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Comment by neilwilson | Hacker News Reader

Immigration is just colonial appropriation. It's the solution proposed by city dwellers who think we should live 50 deep in a square mile of massive cities - generally an upper middle class who seem to believe they should have constant access to cheap servants they don't have to personally house and look after.

Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work.

We need economics that doesn't assume you can always go around the world taking other nations resources - including the people they have schooled and trained to provide for their own population.

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What would "economics that doesn't assume you can always go around the world taking other nations resources" look like? You seem to be criticizing a current solution to a problem without suggesting an alternative solution.

Edit since I'm getting downvotes: I'll take a stab and hopefully someone will correct me. Do you mean a return to Mercantilism? If we can't have immigration because that is 'taking another nations resources,' then we must end up with some kind of Protectionism or Mercantilism? Or are you proposing a World Government?

There is no obligation to supply an alternative solution. Engineering taught me to define a problem without thinking of a solution, because it restricts your thinking.

That the person above didn’t bring a solution does not invalidate their statement. Immigration is only a solution for those getting the immigrants. It’s not so nice for the countries that raise and educate them without any ROI.

There's no obligation, but criticising the stutus quo without supplying an alternative is just stating that things are bad. Talking about how bad things are is pointless; why not talk about what could make things _better_?

If somethings broken and you can't fix it, then you either learn how to fix it or you need to accept that it is broken and move onto something you can fix.

P.s. I really like the engineering analogy, but remember when discussing politics: other people have probably already defined the problem and come up with solutions. As a citizen, we need to choose which solution is best; or promote our own solution.

We already have mercantilism.

That's what 'export led growth' is. It just works by hoarding money as 'foreign reserves', rather than using protectionism.

The entire world can't be using 'export led growth'. There has to be net importers to balance it out. Which currently are the US and the UK - the current and previous imperial nations.

Economics where you cannot go around taking other nations human resources looks like Japan. A closed system

Accepting immigrants who desperately want to come is nothing like taking resources by force.

True, but the parent post did not mention use of force.

We cannot deny that there is a brain drain in many third world countries that desperately need well trained workers that is accelerated by acceptance of immigrants into developed nations like the US. Who’s going to lead these countries into better governance and economic improvement if all the talent is incentivized to leave their home countries for greener pastures?

Immigration was compared to "colonial appropriation" which doesn't exactly sound voluntary.

In contrast, it would be a terrible thing to forcibly lock people into their birth countries to stop brain drain.

There are many ways this play out, and people in Western countries or not enough knowledge of the politics may not see it.

For example, many third-world countries had tax-free regimes for tech/services export in order to boost these industries. This made sense to them. If you made $100K contracting for a US company, you'd pay $0. But you'd also get to spend/transfer that much needed money into the economy. You'd probably also not use any of the government services because they are sub-par to what you can get privately.

Now, if you are required to pay an income tax at par to what you pay in developed countries, the whole scheme will no longer make sense. No one will agree to pay $50k and get no services in return. So you end moving to some other destination (ie: Dubai, or a western country where you pay $50k but relatively get your money's worth).

This is as close to war as it can get.

>In contrast, it would be a terrible thing to forcibly lock people into their birth countries to stop brain drain.

This isn't hypothetical, of course. This is how places like the Soviet Union and East Germany worked. It was policy to literally shoot people trying to leave the country without permission. On the other hand, while certainly not justifying this atrocity, there certainly has been a "brain drain" as engineers, physicians, and scientists from the former Eastern Bloc have moved West for better employment opportunities.

It’s not voluntary to the drained countries

Sure it is, unless they have passed laws against emigration, like North Korea. (Of course, those laws would rightly be seen as totalitarian.)

You confuse "not committing human rights abuses" with "voluntary". Countries that are losing their best and brightest are not happy about it.

So clear up my confusion: what should we do about it? Are we supposed to commit their human rights abuses for them, by denying entry to their best and brightest?

It's possible to talk about a problem without having any solution for it. It's actually how engineers are taught to approach problems.

That is a non-answer.

What portion of this is non-voluntary?

