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frongle-art · 1 year

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this will probably reach like 3 people ever but i might as well work something out. any further input or reccomendations are appreciated

rn i have a shitload of characters but I'll list the ones that I'd probably be posting on here about first

Frongle

I guess this one is my main? I started using him for pfps on discord and tumblr as well as a dnd character. He came from the character creation screen of Star Trek Online after I decided to make a character that was the antithesis of all the overly muscular, handsome, superman lookin ass avatars everyone else was using.

He's short, chunky, pesto green with yellow streaks across his face, and wears an old-timey rich man's suit with a top hat, as well as some enormous goggles that help him see in the brightness of surface light conditions.

He sweats this unpleasant foul-smelling poisonous gunk and has limited abilities in psychic persuasion and short-range telekinesis.

He is a prolific thief and a constant nuisance to anyone who has to work with him. Despite his profound annoyance, he has also managed to avert multiple galactic crises, which has granted him diplomatic immunity and further fuels his pride and self-importance.

He flies around in a stolen carrier flagship that used to belong to a demon race that presented one of the aforementioned galactic crises. He uses the power of this ship to go anywhere and give anyone he doesn't like a big punch, a migraine, a planted piece of contraband material, or some other petty inconvenience.

in the dnd campaign he acquired a cane that allowed him to summon a jojo-style stand that just looked like him but larger called 「hooligan heaven」 that would stride towards a location (like that one video of the plague doctor cosplayer) with incredible force while blasting various bootlegs of gangster's paradise.

frongle also used psychic ventriloquism to make a fish (which he had slain via farting in it's river) float in the air and speak, and he convinced himself that the fish was actually alive, which led to it essentially becoming an embodied version of the unseen servant spell. that was a weird campaign.

ok damn i guess i just wrote his bio post here but yeah the other ones are:

Gourdside

(pirate cursed by a god of plenty to be transformed into a pumpkin-headed humanoid with extendable vine-arms and a big hook. made them for a game art/design project)

AIPI (Artificially Intelligent Private Investigator)

security android that wears sherlock-ish outfits and has a head that resembles a coffee machine. it started out as another star trek online character but also got used for a game art/design project. i have it written into a two seperate storylines, one where it wakes up in a city full of servitor robots where all the humans have gone missing, and another one where it acts as a space government agent who doesn't care much about it's job and hangs out with frongle under the pretence of following it's assignment of keeping an eye on him.

Stone Golems

An assortment of golems that are part of my currently private worldbuilding project but I will probably post about some of them on here, especially if my intentions for that project change or if any version of it goes public in some way.

I have alot of details on how they work, where they came from, etc. and i can probably talk for hours about how it all works and it would probably lead into all the other lore about the world they're in. Currently I have:

Trip - a small Shardling (any golem twice the size of a human or smaller) that runs a bakery. It has a long, teardrop-shaped head and sloth-like bodily proportions

Pin - a Dustlet (the smallest kind of golem, a label that also includes non-sentient artefacts that run off the same magic as other golems) that resides in Trip's bakery and likes using it's tiny body as a rolling pin to help flatten dough.

Clobber - a Lesser Stone Golem (about the size of the drivable part of a truck) that closely aligned itself with a mortal race that became a powerful empire built on honour, craftsmanship and strength. It acts as a keeper of historical lore as well as an advisor to whoever is currently in charge.

Stack - a tall Shardling (about twice as tall as humans can be) that loves to build things and has a head shaped like a bowl.

Tumble - a stout, wheel-shaped Shardling (think like the size of a Monster Jam truck wheel) whose core was once trapped and being used as a grindstone by an ancient blacksmith.

Trod - a tortoise-like Greater Stone Golem (big enough to enjoy pretending it's a hill) that likes to sit somewhere and wait for someone to build a path near it so it can have someone talk to from time to time.

Clutch - another Greater Stone Golem that lumbers around the world and acts as a mobile sanctuary for Dustlets and Shardlings that are otherwise unable to fend for themselves, giving them the chance to safely explore the world without the threat of being abducted and experimented on by mages.

