The easiest way to see it is look at Japanese portrayals (outsider perspective). Cowboys, horses, guns, pride in our military and our free speech, fireworks and BBQs.
Just because you look down on the culture doesn't mean there isn't one.
Big cities are indistinguishable from other big cities in other countries. All big cities mostly have the same culture. That's why I liked the Japanese perspective on us. They saw cool things that they liked and included in their fiction that contained us.
I'm American lol why are you sending me YouTube video like I don't know the country live in. Red necks in Appalachia aren't representative of Americans. They're a joke.
There's no singular American culture. You can't even get a consistent slice of pizza in the North East let alone the whole country.
More people live in Brooklyn then West Virginia. Why isn't hip hop out that area more representative of the US then Appalachia?
Please don't post like this on HN. We've asked you multiple times to observe the guidelines. We have to ban accounts that continue to do this after repeated appeals. Please take a moment to read the guidelines again and make the effort to observe them if you want to participate here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Which part of the guidelines do you think I didn't follow?
I'm guessing I didn't explain my self clearly when I mentioned that people use the red neck stereo type to make fun of us? I wrote that in an unclear way?
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It's common for people to not recognize that their commenting seems more escalatory when read by others than it does when it's being formulated in their mind, which is why we need to keep reminding people and asking people to make a conscious effort.
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I’m think the weird irony is - and your example may exemplify this - a lot of the culture the right may want to preserve might be improved through immigration.
If you want more religious conservatism and traditional values, Americans are naturally moving away from that. Americans aren’t creating a whole lot of cowboy movies. China is innovating in fireworks.
David brooks has specifically called out this nihilism of the modern right. I think people attributing intention to policies like this are sadly externalizing their own values into an administration that doesn’t have them.
Because I think nobody is unified in this stuff. The people representing the culture you purport to imply a desire to preserve I don’t think agree with you, and certainly not with each other.
This is like Cracker Barrel all over again where most of the liberals I know loved Cracker Barrel and all the conservatives complaining about it almost to a one never went!
The sad truth is there is some sense things might be better if you were right.
Pretending the word doesn't mean anything is the most obvious sign that the person saying that is one of them.
If you don't like the term given to your basket of political beliefs give one that encapsulates it that you like better.
"MAGAts" is the obvious 'other side' parallel. Both sides have their crazies and denying that one exists means you're obviously one of them. As a Pacific Green I don't even like the fact that I can say "both" and people both know what I'm talking about and perpetuates the misguided notion that only two parties exist.
>And the U.S. has been doing even better since 1965.
Better for whom? People are struggling to afford groceries largely because the dollar is worth 1/165th of its 1913 value and the minimum wage hasn't been raised in 17 years.
I found a job that pays in BTC and I'm super hopeful about that one because my effective salary won't go down by 3-8% every year but instead will appreciate relative to what things are priced in.
We were able to make progress on those fronts in the 1960s because we had a culturally homogenized population after decades of immigration restriction.
In the area of women’s rights, for example, the driving force was mainline protestants who wanted prohibition, in opposition to recent immigrants: https://www.wpbstv.org/prohibition-and-the-suffrage-movement.... If America had remained an Anglo-Protestant society, it likely would have developed on a similar trajectory as Canada, the UK, and Australia on issues like abortion. Remember, Roe v. Wade had five Nixon and Eisenhower Republicans in the majority. The party shifted positions on the issue with Reagan because it was a way to flip a large number of catholics, who had overwhelmingly voted democrat until then. Evangelical protestants plus religious Catholics was a big enough coalition to offset mainline protestants on the issue.
White people are a global minority at ~7%. "Minorities™" have their own countries where they are majorities. If they don't want to be Minorities™, they can stay home.
No more than they like white people. The only race in any study you can find shows that every racial group prefers themselves the most, other races less, and whites the least. Except white people. Who've been conditioned to get rid of their in-group bias. If HN supported images, I could show you the charts.
I looked at that data and decided deliberately, out of rational self interest to be just like them and put my own race first exactly like they do. Equality!
> The only race in any study you can find shows that every racial group prefers themselves the most, other races less, and whites the least.
Hard to parse .. ESL ?
That aside, what made up assertive nonsense is this? There are many stories and studies about various non Caucasian groups WhiteMaxxing to make themselves look more Caucasian because <reasons>.
1) not all minorities have their own countries. Examples today would include the Tamagzight people in North Africa and the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey. Other examples could include Christians in the Middle East (Lebannon comes to mind, but I think there are other countries as well), Uighurs in China, or even people living in a place like Iran that is a religious theocracy who want more freedom.
2) in particular, for the case of the US, there has been, since the founding of the country, a large population of African-Americans who don't really have a home country anymore, and don't really have much of a choice but to be American, because, having lived there for hundreds of years at this point, that is the only country they know.
