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Specter Von Baren

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Thanks for reminding of why I left this site.
You just have to treat the forums like you do a city. There are some neighborhoods that you just shouldn't go into if you want to avoid trouble. I find the forums immensely more enjoyable if I stay out of Current Events.

By the way, how are you doing? Haven't seen you in a while.
 
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Dreiko

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šŸ˜‚ Offering an equitable wage is not "imposing our political conditions on foreign countries". If overseas businesses want to pay their workers poverty-wages, and feel they're getting undercut by alternatives offering better pay, that's not an element of "autonomy" I feel is worthy of respect.
Right, so we're moral and we're gonna civilize the savages who don't pay their workers enough. Good that we're on the same page.


Now, if only your magnanimity could spare a thought for those too poor to leave those countries, who will get left behind, with all their best and brightest, their best hope of making a comeback, sapped out of their midst.

...When you have enough for both.
We don't even have enough electricity to not force huge cities to undergo blackouts when there's a heatwave. Our infrastructure is balking literally as we speak. First we fix these issues and expand capacity, then we spread it around.



I completely reject this characterisation of the purpose of a country. The "point" of a country is not to unite people behind some nebulous "goal", and the "goals" I have are not shared by most employers in my country, and are certainly not shared by my country's government and ruling classes.

I pay my taxes to fund public services. Absolutely nothing to do with producing favours. And living her is not "tacit approval" for any goal; it's a legal right the government is obligated to provide.
Goals as in, ideals to pursue and value.

And sure the ruling classes are betraying their country to enrich themselves, that's obvious. Nothing to do with anything. The country still is there and the reasons people picture in their head when they decide to go live there are also actual reasons and it is those that I am referring to.

Public services are literal favors for countrymen because they're countrymen.

I'm simply not convinced that one has to come before the other. We have the means to help both.

Of course the American government's targeted relief is going to be within American borders, because that's the only area over which they have full direct political control. But to prevent access is to determine that this "duty of relief" is dependant on an accident of birth.
It's not though. I was born in Greece lol, yet here I am.


Also, on a more fundamental level, this is a right earned by our forefathers, that was bestowed upon us by them as our birthright. Surely you are not against the right of parents to make the future better for their offspring in particular, to the exclusion of other's offspring.
 

Silvanus

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Right, so we're moral and we're gonna civilize the savages who don't pay their workers enough. Good that we're on the same page.
No, offering a fair wage is not forcing anyone to do anything or "civilising" anyone else. It's just acting civilised yourself. What a completely ridiculous response.

Now, if only your magnanimity could spare a thought for those too poor to leave those countries, who will get left behind, with all their best and brightest, their best hope of making a comeback, sapped out of their midst.
So your solution to the "brain drain" effect is to... make it harder for people to leave so they have no choice but to stay?

Overseas aid, investment in modernising infrastructure etc, are the most that can realistically be done to improve the quality of life overseas.

We don't even have enough electricity to not force huge cities to undergo blackouts when there's a heatwave. Our infrastructure is balking literally as we speak. First we fix these issues and expand capacity, then we spread it around.
These are issues that have been within our means to resolve for decades. Our political class has made an ongoing decision not to, because doing so endangers the profit margins of certain companies.

Goals as in, ideals to pursue and value.

And sure the ruling classes are betraying their country to enrich themselves, that's obvious. Nothing to do with anything. The country still is there and the reasons people picture in their head when they decide to go live there are also actual reasons and it is those that I am referring to.

Public services are literal favors for countrymen because they're countrymen.
Any ideals that are pursued by excluding others based on where they were born are categorically not my ideals.

It's not though. I was born in Greece lol, yet here I am.
Sure. But you appear to be arguing that others who may wish to pursue the same journey in life should have a harder time than those who happened to have been born in the United States.

Also, on a more fundamental level, this is a right earned by our forefathers, that was bestowed upon us by them as our birthright. Surely you are not against the right of parents to make the future better for their offspring in particular, to the exclusion of other's offspring.
If doing so involves "the exclusion of others' offspring", regardless of the fact that it's within our means for both to have an equitable life, then yes, I'm against that. I am against the arbitrary decision to extend a better quality of life to some, and refuse it to others, based on where they were born. We have the resources, ability, and space to improve quality of life for others regardless. The myth of scarcity has been propagated by a class of wealthy assholes who wish to keep it unreasonably concentrated amongst themselves, their friends, and their donors.
 

