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Comment by edmcnulty101 | Hacker News Reader

As a native born and poor American without any parents I feel the same way going to Costco. Its miraculous.

After being homeless a few times as a native born American I still feel like showers are the ultimate luxury.

I'm always happy to see immigrants with jobs in America and Europe but I can't help but wonder what can we do to make other countries as desirable as America?

Theres billions of people. Why aren't their countries desirable as well?

Why is North America and Europe the main destination for the entire world to wish to immigrate to?

Why doesn't almost any country in Africa South and Central America, Asia, and India continents have immigration problems and what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?

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Because they are higher trust societies with less low level corruption, allowing one to have more peace of mind in day to day life.

Simply going out in a vehicle is magnitudes riskier in the country my parents come from. My whole extended family can afford maids, cooks, and drivers, yet they all moved because they wanted a lower volatility life for their children, even if it meant doing your own laundry, cleaning, cooking, and driving.

Can you say more? My spouses family was same, I go visit them in their country and they have lavish wealth (comparatively to others in the country) and maids and cooks and such. But they moved to developed nations like AUS, US, and UK.

Less worry about needing to bribe, especially for everyday stuff. Less worry about getting shaken down by cops. Stable governments with government insured bank accounts and money that loses purchasing power at a much slower rate. Ability (and threat) of the court system to potentially right a wrong.

better air quality.

> higher trust societies with less low level corruption

Without a doubt this seems like a big/major factor. But we have corruption in the US. Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors? Not rhetorical, I just don't know. Casually it seems like many European countries have the same or greater expectations and similar prosperity. When I read stories about Russia and the former Soviet republics it makes me think that there's so much mistrust and hopelessness that a corrupt government is taken for granted.

I have no idea whether or not the US is exceptional but if it is I wouldn't jump to describe it as virtuous. But I do wish I could understand what policies we could pursue that might make other societies similarly high trust.

> Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors?

Neither answer is complete. Laws and enforcement can only go so far. It is not feasible to police every single interaction between people.

My amateur hypothesis would be a combination of a wealth of resources, growth outlook, shared struggles, traditions and cultural outlooks that provide utility and propagate downstream, etc. Probably impossible to intentionally recreate. And of course, very possible to lose.

If everyone in society decides they want to screw each other, then no amount of laws will help. Unfortunately, in many societies, the game is very adversarial with dire consequences, and you have to play that way.

On the other hand, a society where people are mostly out to engage in good faith transactions can greatly benefit from reduced friction, enabling more transactions and each actor wasting less energy in preventing themselves from being screwed.

> Do we have less corruption because of enforcement of anti-corruption laws? Or do we have those laws and an expectation that they're enforced because of some other factors?

I think there's an expectation that at least egregious corruption will be enforced against; typically in a court of law, but if not, in the court of public opinion. But also, petty bribes are offensive to be offered or demanded. There's a sense that bribing your way out of a minor offense is a more serious crime than whatever the offense was.

There's still higher level corruption, regulatory capture and all that, and other cases of interested parties making decisions with conflicts of interest. Those are trickier than bribes.

> Because they are higher trust societies with less low level corruption, allowing one to have more peace of mind in day to day life.

Certainly this is a factor, but let's not forget the decades of destabilizing influence, coups, assassinations, wars, sanctions, and foreign policy promulgated by the US to keep some countries poor to maintain US interests.

I didn't see where the US interfered with China or India's elections. I didn't see where the US interfered with Mexico's elections.

Those are a huge portion of the immigrants to the U.S if not the majority.

> Because they are higher trust societies with less low level corruption

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

(Also, if you are comparing places, don’t forget to also consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

These sort of things should have more transparent and correct naming. Corruption is high as can be in the west too. It’s just mostly lobbying so the average person doesn’t have safety concerns. Something like stability, comfort, and safety concerns makes much more sense. Or as quoted, less low level corruption works too.

The Democracy Index being done by The Economist and being used as a respectable index to look at is pretty funny, but in line with the status quo.

How many low end countries in these indexes have been used and abused by the western countries liberal/conservative political regimes The Economist, its ownership, and many of its readers love? Sadly, dozens upon dozens upon dozens.

What can we do to make India, Africa, Asia, and South/Central America filled with high trust societies like Europe, North America, and Australia?

And keep these current high trust societies trust from continuing to be eroded? On the front page of HN at the same time this article is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32050417

The simplest answer is that good, capable people need to participate in the civic process. Not just voting every year. Running for office, campaigning, donating, knocking on doors, participating and starting civic organizations, having children, raising those children with the proper values.

