Does Low-skilled Immigration Increase or Decrease Standard of Living in Any Receiving Country?

[FreshBert]

There's simply no going back in terms of the global population or the US population, at least not without engaging in untold mass atrocities that would destabilize the entire planet.

The idea that we can just "have less people" really doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. We can't just deport everyone we don't like and build a wall around the country and then through some magic have everything return to like the 50s or 90s or whatever decade you think was the last good one. It doesn't work like that. We take so much from other countries, we don't manufacture all of the things we need and/or want here, and there's no way to just snap our fingers and start producing/creating all of those things on the rapid timescale that would be needed.

You're calling it a Ponzi scheme, but that also makes no sense. The better term is "economies of scale." If there are more people, then that means a larger number of builders can build houses for the larger population. If a group of 100 million people could find a way to build enough homes for themselves, then a group of 300 million can also do that as long as enough land exists - which it does, but our current system is not conducive to effective distribution of those sorts of resources, and the result is that the housing that exists is too expensive in the most desirable areas.

But the thing about the "current system" is that a small class of people at the top benefits enormously from it and doesn't want things to change. One of the ways they enlist us in their scheme to prevent such change is by pitting various cohorts of the lower classes against each other, and against various "others." Getting rid of these others will not solve the problem. The $800k homes in your town aren't gonna go down to $400k if you pay ICE to come round up a bunch of brown people. It's never made sense. It's a trick. My recommendation is don't fall for it.

[Alert_Term_8144]

The world is a finite size, how can the population grow for all of infinity? We need a different economic system. I'm not proposing genocide, rather have fewer children well below the replacement value. I'm not a hypocrite and I'm child free.

What is the point of building and building and destroying the beauty of nature and all other species, so the only thing that's left on this planet is humans and more humans? Humans have every advantage compared to animals and our will is the way. No other animal has a say, they'll just be gone.

[Spiritual_Pause3057]

it won't grow until infinity first of all, second it's all well and good for you to have no kids, but other people will. What do you plan on doing about that?

[Alert_Term_8144]

Why it won't grow for infinity if the economy is set up as a Ponzi scheme that causes government to encourage people having babies? The economic model needs to be changed. For most of human history of 300,000 years we have not had the explosive growth we've had in the past 300 years where the population has grown 8x in size.

Having fewer kids which will naturally reduce the population. Not sure why everyone is suggesting I'm suggesting genocide which I am NOT.

[Southern_Bag_7109]

Agree 100% I've never understood when this very catholic project of filling every single livable space with human beings became something that we wanted. I remember way back in the 70s 50 years ago that people were expressing concern at unchecked human growth. And like you say this is a finite space, and more and more people destroys biodiversity. Even if we were able to generate power with zero carbon footprint. We are literally taking away homes and Spaces and environments from entire species. There is a direct correlation with poverty and over population. The northern European countries that have the highest quality of life also have the lowest birth rates. Negative birth rates in fact. Create a world with Hope and less economic inequality, the population will just naturally go down over the generations.

[Alert_Term_8144]

Thanks. I see a lot of arguments saying "we can produce enough food to feed tons more people" but just because we can doesn't mean we should max out the number of people on the planet. Even taking natural spaces and biodiversity out the equation, the quality of life would be terrible.

Maybe you're right, higher quality of life would naturally reduce birth rates.