[betwixthewires]

Immigration is addressed in the article as a potential cause of societal collapse.

I do think we (the US in particular, and the western world in general) are undergoing a process that, if it continues to fruition, is societal collapse. That said, I don't think it is imminent or unavoidable.

I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion. At some point you go from becoming diverse to being supplanted. Immigration rates high enough to drastically change the culture of a society within the lifespan of one human being can be catastrophic. It naturally creates division and strife.

It really doesn't matter if the cultures are both equally advanced, good, if one is being mean to the other, etc. There will be friction. When this happens slow enough, over a few generations, newcomers adopt prevailing norms, and the incumbent culture adopts some newcomer customs. Also, the stronger the incumbent group hold to their customs and take pride in them, the more immigration they can handle, because this creates peer pressure on the newcomer group to assimilate.

The combination of massive immigration and social pressure to view our own customs as unimportant or even inferior is potentially a bad combination for the survival of our society. I hope to see it survive, I do like it, I wouldn't want an entirely homogenous society.

[jhowell]

> I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion.

At what point did you stop being the invader and become the invaded? Conceivably, someone could have held the same sentiment about someone more vunerable in your lineage whose efforts leave you where you sit today. I favor giving that person a chance and not labeling them an invader. I believe that's what's outlined in the rulebook here (the United States for me).

> At some point you go from becoming diverse to being supplanted. Immigration rates high enough to drastically change the culture of a society within the lifespan of one human being can be catastrophic. It naturally creates division and strife.

This line of thinking, positioning and labeling I consistently find troubling as it leads to violence against minorities justified by often false, purposeful anecdotes without consideration of the policies and practices that cause inequality. That's catastrophic.

[betwixthewires]

>At what point did you stop being the invader and become the invaded? Conceivably, someone could have held the same sentiment about someone more vulnerable in your lineage whose efforts leave you where you sit today.

Yes. There are those in the US that still regard the mass migration onto the continent of the European settlers as an invasion.

>This line of thinking, positioning and labeling I consistently find troubling

I agree, but 1) this line of thinking will always occur, and has occurred in native populations in every instance of mass immigration, and 2) whether troubling or not, in at least some scenarios is the correct analysis of the state of affairs.

You cannot decide what people think no matter how hard you try, and you cannot ignore something if it might very well be true just because you find it troubling.

[BuckRogers]

We don’t have this problem in the US, most of our immigration is from fellow western and Christian nations like Mexico and similar in central America. Maybe what you describe is an actual risk in Europe.

[pgcj_poster]

> I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion

Sure. For example, historians debate the extent to which the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was a migration vs an invasion. However, we know the Anglo-Saxons at least did things like set up their own kingdoms and cause some of the Celtic Britons to flee to Wales and Brittany. It seems to me like immigrants in present-day western countries are really, really far away from doing anything like that.