morphism
live long and prosper
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User ID: 2721
morphism
live long and prosper
10mo ago
The issue is not whether these arguments sound as if they could be logically compelling — the issue is whether these arguments actually are. Closer inspection reveals that they lack substance.
- The "overcrowding" argument applies to in-country movement of natives as well. By the same argument, from one part of the country to the other, or from countryside to cities would be detrimental. But people — native or not — move to cities because the concentration of people enables new kinds of services and collective works that would otherwise not be sustainable or even possible.
- That's a general argument against a higher standard of living — so why not lower the standard of living for the natives and then let the immigrants come? Another option would be to keep the immigrants where they are — and also force the other countries to stay poor at gunpoint.
- The culture argument is the only one where I see some merit, though it hinges on 1) the assumption that people do not adapt, and 2) that culture rather than power structures determine the success of individual countries.
In order to be logical, the arguments must hold up when replacing words, such as "immigrant" by "native", and they do not.
The common theme behind all these arguments against immigration is that they do not make sense as logical arguments for organizing how people can or should live together — but the core theme is "there is not enough for all of us!" and therefore "we need to cast out some people (based on random criteria)!".
Essentially, the premise is that "it's a game of musical chairs" and "we need to stop more people from playing", but the mental effort devoted to preventing people from getting in would be much better devoted to changing the game.
morphism
live long and prosper
10mo ago
You can posit that immigration cannot possibly be bad because of logical reasons and that even right-wingers know this, as made evident through their revealed preferences.
Sticking to logical reasoning: Could you please make the case for why immigration is bad again? Last time I asked this question here on the Motte, the reply I got was that "immigrants are doing personal harm to me", but the chain of reasoning did not hold up on further questioning.
morphism
live long and prosper
10mo ago
Leftists do this. Rightists do this.
The thing is that this is not true. As far as I can tell, the left is providing logically sound analysis and reasoning on the nature of reality and how to change it — ignoring some more extreme bubbles for the sake of argument — whereas the right is predominantly trying to frame the discussion in terms of tribes (as you are), which ignores basic principles of epistemology.
The case in point is immigration. (You and me had an exchange of posts about this.) A core sentiment on the right is that immigration is bad, but a rational analysis comes to the conclusion that it's not possible for both of the following statements to be true: immigrants taking jobs (net) and immigrants taking freebies from social security (net). It is telling that Trump is currently talking about reversing course due to business relying on immigrant workers — he got hit by reality.
No, it's sound. Any logically correct argument against "immigration" needs to be robust under switching the word "immigrant" with the word "native" or "human". It has nothing to do with morals, it's about the logical structure of the argument. Any argument of the form "More immigrants is bad because of X" that also generalizes to "More people is bad because of X" cannot be an argument against immigrants — it's an argument against people, including natives.
In order to be a genuine argument against "immigration", the structure of the argument must rely on a material distinguishing characteristic between "immigrant" and "native". That's where the culture argument has some merit, but the first two do not. "Is not a citizen of the country" is not a material distinction.
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