Brainwavez
41m ago
I support rejecting muslims who are too strict that they don't accept other religions. Other muslims may adapt their religion for modern times, like how many Christians and Jews have.
Tolerating other religions is certainly important if you're immigrating to a country with them. If intolerant muslims want to stay in intolerant communities, that's fine with me (same with Christian and Jewish sects).
Brainwavez
2hr ago
Brainwavez
3hr ago
People who intrinsically dislike immigrants: I don’t appeal to, but I’m sure they’re the minority, even prominent anti-immigrant politicians have immigrant friends/family (e.g. the AfD leader’s Sri Lankan wife).
People who don’t want a majority of immigrants in their community: I think that’s fair, and I’d support an immigration policy that caps number of immigrants at some ratio of the population (even refugees, because too many will overwhelm the system and there are other safe countries).
Although as you mention, small-scale immigration may not happen, in that case I doubt remigration would either.
You're going to have to give me some example of the dangers of this supposed nostalgia, and maybe show why those dangers are worse than losing any sense of shared destiny/creating mutual ethnic strife and so on that we already see
A culture can survive without foreign imports, as this is what the “culture” of the entire planet does.
But:
-
It can’t compete with cultures that take the best advancements from others
-
It can’t focus too much on nostalgia. Some is OK, but it must experiment and evolve new characteristics. Otherwise it’s the nation equivalent of “peaked in high school”, guaranteed to become incompatible with the rest of the changing world
Brainwavez
6hr ago
Honestly, sending immigrants to Australia (with its vast empty space and functioning government, so they can live safely but not interfere) and paying them seems like it could work. I’m not intentionally trolling, but there’s probably a serious caveat obvious to anyone who’s actually familiar with geopolitics (as opposed to tech); OTOH in the desert regions, I don’t see how they’d get food and shelter or what they’d do in exchange to not drain from the rest of society.
Brainwavez
6hr ago
What vengeance will a stable Syria take?
You may be right. But look at Palestine: the nation itself seems to barely affect Israel, but it has garnered support which may shift politics in larger nations.
Brainwavez
6hr ago
Ethics need to be changed but I’m arguing for moderation. I won’t really argue where the line is drawn, except that it shouldn’t be drawn at “remigration” or deporting immigrants who clearly seem to be contributing and assimilating.
You’re right that the polar opposite of Nazis are also bad, which is why “Nazis also did X” is a fallacy: Nazis made the trains run on time, and imprisoned dangerous criminals, both ethical. But when they imprisoned innocent Jews and were unnecessarily cruel it was unethical.
If you are nice to everyone you will be taken advantage of, but if you are mean to everyone you will be shunned. In an apocalypse, if you spare someone, they may hunt you later or have some skill that becomes vital later. There’s no simple answer.
Brainwavez
6hr ago
Nationalism and immigration don’t need to conflict: nationalism and large-scale immigration can’t work except with a large suppressed underclass, but a small ratio of immigrants can be patriotic (towards their host) and the host culture’s identity and cohesion can remain.
A large ratio of the population supports at least some immigration (the Swiss referendum to cap the population failed). My understanding is that most people are unhappy because their economy is failing, institutions are overwhelmed, culture is broken…all problems worsened and maybe primarily caused by immigration, but I doubt extreme remigration will solve them. Reducing corruption, improving police enforcement, and moderate immigration reform would at least improve them.
On the other side, politicians who believe nationalism is intrinsically bad (or anti-immigrant) are wrong and should be voted out. Starmer’s image is ruined; unfortunately for him, the best way for a leftist party to get nationalist support is to publicly disavow him and other Labor politicians, or at least publicly disavow his failed policies.
National identity and imports must be balanced for culture: too much national identity creates a waning culture of nostalgia, too much imports creates an incoherent diluted culture, only a good amount of both creates a culture that improves over time.
Why would younger generations replacing new ones not accelerate the cultural decay? Older people can maintain a good status quo as well as a bad one.
