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Comment by jtcruthers | Hacker News Reader

>But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color

Lol, I feel like having a family is way too expensive and disagree that importing replacements is the only way to go. Giving birth shouldn't bankrupt you, and that has to be a huge reason young people (including me and my friends) are pushing off having children. Combine that with the overwhelming student debt crisis, I don't feel I can take on a child. So it seems weird that the solution is "screw them, just import the people we need".

But sure, make it about me being "racist" so you can imagine yourself as a big warrior fighting off bigots online.

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Logically-speaking, why would you create people who will be a burden to a society in need for a longer period than people you could bring in from outside? It's a very similar issue to the adoption vs birth debate, which is exceedingly simple before emotional matters come into play: it's much better for society for childless couples to adopt parentless children.

Likewise, the answer to this immigration debate is exceedingly clear, until you throw overly emotional notions about culture and ethnicity and nationality into the mix.

Me having two children are not destined to be "burdens to society in need (sic?) for a longer period than people you can bring from outside". That is certainly not guaranteed. I'm not sure it's even statistically more likely than not. So I'm very hesitant to take that as gospel.

And my personal beliefs about life and what it means to be human in my very finite time here goes far beyond "well the economics work out better if I'm barren forever and the government imports immigrants with higher birth rates due to being from a third world country". I strive to have a complete, well rounded life with a loving family. At the end of the day, my life goal is not to live an " economically logical" life void of emotions. I have 90 years here, if I'm lucky. I AM going to live a full life.

There is nothing wrong with immigration, but the fact of the matter is you can't strip all emotion out of the equation. You can say its overly emotional to want your own family instead of importing people with completely different cultures and values, but the drive to reproduce has been in the works for 3.5 billion years. Having others reproduce for you so the government can get an extra dollar out of isn't enough of an incentive to kick the repro drive.

>Me having two children are not destined to be "burdens to society in need (sic?) for a longer period than people you can bring from outside". That is certainly not guaranteed.

On balance, it pretty much is. Adult immigrants will generally be productive in a fraction of the time that children will take to even become legally eligible to be productive.

>And my personal beliefs about life and what it means to be human in my very finite time here goes far beyond "well the economics work out better if I'm barren forever and the government imports immigrants with higher birth rates due to being from a third world country". I strive to have a complete, well rounded life with a loving family. At the end of the day, my life goal is not to live an " economically logical" life void of emotions. I have 90 years here, if I'm lucky. I AM going to live a full life.

That's fine. Please explain why we should build policy around your sentimentality, especially since people like you are unmoved (at least, to the point of actual action) by appeals to the human rights of would-be immigrants.

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