I definitely don't have any feeling of loss of culture, I guess that's my point.
But good progressives like you (who think being called racist is literally worse than being a murderer), cannot make that distinction.
"sophisticated set of shared rules and norms" - I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I definitely get a bad feeling from a sentence like that though.
Why?!
2) If anything, "a [..] set of shared rules and norms" sounds like an environment which tries to enforce a strict template for how to behave and act and do. If that's really the case then it to me would be a terrible place to be. Like that backwater isolated village with some snooping crones keeping an eye on everything.
If you meant something totally different, please explain. Particularly the "sophisticated" point.
The rules and norms are complex and encompass a wider and deeper range of behaviors.
> 2) If anything, "a [..] set of shared rules and norms" sounds like an environment which tries to enforce a strict template for how to behave and act and do. If that's really the case then it to me would be a terrible place to be.
Anti-social people don’t like it, to be sure. But it facilitates high trust societies that have lower social transaction costs. Paradoxically, it enables societies that have less formal policing and rule enforcement, because of the high level of informal policing and rule enforcement.
I would like to see a more specific example of what you mean by sophisticated rules and norms. What would a real-life example be? I still don't get it, so I would be happy to learn what you mean by this.
Are you a progressive? Do you think that petty crimes in the U.S. are overpoliced or underpoliced?
If you answer "Yes" to the first and "overpoliced" to the second, then you are anti-social - or at least support anti-social public policies.
The unsubtle explanation from someone who is not a huge Singapore fan (or from someone who is?) might be that this is simply the power of well-engineered, highly authoritarian government. But it's certainly not about choosing homogeneity or eschewing immigration.
This didn't jibe so I looked up the figures and I still don't understand why you'd write this. To be honest I don't understand why you've written most of what you've written on this thread, but, did you mean to write "ignoring religious diversity...?" The US is 63% Christian. The largest religious group in Singapore is the Buddhists, at... 31%? And unlike in the United States, two minority groups in Singapore (Christians, Muslims) have strong representation in the population, whereas in the US, not so much.
Which I guess would leave things like language, of which they have four official ones and quite a few others, with a bilingual education mandate that demands everyone learn English but recognizes that they've probably got their own as well, IIRC.
There's racial makeup, if that matters to you (I get the feeling it does). In terms of cultural dominance I would reject the idea that there's something massively different about a 69% white majority vs a 74% Chinese majority. The second on their list is Malay at 13.5% and the second on our list is Black at 12.4% and my God why are we even having this conversation
I'm pretty sure the explanation for the undeniable order there is the completely obvious explanation that does not involve "homogeneity" or immigration. It's the system of government.
And yes the homogeneity helps Singapore’s orderliness. The overwhelming majority of the population is Asian, who in general are more collectivist and orderly than say Italians.
Multiculturalism No consequences for anti-social behavior Maintaining orderly streets
"Choose two".
USA (driven by progressives taking control of urban politics) has essentially chosen the first 2 and eschewed the third.
I find your use of the term "gross" inexplicable. Are you positing that you can have a high trust, high cohesion, orderly society that accepts lots of immigrants? If so, show me one. Otherwise, your position seems to be that immigration is a moral requirement in and of itself, regardless of the consequences it has for societal order.
Modern-day missionaries try to build up the local church where they are. Some people do end up wanting to emigrate to Utah, but this is not something the Church encourages.
Go back to the 19th century, and the LDS Church was heavily involved in encouraging people to convert to their religion and immigrate to Utah. Many of their missionaries in Europe were not just seeking converts, but also immigrants.
Nowadays, the LDS Church doesn't put any great emphasis on encouraging their overseas flock to immigrate to Utah. But if they changed their mind about that, I doubt LDS immigrants from Asia or Latin America would destroy the society of Mormon Utah, any more than 19th century European Mormon immigrants did. If anything, I think it would be less destructive than US intrastate migration of non-Mormons into Utah, which has been going on for a long time now.
Unless you have somethign to point to that gives you confidence that GP is arguing the virtues of xenophobia, it's likely to be counter-productive to ongoing discussion.
How many individuals from those ethnic backgrounds might actually want to emigrate to Japan, I don't know.
South Korea and Japan do have difficult relations, and in some ways they are getting worse. But I remember visiting South Korea some years ago and talking to some of my South Korean colleagues about how they felt about Japan, and what I noticed was wide differences in opinion – some were still very angry at Japan for things it had done long before they were born, others were critical of their fellow Koreans' anti-Japanese sentiments. I suspect some of this is political – historically, many Koreans collaborated with Japan, among others Park Chung Hee, who served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and then became South Korea's military dictator in the 1960s and 1970s. Some right-wing South Koreans still have some sympathy for the 1960s/1970s military dictatorship, and hence tend to view collaborators with Japan more sympathetically; more left-leaning South Koreans are highly critical of both.