Because the decay may be caused by most people having the opinions of zoomers and millennials, but living under gen X and boomer status quo, thus feeling oppressed.
You may be right that assimilation is better. I think it is whenever possible. So the ghettos are only for those who refuse or can’t do the bare minimum assimilation (which doesn’t require abandoning their culture, just adherence to laws and manners), and (probably would naturally end up) in worse conditions. Anyone who can learn to do the bare minimum should be encouraged to leave, and their children should be exposed to both inside and outside education and experience, then can choose for themselves when they reach adulthood.
I don’t support keeping jobs scarce to empower the working class, like I support self-checkout and robotics. Because I believe increased efficiency (if not automation) is inevitable in the long run. More importantly, in my original comment I explained that the alternative to at least some refugees is fascist infrastructure (unless there’s another effective way to prevent desperate immigrants supported by a sizable fraction of the population; I’d like to hear any proposals), which would probably be worse for the working class than whatever we have now.
I want the working class to have better conditions, but my proposal is for them to leave owners who’d exploit them: building and promoting cooperatives, voting for antitrust and pro-small-business regulations, building connections (with immigrants and upper classes), in the meantime living off welfare or getting better jobs themselves. I support the extra inefficiency of small businesses because it has advantages (familiarity, variety, less enshittification), and I think preventing monopolies is more feasible (even if not generally feasible) than preventing efficiency gains; alternatively, near-monopolies are fine if they avoid enshittification, citizens aren’t being overworked or starving (maybe there’s UBI), and there are emergency alternatives (hence near-monopolies).
First, actual bullshit jobs must be consolidated and eliminated.
Then, they’ll either get useful jobs or (if immigrants) low welfare. They may voluntarily deport.
With AI and robotics, there’s a chance most people will be unemployable. Then presumably the nation has much more resources, so I’d propose taking in more refugees, though not too many that it would destroy culture or overwhelm public services, and prioritizing those that assimilate (or can still contribute).
Brainwavez
9hr ago
Seeing hero of the story looting and pillaging the countryside, sacking towns, massacring POW's and burning heretics alive with clear conscience will be too much for modern audience.
The first season of Homelander suggests otherwise. Maybe the ending must be modernly positive for mainstream appeal, but mainstream likes a charming antihero and recovery from despair.
Brainwavez
10hr ago
I think cruel "work camps" will also not be most efficient: refugees will do the bare minimum, and learn to hate your country, which may haunt it later even if they're deported once their home country becomes stable (which may never happen anyways).
My impression is that most able-bodied refugees will voluntarily take low-paying jobs. So I'd propose something more modest: ensure welfare is below unskilled labor, allow refugees to accept unskilled labor (AFAIK some countries don't do this and give the refugees welfare), reduce under-the-table jobs by reducing taxes and regulations for over-the-table ones. And most importantly (which may seem out-there, but I think should be obviously part of any program imposed on any group), ask refugees what they want and think would be a good system; obviously if they say "pay us for doing nothing" don't do that, but even that is useful as an indication they're not assimilating.
Brainwavez
10hr ago
This is net downvoted (not by me) but I think you make a good point
Brainwavez
10hr ago
The only criteria I use when calling out AI is Pangram, which has a low false positive rate.
I don't mean to offend you, so I'll stop calling out your posts.
(Also, most of your posts haven't been visible for the last 1-2 days out of order, because you're in the new user filter. Once you get enough upvotes, your posts will appear to everyone else immediately).
Let's talk about the Örebro Party: (Swedish) lefty socialists except they support remigration.
Key quotes from Wikipedia (emphasis mine)
The party claims to stand for a "class-conscious populism" which according to party leader Markus Allard takes inspiration from marxist ideology and unites the "productive" classes of society against the "Transferiat", with the "Transferiat" being a term coined by Allard to describe the classes of society that lives off transfers that are a net negative for society such as those who, despite having an ability to work, live off social welfare benefits, as well as those who work "made-up services" that the party deems serve no societal function, such as bureaucrats, consultants, public sector communications specialists, strategists and HR-specialists.