Eacaraxe

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Lordy, here we go again...boilerplate response time.

Am I still the only person on these forums who've noticed these immigrants keep coming from countries, and almost exclusively countries, the US has either invaded, couped, sanctioned into a hole in the ground, bombed back into the stone age, or any combination of the above? It's almost as if the best way to "fix" immigration would be to stop fucking with other countries' shit.

Still loving how all the conversation is about black market human trafficking, while US corporations are still effectively practicing indentured servitude. It's almost as if we keep fucking with other countries' shit to sustain corporations' unethical business practices, domestically and abroad.

This shit doesn't even happen overland any more! Walls, physical fences, e-fences, motion and tremor sensing equipment, cameras, drones, and all the billions' worth of bullshit Democrats and Republicans flush down the toilet to "protect our borders" doesn't work when the overwhelming majority of illegal crossings happen at ports of entry, and the overwhelming majority of "illegals" are here because of visa overstays.

Last, don't think we haven't noticed the entirety of shits given about kids in cages, were no longer given at some time between 11:59am and 12:01 pm on January 20th, 2021. Weird, that. What happened at noon that day to cause such a seismic shift in policy opinion?
 
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Eacaraxe

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...corporate CEOs?
Damn, you reminded me of the newest point I should have made in my prototypical boilerplate post but didn't.

I can't be the only one to notice US wage growth over the past two and a half years pretty strongly correlates to when international travel restrictions started, culminating in Trump's suspension of temporary work visa programs...and when travel restrictions ended, and the work visa suspension sunset.

It was almost as if US corporations use labor importation as a vehicle to suppress wage growth, and when deprived of a constant supply of low-wage workers from abroad, employers had no choice but to raise wages to retain workers. Almost.
 
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Kae

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Yeah, been mostly lurking around the Off-Topic and Movie & TV forums for much the same reason.
Tried that for a bit, but I don't consume enough media to participate much there, and it's kinda hard for me to not discuss my perceived political meanings of works I am familiar with.

Also, since this place isn't super active I end up looking in here after a while.
 
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Kae

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You just have to treat the forums like you do a city. There are some neighborhoods that you just shouldn't go into if you want to avoid trouble. I find the forums immensely more enjoyable if I stay out of Current Events.

By the way, how are you doing? Haven't seen you in a while.
Sometimes the city just sucks and it's best to just move out, it's literally what I did IRL.

As to how I've been?
IDK, my life's weird, the game collection is increasing steadily and I even have a Switch now, got a new better paying job for a company I hate (but I'm still broke because I keep giving money, food and stuff away), joined the Communist party, then I got kicked out for advocating for "terrorism", though I still hang out with some members to discuss theory every now and then, also 3 weeks ago there was a drug war and parts of the city were on fire, a friend's neighbour's house blew up and lots of other shit happened, I think it was last week that I was on a bus that was used as an ambulance to get a very sick lady to a hospital.

I can't keep up with everything that happened.
 

Dreiko

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...corporate CEOs?
People who deal with them and allow them to build factories in their land.

Corporate CEOs are profit-generating-robots, you can't expect morality out of them. You just have to be sophisticated in how you deal with them. Put their profit under hoops they have to jump through which benefit you more.
 

Dreiko

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No, offering a fair wage is not forcing anyone to do anything or "civilising" anyone else. It's just acting civilised yourself. What a completely ridiculous response.
Obviously, but only within the confines of your own country. When you start explicitly targeting people in other countries whom you deem to be being subjugated somehow then that is economic imperialism. You know how in CIV you can win not with just military might but with cultural advances and so on too. It's actually what China is doing really effectively in Africa right now. If you control people's means of subsistence then they might as well be your subjects.


So your solution to the "brain drain" effect is to... make it harder for people to leave so they have no choice but to stay?

Overseas aid, investment in modernising infrastructure etc, are the most that can realistically be done to improve the quality of life overseas.
Yes? If you know you can't jump boats you will be more proactive in fixing the leaks in your own boat, and if you feel you can always abandon it at any time you will be even less caring towards it than you would normally. It's very simple motives and incentives.

