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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Wouldn't they benefit from more people? Of course it would come with the condition of learning the language at an acceptable level and that being tied to residency.

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[-] 31337 28 points 5 days ago

Xenophobia and racism, mostly. And yes, it's a solution to the aging demographic crisis many countries face (at least in the medium-term).

I remember seeing a video of a presentation back in the Bush years by some neo-con group that advocated for immigration to Pentagon or DoD officials or something. The argument for immigration was mostly the same: we have an aging population, so we could integrate immigrants (who are statistically younger) to solve this issue. I didn't agree much with the broader idea of the presentation though. The broader idea was that there were still some parts of the world not a part of the global U.S.-led hegemony (mostly the middle-east and Africa), and we must spread democracy and capitalism to them. The argument was that globalism/capitalism ensures peace, and that both WWI and WWII happened because globalism was falling apart shortly before those wars. So, to ensure world peace, we need to globalize the entire earth and bring all countries into the the U.S.-led hegemony, even if that means starting wars to spread democracy, lol.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Good write up! My version was much snarkier.

But other factors include

  • not every country can encourage significant immigration
  • even developing countries have a rapidly dropping birth rate

Some countries, maybe like Japan and South Korea, have low birth rates and a history of discouraging immigration. I’d argue it’s too late for them: you can’t suddenly develop and support a large wave of immigration, especially when most developing populations are doing better, most are seeing lower birth rates. They have a lot of work to do and little chance of succeeding

Other countries, notably China, have a rapidly declining birth and already see the impact, so are just going to discourage emigration. The supply of immigrants will quickly dry up (except refugees)

So for example, the US has a history of significant immigration. We’re already in the scenario of insufficient birth rate to sustain our population but sufficient immigration to keep growing. Maybe I don’t know enough about other countries or I’m falling to some sort of exceptionalism, but to me this boils down to why doesn’t US encourage immigration. We have the easy case: if we can’t figure it out, how can we expect anyone else to.

[-] [email protected] 59 points 6 days ago

The birth rates are low because of the terrible environment that doesn't support having and raising children. All you're doing is importing more people who will also barely have any children within a generation or so. Mass immigration is just throwing bodies at the bottom of the pyramid scheme. You can see this in action in Canada where housing is absolutely unaffordable, but large numbers of immigrants are brought in who have to work for shitty wages and live with multiple families in a single rental unit.

The screaming about low birth rate is because corporations want to keep a high labor pool so they can drive down the price of labor while keeping up demand for consumption.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

The screaming about low birth rate is because corporations want to keep a high labor pool so they can drive down the price of labor while keeping up demand for consumption.

It's not only that. By the time you want to retire, there won't be enough people to pay taxes for your retirement fund. With more young people than old, that is less of a problem.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

This is one area where we're supposed to benefit from the greatly increased automation. We don't need a huge mass of people doing make-work. The current situation is that we force people to do make-work to continue making on-paper profits which mostly go to a tiny set of wealthy people. The current situation is unsustainable even if population growth increased because it's a pyramid scheme. The system relies on infinite growth.

[-] 31337 1 points 5 days ago

Poor countries, such as the countries people are immigrating from, have a more terrible environment and higher birth-rates.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

The problem is that birthdate is dropping even faster in those countries. An even bigger “problem” is that in general life is getting better, even in developing countries. There is no infinite supply of immigrants waiting to save the developed world.

Encouraging immigration is far from a panacea. It will work for a few countries, for another generation or so, but you can see the end of that coming

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[-] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago

Xenophobia propped up by political groups. Many official immigration programs existed in the 19th century that, when allowed to, had immigrants integrated into society.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

Just add a "... Are they stupid?" To the end of the title, and repost in a shit posting community

[-] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

Why don't fat people hit the gym and eat salad?

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Oh boy, you need so much stellaris /s

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Because racism

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

The low birth rates are a concern because they need the bodies to generate revenue so they can take care of old people who will lean on government services.

Why should you care about population decline? Fewer people are good for the climate, but the economic consequences are severe. In the 1960s, there were six people of working age for every retired person. Today, the ratio is three-to-one. By 2035, it will be two-to-one.

Some say we must learn to curb our obsession with growth, to become less consumer-obsessed, to learn to manage with a smaller population. That sounds very attractive. But who will buy the stuff you sell? Who will pay for your healthcare and pension when you get old?

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/birthrates-declining-globally-why-matters/

Ok, so what does that have to do with your question…

What age group tends to be the biggest voting bloc, the most xenophobic, the most nationalistic…? Old people. Get those foreign people off my lawn, keep those foreign drug dealers, thieves, and layabouts out of my country.

Then there’s exploitation of foreign labor to undercut wages and work rules of citizens of the country the labor is being imported into.

I’m sure there’s more, but basically it’s a hefty dose of xeonphobia and nationalism along with groups not wanting to literally lose jobs to someone who will do it for a lot less.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

This is a part of the SNP's manifesto already, FYI.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

God, the comments in this thread are nearly all awful

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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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