this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Europeans — especially Germans — are increasingly keen on curbing immigration and are less focused on climate change, according to a study by a Danish-based think tank.

Europe has seen a sharp rise in the share of people who say that reducing immigration should be a top government priority, according to a study published Wednesday. Germany is topping the list.

At the same time, there was less desire to prioritize fighting climate change in the same countries, according to the survey commissioned by the Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation think tank.

Nearly half of German respondents put focus on migration

Since 2022, an increasing number of Europeans say their government should prioritize "reducing immigration," rising from just under 20% to a quarter.

Meanwhile, concern about climate change was on the slide across the continent.

"In 2024, for the first time, reducing immigration is a greater priority for most Europeans than fighting climate change," the report said.

"Nowhere is this reversal more striking than in Germany, which now leads the world with the highest share of people who want their government to focus on reducing immigration — topping all other priorities — and now nearly twice as high as fighting climate change," the report read.

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[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Are we just talking arresting brown people, or should we start arresting anyone who speaks something besides German in public, since they’re eroding the culture too?

The fuck are you on about.

If you want to get a handle on this I suggest you start with concepts such as the assimilation capacity of a population as well as the possible speed of different kinds of natural cultural drift. If you want to avoid to avoid fuelling xenophobic ressentiment, what you need to make sure is that cultural drift caused by new arrivals is lower than what people accept, in that case people become more tolerant of that kind of shift, though of course that has a limit (and that's fine). OTOH if you exceed it, people become less tolerant of shifts. In other words: Culture is a non-newtonian fluid. You create resistance by pushing too hard, if you go in gently there very well might be no resistance at all.

The erm force applied to that non-newtonian fluid is more or less number of arrivals multiplied by germane cultural difference multiplied by economical impact. When Germans flock to Sweden the Swedes worry about those "closed up and private" people, they're somewhat taken aback by directness but secretly also somewhat glad that there's someone actually complaining in public, not just in private. In the numbers that we're talking about the Swedes aren't worried in cultural terms, though there's some gripes among some around housing prices in rural areas (not among the Swedes selling the houses, of course). Berliners are way more worried about Swabian arrivals.

And, really, let's take Sweden as an example because they've been so... Swedish about the whole thing. Over decades their immigration worked just fine, they had a certain number and that number didn't exceed the assimilation capacity, and then Swedes said "we are the best so of course we'll take in more" and more came and assimilation failed -- and the Swedes, being Swedes, never complained in public. It's a high-trust environment, of course you trust others, even if government policy led to, one way or the other, segregation: Arrivals live in one place, native Swedes in another. Which then makes it even harder for the new arrivals to even acculturate much less assimilate, leading to more segregation, leading to more difficulties. At some point a dam broke and Swedes stopped complaining in private and complained in public -- the backlash. Which led to people who were born in Sweden from perfectly assimilated parents suddenly found themselves on the outside of their own culture.

If, instead their politicians had started early saying "we need to actively work against that segregation, we need to change our public housing policy to make sure that neighbourhoods are mixed, and if that doesn't suffice we need to limit the number of new arrivals" things would've went very differently -- such a policy would have increased assimilation capacity. But that would've implied things such as Sweden not being perfect which is unthinkable to a Swede... at least to say aloud. Fucking swots.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What I'm on about is that there are plenty of people who would be quite happy to make it the police's business to enforce cultural norms. Governments probably should do more to ensure plentiful housing, but assimilation is something that just happens over time. The US has had its own assimilation woes many, many, many times, it's never been the happy melting pot we tell the world we are. We've had cultural enclaves and backlashes and all of that, but what always happens is that the assimilation takes hold within a generation or two, regardless of how the older generations might feel about it. It's something people are quite capable of figuring out for themselves, without getting the cops involved.

Imo, people should be free to live and work where they please. Borders are the tools of tyrants, imo, but I don't think we're ready for that conversation.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What I’m on about is that there are plenty of people who would be quite happy to make it the police’s business to enforce cultural norms.

