[axelroze]

> Finally, is the challenge of having a society built around strong ethic ties. Even if Helsinki were to switch to English, there will be always be outsiders i.e. those who are not ethnic Finns. Again, this is not something that policy can solve and is one of the reasons that silicon valley and North America in general do very well at.

Recently I read a book called Persian Fire by Tom Holland. One detail which struck me as very interesting was how the first democratic ruler of Athens, Cleisthenes, solved the tribalism problem. Here tribalism is the perfect word as the average Athentian citizen of that time associated with one of the 10 tribes based on surnames. His solution was to invent 150 demesnes and have people arbitrarily assigned to them. He also invented new surnames.

Something similar is happening in contemporary Singapore. Every neighbourhood must not have more than X% of any ethnic group.

My point is that policy can solve this. Might make many people unhappy, like Finns who are forbidden to live in some zip codes because there are too many Finns, but policy is definitely a way to approach this problem (if it is a problem, nothing wrong with mono-cultural societies who do not want foreigners).