Yonder - a Stone Titan (fuckin HUGE, the LARGEST one that's still around) that was one of the first to be built and the only Titan that wasn't shattered into the pieces that formed all the Golems that wander the world. Big enough to inspire a legend that describes trees reaching an age where they decide to get up and walk around. It has a wide head (sort of like a hammerhead shark) and many-limbed quadrupedal body that imitates the form of it's long-extinct creators.

Wimguf

fucked up looking giant bowling pin lookin green sloth thing. most recent character so it doesn't have much lore yet. made it by photoshopping the wise mystical tree onto some concept art i found of uncle fungus from ice age and then stretching it really tall. I like his potential but it hasn't had much development yet.

Most of my characters go by either he, it, they or a combination of those. I will probably have some women enter this roster at some point but alot of these tend to come from interpretations of some aspect of myself. I recognise the importance of feminine representation but I am yet to confidently approach it in my character design.

For now it's a bunch of funky non-human characters that don't necessarily fit into the binary anyway and probably get whatever pronouns they may have more from how others would perceive them rather than how they see themselves.

I am continuing to write more characters and as I go more into the human/human-like races of my worldbuilding project there'll be a bit more gender variety.

#frongle lore #original characters #man this took a solid 2 hours or something #should be a good start-off for this blog so i can start posting the things whizzing around in my brain instead of just rbing

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once-was-muses · 2 years

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Muse Shitpost Meme

Assign each of your muses one shitpost (still, gif, audio, video format) you feel best conveys them. Tag as many other multis as you'd like. Remember; repost, don't reblog!

01. Abe Sapien : Goofy in the pool

02. Ante : why? : (

03. Antonio da Vinci : scooter time

04. Catwoman : "Is it ugly on purpose?"

05. Crazy Quilt : "That's nice, what does it say?"

06. Copperhead : hmm snake

07. Dedan : tantrum hole

08. Dr. Leland : "You're all going to hell. Goodbye <3"

09. Dr. Phosphorus : the skeleton appears

10. Eraser : "WHERE'S THE MONEY, LEBOWSKI?"

11. Fright : plague doctor gangster's paradise

12. Gentleman Ghost : disappear

13. Goswin : "No"

14. Jackdaw : "GET YO FUCKIN DOG BITCH-"

15. King Tut : "YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ARE GONNA KILL ALL MY LILLIES!"

16. March Harriet : "Fuck you!"

17. Mr. Bloom : "I have never enjoyed living in the world"

18. Nyarlathotep : "I have a permit"

19. Onomatopoeia : McDonald's shriek [Volume warning]

20. Pegleg : "Quit your job"

21. Phantom : "Everybody knows SHIT'S! FUCKED!"

22. Rag Doll : "LET ME HEAR YOUR WAR CRY" [Volume and. uncanny valley warning I guess???]

23. Saint Walker : kissy fish

24. Salaak : LEGO Yoda death noise

25. Two-Face : "I GOTCHU ON CAMERA"

Tagging: @pandoras-boudoir @inhuman-hearts @lilaxwine @librarywent

#Disembodied Laughter : crack #dash games tag tba

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snowywraithy · 1 year

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yknow what I am gonna say it

Plague Doctor Gangster Paradise is gender

#levi shut up

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infectedpaul · 2 years

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please picture that one gangsters paradise video of the plague doctor but its death

#dex says things

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themovieblogonline · 2 years

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Best Shows to Watch on BBC iPlayer

