[myegorov]

By way of a thought experiment: If all human beings are equal, is this a necessary and sufficient condition to let a homeless person stay with you for a night? Assuming this is an option for a relative or friend. Why not willingly give up your job now? Surely someone can lay claim to your job on some merit basis. If you have children, do you distribute your time and affection in proportion to merit?

I don't see why I should give up my hard won comfort -- won collectively by my ancestors, neighbors, compatriots, myself -- to strangers. It's natural to accord special status to yourself, then to some close kin, ..., then to fellow citizens, then to the rest of humanity.

[lordnacho]

> I don't see why I should give up my hard won comfort -- won collectively by my ancestors, neighbors, compatriots, myself -- to strangers. It's natural to accord special status to yourself, then to some close kin, ..., then to fellow citizens, then to the rest of humanity.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague once. Basically he was making the argument that people work hard to pass on something to their kids, and we shouldn't discourage that. Also that generations of people were working for their own nearest, why should that be wrecked in favour of a new regime?

There probably is something natural about helping your closest first. But nature is not in itself a reason for thinking something is right.

The problem for me is we are talking about excluding people from voluntary agreements. If some guy from a foreign country comes to my country and manages to agree a deal with some employer, why on earth do I have any right to stop that?

Any consequences of that agreement on my wellbeing are indirect. The arguments always go via the market, speaking to the effect of changing supply and demand. It's like when the "wrong kind of people" move into a neighbourhood, lowering house prices. What reasonable complaint does one have, other than if those people in themselves do something unreasonable like littering?

There's lots of things people can do voluntarily that might hurt me indirectly. Suppose everyone decided to speak Esperanto instead of the local language. Do I have a right to stop them? No. Would it have an enormous cost to me? Yes. Would it be convenient for me to use the law to force them? Sure.

So while I can understand that people are worried about immigration, I've yet to hear a reasonable argument to restrict it.

[metttalica]

Here the cult of HN shows its true face ... As JWZ says :-

A DDOS made of finance obsessed Man-children and brogrammers

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/02/an-annotated-digest-of-the-...

[devereaux]

It's sad.

I try to keep to technical issues, but some of the things I read are just not acceptable.

We all have different opinion, and I respect that, but when some people think they deserve some special privileges, I disagree.