CharonY

I think assimilate is a bit of a misnomer as especially in the European context the public often demands a form of erasure. It may seem weird in the Canadian context which not only has two official languages, but is also (increasingly) aware of the many pre-colonial native languages. As you said, Canada strives for a mosaic, which allows for maintaining some level of cultural context, which does create a unique vision of Canadian identity. I will also say that this, of course is not without friction and there is a lot to say about how folks think about the term heritage Canadians (and especially First Nations folks). I think, as stated before, there needs to be a two-way street where other cultures are allowed to play some role of the overall societal fabric, otherwise, the system will, on average, push folks toward the fringes. If cultures do not interact, they won't blend. You cannot just demand to one become the other. And regarding the issue of political Islam and with all its complication: these sort of movements are, similar to other far-right loons, stronger in disenfranchised groups that do not see themselves as somehow excluded from society. And honestly, I see little difference between those guys and the far-right extremists who are becoming increasingly stronger with their weird view on how society should look like, the role of women (and men), the rise of manosphre and white nationalism- all of it fits pretty much the same common narrative of perceived threat by... something and the need for radicalization, scapegoating and essentially ending democracy to counter this perceived threat. Hah, I have vegetarian students, but they all gain weight when they are home and promptly lose it when around here. Probably they are not well-assimilated. CAD for all (coronary artery disease)!

I think that is exactly the point. There are elements of hard policy, like passing a test, citizenship rules, etc. But there is also the bigger, much less defined notion of cultural integration, where issues such as this are present as data slides and become part of public discussion. I have not lived in the Netherlands, but from my experience in Germany, public discourse really makes the fine distinction that you are doing. Though the discussion has changed perhaps between 2010-2015 and then changed yet again. From an immigrant perspective, the societal demands remain nebulous. What the author states is less about official policy, but more a critique on framing and methodologies, and while I cannot be sure, I think it was part of a discussion that tried to shift the discussion. You do see a shift in the official reports over time, for example. Especially post 9/11 there were big discussions regarding fear of radicalization by Islam and, after van Gogh's murder also in terms of broader social tension. Especially around this time Islam was strongly associated with being a risk factor to integration. After 2010, at least in my reading (not specific to the Netherlands, but more a general Western Europe reading) there was a slow shift to recognize Islam as part of religious diversity, rather than predominantly a risk factor. However, with the rise of ISIS the debate shifted yet again and then again in more recent times, where discrimination is increasingly recognized as an integration issue (rather than exclusively the property of immigrants, thus inching towards the aforementioned two-way street of integration). But the latest shift generally is used as fuel by right-wingers as part of the great replacement theory, which we started off with. The issue is a bit that the official line (e.g. passing tests or citizenship rules) are insufficient for broader society to accept individuals as one of their own. In Germany, there is a continued distinction between Germans and Germans with a migration background. There are good reasons, but the recent debate of "remigrating" non-integrated Germans shows how vulnerable the position is and how persistent the distinction between native and non-native is. What the author claims is that, inevitably the discussion is rooted in notions of ethnicity and race, even if "culture" is used, as societal acceptance tends to stratify on those lines.

Absolutely, even if not perfect I felt that being part of the culture is much more attainable in Canada (and, until not too long ago, perhaps also in the USA) compared to Europe because of that. It is true that there are certain ideals that should be help up in society. Certainly with respect to laws, but to some degree also on the cultural side. However, I think the point I am trying to make is that for true participation in a society, these goals have to be attainable and, there should be some level of fairness in its evaluation. For example, there is often talk about misogyny and homophobia among certain immigration, which might be factually true, and the rate might be higher compared to the "native" population. However, it is for example unreasonable to expect that this attitude would be entirely absent in an immigrant population, especially if it also exists in the native population. The second issue is that the goals of integration should be clear and attainable. Being perfect is not an attainable goal, for example. Don't look different is another example. In most integration debates, these measures are murky (also mentioned in the papers I mentioned) and so are the paths to become part of society (again, in the European context).

