Influencers: extra smiles and bullshit as the noise of societal decay grows louder outside

As a die hard meat eater and frequent mocker of vegetarians and vegans over the years (not defending that), I have to say meat free food is getting pretty damn delicious…

Hurting the leisure / travel industry probably hurts the West more than Russia

Great! Stop poorly integrating every single thing you can lay your hands on and maybe tend to some of the feature fix requests on idea exchange with hundreds of thousands of votes…

This is just portable stenography, right?

Patient: poops self

AI Nurse: “would you like to hear a poem?”

Manipulative headline? In the technology community?? Que devient ce monde…

South Korea + US better elevate their threat model of the NK army to “now thoroughly trained by someone who once shot themselves in the leg”

“one blink for everything’s ok, two blinks for nothing’s wrong…”

Good. They should stop frantically adding new features and tidy up some of the crap we have to use day to day.

I watched a lot more Star Trek as a kid but it’s always the Star Wars universe that I feel drawn to. I can’t really quantify it, I think it’s just an aesthetic thing. I suppose Star Wars feels more ‘wild west’.

Old school sci-fi: am re-reading the Asimov robot stories again. Always something new to reflect on.

Are you really trying to tell me that Germany exploiting African countries because of “national greatness” is ideologically different to claiming Islam is the bane of Germany’s existence?

no, I’m claiming that shoehorning people with serious reservations over conservative islam into a racial narrative is itself part of the problem

How come Germans are okay with immigrants and refugees coming into Germany to work and support their retirement

they aren’t. the article itself mentions that such immigrants faced discrimiation and resentment. the necessity of immigration is an economic one arising from a class conflict between global capitalists who seek profitability at any cost and the working class who resent the local changes made to accomodate this while their ongoing struggle is ignored

the same old racist views that religion is the problem and if only we could get the “good immigrants” and not the “bad ones” nationalistic (nazi) groups would accept them with open arms.

nazis are a minority. they end up attracting the previous moderates when those people feel deserted by the political elite. shaming any discussion of preferring ones own cultural values (oftentimes just a placeholder for “human rights”) to those espoused in large degrees by immigrant populations is the beginning of this. in fact we’re far past it. any talk of needing discerement over immigration on the basis of a person’s views or religious convictions is hardly possible without someone overreacting and crying “racism”.

muslim communities have significant portions who i) do not support homosexuality being legal (82% with 52% oppose, 30% unsure) ii) think gay teachers should be fired (47%) iii) feel women should always be subservient to their husband (39%) iv) will not condemn violence as a response to insulting the prophet muhammad (32%) v) would not report someone to the police if they expressed a desire to engage in terrorism abroad (66%) vi) support the replacement of national law with Sharia Law (23%) vii) either support or are indifferent to stoning people for adultery (21%) viii) support polygamy (31%) (https://www.channel4.com/press/news/c4-survey-and-documentary-reveals-what-british-muslims-really-think)

and this is amongst settled muslim communities in Britain (I am more familiar with UK research, but I don’t think it unfair to consider UK and German muslim immigants broadly similar) immigrants are typically far more conservative (see: your BAMF report)

pretending that having some objection to this is “racism” is only fueling the current problems seen across Europe as populations find the only parties sharing any of their concerns over this are lunatic far right groups

working versions of your links:

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-needs-288000-foreign-workers-annually-until-2040-study/a-70885279

https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Forschung/Forschungsberichte/Kurzberichte/fb38-muslimisches-leben-kurzfassung.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=15

I’m sorry, but are you serious? That is quite literally what the AfD does!

I was asking quite specifically “who” because it is not an official policy of the AfD. There are certainly large racist elements in AfD but I do not believe all of their voters are frothing at the mouth irrational xenophobes. The voting public are generally less ideologically committed than the parties they end up voting for (again, notwithstanding that there are certianly racists among them). And this is the tragedy of the current discourse; one cannot currently question the wisdom of allowing conservative islam populations into the country without being accused of being “extreme” and of being far more to the right than one actually is. The result is that moderate politicians find the discussion unsafe and have deserted the popluation who are, in no small measure, concerned about the unchecked immigration of those who favour violence as a response to criticism of the prophet muhammad and would in large part remain silent if an associate expressed the desire to engage in terrorism* (The research in this area is UK based but I don’t think it’s unfair to consider muslim immigrants to the UK and Germany as being largely similar)

The shunning of any talk of “cultural superiority” in polite, liberal, university educated society is what results in the only people talking about it being the far right, and then in exaggerated, fantastical terms. It is trivial for them to pull a veneer of respectability over their possible true intentions (as the AfD are no doubt doing), the result of which is they win votes. And a country that could have had more moderate solutions ends up sliding into insanity.

All because there is an overreaction any time someone suggests that immigration should be controlled on the basis of a persons views or religion or that ones ongoing immigrant status should be conditional on one’s behaviour or assocation. Instead a country ends up with little control in this area and the rise of extreme parties that begin to suggest the only solution is to deport generations of migrants…

Banning such parties will not change anything. Starting to talk in moderate terms about how immigration might be far slower and more discriminating is the only thing that will rob the far right extreme parties of their saviour narrative.

* https://www.channel4.com/press/news/c4-survey-and-documentary-reveals-what-british-muslims-really-think

those are words that you putting in my mouth

apologies that wasn’t my intention

But there has to be a difference between worrying about who comes to this country and calls to expell every brown person from Germany.

who actually is “calling for the explusion of every brown person in germany?” isn’t casually referring to this whole block of complex views in such an offhand way part of the problem? can people not express a desire for some who have entered the country with repugnant views to now leave without this being taken as a pogrom against all of a certain ethnicity? i don’t think this is what you are saying. i’m just pointing out how easy it is to generalise and mask views that might be different to our own liberal laissaz faire ones but are not in themselves that extreme.

