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Not sarcasm. More a thought about "ratchet" dynamics, memes, and Markov chains, with some anthropologically-flavored cynicism thrown in. If you're a meme named "B", and you can make P(A -> B) >> P(B -> A), then you're going to have more mind-babies. The steady state distribution will have more "B". So norms that favor A -> B over B -> A are interesting. Not sure if "meme" (US civil religion) or "organization" (US government) is the better description of the actor here. Also a thought about how apparent inconsistencies, or hypocrisy, can sometimes be explained by finding an underlying true "motive" that explains the various "inconsistent" behaviors. (One example: People who are liberal in their adopted country but conservative in their home country, can be understood as simply being self-interested.) Though in this case the "actor" is not really a person, but an organization or memeplex. > I don't know many people who'd describe the US immigration system as welcoming. That's a fair point, which undermines the idea. Well, it's debatable, but I get what you mean. Yes: The (blue-state) norms ("welcome everyone!") don't match the reality (actually it's pretty hard). Say, if you're a high-skilled student from India you wait years in a queue; that doesn't seem particularly "welcoming". (On the other hand, it's easy to win the visa lottery if you're from Kazakhstan. I digress.) On a relative scale we might still call the US welcoming though; its identity is much more built around immigration than other countries' identities are, citizenship requirements are much lower than many other "developed" countries, and even the language -- a mishmash of Romance and Germanic, with a phonetic alphabet, inherited from a trading empire -- is easy to use at a basic level (though its inconsistencies do pose problems for mastery), which again helps spread/assimilation. And in the US you at least can't openly act like your country represents a specific genetic/ethnic group (unlike in many other countries, where that identification is tacitly and unapologetically assumed). It's the "cultural/mimetic dynamics" aspect that was interesting. The "P(A -> B) >> P(B -> A)" thing. That this is additionally connected to tax revenue is also interesting. Money enters. Which is another fascinating subject. These things -- populations, memes, capital flows, births, deaths, conversions -- all flow and swirl and transmutate around, like the weather. I am on the lookout for absorbing states. |