jimmyk

Would it change things for you if that kid was your descendant?

We want money to move around, rather than sit in someone's safe

It's just paper. What's wrong with it sitting in someone's safe? We certainly don't want actual productive capital assets to be idle, but dollar bills don't produce anything. If they're sitting in a safe, the value of the ones that aren't in the safe goes up slightly.

I'm not sure quite what they meant, but that doesn't sound quite right to me either.

If the currency is stagnant or close to stagnant, the incentive to invest is that you end up with more wealth overall.

I'm not sure it's possible for deflation to be both predictable and higher than the market rate of return, because people today would immediately speculate and bid up the price of the currency to reflect its future expected value.

Of course inflation is an added incentive to invest money, or at least to store your wealth in assets other than money.

"Without inflation there is no incentive to spend your money"

That is quite the exaggeration.

Are you saying Islam doesn't teach Muslims to behave preferentially toward (some of) their fellow Muslims in any way?

It's something people reach through anti-semitism.

Believing some Jews and other enemies of the Nazis (e.g. Allied governments) lie is not the same thing as believing Jews should be exterminated.

It's probably because of the Age of Enlightenment in the west that did a thorough self evaluation over a few centuries.

I'm not sure what a "thorough self evaluation" would actually mean. I don't think that's even remotely feasible, given the immense scope of the subject matter. What has happened is that certain elements within western civilization have focused their efforts on criticizing western civilization, some in good faith and some not, and the rest of western civilization has allowed them to do so. That is the part that is rare, just like suicide, and for the same reason.

People are legally mandated to buy third party health care payment plans. How could you possibly expect that to go well?

You can obviously avoid marriage in the first place, in order to maximize services or avoid taxes.

No, you really can't. Do you seriously think the state is going to pay out more benefits to parents solely because they haven't signed a marriage certificate?

You _can_ absolutely qualify for more benefits if the other parent is unable or unwilling to contribute financially and the state is unable to coerce them to do so. But the state goes after the other parent first.

Part of the reason these programs are so harmful is that they provide incentives for the father to stay away from the children. Staying around to raise the children makes it a lot easier for the state to A) find him and B) make the case that he's the father or has taken on a fatherly role and is therefore responsible for paying for them.

Is this sarcasm, or are you suggesting that the same institution which set up these perverse rules has done such a great job that it should be given control over the funding of health care for 99% of the population?

but I don't pretend to know or understand their full argument of why it should be regulated

One reason might be that they believe that having a culture which is hedonistic toward sex is harmful for society, and they believe that acceptance of homosexual behavior necessarily leads to having such a culture.

presumably Stalinists?

That is definitely not a reasonable assumption to make.

but if you're not religious and don't believe in utilitarianism, what exactly is the goal for your society?

It is perfectly possible to be utilitarian, non-religious, and opposed to the acceptance of homosexuality. All it takes is a belief that acceptance of homosexuality is on the whole and over time more harmful for people than intolerance of homosexuality.

There's not really a way to counter this mentality by people like us because their worldview is so entirely alien to us

As you hint at up above, there are non-religious people who believe regulating sexual behavior is important for society. Do you have a way to counter that idea when it's based on a secular worldview which is not so alien to yours?

totally legal to be a murderer or thief as long as you don't behave that way.

You must know this doesn't make any sense. Murderer and thief are words that describe people who actually murder or steal, not people who just have a desire to murder or steal. Gay describes who you are attracted to.

I'm confused by your comment.

Society bundled behaviour and innate characteristics into a single thing.

It seems like that's what you're doing here:

...you don't have any choice about being gay, or about having gay relationships.

Being gay does not mean you have to have gay relationships. Having gay relationships is a choice.

What I'm asking is more like, if the government microphone in your potted plant hears you coming out as gay to your friends, would that be grounds for criminal punishment?

Laws against inherent characteristics seem to me at least to be worse than laws which ban behavior. Conflating the two in order to make some particular law sound worse seems sort of dishonest to me.

They're pretty obviously different. One is a characteristic of a person, and one is an action that can be taken by a person.

being gay is illegal in many places.

Is that true? Or is it the behavior that's illegal?

hurt/ anger

I think the word you're looking for is "hatred".

The foundations of libertarianism is a belief that individual rights and human rights are supreme.

Trust me, I don't need a lecture on the foundations of libertarianism. I've read enough Rothbard and company to get a pretty good feel for it.

I don't believe a majority, or a democratically elected sovereign, has the right to curtail the freedoms and rights of individuals. That's what being discussed here.

I know what you believe.

A "moral" system that deprives people of human rights, is amoral, and not worthy of honor or respect.

It's up to you to decide what you think is worthy of honor and respect, and up to me to make the choice for myself.

