[rendang]

I support YIMBYism for ones own countrymen but I don't see the need to fit as many people as possible in your country. A Switzerland with 25 million people will be a worse place to live regardless of whether the housing supply keeps up

[kelseyfrog]

Only the market can decide what's better or worse. Revealed preference is truer than words.

[ndriscoll]

Wouldn't a referendum to limit immigration be the way to reveal their preference? Obviously immigrants would tautologically prefer to move there. How is a citizen to "vote" against that via the market? Discriminate and refuse to rent/sell to any immigrants? Charge them more to try to offset their perceived loss of utility? What portion of the country is even in a position to be asked the question via the market?

[kelseyfrog]

No, because money is the only thing that measures value. People vote against their interests all the time.

[ndriscoll]

Again, how is money supposed to measure value here? Are people supposed to look into whether every company interacts with immigrants in any way and then boycott them if they do? The only avenue I see is for people to look at the aggregate economic benefits of immigration and then decide to limit it anyway, effectively treating the opportunity cost as the price they're willing to pay.

[kelseyfrog]

Money measures value numerically. Yes.

[happytoexplain]

>money is the only thing that measures value

This is hideous, and can't really be interfaced with as a human.

[happytoexplain]

Using the market as a revealed preference indicator is a disaster. There are too many perverse incentives and indirect causes-and-effects. It's like the scene in Battlefield Earth where they decide a human's favorite food is rat by observation.