Open borders and the free movement of people (2 Viewers)

[Forbidden.]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

More than several thousands of years ago you did not need citizenship to enter any country ...

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Edit (Generator): This exchange first appeared as a tangent in the Citizenship thread. As you can see, the relevant 26 posts from that thread now sit within this new, stand-alone thread.

Debate away.

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

pretty much yeah

but i dont really believe in countries. free movement. fuck borders

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

pretty much yeah

but i dont really believe in countries. free movement. fuck borders

As Deng Xiaoping said to Jimmy Carter in 1979, how many millions of Chinese do you want?

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

however many that want to come. obviously they will only come here while there are economic oppertunities. when these are not available, the people looking for work will travel elsewhere.

i dont see how this is a problem.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

So you want every country to have 3rd world conditions, not just some of them?

 

[HotShot]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

however many that want to come. obviously they will only come here while there are economic oppertunities. when these are not available, the people looking for work will travel elsewhere.

i dont see how this is a problem.

u will find som eof Australian finest scientists and engineers etc tend to work overseas, at the high end there very few employment oppurtinities in Australia. People come here to a degree and maybe a little work experience and then they may move to the UK or USA where they have more oppurtinities and get better pay and lower income tax.

but thats only employment wise, lifesytle it totally different.

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

So you want every country to have 3rd world conditions, not just some of them?

Why would every country have 3rd world conditions?

also explain how it is morally defensible to say that place of birth should determine quality of life. what happened to equal opportunity? isnt that an australian value (lol)? apparently only if you happened to be born here.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

Why would every country have 3rd world conditions?

also explain how it is morally defensible to say that place of birth should determine quality of life. what happened to equal opportunity? isnt that an australian value (lol)? apparently only if you happened to be born here.

Because those countries currently without 3rd world conditions would become overpopulated by people whose countries currently do.

If equal opportunity is an Australian value, well since about a quarter of our population weren't born here, so no, obviously it's not only if you happened to be born here. Plus, 99.8% of the world's population were in fact not born here. But really the possibility of our lifestyle on average only exists because we have sufficient (ie. huge quantities of) free energy and the ability to exploit millions of people in other parts of the world, and neither of these would be available for long if there were no borders.

So on the whole it's not a bad idea if you don't mind pre-industrial age living.

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

ok so theres two arguements here - economic and moral

economic - i cant be bothered really arguing tonight i have to finish this essay. economically what would happen is that in the short term, the people from richer nations get less rich and the people from poorer nations get more rich, but at the same time the total amount of wealth increases. we wont be living pre industrial you dolt, the majority of the world doesnt live like this now. it might mean we cant have as big houses or 2 cars or whatever yes.

moral - if this is the case, how is it moral to do what we are doing. we are restricting people from travelling freely. we are stopping people from seeking employment to protect people who were lucky enough to be born here. its just another form of protectionism. you have not explained how this is the moral thing to do, or even how it can be justified.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

Ok I'll make it very simple. It's not actually strictly speaking economic, it's more to do with laws of chemistry and what not. We've got a small population, small population density (even if you only include the small strip of coastal area most of us live on), but we still have water crises, drought, and also peak oil and global warming coming soon. In a hypothetical world with no borders, the population might, say, triple (a conservative estimate) making it almost impossible to sustain the population, doubly so with the losses in ability to exploit poorer nations as we currently do. Our living standard would in fact drastically reduce, from "big houses and 2 cars" to something more like "famine".

It could work, if you could first find currently unavailable bodies of fresh water and fertile land, or alternatively an inexhaustible supply of energy that produced no life threatening emissions.

 

[HotShot]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

Ok I'll make it very simple. It's not actually strictly speaking economic, it's more to do with laws of chemistry and what not. We've got a small population, small population density (even if you only include the small strip of coastal area most of us live on), but we still have water crises, drought, and also peak oil and global warming coming soon. In a hypothetical world with no borders, the population might, say, triple (a conservative estimate) making it almost impossible to sustain the population, doubly so with the losses in ability to exploit poorer nations as we currently do. Our living standard would in fact drastically reduce, from "big houses and 2 cars" to something more like "famine".

It could work, if you could first find currently unavailable bodies of fresh water and fertile land, or alternatively an inexhaustible supply of energy that produced no life threatening emissions.

how did u come up with that bullshit?. Firstly there are environmental factors that cant be helped which is primarily the drought and global warming - we really cant do anything. we cant make more rain or we cant reduce the earth's temperature.

but neither will have significant impact in economic terms - of course through speculation it might that fluctuates anyway. Firstly if there no borders there would be efficient use of resources, people will move to more remote areas and these remote areas as a result will become more developed. the already existing areas will also develop to accomodate growing population . Humans love to adapt and we will adapt.

