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 -
It's gotten really, really bad lately. I visited my family in Nova Scotia over the summer and I was just completely stunned at how utterly the demographics of my small rural hometown had changed, even over just the last decade. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every service worker I interacted with was Indian, Pakistani, or some other flavor of subcontinental. This in a town of ~4000 that was 97% white in 2001. Both of the local pizza joints which I fondly remember from my childhood have been sold to immigrants and the staff completely replaced. I haven't really looked into it, but as I understand it most of these workers are not strictly immigrants, they're there on some kind of education visa that allows them to work (and allegedly businesses are subsidized for hiring them -- not sure how accurate that is, but it's what locals are claiming.) There have always been "temporary foreign workers" involved in agriculture but the recent changes are just categorically different. (Professionals such as doctors and other medical specialists have also been mostly sourced from India for a while, but there were generally fewer complaints about that.)
Property prices have also increased commensurately, but none of the homeowners I spoke with felt particularly "enriched" because the increase is basically global and even if they cashed out there's nowhere else to move to. Some own lakeside cottages that they plan to retreat to; most aren't so lucky.
The mood is generally quite dour. I don't think anyone expected such a rapid demographic change was even possible, and it doesn't seem like something they can vote their way out of.
Isn't the issue that Canadian doctors & especially nurses move to the US ?
And why wouldn't they? Identical culture, no further than Canadian cities are from each other and an immediate 2-3x pay bump.
Same applies to Tech & Finance. Canada is facing the exact same problem as middle America. All jobs are in the regional economic hub. Not enough young to run these small towns, because the young are leaving. Those regional hubs are in Coastal USA : primarily California and the NE corridor. A Nova Scotian is both physically and culturally closer to New England, than many American states are to each other.
We're the previous staff out of a job or did they more to better things ?
I don't want to make it sound like I'm make light of what's clearly a drastic change. Seems like the locals didn't want it. And small towns can't sustain their existing culture in the face of such rapid change. I empathize.
One question. How do these towns of 4000 survive in the first place ?
Sounds like a low skill resource based economy. It doesn't sound like immigrants are coming in to take the jobs. Sounds more blue-collar owners have stopped working, and started delegating. Canadians aren't reproducing. The few young are leaving for urban areas. Someone has to catch the fish and cut the trees. IMO, might as well be immigrants. I understand if people don't want immigrants. But, are there any young locals to do these jobs at all ? How do you think these villages would survive otherwise ?
More options
Context Copy link
And that’s why I’m so terrified about the current election in the states. It seems like if the Dems win, then permanent demographic change (with one party state).
In principle the natives could vote out the politicians and pursue a deportation strategy. But the natives while firmly being anti migration are slightly more divided compared to the unified group of new voters.
Isn’t permanent demographic change already inevitable? In 1950, the United States was 89.5% white, 10% black, and 0.5% other. By 2000, the U.S. was 75.1% white, 12.3% black, and 12.6% other. As of 2020, the United States is 61.6% white (57.8% non-Hispanic white), 12.4% black, and 26% other. You can see stats on other years here. Today, every age group under 25 is now less than 50% non-Hispanic white. There’s no reversing that.
Yes, but the magnitude matters. America becoming ~45% non-Hispanic white and 25% Hispanic is baked in now.
However, keep legal plus illegal immigration at 3 million plus for another generation and the demographic shares will continue to shift (toward more black and Asian specifically). It will be very different from current no matter what, but how different is tbd.
Yeah, but that means an overall white majority, because many of those Hispanics are white.
...as are blacks who vote Republican if NBC and Joe Biden are to believed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Fully, no, but I'd be interested in statistics on what the racial makeup would look like if the 20 or 30 biggest cities got deleted; my eyeball says they tend somewhat more minority (especially black).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
Looks like we'd lose a lot of our Asians, but just eyeballing the list there'd be plenty of large black and Hispanic populations left.
More options
Context Copy link
"If we get nuked at least we'd have got rid of some blacks" is certainly one of the takes.
I'm really just curious what kind of a train of thought led you to that.
I'm making an Is statement, not an Ought statement.
Nuclear war is on my mind a fair bit, especially right now since October's a good month for amphibious invasion of Taiwan and the USA has a known demented President and an election campaign in progress that's seen a disqualification attempt and two assassination attempts already (and the election being a shitshow was predictable years in advance). So when somebody makes a statement that seems to discount nuclear war as a possibility, it pings my "someone is wrong on the internet" instinct.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Probably—but it can get worse.
More options
Context Copy link
Not with that attitude!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The premier of Nova Scotia wants to double the population of the province by 2060. To achieve that would require immigration like NS has seen over the past 3 years repeated at the same level for the next 35. And he's the conservative.
It would be wrong to break down the way Canadian politics operates with respect to immigration as a conservative/liberal split. It is more coherently a young vs old dynamic, and somewhat even more pointedly people who own property vs people who don't.
Up until very recently there was a very strong national pro-immigration consensus across pretty much the entire political spectrum and all demographics, with the one exception being a fringe national party (People's Party). Canada was by a decent margin the most welcoming country to new immigrants and perceptions of the immigration system in general were strongly favourable. This was I think in part a reflection that the system itself was well-designed: priority to well-off, educated immigrants who spoke either national language.
The capital "I" immigration rate has gone up, but people don't really have a problem with this. More concerning to Canadians has been the growth in other types of migrants: international students, temporary foreign workers, asylum seekers/refugees. It's these categories that have driven the massive increases in population. For example in 2023 the breakdown was 477k new immigrants (i.e., foreign nationals offered permanent residence) and ~ 1.3 million "temporary" residents.
While the federal Liberals have certainly enabled and to a large part driven the abuse of these other flows of migration, they have not been the only bad actors. Provincial conservative-run governments have absolutely followed them in this race to rebuild Punjab in Canada. Together they have in the course of about two years absolutely destroyed the national consensus on immigration.
I think the pre-2015 immigration consensus was only partly to do with selectivity. The numbers were still high, but they went overwhelmingly to large cities that were already multicultural— especially their large suburbs. It was possible to live in Canada from 2000 to 2015 say and not perceive the rapid changes because they were occurring in Brampton. And critically, because they were so concentrated and numbers not insane, housing could respond. As recently as 2015, housing outside of the top 3 metros wasn’t just affordable it was cheap.
Now it’s everywhere. Every small town. Every neighborhood.
Yeah, I had a similar experience to you going back home last month and finding out the old hairdressing place I went to as a kid is now all Indians. And the grocery store I went to as a kid is all Indians. Etc. etc. I live in a very diverse part of Toronto so it's not like I'm easily shocked or whatever. Hell, even in my neighbourhood we're a lot different than three years ago, because the Filipinos and Chinese and African immigrants have been shunted out by Indians too. My brother-in-law who lived in Toronto for a decade was very surprised when he came back this year, and remarked how Toronto feels so much less diverse now that Indians are forming a new pseudo-majority in many neighbourhoods or employment sectors.
In my personal life I engage with a lot of well-off Torontonians, the type who have historically been among the most pro-Liberal (capital L) and pro-immigration. They have up until recently been insulated from the effects of immigration while benefiting enormously from higher property values and depressed wages. It's finally creeping up on them too: it's car thefts and the fact that their kids (like high-school, university age) can't get jobs. There are no typical student jobs left anymore. McDonalds? Grocery store? Retail? Forget it. There are a dozen people from Punjab for every Canadian kid, and they will put up with a lot more shit. These well-off Canadians are finally starting to realize they've created a country that is hostile to their children.
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