Linkworld: War & Please
Immigration:
Photo by Tim Gillin
[Im1] David Shor points to a study (PDF) showing that once you account for prosperity, low-skilled immigration actually positively associates with crime.
[Im2] It’s no surprise that border hawk politicians in the UK are acting out of political opportunism than conviction, but at some point you have to contend with the fact that it’s the politically opportunistic position as they figure out what to do.
[Im3] A really cool article from The Atlantic on Muslims and integration. I think we often fail to appreciate how good we (and the Canadians) are at this compared to Europe, and what the implications for that might be with regard to Europe.
[Im4] Some people really did leave the country when Trump was elected.
Photo by Fibonacci Blue
[Im5] Do immigrants give us a foreign-policy advantage? Maybe, but Britain is a bad example.
[Im6] Trump is sending Liberians back. I am more sympathetic than political correctness would have it about playing favorites about which countries we do and don’t allow people from, and Liberia is one we should treat with preference.
[Im7] Well this is dreadful, to say the least.
[Im8] In 2013, T A Frank made the liberal case against the immigration compromise.
War:
[Wa1] When lived experience is contradicted by data.
[Wa2] I keep seeing the notion mocked on Twitter, but it looks like we’re actually getting good at very targeted missile strikes?
Photo by Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet
[Wa3] The US and Mexico are working together on the naval drug wars.
[Wa4] Once upon a time, Israel allegeldy helped prop up Hamas in a divide-and-conquer strategy.
[Wa5] A prominent French intellectual is accused of being a secret agent.
[Wa6] The Royal Navy is growing! Well, with a caveat.
[Wa7] No choice. If our AI don’t kill them, their AI will kill us. {More}
[Wa8] A look at the Soviet and Russian spy network in Seattle.
Planet:
From < href=”https://pixabay.com/en/users/MasterTux-470906/”>Pixabay
[Pl1]Good news! Well, except for China.
[Pl2] On the one hand, I remain of the belief that if things are as bad as some people say they are, only geoengineering may save us. On the other hand, wasn’t that the plot of Geostorm?
[Pl3] I am always excited about exploring Antarctica and rare meteorites seems like as good a reason as any.
[Pl4] Some good news: Cape Town may not run out of water this year after all.
[Pl5] Africa is splitting in two.
[Pl6] Whew!
More:
[Mo1] On Twitter, Noah Smith observes some changes in Japan.
[Mo2] Whether you are or not, it’s probably not good and you’re probably losing some public debate to have to publicly announce that you’re not being colonized.
Photo by scarysideofearth
[Mo3] Huge protests in India as the government looks to roll back some of the protections of the lower castes.
[Mo4] Densho, a site dedicated to preserving memory of the internment camps, would like to thank you for enlightening them about how it all really worked.
[Mo5] I very much hope this fortress remains successful.
[Mo6] John M Harris reports that Russia is underrated.
[Mo7] Mauritania was sabotaged when someone cut off its internet.
[Mo8] Well this seems ominous.
Im3: Demographics are one reason why America and Canada are better at Muslim integration. Our Musli, immigrants tend to come from higher up the socio-economic ladder than Muslim immigrants to Europe. Europe also failed at integration for a variety of social and political reasons. European countries used to have something called the pillar system. This meant that different groups had their own social and educational institutions like schools, unions, football clubs, and even media. The pillar system was dying when Muslims started immigrating to Europe but informed officials how to deal with Muslims. Muslims also didn’t end up in their own districts for a generation, allowing for more integration.
Im4: I know a young woman living the nomad life style but she started it before Trump. It’s an interesting thing I guess.
Im6: Trump’s a time-Immigration officials are probably the most effective part of the adminstration. Every immigration official is having their cases reviewed, especially if they are deemed to grant too many applications. More immigrant friendly administrations did not treat the tougher immigration officials like this but respected their decisions.Report
It is rather difficult for Americans to understand the lowest rungs of the ladder.Report
Pl2: If the pessimists are right, and the positive feedback loops are kicking in, my granddaughters and their kids are well and truly screwed — there are no viable public policies that can stop the collapse. Since I am unwilling to just eat, drink and be merry as civilization crashes down (in slow motion), I am forced to make the assumption that the pessimists are not right, so something can be done. That assumption may be wrong, in which case I’m wasting my time and energy, but I need some sort of motivation.
I assert that geoengineering on a global scale is not a viable public policy.Report
However, one should not look to bad Hollywood movies for potential worst case scenarios.Report
The Trump administration is using marriage interviews as a way to deport immigrants in unprecedented ways. I really struggle to get this. It comes across as nothing more than organized cruelty and bullying dressed up as law enforcement . Yes, many of the aliens at marriage interviews overstayed a visa or something but ripping up lives and families because of this seems unjust.
Yet, there are law and order people that have no problem with this. They see it as a good thing. If they are involved in the sorry business, they go home and boast to their spouses about making America safe from criminals and terrorists when they really only hurt a weak person and broke up a family. Its disgusting. They aren’t going to change though. They will continue to be relentless in their harsh pursuits no matter what. The illiberal problem is really just something that always plagued liberal democracy.Report
@leeesq I remember back in the early 2000s, when I had my interview to settle my green card as a permanently renewable rather than time-limited thing, it was amnesty day for married people and there was a flood of people at the office (all orderly queues, non-amnesty people getting skipped ahead, etc).