By your moral framework, the German people, who elected Hitler into power, had every right in the world, to murder and slaughter millions of Jews, Roma, Slavs/Poles, and others. It was justified by the Nazi moral framework.

Hitler may have had the power to do those things. I'm not sure where you think I suggested he had a moral right to do them.

This is why moral relativism is a bane, and a curse, and the source of many evils.

I agree with you that moral relativism is a bad ideology for a society to be founded up, in terms of achieving stable, wealthy, and peaceful societies. That said, it is a question of fact whether there is actually some absolute objective morality, and as far as I can tell, one does not exist.

With regards to immigration, you have no right to demand the loyalty of others towards you or anyone else

I'm not sure why you're still telling me what I have the right to do or what I don't have the right to do. I know what your preferred moral system says I have a right to do. As it happens, I don't demand loyalty of people, I'd just rather that the people around me be loyal to me, and it's quite clear that certain human beings are more likely to be loyal to me than others are, and that there are policies that can discriminate on that characteristic and so achieve the result I desire.

Visa restrictions are similar to banning interracial marriage.

I'm not sure why you're still listing things you think I will think are horrible in order to get me to agree with you. As I said, even if I sympathize with you on some point, it doesn't make your system universal.

that I give zero fucks about your self-interest, as long as you pursue your self-interest in a manner that respects the rights of others.

I'm not sure why you would bother to write something like this. You do give zero fucks about my self-interest when I pursue it in a manner that doesn't respect what you think are the rights of others, and it's clear that's what we're talking about here.

You're basically saying, I will continue to violate the rights of others, enslave others, oppress others -- until someone more powerful stops me.

I said that as a matter of fact that is what certain people did.

In other words, your moral framework can be summed up in three words: might is right.

Might determines what happens is reality. I acknowledge and embrace that reality. You seem to want to yell your head off at anyone that won't absolutely accept your preferred moral system, as though that will get you what you want. I assure you, it will not.

Well, I don't believe in the Nazi-Darwinian crap.

What does that even mean?

What do I do?

My recommendation would be to convince other people that it's not in their interest to support slavery, and do what you can to change reality so that it's not in their interest to support slavery. Don't expect making people go against their interests by telling them they're horrible to be an effective or sustainable solution. If you convince them you're right about how horrible they are, and they go against their own interests, then what you've just done is harm the material interests of people that are predisposed toward listening to moral arguments, and effectively selected against trait.

If you can't do that, I am justified in using violence against you, in self-defence, as I try to defend myself and others against the violence you try/wish to inflict upon me and others.

I think that's probably a bad idea, and not just because you'd lose the fight. The people you're fighting to allow into this country are not very likely to be sympathetic to your moral arguments, or even to your well-being.

I strongly believe some moral systems are superior to others.

What experiment can you perform to decide if a moral system is superior to another?

In the moral system

What is your point? Are you listing examples where you expect me to sympathize with you and therefore agree? How does my own sympathy for your position prove that those moral systems are inferior to others? What does that even mean?

But the moment you want to oppress my freedom, for the sake of your self-interest, I say fuck you self-interest.

Yes, and we say fuck what you think is your freedom, except we're powerful enough to actually get what we want.

I don't need to convince you of anything. Why?

Because it sounds like you want us to change the way we're behaving, and you don't have the physical power to make us. Moral arguments will work on people that are already sympathetic to you, and people whose interests are pretty well aligned with what your moral system prescribes. They don't work so well on people whose interests would be seriously harmed by following them.

Your same repugnant

I'll save you some time typing: I don't care if you call me repugnant. I don't care if you call me the worst names out there. It's not an argument. It's not going to convince me of anything except that you don't have an argument.

self-interest argument was used by slave owners

Yes, it was, and so they did it until someone more powerful made them stop.

You have no right to dictate to me that I can only associate with you

I don't care if your moral system says I do or don't have a right to dictate such to you.

I should be free to hire any one from any country as I see fit.

That's your opinion, not an argument.

Immigration restrictions are oppressive and immoral

Oppressive? I guess you could make an argument like that if you defined oppressive in a certain way. Either way, I think they're in my interest. Immoral? That's a matter of opinion.

If I started a company, and made large amounts of money, and you decided to play video games and watch Netflix all day long while I toiled day and night, then you have no fucking moral right to live on money stolen by taxing the income of hard-working people like myself.

Another matter of opinion.

Frankly, I am under no obligation to convince you that you should not oppress my freedom, and threaten me with violence, to further your self-interest.

The only obligation would be a self-imposed one. If you want very badly to get what you want, and are not powerful enough to make it so, then you have no choice but to convince those that are powerful enough. That's reality.

I believe in absolute objective morality.

