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A comment on I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed. Parent comment

Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by zerr on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @01:03PM (#9765967)
One would think, countries like USA, Australia or NZ might be afraid of immigration because they know what they did to native inhabitants...

Generally, think about the situation where all (most) countries abolish borders, not just NZ or other small country. Moving is the basic human right, and the sooner we realize the better for mankind, assuming the culture of the host country is respected. Of course the culture needs adjustments to respect human rights as well.

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by talmand on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @01:30PM (#9766211)
Why would one be afraid of immigrants because of past treatment of original natives when chances are the immigrants are descended from people who did similar things to the original natives of their homeland? As an easy example, I'm fairly certain the original natives of the southern portions of the North American continent weren't speaking Spanish when the conquistadors showed up.

I would disagree that is is for the better of mankind. In some cases, it could be, sure. In most cases, it eventually is not. How is it good for anyone to move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well? Never mind the affect this has the people who are currently inhabiting the area.

Plus, it would seem to be that once a level of immigration has happened in an area the newcomers no longer feel the need to respect or to assimilate into the local culture, so they maintain their own. Hopefully they are carrying over their bad habits that led to their homeland sucking enough to force them to move, because they'll eventually want to move again. In the long term, that eventually makes things worse for those that lived there before, much like you pointed out in your first statement.

We have a long road to travel before mankind as a whole can, in masses, move about freely throughout the world without there being local consequences.

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by ericdschmidt on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @02:05AM (#9769934)
"Move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well?"

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong... 100 times wrong.

Productivity is the root of all prosperity. First read this excellent article: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/02/always_keep_you..... Workers become on average ~20x more productive when they migrate to the first world. Because we are capital rich and we have sane government and law and order. Imagine if you were moved to Haiti and you got stuck there. How much could you contribute to society in Haiti? You could maybe slice some coconuts on the side of the road - is that gonna make the world a lot richer? Roadside sliced coconuts? Nah, much better for you to be in first world even if you're doing a low skilled job here like delivering catering to a high tech startup. That catering company is able to produce food much more efficiently, and in SF or NYC you're able to distribute it much more efficiently, and you're part of this souped-up economic engine that's changing the world. That's why they make 20x or up to 40x more (in the case of the extreme poor) when they migrate to the first world. It's better for everyone! Economists estimate that moving from the status quo to fully liberalized migration (i.e. open borders) would roughly double global gdp - that's an insane silver bullet. That's everyone getting way fucking richer in one fell swoop.

Please see my comment here for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by talmand on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @09:40AM (#9771453)
I'm sorry, I simply cannot fully agree with your statement. I also see you are ignoring a great deal of my statement. It is true up to a certain point that what you say is true, as I also said. But if you open the border wide to let anybody in for any reason the near utopia you are describing is just not possible. When someone crosses the border and finds a job to be the productive citizen you describe, all's well. What about when multiples start crossing and there are no jobs for them to have? Let's say your wonderful catering company has too many workers now and not enough new tech companies to sustain hiring yet more people streaming across your open border. Social services will start to fail as the demand increases but the tax revenue doesn't increase with the demand to support it. There are many municipalities out there that are struggling to come up with the money to support the influx of immigrants that were placed, not moved on their own, by means outside their control. I'm not even talking about obvious things like welfare. I'm talking having to suddenly build schools and hire teachers that weren't in the budget to support all these new kids that are suddenly showing up.

Question, would slicing coconuts on the side of the road in Haiti provide the equivalent in pay as taking a low paying catering job in the US considering and comparing elements such as cost-of-living and whatnot? There are many people living in ways we would consider abject poverty but seem to be much happier with their situation than many of the supposed better off immigrants. It's sometimes about perspective too.

I would also say the current economic status of many countries around the world suggest that "everyone way fucking richer in one fell swoop" is not happening regardless of their immigration policies. Everyone is definitely not getting richer in the US despite the years of people pouring across, what is essentially, our open border.

But hey, I'm not an economist, so what do I know?

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by ericdschmidt on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @02:28AM (#9769985)
Making cheap clothes and electronics in factories are good jobs relative to the kind of work that the extreme poor do - scrounging for food in a garbage dump in Manila or farming shitty land. And they make clothing and electronics in Mexico (which is a relatively rich country by global standards) and in America and other first world places. It's not like the economy would just stop making clothes or electronics. It would adjust to satisfy the forces of supply and demand at some optimal equilibrium. Just keep your eye on production, keep your eye on production, keep your eye on production.
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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by squidbidness on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @06:55PM (#9768357)
Guilt. Making a change towards better treatment of people from different places brings up the poor past treatment, which people don't like to take responsibility for.
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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by incompatible on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @09:12PM (#9768954)
It's an interesting issue. The right to move around freely seems more appealing than expecting people to be essentially imprisoned in their countries of citizenship. On the other hand, there are obviously billions of people living in poor and otherwise dis-functional countries, and if even a fraction decided to move to a country like New Zealand, you can imaging it becoming ridiculously overpopulated.

Alternatively, should we accept that population groups that have a higher birth rate should naturally dominate future generations, or is it acceptable to fence off certain parts of the world with lower birth rates and a better natural environment?

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by crusso on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @01:58PM (#9766405)
assuming the culture of the host country is respected

That's a huge and unfounded assumption, though.

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by pvaldes on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @06:19PM (#9768212)
Culture can not be respected in fact. Even if people wish to do so.

The problem is that the thing is a moving target. When a lot of still alive people where born 'culture' was: 'a black woman was not supossed to sit in the best places of a bus', 'the children roam free with their friends and dogs and can go everywhere' and 'Is acceptable if I slap my wife in the face sometimes because I feel frustrated for the work'. Yes, this was a small part of the tradition not so long time ago.

Each generation have been educated in a different point of view about what was acceptable or not. What 'culture' should be honored for newcomers?. West coast 1966? Sometimes 'culture' is just plain wrong and should not be respected.

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by crusso on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @08:37AM (#9771103)
That's cherry picking. I'm talking about cultural basics like learning the country's history, learning the laws and the Constitution, free market capitalism, etc.

Just having an immigration system that is followed legally would be a lesson in culture that we've currently abandoned for political purposes.

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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by zerr on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @02:22PM (#9766595)
Lets say there are lot of would-be-immigrants willing to respect the culture of prospective host country, become "American person", "NZ person" etc... (this doesn't necessary mean assimilation), but they are denied to do so. We need to fix this.
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Re:I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American an... by crusso on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @02:45PM (#9766786)
I agree with you, but unfortunately, the real problem with immigration is that it's a war between traditional views that value the indigenous culture vs multicultural forces that consider the host culture to be irrelevant.

Poor souls like the author of this article are caught in the middle. They don't have representatives in the traditional views camp and the multicultural views camp considers them to be secondary since they're not as likely a voting block once they come in.

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