There is truly something for everyone in 2022's slate of high-profile dramas for the BBC, from the suspenseful second season of The Capture to the contemplative and meticulously crafted Marriage. New seasons of well-liked programmes like Death in Paradise and Call the Midwife have also debuted this year, along with other brand-new additions like This is Going to Hurt and The Control Room. In addition to providing its clients with security, BBC iPlayer has always been at the forefront of presenting high-quality media material. Because of this, UK residents can only access iPlayer services. You can watch BBC iPlayer shows using free VPN if you are traveling or live outside of the UK. You can use a VPN to access the streaming service; it will hide your IP address and secure your private data. There are many more boxsets of iconic modern shows and classic television series available to binge-watch on BBC iPlayer if you don't feel like waiting to watch any of these right now. The entire run of Killing Eve, the complete run of Doctor Who's most recent seasons, and the just concluded Peaky Blinders are all accessible. If you're a lover of thrillers or prefer sci-fi or period dramas, we've put together a list of all the top series now airing so you can find something to suit you without all that time-consuming wandering. The Best Shows to Stream on BBC iPlayer The top iPlayer shows of all time are listed below: The Fades In the fantasy horror film "The Fades," Iain De Caestecker plays Paul, a teenager plagued by end-of-the-world visions that neither he nor his best buddy Mac (Daniel Kaluuya) can explain. Paul begins to notice the Fades in the first episode—the ghosts of the dead—all about him. Daniela Nardini, Tom Ellis, and Natalie Dormer are all featured in the six-part series. In September 2011, BBC Three and the BBC HD Channel both debuted it. Observing The Fades for the following reasons: The Fades, a 2012 production by writer and producer Jack Thorne, was one of the undervalued shows on BBC Three before the channel was shut down in 2016. Responsible Child A drama based on facts that tell the tale of Ray, a pre-adolescent youngster who gets arrested along with his older brother Nathan for killing his mother's violent spouse. Ray is on trial for murder in an adult courtroom because the legal drinking age is ten. Both the events leading up to the crime and the boy's experience during the trial are followed in the movie. starring James Tarpey, Tom Burke, Michelle Fairley, Billy Barratt, and Observing Responsible Child for: When does a youngster take complete ownership of their behavior? Can they ever take accountability? What happens if those behaviors involve something gravely harmful? A crime like murder? That is one of the inquiries made in the factual drama by documentary filmmaker Nick Holt. Peaky Blinders Cillian Murphy and Sam Neill star in this historical gangster drama about a Birmingham family that manage a feared criminal ring and profit from illegal gambling, protection work, and the black market. Why watch Peaky Blinders? Peaky Blinders was the little show that could, growing from modest beginnings on BBC Two to become a global success story. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest crime dramas of the twenty-first century. Now that all six seasons are accessible on iPlayer, you can follow Tommy Shelby's development from a petty gang leader to a wealthy Member of Parliament. The characters in the series—whether they were played by Tom Hardy's Alfie Solomons, the late great Helen McCrory's Polly Shelby, or Sam Claflin's cunning Oswald Mosley—were what really drew viewers in. The Control Room Thriller starring Joanna Vanderham and Iain De Caestecker. A woman who seems to know him calls an emergency call handler in a distressed manner. What draws you to The Control Room? Iain De Caestecker is the star of this brand-new BBC drama, which is a suspenseful thriller from the get-go. De Caestecker plays Gabe, a call handler for emergency situations whose life is flipped upside down when he receives a call from a troubled woman who seems to recognize him from his past. Any further narrative details would be giving the game away, as the show keeps its cards close to its breast and wants to wow viewers along the way with its many twists and shocks. Life A drama based on the interconnected tales of the residents of a Manchester home separated into four flats. featuring Adrian Lester, Peter Davison, and Alison Steadman. Why watch Life? Do you recall the infamous Doctor Foster episodes where scheming and steamy escapades tore a family apart? Well, the intense thriller has a startling spin-off in the BBC series Life. While Victoria Hamilton plays Anna Baker (now known as Belle Stone) from the Suranne Jones-hosted programme, don't anticipate Gemma Foster to make an appearance and stir some trouble midway through. As the series explores mental health, alcoholism, and of course, love, life centers around a Victorian mansion made up of four different flats with four different tenants, each with its problems and challenges. Bloodlands Preserving the harmony in the present while looking for solace in the past. The stakes have never been higher for DCI Tom Brannick than when unsolved cold cases raise the possibility of revealing a notorious killer. Why watch Bloodlands? Bloodlands is the latest crime drama you need to watch if you're pining for something to engross you while you wait for the confirmation of Line of Duty series seven. Be ready for some unexpected turns in this James Nesbitt-starring series from executive producer Jed Mercurio of Line of Duty and Bodyguard. Conclusion In this article, we have enlisted the top shows on BBC iPlayer. Hope you would have enjoyed reading the article and would have learned briefly about TV shows. Read the full article