I am using the example given in a book, I think from the same author I cited earlier, where integration research uses variables such as mosque-going as a measure of integration. The factors you mentioned are "hard" factors which generally are not particularly controversial. However, the soft factors of success, which fall under elements of socio-cultural integration are a bit of a mess. I don't know whether there is a formal authoritative system used by policy-makers (though I know that at least years back that was missing in the German discussions). But there have been government reports around 2000-2010 that wrestled with the notion whether Muslims can be integrated and highlighted the tension that arises from their beliefs in a secular society. Fundamentally there is the base assumption that being Muslim also means for example running counter to liberal values. This same notion, however, is not held against fundamentalist Christians. The author I cited, argues from an even higher level basically stating, assume that there is a large percentage now of Muslims, how can they still not be considered to be part of society? But even if we don't that far, clearly religion or any other parameter of choice is used as a delineator, justified or not, and often in an arbitrary manner. A recent paper touches on these themes from a slightly different perspective. While their main argument is on attitudinal ambivalence, they do describe here a kind of negative two-way street and the boundary between self and others: Abbas, T. The complexity of coexistence: Dutch perspectives on multiculturalism and Muslim integration. Acta Polit (2026).

Germany has something similar and I have some mixed feelings about how they are conducted. There are good educational elements, including civics, for example. But a challenge is that at least back in the days, they were also a lot of issues. Some of which are detrimental to success and others which are actively reducing the chance of success. In the past at least, many of these classes were framed to some degree around how you should behave and that the local way is the only way. This has the idea in mind that assimilation of immigrants includes cultural erasure of their background, which is obviously rather tricky. And as those classes were not implemented with any of acknowledgement of the background culture. Hence, the goal initially was not integration, as somewhat realized in the US and Canada, but rather diminishing the foreignness of the individual. So it ended up either in two extremes, one is that the principles and aspirations of the society are taught (e.g. democracy, equality etc.) but that often clashes with reality and does not appear operational or they are more specifically geared towards modulating behaviour which would try to fulfill the erasure bit and can cause backlash. But even those who want to fully assimilate and erase their otherness, there is another obstacle. In my experience, integration or the harsher form"assimiliation" hinges on what folks consider to be common sense notions of their society and their individual members. The big issue is that these notions are aspirational for themselves, but considered prescriptive for immigrants. What has been criticized in this approach is then that the lack of integration becomes a property of the individual, rather than an issue of the system. And because the notions are so ephemeral, it is often used as a separator. This is especially evidence in visible minorities where often no level of effort results in the coveted classification of assimilated (or, let's say, integrated). There are a couple of very good papers discussing how problematic the notion of integration (and even worse, assimilation) is as they lack a proper framework that allows one to study and measure the issue in a coherent way. Take Netherlands, for example. It considers it self a secular state, so when it comes to social integration, being a Muslim, is considered to be non-integrated as they are not following secular ideals. Yet, while the Netherlands is majority non-religious, there are still about a third Christians, which are not considered non-integrated. Then of course, one would evoke history of Christianism and justify how exemptions have to be carved out there, but I think you will appreciate that the situations rather complex and, if you come from a different cultural background, you might see a lack of fairness, after all, despite your best efforts, you cannot change your history. Another measure is what is sometimes called socio-cultural integration, where folks measure contact of one ethnic group with others. In these papers you will notice an interesting patterns often showing that the native groups often have the least interethnic contacts, but then they highlight which non-native group is least interacting with others. I.e. the native group is considered "neutral". The issue here is that this neutral group is also the largest, so if they do not interact much with other ethnic groups, then it also means that the other, smaller ethnic groups have much less chance for interethnic interactions. Conversely, in countries where the native groups interaction more broadly (e.g. because in societies where native ethnicities are considered more broadly), then suddenly society looks more integrated according to this measure. IOW, the main driver for this measure is actually the native group, rather than the immigrant group. However, the label of good or poor integration is foisted on them. It does not meant that they have no agency in the process, but rather that the policy does not consider the whole context. It is, unfortunately, not as some have envisioned in earlier posts, a true two-way street. It goes one way, and regardless how bumpy the road, it is on the driver, not on the road builder. A good read, though perhaps a bit verbose as social sciences tend to be, on some of the issues when we talk about integration is here https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.783709

I think to address this question, OP needs to carve out a more precise definition regarding what they are thinking about. For example, how do we define deities in this context? A formal, frequently human-like pantheon of entities? Does it include everything supernatural? For example, is ascribing spiritual characteristics to natural phenomena, fall under that, even if it is not characterized as a god-like entity?Does the definition require a formal religion and worship? Or does perhaps informal unstructured acts of reverence and respect count, too? If the definition is sufficiently broad to encompass any sort of a higher belief system, then I think no, that didn't exist. But if it is more narrow, there are potential candidates. There is also a broader discussion regarding what "gods" are, historically. There are some folks who suggest that gods are basically story-telling techniques used in oral traditions as sort of re-usable pattern to talk about things ranging from nature to morals. So this question can be made to be incredibly complex, if so desired.

