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 the extreme lengths Indians are willing to go to to gain entry to the United States puts normal Americans in a difficult position.
On the one hand, I don't think many Americans actually want very large numbers of Indians to immigrate to the United States. Probably a minority does, many are largely indifferent, and a sizeable proportion does not.
In many cases this goes even for the ones who, like this poster, are obviously intelligent and have marketable skills. Frankly, we don't really need them. We're already doing fine.
On the other hand, Americans like to think of ourselves as being easygoing, tolerant and well-meaning people. This is an important part of our self-image. We would like to prevent very large numbers of Indians from moving to the United States, many of whom will do literally anything to do so, but this requires us to say 'no' over and over again and to erect ever higher barriers to filter them out. This forces us to admit that we aren't as nice and altruistic as we like to let on. This is psychologically exhausting.
It's actually similar to Scott's experiences dealing with street beggars in India, which he blogged about. I don't mean that the situations are identical, just that the psychological difficulty is similar.
As the poster mentions, one solution to this would be to auction off residence spots. The EB-5 visa can be seen as a step in this direction. I would actually support a system that just replaces all visas of any kind with a single auctioned visa. I don't think this is morally unreasonable. Residency in the US is extremely valuable. It is also more economically efficient to put a price on scarce and valuable goods.
If this system were implemented, it would reduce demand while allowing American citizens to collect more of the proceeds from immigration. This would be psychologically less unpleasant (for us). But if we needed to salve our consciences further, we could spend some or all of the proceeds on poverty relief in the third world.
However, I wouldn't demand the price be paid up front; it would be possible to pay an additional tax on your earnings in the US instead. This might actually allow entrance to many people who are denied under the current system.
More options
Context Copy link