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[PTTG??]

Still waiting to hear a better solution.

I'm not exactly sarcastic here; I recognize it world be a huge undertaking, but I can't find any ethical framework that says "you should help your fellow humans,  unless it's too difficult or unprofitable, in which case leave them to die."


It's also worth pointing out that 18 million is the worst case scenario. Only two million people have left Syria done the war began,  and even with free safe transport out, I doubt the majority of the remainder would actually leave. But, having given them the option,  the US can wipe their hands of it.

[Reelya]

Just because the other solutions are more complex doesn't mean that your particular solution is some sort of default best solution.

How can you fix a civil war by importing the entire nation that's undergoing civil war? It makes no sense. It's also crassly paternalistic and ill-advised. How are they going to get medical attention? The USA's medical system is already at breaking point. Plus they'd be coming to a place with 4-5 times the murder rate of most advanced nations.

Throwing 10+ million extra people in, many of whom are high-care needing patients will break it completely. "Just print more money" is a stupid catch-all response to the myriad problems. If "just print more money" would fix the problems that 10 million refugees would face, then surely "print more money" would fix the problems of the existing American poor. It doesn't work. Merely printing more fancy bits of paper isn't a viable solution to actual problems in physical reality.

If you want to help, wouldn't the USA then be better off subsidizing refugee places around the world for them? e.g. Paying their medical bills in other nations would be much cheaper than trying to fit them into the US system.

[MrRoboto75]

but I can't find any ethical framework that says "you should help your fellow humans,  unless it's too difficult or unprofitable, in which case leave them to die."

Take care of the children you have before you consider adopting more.

[Reelya]

Yep, America in the "parents" analogy is basically in the situation where it can't ensure its own children get medical care. Adding more children and hand-waving away how they're going to be provided for isn't sensible.

[PTTG??]

If you want to help, wouldn't the USA then be better off subsidizing refugee places around the world for them? e.g. Paying their medical bills in other nations would be much cheaper than trying to fit them into the US system.

EXCELLENT! Here's a workable idea!

Let's work with the nearby nations to form a humanitarian coalition. We'll bankroll it, provide military protection, but not get involved in the civil war itself.

As an aside, people really don't seem to understand how fiat currency works. So long as you have excess productivity, you actually can print money. The US is still in a productivity surplus of historic proportions, with tens of thousands of skilled workers under-employed. I pointed out that a refugee airlift would have only increased that surplus, so we would have an even higher productivity ceiling; the fact that the government is too short-sighted to take advantage of that resource is a separate problem. That's not really relevant now, though, because we have some real potential solutions on the table.

Ok, let's keep brainstorming. What will we need to do to develop this coalition? What incentive can we provide besides humanitarianism and cash?

[McTraveller]

Rather than giving people money, I'd rather give people actual capital.  You know, crates of food, generator-powered water systems, pallets of bricks, tools, etc.  Trouble is, a) that means you have to actually produce and ship that stuff and B) just like with money, you have to make sure that stuff gets only to the intended population, not people who take it for themselves.

EDIT: Think about this like DF - what if you had 100 migrants show up in the first month, and only 10 of them could work, the rest were children or infirm? Could you keep the fort alive?  And that's even in an environment when you don't have regulatory bodies coming in saying "sorry, you can't build a farm / house / craft shop / whatever there without the required permits" at best, or hordes of gobbos coming after you with arms.

[scriver]

I recognize it world be a huge undertaking

I don't think you do.

EXCELLENT! Here's a workable idea!

Let's work with the nearby nations to form a humanitarian coalition. We'll bankroll it, provide military protection, but not get involved in the civil war itself.

You mean like the UN is already doing?

[sluissa]

Rather than giving people money, I'd rather give people actual capital.  You know, crates of food, generator-powered water systems, pallets of bricks, tools, etc.  Trouble is, a) that means you have to actually produce and ship that stuff and B) just like with money, you have to make sure that stuff gets only to the intended population, not people who take it for themselves.

EDIT: Think about this like DF - what if you had 100 migrants show up in the first month, and only 10 of them could work, the rest were children or infirm? Could you keep the fort alive?  And that's even in an environment when you don't have regulatory bodies coming in saying "sorry, you can't build a farm / house / craft shop / whatever there without the required permits" at best, or hordes of gobbos coming after you with arms.

I said not to ask for a more efficient solution, but now you put it into DF world where people regularly slaughter migrants to keep their fort running. So there you go, you've forced the genocide suggestion.

[Reelya]

Rather than giving people money, I'd rather give people actual capital.  You know, crates of food, generator-powered water systems, pallets of bricks, tools, etc.  Trouble is, a) that means you have to actually produce and ship that stuff and B) just like with money, you have to make sure that stuff gets only to the intended population, not people who take it for themselves.

Nah, money is actually better. e.g. if you send crates of food and resources, that's a form of central planning which might not give them what they need. Giving them money allows them to decide for themselves what resources they can acquire and it's more portable.

