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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

> “Unless we stop the conflicts, unless we stop the migration of people from their homelands into neighbouring states, unless people have the means to either grow their own food or be able to afford to buy it, people will continue going hungry.”

That quote struck me as odd. What does the migration have to do with the price of food? If a meal really costs $320 in Sudan, I would imagine migration would be a much simpler solution to ending suffering. The migrant can just move to another country with better institutions and infrastructure where food is affordable. Migration may have other issues, but alleviating human suffering is one of the benefits.

Also, I'm not convinced there is a link between the percentage of food imported into a country and the price of food. If anything, food imports and trade would help decrease the price through specialization and trade.

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I’m probably making a mistake here by commenting before reading the article, but I’ve seen many cases where issues with food prices and food supply have been diagnosed as long term effects of food aid or cheap imported food. What can happen is that local farmers go out of business or stop growing staple crops because prices collapse. When conditions change and the food aid stops or the price of imported food rises, there aren’t enough local farmers left to feed everyone. That will obviously cause food prices to go through the roof. It’s always something that has to be considered when planning aid to a country.

By all media accounts, most of the migrants are from some of the most productive demographics (by age). So migration might be slashing poor countries productive workforces.

Western countries talking about the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism - but when those immigrants are educated or skilled the west is robbing the poor countries of their only hope. This is why visas are better than residency/citizenship - the poor country person spends a few years in the advanced country then returns to the poor country with improved skills and knowledge.

What if a person doesn't want to live in their country of origin? Should we condemn them to live there anyway?

"Should we condemn them" - manipulatively dramatic language imho. Sometimes we have to step up and take on a burden we might prefer not to - it's done to improve a situation. You want the country's strong to abandon the country and its weak? Or do you want the whole population of every poor country to migrate, should they want?

I'm just considering a not unlikely scenario where a smart, capable person wants to get away from a country ruled by a corrupt or oppressive government. What if the majority of the people continually vote for such a government and this smart (strong, as you put it) person sees no chance of that changing in the foreseeable future, should that person be forced to live there even if they don't want to?

"forced to live there" is exactly the same manipulative language being used shamelessly here. You should really consider avoiding such use as it detracts from your argument.

On the other foot, should we be "forced" to accept people from corrupt nations? What is the test of character we give these incoming people to prevent the same "corruption-tolerant" people from ruining our own system of government?

Instead of grasping on semantics of his language, why don't you try understanding the meaning? At the end of the day what you propose limits human freedom for a greater collective "good". Good luck with that.

One man's freedom is another man's slavery. If having private property and, by extension, state borders is an infringement on freedom then I think we have larger ideals to collide than this small one we started with.

"forced to live there" is exactly the same manipulative language being used shamelessly here. You should really consider avoiding such use as it detracts from your argument.

Fair enough. What would be another way to say that a person is denied living in any country other than the one of their origin?

The natural result of having borders? If you think people should be able to live wherever they want then where do you draw the line? Can I come live in your house and sleep in your bed whenever I want?

Did you just compare countries with houses ? Do people still use this tired argument ? The line is pretty obvious, it's called property of usage, you can't be denied what you actually need to live a decent life as defined by your society, but arbitrary borders based on the arbitrary, random fact that someone was born at a random place in earth is one of the worst criteria we can use

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