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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
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.
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.
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