I am in favor of extremely easy, (hence a large amount of) immigration to the U.S. I think there is a large probability that Trump may become POTUS, which would make immigration even less popular (If that is even possible. It seems like it would have to go to a percentage below zero. I believe a wide swathe of Democrat-type voters are also no friends of immigration). I have not watched any debates about immigration, and most of the common arguments against immigration would not persuade me anyway. I did enjoy reading these essays. But I still believe it would be a good thing if the U.S. were to accept millions of Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Nigerian, you-name-it immigrants. I think it would be good, even though I think there could be some excess deaths due to terrorism. I agree with President Obama that ISIS is not an existential threat to the U.S. and jihadi incidents inside the U.S. even less so. I say this as some one who could have very easily been driving down Waterman Ave. on the morning of Dec 2, 2015. I believe putting myself, children and friends into this lottery (of being one of the excess deaths due to terrorism from massive immigration) is outweighed by the combined benefits to me and to the immigrants.
For the most part, I think fear of terrorism is overblown purely on expected-value calculations, but I did like Hank Beecher’s points in this thread. I understand him to say that unlike lightning, which is random, terrorism could experience sudden, exponential growth from contagion. This should make you more wary of immigration than a simple expected value calculation might otherwise indicate.
If you would be against immigration due to worried about terrorism from “Perverted-version of Islam”-ic terrorists in the U.S. , you might also enjoy reading this.
(I am putting onto the boards a bunch of threads I have been considering starting because I want to have them in place before I start another, major one. That is why this is a bit rushed, unpolished and I might not be back to comment on it for a while).