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If enough of this happens, the world will become a giant shopping mall in which everyone is from everywhere and no one has anything in common. No common culture
by 015UUZn8aEvW 5y ago
If enough of this happens, the world will become a giant shopping mall in which everyone is from everywhere and no one has anything in common. No common culture, history, identity, ancestry, anything. The distinctions between countries will become meaningless; an America filled with H1B workers will be the same as a Canada filled with their neighbors from back home. Sounds depressing. Personally, I'll settle for lower GDP.
- dane-pgp 5y agoWhat's the point of having a culture if you can't boast that other cultures are inferior, right? To offer a less sarcastic remark, let me point out that you seem to be claiming both that there would be "no common culture" and that "America ... will be the same as ... Canada", i.e. there will be a common culture, but it will be shared by everyone. You could certainly make a strong argument that this monoculture would prevent cultural innovation, but I don't actually think there would be a monoculture, just as there are multiple evolving cultures present within countries today, and in fact a given person can feel an affinity to multiple cultures simultaneously.
- zozbot234 5y ago> No common culture, history, identity, ancestry, anything. The EU has freedom of movement and very vibrant local cultures. Arguably, the same is true of the U.S. Even many individual cities within countries maintain strong identities that set them apart from other places. There are valid reasons to argue that totally open borders are unrealistic; but to think that they'll ever lead to a monoculture is quite baseless.
- GauntletWizard 5y agoThe Schengen area has existed for about 25 years. The EU for less than 30. There's no common language, but English as the language of businesses is already beginning to dominate. The USA had many rich local cultures, and to some extent still does - there's a lot of regional differences. But it also has ghettos and isolation, and an awful lot of senseless racial tension. Is cultural melding inevitable? Maybe, maybe not. But you can't take a mere generation of EU freedom of movement as an indicator of end-state.
- mrkentutbabi 5y agoYou get downvoted ofc because the mainstream thinking is always “diversity is good” but I totally get what you meant. Let us be downvoted together. Doomsayers often are hated.
- kar5pt 5y agoWhat he's describing is the _end_ of diversity. A big monoculture. Not an increase in diversity.
- mrkentutbabi 5y agoI don't think so. If it does, I believe it is just semantics.
- pyuser583 5y agoThe problem is the exact opposite: too much in common. Look at how popular English is internationally. Or the role of American pop culture. We’ll all wind up sparking English, eating from MacDonalds, and wearing Adidas.
- stirfish 5y agoAmerica is a cultural katamari damacy. It's pretty amazing how McDonald's, Adidas, Beyoncé, Marlboros, General Tso's chicken, and Spiderman are all from the same culture.
- DarylZero 5y agoIsn't this the world already?
- stirfish 5y agoSounds like we'd all have a lot MORE common culture, history, identity, ancestry, everything. Welcome to the human race: it takes all kinds. PS thanks for the copypasta
- unmole 5y ago> The distinctions between countries will become meaningless; Quoth the Internationale: And end the vanity of nations. We've one but one Earth on which to live. Put like that, doesn't sound bad. > Sounds depressing. Personally, I'll settle for lower GDP. Lower GDP reduces the amount of wealth that can go around. Sure, it won't matter for those who already have a high standard of living. But for others, it would mean a hollowing out the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to decorate the top.
- jdmoreira 5y agoWow. The world would still be full of people, each of them an individual and interesting in their own way. "Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down." - Edward Abbey