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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31952 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Getting to selectively let in good immigrants is a great advantage for the US. Just opening the gates would result in the global south median person coming in in enormous numbers. Not exactly modern skilled workers. Our per capita GDP would drop, though some "numbers go up" people would correctly point out that GDP would increase because there's more people.

Snow Crash has a bit about open borders former US in a perfectly globalized world looking like prosperity from the point of view of a Pakistani brick layer. And it looks like living in a Brazilian favela from the point of view of a formerly prosperous American.

It's too good not to post:

When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:

music

movies

microcode (software)

high-speed pizza delivery

Bonus quote regarding "the Raft," a mass of floating trash and boats inhabited by millions that circulates on the Pacific current, picking up the global poor as it passes Asia and dumping them by the hundreds of thousands on the shore of California (cf. migrant boats/caravans):

"So you're creating your own news event to make money off the information flow that it creates?" says the journalist, desperately trying to follow. His tone of voice says that this is all a waste of videotape. His weary attitude suggests that this is not the first time Rife has flown off on a bizarre tangent.

"Partly. But that's only a very crude explanation. It really goes a lot deeper than that. You've probably heard the expression that the Industry feeds off of biomass, like a whale straining krill from the ocean."

"I've heard the expression, yes."

“That’s my expression. I made it up. An expression like that is just like a virus, you know–it’s a piece of information–data–that spreads from one person to the next. Well, the function of the Raft is to bring more biomass. To renew America. Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America’s like this big old clanking, smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight. Leaves behind a trail of garbage a mile wide. Always needs more fuel.”

"Now I have a different perspective on it. America must look, to those poor little buggers down there, about the same as Crete looked to those poor Greek suckers. Except that there's no coercion involved. Those people down there give up their children willingly. Send them into the labyrinth by the millions to be eaten up. The Industry feeds on them and spits back images, sends out movies and TV programs, over my networks, images of wealth and exotic things beyond their wildest dreams, back to those people, and it gives them something to dream about, something to aspire to. And that is the function of the Raft. It's just a big old krill carrier."

Finally the journalist gives up on being a journalist, just starts to slag L. Bob Rife openly. He's had it with this guy.

"That's disgusting. I can't believe you can think about people that way."

"Shit, boy, get down off your high horse. Nobody really gets eaten. It's just a figure of speech. They come here, they get decent jobs, find Christ, buy a Weber grill, and live happily ever after. What's wrong with that?

Getting to selectively let in good immigrants is a great advantage for the US. Just opening the gates would result in the global south median person coming in in enormous numbers. Not exactly modern skilled workers. Our per capita GDP would drop, though some "numbers go up" people would correctly point out that GDP would increase because there's more people.

This is exactly what happens in Europe, so yes. The ruling party of the UK are fanatical "line go up!" devotees. Numbers came out today that the economy grew 0.4% this year, while the population is projected to have grown 1.3%+ in the same time. So, per capita, we're all worse off. But holy GDP line went up! So infinite immigration good! It really is that facile.

the ruling party of the UK are fanatical "line go up!" devotees

They are not; NIMBYism, Brexit, lack of government capital investment (see HS2), if anything this government is interested in nothing more than managed decline, letting the economy wither away as long as Linda doesn't have to see any new builds across the street, have a rail line passing in her general vicinity and gets her way over grumbling about Brussels.

To older British people, it's probably nice to have an army of low-wage workers to serve them in their last couple decades.

The degeneration of society through mass immigration is just one more tax that the gerontocracy imposes on the rest of the country.

Wrong. Support for immigration is highest among young people.

I never said it wasn't. You have to read comments in context. The olds in the Conservative party support immigration because of "labor shortage" and to prop up the pension system. Young people support it for reasons of social justice.

Young people support it for reasons of social justice.

If young people face paying for an ever expanding welfare state aimed at the old (e.g. the UK state pension, which is designed to almost always provide an increased welfare income for the retired via the Triple Lock) then it's understandable that they would want more shoulders to carry the burden. True, that creates increased pressure for housing and perhaps wages, but the alternative is massive taxes and spending cuts on working younger people to pay for the welfare that older Britons demand.

The welfare state is a system designed for the demographics of the pre-Gen X eras. As the social democrat economist Paul Samuelson put it, things like Social Security are Ponzi schemes, presupposing perpetual increases in the numbers of young workers to ensure that ever generation is significantly larger than preceding generations. There are a variety of options, including:

(1) Have more children. Too late, at least for the current generation of middle-aged or old people.

(2) Move away from a pay-as-you-go welfare state, e.g. to the Singapore model of mandatory savings. Too late, at least for the current generation of middle-aged or old people, and a huge imposition on the young, who would be both paying for a savings-based retirement for themselves and a pay-as-you-go retirement for the old.

(3) Mass immigration.

(4) Cuts in welfare for existing retirees, plus a movement towards (1) and/or (2) somehow.

Unfortunately, (3) is the path of least resistance for politicians. Older people want the result of less immigration, but how many of them are willing to accept smaller state pensions, less state healthcare, higher taxes on their retirement incomes etc. to pay for it? "Wanting something" is an ambiguous concept: do you want it enough to undertake the process of getting it? Or would you just like it if it happened with less or no sacrifice?

Obviously some old people are in favour of immigration, but that doesn’t make that policy a result of gerontocracy. The opposite is the case.

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