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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   38166 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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In a previous open thread, the topic of immigration in Europe came up. At the time Sweden was being discussed and it was unclear to what extent immigrants were contributing to crime and other social problems. Unfortunately Sweden's publicly accessible data isn't sufficient to really dig into the issue.

Then I discovered this link which actually does address the issue of immigrant crime in Europe quite directly, albeit in Denmark instead of Sweden. It also addresses issues such as welfare use. As it turns out the racist right wing seems to be completely correct on facts.

Financial Contribution

Danes and western immigrants to Denmark are, on average, positive contributors to Denmark during their working years. The same is true, though less so, of "Other non western". However it turns out that the controversial group of immigrants - MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey) - are net negative contributors at every age.

A breakdown by country (for countries with at least 5000 immigrants to Denmark) is provided and the result is exactly what the far right would predict: white people, Indians and Chinese make good immigrants and contribute positively to Denmark. The average American benefits Denmark to the tune of about $12k/year, the average Indian a little bit less. The average Somalian costs Denmark about $18k. Thais, Vietnamese and Filipinos are net neutral.

Crime

Western immigrants commit crime at rates more or less equivalent to Danes. Non-western immigrants commit about 3.5x more violent crime (including murder) and 7x more rape.

Crime rates can be further broken down by country of origin. After adjusting for age and gender, we find that again the racist far right are entirely correct in their views. Somalians have crime rates about 7x that of Danes. Americans, British, Indians and Chinese have crime rates about half that of Danes. I was surprised to see that Israelis and Thais have higher than average crime rates.

Conclusion

In countries where data is available (such as Denmark and the US), said data strongly supports the position of educated internet right wing racists. Some countries, such as Sweden, try to obfuscate the data as much as possible to the point of not describing criminals.

I argue that the most reasonable thing we can do is assume that for nearby countries more or less similar patterns apply even if we lack data drilling down at the level of individual subgroups.

(I use "educated" as an important caveat. I do not necessarily expect a random American racist to make distinctions between Indians and Pakistanis, though a random Brit might. However the typical racist motte poster certainly does.)

Danes and western immigrants to Denmark are, on average, positive contributors to Denmark during their working years. The same is true, though less so, of "Other non western". However it turns out that the controversial group of immigrants - MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey) - are net negative contributors at every age.

A breakdown by country (for countries with at least 5000 immigrants to Denmark) is provided and the result is exactly what the far right would predict: white people, Indians and Chinese make good immigrants and contribute positively to Denmark. The average American benefits Denmark to the tune of about $12k/year, the average Indian a little bit less. The average Somalian costs Denmark about $18k. Thais, Vietnamese and Filipinos are net neutral.

This is why I always found it strange that there is a corporate argument for lllegal immigration - that somehow this improves the economy and business of European companies. Maybe, but the taxpayers are big losers ultimately, having to foot a massive bill that will inevitably result in either an increase in taxes (in already the most highly taxed countries in the world) or (more likely) a decrease in quality of services. It’s a lose lose situation.

Corporations benefitting at the expense of the public purse is not exactly a new idea. Indeed, it is one of the more compelling arguments against unfettered capitalism.

I would absolutely expect that corporations would like more cheap labour that is ultimately subsidised by taxpayers, especially in places where corporations are not themselves especially highly taxed. It's the same principle as Walmart workers on food stamps, writ large.

The likelihood that the general public would not buy the economic arguments in favour of immigration if they were more familiar with the numbers (at least in Denmark) may explain why those numbers do not seem to be particularly well reported.

Well wouldn’t an increased tax burden eventually translate to increased corporate taxes? At some point they must see this also goes against their interests

Thanks for the links, one important point though is that this shouldn't matter for Denmark to not want to become Indian, Chinese, or MENAPT. I don't care if the Chinese have positive tax contributions and lower criminal behavior than Danes, I don't want Denmark to become Chinese. Opponents of immigration shouldn't fall into the trap of "it's not about race, it's about crime and tax dollars". That didn't work in the US, it's not going to work in Denmark. It is about race.

For you, sure. But it might not be for others - such as me - since among other things, I don't think I'm the same race as you.

So you would be fine with Denmark becoming significantly or even majority Chinese if it meant lower crime and higher tax income? I ask because so many conservatives try hard to convince themselves that it's not about race when they oppose illegal immigration, but they are just in denial.

