have found a safe place and protection of a state or territory outside their territory of origin they are discouraged from leaving again and seeking protection in another country."

In other words, Hondurans/Guatamalans/etc... should not be transiting Mexico to seek refugee status in the US to begin with.[2]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee#Restriction_of_onward_...

[2]https://www.unhcr.org/3c064aab4.html

But in the physical reality that we live in, individuals don't exist "on their own", they don't exist as completely separate entities. They have a lot of personal thoughts and experiences, but they also have a lot of traits that are predetermined by their culture, family, education, nation, society values of their immediate surrounding etc. It is just not honest to only treat people as individuals when there are obviously parts of them which are decided by the nation. So that's why people think in nations.

> There is no such lottery, in which souls are assigned at random to bodies.

citation needed. Are you claiming that some invisible hand assigned me to this planet and this time in history for reason specifically tied to myself?

> it is by no means random

Please provide evidence.

I am only claiming that you are an organism that was created by sexual reproduction, and that your current state of being is a result of genetics and environment. Surely this does not require evidence.

We don't seem to get wrapped up in questions of why a particular tree is "that" tree and not some other tree. It seems to me, as an atheist, that once you start carving out a special metaphysical nature for humans you're dabbling in the religious.

What requires evidence is this spiritual "you" that was "assigned" to this planet. If we admit that, whether the mechanism is a spiritual hand or a spiritual lottery machine is purely a theological question.

This isn't some mere abstract debate - the meme you're expressing is a radical egalitarian (Protestant) system of ethics being smuggled in under a secular guise.

> it shouldn't be determined by the birth lottery

This chips away at the advantages those winners have particularly when they don't have much else going for them (see the many low education, low income people being vocal opponents of any kind of immigration into their country). Which is why a lot of those people see someone changing country as a big threat. It's any group's right to choose who they want to let in and they will use this to make sure that either the newcomers pull them forward too, or they don't get to move at all around that group.

I too am vigorously in favor of communities right to expel people. Being born to American or Saudi citizens shouldn’t give any special rights if you the community decides they’d be better off without you.

Less sarcastically we have no evidence that democracy, unrestricted immigration and welfare states are compatible. I’ll happily bite the bullet and see massive restrictions on immigrants’ and even their children’s rights to access the state’s largess as the potential welfare gains are enormous. But that’s probably among the least important and disruptive changes of open borders. The EU, Canada or the US could easily attract immigrants in similar numbers to their total current inhabitants. You think their politics could cope with that well? California can’t even force the amalgamation of the Bay Area into a single city or copy working models of dealing with the homeless. The US can’t copy international rail infrastructure. The EU can’t get it together enough to pay Erdogan his bribe to not let the Syrians into Greece and the rest of the EU. Canada barely has an internal market in goods and services. Politics doesn’t work very well as is. How will it work with a sudden huge increase in non-native non-citizen population?

> borders are also created by geography and culture

If this was true we should have the right to enter any country we want as long as we align with its culture.

> distinct peoples with different values

Can you provide a list of values that make you suitable for your country?

One could wonder: would it be ethically acceptable to run value exams on citizens and non-citizens to decide who can enter / stay / gets expelled? Would the exam be reliable?

> If this was true we should have the right to enter any country we want as long as we align with its culture.

It seems most people would be ok with that, yes. The question is of course of the practicality of determining someone's culture to a great extent, when there would be incentives for them to lie on the applications, interviews about their culture - if that would be the deciding factor (in some countries it is) for getting into the country or not.

> Can you provide a list of values that make you suitable for your country?

You have probably a favorite style(s) of music and other styles that you don't like. Can you really provide a list of traits of that music taste exhauistively and exactly? Probably not, and it's not because it's random. There are definitive differences in those styles, and yet it can be very hard to pinpoint them. And now we are talking about one individual, and you are asking a question about something much more complex, like a nation. Not being able to list the values exactly in all cases does not mean that there are no values or that they are meaningless or have no effect on people.

> would it be ethically acceptable to run value exams on citizens and non-citizens to decide who can enter

Some countries do that already. It might not always be in the form of simple written exam, but there are people who determine your cultural values and make a decision on whether you can stay or not depending on them.