What is an example of a hypothesis that you can test to determine if something is absolutely objectively moral? How can you test it? What useful information can I get out of such a test? Can I use the result to make a prediction, like in science?

I don't think there are multiple "fair/just" moral frameworks.

There are certainly multiple moral frameworks. They mostly consider the others unjust in various ways.

Try to live without violating the rights and freedoms of the others.

Why should I choose to honor the rights and freedoms which are specified by your moral system rather than the rights and freedoms specified by some other arbitrarily chosen moral system?

Immigrants contribute a lot more than they consume.

Some do. Many don't. And even among those that do contribute more than they consume, it seems very unlikely that the contributions and the drawbacks would be distributed evenly throughout the population. Some people will be made better off by their presence, and others (perhaps even a greater number, but totaling a smaller dollar value) will be made worse off. Do you disagree with that?

The problem is that this country's laws hate and despise skilled and educated immigrants.

I don't lock my doors because I hate the people outside. I lock my doors because I want to protect the people inside.

And he was rejected (lost the H1B lottery) twice, thanks to the US skilled immigration policy.

Right, but do you deny that many companies make enormous amounts of money off of the H1B programs and that they can bring down salaries of the local people that compete with their labor? Do you deny that people that come in via H1B are less likely to have loyalty to this country and its people?

Which is a far cry from what is morally right.

Whether it's morally right or not depends on what moral system you're using to evaluate it. I can pick one that says what I want just as easily as you can.

people that are peaceful/non-voilent

How do you know their descendants will be peaceful and non-violent, and that their interests and those of their descendants will tightly overlap with the interests of the current population and their descendants?

Why would the current inhabitants want to let people in if they don't have strong reason to believe that the interests of the immigrants and their descendants will strongly align with the interests of the current inhabitants and their descendants?

Well, the United States is a living example of a country that tried that, and um ... hasn't failed because of it.

When did the US A) allow unrestricted immigration of people of non-European origin, B) actually have significant numbers of immigrants of non-European origin, and C) not quickly move to restrict that immigration?

Unrestricted immigration of people of European origins is not the same thing as opening up the borders without restriction.

Broadly controlling human migration at the border is a relatively recent thing (as in, just over a century).

When prior to industrialization would mass migration (especially of another ethnic group) have been seen by the current inhabitants as anything other than an invasion?

Taking US as an example where this sort of thing is a controversial political topic today - in most of the 19th century, if you had access to any means of transportation necessary to get there (including walking across the border from, say, Mexico or Canada), that was all you needed to become a legal resident. Yet the country did just fine.

The immigration restrictions of the late 19th/early 20th century were a reaction to immigration numbers having risen beyond the point that the current inhabitants were comfortable with. Yes, controls were lax before then but that was a reflection of 1) the relatively low degree of conflict over resources (a result of industrialization), 2) the similarity of ethnicity/culture between the current inhabitants and the immigrants (they were predominantly Christians of European ancestry -- Chinese immigration was not viewed so favorably), and 3) comparatively low numbers of immigrants before ~1870, and especially before 1850.

And you absolutely don't have the right

That's true according to some moral systems and not true according to others. What's more important is that we have the power to do so, and we think it's in our interest to do so, so we do it. If you want to convince us not to restrict immigration, you'll have to convince us it's not in our interest to do so. Saying we're immoral according to your chosen moral system will persuade some, and it will be easily rebuked some others, but most will say "It doesn't feel wrong" and ignore you and your whole moral system.

inviting my non-citizen friend from staying at my house, in my property -- which is the despicable (and immoral) unquestioned status quo of today.

That's not really the important status quo of today, though. The problem isn't that people are inviting their non-citizen friends into their homes. It's that some non-citizens are coming here and consuming limited resources that would otherwise be consumed by citizens, especially services funded by taxpayers, and are not providing enough services to the people here to make up for what they're consuming. Many citizens, especially those who are in most direct economic competition with immigrants, are made worse off by the presence of even those who do provide more resources than they consume. The gains they provide are not distributed evenly throughout the population, and neither are the costs they impose.

would be for the best

The best for who? Do the people who live in countries with valuable infrastructure and institutions benefit from having to share them with immigrants that will be net-consumers of those services? (Note: I'm not saying all immigrants are net-consumers, I'm specifically asking about the subset of immigrants that are net-consumers.)

The people in countries that have built up valuable commons have a tremendous incentive to restrict access to them. How would you get them to go along with this?

It will age very well. Successful countries that behave otherwise don't stay successful for that long. If a country doesn't put its interests first, who will?

It's pretty much the exact opposite of arbitrary.

"Number of" is a prepositional phrase

From http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/prepositionalphrase.htm :

At the minimum, a prepositional phrase will begin with a preposition

"number" is not a preposition.

The prepositional phrase is "of traders".