I at least wouldn't have any problem with that in theory. I don’t see the point of trying to freeze the ethnic map of the world at any particular point in time, as these things are always in flux. In practice, however, the things I do care about (cultural practices, crime rates, behavior) are so highly correlated with national origin that the simplest approach is to screen by background rather than thoroughly vet every individual immigrant to get only those that will assimilate well.

When I have visited Scandinavia in the past, the thing that annoyed me about immigrants there wasn't that they were nonwhite, it was that many did not seem to speak the local language, and I came close to berating several shopkeepers in my broken Swedish for their lack of respect towards their new home.

Cultural homogenization or breakdown of law and order are much worse outcomes in my eyes than racial replacement, and to the extent that they can be disambiguated (and perhaps they can't, this a point of disagreement), I don’t particularly care about the latter.

I don’t see the point of trying to freeze the ethnic map of the world at any particular point in time, as these things are always in flux.

I completely agree with that, but that is also the point I am trying to get across to OP. This isn't really about crime or taxes, it's about ethnogenesis, which is monumentally more important than any of those issues.

I also don't see value in trying to freeze the ethnic map of the world, but being conscious of its direction is of extreme importance, and hiding those anxieties behind complaints about crime or taxes is the road to failure. Ideally, you would rationally and intelligently influence the ethnic map of the world to achieve some desirable outcomes.

I came close to berating several shopkeepers in my broken Swedish for their lack of respect towards their new home.

I'm not trying to be snarky when I say that this is just a lack of cultural sensitivity on your part. If you put a mouse in a barn do you berate it for not acting like a horse? They are not Swedish and they never will be, you either accept that along with the concurrent changes in Swedish language and culture or you get serious about the problem of ethnogenesis.

Could you clarify what you mean by "ethnogenesis"? You don't seem to be using the standard definition.

I'm not trying to be snarky when I say that this is just a lack of cultural sensitivity on your part. If you put a mouse in a barn do you berate it for not acting like a horse? They are not Swedish and they never will be, you either accept that along with the concurrent changes in Swedish language and culture or you get serious about the problem of ethnogenesis.

Do you think Turks, Syrians and the like are just unable to learn Swedish?

I mean race formation, checking the definition of "ethnogenesis" I see:

the formation and development of an ethnic group

Which is the sense in which I am using the term, by saying that this is far more important than secondary issues like taxes. If a Swede doesn't want his ethnic identity to become half Middle-Eastern, he shouldn't have to voice his objections in terms of some accountant analyzing a tax ledger.

Based on the last paragraph of this post perhaps you might allow me to pose a question.

I am an American citizen (Caucasian, more or less, if it matters, with some Native American ancestry) living in Japan, my home now over two decades. I speak the language passably well though my kanji isn't what it should be (even recently on this forum I goofed a very basic term, and, as one might expect, was gently corrected). Though I am not in a service job, I am public-facing in that I stand in front of adult students every day. Would you argue that I shouldn't make efforts to learn Japanese, or that my learning of Japanese should be done only as a means of communication, and not as one of a larger set of strategies to integrate (to whatever degree) into Japanese culture?

You may suggest that I am "not Japanese and never will be" and that is of course not an unpopular perspective (particularly, even especially here). But surely the old saw about when in Rome carries some water in your mind? It's possible I'm misunderstanding you.

You are inclined to learn Japanese and respect the local culture, my point is it's not reasonable to expect that same behavior from masses of third world economic migrants. If a Japanese person wanted to maintain Japanese culture, it would be a bad idea to import masses of people who are unlike the Japanese and expect they will adopt the "when in Rome" mentality that you have. Culture is more dynamic than people and their personalities, it's more likely the culture is going to change than a Paki is going to start acting like a Swede.

If mases of Turks or Syrians moved to Japan, how many Japanese people would say "oh well, being Japanese is an idea that has nothing to do with ethnicity so these are now fellow Japanese people"?

I'll trust your judgement on that question, but why would their response be so different than the Swede who feels compelled to voice his objection by couching it in terms of taxes?

A friend of mine has a daughter, raised her here though my friend and her husband are from the US and both blue-eyed and white--their daughter is also. But the girl, because of her upbringing, can, and does, move as fluently through Japanese culture as her classmates. She is also perfectly, natively fluent in English. It's a marvel to see her slip in and out of these versions of herself.