The benefit of no borders is that is there growth in knowledge, we can s hare technology etc.. and thus technological growth will be rapid. Overpopulation will always be an issue but if we open up, output and input then we will be more efficient with resources.

As for peak oil - there is plenty of oil out there and there are also many alternativ energy sources. throgh free borders and technologically advancement research into new energy sources will vastly increase.

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

If there is not enough fertile land in australia, then people will go hey there are more oppertunities to farm in china/america/whatever other country, and people will move there. If australia runs out of water to a massive scale, then people will move to a country where water is plentiful.

people will travel to whatever maximises their quality of life. so if australia gets overpopulated and quality of life decreases, and is higher in another country, then everyone will go to that country. if we run out of water then quality of life will decrease etc.

 

[HotShot]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

If there is not enough fertile land in australia, then people will go hey there are more oppertunities to farm in china/america/whatever other country, and people will move there. If australia runs out of water to a massive scale, then people will move to a country where water is plentiful.

people will travel to whatever maximises their quality of life. so if australia gets overpopulated and quality of life decreases, and is higher in another country, then everyone will go to that country. if we run out of water then quality of life will decrease etc.

laws of chemistry

EQUILIBRIUM !!

 

[dieburndie]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

I think it should be noted that at this time the earth, as a whole, is greatly overpopulated. Though I support the idea of there being no borders, right now it is hardly practical to immediately dissolve them and allow free movement. Due to the large proportion of the human population that is living in relative (at least) poverty, and the typical breeding habits of those who are economically disadvantaged compared to those who aren't, the population being evenly distributed globally would only result in the world as a whole living in third world conditions.
To summarise- I support the dissolution of borders only with a dramatically reduced world population.

And, umm, citizenship tests are quite good too. *doesn't care*

 

[dieburndie]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

If there is not enough fertile land in australia, then people will go hey there are more oppertunities to farm in china/america/whatever other country, and people will move there. If australia runs out of water to a massive scale, then people will move to a country where water is plentiful.

people will travel to whatever maximises their quality of life. so if australia gets overpopulated and quality of life decreases, and is higher in another country, then everyone will go to that country. if we run out of water then quality of life will decrease etc.

Will there be infinite other places to go with infinite other resources to use? What if humans are equally distributed globally and all resources are being consumed at levels that are too high?

 

[HotShot]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

Will there be infinite other places to go with infinite other resources to use? What if humans are equally distributed globally and all resources are being consumed at levels that are too high?

the number of resources in the universe cannot change, u cannot create snergy nor destroy it just changes form.

so u claim human population will continue growing forever - it will stop at some point in time..

 

[banco55]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

If there is not enough fertile land in australia, then people will go hey there are more oppertunities to farm in china/america/whatever other country, and people will move there. If australia runs out of water to a massive scale, then people will move to a country where water is plentiful.

people will travel to whatever maximises their quality of life. so if australia gets overpopulated and quality of life decreases, and is higher in another country, then everyone will go to that country. if we run out of water then quality of life will decrease etc.

LOL brilliant plan. So we should basically push the australian environment to the point of failure and than plan on pissing off somewhere else or we could do something really crazy like attempt to plan for the future?

 

[dieburndie]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

the number of resources in the universe cannot change, u cannot create snergy nor destroy it just changes form.

so u claim human population will continue growing forever - it will stop at some point in time..

I don't really know what you are saying entirely (not the first time). However
1. The problem is Earth specific, at least as far as it concerns us
2. It doesn't matter that there is an unchanging amount of energy, that doesn't really mean anything as far as non-renewable resources and inadequate farming capabilities to account for a growing population are concerned.
3. No, but the earth could be a barren wasteland by the time we arrive at a slow painful extinction.

 

[gerhard]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

i dont really know what you are arguing dieburndie.

it seems your view could be used to argue that we should not let third world countries progress into first world countries (without migration) - that would also lead to the same amount of resource consumption. this i would view as immoral.

also, where are all the liberals tonight?

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Re: Citizenship - The Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper

Of course we shouldn't let them, at least until there's a useful alternative energy source to oil that we can get plenty of.

The USA uses 26% of the world's oil consumption with 5% of its population, that should give you an idea of why it's not possible for the rest of the world to have a living standard anything like our own.