Comment by soueuls | Hacker News Reader

Comment by soueuls | Hacker News Reader

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But you are surrounded by people whose parents contributed to your economy, who were more or less raised with at least a decent amount of shared values.

People don't just come to a new country and just abandon their past. They bring their values, ideals, beliefs, problems and solutions. As the number of foreign people coming, cosmopolitanism increase.

Then you quickly reach a point where you can eat a raclette anywhere, soccer is the most famous sports, Hollywood is the main entity broadcasting entertainment. There is no point in traveling, because every place more or less lost their spirit.

And I am not talking about the fact that, if countries completely drop their requirements based on nationality, they will keep their "usefulness" requirements (who is able to take a job we are looking for)

What's going to happen? Well educated people are going to move easily. Further depriving countries of the very ones they need to develop their countries.

It will be a one way street. I don't imagine hundreds of thousands of Americans moving to eastern Africa anytime soon.

"But you are surrounded by people whose parents contributed to your economy, who were more or less raised with at least a decent amount of shared values."

People used to say that folks with different color of skin had a different culture, and therefore interracial relationships do not work. People move across the country (in the US) and get culture shock. In other words, people don't really consider others as having the same values and culture. "Contribute to the economy" is a weird phrasing: Most of my family worked to not starve and immigrants contribute to economies as well.

If you are afraid that someone from a "leser" country with a "lesser" value system is going to mess up your life, it isn't and the actual answer is for humans to make sure their global neighbors aren't crappy countries to live in. It is, after all, partly our fault (our = "developed countries") since we rely on the slave conditions in "developing" countries so that we have toys and food.

The "actual answer" here seems just aspirational. If it basically means "you have to spend enough money until everywhere else is so nice that no one wants to move to your country" then that is more money than there is. In the meantime, how do you create a system that doesn't require that amount of money?

In general, we'll all just have to do with less toys and disposable things and pay more for food. That is, until we do more with robotics in mining and food production and the like. More realistically, a good start would invest without expecting repayment, set standards for people and make sure others have rights, and stop meddling in other governments in general just because they aren't nice to your country. You won't be investing forever.

None of it is a perfect answer, but striving for it is much better than simply reasoning, "I guess we'll just have to exploit these folks". Realistically, that's what we are doing with immigration: Keeping the folks we've exploited the most... out.

> we'll all just have to do with less toys and disposable things and pay more for food

This will be nowhere near enough. Maybe 5%.

> Then you quickly reach a point where you can eat a raclette anywhere, soccer is the most famous sports, Hollywood is the main entity broadcasting entertainment. There is no point in traveling, because every place more or less lost their spirit.

Less traveling would probably be good for the world, but it's not true that places "lose their spirit" just because they've got football, Hollywood movies and raclette everywhere. They already have that everywhere, and almost everywhere is still interesting and unique. Just more accessible, leading to more travel.

Cultural exchange is useful and valuable. What's a problem is when desperate people have no buy-in into the society. That leads to alienation, which can lead to all sorts of problems. But this can also happen to people whose parents, and possibly distant ancestors, already lived there.

> but it's not true that places "lose their spirit" just because they've got football, Hollywood movies and raclette everywhere.

I think the opposite.

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