[wutbrodo]

I don't think even the most Pollyanna-ish perspective claims that there's a global meritocracy. The smashing success of merit-based immigrants in high-income countries is a pretty undeniable signal that we're nowhere near the point where the marginal legal immigrant is less "meritorious" than the pop avg.

I'm personally willing to bite the whole bullet and am an open-borders advocate. But it's a mistake to think that supporters of border restrictions aren't aware that they're explicitly anti-meritocratic.

[dougabug]

Immigrant populations aren’t generally uniform random samples of the rest of the world’s population. People with wealth, social capital, high levels of education (which correlates with family background), extraordinary athletic ability, etc. have a generally easier time of immigrating to this (or probably most) countries.

Anti-immigration lobbies have tended to caricature and scapegoat low skilled, low income, “undesirables;” while touting their support for (limited) immigration of high skilled, well-heeled immigrants as evidence of that they aren’t simply against foreigners.

[wutbrodo]

Yes, my comment doesn't assume a uniform sample.

In fact, it's predicated on there being a substantial filter applied to legal immigrants, such that they are highly successful in their destination country.

The performance gap between legal immigrants and natives is sizable, implying that marginal extra immigrants from loosening this filter would still outperform natives.

And the marginal extra immigrant outperforming the median native means that claims of a global meritocracy are farcical.

----------

> while touting their support for (limited) immigration of high skilled, well-heeled immigrants as evidence of that they aren’t simply against foreigners.

As mentioned, your comment isn't too related to my point. But to follow the tangent: This perspective seems like a consistent and defensible worldview? Wanting a Canada-like system that prioritizes economically-productive immigration is absolutely evidence against a bias against foreigners per se.

(I don't share this worldview. I think borders are something close to a crime against humanity. But I'm aware that mine is a radical position. The anti-immigrant boogeyman you describe sounds like a fairly logical extrapolation of a general belief in borders)

[dougabug]

Hm, I confess I don’t understand what you are talking about. Who is claiming that there is a global (or even national) meritocracy? What is meritocracy?

Do immigrants outperform natives? On what metrics?

Let’s suppose, as a thought experiment, said immigrants outperform natives at being seven feet tall, since maybe we need them for some set of tasks and we are short of seven footers. If we preferentially admit seven footers and find that immigrants statistically outperform natives at being tall, I don’t see that we’ve necessarily disproven all forms of meritocracy.

[wutbrodo]

It's the top of the thread, the comment that I replied to and was referring to.

> If it were a true meritocracy, I guess we would expect ~4-5% of US academics to be US born, given that it's our percentage of the world population, but in practice there are huge obstacles for foreigners to come and work here and succeed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32595436

My claim was that even avid restrictionists don't claim a global meritocracy. They are optimizing other axe: Volk-style prioritization,cultural stability, etc.

[TMWNN]

>I'm personally willing to bite the whole bullet and am an open-borders advocate. But it's a mistake to think that supporters of border restrictions aren't aware that they're explicitly anti-meritocratic.

I'm an immigrant to the US. I support tight border restrictions because the current status quo regarding the Mexican border, visa overstays, and emphasis on family reunification makes it harder for the US to have a truly meritocratic system, which would be something akin to the points-based systems of Canada and Australia.

[wutbrodo]

I agree with you more than you'd think. I'm aware that my open-borders belief is a radical one, and I accept the dramatic implications and knock-on effects.

But the vast majority of people accept the legitimacy of restricted immigration. IMO the line of moral revulsion they draw between your view and their own is largely illusory. Once you've accepted that you're selecting immigrants, it seems nonsensical to me that your selection criteria should consist of a) rigid and horrifyingly Kafkaesque processes for 99% of countries and b) an inconsistent drip of unselected migrants from an adjacent country (through a process that puts them at substantial physical risk).

Frankly, I'm a little contemptuous of people with this perspective. They don't seem to have thought through their belief that we should restrict the border, but do a shitty job of it in random ways.