[extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration

[Lee Corbin]

Anders wrote

> <Sent: Friday, May 19, 2006 2:42 PM>
> 
> Lee Corbin wrote:
> > The cultural values of most Swedes, including this form
> > of xenophobia, arose though evolution. Cultures that did not have such
> > values did not last very long. (Burden of proof: just where, historically,
> > did one see a long lasting culture or society not jealous of its own
> > identity?)
> 
> The idea that a society should have its own identity is fairly
> historically recent. Nationalism as an ideology was invented mid 1800's.
> Before that it was more a matter of who was the ruler or who had
> inherited the land, although there have been a few exceptions like the
> Romans, who had an originally ethnicity-based citizenship concept. I can't
> recall any suggestion that (say) Egyptians had a need to assert their
> identity.

An Egyptologist friend of mine believes that the Egyptians did have
a sense of national identity; but if so, they'd be an exception, so
I agree basically with what you've written here.

> On a purely psychological levels people always tend to assert the identity
> of their in-group, but for much of history this was far smaller than iron
> age states.

Oh yes, at the *latest*, tribal or small group identity arose in the
EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness). And it really is
very easy to understand the fitness it conferred (although just
how to look at it through the lens of group selection has not
been so easy). But that it existed and exists is clear; just attend
a soccer match.

What is remarkable about humans is how easy they find it to morph
basic group loyalty onto groups of nearly arbitrary size; today
*my* soccer team must win, tomorrow my religious affiliation should
reign. And not so long ago in the West, people loved their countries.

> The nationalism movement did its best to grow a nationalism identity out of
> many of these traditional identities. Hence the interest of the Brothers
> Grimm in collecting German folk tales.

Indeed. Given the human adaptability on this score, all that was
needed was for it to confer fitness. In this case there was not enough
time for a genetic adaptation (in the larger more recent European
nationalism of the 19th and early 20th centuries). But the memetic
fitness is plain to see: in China, for example, the early Marxist
(and for Mao, semi-Marxist) leaders recognized the need for China
to unite if it was to expel the "foreigners", whereas Japan had (and
still has) ample national spirit.

So to this day individuals have urges to identify with their own
team (whether it's soccer, inter-country rivalry, or religious
affiliation), but the strength varies greatly from person to person,
and is also due to different penetration power of various memes at
various times and places. 

> > A second reason is that of evolution itself: the Swedish population
> > that entertains such ideas will indeed be overwhelmed by "other ideas".
> > To wit, if/when the majority in Sweden becomes, say, Moslem, then
> > nature will revert to form, and the injunctions in the Koran that say
> > to conquer the world in the name of Islam, and adopt an extremely
> > hostile stance towards freethinking, will have proven their vitality.
> > And memetic fitness.
> 
> Hmm, this assumes some memes become stably dominant for long. If you look
> at history you will see that even the concept of Islam and what Islamic
> society is has evolved tremendously across time and different countries
> (and it is still one of the most homogeneous and new religions around -
> just look at all the weirdness that passes for Christianity or Buddhism!).
> If meme X becomes a monoculture at time T and remains so forever, maybe it
> has proven its fitness and stability. But what if it remains dominant just
> between T1 and T2? In most evolution fitness peaks are transitory and
> highly dependent on coevolving genes or memes.

Exactly so. But I contend that Islam has not changed much since about
the 1200's, at least in the key aspects relevant to memetic fitness.
Nearer to home, we can see that Swedish patriotism has followed the
pattern of most Western nations: its strength was largely destroyed
by the cultural changes taking place in the wake of the world wars.

This *does* make most modern Western nations easy prey for more vigorous
group interests. For example, itt is inconceivable that 19th century France
would allow itself to be taken over by Islamic groups---the outrage would
have been intense. But with who or what the typical Frenchman today
identifies isn't clear, but surely for many it's no longer France as
a bastion of French culture for "French people" as opposed to other
peoples. That demographic trends suggest that by the end of the 20th
century France will be Muslim is not of much concern to modern French
people.

And that's just how evolution works: the fit survive.

> Given the cultural diversity we see within cultures - even within cultures
> with strong communications - monocultures seem unlikely.

It seems less likely in the more advanced industrial nations, yes.

> Although western culture (the metaculture encompassing the others,
> highly informed by humanistic, enlightenment and later notions)
> seems to be the only major culture that is actively concerned with
> maintaining cultural diversity.

And that *would* be a terrible weakness were there only time for 
nature to take its course. Not a few Muslims feel strongly that
their ancient ability to conquer merely suffered an interruption
between 1500 A.D. and 2000 A.D. The battle for Spain is still on
in their eyes (as witness the recent "terrorism" there). For a
huge number of Muslims, the Crusades were yesterday, as were the
surges into the Balkans and even into France in the 8th century.

Sam Harris is an amazingly eloquent voice against religious belief.
In his book "The End of Faith", he has a couple of pretty scary
chapters about Islam too.

    As a matter of doctrine, the Muslim conception of tolerance
    is one in which non-Muslims have been politically and
    economically subdued, converted, or put to sword....

    Lewis observes that "for Muslims, no piece of land once
    added to the realm of Islam can ever be finally renounced."
    We might also add that no *mind*, once added to the realm,
    can ever be finally renounced---because, as Lewis also
    notes, the penalty for apostasy is death. We would do
    well to linger over this fact for a moment, because it
    is the black pearl of intolerance that no liberal exegesis
    will ever fully digest. Within the house of Islam, the
    penalty for learning too much about the world---so as to
    call the tenets of the faith into question---is death. If
    a 21st century Muslim loses his faith, though he may have
    been a Muslim only for a single hour, the normative response,
    everywhere under Islam, is to kill him.  (p. 115)

Harris backs this up with *literally* pages of quotes from 
the Koran, and deals with all the objections that Christianity
and Judaism have had their extremists too, (the difference 
being in degree) and many other objections.

> If one favors cultural diversity it is not clear that isolating "pure"
> cultures is the way to go, since most cultural diversity emerges from the
> mixing and resynthesis of cultures rather than memetic drift. If one
> thinks that culture is just an ongoing evolutionary struggle, then it
> doesn't matter much which culture wins.

But it does matter which cultures win or dominate and which
don't!  This is because *values* are tied very strongly to
culture. As I wrote earlier


> > if/when the majority in Sweden becomes, say, Moslem, then
> > nature will revert to form, and the injunctions in the
> > Koran that say to conquer the world in the name of Islam,
> > and adopt an extremely hostile stance towards freethinking,
> > will have proven their vitality, and memetic fitness.

Those who value Western traditions (e.g. tolerance, freedom to
express unpopular views, "the open society", to use Popper's
term) at some point will realize that their new immigrants do
not share these values. I understand that Denmark has resorted
to some kind of trick during the interview process that compels
people attempting to immigrate to make uncomfortable assertions.

> In either case there is no reason to keep borders. I think it
> becomes a case (from a culture standpoint) if one thinks
> particular cultures have something valuable that may not be
> lost (essentially a kind of cultural racism)...

"Cultural racism".  Really!  But that's such a harsh way of
putting the fact that some people may treasure certain aspects
of their cultures (e.g. open-mindedness. or lack of bigotry, or
certain other values, good or bad).

Lee