4 ms·

'The West' is, in fact, the world's biggest gated community

9 points by krigath 7y ago

deogeo 7y ago
Sure has a lot of immigration from outside the West for a gated community [1]. On the other hand, non-Western countries have near-zero Western immigration, or even inter-continental migration among themselves. So much so that, when viewed with a granularity on the scale of an India, China, or North-/Sub-Saharan Africa, they're nearly perfectly homogeneous, in stark contrast to the "closed, gated" West. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-...
- eesmith 7y ago
  "Gated community" doesn't mean there's no population exchange. After all, the initial population in a new gated community area may be zero. Instead, I think a better metric is the number of people who move to X vs. those who want and can afford to move to X, but are prevented because of a non-reciprocal policy by X. (I'm fine with some restrictions - nearly all countries have some restrictions; Svalbard, Norway being one of the rare exceptions. The above is a hand-wavy way of trying to not get stuck on that detail. The main point is that free movement of people/labor should be like the free movement of money/capital.) Think back to Jim Crow era US. Blacks may want to move to region of town but not allowed by deed restriction. While whites could move to the few areas of town "red-lined" for blacks, with no legal prohibition. They didn't - quite the opposite, in a process known as "white-flight." (Some blacks, particularly wealthy ones, could also move out, as well as black people who were employed as help for white families.) So, just because non-white regions have near-zero white immigration doesn't mean that they are "closed, gated" and the the white areas are not. Which suggests that your interpretation isn't a useful way of understanding what "closed, gated" means. There's also the physical dimension. Quoting the text: > At the end of the Cold War, there were just 15 walls separating countries from each other. Now there are at least 70 walled borders worldwide. Since the fall of the Wall, thousands of miles of steel and concrete walls have gone up on international borders.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    > those who want and can afford to move to X, but are prevented because of a non-reciprocal policy by X. It's easy to have open borders if hardly anyone takes advantage of it, so looking at reciprocity isn't very relevant. Faced with rising immigration, non-Western countries tend to adopt restrictions as well (see NPR link on Brazil). Furthermore, China will only grant citizenship to ethnic Chinese, whereas the West takes in many Chinese immigrants, so in this case, the non-reciprocity is in the other direction. A quick search failed to turn up what restrictions other non-Western countries have, but there's no lack of border walls - a few random examples from every non-Western continent: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-installs-laser-walls-border-pakistan-n564051 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-installs-laser-wall... https://www.seeker.com/why-india-is-building-the-longest-border-wall-in-the-world-1501495427.html https://www.seeker.com/why-india-is-building-the-longest-bor... https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/will-pakistans-wall-work/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/will-pakistans-wall-work/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/11/13/chinas-building-a-wall-any-lessons-for-trump https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/11/13/chinas-b... https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/16/184524306/brazil-looks-to-build-a-10-000-mile-virtual-fence https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/16/184524306/... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/22/western-sahara-wall-morocco-trump https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/22/western-sahara...
    - eesmith 7y ago
      "Faced with rising immigration, non-Western countries tend to adopt restrictions as well" Sure. The article itself mentions "Not all border walls are between the First World and the Rest of the World." and uses as examples the wall between India and Bangladesh (your #2 link) and Moracco's Berm (your #6), so clearly it wasn't making the point that the West was the only gated community. My point was to argue that your definition doesn't seem a reasonable as it doesn't really apply to actual gated communities, much less the metaphorical comparison used here. Other interpretations may be more valid, and demonstrate the incorrectness of "'The West' is, in fact, the world's biggest gated community", but I don't think yours does.
aaron695 7y ago
I was sad they seem to be talking about a literal wall. Not sure it has meaning or is even useful to know other than for sci-fi. Even if you could politically take down [B. The Australian Defense Force (ADF)], which you can't, approximately no one came through anyway... and once in they are now behind the wall. Compared with, The West seems to have a wall of language and culture that's hard to break. Don't underestimate the value of fully understanding Game of Thrones. This you can change.
King_Sanders 7y ago
Now I'm confused. Why would people from all over the world deliberately try to get into a nation that has structural racism, is populated by racists and which was founded on racism? New law- You First. Force the author of this article have an Open Door policy to his house. Just anyone can come and go as he or she pleases and take what they need for a period not less than 10 years.
zozbot234 7y ago
If "The West" is a gated community, how is it that so many countries are managing to join "The West"? Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore used not to be "Western" countries. Central and Eastern Europe, same thing. I've never seen a gated community that was this easy to join. Just reform your country's institutions, decide to start caring about economic freedom and other basic liberties, and you're basically there.
- eesmith 7y ago
  Are you using "The West" as a synonym for "developed country"? Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Cultural_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Cultural_definit... with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Economic_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Economic_definit... . > Cultural definition: In modern usage, Western world refers to Europe and to areas whose populations largely originate from Europe, through the Age of Discovery's imperialism > Economic definition: The term "Western world" is sometimes interchangeably used with the term First World or developed countries, ... It is also used despite many developed countries or regions not being Western (e.g. Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao), and therefore left out when "Western world" is used to denote developed countries. Minor point: Hong Kong has never been a country. Regarding "Just reform your country's institutions", many countries still struggle with the effects of European colonization, while the European profited immensely. As one example, it's hard to care about economic freedom "and other basic liberties" when the US helps the UK overthrow your democratically elected government in order to put a dictator in place, in order to protect Western oil interests - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... .
  - baud147258 7y ago
    I don't know all the European countries, but I'm pretty France didn't make any money from its colonies.
    - eesmith 7y ago
sunstone 7y ago
If I'm not mistaken Singapore and Bermuda have higher average incomes than the US and Europe. On the other hand the people of Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile for example are mostly pretty happy with their circumstances as are other middle income countries that are not kleptocracies. China too is coming up fast in terms of income if not democracy. Hard to argue that it's not a gated community too even if the gate is bi-directional in this case. Overall this looks like a cherry picking exercise.

