5 ms·

> Why does a Guatemalan immigrant add more value to American society than a sixth generation Appalachian? Who’s saying the Guatemala adds MORE value ? They ca

> Why does a Guatemalan immigrant add more value to American society than a sixth generation Appalachian? Who’s saying the Guatemala adds MORE value ? They can add the same value as an Appalachian and still be a win for the country > Are the Chinese sitting around saying “what we need to improve this country is a bunch of non-Chinese.” Are Indians saying that? Japanese? The Chinese are saying they want more people The Japanese certainly want more people too

rayiner 3y ago
The Chinese and Japanese want more Chinese and Japanese people because they have mismanaged their population. Some are arguing for immigration to address a population decline. I see very few people in those countries expressing the American sentiment that the country is “enriched” by having immigrants from non-Chinese/Japanese backgrounds come to the country. If those countries could stabilize their populations without foreign immigration, they’d do that in a heartbeat.
- skulk 3y ago
  It's very simple: Chinese and Japanese people do not like people who don't look like them. Were you trying to bait someone into saying that? I'll say it because I have been told by natives of both that it's true. Here in the US, we consider that to be a base instinct and try to suppress it.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Racism is bad. It's not a cultural quirk that needs to be respected.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        Are you mixing up race and culture/nationality as a rhetorical device, or because you genuinely cannot understand the difference?
        tptacek 3y ago
        How about the third option, that the distinction doesn't matter, and that xenophobia is bad and doesn't need to be respected? Regardless: the issue with immigration in China and Japan is racism.
        rayiner 3y ago
        The distinction does matter. Racism is wrong because race is without substance. Your genetics don’t determine anything about you that would matter to people living around you. Everything else is fair game. Having people in your community who don’t share your language, or your cultural context, etc., makes your life more difficult. Those difficulties are what cause Japanese and Chinese people frustration even with foreign-born Japanese and Chinese people. (Which is why you can’t chalk it up to “racism.”) Moreover, that sentiment is not limited to China and Japan. Indians, Bangladeshis, etc., don’t want mass immigration either. It’s not as much of a political issue in this countries because those countries don’t have inverted population pyramids. I suspect most people in the Middle East or Africa would feel the same way if immigration were a major phenomenon in those places. Now you can say “the rest of the world is just wrong” but you’re going to need more than that ipse dixit.
        tptacek 3y ago
        I am not required to take seriously the concern that people who "don't share your language" "make life more difficult". Coping with, and eventually prospering from the complexities of other people is part of building a western-style free society. If this is an elaborate rhetorical ploy to get me to say that American culture is superior to that of the rest of the world in this regard, you needn't have been so coy, because I'm happy to come out and say it. You can decode a lot of our political differences to my lack of contempt for American culture and civic values.
  - ddd00001 3y ago
    Suppressing bad instincts is good and all, but don't overdo it. Central American farmers are not interchangeable for Chinese physicists. It's really amusing how much of leftism relies on discredited 1960's blank slate ideology.
ddd00001 3y ago
I think the much worse failure is assuming all immigrants come from "immigrantland". The impact of a Chinese physicist (and his children, and his children's children) will be much different than a Guatemalan farmer. Until those left-of-center can admit this reality of life, they just need to be totally ignored.
- rayiner 3y ago
  I agree high skill immigration is different, but I don't think it’s better. My dad came here as a skilled immigrant. He didn’t need to rely on welfare services, sure, but my parents are still steeped in the classist/elitist mentality that’s deeply ingrained in our south Asian culture. They think it’s right and proper for elites to dictate to “the common people” how to live, because that’s how our society is structured. They also think religion is ignorant/backward, because they come from this tiny secular elite in our overwhelmingly Muslim country. They bring all these foreign values to the polling place every time they vote. At the end of the day, you have to ask: what makes America, America? Is it the best minds from all over the world? I don’t think so. America was a world power long before significant skilled immigration. Instead, I think it’s the distinct cultural and political values of the English settlers who founded the country—not just the elites, but especially the “common people.”
  - ddd00001 3y ago
    There's a simple hard truth that intelligence is largely heritable and intelligence has a significant correlation to an individual's fiscal net effect (not only that individual, but his/her children, and the children's children, and so on). There's a level of low-skill immigration (or at least guest workers a la Asian countries) that is good because you allow high-skill people to work in high-skill occupations. But once you cross that level you just drag down overall productivity. What's happening in America is you have an extremely productive class of (typically white and Asian) skilled workers, and then an extremely unproductive class of service and public-sector workers that are increasingly a drain on fiscal health. The left doesn't see this differentiation (or they do, but they refuse to acknowledge it because noticing differences among groups is what bad people do) and just simplify it to "immigration good" like some sort of late night watching, reddit-reading NPC.