In Nihonjinron scholarship (if that's the word to use) there have been many efforts at defining "Japaneseness." Some suggest both parents need to be ethnically Japanese. Because Japanese culture is so much a part of functioning here, however (that's a whole can of worms), others suggest that to be Japanese one has to be fluent in the language and preferably born in Japan.

That, too, sometimes doesn't matter. Returnee students who may have spent a few years abroad (especially if in early youth) are routinely told, on return, that because of some alteration in attitude, dress, or ineffable behavioral trait, they're "not really Japanese," as if their Japaneseness has been stripped from them.

The dimensions of the definition become more and more Procrustean as one goes on, as you might expect.

Eventually the concept "I know a Japanese when I see one" becomes the answer if the subject is pressed--and of course one cannot press the subject very far, for highlighting disagreement.or inconsistency in this way would be poor manners, itself "un-Japanese."

Older people might not consider the girl in my example above as ever having any chance of being Japanese, any more than a Zainichi Korean or third-generation Chinese. It isn't hard to find people using the term "Japanese blood" when the topic comes up. One quickly realizes nationality isn't the issue, or even culture, or language--or even biology (though there is of course that rather infamous book arguing the Japanese person's brain is structurally different from, well, from all the rest of us.)

I have the distinct sense that all this evaporates if you boil it down enough and you'll be left with steam, and, eventually an empty pot.

To address your question, there seems to be no real movement here (with a non-Japanese presence of around 2%) to shepherd anyone into the Japanese fold. Though I am considered uchi (内) or "one of the group/family/elect" in certain contexts here, remove one layer and I am again soto (外) or an outsider. But I haven't ever considered attempting applying for Japanese nationality.

I'd a fairly extreme (if benign) racist acquaintance some years ago who liked Japan and the Japanese fine because of the sense of clear delineation he felt here.

The LLM disagrees with me as well, and for basically the same reasons: it's been trained to think that.

Just leave the conversation if all you are going to say is a snarky comment.

Well, yeah. You have no real argument despite massive evidence being weighed against your position. It’s just neurotic appeals to emotion, constantly.

"Being English has nothing to do with ethnicity", yes I would say that is the perspective of someone who has been brainwashed. How do you think such a prevailing opinion has come to be? Do you think if the culture were different then the public would have a different opinion?

Let's take this story from a few days ago: Anglo-Saxons aren’t real, Cambridge tells students in effort to fight ‘nationalism’

Cambridge is teaching students that Anglo-Saxons did not exist as a distinct ethnic group as part of efforts to undermine “myths of nationalism”...

Its teaching aims to “dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism” by explaining that the Anglo-Saxons were not a distinct ethnic group, according to information from the department.

The department’s approach also aims to show that there were never “coherent” Scottish, Irish and Welsh ethnic identities with ancient roots.

The increased focus on anti-racism comes amid a broader debate over the continued use of terms like “Anglo-Saxon”, with some in academia alleging that the ethnonym is used to support “racist” ideas of a native English identity.

Information provided by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC) explains its approach to teaching, stating: “Several of the elements discussed above have been expanded to make ASNC teaching more anti-racist.

“One concern has been to address recent concerns over use of the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and its perceived connection to ethnic/racial English identity.

“Other aspects of ASNC’s historical modules approach race and ethnicity with reference to the Scandinavian settlement that began in the ninth century.

“In general, ASNC teaching seeks to dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism - that there ever was a ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, ‘Welsh’ or ‘Irish’ people with a coherent and ancient ethnic identity - by showing students just how constructed and contingent these identities are and always have been.”

...

However, the term Anglo-Saxon has recently become embroiled in controversy, with some academics claiming that the term Anglo-Saxon has been used by racists – particularly in the US – to support the idea of an ancient white English identity, and should therefore be dropped.

Cambridge teaching its students that there are no English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh ethnic identities could be considered brainwashing or education depending on your perspective. But whatever term you choose, the fact remains is that public opinion is indeed trained by these institutions.

These students, as learning agents, are being trained to believe that "being English has nothing to do with ethnicity", which is a complete lie from any reasonable perspective that would acknowledge the biological reality of an English ethnic identity. LLMs are fine-tuned by similar people with similar methods and for similar motives.

If these cultures and institutions rallied around a real history of English ethnic heritage which recognizes the Anglo-Saxons, public opinion would be very different, and public opinion was different when the narrative described in that article was the popular narrative.