And it's going to stay that way, or become worse, if migration is mismanaged.

Borders are the tools of tyrants, imo, but I don’t think we’re ready for that conversation.

There is no political border surrounding Franconia. Well maybe district borders, but those are fuzzy and approximate when it comes to culture. Noone is stopping anyone from crossing in or out. But if suddenly Bavarians, culturally Bavarian that is not just as in the state, started to mass-migrate into Franconia boy would you see backlash: Franconians are perfectly entitled to want to stay Franconian instead of becoming Bavarian. Different language, different traditions, different mentality, different majority religion, different Idendidäd.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I'm familiar with what you're talking about about. We've had similar backlashes even within the US before. The thing is, it's something people can, have, and do figure out without arresting anyone. People are smart and generally want to do what they believe to be the right thing and have a peaceful life, that's broadly true across our species.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You're the only one around here talking about arresting people. Maybe you share -- culturally -- more in common with some people that you dislike than you realise or you wouldn't be preoccupied like that.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

As I said elsewhere, I'm speaking as a citizen of a country who has repeatedly and severely fucked up, and continues to do so, in the hopes that I might save someone else the embarrassment of becoming a citizen of such a country. To wit, I must ask how you plan on enforcing immigration controls without law enforcement.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

To wit, I must ask how you plan on enforcing immigration controls without law enforcement.

Oh no. You weren't talking about border guards, you were talking about arresting people for having brown skin, or speaking different languages, for the "crime" of "eroding the culture".

Heck I erode Italy's culture every time I'm there simply by being convinced that pineapple on pizza is a perfectly valid thing to do. So far, none of them ever suggested arresting me.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Saying "I want cops but the difference is that this time they're the good guys and don't hurt anyone" doesn't really move the needle for me. You can't use the power of the state to use its force on people only it's totally rainbows and sunshine this time.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Saying [...]

Who said that? Who, here, aside from you, is talking about cops? Are those cops here in the room with us right now?

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

You, unless you want the law to enforce itself via magic. So, again, how are you enforcing these immigration rules without cops? Oh, wait, by calling cops "guards"? Call them the rainbow patrol for all I care, a cop by any other name is still a cop.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We do have borders, yes. We have an asylum process, we have an immigration process, we have a process for working permits, we have a naturalisation process, it's all very well regulated and yes you can get through all of that without ever coming into contact with anyone in a uniform, short of a border guard.

What we don't, and won't, have is what you propose, and that is arresting American tourists on the subway for loudly speaking English. Or making it more difficult to open a Nigerian restaurant than a German one. That's all your imagination, you've been told so multiple times by multiple people, and you still don't seem to be able to understand it.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I want to be clear: I couldn't give a crap about whether Americans get arrested. Nationalities are a construct made up by tyrants; people are people, and they deserve to not come to harm regardless of where they happened to be born.

So, it sounds like you're proposing, what, no changes? What exactly is it, then, that people want to in order to deal with immigration, if not more cops and more aggressive laws?

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

There's some room for better policies, integration courses etc but much of it is simply the east not being as experienced at integrating people combined with them still feeling fucked over by reunification.

In such a situation it then doesn't exactly help to build a centre for 200 asylum seekers in a village with 300 inhabitants. Don't recall the actual numbers but there's been a couple of these "WTF would you ever do that" situations. Might even have been AfD fucks doing that they certainly aren't above employing accelerationist tactics. Might've been inexperience and carelessness. Might've been a bureaucrat who has beef with the district administrator.

Oh: We need to re-work the history curricula. Make room for things like the Armenian genocide. Mandatory language development screening for kids and if necessary mandatory Kindergarten are already in place in a couple of states, it's generally a good idea not just for immigrant kids, you don't want kids to start primary school at a disadvantage. Muslims definitely should continue the process of naturalising Islam, that is, continue the move away from source-country Islams (plural) towards a domestic one. Can't find English articles about the discussion/process within Germany right now but this might be of interest. Bit out of date it's been taking up speed but it's giving an overview.