9 points by krigath 7y ago

Sure has a lot of immigration from outside the West for a gated community [1]. On the other hand, non-Western countries have near-zero Western immigration, or even inter-continental migration among themselves. So much so that, when viewed with a granularity on the scale of an India, China, or North-/Sub-Saharan Africa, they're nearly perfectly homogeneous, in stark contrast to the "closed, gated" West. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-...

eesmith 7y ago
"Gated community" doesn't mean there's no population exchange. After all, the initial population in a new gated community area may be zero. Instead, I think a better metric is the number of people who move to X vs. those who want and can afford to move to X, but are prevented because of a non-reciprocal policy by X. (I'm fine with some restrictions - nearly all countries have some restrictions; Svalbard, Norway being one of the rare exceptions. The above is a hand-wavy way of trying to not get stuck on that detail. The main point is that free movement of people/labor should be like the free movement of money/capital.) Think back to Jim Crow era US. Blacks may want to move to region of town but not allowed by deed restriction. While whites could move to the few areas of town "red-lined" for blacks, with no legal prohibition. They didn't - quite the opposite, in a process known as "white-flight." (Some blacks, particularly wealthy ones, could also move out, as well as black people who were employed as help for white families.) So, just because non-white regions have near-zero white immigration doesn't mean that they are "closed, gated" and the the white areas are not. Which suggests that your interpretation isn't a useful way of understanding what "closed, gated" means. There's also the physical dimension. Quoting the text: > At the end of the Cold War, there were just 15 walls separating countries from each other. Now there are at least 70 walled borders worldwide. Since the fall of the Wall, thousands of miles of steel and concrete walls have gone up on international borders.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > those who want and can afford to move to X, but are prevented because of a non-reciprocal policy by X. It's easy to have open borders if hardly anyone takes advantage of it, so looking at reciprocity isn't very relevant. Faced with rising immigration, non-Western countries tend to adopt restrictions as well (see NPR link on Brazil). Furthermore, China will only grant citizenship to ethnic Chinese, whereas the West takes in many Chinese immigrants, so in this case, the non-reciprocity is in the other direction. A quick search failed to turn up what restrictions other non-Western countries have, but there's no lack of border walls - a few random examples from every non-Western continent: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-installs-laser-walls-border-pakistan-n564051 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-installs-laser-wall... https://www.seeker.com/why-india-is-building-the-longest-border-wall-in-the-world-1501495427.html https://www.seeker.com/why-india-is-building-the-longest-bor... https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/will-pakistans-wall-work/ https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/will-pakistans-wall-work/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/11/13/chinas-building-a-wall-any-lessons-for-trump https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2016/11/13/chinas-b... https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/16/184524306/brazil-looks-to-build-a-10-000-mile-virtual-fence https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/16/184524306/... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/22/western-sahara-wall-morocco-trump https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/22/western-sahara...
  - eesmith 7y ago
    "Faced with rising immigration, non-Western countries tend to adopt restrictions as well" Sure. The article itself mentions "Not all border walls are between the First World and the Rest of the World." and uses as examples the wall between India and Bangladesh (your #2 link) and Moracco's Berm (your #6), so clearly it wasn't making the point that the West was the only gated community. My point was to argue that your definition doesn't seem a reasonable as it doesn't really apply to actual gated communities, much less the metaphorical comparison used here. Other interpretations may be more valid, and demonstrate the incorrectness of "'The West' is, in fact, the world's biggest gated community", but I don't think yours does.