These are issues that have been within our means to resolve for decades. Our political class has made an ongoing decision not to, because doing so endangers the profit margins of certain companies.
Right...still doesn't produce enough electricity for more people either way though. We first have to get our political class in order and then can we deal with other stuff.

Any ideals that are pursued by excluding others based on where they were born are categorically not my ideals.
It doesn't count as excluding someone when you had no reason to include them in the first place. Like imagine you're at a BBQ and a random person is just driving by, are you excluding them by not tossing em a burger? No, because they had no expectation of participating in your BBQ in the first place.


Sure. But you appear to be arguing that others who may wish to pursue the same journey in life should have a harder time than those who happened to have been born in the United States.



If doing so involves "the exclusion of others' offspring", regardless of the fact that it's within our means for both to have an equitable life, then yes, I'm against that. I am against the arbitrary decision to extend a better quality of life to some, and refuse it to others, based on where they were born. We have the resources, ability, and space to improve quality of life for others regardless. The myth of scarcity has been propagated by a class of wealthy assholes who wish to keep it unreasonably concentrated amongst themselves, their friends, and their donors.

No, I literally became a citizen before deciding to live here. I'm not advocating for anyone to do anything I didn't.


And again you aren't supposed to be taking care of other's offspring, THEIR progenitors are, so you fulfilling your duty to your own kids extra-well, and enough to even maybe help your grandkids and grand grandkids (which you also have a debt to) is within this purview. If someone decides to make enough generational wealth to help their bloodline throughout the ages, that is a GOOD thing, and they are not "excluding" anybody in doing so, since they have a higher duty to their offspring of whom they are responsible. Anyone whose offspring is currently suffering would have LOVED to do just the same, but they failed. It is their responsibility that they did, not of those who succeeded.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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People who deal with them and allow them to build factories in their land.

Corporate CEOs are profit-generating-robots, you can't expect morality out of them. You just have to be sophisticated in how you deal with them. Put their profit under hoops they have to jump through which benefit you more.
Love the idea that our entire economic system is under the control of immoral profit making robots.

Fantastic system we've decided to bolt ourselves onto.
 
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immortalfrieza

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Love the idea that our entire economic system is under the control of immoral profit making robots.

Fantastic system we've decided to bolt ourselves onto.
It's always been that way throughout human history no matter the system in place. Who has the money and power makes the rules and everybody seeks money and power so that they can make the rules and remove or ignore any already in place. Ultimately greed is less about the acquisition of power and wealth and more about being able to do whatever you want without consequences. In fact the systems are there in the first place in order to facilitate this tendency far more than to curb it. Attempts to prevent this just leads to new systems that are quickly subverted by those with money and power leading to the same thing in the end.
 

Trunkage

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Holy shit. Someone offering potential solutions!
There is a reason why we dont bother with offering this solution anymore. And not just because we have said the exact same thing for 20 years

If this idea comes out of anyone that can be labelled as Leftist, its called Communism. You get told your un-American or destroying society. Thus, this idea can be easily dismissed. That's how the American system works

You thinking this is a potential solution is incredibly aggravating. It's just highlighting how little people are listening.

Also, Drieko. Of COURSE, this is a great idea. It is wonderful to see that you are on board
 

Specter Von Baren

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There is a reason why we dont bother with offering this solution anymore. And not just because we have said the exact same thing for 20 years

If this idea comes out of anyone that can be labelled as Leftist, its called Communism. You get told your un-American or destroying society. Thus, this idea can be easily dismissed. That's how the American system works

You thinking this is a potential solution is incredibly aggravating. It's just highlighting how little people are listening.

Also, Drieko. Of COURSE, this is a great idea. It is wonderful to see that you are on board
No you misunderstand. I was just glad to see someone doing something other than complaining about a side.
 

Dreiko

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There is a reason why we dont bother with offering this solution anymore. And not just because we have said the exact same thing for 20 years

If this idea comes out of anyone that can be labelled as Leftist, its called Communism. You get told your un-American or destroying society. Thus, this idea can be easily dismissed. That's how the American system works

You thinking this is a potential solution is incredibly aggravating. It's just highlighting how little people are listening.

