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 don't have a lot to add but Bryan Caplan's take is just so irresponsible:
Like, what if you're wrong Bryan? Where does he go from there: "Well, shucks, I guess we ended up with two Indias after all. My bad."
To me that's the problem with immigration. It's permanent. Even Communism, as destructive as it is, can be tried and discarded. But immigration permanently alters a country.
We don't have many historical parallels to the sort of mass immigration that has happened in recent years. Prior to recent times, most large scale immigration was on the heels of an invading army and usually involved genociding the old population. America might be a country of immigrants, but tell that to the Pequots.
It's not permanent. This isn't the 1920s anymore. People can cheaply and easily move to a country. They can also cheaply and easily leave. Even revoking citizenship is possible. We haven't done it before, but we also have never before seen the kinds of massive population movements we are currently seeing. Modern problems, modern solutions.
More options
Context Copy link
Native American cultures indeed has been largely wiped out by European settlement. But America hasn't ceased to be the country of immigrants since the Piligrims arrived, and there were many other ethnic groups that came later. Scandinavians, Irish, Italians, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cubans... and many others. And yet, it did not destroy the Protestant culture in America - at least not in the way that the Europeans destroyed the Native American ones. It looks like America can deal with the permanent immigration just fine, under some conditions: a) immigration is limited to the numbers that could be successfully assimilated within reasonable time b) the immigrants actually see the host culture as human culture they have to at least coexist with, yet better - accept and c) the host culture itself is strong and independent enough to provide the immigrants with some framework to which they have to adhere - if there's just "diversity is our strength" and nothing else, then there's nothing to assimilate and everybody just keeps whatever they got, without forming a joint culture. I think, in keeping with these conditions America can welcome Indians just fine (and people like Vivek, for example, are a decent example of that) - but I don't think open borders would preserve these conditions.
More options
Context Copy link
I vaguely remember an exchange someone had with him on Twitter back when his book with the SMBC webcomic artist came out, where someone basically asked him this, and his response was that it's good to support immigration and open borders because then a world-famous economist can get a job teaching — in English — at any number of universities in any number of countries and maintain his "beautiful bubble" and standard of living. When asked about everyone else left behind, well, that got the usual argument about why the "beautiful bubble" in the first place — being a libertarian means he owes nothing to nobody, doesn't have to care about anyone else unless he wants to, and that he'll support whatever policies benefit him personally, and if those same policies cause you harm, that's your problem.
Ironically that's exactly what the nativist right wing is doing in the US right now: supporting anti-immigration policies because they perceive that will benefit them regardless of what other people in the US or the potential immigrants themselves think.
More options
Context Copy link
Is "asshole-tarian" a thing? This is exactly why people say libertarianism can't work; if people don't really believe it but use it at their convenience, it's a dead letter.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Caplan is Jewish. If he's wrong, he can just fuck off to Israel. Must be nice to have a backup country...
Israel exists because the US pays for its existence, if support from the US wanes sooner or later Israel will be overwhelmed by its hostile neighbors.
Israel would be fine if the U.S. withdrew its support tomorrow.
More options
Context Copy link
Israel was able to fund its existence for decades before the US started "paying for it", and so long as the counrty has nukes I don't think they're ever getting overwhelmed. Who among their neighbors would even be capable of that? Lebanon?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You've been told not to post low-effort sneers like this before. I tell you the same thing I tell all the Joo-posters; you're allowed to hate Jews, and you're allowed to write about why you think we should consider Jews invidious parasites, but you have to put effort into it (and also pretend you believe the Jews you are talking to are human beings who are entitled to participate here too, even if you don't), not just drop snarls about how anyone can be dismissed because he happens to be Jewish.
You have a very bad history. You are in that category of poster whose posts are 90% "Goddamn I hate Jews and women." You earned a couple of AAQCs over a year ago but since then have a long string of warnings and temp-bans (and tons of posts that are borderline but we usually let pass).
Improve the quality of your posts and tamp down your spite or you're going to be banned again.
More options
Context Copy link
Rich, intelligent people with powerful passports always have a backup country, whether they are Jewish or not.
Caplan is pretty open about wanting to cultivate his own little bubble and not caring about the rest of the country he's in.
Unlike most American elites, I don’t feel the least bit bad about living in a Bubble. I share none of their egalitarian or nationalist scruples. Indeed, I’ve wanted to live in a Bubble for as long as I can remember. Since childhood, I’ve struggled to psychologically and socially wall myself off from “my” society.
I feel like the passage you quoted should be near enough to convince anyone not to take this guy's open-borders ideas seriously.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is there any actual evidence that he specifically has dual loyalties?
He's a citizen of nowhere. I'm sure he'd be just as open to migrating to Israel as he would to Singapore, Switzerland or any of the many tax havens around the world.
More options
Context Copy link
It doesn't matter, Israel will take in any Jew: American, Russian, Ukrainian, patriot of his old country or not.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, demographics are literary fucking permanent. My country got fucked because we thought that this wasn't the case. India is the parallel and America faces these issues because it's a liberal country from birth. India thought that you could just have more people and the labor would continue to be fine, look at what happened now, even most of the upper castes are sanskritized and don't have the same parernal haplogroups.
Russia can recover from ussr, America won't recover from open borders no matter how austrian the economics may be. Nick Fuentes was correct in saying this.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link