In any event, there are a lot of things which Japan could say to try to assuage South Korean feelings on these topics. Japan's problem is that saying those things would upset Japan's own nationalist bloc. But if Japan really wants to attract Korean immigrants, maybe upsetting their own nationalists is the price of that.
Also, there a lot of ethnic Chinese people in Australia who are actually from Malaysia or Singapore; Malaysian Chinese want to escape the discrimination of Malaysia's Bumiputera policy; many Singaporeans want an escape from Singapore's cramped living conditions (small apartments). So ethnic Chinese immigrants can be sources from places other than China proper.
a) the fact that Japan's birthrate is below the number needed to sustain the current population
b) the fact that Japan is ethnically homogenous (98.5% ethnically Japanese), and has very limited channels for immigration, meaning that japan, with the policies that exist today, will not be able to significantly mitigate the population decline by accepting immigrants.
Japan takes a very different approach compared to countries like Canada, which is a melting pot of cultures and which has an increasing population largely due to immigration
So Japan's policy is not unreasonable. You can become a proper Japanese if you want to (are willing to culturally integrate), it's just that not many people do. Without it you'd be trading off death of country for death of culture. Contrast to China or Thailand where AFAIK you are always second class citizen legally if you are "wrong" ethnicity.
japanese nationality is tied to ethnicity so much due to how homogenous the society is
so legally for a foreigner the policy seems reasonable, just there is a lot of FUD spread by people who felt entitled to become Japanese with little effort and suffered reality check, see eg. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj855k5066o
Modern Japanese culture has its roots almost entirely in the 19th century and the post WW2 era.
You might as well say that US culture has its roots in ancient Greece or Rome, or Reformation age Europe and claim it’s hundreds or even thousands years old. It would be worth about as much.
But yeah I agree with you in the sense that US/Canada are constantly affected by a constant influx of people belonging to different cultures.
Had there been barely any immigration after ~1800 American culture would be effectively as old and unique as the Japanese one. Quebec for instance is kind of (but not quite) like that.
> just there's objectively less to worry about not ruining something age old and unique.
Well they already did during the Meiji period and subsequently, what remains is not that significant.
Also what are your thoughts on Britain, Scandinavian and some other European countries? They would be effectively no different to Japan in this sense besides the fact that they have very large numbers immigrants.
No. Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Slavs, Turks, Arabs, Mongols etc, different peoples have their respective roots for sure, but those roots are elsewhere. Once you move across the ocean and mingle with a bunch of others coming from radically different backgrounds and histories, different mutually unintelligible languages and incompatible religions it's a completely different story than if you live at the same locality, speak the same language and carry broadly similar values and beliefs as N generations and thousands of years back. Except for first nations, people of US and Canada are still very much guests on their soil if you compare those timescales. But from a viewpoint of one of those new cultures (who are cool and unique in their own ways, sure) I can see why it might be easy to not see that.
> From inside one of those new cultures (who are cool and unique in their own ways, sure) it can be easy to miss the significance.
A lot of assumptions.. I live in Europe and belong to supposedly one of the fairly ancient cultures according to this definition. It doesn’t seem any less silly to me because of that.
Unless Japan is supposedly exceptionally special somehow in that regard? I don’t think it is, most unique things about its culture have their roots in the 19th or 20th century (just like European countries or the US).
> Japanese settled Japan by skimming Wikipedia but that I'm not sure
The Ainu might have. The settlers/invaders from China or Korea whose culture later developed into what we know as Japan only began arriving in the archipelago around 300 BC (so less ancient than the Greeks or Romans). Also much closer to the establishment of US than to first nation people migrating into the Americas.
I'm really not sure about that. I'm a white man with red hair, I'm pretty sure I'd always be "otherized" in Japan, as would most westerners.
The question is legal equality, which seems possible and not depend on color of your hair.
Of course some Japanese will treat you differently. They will also otherize and treat differently even their fellow ethnic Japanese of other social classes. But I think this is not really different from British, Russian or many other cultures (maybe except US or Canada which are more melting pot like). It's just harder to notice from inside the culture.
Australia's immigration rate, on a per capita basis, is more than double that of the US, and somewhat ahead of Canada's. [0] It has a lower fertility rate than the US (1.58 for Australia vs 1.64 for US), but still higher fertility than Canada (1.40), and I suspect having double the immigration rate is probably going to make up for the somewhat lower fertility. And I think you are missing more countries than just Australia.
While in absolute terms, the US accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world, on a per capita basis, its net immigration rate isn't particularly high, and is below that of many Western European countries.
[0] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/net-migration-r...
Slated to decline according to whom? According to the most recent projections published by Australia's national statistics agency, [0] Australia's population is projected to continuously increase through 2066, ending up at somewhere between 37 and 49 million (compared to around 26 million today). The only projection of theirs according to which it will decline is the highly unrealistic "zero immigration" scenario.
[0] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/populati...