In 2026 ÖP party leader Markus Allard sparked controversy on several occasions. In a debate hosted by Studio3 with Liberal member of parliament Martin Melin, Allard asked: "why won't the Liberals push for deporting 100 000 social welfare-Somalis?" and in the same debate said that "Sweden belongs to the Swedes. We have to make sure that we take care of our own damn people and we must deport these damn parasites who sit and live at our expense."
In a podcast segment about immigration and deportations Allard stated his opinion and said that "They will also be forced to leave, even if they are born in Sweden, because they have no natural connection to Sweden. They are not Swedish."
"OH YES!!! SWEDEN BELONGS TO THE SWEDES! If an immigrant refuses to adapt then they should not be here. In our national party program we will present measures for massive remigration. We need to start by getting rid of the criminals and people who have lived off of social welfare year after year. 0 arguments to keep them here. On a municipal level that which can be done, should be done to achieve remigration/deportation of these."
They've made headlines recently (and got on my radar) because Mullvad's CEO donated €452,000 to them.
My perspective on remigration:
People should live in their own communities. I remember reading an article about a tradcath community, and presumably the article wanted to criticise and mock them, but I thought they had decent values and the world is better with them. Or the furry community, even though they can be weird, sometimes produce amazing works like this. Or the unique cultures from other countries and ethnicities...hence the appeal of reversing immigration.
Immigration has ruined communities. A massive problem with today's culture is that it has become one monoculture: everything is becoming gentrified, secured, and impersonal. Translation tools, ethnic stores, etc. are accelarating this (despite otherwise being positive by granting me interesting new cultures and vice versa), by making every culture adapt every other culture's most viral aspects (which aren't necessarily good, like arguably convenience food and tipping). LLMs are accelarating this. But immigration is perhaps most accelarating this: some immigrants are even beneficial, but immigrants who don't know or respect the culture's customs, don't socialize with the rest of the community, take more than they contribute (without an apparent excuse), commit much more crime than the existing community, and don't even speak the language...break community members' unspoken understanding, friendship, altruism, trust, and communication with their neighbor.
But remigration isn't a solution. First, because I can't imagine how to do it remotely ethically. Comparing anything right-wing to Nazism is an overused cliche, but it fits here: AFAIK Nazis initially planned to just deport the Jews somewhere (Madagascar), but ended up brutally overworking and exterminating them, because their end goal was to get rid of them and that was easiest. How would you get rid of immigrants if Somalia etc. won't accept them? What if it's too expensive? What if it's dangerous for them? What about women and children?
These are difficult questions not only morally, but the infrastructure (military tactics) to effectively implement remigration is dangerous for your own sake. It risks broadening persecution, creating a fascist state, an ugly monoculture...the exact failure it seeks to prevent.
So what to do? I don't oppose moderate immigration reform, like:
- Some restrictions on immigration
- More thorough vetting
- Rejecting anyone that can't demonstrate a good reason for immigrating or contribution to the target country
- Rejecting anyone that fails a "basic human decency and tolerance" test that specifically includes tolerating other religions
- Sending refugees to specific countries and regions in countries that accept them, maybe in exchange for tax relief; so they're safe and with the tolerant liberals who voted for them, not tight-knit communities who voted against them
- Deporting anyone who commits a serious crime, even native-born if they have loose connections to their native country and an overseas family
- Less welfare for immigrants than citizens (still enough to survive with small extra, but less than citizens)
- Also, less welfare and rights than legal immigrants. Refugees can apply for legal immigration by learning the language and culture
- Segregated communities (which do and will form naturally), then policing their border. "But isn't that just creating nations?" Yes, it's creating states, but see bullet point 2
Honestly, I don't think these are enough to reverse the decay of culture and public resources, and they may seem like a waste of resources for unwanted immigrants, but I think too much immigration/remigration would be worse (for culture and public resources). A real solution must be broader than immigration. Fixing the other issues: making LLMs more diverse, further improving translation tools and incentivizing ethnic stores to include more cultural nuance, and increasing nationalism as a side-effect of addressing the elephant in the room: convincing most of the population to like their government (maybe by having it do something notable for the public and advertising it, and electing new parties with less out-of-touch politicians, even Örebro if they tone down remigration).
