Exploiting the known demographic bias of tech (and thus hackernews) to post a story that has nothing to do with tech and everything to do with the political dogfighting in the US knowing that it will go to the top is kind of pathetic.
Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
51–60 of 270 posts
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#52In Russia you can take a tour boat to St Petersburg from Finland and they let you in for 3 days no problem.
True of many countries that accept cruises. I think cruise ship may be a good way to get into a country without trying to get a visa.
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#53I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity. Despite thi…
Same with EU, people seems to take it for granted but every time I think about it I find it amazing that it works as well as it does and how good it is.
It was used as an argument for Brexit in our referendum. I'm not sure that was the real reason for the agitators though.
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#54>The Dream of Open Borders Is Real—in the High Arctic For whom is open borders a dream?
For pretty much anyone reading this, open borders is the reality. Any of us can show up unannounced almost anywhere on earth and be welcomed in with no more than a cursory interaction with customs, at least to visit. And if you can find a job or have some savings, you could move to quite a lot of them. I think people here would be a lot more in favor of them, if we were treated the same going to other countries as pe…
Being welcomed to visit for leisure or business is very, very different than "open borders"
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#55I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity. Despite thi…
It's difficult to express how profoundly misapprehended your comparisons are.
Moving into a higher-income area is the last thing poor rural Americans want - and the last thing that would help them. They are already living in high assistance areas - the area assisted by the United State federal government.
People invading the US are not looking to be in a high-income area, because that implies a higher cost of living. They are looking to be in a high-assistance area. They are not looking to make money, and have little prospect of that. They are looking to be given money.
That must be taken from someone else.
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me: I grew up in Europe in times where the wall came down in Germany, a shared currency was established (Euro) and all European borders within Europe where suddenly passable without passport, visa checks, money exchange, someone judging you, etc.. Of course this caused other problems to solve, but the general feeling of freedom and being able to go some other country and even being able to live and work there was…
Have you been to other European countries before Schengen? I keep hearing how much easier it is now that you don't need your passport for travelling in Europe. I've traveled quite a bit before Schengen and the Euro went into effect, and I've never spent more than five minutes at a European border, and rarely more than five minutes exchanging currency. Granted, it's easier to know that they are robbing you at some tou…
That's for traveling, and the same currency is quite nice, especially when visiting multiple places in one trip.
But the possibility of moving permanently (or to study at the university) to another country without needing a visa, well, that's a game changer. Not to mention the agreements between European countries (e.g. If you move, there's no need to change your driving license)
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me: I grew up in Europe in times where the wall came down in Germany, a shared currency was established (Euro) and all European borders within Europe where suddenly passable without passport, visa checks, money exchange, someone judging you, etc.. Of course this caused other problems to solve, but the general feeling of freedom and being able to go some other country and even being able to live and work there was…
Have you been to other European countries before Schengen? I keep hearing how much easier it is now that you don't need your passport for travelling in Europe. I've traveled quite a bit before Schengen and the Euro went into effect, and I've never spent more than five minutes at a European border, and rarely more than five minutes exchanging currency. Granted, it's easier to know that they are robbing you at some tou…
I'm half German, half Croat. Granted, I was just a kid, but I can remember hour long waiting times at the borders. Even today, with only the border Croatia-Slovenia remaining (and, back to Germany, our beloved Interior Minister's Grenzpolizei checking tourists for not carrying refugees), the waiting times can be hours. The earlier we can get rid of this crap, the better.
What is also a benefit of ever more unification across Europe: communication. Family vacations in Croatia meant next to no communication with friends back in Germany as phone calls and SMSes were ludicruously expensive, and mobile internet roaming all but unaffordable. Now? No roaming charges any more.
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not relevant to talk about the cost of something without also talking about over what period of time, and the myth that immigrants are a net negative to the US is completely ungrounded. Further, the notion that something must not have any negative consequences to be a net positive is an insane one, and not how any rational thinker applies themselves to a problem. There is no fallacy of an open border, and the sh…
> but pretending like there's a cost to be considered for letting immigrants in is hilariously selective in its application of fiscal responsibility, when we spend so much money trying to keep immigrants out. The reason immigrants are of benefit is because of the very borders you seek to remove. We apply a high barrier to entry which means we get more wheat and less chaff. Even if it was true that both legal and ille…
That isn't true, because of how many undocumented immigrants come in and these numbers remain positive.
Nobody is filtering out the undocumented, and yet here we are, still net gaining from their existence in the US.
Further, no one is asking you to make that tradeoff, it is not at the expense of lower runs of our society, because immigrants are the lower runs of our society, at least they are right now, due to how we treat them.
Also, why are native people better or more deserving than the immigrants to a better life? You say it's not a tradeoff you're willing to make, but why not? People are people, regardless of where their birth town is.
Why do you value natives higher than non-natives, despite the clear indications that the non-natives are of a net benefit to you over the natives?
You want to keep America small, its economy small, and its people worse off, all because you believe there's a false tradeoff. That's a problem.
To put this another way, if there "magically" were no tradeoff at all, if the "lower runs of American native society" weren't "negatively impacted", would you change your position?
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP said not necessarily true Take universal basic income, if combined with open borders, you are attracting people who would like to also get (say) $1000/m, who will now use that welfare to induce demand on people who may like to trade this freshly minted coin for some service they can render, so the economy grows through immigration instead of debt.
so the economy grows through immigration instead of debt. Without debt how would the state pay the monthly income for the increasing number of people coming to collect it?
They spend what they get - few people surviving on $12k/year are saving much. So do the people who sell them stuff, as do their providers, and so on and so forth. At every step, some taxes make their way into the state's coffers.
Re: Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders
#60I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity. Despite thi…
West Virginia is being emptied, however, with a net loss of population over time. People do leave bad economic areas for good ones over time. People don’t move to Washington from Oregon because their jobs are in Oregon and they would be subject to income taxes anyways. Really not smart if you work in Vancouver WA to live in Portland, however (income taxes are an or proposition). However, I totally agree. Contrast thi…
The hukou system is fascinating- I literally turned to a Chinese coworker to ask about it. He is dealing with visa issues in the US, and explained if he wanted to go live in the Chinese city of his family, he'd have essentially a new set of "visa" issues there!