Comment by goodbyesf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goodbyesf | Hacker News Reader

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> Hot take: Yes. Because classical liberalism, the free market, and bottom-up government has done more for the advancement of humankind than sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done.

That's not 'the west' and has never been. The US was born protectionist and pretty much stayed protectionist til today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...

Of course today we wrap our protectionism with 'national security'. If a free market exists, then let me know because I've never come across one. All markets are protected and certainly not free. And if there is a bottom-up government, I've never heard of one in history. Can you show me an example of a bottom-up government? I'd love a good laugh.

> Let's stop pretending like all values have the same ethical valence.

And lets stop making up values to suit ones agenda.

Edit: Also, you might want to brush up on your history. 'sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done' have given us civilization and nearly all human progress since the dawn of time. Everything from agriculture, to writing, to the laws of physics were produced outside of 'classical liberalism'.

Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china, places with sharia law, and moving to the west. Why are they leaving to the west? The west isn't perfect, but people seem to see it as an improvement to their homelands.

> Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china, places with sharia law, and moving to the west.

The countries with the highest per capita immigration are in the middle east, not in 'the west'.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-by-co...

Do you think they are moving to the middle east because of their love of sharia law? Or do you think they are moving they for economic opportunities?

People move to 'the west' for the same reason tens of millions of europeans moved to america in the 19th and 20th century. For money. We were the land of milk and honey or that's what they were told. Do you think millions of italians, germans, irish, etc came to america for the nonexistent classic liberalism?

People come here for the economic opportunity that doesn't exist in their countries - much of the time because 'the west' invaded, destroyed or destabilized it. China being one of the many countries 'the west' invaded, destroyed and destabilized.

Your point is straight-up bonkers and the data you yourself cite disproves it. Comparing the UAE (one country, an outlier at that, due to their subsidized incentives) to the collective immigration to Australia + USA + Western Europe + Japan + South Korea is beyond disingenuous. But hey, you do you.

> much of the time because 'the west' invaded, destroyed or destabilized it

You know who destabilized my country? The USSR. I've heard nightmare stories from my grandparents and parents (who lived 35+ years under communism). Boy am I glad to be an American and I wouldn't give up my citizenship for anything. I'll gladly pay taxes even if end up living elsewhere.

> Your point is straight-up bonkers and the data you yourself cite disproves it.

Ad hominems isn't an argument.

> Comparing the UAE (one country, an outlier at that, due to their subsidized incentives) to the collective immigration to Australia + USA + Western Europe + Japan + South Korea is beyond disingenuous.

I wrote the middle east, not the UAE. Very curious. So you are being disingenuous here by misrepresenting my claim. The wealthy countries of the middle east - uae, saudi arabia, kuwait, qatar, etc have more immigration per capita than the US and any country in europe. Why are you including Japan and South Korea when both are highly averse to immigration and are not part of 'the west'?

> You know who destabilized my country? The USSR.

What country is that? It's a good thing the USSR is gone then. Maybe the same should happen to 'the west'? Are you saying it's okay for 'the west' to destabilize countries but not the USSR? I don't even know what your point is here.

> Boy am I glad to be an American and I wouldn't give up my citizenship for anything.

Why would you? Did I say you should?

> I'll gladly pay taxes even if end up living elsewhere.

What? Go ahead.

It's like you build up a strawman on top of a strawman and got confused along the way. All I'm saying is people immigrate to 'the west' for the same reason they immigrate to the middle east. For money and economic opportunities. Like you and everyone else did. Take australia. The biggest immigrant group in australia is the british. Do you think the british moved to australia for 'classical liberalism' and 'western values'?

> You know who destabilized my country? The USSR. I've heard nightmare stories from my grandparents and parents (who lived 35+ years under communism). Boy am I glad to be an American

Both things can exist at the same time. America plays a very equal role in world destabilization in the Cold War era to that of USSR, while also the USSR could be a nightmare under communism for the common person.

Their definition includes "Foreign workers", aka kafala. These people live in the country to work and accrue money for their families back home while they live in compounds and rarely directly interact with the host population.

The host countries are largely empty husks which have very unproductive labour. They offset the productivity gap with oil revenues to bring in cheap labour keeping their quality of life higher.

And yes, big IMHO to everything I said. I don't carry source in my back pocket.

Well, if you are self-selecting your comparison to wealthy immigrants looking for economic freedom to enjoy their wealth you are obviously going to get a very particular outcome as to the countries they choose. The "cuban ex-pat" scenario, so to speak.

Working class immigration is still immigration in general.

Question. Do people get shot trying to break out of your country, or into it?

That's really the only question that matters, when comparing economic/political systems.

> 'sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done' have given us civilization and nearly all human progress since the dawn of time.

"Given" is a bit of a weird way to put that. We had those things not because they were the best, or were even desired, but because people accumulated power and forced those forms of government on their local populations. Maybe civilization and human progress could have gone much faster, and better, without as much death and strife, if people hadn't lived under repressive regimes for most of human history. These forms of government concentrate power among a relative, unaccountable few. I hopefully don't need to enumerate all the bad things those kinds of people often end up doing.

Western democracy has a ton of problems, certainly. And the US's practice of secretly and overtly interfering in the development of other nations nearly always ends poorly for both sides.

But I'd much rather live in a world where Western democracy exists, if the alternatives are sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships.

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