> This is standard practice for nation states. To call it racism is braindead and lazy.
Author here. Just because something is standard practice does not mean this should be a goal. I do not want to live in a world where the north star is dividing people based on their birthplace lottery. I might accept it as a temporary local maximum that countries are optimizing towards but that does not mean I have to subscribe to that as a general destination or even the most optimal one.
There is so much that goes into 'birthplace lottery' ignoring what created the place, how people/family got to that point, systems that attract people, systems that people created. It's such a non-serious ridiculous term that has zero understanding of outcomes. Can't wait until it dies as a buzzword/signal/whistle.
My family died to come to the USA (from Ireland) and multiple grandmothers arrived very young orphans. My family from other places gave up friends/family/everything they knew to come here. There was a ton of suffering and sacrifice, no 'winning the lottery' for them. They sacrificed to place me where I am, no 'lottery ticket' got me here. Their intention did. My dad's dad worked in a horrible meat packing plant as part of that 'lottery ticket'.
My family sacrificed and clawed their way to get to a point to afford college for my father. They sacrificed to place me where I am, no 'lottery ticket' got me here. Their intention did.
My country fought a war for independence and a civil war to establish the freedoms I enjoy. Both my grandfathers fought/sacrificed hard in WW2 to get to the modern world. No 'lottery' created this world. Their effort/sacrifice did in part though.
All of those things were effortintentionwork and sacrifice by people. What they created wasn't a 'lottery land'. People have to plant the trees for others to sit under. I didn't win a lottery. Generations of family effort/pain/struggle went into getting me to where I started in life. Generations of people working on building a better society went into it.
Fuck anyone that minimizes everything my family did for me, I know I don't and am grateful every day for the people that chose to sacrifice to get me here. Growing up in Santa Cruz many of my friends who are now very successful had parents who were farm workers. They sacrificed their bodies to create a life for their kids, their kids didn't 'win the lottery'.
When born, you're handed a set of cards that you 'play' life with. Among others:
Genes (affecting gender, skin color, attractiveness & more). Birthplace (affecting citizenship, or 1st-learned language). Wealth of parents and/or that country. Upbringing (including religion). Sisters/brothers or single child. Parents who stayed together or single parent. Etc etc.
For your family: great they worked to get you where you are. And yes that was work not a lottery. No need to minimize their effort.
But for you as recipient of that, it was a lottery ticket. You did not work, or decide what your family did for you. You did not decide what genes you wanted to inherit from them. You did not pick your birthplace.
So the "lottery" part does apply: for each recipient of a set of cards.
I think you two commenters have both expressed the opposing ideas at the core of so much of the political/worldview divide of the world today.
Position 1: a human is an entity distinct from their family.
Position 2: a family is an entity that exists across generations, and no individual in the family can be abstracted from it.
I don’t think you two, or anyone else, is ever really going to suddenly change their mind on this point. It’s at the foundation of the irreconcilable divide between leftism and conservatism.
Ultimately, since we have plenty of evidence to show that people will just shout past each other when they hit this ideological sticking point, I think a better approach would be to individually answer the question: “Which is a better model for predicting the world?”
I get that many of us were all technologists here. But it’s a weird inclusion because - it seems to imply that this was your red line and when you became aware that this administration might be racist and nationalist?
I don’t think export controls on large language models would enter my top 50 in terms of actions this administration has taken to show that.
> it seems to imply that this was your red line and when you became aware that this administration might be racist and nationalist?
If you read my blog you should have seen plenty of content before to get an idea why my red lines are. I even have a separate blog on that entirely: dark.ronacher.eu. My line is not here.
“Race”, such as it is, is orthogonal to place of origin.
If you’re arguing for abolishing the nation state or any concept the establishes right and obligations based on you being born there, then it would help your cause to not entangle it with racism. It would also be more interesting if you can explain how you imagine we’d even get to a place where there is only a single earthly jurisdiction with free movement etc. now THAT would be an interesting thought experiment.
> If you’re arguing for abolishing the nation state or any concept the establishes right and obligations based on you being born there, then it would help your cause to not entangle it with racism.
Racism in one form or another is at the very core of the nation state. I disagree with the very notion that rights should be established with a razor that cuts by citizenship. It’s a blunt tool that might work to some degree but clearly the US shows that citizenship is an insufficient measurement to the positive contribution to GDP or entrepreneurship.
> It would also be more interesting if you can explain how you imagine we’d even get to a place where there is only a single earthly jurisdiction with free movement etc. now THAT would be an interesting thought experiment.
I don’t know the path to there. That does not mean I can’t see that as a goal worth perusing and to see things they take humanity further from that goal as a regression.
> It would also be more interesting if you can explain how you imagine we’d even get to a place where there is only a single earthly jurisdiction with free movement etc. now THAT would be an interesting thought experiment.
Author here. Just because something is standard practice does not mean this should be a goal. I do not want to live in a world where the north star is dividing people based on their birthplace lottery. I might accept it as a temporary local maximum that countries are optimizing towards but that does not mean I have to subscribe to that as a general destination or even the most optimal one.