EDIT: If you send them canned food, bricks and tools what do you actually expect them to do with that? All they could do is build a shanty town and now they're dependent on you for food. Plus, you're deciding for them what they need, so it's paternalistic and not consultative.

Giving them money allows them to decide for themselves what resources they can acquire and it's more portable. e.g. if they get bricks and tools and stuff they just end up living in their amateur-constructed shanty town and wait for the food trucks, with not much else to do. Giving them money allows an economy to develop, e.g. commerce, which provides jobs and skills to the local children. Also, the presence of money will attract merchants and other service providers. Having a supply of bricks and canned food shipments isn't going to entice any third-party providers to get involved.

[McTraveller]

I wasn't suggesting that at all - I was saying we live in a world with physical constraints.  And even thinking about a game like DF, if your aim was to have those 100 migrants survive, what would it take to do it?

How much overproduction or spare capacity would you need for it?

We live in a world with almost zero spare capacity - the dark side of "just in time delivery" means that industries (and even national economies) collapse due to minor disturbances.  Taken at a world level - 20M refugees is far less than 1% world population.  Does the world really not even have a 1% excess production capacity?  I know that some countries definitely don't, but what about the "rich" ones?

I wish our taxes were actually used to build out extra capacity, rather than whatever it is that we're doing with them now... which is mostly just making up for lack of excess capacity and repaying debt.

Rather than giving people money, I'd rather give people actual capital.  You know, crates of food, generator-powered water systems, pallets of bricks, tools, etc.  Trouble is, a) that means you have to actually produce and ship that stuff and B) just like with money, you have to make sure that stuff gets only to the intended population, not people who take it for themselves.

Nah, money is actually better. e.g. if you send crates of food and resources, that's a form of central planning which might not give them what they need. Giving them money allows them to decide for themselves what resources they can acquire and it's more portable.

The point I was making with money is that there may not actually be goods and services around - so it's better to give goods than the promise of goods.  If your concern is about central planning - ask people ahead of time what they would buy with the money and give that to them directly.  Money is almost too fungible.

[Loud Whispers]

Nah, money is actually better. e.g. if you send crates of food and resources, that's a form of central planning which might not give them what they need. Giving them money allows them to decide for themselves what resources they can acquire and it's more portable.

That's also not factoring in how they can usually acquire what they need cheaper than it might cost to transport something they might not need to them, which makes cash even more ideal than materiel. Giving money to them is good, and transferring money is pretty cheap to do these days. The only thing that might be comparable is access to cheap credit. Where central planning should get involved is only if there's been an emergency disruption to normal supply chains (usually when the sky turns black and the earth is quaking), when a company is conducting anti-consumer practices, or if prices on necessities are raising beyond that which people can procure to survive.
One of the cooler exceptions to money=/=materiel I've seen work, is the setting up of communal gardens. Most of the ones I've seen have been private domains of the rich, but I believe the principle of it is sound, and reckon a public expansion of it would be positively dank beans (sometimes, actual beans). If you could have your own community garden where neighbours can actually learn who their neighbours are, cultivate their own fresh produce and relax in an idyllic oasis in the concrete jungle.
In practice, most of these I have heard are abysmal dens of bourgeois decadence, but I do wonder if that is because they are private gardens in some of the most expensive land in the world, and could not be replicated much more sensibly by local governments using much cheaper public land.

[Jopax]

I remember watching, I think it was a documentary on cities in general and how some of them deal with some of the issues of the modern age. One of them I believe was Detroit and how certain 'hoods started pulling together and turning abandoned lots into community gardens. It got to the point where they could have small country fair like affairs where they'd sell or trade some of the stuff they've grown.

It's certainly a great idea, especially once you consider how much roof space is unused and how ideal it'd be both in terms of proximity to the people using them (you could have a community garden for each building, used by the folks living there), in helping clean up the air some (obviously you'd need quite a few of them to start making a noticeable impact), helping with energy efficency (keeping buildings cooler during summer months is a pretty good thing) as well as reducing overall dependancy of cities on outside sources of food (and with it possibly reducing the transport network needed to support said sources, further increasing efficency).

[McTraveller]

Sorry, I thought we were talking about refugees, not poor in general.  Giving money and credit to the poor is definitely helpful.  But extending credit to refugees... isn't going to help them eat.  I was also going for the idea of what kind of aid to send to refugees - if they are in a war-torn area giving them money isn't going to help much because food isn't generally available (at any price) - giving food, etc. is much more useful.

[martinuzz]

Homs Airport was struck by missiles, at least 14 dead. Assad outraged. According to Trump, it wasn't the US.

Heh. IS got a navy and cruise missiles now?

Ohwait, Russia accuses Israel.

[Starver]

From what I already read, this is maybe going to turn out to be ‼fun‼

(Not "Homs airport", though, just an airfield near Homs. That matters.)