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 -
Britain's economy has been unusually poorly performing, primarily due to all this migration IMO. There's no need to mechanize if labor is cheap. Why bother raising wages if there's another 100K arriving this quarter? Though there are also issues with planning laws and endless delays/community consultation.
Migration now is peanuts compared to what's coming when climate change starts really hitting Sub-Saharan Africa. They're one of the only remaining regions with high population growth. Africa is supposed to hit 2.4 billion by 2050, much of that will be in the least developed parts. There's little water, few jobs and already considerable political dysfunction.
If Europe does not adopt an Australian-style migration policy, they'll experience serious problems. There's a fairly high cap for skilled immigration. However, Australia had a policy that no asylum seekers who arrived by boat would be resettled in the country, regardless of whether they were legitimate or not. They get sent to Nauru for processing. At best they'd get to be resettled in Papua New Guinea, an unappealing prospect. Boats that came to Australia would often be turned back to the port of origin. Europe has more naval power/km of coastline than Australia. They have the power to turn back the boats, it is only a matter of will. The EU is very troublesome here, human rights lawyers are mostly ignored in Australia but hold power in the EU. There appear to be various NGOs who shuttle refugees across the Mediterranean, these could be broken up.
/images/1669589440237527.webp
Isn't this disproven by China, which had a lot of cheap labor but 'mechanized' - or any country that's gone from poor agriculture to first world?
And for explaining the economy - a very quick google claimed 'There were a record 44.8 million immigrants living in the U.S. in 2018, making up 13.7% of the nation's population', while 'Last year 16.8% of people in England and Wales had been born outside Britain, up from 13.4 in 2011'. Those are quite close, so that can't be it. Comparing in europe - "As of 2019, around 13.7 million people living in Germany, or about 17% of the population, are first-generation immigrants", despite a gdp/capita higher than the UK.
It's funny how 'there is a broad correlation between X and Y across countries' can't prove 'X causes Y', but 'there isn't a broad correlation across countries' serves as evidence here against 'X causes Y'. But it's fine because - I'm not using this to claim 'therefore, immigration doesn't hurt economies' - just claiming that 'britain's claimed economic underperformance can't be caused by more immigration in a simple sense'. i.e. - yeah, maybe most higher-immigration countries have some factor Z that improves the economy that correlates with immigration, so it 'looks like' Z and immigration don't affect the economy, but britain has immigration and no Z, so its economy is impacted. Even then, though, britain's "unusually" poorly performing economy, relative to the world, can't be caused by immigration - that'd be the difference in Z (or britain having a different kind of immigrants or something)
Add this to the fact that America has indeed stayed powerful and effective despite multiple waves of mass immigration. I think the idea that naturalization is rare and/or difficult needs to have extremely strong evidence behind it to be believed.
Naturalization and remaining powerful are two different things.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link