Who's going to lead them - they are. It's up to the citizens of those countries to select the government and policies that do not drive away their brains. Usually that means rejecting socialism.

You are confusing two things. Accepting immigrants is the humane thing to do.

Perpetuating economic inequality across the world is not.

Millions have to choose between working for meager salaries in one place or move to be exploited elsewhere. They are getting the short stick both ways.

Since you are not confused, what policy would you propose?

> Since you are not confused

Nice strawman there.

What strawman? This time I actually am confused.

> Japan already has massive cities. It doesn't work.

What do you mean by this? Tokyo seems like a pretty successful case to me: relatively affordable housing even with net migration into the city, along with good public transit.

If Japan wants to keep their systems running they need immigration. Or they will have to drastically alter their lifestyles.

We will all have to drastically alter our lifestyles and the longer we wait the harder it'll be

I agree, but that is really hard. It only comes by force.

Why? They will and already are leading the charge on automation. Most people's jobs can be automated.

In this way, the US is like the Antebellum South, preferring servants driving their economy instead of adopting advances in tech, like the "North" in this metaphor (Japan) forced the necessity of creating.

Soon their pension and other systems in place to support their aging population will not be able to be supported by those working. Where will the money come from? There needs to be someone there to work. The labor force has to come from somewhere.

There are a lot of immigrants looking for jobs. Billions.

So Japan needs more people because their pension system is unsustainable. And when all the immigrants who came in get old, Japan will need even more immigration to make up for the immigration they had before, and all the new pensioners.

This is not sustainable. This is a Ponzi scheme. Continually kicking the can down the road.

this is how every country has functioned for many, many years. acting like it is something ridiculous is stupid.

Or they'll reassess the pension commitments. People may vote to reduce pension by 50%.

Each paragraph is a non-sequitur from the next. Can you elaborate?

> immigration is just colonial appropriation

Thank you America for colonially appropriating me from starvation under communism.

> including the people they have schooled and trained to provide for their own population.

Oh, I didn't realize I was a slave to a country. And the act of immigration which I willfully do, and the host country is pretty much hostile about, is "stealing" me. If Western countries wanted to steal me, they should not have put up such roadblocks to immigration

Brain drain is a real phenomenon and a real problem. Your personal feelings about it are irrelevant.

If countries don't want a brain drain, perhaps they should adopt more of the policies of countries their brains are escaping to.

Did you seriously just tell entire countries "have you tried not being poor?"

There's no honour in getting your family killed by illiterate religious fanatics based on how your name sounds "for the greater good". So yes, the onus IS on those large collection of people (country) to recognise that their stone age era values and behaviours are driving away people who might give them a fighting chance to compete in the modern world.

People complain when the US takes over a country and tries to fix it. So yeah, it's up to the citizens.

It's policy and corruption (not to mention war) that makes the people poor in the first place.

Brain drain is a real phenomenon but may not be a real problem. I don't know of any country which is suffering or whose growth is hindered because of lack of brainpower.

It's a "problem" only if you assume nation-states own the brains of their citizens, and have the right to dictate that they stay within their borders.

There's a lot of brains draining from Russia right now due to Putin's policies. Should we deport them all back to Russia?

> It's a "problem" only if you assume nation-states own the brains of their citizens

It is a problem for a nation-state whether you assume that nation-state owns the brains of their citizens or not.

> There's a lot of brains draining from Russia right now due to Putin's policies. Should we deport them all back to Russia?

Nobody said anything like that. You should respond to what was written and not to what is in your head.

That’s just arguing in bad faith.

No one is denying that it’s your right to move around. It doesn’t make it any less of a bad deal for your home country. They invested in you and you left. Do this a few million times and you feel the effect.

No one is blaming you. The person above just pointed out that immigration isn’t a free lunch.

They (birth country) didn’t invest in shit. It’s run by right wing extremists who at one point were less than 100m away ready to burn down our house and family alive. I’ll happily clean toilets in a different country than to go back to my “home” country. Its very difficult to wrap up your whole family and move to another country speaking a different language, betting your entire life savings in the process. But often the social climate and the people who adhere to those norms are so bad that any amount of effort to get away from it is acceptable.

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