Which paper? The one in OP is using US death certificates. Uber drivers would be coded the same as tax drivers, using US census categories. My comment was more that London cabbies would be interesting to test whether use of spatial memory is associated with reduced alzheimer's risk as the taxi driver in London, will need to do more memorization than much of their counterparts. On the other hand, if it is more about navigation the differences could be smaller. I know that there are studies involving London cabbies as main cohort, but I have not seen one that would estimate Alzheimer's risk.

Well, this a bit of on the nose for a metaphor, isn't it? Also very fitting given where things are headed.

I mean, yes, but based on my experience overconfidence is a bit of a thing, second probably only to theoretical physicists (again, solely based on my experience). On average more pragmatic, though I would keep them from some of the more complex social and health-related problems. The desire to simplify and bulldoze the problem head-on is strong, and often misguided.

Given my experience with this community I am not sure that I would agree. The issue is that especially the highly successful ones also have their egos and while generally there is good information coming out of us, operationalizing them is not necessarily one of our strengths. Realistically, you will have a deadlock of sub-committees who are going to argue some arcane details which are incredibly important to them. I think really the issue is that politics is a human thing. It would be much better to have it run by legumes.

I think London cabbies still memorize the streets to earn their license. Would be interesting to add that cohort to the mix.

Not sure I follow, the values provided are from the UK housing report. But perhaps there is a misunderstanding along the thread somewhere. The general consensus seems to be that UK is not reaching its targets in home outputs. As you mentioned, many builders went bust. Some articles suggest that material and labor costs (inflation) and regulatory changes are some of the leading causes. I have not seen actual data on immigration in that regard beyond similar arguments made in sethoflagos' post that tighter immigration rules could increase labor cost, further impacting budgets. There was an old pre-Brexit CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) report which, among other things, predicted what could happen as a consequence of immigration restriction https://www.ciob.org/media/64/download These include among others: reduced labour mobility across EU leading to higher wage volatility restricted access to skilled staff (focus on EU) reduced housing deliver A big issue is specifically loss of the EU worker pool, as they are highly mobile and provided a flexible pool of talent that were lost post-Brexit. Some of the immigration rules also made it harder to recruit builders, as they did not fall under the skilled labor segment. Whether the situation constitutes a building crisis or not remains debatable, but I think it is complicated, made worse post-Brexit.

And my point is that we need to quantify that. I mentioned the 4-6% from the housing report. My question then is (given the topic of the thread) does it warrant the seemingly outsized focus on immigration over other housing-related policies, for example?

It is astonishing how weird and controlling some MDs can be when it comes to reproductive bits. Also the difference when the woman in question is white or not... The saddest thing about that is that in Germany classes when to Auschwitz (Osvienčim) and other concentration camps to learn and reflect about the past. Now the racist AfD (also heavily supported by Musk, Vance and their ilk) are the strongest party according to polls. And I think the paths to radicalization are easier now, you do not even need Gleichschaltung (i.e. taking over media and means of information). Social media does the job for you. We can see that in this thread, where OP is happily playing to that tune. Moreover, this is seen as a virtue, even if it costs the US economy (especially in farming). The thread I was thinking of was this one here https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/140534-taking-care-of-people/ There are some discussions regarding altruism and capitalism there. But bottom line is that fundamentally it is not necessarily a resource constraint issue by itself. And with regard to food banks, there are many answer to that, but I doubt that migration is one of them. Or at least I have not seen compelling evidence to that effect. In many countries cost of living has been rising, regardless of level of immigration, for example. Housing is one area where sudden shocks can increase prices to some degree, but on the macroscale the effects appear to be small. A report in the UK suggests that immigration accounts for roughly 4-6% of house price increases over the last three decades https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-and-housing-costs-what-does-international-evidence-imply-for-the-uk/migration-and-housing-costs-what-does-international-evidence-imply-for-the-uk-accessible IOW, it is not a major driver, even as some rhetoric suggests otherwise. The other side that needs to be explored are the benefits for the economy as @sethoflagos pointed out. The UK unemployment rate seems to fairly low as a whole, with UK-born individuals having an unemployment rate of around 4.6%, which is comparable to 2005 numbers and down from the high of 8% in 2011. Among non-UK born, the rate is higher, at 7%, which is still lower than about 20 years ago with 8 and 9 % in 2004 and 2005. So at least with increasing immigration over the last two decades, in those terms the needle has not moved a lot. To me the real question is less about potential extrapolations or finding segments where there are issues. I would rather see a deeper analyses regarding the net cost (or benefit) of immigration to ground the discussion in tangibles, rather than perception. In housing, for example there are pro and cons, pressure on housing was mentioned, though data shows only a modest effect on the high level. And there are discussions regarding whether immigration can actually help with supply by providing builders (though that discussion is also very simplistic). I think it overall goes back to my earlier argument that this discussion is heavily rooted in assumptions with usually very little comprehensive and holistic analyses. And I would argue that political movements trying to exploit those feelings really don't want these analyses to be done in the first place, as it is easier to just play narratives, rather than root them on facts and analyses.

