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chumbalumber ,

This is a part of the SNP’s manifesto already, FYI.

31337 ,

Xenophobia and racism, mostly. And yes, it’s a solution to the aging demographic crisis many countries face (at least in the medium-term).

I remember seeing a video of a presentation back in the Bush years by some neo-con group that advocated for immigration to Pentagon or DoD officials or something. The argument for immigration was mostly the same: we have an aging population, so we could integrate immigrants (who are statistically younger) to solve this issue. I didn’t agree much with the broader idea of the presentation though. The broader idea was that there were still some parts of the world not a part of the global U.S.-led hegemony (mostly the middle-east and Africa), and we must spread democracy and capitalism to them. The argument was that globalism/capitalism ensures peace, and that both WWI and WWII happened because globalism was falling apart shortly before those wars. So, to ensure world peace, we need to globalize the entire earth and bring all countries into the the U.S.-led hegemony, even if that means starting wars to spread democracy, lol.

AA5B ,

Good write up! My version was much snarkier.

But other factors include

  • not every country can encourage significant immigration
  • even developing countries have a rapidly dropping birth rate

Some countries, maybe like Japan and South Korea, have low birth rates and a history of discouraging immigration. I’d argue it’s too late for them: you can’t suddenly develop and support a large wave of immigration, especially when most developing populations are doing better, most are seeing lower birth rates. They have a lot of work to do and little chance of succeeding

Other countries, notably China, have a rapidly declining birth and already see the impact, so are just going to discourage emigration. The supply of immigrants will quickly dry up (except refugees)

So for example, the US has a history of significant immigration. We’re already in the scenario of insufficient birth rate to sustain our population but sufficient immigration to keep growing. Maybe I don’t know enough about other countries or I’m falling to some sort of exceptionalism, but to me this boils down to why doesn’t US encourage immigration. We have the easy case: if we can’t figure it out, how can we expect anyone else to.

als ,

God, the comments in this thread are nearly all awful

JayEchoRay ,
@JayEchoRay@lemmy.world avatar

Tldr:

Having too many cultures that have not established a “market share” in politics makes the, people who run a country, job harder as it has to contend with dealing with the potential of new cultures forming and the inevitable culture clashes that follow as differing values and ideals will demand different things.

It fractures and dilutes points of control which encourages politics to try ensure loyalty though aligning itself with views of the majority.

End tldr

Unironically, Stellaris is probably a decent example of the thought experiment played out. Unless a species is built with ideals of the intergration and/or has its proper foundation set then it can quickly spiral out of hand as you have to deal with " a hunded voices asking for one thing".

It is far easier to control and secure a foundational majority based off of one species as it can be more easily guided towards an established outcome.

Adding too many “outsiders” has the potential to cause an imbalance and a shift in thinking which then requires a new paradigm to “herd the sheep” as it were, while still trying to maintain a standard that the base species has become accustomed to.

If it not carefully controlled, it can potentially lead to a fracturing of opinion and thoughts which is a lot harder to manage and “guide” as one runs the risk of isolating one group and in doing so opening up the potential cascade of problems if the ignored minorities builds up steam which then forces leaders to contend with trying to figure out a way to maintain control over the many species bases while still doing it in a way that causes the least amount of disruption to their control.

people_are_cute ,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Why would you voluntarily create a job scarcity in your own population? Immigration reduces wages, increases prices, strains public services and causes overall decrease in Quality of Life.

Just look at the state of the USA with 28% immigrant population.

boonhet ,

Just look at the state of the USA with 28% immigrant population.

Which STILL has the 6th highest GDP per capita (10th if you count tax-haven microstates and overseas territories).

Centuries of mass immigration built the US economy. Y’all are acting like economics is all zero-sum and more people = everyone is poorer, but the amount of jobs doesn’t stay constant as the amount of people increases. The US always had an influx of immigrants to fuel the ever-growing economic machine.

There’s plenty of reasons why a lot of people in the US can’t afford to live in cities, etc. None of it is because of immigration, it’s mostly corporate greed and stupid zoning laws.

