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'm a doomer on the U.S., and I want to know what you guys think, in general, will be the trend for the next decade or further on. Here's my theory for how all this ends:
My friend is more of an optimist. Here's his theory on the first one:
Unfortunately, I didn't quiz him on all the rest of it. But now, somehow, it is making me wonder about the outlook of most of the Mottizens. I certainly see the doomer take on things pretty often.
I see a factoid sometimes that says conservatives are happier with their lives than liberals. Maybe that's a factor of rural living, maybe that's a factor of less thinking about serious issues, and less reading. I am pretty sure that conservatives on this site, on average, do not live in rural areas and, on average, think a lot more about serious issues, and read more. So maybe some bad, anecdotal science testing on The Motte is in order.
Are you a doomer, or a "bloomer"? What are some factors that lead you to your conclusion that the country is trending downwards or upwards? Please explain yourself, and please fight it out with everyone who thinks you're wrong.
I’m a soft doomer about the US but much less so than I am about (Western) Europe.
Mass immigration has seen fit to proffer the United States a gentle decline toward a high-inequality, mid-tier country with Some Third World Characteristics but probably with semi-functioning politics and many centers of high economic and industrial development. What is coming for Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Britain, and increasingly also Spain, Ireland and Italy is much, much worse than that.
And why much worse?
I'm not 2rafa, but I would argue similarly on immigration. The advantage that the US has with immigration is that all their illegal immigration is Hispanic. They're not all people you would want in your nation, but the US has already integrated a huge number of them. There aren't big push factors coming that will massively bump numbers up in future, and in legal immigration the US system works pretty well, largely creaming off the best from the rest of the world. The US has relatively limited welfare which means most illegals are in some sense productive, or at least not active drains outside of the criminal elements. The US is also massive and very decentralized. Some states and cities will become swamped and turn into third-world entities, but there will still be dozens of productive urban areas with low levels.
In Europe, illegal immigration is coming from Africa and the middle east. These immigrants are much lower quality. They are poorly integrated, many going into ethnic enclaves and reigniting old tribal conflicts with other groups of immigrants, to say nothing of the dangers of Muslim immigration. They are attracted by generous welfare which they are increasingly exploiting, adding nothing to the host nations. Numbers are large and likely only to grow larger as their home regions increasingly destabilize. I can't speak for legal immigration for continental Europe, but at least in the UK they've somehow ended up importing millions of terrible unproductive immigrants in addition to the illegal flows.
Structurally, each individual nation is also poorly positioned to weather these floods. Productivity is often focused in a single primate city, and once you lose a London, Paris, Brussels, Milan, etc. you've lost most of the nation's growth. Individual areas can do little to fight against the waves. And all this is to say nothing of the respective strengths of the economies
In my western state, there are NGOs specifically targeting african "refugees", shipping them in, and putting them in city subsidized housing. There are tons of africans that run around my neighborhood, more every year. The women walk to the grocery store in 100+ degree weather in their full traditional garb, walking back with the grocery bags balanced on their heads.
If it were limited to hispanics I'd be marginally fine with it. I am quite fond of latin culture, language, food, etc. They mostly assimilate, are catholic, and care about the same things I do. But it's fucking bizarre when my neighbors walk their dogs and the african muslims run to the other side of the street to avoid the unclean canines. Or how their corner of the neighborhood is consistently littered with trash and old furniture in the streets. Our community does a neighborhood cleanup and we just go straight to the african housing. Meanwhile the men sit on their porches watching us whiteys pick up their filth, probably confused at why we would care about things like clean streets.
Then you hear of the haitians descending upon small communities in ohio or minnesota being full of somalians. This is coming to the US and rapidly. The hordes want to live among the whites because the whites create pleasant communities. Five years ago, there were nearly none of these people around here. Now there are tons, and the neighborhoods are deteriorating before my eyes.
More options
Context Copy link
Is your basic argument that there's substantial average human biodiversity between Mexican and Central American natives (mostly) and mestizos on one hand and North African and Middle Eastern natives on the other?
