This sounds useful. The main problem with large-scale uncontrolled immigration is that government can't reliably plan ahead for infrastructure improvements and upgrades, which typically need years-long lead times in preparation and execution, to support the expanded population.
As the supply end is so constrained, it makes sense they're using modern technologies to try to resolve the demand.
schoen•3mo ago
Why can't they estimate the immigration (and emigration) rate like they estimate the birth rate and death rate? Both of those also change in response to numerous factors (including economics, culture, and technology), and both of them can also be estimated with statistical models.
jig_forty•3mo ago
They can and do but it's much less reliable. Births and deaths are systematically recorded, and fertility rates are shaped by comparatively stable factors like education levels, access to family planning and gradual cultural shifts. Mortality rates follow similarly predictable trends.
Whereas migration flows are heavily influenced by sudden events that are difficult to anticipate, like economic crises, political instability, wars, natural disasters and so on. The data is less complete too, for example unauthorized border crossings will not be recorded officially in cases where these are undetected.
add-sub-mul-div•3mo ago
I'm sure that strategy was used until open xenophobes got into power and wanted to nurture the fear of their supporters by artificially raising the urgency.
polski-g•3mo ago
I know in my area the school districts complains that they don't get notification of new planned 400+ unit apartment buildings. So all of the sudden, the local schools are over capacity.
Gormo•3mo ago
> The main problem with large-scale uncontrolled immigration is that government can't reliably plan ahead for infrastructure improvements and upgrades
Thankfully, the idea that "infrastructure improvements and upgrades" were the responsibility of governments to centrally plan is one that fell out of practice about 35 years ago.
Let's stick with the whole "adaptive ecosystem" model, rather than a "government planning" model, and things will turn out better every time.
bigbadfeline•3mo ago
> Let's stick with the whole "adaptive ecosystem" model, rather than a "government planning" model
1. Every "adaptive ecosystem" has limits.
2. Without proper government regulation, which includes some "government planning", an "adaptive ecosystem" cannot and will not exist.
3. Abusing 1 and lacking 2, things not only don't "turn out better every time", they turn out really bad every single time.
With that said, abusing immigration enforcement in order to habituate disregard for due process is deceptive and over the limits and it leads to worse consequences than immigration itself.
Gormo•2mo ago
> 1. Every "adaptive ecosystem" has limits.
This is a very vague claim. Everything in nature has some sort of "limits"
> 2. Without proper government regulation, which includes some "government planning", an "adaptive ecosystem" cannot and will not exist.
It's very much the other way around. Governments are institutions that form within the bounds of civil societies that already exist, and already have a sufficient common ground of norms and behavioral expectations to enable formal institutions to be established and sustain themselves over time in the first place.
You seem to be looking at this from the perspective of government being some sort of prime mover, or something that exists outside the ecosystem of society and able to place external constraints on it -- but no, governments are just ordinary institutions within society, subject to the same incentive structures and failure modalities as everything else, and there is no "outside" at all.
> 3. Abusing 1 and lacking 2, things not only don't "turn out better every time", they turn out really bad every single time.
(1) is reality itself, and (2) is a set of aspirational ideals that exist within (1). Pursuing (2) means working within the manifest nature of (1), not trying to supersede it with something else -- treating (2) as a unbounded solution to everything turns it more often into an instrument of abuse, rather than a mitigation for abuse.
> With that said, abusing immigration enforcement in order to habituate disregard for due process is deceptive and over the limits and it leads to worse consequences than immigration itself.
jig_forty•3mo ago
As the supply end is so constrained, it makes sense they're using modern technologies to try to resolve the demand.
schoen•3mo ago
jig_forty•3mo ago
Whereas migration flows are heavily influenced by sudden events that are difficult to anticipate, like economic crises, political instability, wars, natural disasters and so on. The data is less complete too, for example unauthorized border crossings will not be recorded officially in cases where these are undetected.
add-sub-mul-div•3mo ago
polski-g•3mo ago
Gormo•3mo ago
Thankfully, the idea that "infrastructure improvements and upgrades" were the responsibility of governments to centrally plan is one that fell out of practice about 35 years ago.
Let's stick with the whole "adaptive ecosystem" model, rather than a "government planning" model, and things will turn out better every time.
bigbadfeline•3mo ago
1. Every "adaptive ecosystem" has limits.
2. Without proper government regulation, which includes some "government planning", an "adaptive ecosystem" cannot and will not exist.
3. Abusing 1 and lacking 2, things not only don't "turn out better every time", they turn out really bad every single time.
With that said, abusing immigration enforcement in order to habituate disregard for due process is deceptive and over the limits and it leads to worse consequences than immigration itself.
Gormo•2mo ago
This is a very vague claim. Everything in nature has some sort of "limits"
> 2. Without proper government regulation, which includes some "government planning", an "adaptive ecosystem" cannot and will not exist.
It's very much the other way around. Governments are institutions that form within the bounds of civil societies that already exist, and already have a sufficient common ground of norms and behavioral expectations to enable formal institutions to be established and sustain themselves over time in the first place.
You seem to be looking at this from the perspective of government being some sort of prime mover, or something that exists outside the ecosystem of society and able to place external constraints on it -- but no, governments are just ordinary institutions within society, subject to the same incentive structures and failure modalities as everything else, and there is no "outside" at all.
> 3. Abusing 1 and lacking 2, things not only don't "turn out better every time", they turn out really bad every single time.
(1) is reality itself, and (2) is a set of aspirational ideals that exist within (1). Pursuing (2) means working within the manifest nature of (1), not trying to supersede it with something else -- treating (2) as a unbounded solution to everything turns it more often into an instrument of abuse, rather than a mitigation for abuse.
> With that said, abusing immigration enforcement in order to habituate disregard for due process is deceptive and over the limits and it leads to worse consequences than immigration itself.
Yes, this is absolutely correct.