Like how japan like most of Asia is so fixated on materialism with even marriage still being heavily influenced by it (hence why theres a lot of dysfunctional marriages in japan).
Things are changing policy-wise to make it easier to raise a family. They're moving fast in that regard and I've witnessed many of these changes firsthand since becoming a father, especially where paternity leave and childcare payments are concerned.
Japan of today is nothing like Japan of 100 years ago.
Every nation has already faded away multiple times.
Yes and no. It is one thing where that ship is uses immigration as a source of "replacement parts", and another thing when it doesn't. The immigration method replaces old parts of the ship with different kinds of parts, the non-immigration method replaces old parts with just more modern/slightly different versions of the same parts.
US and the likes are absolutely a ship of theseus in my book, but Japan doesn't feel like it would be the same "kind" of a ship of theseus, given how ethnically homogenous and anti-immigration it is.
Disclaimer: I am not trying to argue here for which approach is "better" (considering that one approach being objectively better than the other in absolute terms is probably not even a thing). Gotta keep in mind that the originally immigrant-based ship that is the US isn't the same as the heavily homogenous ship that is Japan at all. Frankly, I don't know the answer to this, and neither was that the point of my reply. I just don't want the comment section to devolve into arguing which is better (immigration-based ship of theseus vs. a ship that is not affected by immigration almost at all). My original point was that "not all ships of theseus are the same kind", so one approach would likely not work the same way when applied to two radically different types of a ship.
Was there a precedent in human history when this was successful? Ever?
Japan won't let immigrants ruin their country, and I am all in for them for that. It's a huge shame to observe what Europe has turned into with it's immigrant policies and what lies ahead of it. Japan is smarter - it's better to die with dignity than exist in disgrace.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to protect that culture if they want? Why does every country have to standardised down to some global culture that is all the same?
Of course we know the answer, that makes for a great global market and government, but it's amazing how it's the left that's actually advocating for this these days.
The West is in decline, and they're sealing their own fate because they're allowing themselves to be bullied, turning the other cheek out of politeness.
Most people I interact with that trust me enough to open up to me say as much. They're just being bullied and gaslit by niceness and the media.
They are just stupid and called for that. That is not bullying.
What do "other religions mean"? Anything but christianism? Christianism came in europe from immigration duh.
And the only answer you can give them is: deal with it, they are already here, have all rights to be here and will stay.
It makes me think about those retards who think they can forbid homosexuality. You like it or not gays exists, have been for millions of years and will forever. Even in countries when it is repressed.
Even oysters are smarter than those people you are talking to.
The US is extremely successful (well economically, anyway..)
Because of immigration it will mostly avoid the aging issue (based on current predictions it should surpass China in population by the end of the century)
Benjamin Franklin was very worried about German immigrants in the US and he described them as "less intelligent", "aliens" and that they won't assimilate. Fast forward few decades later/centries later, Germans are one of the most successful immigrants group in the US, industrialising the country, creating financial institutions, and becoming military and political leaders, giving US presidents and generals. Recently, Asian immigrants created Silicon companies. One of them is a trillion dollar company called Nvidia.
France has a huge success story with immigrants as well, the poles (Marie Curie), the Italians, the Portuguese, North Africans, etc.
There are certain issues here and there, especially with unregulated modern mass migration, but in my opinion, that's not a true representation of real immigration that has always happened since the beginning of time.
The fact that Sweden has integration issues with mass migration from war-torn Syria is a special case.
Oh boy, I would like to hear the "success story" even much more than I would like to continue discussing other things :)
Just because you blatantly state something without anything supporting your POW, doesn’t make it a truth.
But blaming “far-right xenophobes” for what happened to France is something I haven’t seen before. Indeed human delusions have no borders whatsoever.
>Just because you blatantly state something without anything supporting your POW, doesn’t make it a truth.
Open a damn history book, do I have to mention 20 centuries of history?
> But blaming “far-right xenophobes” for what happened to France is something I haven’t seen before.
Well far-right people have been making sure immigrants are not welcome, make them life miserable, ruin their own existence, present them with fewer job opportunities, lie about their reason of being in the country, laugh at them, insult them, make sure they are not welcome in any other neighborhood than the ghettos they have been parked in in the sixties, make sure the schools in these neighborhoods are underfounded, make them has hard as possible to be integrated as school.
Then oh surprise, after 70 years of this shit, they complain that a fraction of these immigrants have turned sour, extremists or are criminals.
What makes you think you have rights to decide what people France needs and what doesn’t?
Can’t believe discussions on HN have deteriorated that far.
But nice try reversing the semantics.
I’ll end the discussion right here. It’s with sadness we must admit european future is very grim
Most european countries, at their economic height, were the products of centuries of immigrations and invasions.
> It's a huge shame to observe what Europe has turned into with it's immigrant policies
What is a shame is how xenophobic people made of europe with their anti-immigration anti-acceptation practices and turned immigrants against them to make it worse for everyone.