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 -
For those with knowledge/believers of HBD, what does it have to say about Indians (East Asia), Arabs, & Hispanics (IQ wise)? I've been living in my city and I've noticed Indians tend to live in the nicer neighborhoods. Perhaps just selection effects from immigration? Hispanics have similar problems as black people, what does HBD say about them? Arabs?
That can be, and is an important part of why immigration, especially the highest skill immigration is so important to keeping the US rich and powerful.
Let's say that white people will have a polymath SuperGenius in one out of a million people. In the US, that leaves us with roughly 210 white polymath SuperGenius. (in this scenario, we are Bovino pilled and have no non whites left)
Meanwhile let's be really racist and say that the ethnic Chinese only have a SuperGenius with one in three million. China, even despite this handicap, has roughly 450 or so super geniuses.
China has more one in a million SuperGenius than the US despite a significant disadvantage we applied to them. Do the same with 1 in 500k or 1 in 100k or whatever and you get the same results. China has more.
If the US does not either grow numbers significantly or recruit more SuperGenius, subSuperGenius, Genius, etc from elsewhere in the world, we will lose the top of intelligence war. Maybe we can cope with that, maybe we have better healthier systems from our higher average intelligence or something. But we will lose it anyway, China will have more just by pure numbers. Now consider that China is probably not 3x dumber than us at making SuperGenius.
Now apply this to the whole world. The US is only about 4.3% of the world population. Way more geniuses and talent of all sorts is born outside the country than in it. The best thing you can do is be immigrant friendly, and bring in the geniuses who do things like make up almost a third of your country's nobel prizes and make you richer and stronger. The worst thing you can do is to expel your geniuses so they all work for the immigrant friendly country willing to accept them.
You need the elite human capital. And of course, the more willing you are to take in anyone who is above average, your chances of Geniuses grows.
Personally I've always said that we should extend immediate citizenship invites to winners of the math Olympiad and other such contests.
If you only believe in short-term GDPmaxxing (which is a valid position I suppose), sure. View people as fungible, import the best according to some metrics.
The truth about the US immigration system is that most green cards are family-based and that cultures and people are not fungible. Even if Chinese people and Indians increase your GDP they also change your culture, make use of family reunification (which can often negate economic advantages), bring grievances from the old world with them and often promote ideologies that go against the host population (white people). Not to mention that things like IQ =/= social trust, "western" morality, etc.
People have pointed out that Asians are importing things like Childhood-destroying striverism (see the whole Vivek thing), Caste-like dynamics, etc.
I am not nearly as reactionary as a lot of posters here but I do not believe in the fungibility of people. I think the US was smart to consider demographics in immigration policy, not just due to economic reasons, but much more because of cultural cohesion. Just like places like Singapore or the UAE (to a lesser extent) do. That doesn’t mean "no Asians" but maybe being very discerning about to whom you grant permanent residency to is not a bad idea. And it's not like you could just move to India or China either.
People are not fungible. Jensen Huang alone has created far more value than the extremely large majority of other Americans regardless of race. You can not replace what he has created (5.4 trillion dollar valuation of Nvidia!) with your average Joe, it is not possible. You take a random white guy off the street and compare their value, and you can't even see the stranger on the chart. That is how dwarfed he is by Huang.
Well yes, it would be hard to convince smart people to come if they can't bring their families.
Yes, and part of that cultural change is a culture that values being smarter and harder working than what we currently have. A culture of grinders and geniuses.
Again, Jensen Huang alone is so massively valuable that even hundreds of thousands (probably even millions) of net negative parasites would be cancelled out. Alone. And we are not even close to that number of immigrants who are purely net negative.
I think Hanania addressed this with an excellent point that realistically, the same people pushing nativism the hardest now have been sabotaging themselves with the things they claimed immigrants would do.
Immigrants actually have a pretty pro western selection effect overall. Some of the proudest most patriotic free market loving freedom desiring American dream appreciating people I know are immigrants. Meanwhile go up in the Appalachians or something and you get a bunch of drug addict white trash statists who would rather bitch about how unfair things are.
Here's Ronald Reagan saying this same thing.
They are the people who embrace being American far more than some white chick reposting marx memes on her phone between college classes, or some white trash honey boo boo family, or the endless other complainers and whiners who when given the greatest and most opportunities filled country in the world, in history, for free with native citizenship, flounder like the losers they are and complain instead.
First of all, having no or very controlled family reunification and discerning permanent residency and citizenship does not preclude getting geniuses. Singapore, which, if it weren't well run, would be a much worse place to migrate to than the US, manages to attract very good people just fine.
Secondly, while I admire what Jensen Huang built to an extent, it's not trivially true that in his absence there wouldn't be an equal or marginally worse Nvidia equivalent. Indeed, many GPU manufacturers exist and it does not follow that a more restrictionist US would not be at the technological frontier.
Thirdly, this is ultimately a values question. You seem to find having "Asian Grinders" as a good thing. Many White Americans pre mass-migration, if told that their kids would have to compete in school and participate in the habits and mores of "Asian grinders", would have recoiled in horror. Not that they got a say anyway, no western country in history ever voted for mass migration.
Also, take Australia. Australia gets far more Asian grinders than the US ever did, indeed, it has some of the most elite immigration in the world measured by your system. And yet, it has stagnated against the US in the last decade in GDP terms and is facing heavy anti-immigrant backlash.
If you look at actual polling you'll see that Asians are extremely happy to jump on the whole anti-white anti-western culture bus and that they often bring things like speech norms from their places of origin.
Immigration in his time was from very different places than it is now.
Ultimately it gets down to whether nations should be economic zones or actual coherent nations.
Well no shit, lazy losers don't like being told that they're lazy losers and they especially don't like being told they should work harder. That doesn't change it is an improvement to the country if we go to hard work and effort being valued instead. Nativism against high skill immigrants is also a problem of ego.
Yes they actually do, in fact we used to debate on how accommodating we would be for immigrants. Look back on Reagan for instance, he never once hid how pro immigration he was and he is one of the most popular and beloved presidents in history. Heck you
Elite human capital is only one part of the equation, even the smartest people can not overcome bad systems. This is not Atlus Shrugged, the John Galts of the world are often stuck just working in suboptimal suppressive conditions instead of being able to break open the government.
Hey another example of how despite the complaints of immigrants, it's actually something being done even more by the increasingly nativist Republican party instead. The same way that the nativist party has abandoned the idea of free markets and trade, we have the government now blatently engaging in suppression of free speech even further than any immigrants have managed. And no, whataboutism does not fix the issue.
It the nativists themselves turn into the communists and censors, then that can't possibly be the true issue they have with immigrants. The nativists embrace the anti American ideals, ones we've had since the founding. George Washington himself saying the USA is a country to take the virtuous and persecuted. It is Washington's view that lead us to winning the space race, creating the nukes, and plenty of other achievements off the backs of the scientists the Nazis cast out.
This is not a binary choice. The US as a "coherent nation" has always been one of immigrants. Even now, about half of the citizenship can trace back heritage to just Ellis Island alone for instance. And economic strength is one of the necessary components to being a coherent nation, the US is strong and powerful because we have the best of the world. Would you rather it be Germany or Japan who developed the nukes first?
It traces back so far that it even goes to the very founding. George Washington himself himself wanted the USA to be a country that takes in the virtuous and persecuted. It is Washington's view that lead us to winning the space race, creating the nukes, and plenty of other achievements off the backs of the scientists the Nazis and Maoists and whoever else cast out.
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