Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as a quick visualization of the scale of global poverty versus immigration capacity, though it is advocacy with a specific viewpoint.
What it is
Roy Beck's short gumball presentation using World Bank and Census data to argue that letting people immigrate to the US cannot solve world poverty because the numbers are so large. It is made by NumbersUSA, an immigration-restriction advocacy group.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 7 different months, 2013 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Banthum · 2017-06 · on “Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule”
You didn't answer the question clearly. It seems your answer obliquely is that you don't want it for yourself, you want it because it'd benefit the immigrants. >They don't bite. I grew up in a class of around 50% children of immigrants. I'm aware that they don't bite. But, it's nice of you to instantly assume that I'm a xenophobic person just because I question your policy ideas on immigration. Of course the person who wants 20x immigration would assume the same thing about you, and then you're in the left-wing purity spiral. So let's just leave off the insinuations of personal flaws, okay? >the target should be, if someone wants to come here and make a better life for themselves, they shoul
Recommends mcantelon · 2013-04 · on “If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?”
This video, although speaking only about allowing unrestricted immigration to the US, is worth watching for perspective. [this video] Unrestricted immigration would make the West's social safety nets and healthcare impossible to maintain. There would be corresponding civil unrest as a reaction. The obvious first thing to do about world poverty is provide free birth control and related education.
Recommends tyingq · 2016-02 · on “Disappointed with Europe, Thousands of Iraqi Migrants Return Home”
It may just be that asylum for purely economic reasons doesn't scale in a way that would solve the problem. This video does a good job of showing that: [this video]
Recommends exabrial · 2017-05 · on “Basic Income in a Just Society”
No, letting in refugees is 100% political pandering. Explained with gumbals: [this video] Immigration drives innovation, tolerance, advancement of the arts, and fuels small business. But let's stop fooling ourselves that relocating people halfway across the world is solving any sort of crisis.
Recommends collyw · 2018-04 · on “Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030”
Someone else on HN commented that the poor need to stop reproducing in order to improve equality. At first I found the comment kind of troubling, but the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense. Watching this video kind of backs up the point to a degree, even though the topic is immigration. [this video] Can someone come back with a decent counterargument? I haven't been able to yet. (It's worth remembering that a good percentage of people reading this will be in the top 1% despite not being "rich" by western standards).
Recommends vetinari · 2018-07 · on “Forced Labor in Malaysia's Electronics Industry”
He cannot, except some feel-good and virtue signalling slogans. The resources for social support in most developed countries are limited even for their own citizens; taking anyone would quickly overwhelm the system, that's a basic math, even without a napkin. For people, who do not have a good visualisation skills for numbers, there's this video: [this video] The point is, if you want to help the people in the rest of the world, you have to help them in their countries , which I wholeheartedly agree.
Recommends codexb · 2024-02 · on “The Doomslayer (1997)”
Your points have all been addressed before. See this presentation about the growth in population in 3rd world countries and how immigration is completely incapable of addressing it in any meaningful way -- [this video] The growth rates and population amounts are simply too high for us to effectively solve the problems of population growth with massive, intercontinental migration. You also can't solve societal and cultural problems (of which the 3rd world and developing world has many) by massive migrations of those populations into first world countries. In effect, you end up simply importing those problems. There's plenty of history and evidence for this. There's never been a case in history whe
Cites basiceconomics · 2013-01 · on “Michael Moritz on immigration reform”
"3. It's quite frankly inhumane in many cases to send these students packing. Even in the relative squalor that they endure living, for example in Los Angeles on mere hundreds of dollars a month, they still want to live here and create a family here." And what of the billions of people in the world who are even worse off? [this video]