The LLM disagrees with me as well, and for basically the same reasons: it's been trained to think that.

Yes, yes, we're all brainwashed

"Being English has nothing to do with ethnicity", yes I would say that is the perspective of someone who has been brainwashed.

Don't call people brainwashed. The user you responded to baited you, and you took the bait. And worse, you trained them that the snarky response is what gets you to actually make an effort and respond.

Effort responses for effort posts. Mod reports for low effort snark.

In countries where data is available (such as Denmark and the US), said data strongly supports the position of educated internet right wing racists.

What US data is that? Because I have largely seen the opposite. And see here.

The internet racists will say:

  • Crime by American blacks is very high

  • Crime by hispanic immigrants, particularly illegal ones, is higher than native whites but might be lower than native blacks

  • Similarly, expect high crime by hispanic natives (but less than blacks)

  • Crime by legal immigrants will be lower. Very few Salesforce Integration Engineers on an H1B visa or Abuelas brought to the US on a family reunification visa do crimes.

  • Crime by immigrant Somalians will probably also be high.

  • Crime by native whites is low

  • Crime by white immigrants, such as British or Danes, will also be low

  • Crime by immigrant Indians and Chinese will be very low

Do you disagree with these claims?

Neither of your sources has much to say about them. Your sources claim that the average of immigrant Hispanics and Chinese is lower than the average of native whites and native blacks.

It's odd that they didn't disaggregate the crimes of natives in such an obvious way, or break down immigrant crime by country of origin. Why do you think they didn't?

Crime by native whites is low

It looks low in comparison to the AA rate, but the US white-offender homicide rate is still higher than most developed European countries' total rate (and many of the poorer ones as well). Even if you assume that none of the "unknown" in the first link below are white, it's still 2.1 per 100,000. If you use the distribution of victims as an estimate (2nd link) since most murders are same-race, you get 2.5; if we assume the unknowns are distributed the same as the knowns (41% white), then we get just under 3. Countries such as Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, France, the UK, Switzerland, and the Netherlands are all below 2, as well as Poland, Spain, Albania, and Croatia, among others.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-2.xls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Vital_statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Just acknowledge that you agree with them.

Please refrain from telling others what they believe. This sort of thing adds only heat, no light. Don't post like this.

From my first comment:

data strongly supports the position of educated internet right wing racists.

What more would you like?

https://cis.org/Report/Misuse-Texas-Data-Understates-Illegal-Immigrant-Criminality

Illegal immigrants are often not identified as such by most state prison systems. Also any claims that illegals are less criminal than natives doesn't pass the most basic of smell tests: illegals skew younger and more male (which universally correlates with higher crime rates) and the very nature of their status as illegal immigrants makes certain crimes like identity theft (to secure housing/employment/etc.) much more common.

In situations where we do have more accurate data on the immigration status of convicts (such as federal prison system) the data suggests that the internet racists are, in fact, right. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/departments-justice-and-homeland-security-release-data-incarcerated-aliens-94-percent-all

Also any claims that illegals are less criminal than natives doesn't pass the most basic of smell tests

...That by definition the group is comprised of 100% criminals?

Don't ever concede that point if you don't need to.

But the old advice of "only commit one crime at a time" applies here too, presumably; if you're in a country illegally, it is in your interest to not do anything that could cause the police to pay attention to you and discover you entered illegally.

Like buy forged documents and evade taxes?

Your second link, re federal data, is not particularly convincing, in part because federal criminals are a very small pct of all criminals, but also because federal inmates are those who committed federal offenses, many of which, such as drug smuggling 44 percent of the total, are often international offenses, so of course non-citizens are going to be overrepresented. It is also unclear whether many of the people referenced in the report are in custody for immigration-related offenses or because they are in removal proceedings.

Illegal immigrants are often not identified as such by most state prison systems.

Right, the article re Texas mentions that TX is one of the few states that has good data, which is why they look at Texas

As for the CIS report, if you look at the database they include, homicide rates are a bit higher for illegal immigrants (assuming that the denominator for the illegal immigrant pop is correct), and sex assault rates are higher, but rates for assault and robbery are lower. It sure looks like overall violent crime is lower, or maybe about the same.

Interestingly, the rate of violent crime in many MENA countries is actually not particularly high.

