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If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

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Re: If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

#71
post #69
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with modeling it is likely to be defining all aspects of the problem. The most immediate result of "I can just move" is likely to be some environmental problems. And its not like you'll be able to enforce environmental laws if you can, as you say, just move. "Is there even such a thing as a generally "desirable" citizen" I've done some minimal research and worldwide immigration policies have more or less…

I agree with most of your second paragraph. The baseline requirements for immigration are the same almost everywhere. A side effect of that is that there are people today who practically live without immigration restrictions. If you are born into the right nationality, and have the right combination of wealth and/or education, you can move pretty much anywhere you want. I'm soon going to finish grad school and recent…

Good points and examples but my fear with the 1st argument was more along the lines of home based businesses. "Oh, you say I can't run a home based cyanide process metal plating business in my basement, and dump the waste in the (drinking water) river? Well I'm a job creator and I'll just move to someplace I can!" That kind of thing could cause, oh, about a billion times more damage than an occasional short drive to the alps.

From my old chemistry days, there's a dude active in the 40s to 70s named Max Gergel who pioneered advanced organic chemistry in that era, unfortunately safety and environmental concerns were kind of dark ages, just pour stuff out in the backyard type. Google for "Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide" and there's pdfs floating around. Its kinda popular, sorta, in comparison analogy to the BOFH legend. Unfortunately in contrast to the BOFH its all true stories if anything somewhat censored down. I'm pretty sure the old factory site is/was a superfund site although I don't remember.

There's another classic chemist book about "questionable" behavior called the green flame of boron or something like that, basically the manufacturing side of John D Clark's "Ignition" book (which I still own a copy of). That's another enviro hair raiser.

I think the TLDR for pretty much any pre-70s era chemical plant (and, maybe to the current date) is you really don't want to live downwind or downriver if at all possible.

One interesting CS/IT/tech lesson is these guys didn't think they were doing anything wrong which is part of the strange otherworldly appeal of reading their books. Its fun to contemplate what contemporary "data hygiene" practices will be looked back on with horror in perhaps as little as a generation. Sharing executable files? DRM? Tracking? Social networking? Who knows, but evidence from other fields is that things we don't blink about doing now might make our kids recoil in horror decades later.

Re: If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

#72
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from an immigrant family (I am in fact first generation, having moved here from Bangladesh at age 5 with my parents), which shapes my perceptions and makes policy proposals like Caplan's seem naive to me. They seem to me the kinds of ideas that seem attractive to those blessed by good government and a viable culture for so long that you think that human society is naturally that way. My family left Bangladesh to…

All I'm reading here is that we should be able to decline immigrants based on cultural stereotypes. How is their culture toxic?

Speaking for Bangladesh: everything from attitudes about women and Jews and gays to acceptance of free speech to business ethics to expectations regarding the rule of law.

My father was a college student at the time of the Bengali independence. He had great hope for the country when it adopted a constitution with western-style attitudes (secular democracy). But now he's bitter because the people reinstated the theocracy, made Islam the official religion, made the religious leaders ever more powerful, turned the democracy into dynastic rule by two families, and perpetuated the culture of corruption and graft that exists in government and business. This didn't just happen to them. They're not the victims of external forces. They got the government and society they deserved and tolerated.

There are good people and smart people in Bangladesh. Letting people immigrate in a controlled way, and an emphasis on adoption of American culture, works. But but letting them just import their culture wholesale would mean the destruction of what makes America worth living in in the first place.

Re: If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

#73
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even if you find a solution, you will be breeding resentment due to imposed inequality. Now you are facing a protest and political movement composed of immigrants and their citizen sympathizers who are demanding the ever-popular "justice, equality, etc". For a recent example see the illegal immigrant Debate in the US. Southern illegals are already entering the US (illegally) as if the borders are open, already face…

Jus Soli[1] has its own share of challenges and problems[2][3]. Personally I would prefer the US to abolish or drastically modify the American Jus Soli provision. It has caused too many heart-breaking situations where the illegal immigrant's child is a citizen and has to enter the foster system because his parents get being deported. Overall only education, integration and the political clout to refuse to sacrifice d…

meh, the idea is to give yourself a way to heal mistakes you make. You will make mistakes. insuring that anyone born here is a citizen, I think, is a good start to insuring that those mistakes will heal.

It's also a nice, neutral way of defining 'American' that doesn't have racial overtones.

Re: If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

#74
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jus Soli[1] has its own share of challenges and problems[2][3]. Personally I would prefer the US to abolish or drastically modify the American Jus Soli provision. It has caused too many heart-breaking situations where the illegal immigrant's child is a citizen and has to enter the foster system because his parents get being deported. Overall only education, integration and the political clout to refuse to sacrifice d…

meh, the idea is to give yourself a way to heal mistakes you make. You will make mistakes. insuring that anyone born here is a citizen, I think, is a good start to insuring that those mistakes will heal. It's also a nice, neutral way of defining 'American' that doesn't have racial overtones.

What mistakes are you talking about? How will granting "jus solis" heal these mistakes?

Re: If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

#75
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meh, the idea is to give yourself a way to heal mistakes you make. You will make mistakes. insuring that anyone born here is a citizen, I think, is a good start to insuring that those mistakes will heal. It's also a nice, neutral way of defining 'American' that doesn't have racial overtones.

What mistakes are you talking about? How will granting "jus solis" heal these mistakes?

The big problem I see is creating this 'underclass' of people who don't have the rights of a full citizen. I mean, it's normal to do this when someone immigrates; depending on visa, sometimes they can't even legally work. Or they can work, but they are put in a legal position, for instance, where they have to leave the country 15 days after they get fired.

But, to me? the really bad thing would be to make that hereditary. To say you don't have full citizenship because your dad didn't have full citizenship, even if you have never set foot outside of America.

"jus solis" means that whatever legal restrictions we place on immigrants will fade with time, as they die off.

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