The only problem with this is that it works in reverse. We could put people who haven’t commited a crime in jail on the grounds that they are likely to or it helps society when their in jail.
Once you factor in the dangers of giving humans that sort of power, I think that “problem” goes away for the most part.
I think a lot of you are missing that (a version of) this is already happening, and the connotations of the words “jail” and “imprison” may be misleading you.
Typically, jail is a place that sucks to be in. But would your opinion change if someone were preventatively “imprisoned” in a place that’s actually nice to live in, with great amenities, like a gated community? What if the gated community were, say, the size of a country?
And there, you see the similarity. Everybody is, in a relevant sense, “imprisoned” in their own country (or international union, etc.). To go to another country, you typically must be vetted for whether you would be dangerous to the others, and if you’re regarded as a danger, you’re left in your own country. With respect to the rest of the world, then, you have been preventatively imprisoned in your own country, on the possibility (until proven otherwise) that you will not be a danger to the rest of the world.
(A common reason given for this general restriction on immigration. though not stated in these terms, is that fully-open borders would induce a memetic overload on the good countries, destroying that that makes them worthy targets of immigration. So indeed, a utilitarian justification is given for such preventative imprisonment.)
Again, the problem is recognizing what counts as a “prison” and what connotations you attach to the term.
This is an interesting way of thinking about citizenship and immigration, one which I think is useful. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about the way other countries’ immigration rules regard me. Thanks for the new thought.
(A common reason given for this general restriction on immigration. though not stated in these terms, is that fully-open borders would induce a memetic overload on the good countries, destroying that that makes them worthy targets of immigration
I’d call that aribtrage. I don’t see what memetics has got to do with it.
The relevant metaphor here is “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”. A country with pro-prosperity policies is a goose. Filling it with people who haven’t assimilated the memes of the people who pass such policies will arguably lead to the end of this wealth production so sought after by immigrants.
Arbitrarge doesn’t kill metaphorical geese like that: it simply allows people to get existing gold eggs more efficiently. It might destroy one particular seller’s source of profit, but does not destroy wealth-production ability that an immigrant-based memetic overload would.
It’s vary naive to suppose that prosperity is only down to know-how, and also not things like natural resource wealth, history (eg using colonisation to grab resources from other countries), etc.
Aribtrage has a number of effects including evening out costs and prices. There are
hefty “trade barriers” against movements of workers almost everywhere that leave
wide disparitiees in wages un arbitraged out. We regard this as normal, although it
is the opposite of the situation regarded as desirable regarding the free movement of goods.
I think a lot of you are missing that (a version of) this is already happening, and the connotations of the words “jail” and “imprison” may be misleading you.
Typically, jail is a place that sucks to be in. But would your opinion change if someone were preventatively “imprisoned” in a place that’s actually nice to live in, with great amenities, like a gated community? What if the gated community were, say, the size of a country?
And there, you see the similarity. Everybody is, in a relevant sense, “imprisoned” in their own country (or international union, etc.). To go to another country, you typically must be vetted for whether you would be dangerous to the others, and if you’re regarded as a danger, you’re left in your own country. With respect to the rest of the world, then, you have been preventatively imprisoned in your own country, on the possibility (until proven otherwise) that you will not be a danger to the rest of the world.
(A common reason given for this general restriction on immigration. though not stated in these terms, is that fully-open borders would induce a memetic overload on the good countries, destroying that that makes them worthy targets of immigration. So indeed, a utilitarian justification is given for such preventative imprisonment.)
Again, the problem is recognizing what counts as a “prison” and what connotations you attach to the term.
This is an interesting way of thinking about citizenship and immigration, one which I think is useful. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about the way other countries’ immigration rules regard me. Thanks for the new thought.
I’d call that aribtrage. I don’t see what memetics has got to do with it.
The relevant metaphor here is “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”. A country with pro-prosperity policies is a goose. Filling it with people who haven’t assimilated the memes of the people who pass such policies will arguably lead to the end of this wealth production so sought after by immigrants.
Arbitrarge doesn’t kill metaphorical geese like that: it simply allows people to get existing gold eggs more efficiently. It might destroy one particular seller’s source of profit, but does not destroy wealth-production ability that an immigrant-based memetic overload would.
It’s vary naive to suppose that prosperity is only down to know-how, and also not things like natural resource wealth, history (eg using colonisation to grab resources from other countries), etc.
Aribtrage has a number of effects including evening out costs and prices. There are hefty “trade barriers” against movements of workers almost everywhere that leave wide disparitiees in wages un arbitraged out. We regard this as normal, although it is the opposite of the situation regarded as desirable regarding the free movement of goods.