explaining immigration in one graph

what worked, what went wrong, and how to fix it

“there’s no way you can explain your whole nuanced stance on immigration in one graph!” (a gatopal who was goading me into doing this)

challenge accepted.

(and i do so love graphs)

ready? here we go.

i started with this graph from william meijer which shows the distribution of “western psychology” among various peoples.

the core takeaways here are:

• there are many more non-westerners than westerners.

• both groups have a considerable variance around a mean with regard to their underlying psychology/values.

• portions of these curves overlap.

i find “western psychology” to be a little tricky to pin down, so i altered that axis to “western cultural values” because i think this same relationship holds for that variable and it’s more germane to the discussion.

from this idea, you can look at the graph above and say “oh, OK, i can see which potential immigrants might do well/fit into/benefit the west.” but area under curve (AUC) is notably difficult to eyeball. based on this graph (which admittedly is not based in data, just a generalized idea) what percentage of potential immigrants from the non-west wind up being a clear benefit to the west?

take a guess.

hint: the answer is almost certainly lower than you suspect.

we’ll get there in a minute.

first, here’s how i broke this down based some core underlying assumptions:

• there is such a thing as “western cultural values” and these values (like social contract, rights based republics, primacy of individual rights/liberty above the state, and high-trust golden rule based interaction) exist in varying degrees in various people. they cluster in the west, but can also be found elsewhere.

• these values have objective value and create flourishing, free societies.

• values incompatible or antithetical to them harm those societies and diminish their flourishing, freedom, safety, and prosperity. past a point, they break them.

• the west flourishes because it is mostly made up of groups of people who all habitually choose not to defect in the iterative prisoners dillema of “all living together while respecting one another’s rights and not going ‘smash and grab.’”

• that’s the social contract and it works. the systems and institutions within it can govern lightly and effectively because the people are generally cooperating with this idea and those who don’t are few enough and far enough between to be managed and dealt with with high liberty, high trust systems.

this takes us to my answer to the “nuanced immigration in one graph” challenge.

voila!

here’s how i plotted that:

D: this part of the non-western curve has no overlap with western values. as such, this group is non-integratable and incompatible/antithetical. thus, “harmful” to the west.

C: this part of the non-western curve overlaps the bottom 10% of western society, a group that is, itself, generally the source of most problems in the west. we have plenty of that already, thanks. thus, “almost certainly harmful.”

B: this group overlaps the 11th to 50th percentiles in the west. such people may be able to assimilate, many fit in, and might make it on their own. we could argue it should really be 20th to 50th and thus smaller, but i wanted to extend maximum benefit of doubt. thus, “possible” (but not necessarily beneficial as they are still all below the mean and drag the average down, but by the right end of that group, you’re probably getting some good people)

A: this group has stronger western values than the average westerner and provides the most benefit. you get some friction in schools and language, acclimation, etc, but in general, these folks are highly additive and great to have around bringing new food, ideas, talent, and generally wanting to get with a program that they already like and bringing the newed vigor of the new people who really, deeply appreciate what they have because they have seen first hand what lacking it is like. they are unshakable in their commitments and often raise the game of those around them. i could probably have called this “beneficial” and been correct, i just erred on the side of waffly to sidestep the “but muh corner case!” objection.

so that’s the framework and it’s simple once you see it and realize that, based on that graph “beneficial” is only 2% of the rest of the world (i used graphics software to measure AUC)

sure, the graph itself is arbitrary and not rooted in any precision, but i would wager that that number is within spitting distance of being correct in a global context and that the intuition that “2-3% of the non-western world holds western values more strongly than the average westerner and that likely 3-4% would have any decent shot at useful assimilation based on values and capability. (keep in mind it’s a lot harder to go assimilate than it is to work it out where you were born)

now here’s the tricky bit:

it’s group A that got us into much of the current trouble.

this is not because they aren’t great folks.

it’s because they ARE great folks.

this led to a classic sort of bias error: wow, these immigrants are great! we’re an immigrant nation! the immigrants are more american than the americans! and in many, even most cases, this was true.