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blurrymango · 2 years

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Imagine having sex with a plague doctor and he starts playing the song Gangster's Paradise.

I Would Still Cum but, dude. :/

Not the Proper song for ffucking, in my opinion.

#mango man speaks

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kindliest-of-doodles · 3 years

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Plagued with good sense in this cruel world. Stay safe!

#plague doctor #covid 19 #doodle #social distancing #shitpost #stay safe everyone!#all i could hear was Gangster's paradise lmao

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mayhem-moth · 5 months

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i associate you with a plague doctor and idk why

I aspire to be like a plague doctor😔

Someday, i will be as cool as the plague doctor that dances to gangsters paradise. Someday.

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haruchiyos · 3 years

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Memes my ADHD brain will never let go of

— bANANA BREAD AT WORK DUDE??? HELL YEAH

— what the FUCK is up Kyle

— the video of the guy in the plague doctor outfit walking to gangster’s paradise

— this

— whose horse is that ???

— the fucking hank hill jpeg/hotdog quote

— 👌🏻”good soup”

— it fucken wimdy

— what the fuck is going on in here on this day?

— that one cursed photo of Robert Pattinson

— what if we kissed in the back of hot topic (and we we’re both girls 😳😳)

— the “this man ate my son” Ted Cruz stickers

— I like some of the gaga songs, what the fuck does she know about cameras?

— battle scars

#🖤.az speaks #this is a cry for help

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wardogsong · 5 years

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FRATT.

