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Comment by youcantthrow | Hacker News Reader

i don't believe in borders and if you believe in the free market then you shouldn't either. of course this is heretical and people will immediately jump down your throat about culture and patriotism and etc as a diversion from the material fact that it's only about profits. right now globalization is very profitable for the west because manufacturers can arbitrage the differences in cost of living. it's not technical innovation in anyway shape or form that you can pay people to assemble iphones in a low cost of living area and then sell them in a high cost of living area. let people move freely and let wages equilibrate.

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Very few people believe in a true free market. We have plenty of legit regulations around it and probably could use a few more to level things out.

The irony is that the people who tend to believe in freer markets are generally not the people who believe in freer immigration and the people who want increased regulation in one seldom want increased regulation in the other.

I'd wager that as soon as the first homeless* person puts their tent in your garden, you'll find walls, borders and land ownership a lot more attractive.

*= made homeless due to the unequal distribution of wealth in so-called free markets

But that, sadly, is what the difference between a desire to migrate and actual migration boils down to. Most people in Sub-Saharan Africa wouldn't be able to buy or rent a house in the US or Europe due to their financial situation, which again is mostly caused by the unfair distribution in so-called free markets.

>I'd wager that as soon as the first homeless* person puts their tent in your garden, you'll find walls, borders and land ownership a lot more attractive.

you'd lose that wager. i've lived in the third world (africa) and my relationship to space and community is probably much different from yours.

In which case you're likely an extreme outlier and not a good model for generalization given the history of humanity

>In which case you're likely an extreme outlier

there are more people living in the third world than in the first world.

That is probably correct, as I am on the side of the spectrum where I like sitting in perfectly quiet nature to relax. Too much noise or too many people would ruin that experience for me.

technology changes the rules of free market. 300 years ago you couldn't move thousands of people across the planet in a day. Migration was slow and sustainable.

Technology + No borders can destroy entire cultures.

> Technology + No borders can destroy entire cultures.

And that's a good thing.

The strong cultures will survive. I don't care if it is mine or not. If it is better, it's in my interest that it wins, and that I adopt it.

If you think differently, take a second to think about the implications: what exactly do you gain from a culture so weak that it can be destroyed by technology and a little immigration?

Do you get some pride? Ok then, how much is that pride worth? What about for your children?

When I look at Quebec and their desperate fight to try to impose french schooling, I conclude that people would naturally prefer to learn English and take the financial advantages that come with it - if not for them, for their children. This reeks of hypocrisy.

what exactly do you gain from a ______ so weak that it can be destroyed by technology and a little immigration?

you can put anything in that blank. coral reefs, imagination, happiness, ecosystems...

>a little immigration

a little? no, before technology we had a little.

Stronger in what sense? Eradicating other cultures/people? Brainwashing/controlling people not to change their beliefs and stick to their culture? Are these properties you think are desirable in a culture?

Stronger in that it can survive, and that people adopt it because makes sense economically.

Cultures have no inherent worth. Civilizations live and die.

>Cultures have no inherent worth

peak nihilism. Then nothing has inherent worth. we choose whats valuable. Culture is valuable.

>people adopt it because makes sense economically

that depressing. A restaurant on every corner is also good for the GDP but I'd rather cook a meal with my family and friends.

While global wage equilibrium would be great, how do you deal with the challenges that large, diverse societies already have in governing effectively? It’s tricky to build a “good feeling” cultural/legal/political landscape for 300MM people of diverse languages, religions, education levels, etc. I think we can eventually get there (we are getting there... via globalization), but it must be gradual.

Thoughts on this problem?

(Sidenote that wage equilibrium != outright wage equality)

It's odd how the free market is never itself subject to selection by a free market. It always must be imposed because people seem to like constraints.

>i don't believe in borders and if you believe in the free market then you shouldn't either

"Free" doesn't necessarily mean unregulated or without limitations. If you want to scrap a norm as old as borders there's going to be a dazzling amount of fallout given that the people that built nations were led to believe that they were building collective homes for themselves rather than mere "markets" for global corporations.

Utopian optimism about Big Changes, like tech had in the early days (before the reality of mass surveillance, algorithmic perception manipulation, online mobs, etc. emerged) tends to be proven wrong.

If some small country wants to test open borders then great, but this idea that some Big Change will be so beneficial that we should push for its widespread implementation without testing is kinda nutty.

what does 'believing in the free market' entail? I think the free market is necessary, but flawed. What does that mean I should believe about borders?

I think companies like Apple who outsource manufacturing to poor countries would, on the contrary, support increased immigration.

There's more pressure against immigration from Americans who are effectively collecting rent on their citizenship by keeping job competition outside of the US.

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