This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think we'd need to see a counter-factual of a Western European country that hasn't allowed mass immigration.
Does Hungary count?
It's not Western.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The better parts of Eastern Europe are shaping up to be this counterfactual. For what it's worth, places like Poland and the Czech Republic have little crime and no ethnic tensions, and maintain their culture.
Those are good examples and Poland and Czechia have also seen high economic growth. The one caveat is that much of this growth is simply catching up with more developed neighbors in the EU.
My theory is that a fully developed country like say, Germany, would not suffer lower economic growth if immigration was reduced by 90%. I just don't see how importing low human capital workers from dysfunctional societies can be a positive.
At this point though, the damage is done. Even if Germany and France cut immigration to zero, they now have a sizeable racial underclass much like the U.S. does. They are finding out how thorny of a problem that can be.
More options
Context Copy link
Note: it remains to be seen how Ukrainian migrants/refugees will work out long term in for example Poland. Now we are up a bit from "literally zero ethnic tensions", but still relatively low on overall scale.
Haven’t Ukrainians who managed to convince much wealthier countries they’re refugees been largely a net positive in those countries? I’d think more culturally-similar Poland would benefit even more.
"net positive" does not eliminate ethnic tensions, especially in country that used to be monolingual and monoethic.
For start, there are some people who lost on the changes or at least perceive themselves as losing or just hate that someone else benefitted more than them.
And there are some conflicts but more of "call with speaker enabled in train" rather than "create organised rape gang and blackmail police for years". Still, induces nonzero ethnic tensions what is noticeable when we used to have basically none.
For example https://konfederacja.pl/ (party on right, with most significant enti-EU, for free market, pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine, with bunch of clowns but has enough support to be elected) has constant anti-Ukrainian content, including attacking people in Poland.
That’s fair, but Ukrainian refugees are pretty much all women and children and the languages are pretty close to mutually intelligible, right? Like if holland got invaded and all the Dutch women and children moved to England I predict they’d assimilate pretty well, and that’s about my mental model of the difference here.
close to but not mutually intelligible
And among Polish women (who are more likely to compete with new people) acceptance of Ukrainians is markedly lower
so far it goes relatively well
note that "some ethnic tensions" is from perspective of place that had none of them, where violence/racial/ethnic tension are far, far, far below USA ones and so on
Really? That's fascinating. It would definitely create a contrast with the west, where my understanding is women are more accepting of immigration than men.
https://www.rp.pl/spoleczenstwo/art38269511-sondaz-wobec-uchodzcow-z-ukrainy-niechetne-sa-glownie-mlode-kobiety is a very quick example (I remember nice data analysis, cannot find it but effect clearly exists)
among polled - young woman rated in 48% as bad/very bad, 44% as good/very good.
In full population: 57% positive, 30% negative.
(before anyone compares it directly with other countries: Poles love to complain, what is visible also in positive/negative polls - while say Brazilians will give inflated positive answers)
And where it is typically men who who migrate and compete with men.
More options
Context Copy link
Ukrainian migrants are all women. The rush for depopulating eastern european countries to get them into the workforce now creates downwards pressures on female wages.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Switzerland maybe?
Switzerland has very high rates of EU and non-EU immigration.
More options
Context Copy link
Switzerland literally has the highest percentage of foreign-born population out of all Western European non-microstate countries.
Yes, but 85% migrants are from Europe, and 44% are specifically from other first-world countries like France, Spain, Germany, Austria, the UK and Italy. Also, there is no low-skilled foreign helot class being imported as in the US and UK. "The admission of people from non-EU/EFTA countries is regulated by the Foreign Nationals Act, and is limited to skilled workers who are urgently required and are likely to integrate successfully in the long term. There are quotas established yearly: in 2012 it was 3,500 residency permits and 5,000 short-term permits." Further, the Swiss don't appear to have nearly the problem of islamic radicalization that France and the UK do, and aren't shy about tackling it when it looks like it might become an issue.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link