In the world of today, don’t you worry about democracy,

i do. but it survived when the country was dominated by people listening to the pulpit every sunday. and it survived when everyone decided to dispense with “christian” morality at all in the 60’s and 70’s. it survived when literacy was below 50% in the early 20th century. and it survived when your only news from a handful of paper broadsheets and radio stations controlled by press barons. the problems we have now are definitely problems but they are not entirely new, just a different kind.

there have always been ideologues and fascists. what has played into their hands is refusing to allow very common and very popular concerns to a part of moderate political discussion. when a good proportion of immigrant muslims will express a desire for homosexuality to be illegal* and also express a willingness to stay silent when others support terrorism* then wanting their to be some discerement at the border is surely something that should be discussed. instead we fret over the kneejerk reactions of do-gooders who cry racism. which leaves the problem unsolved and the only people talking about it the exaggeraters and fantasists of the far right.

* https://www.channel4.com/press/news/c4-survey-and-documentary-reveals-what-british-muslims-really-think (UK based)

The world is trending towards atheism bud.

this really doesn’t have anything to do with the concerns caused by a minority of culturally conservative islamists

the same people who don’t like the conservative values that stem from Christianity or Catholicism

it’s ok to dislike religious fascism in all its forms though? right? one might take the view that it’s ok to limit it coming from abroad as it’s hardly going to improve the situation.

It’s just smoke screen for blatant racism and xenophobia

this is patronising. there are racists and there are xenophobes and there are people who would prefer that immigration be slower or just less. these are overlapping groups of people but they are not the same. by making it impossible for moderate politicians to talk about immigration control on the basis of values, it leaves only the more exteme ideologues

I bet if we looked at immigration statistics for the US

we are talking about Europe…

but I’m probably more likely agnostic at this point. Now tell me what my values are?

are you homophobic? do you think being gay should be illegal? think gay teachers should be fired? want to see sharia law implemented? support violence against people for drawing offensive cartoons? stay silent when others express support for terrorism? i expect you would answer ‘no’ to most of this. it is not unreasonable to express some discernment over people who would answer ‘yes’ to any of these when they are seeking to enter the country.

Immigrants bring skilled labor that societies need to survive

the necessity of immigration is a consequence of class warfare. only immigrants will accept the poor conditions fostered by neglect of the working class. global capitalists want to shift workforces wherever it is profitable, urban elites agree because it’s unfashionable to express any discernment over an immigrant’s values. meanwhile it’s the working class whose struggle is masked by all this and who bear the brunt of social problems when immigrants are funneled into underequiped areas of the country.

Not to mention the difference between top down colonization and bottom up immigration being fundamentally different.

If they are fundamentally different, why bring it up at all?

The Afd, nor the people who vote for them, advocate the colonisation of Africa. Correct me if I’m wrong.

One can acknowledge evils in the past, even be in favour of redressing them financially. That doesn’t invalidate the preference that conservative Islam be prejudiced against at the point of immigration.

No. This is the fundamental of democracy, it’s weakness we have to bear with (but only because all the other options are worse). Despite all the bullshit (and there is a lot of bullshit) democracy has to rest on the fact that a population of adults can make a decision. That en masse their bullshit detectors work good enough. Else we become anti democratic ourselves and start favouring a vanguard of the insightful, educated, tasteful, moral, high thinkers “such as ourselves!” that get to patronise everyone else and disregard their opinions.

A lot of people thoroughly dislike conservative Islam. Both as a concept and from firsthand experience. There are other things wrong with the country too. But acting like people have no right to want there to be greater discernment at the border, and in fact call them churlish and mentally deficient for expressing anything of the kind, is what leaves them (and the are many of them) disconnected from the political process, frustrated, and open to the rhetoric of more extreme ideologues.

There is absolutely a class war going on but it has many fronts. Globalised capitalists acting like one can simply pour population from here to there to satisfy the economic machine creates exactly the kind of cultural tension we see. Many people don’t like the conservative values that come with Islam. That’s ok. Moderate politicians acting like that’s a totally invalid (even evil) opinion only patronises people and leaves them disillusioned with the democratic process altogether. In a democracy people will have different values to oneself, they’ll even have a different idea over what’s important. The idea that it would be ok for the country to be poorer by have less immigration is a democratic choice and urban elites acting like you can’t even think like that is ultimately undemocratic.

While I don’t disagree that there’s a serious class battle going on people are also allowed to want there to be less immigration, especially of islamic culture, no? That’s democracy. Steamrolling over this, as if it’s a totally invalid thought to have, is what leads to the disconnect between urban elite politicians and the mass of people who are frustrated that the border seems to be porous to objectionable social values. You could have a moderate solution, but by ignoring people you end up with them feeling they’re only understood by more extreme ideologues.

While I personally don’t agree with them, what you are doing here is exactly the kind of patronising I was talking about. The choice between poorer services and immigration should be a democratic choice. People should be allowed to be ok that the country will be poorer but less culturally diverse. If that’s important to them. That’s that point of having democracy at all- it’s not obvious which matters are the more important ones. You may have you own opinions, they may in fact be thoroughly based on data and utilitarian greater good, but as soon as you say ‘this whole mass of people must be thick because of what they value and I’m going to ignore them’ you’re engaging in the exact kind of behaviour that you think you’re fighting.