Well add to that fracturing of society due to social media. This is rage-inducing. Did they say that there is simply no option or did they try to push hysterectomy over possible options (both are bad, of course. I would assume that this was way before MRgFUS was available?

IIRC the most negative attitude among white folks was towards East Europeans (e.g. Polish and Czech). This goes towards my earlier comment that folks will create sub-divisions to further their respective narratives. I agree that it should be, but often it isn't. I will note that while things are getting weird in North America, in Europe that traditionally has been a problem for visible minorities in many areas. Attitudes have improved somewhat around 2010s but then has seen a huge backlash again. I think the population is very segmented in that regard. As is the society as a whole, one should add. The idea of a consensus in society has crumbled and apparently we all live in some hyper-specific bubbles now (some refer to it as the atomization of society). Two things here. We have another thread about feeding folks and the limits to that. But on a different note, this suggest that immigrants are draining resources, mirroring the idea in OP. Is that really the case though? One of my points is that in most countries that is the standard assumption, but I rarely see evidence of it. The picture is somewhat complex, but I would like to see that before accepting this as as true, I would like to see what kind of data folks have looked at before coming to this conclusion. Quite a different matter and quite tame in comparison, but I find it rather funny that I have been yelled at in three different countries for not speaking the local language with my wife or parents (and each time in a grocery store). But in a broader sense I do often hear the criticism that folks do not want to hear a foreign language in their spaces. That in my mind does not bode well for a two-way assimilation idea. Of course, broader society might have a different attitude, and there is a difference between NA and Europe in that regard. But at the same time, grievances of the majority with anything related to status challenges is politically incredibly powerful as it is often dumb. In that regard I can understand exchemist's comment on the desire to address immigration to not cede to the far right. Rather unfortunately, I also think it will not work on many levels. First, if mainstream parties think that putting on prohibitive restrictions will assuage voters, it often doesn't. The extremists can always claim that a) they would have done it sooner and better and b) it just proves that they are right in the first place. In addition, most folks do not understand the impact of immigration on the economy. For example, Trump's policies appear to have a net negative impact despite claims that it will somehow benefit (white) Americans. Thus, eve if reducing immigration or expelling immigrants tanks the economy, far right can just claim that they haven't expelled enough immigrants. A bad situation is good for them and they have no qualms do dig the hole ever deeper. I.e. while we likely can all see the reasoning, the solutions are elusive and annoyingly, grievances and emotions tend to win out in the end.

I would agree that addressing that sentiment is politically important if you want to have success. As a matter of fact, in contrast to the fantasies OP has, controlling and restricting immigration has been a key point across the political spectrum by now. In Europe it is a center issue for decades now, and Brexit is in part driven by that. Trudeau’s and Biden’s overcorrection of immigration after COViD-19 to kickstart the economy cost them politically quite dearly. But there is another dimension I would like to address. A big issue I have with that argument is, as I mentioned before, it is almost entirely emotional and thereby not really objectively addressable. It is not, for example an economic argument, where one could pull economic data and simply align immigration goals with it. And what is even worse, the exclusion is eventually treated as an virtue all by itself, from which there is only a little step to demonize the others to further that virtue. The most neutral way I can express the issue is that folks are upset that parts of the country are not pandering to their sensibilities and needs. But this has two issues. First, it kind of ignores the other forms of exclusion, which could be way more consequential. For example, even if the vendor is advertising in Turkish, I likely can walk in and buy things. In contrast, I cannot simply walk into a country club, which is likely going to be far more exclusionary, even if they speak a language I am more familiar with. There is also the corollary- if all spaces have to pander to the sensibilities of the majority, it suggests that minorities are not allowed to create similar spaces if they are different. I think much of these issues can be resolved simply by engaging with each other, rather than by wielding political power. Unfortunately most are more content to just argue in inflammatory fantasies, such as OP in this case. There is also a whole issue in terms of the implications of the term assimilation. I.e. the implied suggestion that one is only accepting of otherness, if it remains invisible. That of course is a goalpost that has been used consistently to penalize minorities and is ultimately an unattainable goal for many, especially with features that are not easily erasable. I.e. it is often not enough to speak the language (even accent free) and engage in local activities. The best one often can hope for is to be one of the good ones as the endpoint of assimilation.