I wouldn't say the above argument relies on HBD; integration, decentralization, and excessive welfare would still be problems even with high quality immigrants. Observe the furore in many countries over high levels of indian immigration, despite a high average IQ.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I see so many African Muslims in my area, is distressing. Somalis control large swaths of Minnesota, and Indians are stunningly prominent compared to ten years ago.
It's not just Hispanic.
Advantage of being in a deep red state. They tried to diversify it by sending Muslims and Congolese but the state just doesn't have as much welfare as the blues so many left after the Fed resettlement money gets cut off, and trump cut off the refugee pipeline. I don't see nearly as many as I did 5 years ago. TitaniumButterfly commented on Sacramento, that's where a lot of our Muslims went. Thank you Blue states for your service.
More options
Context Copy link
It isn’t just but it is mostly. We’ll see how things are under a future Democratic administration but for now the situation is still vastly preferable.
More options
Context Copy link
They control an entire congressional district. None of the Somali Muslims I've seen have married whites, they're all paired up with their own ilk, and that especially applies to the younger generation.
This is an utterly ridiculous statement that can be debunked in 30 seconds of Googling. Ilham Omar's district is 17.1% Black, which will include some pre-65 "native" Blacks as well as Somalis. She was sent to Congress by white liberals. There's an important theme here, a lot of what the anti-immigrant Right habitually blames on immigrants is actually done by white liberals.
The last time a republican served on that district JFK was still alive, but not President. White liberals sent her to Congress, but African Muslims sent her to the general election.
I don't think your debunk is worth anything. It's too lazy to take seriously, and you've already been corrected once.
The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.
More options
Context Copy link
This is the kingmaker scenario, right? Gwern talks about it a bit - if you have three friends, and one friend refuses point-blank to eat non-Halal food, then you will find yourself always looking for halal restaurants even though he’s only 25% of the group. In a very real sense that’s on the other three for not kicking him to the curb, but in a practical sense he’s the one controlling where you go.
There’s also just the straight issue of schelling points. The left in the UK has such kingmaker scenarios a lot with local Muslim populations. If they can’t all agree to ignore them at vaguely the same time, the white liberals who do will be steamrollered by the ones who don’t.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
They have substantial influence in many local elections and a tendency to vote for their own. Such a voting bloc can easily end up in control of all sorts of important positions even while remaining a minority.
Interbreeding between the two is negligible and Somalian IQ is low enough that even after some mixing the hybrids will remain an underclass. What's more, the whites they're likely to mate with are in turn the lowest-quality and lowest-status whites, so they wouldn't even be mixing with the average.
Disagree.
More options
Context Copy link
It was very odd to me to visit a Costco in Sacramento recently. I saw maybe six white people in the entire store, and no white or even hispanic employees. Shoppers seemed fairly evenly split between Asians (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese) and Arabs, with most women in hijabs and even a few in niqabs. The staff was mostly Vietnamese or something like them. I couldn't understand the English of the person at the checkout.
In fact something I've seen a lot more of in general is immigrants with different strains of unintelligible English trying to communicate with each other only semi-successfully. The other day it was some Sikh guys arguing with a Cambodian proprietor. I could mostly understand each but they couldn't understand each other. Considered offering to translate but decided it would be rude.
Where / which Costco in Sacramento?
I grew up in Sacramento, the unincorporated areas of Sacramento County.
Sacramento has frequently seen demographic change, and there were often 'ethnic' neighboords or areas. I've of photo of my grandmother's nearly all white graduating class (1939) from C.K. McClatchy High School. Even the suburbs (built in the early 1950's) my grandparents lived in have seen substantial changes. It had been tree lined and owner occupied, now mostly rentals and all the Modesto Ash were cut down.
I had been away for ~15 years before going back for the first time in 2015. I made another trip in 2016.
The people and places I miss aren't there anymore.
May have technically been Elk Grove.
Elk Grove has certainly seen demographic change.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
He has no way of knowing that.
