cfhansen
4d ago
I think the extreme lengths Indians are willing to go to to gain entry to the United States puts normal Americans in a difficult position.
On the one hand, I don't think many Americans actually want very large numbers of Indians to immigrate to the United States. Probably a minority does, many are largely indifferent, and a sizeable proportion does not.
In many cases this goes even for the ones who, like this poster, are obviously intelligent and have marketable skills. Frankly, we don't really need them. We're already doing fine.
On the other hand, Americans like to think of ourselves as being easygoing, tolerant and well-meaning people. This is an important part of our self-image. We would like to prevent very large numbers of Indians from moving to the United States, many of whom will do literally anything to do so, but this requires us to say 'no' over and over again and to erect ever higher barriers to filter them out. This forces us to admit that we aren't as nice and altruistic as we like to let on. This is psychologically exhausting.
It's actually similar to Scott's experiences dealing with street beggars in India, which he blogged about. I don't mean that the situations are identical, just that the psychological difficulty is similar.
As the poster mentions, one solution to this would be to auction off residence spots. The EB-5 visa can be seen as a step in this direction. I would actually support a system that just replaces all visas of any kind with a single auctioned visa. I don't think this is morally unreasonable. Residency in the US is extremely valuable. It is also more economically efficient to put a price on scarce and valuable goods.
If this system were implemented, it would reduce demand while allowing American citizens to collect more of the proceeds from immigration. This would be psychologically less unpleasant (for us). But if we needed to salve our consciences further, we could spend some or all of the proceeds on poverty relief in the third world.
However, I wouldn't demand the price be paid up front; it would be possible to pay an additional tax on your earnings in the US instead. This might actually allow entrance to many people who are denied under the current system.
cfhansen
4d ago
Well, we're currently in a medium sized conflict like the Iran-Iraq war. So it's hard to see what it could escalate to except a big conflict.
cfhansen
4d ago
I'm an American of European descent. (Actually, I live in Europe).
I don't care who controls some low-quality real estate in eastern Ukraine. I care about the people who are getting killed in the war. More so the Ukrainians, who are are undergoing horrible suffering they did nothing to deserve, but yes, also the Russians as well. Accordingly, my preference is for the war to end as soon as possible, regardless of what this means for "territorial integrity", "credibility" or similar considerations. I have felt this way since day 1, incidentally.
I hope that answers your question.
cfhansen
1mo ago
https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/303603/1/303603.pdf and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy are relevant and interesting.
Success in many fields is largely about just showing up.
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