Arguably the above essay is another milquetoast thought experiment with the same conclusions everyone already knows: obviously government should not be so corrupt, etc. So another point of discussion is why Örebro decided to focus on this as their stand-out policy. Is it just marketing and they plan to implement something much more moderate (I realize I'm bad at marketing, but I'm skeptical this would work for a generally leftist party). Is it a radical idea to appeal to the working class? Is it only the media that's focusing on this policy, and Örebro themselves consider it a less important part of the agenda compared to the socialist policies? (Probably all of the above, especially the third.)
I do think we need some radical solution to fix societal decay, although it may emerge outside policy, like a technological breakthrough, or just younger generations replacing older ones and having a drastically different culture. I don't think it's in immigration. Maybe the Örebro party will get elected by arguing for remigration, but if they actually want to improve Sweden, I believe the bulk of their implementation must be in their other policies.
You see the State as a neutral floor that permits religion to exist above it. But I actually see it as a moving ceiling.
ChatGPT (or whatever LLM)'s metaphor is wrong. We both see the state as a floor, your concern is when the floor rises above the Church (and what's reasonable), i.e. the state's morality isn't flexible enough to permit Church doctrine.
When we talk about "state" we may refer to two separate things: the theoretical state with laws as they're written (which for most real nations isn't even coherent), or the physical state with laws as they're enforced. As previously said, religion is a set of opinions. The state can (theoretically) ban opinions from being practiced and discussed, but not the opinions themselves, and it's (physical) enforcement is limited.
Sure, in a 1984-esque state with total control and invasion of privacy, a religion will be physically destroyed (although the non-physical set of opinions will always exist, so it may be revived, maybe that's unlikely). Or perhaps a Brave New World-esque state may voluntarily convince the masses to abandon the religion, leaving it all-but-destroyed physically. But otherwise, in today's states (states without total control or persuasion, even Iran), a conflicting religion may at least survive by teaching its opinions (secretly, publicly covertly, publicly if allowed), even if they never get to be practiced; and they may be secretly practiced, moreso whenever the state becomes weaker, and eventually may influence the state so they become legal. Even the Aztec blood religion (although fortunately, a state today may be powerful enough to prevent them from actually carrying out any blood sacrifices).
Brainwavez
3d ago
Something can wordy without being overly so. LLMs use lots of filler expressions. “But here is where the jurisdictional land-grab happens” - a very LLM-esque sentence, what does it mean?
My model of religion and governance (laws, welfare, etc.) overlap but are ultimately different.
Abstractly, both religion and governance are a set of opinions (and speculations, and manners, and practices, etc.) that adherents follow. The difference is that religion is stricter but voluntary, while governance is more flexible but mandatory. Church is between government and individual: both impose their opinions for the individual's own good and that of others around them, but government's opinions are less tailored and more imposed (by consequences and physical force).
In simpler words: Church tells you how to live your life in detail, but there are multiple Churches and you choose one, then can ignore it without much consequence. Government tells you less (broadly-applicable rules, education, etc.) but you only have one, and better listen.
When I imagine government, I imagine things like laws/enforcement against murder and theft, welfare to provide bare-minimum necessities, education that is facts and widely-held opinions (like "don't murder or steal")...things that are widely-agreed-upon or can be justified by widely-agreed-upon axioms. When I imagine religion, I imagine more specific rules ("no sex before marriage"), specific prayers, specific celebrations (Christmas dinner), specific customs (crosses)...that aren't widely-agreed-upon or justified by widely-agreed-upon axioms (instead axioms like "divine beings said so"). Both are important: the lowest-common-denominator provided by government is necessary to prevent anarchy, but not sufficient for human flourishing, because most people need more tailored guidance, and a bit of coercion, than they can provide to themselves.