More options
Context Copy link
I will eat the bullet and admit that people of different ethnicities tend to make me uncomfortable in large supply. I like that knowing that the people around me are like me in substantial ways. I have nothing against Chinese or Vietnamese who speak English as a second language, but I don't get the impression that I could speak to them as freely as a white person, if at all, and I think that my social missteps would be more harshly looked upon. Since humans communicate to each other, even as strangers, this has certain effects. For instance, at Sam's Club yesterday, I was asked if I was in line by another shopper, and I explained that I thought I was, but I evidently wasn't, and that furthermore, the line was too long for me to consider it worthwhile. I would not feel so free to give such an explanation to someone significantly different from me ethnically. Also, our definitions of "normal" are quite different. I don't think a practicing Muslim Arab would consider me normal, and I certainly wouldn't consider them normal, either. The details I have heard about immigration in Canada makes me think that even good liberals are generally bothered by vast quantities of foreigners in their country.
More options
Context Copy link
Who said it made me uncomfortable?
What about my comment made you uncomfortable enough to feel the need to say something?
More options
Context Copy link
When I go to Costco, there is not necessarily a shortage of white people. However, there seems to be a total lack of white people under 40. I assume it's related to day/time when I go, but it's an ominous feeling.
Probably ominius in the same way Arabs in Palestine saw it as ominious, when their neighborhood changed its "vibe" over the decades in first half of 20th century. Or maybe how American natives carefully watched their new neigbors with strange culture. And ultimately they were correct.
More options
Context Copy link
Ominous that the land and country my forefathers struggled and fought for is being silently overrun by foreigner who neither share nor respect my values, culture, and race.
Pretty obvious if you consider it for a moment.
More options
Context Copy link
Some of us like having a country / nation. When you import a whole new population, with a completely different culture, with absolutely no attachment, no loyalty, and quite possibly not even basic respect, for the culture that's hosting them, and you see that all the young people are from that foreign culture, and all the old people are from yours, it's pretty clear who's in, and who's out. For example, I read somewhere that 80% of people under 20 in Belgium are not Belgian, effectively that means that that nation is over. For a lot of people that's going to be ominous, even if they people replacing them bear them no ill will.
What about the everyday immigrants who do nothing all day, and get housed in private hotels, paid for by the government? Or the ones setting up grooming gangs that the police and social workers run cover for?
Yeah, we should be doing that ourselves.
More options
Context Copy link
Hey, Costco shopper! I am very dissatisfied with Sam's Club. They didn't have pork butt yesterday, and their pork loin was 40 cents more expensive than the wholesale store and 40 cents more expensive than their own website said it was. Are you satisfied with Costco meat prices? If only I had one near me. Please tell me more about Costco. What do you like about it? When you see the inside of Costco, are you blinded by its majesty? Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?
My (european) wife's reaction upon entering Costco for the first time could have been described as "awestruck". Like within seconds of entering and seeing the inside, she knew she loved it and that it was one of the best places on earth. And that's just inferior Canadian Costco. I can't imagine what American Costco would do to her.
More options
Context Copy link
When I expressed interest in having a custom house built, my mother nonjokingly suggested that it might be nice to have a house whose interior looked like a Costco warehouse's, with exposed electrical conduits making diagnosis of problems easy. My design has a "flat" (1:12) roof, but no exposed conduits. Still, the wiring should be easy to access through the suspended ceiling.
More options
Context Copy link
Yet the shoppers managed to evade your security, drive to the sacred Costco, and desecrate it with their filthy footsteps!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Perhaps they’re at work.
It reminds me of how pre-COVID—but even to a lesser extent to this day—if I saw another white-collar-looking young man in the wild during the weekday daytime, we’d often briefly gawk at each other out of surprise like the Umbrella Academy driving meme, such as when we’re pushing shopping carts past each other at the grocery store.
I remember stopping by Trader Joe's during the mid-morning on a day off... completely different demographic from the weekend/evening crowd.
More options
Context Copy link
Probably not. I go on weekends around opening time. I realize the demographics might be different at 1pm, 3pm, or 5pm on the weekends compared to opening.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link