Also, Drieko. Of COURSE, this is a great idea. It is wonderful to see that you are on board
Always been a socialist, from a very young age. I'm just not an SJW and am centrist on cultural issues. Economically, on anything to do with class, and internationally with regards to war and imperialist culture, I've always been about as far left as you can get before you start just seizing property from rich people.


I heard this term called "class reductionist" get tossed around as a diss but no, I proudly wear it on my sleeve.
 

immortalfrieza

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There is a reason why we dont bother with offering this solution anymore. And not just because we have said the exact same thing for 20 years

If this idea comes out of anyone that can be labelled as Leftist, its called Communism. You get told your un-American or destroying society. Thus, this idea can be easily dismissed. That's how the American system works

You thinking this is a potential solution is incredibly aggravating. It's just highlighting how little people are listening.

Also, Drieko. Of COURSE, this is a great idea. It is wonderful to see that you are on board
Most every problem on the planet already has fairly easy, obvious, and perfectly functional solutions that were probably thought up decades ago that could easily be solved if anyone in a position of power actually gave enough of a damn to take 5 minutes to use that power to implement those solutions. Sadly, people in a position of power tend to almost always be either really stupid, really corrupt, or both and don't care enough to fix the problems.
 

Dreiko

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Love the idea that our entire economic system is under the control of immoral profit making robots.

Fantastic system we've decided to bolt ourselves onto.
Not immoral, amoral. They're not evil, they will as soon save a drowning puppy as they would drown it themselves if it made em more money. So the trick is just aligning their incentive structure with humanist pursuits. It's like when you see Nike supporting causes like ending police brutality and what have you, they don't actually care about helping, but they calculated that it would be lucrative for them to do so, and so they helped, and it is real help at the end of the day. It's not perfect but it's good enough for now.
 

Silvanus

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Obviously, but only within the confines of your own country. When you start explicitly targeting people in other countries whom you deem to be being subjugated somehow then that is economic imperialism. You know how in CIV you can win not with just military might but with cultural advances and so on too. It's actually what China is doing really effectively in Africa right now. If you control people's means of subsistence then they might as well be your subjects.
Not placing restrictions is not "targeting".

Yes? If you know you can't jump boats you will be more proactive in fixing the leaks in your own boat, and if you feel you can always abandon it at any time you will be even less caring towards it than you would normally. It's very simple motives and incentives.
It's also grotesquely callous, and specifically affects the poor disproportionately.


Right...still doesn't produce enough electricity for more people either way though. We first have to get our political class in order and then can we deal with other stuff.
It's not a either-or. You're still ignoring the clear and easy ability to help all.

And again you aren't supposed to be taking care of other's offspring, THEIR progenitors are, so you fulfilling your duty to your own kids extra-well, and enough to even maybe help your grandkids and grand grandkids (which you also have a debt to) is within this purview. If someone decides to make enough generational wealth to help their bloodline throughout the ages, that is a GOOD thing, and they are not "excluding" anybody in doing so, since they have a higher duty to their offspring of whom they are responsible. Anyone whose offspring is currently suffering would have LOVED to do just the same, but they failed. It is their responsibility that they did, not of those who succeeded.
And here we have the source of entrenched inequality lingering from the era of nobles and serfs.
 

Dreiko

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Not placing restrictions is not "targeting".



It's also grotesquely callous, and specifically affects the poor disproportionately.




It's not a either-or. You're still ignoring the clear and easy ability to help all.



And here we have the source of entrenched inequality lingering from the era of nobles and serfs.
The way you fix the eternal inequality is through plentiful-enough prosperity. The modern-day surfs are a lot better off than their peers of centuries past. If you wanna reduce this disparity even further you wanna promote advances-causing-meritocracy and value results over hollow morals.
 

Silvanus

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The way you fix the eternal inequality is through plentiful-enough prosperity. The modern-day surfs are a lot better off than their peers of centuries past. If you wanna reduce this disparity even further you wanna promote advances-causing-meritocracy and value results over hollow morals.
Meritocracy is pretty much antithetical to giving people opportunities based on where they had the luck to be born, or who they had as parents.