rayiner 3y ago

The Chinese and Japanese want more Chinese and Japanese people because they have mismanaged their population. Some are arguing for immigration to address a population decline. I see very few people in those countries expressing the American sentiment that the country is “enriched” by having immigrants from non-Chinese/Japanese backgrounds come to the country. If those countries could stabilize their populations without foreign immigration, they’d do that in a heartbeat.

skulk 3y ago
It's very simple: Chinese and Japanese people do not like people who don't look like them. Were you trying to bait someone into saying that? I'll say it because I have been told by natives of both that it's true. Here in the US, we consider that to be a base instinct and try to suppress it.
- rayiner 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Racism is bad. It's not a cultural quirk that needs to be respected.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      Are you mixing up race and culture/nationality as a rhetorical device, or because you genuinely cannot understand the difference?
      - tptacek 3y ago
        How about the third option, that the distinction doesn't matter, and that xenophobia is bad and doesn't need to be respected? Regardless: the issue with immigration in China and Japan is racism.
        rayiner 3y ago
        The distinction does matter. Racism is wrong because race is without substance. Your genetics don’t determine anything about you that would matter to people living around you. Everything else is fair game. Having people in your community who don’t share your language, or your cultural context, etc., makes your life more difficult. Those difficulties are what cause Japanese and Chinese people frustration even with foreign-born Japanese and Chinese people. (Which is why you can’t chalk it up to “racism.”) Moreover, that sentiment is not limited to China and Japan. Indians, Bangladeshis, etc., don’t want mass immigration either. It’s not as much of a political issue in this countries because those countries don’t have inverted population pyramids. I suspect most people in the Middle East or Africa would feel the same way if immigration were a major phenomenon in those places. Now you can say “the rest of the world is just wrong” but you’re going to need more than that ipse dixit.
        tptacek 3y ago
        I am not required to take seriously the concern that people who "don't share your language" "make life more difficult". Coping with, and eventually prospering from the complexities of other people is part of building a western-style free society. If this is an elaborate rhetorical ploy to get me to say that American culture is superior to that of the rest of the world in this regard, you needn't have been so coy, because I'm happy to come out and say it. You can decode a lot of our political differences to my lack of contempt for American culture and civic values.
- ddd00001 3y ago
  Suppressing bad instincts is good and all, but don't overdo it. Central American farmers are not interchangeable for Chinese physicists. It's really amusing how much of leftism relies on discredited 1960's blank slate ideology.

ddd00001 3y ago

I think the much worse failure is assuming all immigrants come from "immigrantland". The impact of a Chinese physicist (and his children, and his children's children) will be much different than a Guatemalan farmer. Until those left-of-center can admit this reality of life, they just need to be totally ignored.

rayiner 3y ago
I agree high skill immigration is different, but I don't think it’s better. My dad came here as a skilled immigrant. He didn’t need to rely on welfare services, sure, but my parents are still steeped in the classist/elitist mentality that’s deeply ingrained in our south Asian culture. They think it’s right and proper for elites to dictate to “the common people” how to live, because that’s how our society is structured. They also think religion is ignorant/backward, because they come from this tiny secular elite in our overwhelmingly Muslim country. They bring all these foreign values to the polling place every time they vote. At the end of the day, you have to ask: what makes America, America? Is it the best minds from all over the world? I don’t think so. America was a world power long before significant skilled immigration. Instead, I think it’s the distinct cultural and political values of the English settlers who founded the country—not just the elites, but especially the “common people.”
- ddd00001 3y ago
  There's a simple hard truth that intelligence is largely heritable and intelligence has a significant correlation to an individual's fiscal net effect (not only that individual, but his/her children, and the children's children, and so on). There's a level of low-skill immigration (or at least guest workers a la Asian countries) that is good because you allow high-skill people to work in high-skill occupations. But once you cross that level you just drag down overall productivity. What's happening in America is you have an extremely productive class of (typically white and Asian) skilled workers, and then an extremely unproductive class of service and public-sector workers that are increasingly a drain on fiscal health. The left doesn't see this differentiation (or they do, but they refuse to acknowledge it because noticing differences among groups is what bad people do) and just simplify it to "immigration good" like some sort of late night watching, reddit-reading NPC.