I see you're a motte user. That makes almost nothing in your reply surprising whatsover. But hey, let's jump in. > I don't see why the natives should be forced to accommodate values radically different from their own ? This presupposes the existence of natives and the existence of radically different values. The whole idea of clearly defined ethnostates which you presuppose is just simply wrong. Take a look at Cyprus pre the split - that's what much of Europe looked like. Poland pre-WWII is the starkest example, but not the only one. Anything resembling ethnic groups is very highly socially constructed. You can see this still going on in Spain, you can see this in the invention of Bosniaks on the Balkans (where Muslim citizens were basically constructed into an ethnic groups because Serbs and Croats already defined themselves as such). You can historically see this in Germany and Italy in the 19th century and in France before that. That is to say: There is nothing god-given about groupings. Alsace could have been German, Southern Tyrol Austrian - or the Piemont could have remained Austrian. Istria could have stayed Italian. Poland was basically moved a few dozen kilometers post WWII. Ticino could be italian. Switzerland need not exist. So part of what you imagine as ethnic groups are simply constructed for a variety of reasons - because it's easier to rule over clearly defined groups, or because borders fell a certain way. There's no particular reason for any of the groupings. Should we count Bavarians as an ethnicity? Some surely think so. Some think they are German. Etc. And not to speak of that the 'ethnically homogenous' countries like Poland, Greece, Cyprus, half the Balkans and a good chunk of Turkey are that way because they were ethnically cleansed. > If I started to pay attention to this subject, it's because there's literally a murderous cult going around proselytizing in my country, pushing for separatism, and values pretty straight opposite to our own (at least in the ways that they are being practiced, which is the main thing that counts). Is this some Islam dogwhistle, and if it is, have you considered that most muslims do not fall prey to this death cult > Tolerating intolerance and excuses that the state did a bad job with assimilation can only go so far. Going on off the premise you're talking about radical Islam, one needs to consider that people aren't drawn to radical islam because of their culture as such. Many muslim immigrants to Europe do *not* come from countries with a tradition of militant Islam. I mean, pre-colonialism Islam is not really a murdery cult at all, but let's ignore that. There's really two kinds of people who are drawn to murderous death cults. One is the disadvantaged person who lives in the Paris or Brussels suburbs, has no real way towards a gainful petty bourgeois life because by their name, their family background, their skin color, the majority society doesn't really accept them, and will not grant them entry to the middle class. Of course, France and Belgium will deny any of this - they will claim they are not racist, they don't care about religion, and all that. But that's not true. If you look at poverty and education statistics, it becomes immediately clear that *something is going on*. Disadvantaged folks have the tendency that some of them become radical. Radical Islam has a nice offer to make to those people. It tells them that they are not worthless, that they can havea goal in life. It also tells them that someone else - the pesky Europeans - are to blame for their misfortunes. And it shows them, in the most extreme form, somethign to do about it. Secondly, have you noticed that a bunch of the ISIS terrorists are not from immigrant families? Convertites? There's a reason: There's always some people who are drawn towards extremism, violence and murdery death cults. In the 60ies and 70ies, they went to communist groups like the RAF. In the 80ies and 90ies, they tended to go towards fascist and nazi groups. These days, they go towards radical islam. There's a fun little thing to be said about former communists who went to become either radical muslims or nazis. So if you actually look at who becomes murderous death culters, you'll figure out that ethnicity and the rejection of certain groups plays a *huge* part in its success in recruiting new members. > (Also, it pisses me off as a migrant that had to work on it, that some of the other migrants seem to think that they don't have to do the same !) I'm also from an immigrant family. I can tell you what assimilation pressure does: The denial of your own heritage, your own language, at worst your identity. > And we already know how this is going to end up : at best with a constant background of ethnic tensions, at worst with pogroms, civil war, and fascists/racists taking power ! No, we don't. > P.S.: As one example of Nation-building, I guess we could look at how the Confederacy was assimilated into the Union after losing in the American Civil War ? (Here the radically different value would be the status of slavery.) At a very superficial glance it's bad because the Confederates weren't allowed self-determination, but we well know that it was the right thing to do because they were themselves persecuting another ethnic group ! To see black and brown immigrants to Europe as some kind of unified group is super sneer worthy.

it's been a good podcast week, with IDSG and Stilgherrian (an Aussie tech journo)

I like the memes, I miss chapo, I’ll probably just log off once the real world opens up again. I understand your point, but there’s nothing left on this app I really enjoy anymore and I get lonely.