3) I do believe that religious tolerance, and tolerance in general, pays off in the long run. Many early American colonies were founded by people seeking greater religious freedom - Pennsylvannia, founded by a Quaker, Plymouth was founded by Pilgrims who rejected the conventional dogma of the Church of England at the time. More recently, the large number of scientists and engineers fleeing the Nazis in Europe during the early-mid 20th century did have a large impact on American industry, in fact I linked Andrew Grove's wikipedia page in another post on this thread as an example.
That doesn't follow. I'm pretty sure they're talking about the effect of nominal wage stickiness: you're not constantly renegotiating your rate, so when there's fluctuations in relative value, it matters what unit the original number is denominated in. Compare with the case of a US expat being paid a steady salary in USD and converting to the local currency to make purchases, if you want an example with a similar mechanic but very different intuitive feel and practicalities.
(I'm not sure they're right about the overall effect though.)
You basically nailed it. USD crashed in the 1970s after the Nixon shock, and is basically a shambling corpse losing 3-8% of its value every single year while BTC is 600x the value of a 1913 dollar... and trending up: https://i.imgur.com/PJT01T8.png
Even if they don't give me a raise, I'll still have more purchasing power at the end of a year rather than less as the case with USD.
I have a better idea. Let them make their countries worth living in. If they don't like it in America they can leave. Because unlike Americans, we don't have another home country to retreat to.
Most countries have MUCH higher standards for immigration and their citizens much better off for it.
> Most countries have MUCH higher standards for immigration and their citizens much better off for it.
I think your math is off. The US is in the top 10 for GDP per capita, 99% literacy rate when the global average is 87%, the poverty rate is below average, the list goes on. Most countries in the world aren’t even considered developed nations. Immigration has been America’s core growth engine for two and a half centuries. There may be problems but you are deluding yourself if you think the whole economy hasn’t benefited from immigration. Even when that immigration was through chattel slavery.
It’s a symbiotic relationship. The reason the US is so prosperous is due to immigration, mostly during the 20th century. The US cannot run off of just the existing citizens. Well, it can, for a while, but not indefinitely.
I am aware of the concept of children, thank you. Not sure why we have to argue like we have a stick up our asses, but here we are.
As you're well aware, the US is just barely meeting replacement birth rate. Most developed countries are under it. And the big picture: the US is all about growth. Economic growth, cultural growth. If you want more of that, you need immigrants. Sorry, that's how the US has always worked. If you don't agree with it, then I'm not sure the US is the country for you.
There are plenty of developed, homogeneous countries. Diversity is what makes the US the US. Please, feel free to seek a country that better aligns with your beliefs.
The founders were, themselves, immigrants. From multiple different countries.
Of course racism existed when the founding father's were alive, we had slavery. But, from the beginning, the US has been a country founded on immigration and racial diversity. Yes, we did not, at the time, consider black Americans Americans. But we certainly do now, and have for a very long time.
I'm also not convinced immigration lowers wages. People throw this around, while providing no evidence. And, even if it did, I think it's obvious that wages is not the cause behind birth rate decline.
All the developed countries, with the high wages and standard of living, have poor birthrate. All the developing countries, with low wages and low standard of living, have high birthrates. Hmm.
If we look at the demographic progression of nations the "culprit" behind birthrate is development. Particularly, social development, the liberation of women. Turns out lots of women don't actually want to have children, and when we stop pressuring them socially, they don't. They work instead.
Obviously this is a hard problem to solve. If you want to solve birthrate, you need to de-develop your nation. Not good. Or, some other solution, which nobody has found yet. Or, you just have immigration, which we do and have had.
> the US has been a country founded on immigration and racial diversity
This is a misreading of pre-1965 history with respect to immigration. The Naturalization Act of 1790 explicitly states:
"any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof... making proof to the satisfaction of such Court, that he is a person of good character."
So the "diversity is our strength" slogan is a modern invention and an attempt to retcon our history.
The US was diverse from the beginning, with a large black, indigenous, and white population.
Again, at the time we did not consider black Americans to be Americans. But we certainly do now, and have for a long time.
Yes racism existed in the 18th century. Congratulations, you are a connoisseur of history. Maybe next you can clarify if the Pope lives in the Vatican.
But, that doesn’t mean the US wasn’t diverse. It was, from the beginning. Both in terms of different European nationalities, and in terms of race.
Also, harkening back to 17 fucking 90 as a defense of anti-immigration policy is a poor argument.
People already largely think that anti-immigration sentiment is pure racism. And people think that exactly because of arguments like yours. I’m not saying you’re racist. But, just about everyone was in 1790. That’s not a good defense. That actually serves as a demonstration of what NOT to do, and highlights the social progression of the US. It’s good we’re no longer there, in that mindset.
George Washington was the 4th generation of his family in america. He and his community has deep roots in america and did not consider themselves immigrants. The American nation existed before the revolution and was a precondition for such.
Only supply a demand economic denialists cannot understand than an increase in the supply of something leads to falling prices.
We certainly do not have an oversupply of labor. In fact, we're quite short on it. The demand for many jobs is very high. In fields where immigrants often work, that is, blue collar labor, the demand is VERY high. We simply do not produce enough tradesmen, but we still require infrastructure.
