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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

A significant fraction of those people would be dead if they didn't immigrate.

Citation that a "significant fraction" of those who immigrated were facing certain death?

Also, implicit in your post seems to be an assertion that the moral responsibility for their deaths would fall on us rather than the people causing the deadly circumstances in their home countries, and that we are thus we are obligated to help in this specific way. There are a lot of problems with this argument.

> Citation that a "significant fraction" of those who immigrated were facing certain death?

"A significant fraction of those people would be dead if they didn't immigrate." -- bryanlarsen, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40598367

> Also, implicit in your post seems to be an assertion that the moral responsibility for their deaths would fall on us

There is no such assertion. Any more logical fallacies up your sleeve before we move on?

Cute, now maybe look up the definition of "citation" which requires a source for the claim.

I did cite the source, at least as the dictionary defines those terms.

You're going to have to fill us in with your own personal, non-standard definition that you are using, I guess.

Ah, so you're being deliberately obtuse. Not interested.

I suppose asking for a citation could be considered deliberately obtuse. What is even the point of talking to someone else by proxy? If you really have an interest in what someone else had to say, why not go talk to them directly? If you want to have a discussion with the actors in front of you, why not talk to them instead?

Oh, right, you're not interested. But then why be here at all?

Canada has admitted over one million refugees since 1980. Refugees are admitted under 3 criteria:

- danger of torture - risk of life - risk of cruel and unusual punishment

The post you replied to showed a graph of almost 1.2 million migrants in 2023 alone, a roughly 5x jump from historical norms of 10+ years ago. You then said "a significant fraction of those people" would be dead otherwise, but now you're saying we've admitted 1 million refugees since 1980. 1 million since 1980 seems totally reasonable but I just can't square up that number with what you said in response to the original graph.

5% is a significant fraction, especially when "death" is the 5%.

I understand what you're saying, but I think that descriptor is very misleading in this context. The original post was discussing a very large uptick in absolute numbers and the subsequent increased demand on resources that would entail. Your response about a very small subset of those numbers just isn't very relevant if you're only talking about 5% of that increase.

"Significant fraction" always speaks to a small, but not unnoticeable, value. 5% is reasonably considered a significant fraction.

Where have you come up with this idea that it somehow suggests a significant number?

I know you struggle with context given our other threads, so I'll connect the dots: the "problem" from the original post was a large increase in immigration placing a strain on resources. If someone replies that a "significant fraction" of those immigrants were facing certain death, AND this "significant fraction" accounts for only 5% of the increase the original post was talking about, then that reply is at best a complete red herring; that 5% subset is simply not the source of the "problems" alluded to in the original post, eg. if you kept immigration levels at historic norms and only allowed additional refugees, you wouldn't have the "problems" the original post was alluding to.

That reply is only relevant to the original post if "significant fraction" consists of a meaningfully large percentage of that increase that is allegedly causing the problems.

Therefore, the phrasing of that reply in-context is misleading at best.

And, to continue with your fallacy for the sake of humour, I know you struggle with logic given our other threads, so I'll help you out here in a now non-humorous way: There is nothing to suggest the comment was of relevance. You are searching for something that never was.

Banana. HN is just for posting random words and thoughts completely disconnected from any context, right? Potatoes are yummy.

Seems that way. Someone even asked for a "citation" in another comment, meaning that they wanted to know from where a comment was originally copied. Think about that one for a minute. You have to wonder sometimes.

The vast majority of Canadian immigrants come from India, China, and the Philippines, none of which I'd consider countries too dangerous to live in.

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