CATCH ME SHIPPING FRANK LIKE FEDEX || accepting

How did they they meet? On a rooftop on a clear moonlit night… it was very romantic. Frank flirted by pointing a gun at Matt with a waggle of brows, playfully saying BANG! at him, then shooting him in the forehead-protector.Who developed romantic feelings first? It’s hard to say, as they are not men who commemorate anniversaries or things of that nature. Their tryst started as strictly sexual, a little bit of fun beyond the sparring they so often found themselves locked in when they crossed paths– both of them too respectful of the other to do serious harm. Fighting became a game, and sex followed. Romance… wasn’t meant to be on the books. It’s likely though that it wound up being a drain they started circling around the same time. Rooftops to bedrooms to morning afters… trust was established, and it weakened both hardened men to something they both thought they couldn’t and shouldn’t have.Who is their biggest “shipper?” It’s a tie between about fourteen to twenty nieces and nephews and cousins of Frank’s, all of whom idolize the Irish boxer-lawyer he’s brought home, even if he sometimes gets kinda preachy. Matt Murdock is a big hit at the Brewster house. Whenever there’s trouble in paradise, it’s those nieces and nephews that try to pull them back together.When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances? It was a gamble that Frank took. He may or may not have pissed Red off by popping in and out of his life around the time he was working with Micro– and unintentionally insulting him by implying Red couldn’t keep up with the big boys. Fights ensued, but as they were non-lethal they ended up just being plain old fun, Frank laughing whenever he got a good hit in, and impressed whenever Red ninja’d him. Back met wall in a hold, and that Devil’s grin tempted Frank. He took a leap of faith and kissed Matt-as-Daredevil to see if he wanted to continue the fight for dominance in a more pleasurable way.Who confessed their feelings first? Frank confessed LOVE first, out of fear– out of tiredness of the nightmares that were plaguing him, the grim visions of what he was stealing from the universe and the payback it would cleave from him. Frank broke into Matt’s apartment in the dark of night, pinned him down, clapped a hand over his mouth to keep him from saying anything, and wrote a very clear message on to his back with just his finger– over and over until he was certain it had sunk in. Then he ran like a coward.What was their first official date? The rooftop with the BANG! moment? They didn’t really have one. This is a relationship they fell into all out of order, backwards and wrong, and rife with break-ups and make-ups, and lives that don’t leave much room for the sweetness of things like official dates.How do they feel about double dates/group dates? Frank was PSYCHED to go out on a double-date with his cousin Dino, his husband, and Matt!! Dino bagged a doctor, Frank a lawyer, they’d done good! Then he remembered that Dino’s doctor was also mobbed up and a serial killer… and he can’t introduce Matt to him. He holds out hope for maybe a dinner with Matt and his mentor and wife, Sal and Delores Lombardi.What do they do in their down time? Spar. Fuck. Plan missions, fight over missions, have angry sex about their different methods before Frank finally caves and plays altar-boy for a night or two. Eat more sweets than Frank can stand because Matt has a sweet tooth. Downtime isn’t something they get a lot of, but catch Frank napping at Matt’s feet like a loyal dog, while Matt works on his lawyerly paperwork.What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like? Neither of them have parents. Matt technically has a Maggie but… she would NOT be surprised Matt picked up a brawler just like she did. Frank has a Sal, which is better than a dad, but he’s afraid Sal will disapprove of him shacking up with an Irish guy. WHAT’S WRONG WITH A NICE ITALIAN LAWYER FROM BROOKLYN?What was their first fight over and how did they get past it? Murdering dozens of New Yorkers for being murdering gangsters. They got over it by Frank shooting Matt in the head and punching him a lot, and Matt saving him from the death penalty.Which one is more easily made jealous? Matt. Frank.. doesn’t not care, exactly… but… eh. Cheating happens. They’re dating, not dead. Men have eyes, and they have needs. He doesn’t care if Matt gets his itch scratched somewhere else. Frank scratches himself all over the place, and doesn’t hide it.What is their favourite thing to get to eat? Matt’s ass. Italian sweets. Loads of gelato. Matt has a sweet tooth and Frank lives to feed it.Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position? Frank-in-love is a big fat cuddly puppy. His favorite thing to do is just drop all 900 lbs of himself on Matt’s prone form and kill him suffocate him.Are they hand holders? Frank is!How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances? ……. what waiting? They were fighting, then bang bang bang, they were banging.Who tops? Frank 98% of the time. He’s not big on bottoming. Matt introduces him to it, but Frank only really enjoys it in theory. He gets a bigger kick out of watching Matt do his thing, than out of the actual thing he is doing.What’s the worst fight they’ve ever gotten into? The ones about Frank’s wandering penis are pretty big. The ones about Frank promising to play by Daredevil’s rules, only to snap and kill a guy– or kidnap and torture him, before killing him, too. Matt takes big digs at Frank about not being able to help himself, and Frank is a solid wall of not giving a fuck. sex offenders don’t get the right to live. ever. Who does the shopping and the cooking? Frank does the shopping and a little of the cooking. They live off of more take-out than humans should.Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness? Here they break even for different reasons. Matt needs things to stay in a certain and familiar order, at least within his home and office, on account of his lacking sight. Frank is still holding on to military training about neatness and precision. He field days Matt’s apartment regularly, never makes a mess, and always keeps things just like Matt had them.Who proposes? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… oh.. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAA No. That is not a thing that’s EVER going to happen. Ever.Do they have joined Bachelor/Bacheloette parties or separate? They don’t have those, or a reason to have them. Which is a damn shame, because Frank makes a hot cop!Stripper. Tragically, stripping is wasted on Matt.Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids? They don’t get these either, but Foggy, Karen, and Dino would all make decent candidates.Big Ceremony or Small? No ceremony. Not even a slip of paper at a court. Frank’s a wanted criminal, a fugitive, and Matt’s his lawyer. Also, that’d be like spitting skyward and daring somebody to do something. It wouldn’t end well.Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where? Every night after they hurt some bad guys. It’s pretty good.Do they have children? How many? They do not, but they do have an old fighting dog that Frank rescued and Matt eventually fell in love with. His name’s Doggy and you can catch him playing guard dog at the offices of Nelson and Murdock.