Unfortunately, a lot of that can be undone by things like lack of resources, which means things like securing your own or your tribe’s future is more important than advancing everyone’s.

It is possible that those in developed, stable countries are simply lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. As boundary conditions and parameters change, the situation can evolve or devolve with little control.

The countries in Europe, North America, and Australia were all in the right place at the right time.

While the countries in Africa, Indian, Asia, and South America weren't.

That's one possible explanation.

> Why aren't their countries desirable as well?

Yup, that would be pretty nice. If only America would let them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

I just had my bike stolen from me in broad daylight. I said to myself "this is the kind of thing that happens in Brazil, not here".

Sorry to hear that. Costco has a nice selection of bikes for you to choose from.

> Yup, that would be pretty nice. If only America would let them.

And yet, if you ask people actually from those countries, rarely will they pin Uncle Sam as the primary reason they're still not well developed.

I didn't see where the US interfered with China or India's elections.

I didn't see where the US interfered with Mexico's elections.

Those are a huge portion of the immigrants to the U.S if not the majority.

> what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?

Great book on the subject is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail It explores precisely this phenomenon - why certain places that have geographic proximity (Dominican Republic and Haiti, Nogales AZ and Nogales Sonora) drifted so far away from one another economically, why some places with vast natural resources (Nigeria) are undesirable while some other countries with limited natural resources (Japan, Singapore) are economic successes.

Here is an unscientific explanation. NA and EU are populated by older souls: some of them see the value of giving, while others, who've chosen the wrong path, are adepts at scheming; but both are similar in their maturity. The less mature souls are still busy with mastering their emotions and their nations are too chaotic for this reason: they either fall apart without a leader, or when a mature leader presents itself, they have to be ruled by an iron fist (China, India). Eventually the focus will shift to another place on Earth: the most advanced will move on there and America will join the long list of empires that were once great, but that event is still a thousand years away.

> Why aren't their countries desirable as well?

See e.g. National IQ and Economic Development: A Study of Eighty-One Nations, by Lynn and Vanhanen.

There is a superlinear relationship between average IQ and GDPPC.

Research precludes a predominant causal relationship from GDPPC to IQ (e.g. via Flynn effect); all that is left is that population intelligence causally precedes GDPPC.

Mostly less stable governance, often with less protection of private rights (though obviously most of these countries are just poorer as well).

If you have no assets, it’s also far easier to make money in a rich country and move back rich, rather than the reverse.

> Why doesn't almost any country in Africa South and Central America, Asia, and India continents have immigration problems and what can we all do to make it desirable for people to want to be in their homes?

Some countries do have immigration problems and emmigration problems. If they're more desirable than nearby countries, but not nearly as desirable as US/EU, then they'll pull in their neighbors, potentially too much at times, but still have those with resources leaving when they can.

IMHO, things people are looking for are physical safety, political stability, economic stability and opportunity, legal stability (rule of law, predictable courts, timely access to courts, reasonable law enforcement).

The top reasons people I hear people say they come to the US are because it's unsafe for them where they live, or to have the opportunity to make more money.

> Theres billions of people. Why aren't their countries desirable as well?

Because whenever they have political systems that promote stability or justice, those leaders are overthrown in favor of those who will obey diktaks of the IMF/World Bank/WTO which generally promote privatization and wealth concentration.

So other countries are desirable but have low social/economic mobility.

By and large, the problem is unfortunately the reverse.

If you have resources, your government ends up either an corrupt, nepotistic authoritarian hellhole or a corrupt, nepotistic socialist paradise (until the oil/gold/diamonds/gas run out, at which point it becomes a corrupt, nepotistic authoritarian hellhole)

Most countries have the problem of corrupt, nepotistic governments that look after the insiders at the expense of the rest of the population - subsidies for their mates, tariffs on overseas imports the help your friend but screw an industry, etc. The simplest way of avoiding the most destructive consequences of bad governance is often to just remove the government from the equation.

That didn't seem to happen in the Nordic countries.

They had strong governments long before they discovered their natural resource (oil).

> Because whenever they have political systems that promote stability or justice, those leaders are overthrown in favor of those who will obey diktaks of the IMF/World Bank/WTO

simplistic reasoning, but IMF was funded in 1945 - what’s your explanation for the previous 20 centuries?

You may want to look up the history of European colonization of most of the world.

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