[apawloski]

Thanks for pointing out the irony that these folks refuse to engage with: that they (we) are all here as the result of immigration. It's about as plainly hypocritical that they get. Their immigrants were fine, of course..

I wish the folks who are trying to cut off all immigration (and open channels to de-naturalize American citizens) could appreciate this more. Because it exposes their thesis at its core: some Americans are better than others, and these people know which are which. Where do I as an American fall into these categories of theirs?

[rayiner]

Of course some immigrants are more American than other immigrants! You can tell who those are by whose ancient legal documents are incorporated into the U.S. constitution and laws and whose aren't.

If you think those principles have worked pretty well, then the question is how to maintain the culture that produced this successful society. This is something Silicon Valley folks should easily understand! You guys screen people endlessly for "fit." Would you want a large number of folks who grew up in IBM's corporate culture to come work at your startup?

[apawloski]

Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are born here, what does it matter?

But more importantly, I said Americans. Are some Americans more American to you?

America is not a startup. It is not even a company. It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. And it was wrong to single out the Irish and Italians, and it’s wrong to single out the ___ now.

[rayiner]

> Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours?

If you are British American, then yes. Otherwise, no.

> If you are born here, what does it matter?

Empirically, yes it does! https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-cu... (“The Culture Transplant debunks the view that immigrants fully assimilate in a generation or two. This is something my fellow economists know—we have vast empirical literatures showing that, for instance, you can partly predict people’s savings behavior just by knowing which country their parents or grandparents came from.”).

You can look at the data and see that about 50% of the difference in levels of social trust between people in Italy and Scandinavia are reflected in the descendants of immigrants from those countries to the U.S., even after generations. You can then use your eyes to look at Minnesota versus New Jersey and see more social trust and less corruption in the former than the latter. You can even tie cultural background back to concrete social indicators! Parts of the midwest settled by Dutch settlers perform better on versus metrics than parts settled by Germans. Parts of the country settled by Puritans outperform nearly everywhere else in terms of good governance and low corruption.

> America is not a startup. It is not even a company.

Culture matters even more in a country than a startup! Startups hire high-IQ people that focus on discrete problems that are amenable to scientific analysis. Voters in democracies must confront a wide range of issues that are not amenable to scientific analysis, and consist of average people who are not capable of such analysis anyway. That means the person’s gut reactions, arising from their culture and socialization, matters even more. For example, most people simply can’t understand numbers on the scale of the federal debt, but cultures differ significantly in their attitudes towards debt and savings. It’s imperative to have a body politic that has pro-adaptive cultural attitudes.

>,It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration.

That’s like saying the country was built by people who drink water. Immigrants from where? The country that exists reflects that it was built by British settlers, with greenfield development by Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest. If the country had been built by my ancestors in Bangladesh, I assure you, it would look very different than it does today.

[apawloski]

> You can look at the data and see that about 50% of the difference in levels of social trust between people in Italy and Scandinavia [...] You can then use your eyes to look at Minnesota versus New Jersey and see more social trust and less corruption in the former than the latter. You can even tie cultural background back to concrete social indicators!

For months on here you have defended and cheer-led the most nakedly corrupt administration in our lifetimes. (Let's skip the part where we have to talk specific examples of his corruption - you know it, and I know it.) And now you are spouting ignorant anti-Italian stereotypes and acting like you care about corruption. Your inconsistency of values is utterly unpersuasive so far.

> The country that exists reflects that it was built by British settlers, with greenfield development by Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest.

That does not include me, so if I were an immigrant today you would not let me in. If you were an immigrant today, would you let yourself in?

Surely you see the hypocrisy in that, especially if you consider yourself a valuable member of society. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible to be a great American if you're not British, German, or Scandinavian. And that's been true for millions and millions of non-British/German/Scandinavians through all of American history.

[rayiner]

> For months on here you have defended and cheer-led the most nakedly corrupt administration in our lifetimes.

The fact that I think Trump is the lesser of two evils doesn't change the fact that New Jersey has higher corruption levels than Minnesota. Is it really your contention that communities settled by Italian immigrants are as well governed as those that were settled by Scandinavian immigrants?

Ironically, Trump himself reflects the third-worldization of the American body politic. Our first-past-the-post system guarantees two parties, but cultural change alters what platforms can win a majority. Immigration has killed small-government conservatism--a concept that exists almost nowhere outside the Anglosphere--but a third-world strongman populist can still win the popular vote: https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2... ("Our best estimate is that immigrant voters swung from a Biden+27 voting bloc in 2020 to a Trump+1 group in 2024."). Little Bangladesh swung a net 50+ points to Trump in 2024.

> That does not include me, so if I were an immigrant today you would not let me in. If you were an immigrant today, would you let yourself in?

I made an argument based on evidence, so why are you responding with personal feelings? Whether any particular immigration policy would have allowed me or you to immigrate is totally irrelevant. Immigration is about the mass movement of people, who bring their culture with them and reshape the parts of America where they move. It's stupid to talk about it in terms of individuals.

[apawloski]

I guess I just fundamentally disagree that Trump’s the lesser of two evils, if you truly care about American values and culture. How could you want our children behaving like the example he sets? Can you justify his Rob Reiner tweet (for an immediately recent example) to me in a way that persuades me it’s how Americans should behave culturally?

I would love for you to answer the question about whether you’d let us in today, but I suspect you won’t because you’d have to also admit that your stance is hypocritical.