#. ( ᴀsᴋᴇᴅ & ᴀɴsᴡᴇʀᴇᴅ ) .#hellsainted

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newstfionline · 6 years

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A World of Free Movement Would Be $78 Trillion Richer

The Economist, June 23, 2018

A hundred-dollar bill is lying on the ground. An economist walks past it. A friend asks the economist: “Didn’t you see the money there?” The economist replies: “I thought I saw something, but I must have imagined it. If there had been $100 on the ground, someone would have picked it up.”

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is not actually true. But occasionally it is. Michael Clemens, an economist at the Centre for Global Development, an anti-poverty think-tank in Washington, DC, argues that there are “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk”. One seemingly simple policy could make the world twice as rich as it is: open borders.

Workers become far more productive when they move from a poor country to a rich one. Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital, efficient firms and a predictable legal system. Those who used to scrape a living from the soil with a wooden hoe start driving tractors. Those who once made mud bricks by hand start working with cranes and mechanical diggers. Those who cut hair find richer clients who tip better.

“Labour is the world’s most valuable commodity--yet thanks to strict immigration regulation, most of it goes to waste,” argue Bryan Caplan and Vipul Naik in “A radical case for open borders”. Mexican labourers who migrate to the United States can expect to earn 150% more. Unskilled Nigerians make 1,000% more.

“Making Nigerians stay in Nigeria is as economically senseless as making farmers plant in Antarctica,” argue Mr Caplan and Mr Naik. And the non-economic benefits are hardly trivial, either. A Nigerian in the United States cannot be enslaved by the Islamists of Boko Haram.

The potential gains from open borders dwarf those of, say, completely free trade, let alone foreign aid. Yet the idea is everywhere treated as a fantasy. In most countries fewer than 10% of people favour it. In the era of Brexit and Donald Trump, it is a political non-starter. Nonetheless, it is worth asking what might happen if borders were, indeed, open.

To clarify, “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some countries are well-run and others, abysmally so.

Workers in rich countries earn more than those in poor countries partly because they are better educated but mostly because they live in societies that have, over many years, developed institutions that foster prosperity and peace. It is very hard to transfer Canadian institutions to Cambodia, but quite straightforward for a Cambodian family to fly to Canada. The quickest way to eliminate absolute poverty would be to allow people to leave the places where it persists. Their poverty would thus become more visible to citizens of the rich world--who would see many more Liberians and Bangladeshis waiting tables and stacking shelves--but much less severe.

If borders were open, how many people would up sticks? Gallup, a pollster, estimated in 2013 that 630m people--about 13% of the world’s population--would migrate permanently if they could, and even more would move temporarily. Some 138m would settle in the United States, 42m in Britain and 29m in Saudi Arabia.

Gallup’s numbers could be an overestimate. People do not always do what they say they will. Leaving one’s homeland requires courage and resilience. Migrants must wave goodbye to familiar people, familiar customs and grandma’s cooking. Many people would rather not make that sacrifice, even for the prospect of large material rewards.

Wages are twice as high in Germany as in Greece, and under European Union rules Greeks are free to move to Germany, but only 150,000 have done so since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2010, out of a population of 11m. The weather is awful in Frankfurt, and hardly anyone speaks Greek. Even very large disparities combined with open borders do not necessarily lead to a mass exodus. Since 1986 the citizens of Micronesia have been allowed to live and work without a visa in the United States, where income per person is roughly 20 times higher. Yet two-thirds remain in Micronesia.

Despite these caveats, it is a fair bet that open borders would lead to very large flows of people. The gap between rich and poor countries globally is much wider than the gap between the richest and less-rich countries within Europe, and most poor countries are not Pacific-island paradises. Many are violent as well as poor, or have oppressive governments.