aaron695 7y ago

I was sad they seem to be talking about a literal wall. Not sure it has meaning or is even useful to know other than for sci-fi. Even if you could politically take down [B. The Australian Defense Force (ADF)], which you can't, approximately no one came through anyway... and once in they are now behind the wall. Compared with, The West seems to have a wall of language and culture that's hard to break. Don't underestimate the value of fully understanding Game of Thrones. This you can change.

King_Sanders 7y ago

Now I'm confused. Why would people from all over the world deliberately try to get into a nation that has structural racism, is populated by racists and which was founded on racism? New law- You First. Force the author of this article have an Open Door policy to his house. Just anyone can come and go as he or she pleases and take what they need for a period not less than 10 years.

zozbot234 7y ago

If "The West" is a gated community, how is it that so many countries are managing to join "The West"? Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore used not to be "Western" countries. Central and Eastern Europe, same thing. I've never seen a gated community that was this easy to join. Just reform your country's institutions, decide to start caring about economic freedom and other basic liberties, and you're basically there.

eesmith 7y ago
Are you using "The West" as a synonym for "developed country"? Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Cultural_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Cultural_definit... with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Economic_definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Economic_definit... . > Cultural definition: In modern usage, Western world refers to Europe and to areas whose populations largely originate from Europe, through the Age of Discovery's imperialism > Economic definition: The term "Western world" is sometimes interchangeably used with the term First World or developed countries, ... It is also used despite many developed countries or regions not being Western (e.g. Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao), and therefore left out when "Western world" is used to denote developed countries. Minor point: Hong Kong has never been a country. Regarding "Just reform your country's institutions", many countries still struggle with the effects of European colonization, while the European profited immensely. As one example, it's hard to care about economic freedom "and other basic liberties" when the US helps the UK overthrow your democratically elected government in order to put a dictator in place, in order to protect Western oil interests - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... .
- baud147258 7y ago
  I don't know all the European countries, but I'm pretty France didn't make any money from its colonies.
  - eesmith 7y ago

sunstone 7y ago

If I'm not mistaken Singapore and Bermuda have higher average incomes than the US and Europe. On the other hand the people of Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile for example are mostly pretty happy with their circumstances as are other middle income countries that are not kleptocracies. China too is coming up fast in terms of income if not democracy. Hard to argue that it's not a gated community too even if the gate is bi-directional in this case. Overall this looks like a cherry picking exercise.