Fedizen ,

techically the US is like 99% immigrants

I_Clean_Here ,

The immigrants were not the problem to get the US to the shit state it is in.

That is like saying there is an inverse correlation between the decline in sea-faring pirates and the rising global temperature. Duh.

Vivendi ,

Just add a “… Are they stupid?” To the end of the title, and repost in a shit posting community

RememberTheApollo_ ,

The low birth rates are a concern because they need the bodies to generate revenue so they can take care of old people who will lean on government services.

Why should you care about population decline? Fewer people are good for the climate, but the economic consequences are severe. In the 1960s, there were six people of working age for every retired person. Today, the ratio is three-to-one. By 2035, it will be two-to-one.

Some say we must learn to curb our obsession with growth, to become less consumer-obsessed, to learn to manage with a smaller population. That sounds very attractive. But who will buy the stuff you sell? Who will pay for your healthcare and pension when you get old?

weforum.org/…/birthrates-declining-globally-why-m…

Ok, so what does that have to do with your question…

What age group tends to be the biggest voting bloc, the most xenophobic, the most nationalistic…? Old people. Get those foreign people off my lawn, keep those foreign drug dealers, thieves, and layabouts out of my country.

Then there’s exploitation of foreign labor to undercut wages and work rules of citizens of the country the labor is being imported into.

I’m sure there’s more, but basically it’s a hefty dose of xeonphobia and nationalism along with groups not wanting to literally lose jobs to someone who will do it for a lot less.

Siegfried ,

Oh boy, you need so much stellaris /s

afraid_of_zombies ,

Why don’t fat people hit the gym and eat salad?

letsgo ,

Because salad is boring and fat-shaming is the last kind of bullying still considered acceptable.

I was out on my bike the other day and someone yelled “YOU FAT BASTARD”. Fortunately I’m pretty thick skinned and have lined up a few choice remarks for next time.

Imagine if fat had been replaced with black, or Chinese, or gay, etc. They’d be in jail for committing a hate crime quicker than I could get to the nearest Greggs.

people_are_cute ,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

They’d be in jail for committing a hate crime quicker than I could get to the nearest Greggs.

No they wouldn’t. Shouting slurs is shitty but not a punishable offence. Touch grass and hit the gym you fatso.

lath ,

Oh feck off. Most gyms are mostly predatory money grab schemes.

Better to reduce your sugar intake and focus on physical activity with practical effects. Clean your house, do some gardening, volunteer in the community, play some sport you actually like. Gyms are for losers!

cheddar ,
@cheddar@programming.dev avatar

But being fat is not the same as being black. People do not get sick and die 30 years earlier because they are black, for instance. People are black not because they ignore physical exercises and eat too much. I don’t support bullying, but acting like this is a normal condition that we should cherish is wrong.

Fedizen ,

People do die 30 years earlier because they’re black - thats often how racism works…

Imo how do we know what “normal” is and has that been the case for the last 1000 years? The Japanese have employed sumo wrestlers to serve in a sport, for instance. I think its fair to say fat shaming is a more modern phenomena that’s occurred more recently as high calorie low nutrition food became mass produced and microplastics have accumulated in all our bodies.

cheddar ,
@cheddar@programming.dev avatar

Did you equate health issues caused by lack of physical activity and excessive eating to racism? I can’t even… Okay, if you want to ignore all the medical and scientific evidence, ignore them. It is your body and you are the one to face the consequences.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

The birth rates are low because of the terrible environment that doesn’t support having and raising children. All you’re doing is importing more people who will also barely have any children within a generation or so. Mass immigration is just throwing bodies at the bottom of the pyramid scheme. You can see this in action in Canada where housing is absolutely unaffordable, but large numbers of immigrants are brought in who have to work for shitty wages and live with multiple families in a single rental unit.

The screaming about low birth rate is because corporations want to keep a high labor pool so they can drive down the price of labor while keeping up demand for consumption.

atro_city OP ,

The screaming about low birth rate is because corporations want to keep a high labor pool so they can drive down the price of labor while keeping up demand for consumption.

