I have been arguing this for years - in a 10% tongue-in-cheek kind of way - and it's strange to see it written down in an article.
The stock response tends to be that in an ideal world it would be great, but it's not practical. Of course, perfectly decent, well-meaning and good-hearted white people sat around dinner tables during apartheid and slavery and said exactly the same thing. History has proven them wrong, and in fact if we imagine popular support for uncontrolled global immigration, it's rather easy to conceive a practical implementation - quotas gradually increased, borders lowered - it could be achieved in a controlled way.
I also hear the 'why should we?' response. Indonesia has squandered its natural resources - aka it's their own fault they're poor. But none of us would stand in front of a classful of Indonesian schoolchildren and say this. Being born in a rich western country is a colossal slice of luck, not a personal achievement. The fact is that thinking of people in terms of nations tends to dehumanise them, and that's one of the reasons why greater migration and a blurring of borders would be a good thing.
The economic arguments around immigration have raged in the press here in the UK for the last few years. Here at least the general academic consensus has been that it's a net plus, and that the additional burden on state benefits is outweighed by the economic benefits of a well-motivated and grateful migrant workforce. The risk to any benefits system is not more people per se, but that it will be abused - ie the development of a benefits culture, where people choose not to work because the safety net will support them. It's up to us to decide whether this attitude is more likely in the indigenous population or with recent economic migrants.
The real barrier to adoption is lack of popular support, and I accept that few people are going to agree with me on this issue. But then again, there's this: http://goo.gl/95g5kQ
"When the races are held closer to Red Bull's factory, which is based in Milton Keynes in the UK, the delay can drop to a staggering seven milliseconds"
I know many programmers feel this way, but in my humble opinion it is a fallacy, and not a very healthy one.
No-one can deny that our industry is evolving at breakneck speed, and it is an exhilarating place to be. But just because there's a new technology every week on HN doesn't mean that we are losing old ones at a similar rate.
It is perfectly possible to have done nothing but C or Java for your entire career and yet remain extremely employable. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if there are highly paid COBOL jobs still out there, nursing some vast banking-industry mainframe which is too precious to risk replacing.
In fact I'm hard pressed to think of any programming language which I would dare declare 'dead' in a HN comment.
But even if you're a specialist in something which you feel is in decline, or for which there are newer, snazzier replacements, you've got every opportunity to learn something new, taking as long as you like to do so. There's extensive documentation for every technology under the sun available for free on the internet, and an army of friendly, helpful people willing to provide help and advice without expecting anything in return.
In fact, it's entirely possible you could even get paid to cross-train. In my own company we use RoR for which (in England at least) demand far outstrips supply. I've paid PHP developers to learn Rails, and I would consider anyone with an in-depth knowledge of any language as potentially employable.
Really, the only way an experienced developer is going to end up flipping burgers or flying a manager's desk is because they have lost the desire to learn - ie fallen out of love with programming in general. I believe few people work in this industry for money alone - you either love programming or you don't do it - and if you love it then you will pick up new technologies out of sheer intellectual curiosity.
Feverishly reading HN every day and feeling threatened by the emergence of every new 'next best thing' is not a good idea. I would advise anyone feeling this way to take a chill pill and remember why they took up programming in the first place.
The stock response tends to be that in an ideal world it would be great, but it's not practical. Of course, perfectly decent, well-meaning and good-hearted white people sat around dinner tables during apartheid and slavery and said exactly the same thing. History has proven them wrong, and in fact if we imagine popular support for uncontrolled global immigration, it's rather easy to conceive a practical implementation - quotas gradually increased, borders lowered - it could be achieved in a controlled way.
I also hear the 'why should we?' response. Indonesia has squandered its natural resources - aka it's their own fault they're poor. But none of us would stand in front of a classful of Indonesian schoolchildren and say this. Being born in a rich western country is a colossal slice of luck, not a personal achievement. The fact is that thinking of people in terms of nations tends to dehumanise them, and that's one of the reasons why greater migration and a blurring of borders would be a good thing.
The economic arguments around immigration have raged in the press here in the UK for the last few years. Here at least the general academic consensus has been that it's a net plus, and that the additional burden on state benefits is outweighed by the economic benefits of a well-motivated and grateful migrant workforce. The risk to any benefits system is not more people per se, but that it will be abused - ie the development of a benefits culture, where people choose not to work because the safety net will support them. It's up to us to decide whether this attitude is more likely in the indigenous population or with recent economic migrants.
The real barrier to adoption is lack of popular support, and I accept that few people are going to agree with me on this issue. But then again, there's this: http://goo.gl/95g5kQ