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I've been chewing on an idea and wanted to try a steel-manning exercise.
The premise is this: If we grant that the cultural right is "winning" right now, what's the strongest possible argument that this is leading to some genuinely bad outcomes for the country?
I have a few specific angles in mind. How would you build the strongest case for these ideas?
A more "gloves-off" approach to online speech is a win for free expression, but its most visible result has been the normalization of unapologetic racism. The core of this argument isn't just that it's unpleasant, but that it's actively corroding social trust and making it harder to have a unified country. Not sure if you’ve seen this too, but I see tons of ‘black fatigue’ and explicitly white nationalist people in my feed and there’s not much I or anybody else can do about it. What does the most persuasive version of this argument look like?
It seems pretty clear that rhetoric from the top, especially from Trump, has pushed nativist ideas into the open. The strong version of this argument is that this has moved beyond simple policy disagreements (like border security) and has become a real cultural attitude of exclusion. How would you build the case that this isn't just a fringe phenomenon anymore, but a significant and growing force in American life?
This flows from the last point. For decades, our biggest strategic advantage has been that the smartest, most ambitious people from all over the world wanted to come here. The argument to be steel-manned is that we're actively squandering that. Between the nativist vibe and a chaotic immigration system, we're sending a signal that the best and brightest should maybe look elsewhere. What's the most solid case that we're causing a real "brain drain" that will kneecap us economically and technologically for years to come?
What makes me think about this point is all of the talk about Indian people online. Like them or not, they are STRONG contributors in the workplace. If the rhetoric gets to a point where legal immigrants and contributors to our society feel unwelcome, there could be real brain drain effects that we’ve never experienced before. The Vivek backlash a few months ago also is probably related.
Again, knowing that ideas like these are losing right now, how you would argue them to the best of your ability? I’ll admit I kind of want to hear them outside a setting like X where communities are isolated and you’re mostly preaching to the choir / your ingroup
I remember reading years ago about a survey someone gave to Christians and atheists, asking them what they find to be the most compelling argument for either side. It turned out that the most compelling argument for atheism, as rated by atheists didn't rank all that high for Christians, and the one rated by Christians wasn't all that compelling to atheists, and you saw the same patterns for arguments for Christianity. So what is the steelman argument for atheism? The one rated highest by atheists, since that is presumably what made them lose their faith (as that was in the times when people were Christian-by-default, rather than atheist-by-default), or the one rated highest by Christians, as that is what they consider the most challenging for their faith?
You asked for me to defend these arguments to the best of my ability, and that would indicate that answering in the mode of a Christian giving the best argument for atheism would be ok, but my best argument for the ideas you outlined might contain assumptions that you disagree with so deeply, that you want recognize my defense as defending your ideas anymore. On the other hand, without these assumptions, I won't find these defenses particularly compelling, so how much of a steelman are they then? Still, the best of my ability sounds like I would have to be the one to find them compelling, so this is the perspective I'll be taking, while trying to preserve your core premises as best as I can.
The kinds of arguments that I find the most compelling on these issues are ones that acknowledge that certain things happened that got us to where we are now. Regarding your first point, this would mean reformulating the part about unapologetic racism being suddenly more visible. There was plenty of unapologetic racism before Elon bought Twitter and changed the rules there, what changed is that the list of acceptable targets was expanded. The other part of the argument, about corroding social trust and making it harder to have a unified country is pretty straight forward. It's not sustainable for pretty much the same reasons why unapologetic anti-white racism turned out to be unsustainable. "We don't have to live like this, we can respect each other and work together for the common good" sounds like pretty good deal to me. It's most compelling version is liberals like TracingWoodgrains LARPing as Lee Kuan Yew, even if I don't find them credible. If concessions are made about the things that went wrong in the past, and I get assurances that skulls will be cracked and kneecaps will be broken to set it right, or better yet I get to see some gesture-of-good-faith kneecappings firsthand, I might indeed be compelled to drop the hammer on internet racists from - roughly speaking - my side.
Regarding your second point:
That sounds like it's mostly an empirical argument, correct? If so, that's probably the easiest case to argue. If you look at Vivek / Elon / H1B-Gate, such strong pushback would have been hard to imagine even as recently as Trump's first term. The ideas might not be completely dominant on the right, but they're definitely not fringe anymore either.
Your third point is the most difficult to argue, because it requires the acceptance of several premises. First, did the strategic advantage of the US stem from the smartest and most ambitious people coming there, or did they come there because of American strategic advantages? As an americanized by media Europoor, that saw a bit of your country, I can tell you this isn't just a chicken vs. egg thing. My experience of America is that it has (or used to have) an entire culture conducive to making things happen, that you won't find anywhere in Europe (with the possible exception of the UK, where you might get but a glimpse, but not more). I better not get into that too much, because the more I talk about it, the more it will undermine the core premise of your argument, and you asked me to argue for it.
