Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#281

Post by blub » Sat, May 25, 2019, 6:13 AM UTC

magpi3 wrote: post #255

blub wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We live in a global world now. Countries that fundamentally tie their culture to ethnicities will someday be a thing of the past. " No we don't and no they won't be. The only countries that are making this mistake are those from Western Europe and the US & co. Others are proud of their heritage, cherish it and fight for their culture. Your utopia may only be true once we become space-faring and encounter other speci…

I am not describing a utopia. I just do not think, barring some world-wide catastrophe, there is any way you can turn the clock back on globalism at this point. I know people want to go back. People always want to live in the past. Many Trump voters were voting for someone to take them back to the past. Same with Brexit. But go far back enough in the past and you will see everything was once different. The world is c…

Globalization is a nice idea in theory, but it looks like the human psyche is not ready for it and neither are politics.

The world order seems to be more fragile than you think, I don't understand why you're so confident.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#282

Post by blub » Sat, May 25, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

Tor3 wrote: post #271

blub wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that disturbingly many people (predominantly western white men, I'd hazard, but women aren't spared either) are afflicted by a syndrome which makes them truly believe that race, ethnicity or nationality don't matter and that we're all the same . Not that we should have the same rights and obligations, but that we're the same with some cute, "enriching" but irrelevant exceptions such as music, food, etc…

On the contrary - we're not all the same, we are each of us individuals. And that's the point, I think. We're individuals, and all of us different. We're not just a sample of some stereotype of where our ancestors came from.

That's not true either. Depending on how closely one looks, individuals start to melt into groups, regions, nations, etc.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#283

Post by magpi3 » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #281

magpi3 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not describing a utopia. I just do not think, barring some world-wide catastrophe, there is any way you can turn the clock back on globalism at this point. I know people want to go back. People always want to live in the past. Many Trump voters were voting for someone to take them back to the past. Same with Brexit. But go far back enough in the past and you will see everything was once different. The world is c…

Globalization is a nice idea in theory, but it looks like the human psyche is not ready for it and neither are politics. The world order seems to be more fragile than you think, I don't understand why you're so confident.

Am I confident ethnic nationalists will be proven definitively wrong in my lifetime? No. But my confidence comes from basic math. All capitalist countries have to accept immigration at some point. Even China will have face a population crisis at some point if it does not accept immigration someday.

And once you acknowledge the need for immigration, you open the door for diversity. And once you acknowledge that countries in fact have to compete for these immigrants (specifically in the technology and science fields), you open the door for acceptance as a competitive advantage.

As an immigrant with a choice in the matter, where would you prefer to live: in a country that where ethnic nationalists will always view you and your children as foreigners, or in a country that values and celebrates diversity?

The US can fuck up in so many different ways, but as long as it doesn't fuck up in this one specific way it will always have a competitive advantage over countries that have longer histories and hence more ethnic baggage: it has to value, appreciate, and celebrate diversity as a strength and not a weakness. I am confident (or maybe just extremely hopeful) that the Trump era is the one step back before the next two steps forward in this regard.

I view what has happened in U.S. professional sports as a microcosm of what is happening in the world. Professional sports teams that embraced globalization quickly gained a significant competitive advantage over other teams. And that forced those other teams to follow suit. I believe the same phenomenon will happen all over the world, albeit at a much slower pace and with a lot of racists being dragged along kicking and screaming.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#284

Post by dang » Sun, May 26, 2019, 2:07 AM UTC

blub wrote: post #241

Tor3 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but rather are the genetic conglomerate of their ancestors (which is hard to argue against) and thus links in a chain But that's exactly it. It's not like that. Or shouldn't be. That's not what makes a person a part of a group (town, city, region, country, etc). It's a constraining, and wrong way of looking at things. It's something to grow out of. Heck, in my hometown we consider someone as 'from' this town (to tr…

It seems to me that disturbingly many people (predominantly western white men, I'd hazard, but women aren't spared either) are afflicted by a syndrome which makes them truly believe that race, ethnicity or nationality don't matter and that we're all the same . Not that we should have the same rights and obligations, but that we're the same with some cute, "enriching" but irrelevant exceptions such as music, food, etc…

Please don't post race war comments to HN. We don't want this here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#285

Post by blub » Sun, May 26, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #284

blub wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that disturbingly many people (predominantly western white men, I'd hazard, but women aren't spared either) are afflicted by a syndrome which makes them truly believe that race, ethnicity or nationality don't matter and that we're all the same . Not that we should have the same rights and obligations, but that we're the same with some cute, "enriching" but irrelevant exceptions such as music, food, etc…

Please don't post race war comments to HN. We don't want this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Where is the race "war"? I made an observation about what must be a minor subset of my own race which nevertheless can amount to many people.

Self-disparagement by us is by now an unfortunate fact.