Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

Our kids will grow up with shop windows advertising in English and in Robotish. I think we should be very careful in vetting immigrants from Robotostan. Their culture is different than ours.

[iam416]

Yeah, my visceral feeling is that 2nd generation pretty much gets to assimilation. Still.

That said, there are, in theory, things out there in our brave new world that may alter that slightly -- the emphasis from progressive folks on multicuturalism and the, at times, strident disdain for assimilation. You could probably point to France as an example of problematic immigration in this regard -- but that's France. That's not the US. The French have a different set of immigrants.

But, at the end of the day those people preaching multiculturalism seem academic to me and the reality is that immigrants still assimilate as they always have. They will, as all who have come before them, transition to hyphenated Americans. And hopefully bring some good cuisine with them.

[hack]

at the end of the day those people preaching multiculturalism seem academic to me and the reality is that immigrants still assimilate as they always have.

That is an excellent question, through I would frame the preaching as coming from government. Second-generation kids just want to fit in, and away you go. That's the immigrant story 95% of the time, as long as you're offering people the chance at citizenship and full rights, unlike France or Germany. But then again Canada spends a good amount of public policy and money promoting multiculturalism, and is without question the country that is furthest down the road to post-tribalism. Correlation/causation question.

[Mainevent]

And I don't get the point anyway, we should shut off immigration because some cultures have a harder time assimilating? That's part of bringing people together, to learn and grow together, not just force everyone to immediately take on your thoughts, values and ideals.

[iam416]

Second-generation kids just want to fit in, and away you go.

Correct.

Re Canada, I haven't a clue how the various ethnic groups in that country interact, but the ethnic makeup is pretty straight-foward: "people of color" -- and I'll count Asians in that group -- make up less than 10% of the population. If you remove Asians, it's less than 5%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada

It's a country that strikes me as massively white. If that's the case -- and I'll defer to you to offer a different explanation of the demographic numbers if it isn't -- then it gets to a fairly standard place -- it's easier, IMO, to be collective, to be multicultural, to be all these high-minded things, when your particular society is homogeneous. I always fel that was a huge advantage for the Nordic countries.

The US truly is diverse as all fuck. The US has more significant populations of AAs and Latinos, by percentage, than Canada does of all "brown people" combined. The US Asian population, by percentage, is almost 5% -- Canada is at 6%. That's a fairly different canvas than Canada -- not suggesting you don't think otherwise.

[Wild Hoss]

Our kids will grow up with shop windows advertising in English and in Robotish. I think we should be very careful in vetting immigrants from Robotostan. Their culture is different than ours.

Everybody gets their comeuppance eventually.

[iam416]

Re demographics, I just saw that the breakdown in Texas is (W/H/B): 46/37/12. The only states with a lower white population are California (40/37/6 + 13 Asian), New Mexico is 40/46/2) and Hawaii (only 22W).

I guess I find Texas surprising because it is so decidedly Republican. I mean, it's very comparable to California. I wonder who minority votes split in Texas. I wonder if there's a cultural assimilation factor that influences voting patterns. Are California hispanics more likely to vote D than Texas hispanics at a statistically significant rate?

I mean, on its face you'd have Texas in a toss-up category, at best, and probably D.

[hack]

Heh - that's robot's in Toronto. Note how he's not being harassed by angry white people. That's thanks to the government's spending to promote diversity.

[Wild Hoss]

The goddamn Canadians are throwing in with the Cylons.

[hack]

Correct.

Re Canada, I haven't a clue how the various ethnic groups in that country interact, but the ethnic makeup is pretty straight-foward: "people of color" -- and I'll count Asians in that group -- make up less than 10% of the population. If you remove Asians, it's less than 5%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada

It's a country that strikes me as massively white. If that's the case -- and I'll defer to you to offer a different explanation of the demographic numbers if it isn't -- then it gets to a fairly standard place -- it's easier, IMO, to be collective, to be multicultural, to be all these high-minded things, when your particular society is homogeneous. I always fel that was a huge advantage for the Nordic countries.

The US truly is diverse as all fuck. The US has more significant populations of AAs and Latinos, by percentage, than Canada does of all "brown people" combined. The US Asian population, by percentage, is almost 5% -- Canada is at 6%. That's a fairly different canvas than Canada -- not suggesting you don't think otherwise.