The second part you have to argue is that the US is indeed losing it's economic advantage. That's the part I'm quite open to. A fellow motte-poster made the argument a few times that China's culture is adapting to enable the kind of cutting-edge innovation that was typically associated with America. Again, quite compelling, and all the denials feel pretty cope-y to me.
With the third part we start running into problems again, as you have to show that it's the lack of openness to immigration that would be responsible for the loss of the strategic advantage. I haven't really heard an argument for that, not even an unconvincing one, and I drawing a blank trying to argue for this. I can say what would convince me if you could demonstrate it: if you could see countries like Canada, that imported millions of immigrants, suddenly zoom past it's previous economic performance, that would make a very strong case for your argument.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Agreed that arguing from the perspective of what you would find compelling makes sense, as it's the only way to find the real weak points.
On Point 1, your proposed solution is interesting. That idea of a negotiated peace is pragmatic. It frames the problem as a failure of mutually assured destruction and suggests restoring it. If people saw that bad behavior was being addressed universally instead of just selectively, they might actually buy into the system again. However, I think the cat is out of the bag now. The decadent 2010s seem to have ruined any chance of this working. The 90s feel like the last time there was a real effort towards a color-blind society where character matters most. Things are too tribal for that to work nowadays. There are literally advanced degrees for studying how persecuted X group is. We get worked up over unfair treatment of our own group and are convinced other groups are getting away with it / getting a better deal, generally speaking.
On point 2, it seems we’re in agreement. These ideas have moved from the comment section to the core of the debate. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel it’s harder to make progress when the ‘real’ arguments are more antagonistic than Ken Bone saying we can all get along.
On point three, I completely agree that America has/had a unique "secret sauce" for getting things done. My contention is that it's part of a feedback loop. Our culture of ambition creates opportunities, which attracts the world's top talent. That talent reinforces and evolves the culture, starting new companies, creating new norms, and building towards the next thing.
I’m sure it’s been talked to death here but I had a professor in college who talked about how Japan will likely never have a magnificent growth period again because their reluctance to accept immigrants, combined with their demographic cliff, means they're stuck on the sidelines (in terms of real growth at least). They have a productive culture, but they're starved of new talent.
I visited Guangzhou about 10 years ago and saw the opposite problem. Their immigrant population comes largely from very poor areas in Africa. They're treated like second-class citizens, are watched constantly, and frankly, fit Trump’s language about immigrants more than the hard-working people in America. There’s no real chance for them to work hard, integrate, and have their kids become strong citizens.
That's why I think our system is so special and powerful. We have the culture that Japan lacks the people for and we offer the opportunity that China denies to its immigrants. We have the ability to give people a chance to join our hard-working culture and succeed. When we send signals that they're no longer welcome, I feel we're choosing to break the most powerful engine for prosperity the world has ever known
I'm not sure if we're talking about the same secret sauce. The feedback loop idea makes sense to me if the process is: America gets things done -> this attracts people from other countries who want to get things done -> they get things done -> it attracts more people who want to get things done... but what I meant was America's culture being the infrastructure enabling things getting done. "The best and the brightest" don't enter into the picture here, honestly my view of the average IRL American's intellect has been rather dim (and I'm far from the only one)... and yet, when I witnessed their ability to coordinate when a problem arose, it was uncanny, almost like telepathy. Apparently de Tocqueville had a whole bit about that, so it's a phenomenon that's been observed for quite a while.
Under my model immigration might be a force multiplier, but not a feedback loop. You can point to me at all the wonderful goods being transported by trains and trucks, and indeed if they stop coming, my standard of living might decline, but my point is that they're driving over a bridge, which doesn't seem to be doing so well. Halting the traffic to do maintenance might not be pleasant, but far less so than exploiting the bridge to the point of collapse.
If you want to show that your feedback model is more accurate than my base infrastructure model, you'd need to show how immigrants are feeding back into, and maintaining that culture of getting things done, because it's not obvious to me at all. Sure, they can integrate and assimilate, but even in the optimistic "magical dirt" model, first-generation immigrants are usually written off, and it's their children who are expected to integrate. Personally I'm not so optimistic, and I think it's a process that needs to be promoted actively, or else the native culture will become gradually diluted. On top of that, "assimilation" has become a bit of a dirty word to begin with, making it all the harder.
Doesn't that throw a bit of a wrench in your argument? Of all the countries in the world, China seems to have the best chance for potentially overtaking America,
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