alt Hacker News> > Will my kids be an ethnic minority in their own country in the next generation - and if so, what's that going to be like for them?
> What about this is an essential concern for you? Like, what are the potential harms?
European countries take great care in maintaining and strengthening their traditions and cultural heritage. That would be at risk. Now, whether or not that actually matters or not is debatable, but Europeans DO seem to care to keep their cultures and traditions alive.
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What are all these presently dominant cultures that are so fragile that the mere presence of others represents an existential threat? Sounds like an excuse for xenophobia more than a sincere concern.
you can't fault people for being confused. just because some people in the US have latched on 'cultural integrity' as their new favorite racist dogwhistle doesn't mean that it makes sense at all to anyone else.
its really funny. some people are fighting a fictional war that the 'other side' isn't really engaged in, and they're losing.
the other funny thing is that if you asked someone what the largest threat to their cultural identity is, a lot of them wouldn't answer immigrants - they would be more concerned about the cancerous US style anodyne consumer culture and media as being the most corrosive
This fear of "the others" that don't look like us or dare to have their own culture coming and "stealing" your cake has been used as a cheap distraction tactic for ages. It backfired for Germany, it's gonna backfire for the US.
I really like this metaphor:
A politician, a voter, and an immigrant are at a BBQ. There's 100 sausages on the grill. The politician goes up, takes 99 sausages, turns to the voter and says "quick, that immigrant is gonna steal your sausage".
It's truly frustrating how effective it is to distract the general population by just inciting fear like that.
I lived all over the place after growing up in the Catholic German country side. I think the places most afraid from cultural dilution are the ones that needed it the most.
It's also so funny how folks in the US keep forgetting that they literally used to be immigrants of all sorts of origins and what made them so successful is leveraging the diverse perspectives. Most of this whole AI boom is based on work from people that came to the US from less privileged places all working together for something greater than them.