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> People from different cultures are different. Not because of race, but because of cultural socialization, which persists for generations even in a new host co

> People from different cultures are different. Not because of race, but because of cultural socialization, which persists for generations even in a new host country. You've said that your wife's family has been in this country since before the American Revolution. So your kids aren't exclusively products of your (recent-immigrant) family's culture. > In a democracy, those cultural differences will be reflected in the government and society of the new country. That's how evolution works: Through the combined effects of variation — especially through mixing of genetic- and cultural traits via sexual reproduction — plus selection for that which provides an advantage in the relevant environment. (It's part of the Great Project of building a universe.) > There are perfectly good reasons why the people in new country wouldn’t want to live with those changes. Different people dislike a wide variety of changes. (We love novelty, we hate change.) Robert A. Heinlein said, "Never argue with the weather"; in the modern world, population migration falls into that category. Footnote: I'm re-reading David Halberstam's book The Best and the Brightest, about the origins of American involvement in the Vietnam War — which was a subject of not a little personal interest to me and my generation back then. It's saddening to read again how U.S. policymakers' insistence on unrealistic premises — rejecting knowledgeable advice from experienced Asia hands — led to delusions that we could interfere in a colonial war on the cheap. Modern global migration presents similar opportunities for policy f*k-ups.

rayiner 3y ago
> If you imagine that y'all's kids are exclusively products of your immigrant family's "deep culture," then your wife and her family would doubtless like a word. The super-majority of every group still marries within their group, so our case is unusual. (My wife still has 7/8 British ancestry.) Our kids are a negotiated mix: Bangladeshi dad morality and career expectations, Oregonian mom austerity and disciplinary techniques. Regardless, my point is that they’re far from Oregonian. Folks in Eugene, OR probably wouldn’t want my daughter running the town. > In a democracy, those cultural differences will be reflected in the government and society of the new country. That's how evolution works — variation, plus selection for that which works, especially through mixing of genetic- and cultural traits via sexual reproduction. (It's part of the Great Project of building a universe.) I would characterize what’s happening to America as more like entropy. Or maybe “worse is better.” Regardless, I view society as democratic project, not a free market or evolutionary one. People get to design the kind of society they want to live in. And they should realize that who they invite to join that society has a big effect on that.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > The super-majority of every group still marries within their group .... That certainly might be the case for the first couple of generations. But it's a movie, not a snapshot. My own kids have ancestry from six different countries (that we know of), including emigration from two countries within just the last 100 years or so and from two other countries in the 50 years before that. The neighbor kid (who's now verging on middle age) is ethnically the product of a very-mixed marriage, and he himself married a girl from yet another immigrant group — they just had a baby whose ancestry is, I think, from six different countries as well. > I would characterize what’s happening to America as more like entropy. Entropy presupposes no external input of energy or information, doesn't it? Immigration can provide both. > Regardless, I view society as democratic project, not a free market or evolutionary one. People get to design the kind of society they want to live in. To a very-limited extent that's true. But quaere whether an even better metaphor would be a rugby scrum: Even within a hypothetical ethnic monoculture, "people" aren't a monolith (as in the famous Apple "1984" commercial); they don't have the same tastes, drives, or capabilities, and they do tend to push to get what they want, both alone and with others who are of like mind — or who are coerced to help, or at least to acquiesce.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    > That certainly might be the case for the first couple of generations. But in that couple of generations, they’ve already massively changed the country, e.g., with Italian immigration to the US in the 20th century. Mass immigration completely changed northern Virginia where I grew up. Maybe 100 years from now those people will mix and form a new amalgam. But the place I liked doesn’t exist anymore, and the place it is now I don’t like so much—just as a matter of cultural preference. Why isn’t that a perfectly reasonable basis for opposing immigration? > Entropy presupposes no external input of energy or information, doesn't it? Immigration can provide both. If the energy input is used to organize rather than disorganize, sure. But immigration is like applying heat to an ice sculpture. Taking something organized and subjecting it to random forces.
    - dctoedt 3y ago

rayiner 3y ago

> If you imagine that y'all's kids are exclusively products of your immigrant family's "deep culture," then your wife and her family would doubtless like a word. The super-majority of every group still marries within their group, so our case is unusual. (My wife still has 7/8 British ancestry.) Our kids are a negotiated mix: Bangladeshi dad morality and career expectations, Oregonian mom austerity and disciplinary techniques. Regardless, my point is that they’re far from Oregonian. Folks in Eugene, OR probably wouldn’t want my daughter running the town. > In a democracy, those cultural differences will be reflected in the government and society of the new country. That's how evolution works — variation, plus selection for that which works, especially through mixing of genetic- and cultural traits via sexual reproduction. (It's part of the Great Project of building a universe.) I would characterize what’s happening to America as more like entropy. Or maybe “worse is better.” Regardless, I view society as democratic project, not a free market or evolutionary one. People get to design the kind of society they want to live in. And they should realize that who they invite to join that society has a big effect on that.

dctoedt 3y ago
> The super-majority of every group still marries within their group .... That certainly might be the case for the first couple of generations. But it's a movie, not a snapshot. My own kids have ancestry from six different countries (that we know of), including emigration from two countries within just the last 100 years or so and from two other countries in the 50 years before that. The neighbor kid (who's now verging on middle age) is ethnically the product of a very-mixed marriage, and he himself married a girl from yet another immigrant group — they just had a baby whose ancestry is, I think, from six different countries as well. > I would characterize what’s happening to America as more like entropy. Entropy presupposes no external input of energy or information, doesn't it? Immigration can provide both. > Regardless, I view society as democratic project, not a free market or evolutionary one. People get to design the kind of society they want to live in. To a very-limited extent that's true. But quaere whether an even better metaphor would be a rugby scrum: Even within a hypothetical ethnic monoculture, "people" aren't a monolith (as in the famous Apple "1984" commercial); they don't have the same tastes, drives, or capabilities, and they do tend to push to get what they want, both alone and with others who are of like mind — or who are coerced to help, or at least to acquiesce.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > That certainly might be the case for the first couple of generations. But in that couple of generations, they’ve already massively changed the country, e.g., with Italian immigration to the US in the 20th century. Mass immigration completely changed northern Virginia where I grew up. Maybe 100 years from now those people will mix and form a new amalgam. But the place I liked doesn’t exist anymore, and the place it is now I don’t like so much—just as a matter of cultural preference. Why isn’t that a perfectly reasonable basis for opposing immigration? > Entropy presupposes no external input of energy or information, doesn't it? Immigration can provide both. If the energy input is used to organize rather than disorganize, sure. But immigration is like applying heat to an ice sculpture. Taking something organized and subjecting it to random forces.
  - dctoedt 3y ago