In 2011, Canada had a foreign-born population of about 6,775,800 people. They represented 20.6% of the total population, the highest proportion among the G8 countries.

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm

The U.S. immigrant population stood at more than 42.4 million, or 13.3 percent, of the total U.S. population of 318.9 million in 2014, according to ACS data. Between 2013 and 2014, the foreign-born population increased by 1 million, or 2.5 percent.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states

That said, I'm not surprised if, overall, there was ways to show the US has more diversity. The US is still what people aspire to, not Canada.

I agree that it's easier when you don't perceive foreigners as a drain on national resources, but plenty of Canadians do perceive it as such. In keeping with everything Can/Am, I'd guess the problem is proportionately about 10% of what it is in the US. We have our own would-be Trump, who is appropriately cute and quaint in comparison, and we have those kinds of voters. In the 90s there were very painful arguments about the sustainability of the welfare state, and I recall at the same time up flared an outrage over Sikhs who were federal employees being allowed to wear turbans on the job, specifically as cops. Quebec is another story.

There are some very interesting little tidbits about Canada though. It's been a while since I looked, and I intend to look again, but you can measure the ethnic makeup of Parliament as a measure of diversity in opportunity. I remember talking to a pollster a few years back who found a Vancouver district in which a majority of Chinese sent an Indian to Ottawa as their representative, and another in which the reverse happened. Those are just anecdotal, but clearly suggestive of the kind of truly post-tribal conditions desired.

[Wild Hoss]

The results of the 2016 Texas houses races show that the few districts won by Ds (mostly urban) were typically won by huge margins. I think that "total yards" analogy from the election writ large is also in play in the Longhorn state.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Re demographics, I just saw that the breakdown in Texas is (W/H/B): 46/37/12. The only states with a lower white population are California (40/37/6 + 13 Asian), New Mexico is 40/46/2) and Hawaii (only 22W).

I guess I find Texas surprising because it is so decidedly Republican. I mean, it's very comparable to California. I wonder who minority votes split in Texas. I wonder if there's a cultural assimilation factor that influences voting patterns. Are California hispanics more likely to vote D than Texas hispanics at a statistically significant rate?

I mean, on its face you'd have Texas in a toss-up category, at best, and probably D.

This is why a lot of people have pointed to Texas slowly becoming a blue state or toss-up at a minimum by 2030. The Hispanic birthrate is significantly higher than the white one as well. On top of that, lots of internal transplants that are moving to places like Houston & Austin are from liberal areas of the country.

On your other point I would guess that there's a bigger political difference between California/Texas white folks than Hispanics.

[Hannibal]

You can pay attention to a theory or you can pay attention to reality.

Yes, that's precisely what I am doing. You should get on board

The Libertarian ideal that we need no national borders because labor will move to where it is optimally deployed is an ivory tower theory. One that I used to be guily of believing in. The acceptance that we cannot use this theory to discuss America's current immigration situation is harsh, cold reality.

The ideal of multiculturalism and that we will all one day live as one big happy, post-racial family is ivory tower theory. The experiences of the Middle East for its entire history, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and modern day Sweden, Germany, Belgium, and France are harsh cold reality.

The notion that all of today's immigrants are just like the immigrants of yesteryear is ivory tower theory. The cultural measurements that I provided to you above are harsh, cold reality. Weren't you just giving me shit earlier about not backing up my statements with facts? I have given you some figures that you can use to compare the culture distance between the United States and the countries of year 1900 immigrants versus the countries of year 2017 immigrants. The differences are stark. Not that you should need hard numbers for this. A heat map simply showing the punishments that homosexuals receive in their various countries accomplishes much the same thing.

I'm glad that the forum Liberals have found religion when it comes to Capitalism now though. Does this mean that we can discuss paring down on the trillion dollar per year welfare state and return to peace time historical government spending norms now?

[hack]

The Hispanic birthrate is significantly higher than the white one as well.

That's the REAL reason we have an immigration debate. If people were really worried about jobs they would be attacking the machines and not the foreigners.

[hack]

You get pamphlets on "cultural measurements'' for free in safe spaces, right? Between the bowl of free condoms and the stack of Coexist bumper stickers?

People moving to where the jobs are isn't an ivory-tower theory. It's all of recorded human history. You know less about immigration than I do about lacrosse.