When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
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When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
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Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#2A large majority of people view me as a crackpot when I say passports should be abolished, and free men ought to be able to travel the planet freely.
It never occurred to me that the world was like this as recently as 100 years ago!
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#3I'm fine with the controls part, but can't we at least get rid of the paper documents? People just lose them anyway.
Surely a combination of say retina + finger + voice etc would provide more security than could ever be needed...
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#4I'm fine with the controls part, but can't we at least get rid of the paper documents? People just lose them anyway. Surely a combination of say retina + finger + voice etc would provide more security than could ever be needed...
I think the whole point of the article is to showcase that maybe you don't NEED all this additional security. I purposefuly try to avoid going to the US because of the security and bureaucracy involved in crossing this border in the first place
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#5Passports and citizenship in many ways are the most unfair thing in the world as your place of birth influences what you can do in life.
For many of us the idea of having a bad passport is only theoretical in nature but it decides many things in life for others and sets stupid arbitrary ceilings that should not exist.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#6I'm fine with the controls part, but can't we at least get rid of the paper documents? People just lose them anyway. Surely a combination of say retina + finger + voice etc would provide more security than could ever be needed...
I think the whole point of the article is to showcase that maybe you don't NEED all this additional security. I purposefuly try to avoid going to the US because of the security and bureaucracy involved in crossing this border in the first place
In particular because the number one cause of illegal immigration in the US is visa overstaying. So how exactly are the passports or visas helping that case?
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#7A large majority of people view me as a crackpot when I say passports should be abolished, and free men ought to be able to travel the planet freely. It never occurred to me that the world was like this as recently as 100 years ago!
I suspect it has a lot to do with the rise of relatively cheap global travel and strong disparity in the median wealth of different nations. 100+ years ago could you travel from a poor country to a wealthy country with relative ease and expect to raise your own standard of living? Either the journey was expensive and arduous, or the situation in places you could travel to was not likely to be a massive improvement on your own. There are very strong exceptions of course; Irish people leaving the famine come to mind, but it pretty much came to people dying to push them to make the trip.
Also, 100+ years ago an immigrant was less likely to be viewed as a burden, because there were fewer (if any) government supports for regular citizens. I'm pretty left politically, but I acknowledge that the more government spends on its people the less likely the government (and the voters) are to be inclined to let newcomers in who are not immediate contributors.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#8I'm fine with the controls part, but can't we at least get rid of the paper documents? People just lose them anyway. Surely a combination of say retina + finger + voice etc would provide more security than could ever be needed...
"Surely a combination of say retina + finger + voice etc would provide more security than could ever be needed..."
How would this data be held and who would see it or have access to it? The privacy implications would be enormous.
Ironically, many European countries already issue biometric passports that require you to provide your fingerprints before the passport is issued.
But maybe it doesn't really matter - you already provide so much of your personal details when you travel to another country.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#9A large majority of people view me as a crackpot when I say passports should be abolished, and free men ought to be able to travel the planet freely. It never occurred to me that the world was like this as recently as 100 years ago!
Free people please, the other 50% want to travel too..
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#10A large majority of people view me as a crackpot when I say passports should be abolished, and free men ought to be able to travel the planet freely. It never occurred to me that the world was like this as recently as 100 years ago!
Another issue, I suppose, is that if you've built yourself a population-stable enclave where the prevailing values match those you think are best, you will be understandably hesitant at permitting large influxes of people with different value systems.
For instance, say you've built a society that is ecologically sustainable and the birth rate is equal to the maintenance rate. Will you be pleased when the nation next door where people have far more children despite knowing the Earth is well over carrying capacity sends you its people during famine?