I will add two things. Things change, this is just how it works. As a kid there was a small forest and a wonderful creek where I just to play. Now it has become a suburbian hell. Do you think folks should be upset regarding the young families living there now? Do you think folks would be more or less upset if said families spoke German, English, Polish, or Arabic? Consider a different scenario. There was a rough area in the city I lived in. There used to be shops on the ground floor, but they had been empty for a long time. At some point a Turkish shop came in selling vegetables. And then next door a Turkish tea house opened. Should that shock folks? My overarching question is basically why do cultural changes have such an outsized emotional impact compared to other things which potentially affect your life more directly (positively or negatively)?

Sadly, it is a powerful political message that many current (reform, AFD, rassemblement national,Reps etc.) and past parties have used successfully to find useful scapegoats, drive resentment, and ultimately avoid any form of responsibility for their actions. The baseline is, of course, the assumption that anything not exactly like them is detrimental. And make no mistake, if they can't find someone with a darker skin color, they will blame someone with the "wrong" religion, political outlook, or some other form of otherism. Considering how prevalent this is, one would expect that by this point folks would have found a way to actually document and quantify why the "others" are causing the death for their beloved identity (as opposed to, say economic and political decisions). Yet instead, they just assume. And even after self-inflicted wounds to "safeguard" their identity, such as Brexit, no lessons will ever be learned. This, of course is because the whole argument is entirely emotional, devoid of any reason. Which is why asking for reasons is usually a waste of breath.

Also, what about the implication that a kid with a foreing born-parent is a detriment? What is the reasoning there? Why is the skin color relevant?

Also, even those spaces seem to have declined. Much of reddit is dominated by engagement bait, often bot-driven. Likewise, I found that most of these subs have declined markedly in quality (at least those that were decent to begin with). Some are outright cesspools of misinformation. Also, even without shouting, quite frequently there is poor reasoning and I have seen how misconceptions at some point become consensus. Yepp, searches in TikTok are quite common, apparently. Rather depressingly, that is what students confirm they are doing nowadays. The argument was that google is for old folks. Though google is getting worse, anyway. Also wikipedia is too long to read, according to many.

I would like to emphasize a point exchemist made, science is fundamentally a process and methodology and as such it does not have an inherent end point. Even if the natural world could be somehow be fully understood (an extremely unlikely assumption) science methodologies can continued to be deployed to interact with the world based on that knowledge.

Fair, I think the context was more that the carbon footprint as a whole might be a bigger issue all thins considered. Especially the increase in LNG use has set off some alarm bells, though despite all the wildfires, climate change seems to be taking a backseat over AI. Fair, though I think we are still in a stage figuring out what works and how sustainable it is. I suspect that I am biased as in my industry ideas amount to fairly little and while I have tried to think about ways to improve research, beyond fairly mundane uses. I am wondering, are those operations tech-type startups?

I think deception is a big part of it. There is a sense that data centers are foisted on communities without their consent and there is apparently a lack of transparency (or at least the perception thereof). It doesn't really help that in many white collar jobs (other than within tech itself) AI use is enforced, disrupting established workflows without adding much immediate benefit. For example, engineers are forced to document all their work with AI tools, so that the AI can learn to solve problems. Rather obviously, only management really likes this. Edit: also it doesn't really help that if we are in a cold war, all the players are the worst possible people to lead it. Instead of Oppenheimer we have human-shaped caricatures.

Over the weekend I talked to an engineer who knows way more about things like data centers than I do and his perspective if that that the issue with water use is likely overblown as most newer centers are using closed-loop system of some sort (it could be regionally different), but also that other types of industries are using more water without the associated backlash. There are certainly concerns, but from a pure engineering perspective, it does not seem to be that different than any other industry as such. The issue is likely more related to the technology itself, and there are issues with it, that look very different, depending on in which industry you are in. Given the economic scale, I think the industrial revolution might be justified, though fire is a different matter. Unless they actually realize some of the use cases they envision. But over the years I got quite disillusioned at the gap between what the tech elite tells us to what they really deliver. Maybe this time it really is different, but I honestly cannot see the scale yet.