It's not only that. By the time you want to retire, there won't be enough people to pay taxes for your retirement fund. With more young people than old, that is less of a problem.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

This is one area where we’re supposed to benefit from the greatly increased automation. We don’t need a huge mass of people doing make-work. The current situation is that we force people to do make-work to continue making on-paper profits which mostly go to a tiny set of wealthy people. The current situation is unsustainable even if population growth increased because it’s a pyramid scheme. The system relies on infinite growth.

Melvin_Ferd ,

But isn’t it better to have a few years but then growth vs absolute death spiral due to low population which we would have to increase immigration for regardless

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

The problem is that most of the growth goes to the already rich as they pay immigrants poorly and make them pay high rents (hence the need to have multiple families living in a single unit). It’s still a death spiral, just with higher profits for the rich few. The only way to make it not a death spiral is to force the rich leeches to stop sucking the blood out of everyone else.

31337 ,

Poor countries, such as the countries people are immigrating from, have a more terrible environment and higher birth-rates.

lorty ,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

Xenophobia propped up by political groups. Many official immigration programs existed in the 19th century that, when allowed to, had immigrants integrated into society.

olafurp ,

A lot of Europe did so and for this exact purpose. Immigrants are net contributors of tax money and help a lot with demographics. Now however European countries have a sizable portion of their countries as immigrants and it turns out a lot of people feel like their culture is getting lost.

Add that up with corruption is more out in the open, austerity after the 2008 financial crisis generally failed as a policy and people are very prone to believe “Immigrants are to blame” and vote for right wing parties since they run on an anti-establishment platform.

The left generally believes that we need more immigrants and more social programs and so on but there has been a massive crusade on tax rates which hinders the governments ability to pay for them.

This is all coming together now and the far right narrative is being given a chance in Europe with their anti-immigration stance.

In my opinion this is basically the centre-right trying to get votes by cutting taxes, end up taking on massive debt or gutting quality of life social programs so the only way forward is to fuck over minorities and making the most vulnerable people suffer for the greater good. But tax the well-off, rich, wealth, land, capital gains, profits? Nooooo, can’t do that because they fund the political parties. 🙃

ThePrivacyPolicy ,

Add Canada to that list. 1 million immigrants a year and everything is collapsing - our housing, healthcare, education, nothing can keep up.

afraid_of_zombies ,

Odd I was in B.C. about a month ago. Seemed like civilization was still operating there.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

proof you weren’t: BC has had a huge homeless problem for decades that is only getting worse.

olafurp ,

I’d argue that homeless are a symptom and lack of housing is the problem.

callouscomic ,

It’s bigotry. Whether it be racism, or classism, or political, or religious, or whatever. People have endless reasons for wanting to consider others as outsiders or lesser or different.

possiblylinux127 ,

This is a gigantic can of worms that will cause arguments.

fubarx ,

I talked to Japanese colleagues about this a lot. The issue isn’t just plain old xenophobia. In a lot of cultures, when someone gets married, there are considerations about marrying ‘the right kind’ for the family. As silly as that might sound to U.S. ‘melting pot’ ears, these could be tribal, economic, linguistic, geographic, class, education, age, gender, and yes, race.

In traditional settings, the elders have to bless that marriage, welcome the person, and ideally have the families mesh together and be on the same page.

Inviting foreigners with vastly different backgrounds on almost all those axes, it’s a pretty tall order to ask everyone to change those attitudes. And saying one family should close their eyes and do it for the sake of the country while their neighbors hold out for a ‘suitable’ match is going to be tough. The demographic ‘time bomb’ has been a known issue since the 80s and people are still resistant to change.

At some point, though, realities catch up.

My bet would be it would take a generational turnover and a few years of popular sitcoms normalizing it.

Alexstarfire ,

So, indirect xenophobia. That’s much better.

cucumber_sandwich ,

Call it cultural inertia if you prefer.

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