If you sort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq... by "CIA Gini %" and skip the countries where there is no data in that column, then sort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... by the "2010" column, then squint a bit at the top ten or twenty countries in each list, they look kinda correlated. (Or co-correlated with a whole bunch of other factors.)

https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/00346530055...

”Among economic measures, inequality is generally a better predictor of violence than unemployment. But The Gini coefficient, the standard index of inequality, actually rose in the United States from 1990 to 2000, while crime was fallinh, and it had hit its low point in 1968, when crime was soaring. The problem with invoking inequality to explain changes in violence is that while it correlates with violence across states and countries, it does not correlate with violence over time within a state or country, possibly because the real cause of the differences is not inequality per se but stable features of a state’s governance or culture that affect both inequality and violence. (For example, in unequal societies, poor neighbourhoods are left without police protection and can become zones of violent anarchy.)

EDIT: Downvotes? For this?

I'm not claiming that lacking the diversity is a good thing, merely that having extra options decreases cohesion. The more diverse the economic situation is (say, due to vast wealth inequality) the less cohesion there is. The more diverse the religions are, the less common-ground people have based on religion--as in most of European history. The more racially diverse a place is, the more tensions due to race (LA versus Helsinki).

Is it worth the hit to cohesion to have better diversity? I'd argue that, in the absence of external threats, it absolutely is. But living in a fantasyland where diversity doesn't come at the expense of cohesion doesn't help.

It's the inverse of diversity. Economic inequality, religious, philosophical & cultural diversity — make a measure which combines all of those things, then invert it. It'd at least make a start.

It seems to be somewhat inversely related to diversity but not entirely. As Megan has also written, Greece and Italy are also fairly homogeneous but don't have most of the social characteristics of the Nordics.

I also don't understand why is it bad faith to say or imply that racial homogeinity leads to better cohesion and in turn more safety and equality. I guess I'll never know because any kind of discussion about that is shut off for some reason.

If you want a country with white people, take Russia (though I’m not sure how homogenous it is, it’s definitely not US levels of integration).

Simply because some homogenous societies have low murder rates doesn’t mean all do, and does not mean the reason is homogeneity.

Often white racists in the US make the argument that if there was more homogeneity then there wouldbe less violence. However this shirks the responsibility of the white people for the fact that historically they were the instigators of all racial hate. Black people in America have high crime rates due to systematic and concerted efforts to oppress them over 2 centuries. Blaming that oppression as just some natural unavoidable thing that happens when there is racial integration is what one is trying to do when they argue homogenity is the reason, rather than the belief of racial superiority or hate.

If you go to Countries like China, while they can say insensitive things about black people due to the lack of experience interacting with them, they definitely do not harbor any of the American style racial beliefs towards them.

Blaming lack of homogeneity as the cause for racial issues is shirking responsibility for causing them.

For example there are some ethnic minorities in Japan but the government has long been against that in order to preserve a unified national identity.

Is there a strong national identity or fragmented identities and loyalties?

Diversity has nothing to do with losing culture. It’s about sharing cultures and understanding other cultures and points of view. Diversity is a fundamental requirement of all life, whether it’s cultural, racial, or cellular and genetic. In all cases diversity increases resilience, whether to new unaccounted for situations or new diseases.

But anyways, I think Japan, and China would disagree with your arguments.

But more importantly, I think it is the political and social realm where "diversity" causes the most friction.

Increasingly, much of our political, social, and cultural debates and discussions are focused on diversity and racial issues.

The more "diverse" one's citizenry, the more they will be saddled with these kinds of hot-button issues. The more identity groups, the more separate political constituencies will exist.

They crowd out, or influence, almost all other discussions around politics and economic. Increasingly social-justice/multiculturalism/diversity is involved with every issue in the political sphere. This is not a positive development.

To the degree these kinds of changes happen slowly, the more diverse cultures assimilate to the host culture. Diversity supporters do not generally support limited, slow immigration, but rather open borders.

Yeah, right. This has absolutely nothing to do with being 'diverse' and progressive. I don't know what you had in mind (SV?), but this all is caused by stuff that already happened decades ago. This is pretty well documented history.

> [..] and that the US is the economic center of the world.

Pride goeth before a fall..

And even now, this is only true if you assume certain constraints. For example, manufacturing? Not true anymore, ridiculous to even think that. The same with other domains of the economy, I'm not saying this to attack the US, because I actually love you guys, but you have to deal with some serious issues, because before you realize it you're not the center of the world of anything any longer. It can be awfully quick sometimes.

You can believe that it's not due to diversity, but you cannot make the argument that SV's current success is based stuff that happened decades ago. That's like saying the US was founded by white people, ensuring its current success. That would basically claim that everything that followed, all policies, events, progress, had no effect? That would be ludicrous.

Well, part of that is that considering population density, its not so easy for one Icelander to meet another.

Edit: Make sure you catch Gregory Cochran's reply.

"With a small, mostly homogenous population of 340,000 and a high degree of economic equality, Iceland is one of the world’s safest nations. It is the only Nato member without a standing army. [...] Police are not armed [...] The feeling of security is bolstered by Icelanders’ tendency to look out for one another, a tradition that dates back to times when close collaboration was essential to make it through the long, brutal winters."