Everything described before is simultaneously managed by culture (even enforcement, informally). Religion is a culture given structure, while government is the intersection of many cultures, or a large culture, given structure.
-
Sure, there exist (or have existed) religions with minimal beliefs and Churches that carry out laws up to executing people; and laws that are personal and controversial and governments with minimal enforcement. There are (or were) places where Church is more of a government than the official government. There are Church-government hybrids. This is just how I define Church and government and imagine how they work, based on my perception of them in modern Western nations and how other define them.
-
When Church and government opinions overlap, the government's take priority. This is obviously true in practice, but also according to this model, because the government's opinions should be strictly more permissive; if Church is right and government is wrong, the government should be more flexible so it permits the Church.
Brainwavez
3d ago
I don't mind if someone uses AI, even to produce a full draft of their comment; as long as what they publish is hand-written, or somewhat if they gave the AI a unique-enough prompt that nobody notices.
A big problem with AI is sameness. Echoed by this short blogpost, where someone looks up "100,000 whys" books on Amazon, and all the covers are indistinguishable. 1 of the covers would be interesting and acceptable, 100 are boring and the flaws stand out. Besides desensitization, sameness also leads to model collapse and its cultural equivalent: AI and humans need to experience diverse writing (including bad writing) in order to write better.
This is also why I don't really mind if AI is unnoticeable. Because, if my thesis is true that AI output has inhuman similarities no matter how it's prompted, eventually humans would begin to notice. I say "really mind" because the realization may happen too late, when subliminal desensitization and model collapse have already caused serious problems. But it's an improvement, because right now I see serious problems from AI output that is obvious at least to me.
blockbuster films and AAA video games should be allowed to exclusively pander to straight men without any concessions to women or LGBT
Agreed
I'm happy to see a company signal boosting against misandry after 10 years of unabashed anti-male messaging in western culture.
Acceptable
And if this happens through the way of censorship
I don't think it really will, and it will have a slight opposite effect: the people pushing censorship don't care about free expression and vice versa, so if you censor their side, they will only escalate. I would gladly accept a truce where every art I like is allowed and every art I dislike is also allowed, but I already don't care about the latter. The people who care enough about offensive art to implement censorship, if they have any logic to their thinking, know it will be used against their art; they choose censorship over expression.
I acknowledge, one way censorship does reduce other censorship, is by getting bystanders to notice it used against the other side (which they already don't see), when it's used against their side, so they push back on all of it. So, maybe.
But I think promoting expression is better: you can alternatively (or both, but you only have finite resources) get bystanders to notice by creating media they like that the censors (whose tolerance is always lower than the bystanders') will target. And that has the intrinsic benefit of creating good art, and doesn't have the drawback of enraging the censors (as much) or creating censorship infrastructure (which makes it easier for anyone to censor).
Brainwavez
3d ago
I passively clocked it as AI which is why I asked Pangram. Em-dash, "it's not X, it's Y", "here's the XYZ", very short paragraphs; if it had a couple of these tropes I wouldn't guess, but it's full of them.
It also has the high-level AI trope of being overly wordy. My understanding is that the main message is "Separation of church and state isn't fully possible, and the state is effectively its own church, because both church and state advocate and enforce their own morality, and sometimes these moralities conflict". That's one sentence, does the full 32-sentence comment add much else?
FYI, Pangram says this is 100% AI-generated.
Personally: if you're a human who had a human idea and used AI to put it into writing, please write in your own words. Maybe it can be intimidating when people write long-winded essays in perfect prose, but it really isn't necessary to contribute to this site. I wouldn't care even if you wrote broken (human) English.
