Three sacred cows that must die so Europe can live

throw310822•about 2 hours ago

I'm not a defender of mass immigration- in fact I find all arguments in favour of it (or just fatalistic about it) to be naive or well-intentioned non sequiturs.

Yet, I don't see how it is contributing to the decline of Europe, which is entirely endogenous- a product of Europe's fragmented history and culture. The only real macro impact of mass immigration is, for the time being, the discontent and slide towards populism that it fosters. But I'd be curious to hear what makes it one of the great problems of Europe now according to the author- the article doesn't even try to explain it.

graemep•about 1 hour ago

The author wants to blame immigrants.

I do not think it is fragmented culture either. There is no clear patter of bigger being better. I think it is complacency, bad government, and a decline in efficiency. I do agree it is endogenous.

throw310822•26 minutes ago

It's cultural- European culture puts much more emphasis on safety and security and collective good vs individual freedom and reward. Plus it has sclerotic bureaucracies, and old nation-states that refuse to relinquish their power in favour of a collective entity- which results in a lot of uncoordinated or even adversarial actions. The collective entity finally might be even impossible given the linguistics and cultural differences between the various countries and the reciprocal, well entrenched distrust. All not necessarily in this order.

One per theory of mine is that immigrants actually might help breaking up this course of things: as people with no built up wealth and much less to lose, they might be willing to work harder and risk more; and they might be more indifferent towards the national stereotypes that are still a source of mistrust between europeans.

bell-cot•about 3 hours ago

I could agree with his title, but not with any of his chosen cows.

graemep•about 2 hours ago

Its been clear what he is politically since his "London is not white enough" post. He has only got worse since

abc42•about 3 hours ago

Throw into that same fire also every Russian psyop attempt at destabilizing the West. Such as every alt-right/nu-right political party that sprang up over the last 30 years in Europe, brexit, QAnon, climate change denialism, Trump and all of MAGA, anti-vax, etc etc etc.

I suspect that DHH is not so willing to meet at the center. He might be a great software/business leader, but politically he's just another whiner who at best will achieve nothing and at worst will be another Elon Musk.

romanhounds•about 3 hours ago

You sure it's not the hordes of people coming in that aren't partly responsible for the destabilizing?

throw310822•about 2 hours ago

But how, exactly? Their political weight, at the moment, is negligible. Their economic impact is probably neutral to positive (workers for the economy). They do foster a discontent that expresses itself in vote for right-wing, populist parties- and this is indeed destabilising but not the direct fault of immigration, rather of our reaction to it.

Three sacred cows that must die so Europe can live

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