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Comment by topmonk | Hacker News Reader

> The best way to help Africans is for Africans to help themselves in Africa first

That's akin to telling a homeless person, “Get a job!”

> ... creates social issues in the countries of destination.

Social pressures, which may lead to solutions.

> ...get a professional experience in Europe with the hard requirement that they must then return to their home countries afterwards.

What's to prevent these bright young professionals as soon as they are flown back to their country from just getting sponsored by a company in another foreign country and then hopping on a plane again?

What you're advocating for is a very weak attempt at finding a solution by doing much of the same. Unless society is pushed, it will never change. Immigration provides pressure for society to learn how to integrate poorer people, whether homegrown or foreign, helping everybody.

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That's an incredibly naive and irresponsible approach to building a society. You're basically inviting a huge social challenge and stressor into otherwise perfectly functional and harmonious societies just to possibly further your own political and social agenda. You're like an engineer who throws a few bugs into a functioning system because "it will force the system to improve".

The prosperous parts of the world are prosperous because the people living there made them prosperous. Unprosperous parts of the world could do the same if they followed the well worn path of development (law, order, stability, individuals working hard to learn and build business and enterprise, etc.) that all developed nations have followed.

> You're like an engineer who throws a few bugs into a functioning system because "it will force the system to improve".

You realize societies develop on their own, right? And they deal with stressors all the time, right?

Unlike, say, an engine, which is only a collection of moving parts designed to work only one way...

> > You're like an engineer who throws a few bugs into a functioning system because "it will force the system to improve".

You realize societies develop on their own, right? And they deal with stressors all the time, right?

Unlike, say, an engine, which is only a collection of moving parts designed to work one way...

> The prosperous parts of the world are prosperous because the people living there made them prosperous

Now who's being naïve? You think the world is some sort of boardgame where everyone starts with the same amount of resources and gets the same options? I really don't know where to start with this...

> Social pressures, which may lead to solutions.

Yes, usually the solution is clamping down on immigration...

> Immigration provides pressure for society to learn how to integrate poorer people, whether homegrown or foreign, helping everybody.

It does not create such pressure. As said, it only creates pressure to implement tougher rules on immigration.

And it certainly does not help the countries of origin, which see their working age population leave and help a foreign economy instead of staying and helping the country.

Again, Africans need to help themselves at home. No-one will or can develop African countries but Africans (the same goes for all countries, not only African ones).

> Yes, usually the solution is clamping down on immigration...

That's not a solution more than a choice not to face a problem.

> It does not create such pressure. As said, it only creates pressure to implement tougher rules on immigration.

Seeing people suffering all around you does create social pressure, in normal human beings, at least. I'm not trying to be trite here, but I don't think you really can deny that people seeing other people suffer inspires them to give.

> And it certainly does not help the countries of origin, which see their working age population leave and help a foreign economy instead of staying and helping the country.

Immigrant workers often send money home that far exceeds what they could ever make if they stayed. And they often do come back, after saving enough to retire, enriching their culture with western ideas as well.

> Again, Africans need to help themselves at home. No-one will or can develop African countries but Africans (the same goes for all countries, not only African ones).

Will you take a second to look at what you're saying? You might as well be talking about any group in need, ex. No one will or can help the homeless, but themselves. No one will or can help the disabled but themselves.

People can help other people, and often do. All you're doing here is basically saying “Everyone only for themselves” only you've cut the dividing lines by country. You might as well cut it by race, or social strata, it amounts to the same thing.

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