Everyone remembers teachers in school who could command a class authoritatively to the extent that nobody even whispered when they were talking, and others who would be so weak as to allow the exact same group of, say, 11 year olds to run riot. I remember reading and watching interviews with some of the young male Syrian, Afghan etc migrants to Germany and so on after the 2015 refugee crisis. What seemed to be shared most of all was twofold:

  1. A deep-seated contempt for Western society for its liberalism. This, of course, is broadly shared by internet rightists, so can hardly be a major point of disagreement.

  2. The belief, real or fictional, that authority in the West was extremely weak and that, presumably unlike at home, they could get away with almost anything. This, of course, is also broadly agreed with by internet rightists.

Import young men from traditional cultures to a degenerate western society full to the brim with licentiousness, in which many crimes are barely policed, in which traditional morality has all but broken down, and you can’t be surprised if they take advantage.

The grooming gangs of Rotherham were able to rape so many girls in part because they knew there would be no posse of fathers and uncles coming for them. Most of the girls didn’t even have fathers, they were products of single motherhood in the dregs at the bottom of English society. In Pakistan, fathers and brothers risk jail to protect their family’s honor all the time.

Similarly, when it comes to work, Swedish Somalis are no doubt capable of working if the choice is between labor and starvation. If it’s between labor and generous welfare, though, the basis for the decision changes.

Opposition to mass immigration is fair, and there are many reasons why it is justified. But the truth is that - for the most part - these migrants do what they do not because it is in their nature but because Western countries allow them to. The old 4chan “they are laughing at you” really does apply here.

There are leftists, open border libertarians and moderate conservatives who talk honestly about immigrants in Scandinavia. Some users on this forum fit those descriptions, including some who are from Scandinavia themselves. @Stefferi.

“There are literally dozens of us!”

The other groups I mentioned acknowledge problems that have arisen as a result of immigration, but argue that there are benefits that are not captured by simply looking at net tax contributions,

Like what? Ethnic food?

that there are many more law-abiding immigrants than there are criminal immigrants

This reminds me of the poison smarties thought experiment.

that crime levels need to be seen in perspective (e.g., Malmö's homicide rate is magnitudes

This is a fully generalizable argument for anything though. “This isn’t an issue because in some far off place it’s even worse” it’s pure sophism and poorly reasoned rhetoric.

and that people who have acquired Swedish citizenship should be afforded the same rights and protections as ethnic Swedes.

by definition. We aren’t talking about citizens.

Since I was tagged, I'll just reiterate what I've written before: the key here is distinguishing between labor-related and humanitarian-related immigration (and distinguishing between these two forms is very common, right now the Finnish liberal-right and conservative-right parties are fighting in the government negotiations about both of these categories as separate instance, apparently coming to a compromise where humanitarian-immigration rules will be tightened but labor-immigration rules probably at least partially loosened).

When it comes to labor-related immigration, it is of course of major relevance what the actual net financial contribution is, and differences vary greatly in analysis over that level. However, labor-related immigration in Europe mostly nowadays comes outside of the MENA area; a lot of it comes from other European countries (MENA and non-MENA), another major part comes from countries like Thailand and Philippines.

However, when it comes to the categories of immigrants most associated with crime, welfare dependency etc, the main reason why they come to Europe is through humanitarian mechanisms, and there the big issue why they are permitted to come is not related to their financial and societal contribution but the maintenance of the actually existing treaty framework underpinning the current world order and that forms the ideological underpinning for the West's current effort to stay on top of that world order.

That doesn't think that financial matters, crime etc. are unimportant; they, and the populist reaction they lead to, are a major part of the reason why many European countries have tightened their interpretion of the asylum/refugee laws. However, insofar as this debate goes, it should at least be understood why the general asylum/refugee policies still continue, and the reason is the human rights treaty framework and is role in the maintenance of the idea of a global community.

One might disagree with that need, one might (especially now) consider the global community to be broken already - I believe that these arguments will get stronger year by year and will bolster right-wing parties in Europe and elsewhere. Still, my opinion continues to be that the idea has enough legs that the framework, including asylum treaties, should be maintained.

Certainly, if the last year's events in Ukraine have started developments chipping away at the idea of a global community in general, they have provided a very specific example of a fact that, even in Europe, wars precipitating vast refugee situations might happen; many Ukrainians have probably been saved and helped by the fact that Europe has developed policies and practices to take in vast numbers of refugees and facilitate, at least in some ways, the integration.