Why AI writing is bad (even logic/philosophy writing like this) is complex and debatable enough that it would be a great top-level discussion. But at least, don't do it because it's borderline against the rules (yeah, a random comment you had no expectation of knowing being new here, it should really be in the sidebar).
Brainwavez
4d ago
But English communities have decayed, including ones I doubt have many English-speaking third-worlders. And language barriers keep non-English-speakers in separate communities.
I always wonder what’s going on in non-Anglo social media, like African and Indian Facebook(?) Maybe they’re similar, but then I expect the cause is mass-media exported from Anglo countries, not vice versa.
Wokes rail against male gaze on principle. But they are perfectly capable of arresting the slippery slope short of censoring female gaze/gay oriented media...Even when they latch onto real issues, like domestic violence or sexual assault, I’m deeply suspicious of letting them set the terms...
I agree, but note this also involves many conservatives: I'm suspicious of anyone too passionate about censorship.
And the arguments for even mild censorship are weak. For example, censoring hardcore porn may slightly reduce domestic violence, but I'd prefer ways that don't restrict stable men, because there are downsides (even to men who don't prefer hardcore porn, as explained in GP). I'm sure everyone has some interest or characteristic (e.g. stereotype) that, if restricted, would reduce some kind of harm; so fairly implementing every restriction "for the greater good" restricts everyone, a nanny-state dystopia.
I'd be perfectly fine with conservatives censoring homosexuality in television.
I disagree. Cable is dying, so television amounts to YouTube, Netflix, and every alternative; the power to censor anything more than realistic CSAM and government secrets from all of these would surely be abused (already DMCA is abused by false takedowns). And it may seem like a small consolation, but I'm sure there's some quality in gay porn that inspires better straight media; for example, a wholesome display of gay affection may be reused in a wholesome display of platonic or heterosexual romantic affection.
Furthermore, nobody can deny that objectively gayness exists. Related, I object to completely censoring homosexuality from children any more than heterosexuality: that means at minimum, they should be told in sex-ed that it exists and it's normal for some people to feel it. Because like it or not, some people are intrinsically gay, and trying to hide gayness from them invariably ends up hurting everyone involved: see those who come out in the most repressive communities, knowing their formerly-generous family will now try to kill them, uplifting and threatening their entire life, just to have consensual sex with another adult (or similarly-aged teenager under Romeo and Juliet morality).
However, I strongly believe that, to a reasonable extent, people should have the right not to see and hear media they don't like, and children should be barred from inappropriate (including sexual) media as much as possible without compromising privacy. This means that (E: children only if it’s too sexual for their age, same as hetero) and adults who don't want to be exposed to homosexuality must endure sex-ed and plain "gay XYZ" advertisements, but beyond that, should have technology to block it, and a distributor intentionally circumventing this technology should be illegal. Offline, when mutual coexistence is impossible, laws and government should seek separation: for example, a gay culture growing in a deeply Christian community should (as it naturally will) be coerced to relocate if there's anywhere else (and vice versa). Likewise, graphic violence, porn, etc. should be allowed, but only distributed to those who present themselves as of-age and actively seeking it.
Brainwavez
5d ago
I also remember growing up in the 2000s being taught and hearing most people defend near-unconditional free speech (except government secrets, immediate threats, etc.). Maybe that’s why I find it particularly important, and strange when it’s criticized.
A report aggregating polls on free speech from 2021 suggests:
-
Support for “people can say what they want” is still generally high in most nations (94% overall). Support to explicitly allow offending minorities and religions is much lower (an embarrassing example of the framing effect), but still 66% and 78% in the US
-
From 2015 (notably, before Trump) to 2021, support generally hasn’t decreased globally, but somewhat in the US and some other Western nations
-
“In the US, young people, women, the less educated, and Biden voters are generally more restrictive regarding free speech” - young people is particularly worrying
That's true.
There's still some relevance: if you import from other cultures, it's less likely you oppose immigration from them (at least the experts of whatever you imported). But I admit it's possible.
More options
Context Copy link