i taked about this at some length HERE.

but one cannot generalize from that any more than one can from “well, the average immigrant from india earns more than the average american.” indeed they do, but these are the cream of india, the 1-2% and that average among the 1-2% is about the 75th percentile here. that’s a great outcome and having them is likely a boon in many ways, but if you go scoop up the 50th percentile from india or most other places, the experience and values alignment is likely to be very different.

and we see this.

immigration on the US once ran a “cream filter.” it was hard to come here and harder still to make it. there was little to no safety net, discrimination, and hard times. but many came and thrived and assimilated and become americans in every meaningful sense. this was the melting pot, the immigration that worked. it may not have always been nice, but the fact that it was hard was the selector that made it work.

but then some bright light said “hey, these folks are grand, we should make it easier to come and help them once they get here!”

and that broke the selector. and problems started. you get more and more from group B, even group C. and then things start to break down. the melting pot will not melt, the newcomers will not assimilate and often could not if they tried.

add in the really bad choice of “you can get free housing and welfare and healthcare that’s worth multiples of the income where you live” and the flood really starts.

the gimmiegrants come en masse.

and the unsuspecting locals of the west are still thinking “we’re an immigrant nation!” and “these folks have generally been swell!” and as such make the category error that “these new immigrants will be much like the ones we had before.” but they aren’t. they neither share western values not do they wish to learn them. they think the west is stupid and have come to grab free stuff.

pile on a set of golbalist goverments espousing “replacement theory” to (in the most ill conceieved and counterproductive fashion) attempt to prop up population and now the fire is really raging, especially once those governments realize that they are unpopular with their own natives.

they flood the box with group D. they pay to ship them in by the millions. they know they cannot assimilate or compete and would not, in any event, wish to.

to the unpopular globalist seeking to retain power, this is a feature, not a bug.

group D will be dependents. they will never move out of council houses, never go off welfare, never stop using SNAP, or state paid health systems. the globalists think this will make them a docile and easily controlled voting block.

but it doesn’t.

they still hate the values of the place they live, so once they get dispositive voting power, they start to dominate politics and the would be sorcerer’s apprentices who thought they were the lords become the subjugated vassals of the tribes they imported to serve them.

and then the immigration REALLY goes bad as tribal cultures who have always believed that the purpose of government is to determine which tribe can, with impunity and without repercussion, plunder and rob and rape the other tribes.

this is a civilizational sucking chest wound inflicted by category error empathy and fanned into full conflagration by unpopular politicians who will cling to any piece of floating flotsam to avoid drowning.

then they come for speech because you cannot be allowed to stop this and the groups who now lead them by the nose never believed in free speech to begin with. they beleived in power. and now they will wield it.

implementing de-migration is not as difficult as it sounds. mostly, you just need to shut off the benefits and fraud bandwagons and lots of folks will go home. make it easy. “the only benefit you are eligible for is a plane ticket to where you came from.”

it’s really this simple.

if you believe that western culture has value worth preserving, then we must protect our values. reversing what just happened is difficult, but not impossible and it only gets harder the longer it goes on.

and the first step is calling things by their name and ending the “go along to get along, mustn’t give offense” culture of the struggle session progressive.

this can feel unpleasant, but you get used to it. it helps to remember: you did not choose to make this mess and the mess was made difficult to clean up on purpose.

and you’ll never do it telling happy lies.

in another great graphic, william lays this out. he’s got a gift for this.

unkind truths hurt right now, but build into high function systems.

kind lies are convenient in the moment, but concatenate into degradation.

time to speak the truth, own our error, and fix it.

immigration used to be great (and can be again) because it was immigration of the likeminded.

that stopped, reversed, and was ultimately weaponized.

i am staunchly pro immigration, but not THIS sort of immigration.

this sort of immigration hurts everyone, possibly the best immigrants most of all.

and we can and must do better.

for everyone.

because this is the hill upon which you stand and upon which you fight.

or soon there will be no hills worth having…