But if a MENA refugee is projected to cost the state, say 100k, while a ukrainian or north korean refugee costs 10k or even nothing, you can help far more of the latter group for the same cost. So even in a purely humanitarian framework, to maximize asylum we should discriminate.

When it comes to the framework, it's not a question of a monetary cost-benefit analysis. It's about the problem posed by asylum seekers themselves; if someone comes from, say, Syria, and says that they're an opposition activist and they can't go back because if they do then Assad's goons kills them on the spot, what do you do?

He might be lying, he might be a terrorist, he might be a common criminal, he might in many cases actually not be from Syria at all etc., but if we want the framework to hold, we must at least allow for a possibility that he is actually telling the truth (after all, Syria continues to be in some sort of a state of civil war and Assad continues to be, at the very least, a strongman authoritarian whose goons have indeed killed people), in which case he would indeed be entitled to asylum. If he is just summarily sent back, the framework is broken, and taking in some other guy from Ukraine won't fix it.

Of course, there's a whole process where we try to deduce what the actual truth status is and if the asylum criteria are met, but that takes time, and some arrangement must be found for him in the meantime.

If you assume there is a limited number of resources (reasonable assumption), you will always run afoul of the pie-in-the-sky framework. Ideally, every legitimate asylum seeker should get one, and every human should live in freedom, peace and abundance. But since we live on earth and not paradise, we might want to remember the limit and save more of those that can be saved. The likely liar/criminal/terrorist is just shit out of luck.

Has anyone proposed only allowing women and children in, unless the men were fighting for the allies of the accepting country? The argument being that men are supposed to take up arms in defense of the fatherland and fight and die in order to protect their freedom and way of life. The guys that stuck their necks on the line fighting the Taliban also get a pass, those guys probably got killed after the Taliban took over, for example.

Can you link to leftists who openly acknowledge the "rapefugee" problem (not necessarily using that term), the disproportionate welfare consumption and the overall net drain on the public finances? I'm curious to hear their arguments.

A notable fact I'd love to see them recon with: if in fact the harm caused by immigrant communities is the result of a small minority of criminals and welfare users, why not just deport that small minority and solve the problem? I.e. suppose 90% of Somalian immigrants are $10k net positive, but the average Somalian contribution is -$19k (this # is actual). That means the bad 10% of Somalians cost an average of $280k/each (per year!). Why keep them around?

Yes.chad, and deport the rapists with citizenship too.

that there are many more law-abiding immigrants than there are criminal immigrants,

That's essentially saying "Rates? Who cares about rates?"

We make comparisons using rates and numbers, and not "many", for a reason.

("We" meaning educated people. I don't want to be accused of building consensus.)

There has been a consistent majority against immigration to Sweden for decades yet politicians have pressed on. Even among non SD-voters, the views on immigration tend to be right of the party.

What you are forgetting is the main issue, social cohesion, the sense of beloning and the deep trust that has existed in Swedish society. Swedes in Dubai don't socialize with rich arabs. Most people have friends in their own age group, with similar levels of education etc. People don't want to feel like an alien in their own community. Swedes start moving out of an area as early as 4% of the inhabitants being migrants. Even if the migrants weren't more likely to engage in migrants and even if they paid more in taxes most people don't want to live in a Bangalore even if the people there are smart and productive.

The idea that society is nothing more than a platform for economic exchange completely misses most of human experience and what builds a strong well functioning society. Take the top 10% of ten countries and put them together and you want have a super-country. You will have a corrupt, dysfunctional society.

People in Western countries consistently poll as being opposed to immigration but in practice do not express supermajority support for anti-immigration parties. It is a fair point. If people prioritized it as the number one issue, the Sweden Democrats, AfD etc would do better electorally.

Indeed. For all the griping that OBVIOUSLY everyone hates immigrants, the parties making the loudest fuss about them don't poll all that well.

Do american blacks next.

Broadly, the question is not whether crime rates are higher, but instead how to interpret that fact. For example, using this information to discriminate against people based on their race would be racism. If you were to structure an immigration policy, you wouldn't ask what race a potential immigrants was. Instead, you would look at education, criminal record, and other non discriminatory factors and use that to inform your decision. In fact, the large disparity in these dimensions for mena immigrants can largely be attribute to the fact that such determinations were not used when accepting such immigrants, since they were accepted due to being refugees, or immigrated illegally.

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What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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