What really shocked me is that when I told stories about that to people I knew here, what *I* was expecting was the same rush of enthusiasm for families getting straightened out, people crying in joy with their loved ones, etc., that I was feeling myself. Instead about half of them responded by being indignant that those folks ‘got to skip all the rules’ and ‘why should you have to work so hard and they get a free pass’ and etc. And honestly it didn’t even line up that much with their view on immigrants generally, nor with the stories I was telling. It was just some deep seated monkey-level fairness trigger on the word amnesty or something… it made me really uncomfortable.
The idea that it’s somehow *easy* to be an undocumented immigrant is seemingly deep-rooted in folks’ psyche. It’s so foreign to my own that I have trouble even understanding it.Report
The monkey level fairness trigger is definitely an app comparison. Some of the most difficult ISOs are immigrants that see themselves as following the rules and other immigrants as not. The easiest are older White and Asian-American men who have been working as ISOs for decades. They go easier on people.Report
@leeesq That’s interesting.
In my experiences as a border crosser, the officials in that context who have been difficult and unpleasant were uniformly white and male. The people who were nice have been all sorts of different races, all genders and ages, including white males of all ages… but the jerks have all been of one kind.
Now I’m curious if that’s statistical noise on both of our parts, or a systematic difference in how people act in the two different jobs.Report
@leeesq That said, the person I know (distantly) who is most vehement about the rules was, herself, an immigrant, and that’s exactly where she’s coming from.Report
Of course, the corollary to monkey level fairness about some people having easy breaks is that people who have an easy time at something really don’t like getting reminded of people who don’t. See any discussion about money, wealth, sex, and romance on the Internet for evidence.Report
I’m talking about the people doing interviews in the United States. The ones that went easiest on my clients have generally over 50, male, white, and Asian. African-American women were some of the hardest and most skeptical ISOs. My guess is that 50 plus men feel safer in their job position because they were their for so long. They also don’t necessarily see themselves as boarder guardians like younger ISOs because that wasn’t the training when they started.Report
@leeesq Yeah, I got the distinction between the two jobs, and your hypotheses make sense to me. (I would also speculate, since that’s what we’re doing, that 50 plus white men in those positions actually *are* safer in their jobs, or at least have been such throughout their work history, than African American women – less subject to review / micromanaging / etc.)Report
Mo1: 2002 was about the last time I was in Japan. In their own way, Japan is globalizing like the rest of the world. Its becoming more diverse in the big cities. Non-Japanese people are building permanent or semi-permanent lives their even if formal immigration to Japan might be one of the most difficult to pull off in the developed world. LGBT rights are becoming bigger. There will probably be a push back from the parts of Japan outside the Kanto and Kansai areas like there is a pushback outside big metropolitan areas elsewhere in developed world. Japanese Trumpism will occur.Report
I thought Abe *was* Japanese trumpism? (he was doing a version of Make Japan Great Again when Trump was still doing network TV shows)Report
The politics of Japan (like any other country) can’t really be easily translated into the American context. Abe wants to increase the military strength of Japan and revitalize their economy but he knows he also needs to modernize in other ways.Report
Yeah, economically, he’s probably the most ‘neo-liberal’ politician in the history of the LDP, but he’s also the most “Japan! [Heck] Yeah!” in the history of the LDP, which is very very Trumpy.Report
More like a competent Bush.Report
Mo5 – though with Michael Cohen in Czechia in summer 2016, and Trump getting elected a few months later – perhaps the Demons from Hell did get through.Report
my godReport
Doesn’t crime *NEED* more positive associations?Report
Wa2 – we’ve been good a long time at very targeted missile strikes. The issue (and a lot of the snark) is making those missile strikes meaningful in the political dimension of war.Report
We aren’t getting better about this.
Not making a 1% error in 5 goes is not “getting good at this.”
I consider a 1% chance of a nuclear weapon hitting Americans as REALLY A BAD IDEA, GUYZ.Report
By/from whom? From the US inventory? one of the other declared nuke powers? one of the undeclared nuke powers? or someone that could be a nuke power but has chosen (for now) not to be one?
Eta- I mean i consider a 1% chance of a nuke weapon hitting *anywhere* by *anyone* within the next 20 years both unreasonably high and completely horrible.Report
I taught English in Japan from 2002-2003. I remember the parasite single stories. I think they were unfair. At the time, the view was women worked until they married and then became housewives. A lot of women saw this as a bum deal and decided it was better to work and have discretionary income.
The Anglo-American world is relatively unique in being opposed to multi-generational living. In a lot of other countries because of space and cultural issues, living with your parents is not seen as horrible/dorky.
But plenty of single people did live on their own or with roommates. There was an expat scene in Japan with its own businesses, restaurants, publications. But the trick was seeing those who were there for a year or two and those who were there on the long haul.Report