And for white collar labor, we have a lot of immigrants, too. But again, supply is not the issue. Yes we import a lot of things like doctors. But we certainly don't have nearly enough doctors.
Tradesmen? Americans used to become carpenters but now don't because it used to be paid well enough but now pays peanuts. All because of immigration. If carpenters were paid what they were paid in the 60s, inflation adjusted you'd see American carpenters again. There is no labor shortage, only a wage shortage because too many people like you demand to hire at slave wages and failing that import someone desperate enough to take it.
It pays peanuts because we manufacture furniture in China for pennies on the dollar. All of the factories have moved out of the US, and artisan goods were dead long before that.
Immigrants aren’t stealing those jobs. Those jobs no longer exist in the US, so nobody can steal them even if they tried.
Carpenters are the trade that builds houses from wood. Almost every house in america is built this way. I've yet to see a carpenter job, which requires being on site, outsourced to china. Misdirecting by pretending not to know what a carpenter is, is just downright dishonest and emblematic of the deceiptful open borders argument.
I’m not “pretending not to know what a carpenter is”. You specially talked about artisan goods, like furniture, which carpenters ALSO make. That’s also called being a carpenter.
That job is dead because we make furniture overseas, duh, and you know that.
Yes we still have carpenters to build houses. You think I don’t know that? But those jobs ARE NOT in short supply. We actually need MORE people to work those jobs, not less.
But the artisanal and even factory goods that used to be made in the US are long gone. Nobody is stealing those jobs because they don’t exist - there’s nothing to steal.
If you actually take the time to look at the blue-collar jobs that “immigrants are stealing”, you’d quickly realize all of those jobs are in high demand. Immigrants helps us meet the demand, but even with immigration we do not have enough labor.
There is zero threat to Americans, it doesn’t exist. It’s purely made up, and even a very small amount of analysis proves it. If you really think immigrants are stealing those jobs, then do yourself a favor and pivot to carpentry. You will see those jobs are not flooded with labor pulling down the wages.
Also, for the record, I am not pro “open borders”. I am just not anti-immigration. Anti-immigration is a purely anti-American and ahistorical ideology. It’s a very new ideology driven purely by MAGA. Even 10 years ago the republicans were pro immigration because EVERY AMERICAN WAS PRO IMMIGRATION. Do not make me out to be a psychopath, you are in the minority here, not me.
Conflating not wanting to compete with foreigners for jobs in your own country with racism is bad faith bullshit. Foreigners of the exact same race are equally unwanted competition.
Even taking you at your word, immigrants also create far more jobs. The economy is not some zero sum thing, with some fixed amount of jobs and fixed amount of work and fixed amount of wealth to be split.
Every economic analysis I have ever seen shows that there's economic surplus from immigrants entering a local economy; more jobs and more wealth is created, per person, than if those people had not come. In particular I'm thinking of some studies of local economy in Miami when there have been bursts of immigration.
>In particular I'm thinking of some studies of local economy in Miami when there have been bursts of immigration.
That was study about Cuban immigrants into Miami, a city with large Cuban population and thus existing infrastructure to absorb. I wouldn't draw that study into anything broader.
As someone in Local Politics, the issue generally is, immigration, esp of unskilled kind decimates local budgets since they are generally directly tied to number of people. Here is CBO report on it. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61464
Now, type of immigration that mostly impacts this study is not type of immigration that is impacted by visa application processing halting but acting like "Yea, this current system is working GREAT!" is false. This is what so annoying about this issue, it's in clear need of change but Congress refuses to do it and Trump doesn't have leadership to get it done.
They say it out loud. The people writing these policies are vocally proud of being white nationalists. Defending them with "well maybe they have a good reason!" is evidence that you're either on board with their actual agenda (i.e., evil) or incomprehensibly naive (i.e., stupid).
Its only racism when you then go and invite white south africans in. And make statements like "Why cant we have more people come in from countries like Norway"
That's the only source that I've heard for this quote:
> U.S. intelligence sources report that the one Israeli who is considered an extreme threat to U.S. national security is former prime minister and current prime minister hopeful Binyamin Netanyahu. Not only has Netanyahu visited convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in his North Carolina prison cell and advocated strenuously for his release, but he was once overheard by an ex-CIA agent as saying to a group of his supporters, "Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away." Considering the damage the neocons and their Israeli facilitators are causing for U.S. national security, Netanyahu may soon have his wish.
Shot in the dark, but since you seem to know: does this work in the brave browser? I know(?) on iOS that under the hood everything is still safari so I'm wondering...
I super rarely use it myself these days, basically just for images, because it still seems like the best of terrible options for images. Everything else is asking ChatGPT to search for me and clicking on sources to verify if its important
Fish Fails to Detect Water
The easiest way to see it is look at Japanese portrayals (outsider perspective). Cowboys, horses, guns, pride in our military and our free speech, fireworks and BBQs.
Just because you look down on the culture doesn't mean there isn't one.