Facts: Current birth rate among indigenous Europeans in most if not all European countries is and has been below replacement level for a few decades. Most population growth in Europe in the last few decades has been from immigration from outside Europe. The birth rate among non-indigenous Europeans in European countries is higher than indigenous birth rate.
Projections (not fact): This trend doesn't appear to be changing and it looks like it will continue for many more decades. If the trend continues, in a few decades the genetic makeup of most Europeans will be more similar to that of non-European ethnic groups than to that of people who have lived in Europe for tens of thousands of years.
Arguments (assuming projections are true):
a) the projections above are a bad thing if you are an ethnic European and you predominantly carry genes that split from the ethnic groups of immigrants tens of thousands of years ago.
b) the projections above don't matter
c) the projections above are a good thing
State why the projections are likely to be wrong, debunk argument a) or justify why arguments b/c are correct. Proceed.
A good justification for (b) can be found by determining the genetic diversity of indigenous populations from thousands of years ago and comparing to the present day. As an example the UK has had many 'immigrants' in just the past two thousand years alone, with the Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans being notable topics on a good school's History lessons.
Nevertheless, I believe your arguments aren't particularly relevant to the issues held by these extremists, who fear Islamic culture more than they fear Muslims themselves. They view 'multiculturalism' as the replacement of indigenous culture. If you want to go anywhere with this, you have to debate this more nuanced (and less scientific) viewpoint.
You used the UK as an example, however, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were ethnic Europeans and these genetic groups didn't split from indigenous people in the British isles tens of thousands of years ago but more recently. The projection (not fact) above mentions that: "in a few decades the genetic makeup of most Europeans will be more similar to that of NON-European ethnic groups than to that of people who have lived in Europe for TENS OF THOUSANDS of years".
In any case if you were any of those groups, you would have opposed an invasion from a later group. Picts fought Roman "immigration". One might interpret this as Picts wanting their genetic makeup to be more representative in the overall population of the British isles.
I don't see how this justification might convince someone who is "an ethnic European and predominantly carries genes that split from the ethnic groups of immigrants tens of thousands of years ago" that the projection doesn't matter if they don't already believe so.
I wasn't aware that these extremists aren't concerned about genes. I haven't read the manifesto nor am I planning to. However, people can still have a go at debunking the genetic argument above if they wish.
Pre-modern European tribes did not place an emphasis on race; it didn't exist yet. Nor did they care about protecting the nation or their national heritage, as the concept of nation itself took centuries to form millenia later and only started playing a major geopolitical role with the French revolution. This isn't to say the tribesmen were multiculturalists; they had their own cultures and were often wary of outsiders, but mostly for reasons of self defense. But the supposed desire for genetic homogeneity didn't prevent Scandinavians from raiding the French and British coasts, abducting women, and forcibly mating with them, despite their cultural and genetic differences.
There is not just one ethnic European group, there are many.[1]
I didn't mention the word "race" in any of the comments above. However, scientists show us that different groups of people on Earth cluster together genetically closer than they do to other groups of people. [2] This is what one expects if the ancestors of these groups parted ways millennia ago. What you mention about Turks and Greeks is not unexpected, Greece and Turkey being practically next to each other, I don't know why you bring this up.
You are entirely correct about pre-modern European tribes and nation states. If the comment above implies something different from this although I believe it doesn't, then I made a mistake.
We moved to the concept of "race" about which you are absolutely correct. It's a sociopolitical construct and the meaning of this word has not been consistent throughout history. Remember though that I didn't use this word.
Back to the genetic argument, why doesn't the projection matter? (argument b) which grand-parent was justifying)
A lot of people would be surprised to learn that America in 1500 was arguably less racist than America in 1850 or 1950 simply because the concept of "race" wasn't well established as being a particularly important way to categorize people.
There is a tendency to assume that people always thought in the categories that we use now.
It's funny how a tiny fraction of college educated white people in the West are the only people in the whole world to believe this. Everybody else knows what race and what white people are.
It is fair to point out that it's wrong to claim race doesn't exist. It does. But it's just as wrong to say that it's somehow immutable or a scientific concept (though, as pointed out above, human genetic clustering is a real phenomenon).
My thought is how come Europe managed to have CENTURIES of warfare (100 years war, 30 years, LOTS of civil wars, World War I, World War I and LOTS more) and most of these conflict were purely intra-Europeans? The Englishman in 1700 saw the Spaniard as being just as foreign as a Swede sees a Muslim today - probably more so if the Muslim lives in Sweden and speaks Swedish.
My point is just that if immigrants didn't exist people would still find something to fight over so this whole "immigrants are the very cause of social conflict" logic seems very dubious to me.
Um, no. The reconquista and various crusades were pan-european wars against muslims way before 1700. Englishmen died driving the Moors from Spain. There has definitely long been a European identity.
(2) England was protestant, Spain was Catholic.
(3) Because of the language difference probably most English couldn't communicate with most Spanish.
I am also taking into account the average modern Swede is probably fairly well educated and relatively liberal.
Of course I may have pushed things a bit to make a rhetorical point ;-)
It was my understanding that the projection comes simply from extrapolating the figures from the past few decades, apart form looking at the age pyramid of Europe and seeing how much immigration will be needed to pay for pensions, health care and so on. I haven't done the math myself so I can't tell you whether it is true. If this is a collaborative effort, then I think it would be wise for someone with the background to dismiss those projections mathematically.
