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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   18420 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025

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They have easy app food delivery even in countries without mass immigration, and (get this) they also have it in countries with mass immigration where that immigration is temporary, limited, of economic value and NEVER leads to even the hope of any pathway to citizenship (like the gulf countries).

Is always funny getting the 'immigrants mean great food' argument when I've been in plenty of places without meaningful immigration and still the full multicultural restaurant experience being served by members of the local ethnicity.

I've found Tier 1 Chinese cities better than Australia for European cuisines more niche than Italian/Greek despite not really having any meaningful population. They've just got enough social exposure to know what's good and what to replicate.

Immigrants don’t mean great food (don’t they say Tokyo has some of the best French food in the world?). But most American restaurant food in 1959 would indeed by pretty bad compared to what we’re used to today!

As recently as the early 2000's, American restaurant food would have been pretty bad compared to what we're used to today. Much blander with fewer options and more generic ingredients.

Yeah, if immigration policies were different, the social effects of DoorDash would be different too.

DoorDash without immigration would perhaps be slightly more expensive (immigration has depressed prices for low wage labor, but welfare has increased them, and we don’t know what policy decisions were made in this alternate universe) without immigration. If the US just adopted a Gulf-style kafala system then prices would probably be the same, Americans could just be safe in the knowledge that everyone goes home at the end of their stint rather than getting the vote.

America is a democracy, so that would be an inherently unstable situation, some dogooder politician would immediately reneg and give them franchise to gain an extra voting block.

Edit: ask South Africans or Southern plantation owners how this "we can have infinite imported labor as long as they don’t have rights" works out.

"We wanted workers. We got people instead."

Comment about a """temporary""" guest worker program in the 1960s in which the temporary non-European workers tended to stay forever.

Singapore's a democracy (to a certain degree) and been pretty firm on keeping the foreign guestworker-classes away from Citizenship without a significant commitment over time or being significantly skilled.

Gulf States also do it. By American standards they are quite cruel to these workers. We lack the stomach for it.

Gulf States depend. Absolute bottom tier 'fungible' labor are treated badly (though still paid very well compared to places of origin) but anything skilled usually gets paid very well and treated reasonably aside from lack of any vehicle to citizenship.

Or the Zanj Rebellion Arabs. I hope I live to see the petro Islam oligarchs overthrown by their own greed.

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