Also, migration is, in the jargon, “path-dependent”. It starts with a trickle: the first person to move from country A to country B typically arrives in a place where no one speaks his language or knows the right way to cook noodles. But the second migrant--who may be his brother or cousin--has someone to show him around. As word spreads on the diaspora grapevine that country B is a good place to live, more people set off from country A. When the 1,000th migrant arrives, he finds a whole neighbourhood of his compatriots.

So the Gallup numbers could just as well be too low. Today there are 1.4bn people in rich countries and 6bn in not-so-rich ones. It is hardly far-fetched to imagine that, over a few decades, a billion or more of those people might emigrate if there were no legal obstacle to doing so. Clearly, this would transform rich countries in unpredictable ways.

Voters in destination states typically do not mind a bit of immigration, but fret that truly open borders would lead to them being “swamped” by foreigners. This, they fear, would make life worse, and perhaps threaten the political system that made their country worth moving to in the first place. Mass migration, they worry, would bring more crime and terrorism, lower wages for locals, an impossible strain on welfare states, horrific overcrowding and traumatic cultural disruption.

If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? It is an understandable fear (and one that anti-immigrant politicians play on), but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. Granted, some immigrants commit crimes, or even headline-grabbing acts of terrorism. But in America the foreign-born are only a fifth as likely to be incarcerated as the native-born. In some European countries, such as Sweden, migrants are more likely to get into trouble than locals, but this is mostly because they are more likely to be young and male. A study of migration flows among 145 countries between 1970 and 2000 by researchers at the University of Warwick found that migration was more likely to reduce terrorism than increase it, largely because migration fosters economic growth.

Would large-scale immigration make locals worse off economically? So far, it has not. Immigrants are more likely than the native-born to bring new ideas and start their own businesses, many of which hire locals. Overall, migrants are less likely than the native-born to be a drain on public finances, unless local laws make it impossible for them to work, as is the case for asylum-seekers in Britain. A large influx of foreign workers may slightly depress the wages of locals with similar skills. But most immigrants have different skills. Foreign doctors and engineers ease skills shortages. Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-born to do more lucrative work.

Would open borders cause overcrowding? Perhaps, in popular cities like London. But most Western cities could build much higher than they do, creating more space. And mass migration would make the world as a whole less crowded, since fertility among migrants quickly plunges until it is much closer to the norm of their host country than their country of origin.

Would mass immigration change the culture and politics of rich countries? Undoubtedly. Look at the way America has changed, mostly for the better, as its population soared from 5m mainly white folks in 1800 to 320m many-hued ones today. Still, that does not prove that future waves of immigration will be benign. Newcomers from illiberal lands might bring unwelcome customs, such as political corruption or intolerance for gay people. If enough of them came, they might vote for an Islamist government, or one that raises taxes on the native-born to pamper the newcomers.

There are certainly risks if borders are opened suddenly and without the right policies to help absorb the inflow. But nearly all these risks could be mitigated, and many of the most common objections overcome, with a bit of creative thinking.

If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote--for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in. If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges.

This sounds horribly discriminatory, and it is. But it is better for the migrants than the status quo, in which they are excluded from rich-world labour markets unless they pay tens of thousands of dollars to people-smugglers--and even then they must work in the shadows and are subject to sudden deportation. Today, millions of migrants work in the Gulf, where they have no political rights at all. Despite this, they keep coming. No one is forcing them to.

“Open borders would make foreigners trillions of dollars richer,” observes Mr Caplan. A thoughtful voter, even if he does not care about the welfare of foreigners, “should not say...’So what?’ Instead, he should say, ‘Trillions of dollars of wealth are on the table. How can my countrymen get a hefty piece of the action?’ Modern governments routinely use taxes and transfers to redistribute from young to old and rich to poor. Why not use the same policy tools to redistribute from foreign to native?” If a world of free movement would be $78trn richer, should not liberals be prepared to make big political compromises to bring it about?

#immigration #open borders #free movement

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