However to show that such a demographic change is not such a statistical impossibility, look at US demographics. Ethnic Europeans were around 80% of the US population in the 80s, they are around 60% now and it is projected by the US government itself that in the next few decades they will be below 50%. You can bump that last percentage a little bit to account for those counted as Hispanic whites who are actually predominantly indigenous Europeans. I know US demographics are completely unrelated and have nothing to do with the OP which relates to Europe. This was simply to show how such demographic changes are not impossible. Nevertheless, there could be other variables which I'm not aware of, that make what we've seen in the US possible but impossible in Europe.
For that matter, birthrates are plummeting in many developing countries including the middle eastern ones - this is generally not acknowledged in these kind of projections.
Two other points though:
-Italian immigration wasn't anywhere near the scale of present day immigration to Europe. In other words the percentages in the example above aren't close to the real ones, however, the projection says that the percentages of European v.s. non-European genes would be as low as that or lower.
-French and Italians cluster genetically right next to each other compared to current immigrating populations. Now why this makes a difference for some people, read this other comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2808602
. The current trends lead to a projection of a different genetic makeup than the current
. The projection is a bad thing
Therefore, the current trends are bad.
But the argument fails to address why the projection is bad. That premise needs to be justified for the argument to be valid.
One might argue that it's a bad thing at the DNA level for your DNA, not for you as a person. If you make the distinction between you as a person and your genetic makeup, then there is nothing bad, since whose genes live on Earth in a thousand years is irrelevant, it could be elephants and you would be as happy.
If you go down to the DNA level, one might say that it's a bad thing, because DNA's objective is to survive and spread. Just like life itself. If the genetic makeup that makes you European disappears or is less prevalent than it was, then you could say that the DNA you carry did not reach its objective or was less successful in doing so than other groups. Even if the difference between your DNA and that of the group that succeeds is just 0.5%, your European DNA branch split from the other tens of thousands of years ago.
You could say now that whatever mutations were acquired during those years failed. Those tens of thousands of years wasted, your most recent ancestors that went through: famines, wars, disease, ice ages, etc.. might just as well have committed suicide and saved themselves the trouble (assuming you're nothing but a thing that carries DNA).
Sex is there to help the offspring of two organisms survive. If they replace themselves with 2 children, then that's 50% and 50%, even and fair. What the projection says though is that the DNA of Europeans won't be 50% European in Europe and 50% in immigrant's original countries. It would be much less than that in Europe with current trends and nowhere near in the immigrant's original countries. So you wouldn't be getting that fair share.
When did DNA get a will of its own? =)
Second, I don't think a change in the genetic makeup (which is what the projections point to) would necessarily mean the death of the Western civilization. In fact, the many Western values have already spread beyond the West, leading to miscegenation of cultures. The same would be true for an Europe with a higher number of people with different genetic makeup.
Personally, I'm more worried about the loss of local values in the face of the giant which is the US, which has much more power to disseminate them than any Muslim country.
A change in the genetic makeup of Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria from Christian ethnicities to Arab certainly lead to the death of those cultures. You don't understand that races and cultures are two very intertwined things.
Only idiots think other people should reproduce so they themselves won't feel so lonely.
Immigration discourages westerners from reproducing. Immigrants drive up housing costs, lower wages, and increase competition for school spots and good neighborhoods. All this makes family formation a more daunting proposition for people who aspire to maintain a middle class standard of living.
Western and East Asian birth rates probably reflect collective decisions that the lands are full. To respond by opening the borders to millions of foreigners makes no sense.
Home buyers drive up housing costs, which is generally considered a good thing - and mortgage bankers drive up costs way more than immigrants, and the people selling those houses really don't complain. Employers drive down wages, which is called "productivity", although I'm sure they'd like you to believe immigrants are at fault. Children increase competition for school spots - although their parents help pay for more school spots, so it typically works out well.
Western and East Asian birth rates reflect collective decisions that people have better things to do than have a bunch of kids. If you have a wife, she may understand this better than you do. (Apologies if you yourself are female.)
Puerto Rico is more full than Europe (it surprised me to learn this, too) - but poor, mostly. The birth rate is still quite high there. This alone probably doesn't refute your argument, but I hope it at least makes you think a little.
All in all, though, you seem to be saying that immigrants are at fault for economics working the way it does. I think you need to ask yourself, really carefully, who benefits when you ascribe these things to immigration.
Who would not like the idea of these lone wolfs blowing themselfs to kingdom come in a deserted location. I, as a Norwegian, surely do.
It's wrong to say "that guy has dangerous ideas and should be censored", but it's another thing to say "that guy killed nearly 90 people to promote his manifesto, we should make sure he doesn't get what he wanted"
But that's still censorship, you've just added some spin. Simply put you can't have it both ways. Either individuals are free to speak their mind (regardless of how heinous you may find their viewpoint) or they aren't, and if they aren't that's censorship and oppression.
I'm not calling for government censorship of the document, and I'm not saying I agree with anonymous, but dismissing it as censorship ignores their actual, more noble intentions.
Quite successfully, unfortunately. Those kids in the camp, especially the older ones, were probably going to fill the ranks of the real Labour party later on in life, politicians of the future. Now their future intelligentsia is either dead or suffering PTSD. (also remember that Norway is rather thinly populated)
That was his goal. To hurt the Labour party, and he hurt them bad.