Talking Open Borders with Peter Boghossian
In May, I had a fantastic dialogue with Peter Boghossian, best-known for his role in the Grievance Studies expose. The conversation focuses on open borders. Boghossian is plainly skeptical, but he’s such a deliberate, methodical thinker that we make a surprising amount of progress on this infamously intractable issue.
This is probably — along with my cross-examination of Noah Carl — one of my two favorite exchanges on the science and ethics of immigration. Enjoy!
P.S. Peter expressed interest in doing a follow-up episode on overpopulation, which worries him. Can I win him over to the cause of natalism?
While there are strong economic arguments for increasing legal immigration: (eg green cards to foreign STEM students, entrepreneurs, and even migrant farm workers visas), unrestricted or mass illegal immigration seems quite problematic for our overburdened Welfare State evident from the in-your-face deterioration on the streets of our major cities. Cultural assimilation is also a critical factor to consider from waves of massive immigration and seems to have played a significant role in government destabilization (eg mass asylum for Palestinians may have contributed to the civil war in Lebanon, immigration and grooming gangs a major factor in Brexit, the current surge of the Right through Europe, etc.).
The concept of "Open Borders" died during the Presidency of Joe Biden. It died of theory administered by politicians.