There ought to be a fallacy named for the mistake of thinking that something which existed in an analogous way in the past is equivalent to a quantitatively and qualitatively different phenomenon today.
"People used to read newspapers every day, now they feel a sense of panic if they can't find their smartphones; nothing new about that."
"Paleolithic tribes traded beads and flint knapping techniques, now there's an unimaginably complicated logistics chain that knits the world together like a nervous system; nothing new about that."
It would be a specific instance of a false analogy. Would it be too cute to call this a rhyming fallacy? History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, etc.
Is this claim falsifiable? Yes. One could disprove it by demonstrating a culture that never had any mixing.
This claim is very different from the claim "nothing new about that", which is a classic straw man.
The author offers some evidence for all this mixing. One can argue about the quantitatively nature of it, but not the qualitative. Human cultures qualify for what can be described as intermixed. Again, all we need to do to disprove this claim is present one pure culture.
So, yeah, there's a lot that changed from newspapers to phones, but there is also an undeniable trend that connects them. That's why it's not a falacy per se, but similar claims could be falacious. Trying to come up with a falsifiable scenario for the _specific claim_ is what settles the matter.
Back in the 17th century a bunch of hardline Protestants in the Netherlands got upset that Catholics and Jews were allowed to practice their religion.
The rich people who ran Amsterdam explained that after death god would sort them all out so they didn't have to.
I always admired their practicality.
Semi related but one thing that I've always found fascinating was the peace lines[1] in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. You often hear about religious conflicts in the history books but it's wild to see remnants of that in the modern world.
I live in the US and for us the concept of two Christian factions being in conflict is just so foreign. You drive around just about anywhere in the US and you will come across Protestant churches right next to Catholic ones.
> we've always had clearly distinguishable systems
What makes you say that? My impression is that people perceive it as they typically perceive categories and reality - they think it's simple. When you actually look at it, it's a mess. Culture is very complex, so it is even more of a mess.
Culture also changes constantly, so what you define today is different tomorrow.
> cultures have been separate and unique
That does not at all match what I know or experience. I suppose theoretically, a small isolated village might be separate and unique.
Subjective and wishy-washy framing. Sure, there's a "human culture" in that we all eat, sleep, etc. but it all depends on how you want to draw boundaries or frame the question of what culture _is_.
Ironic that they literally undermined their case before they even got to the article.
Look at the hero image at the top of the page. I know what you're thinking: "cultures are so intermingled that I can't tell if this is the Netherlands, China, or Congo."
I think people are reading too much into the title—it's meant to be taken literally. It should also be obvious if you know anything about history; it's basically saying that we have always been a globalized civilization and our subjective definition of it is imaginary. And this is important because people really do believe in the idea that their culture is pure and free of outside influence.
It's also more about globalization than immigration, which would be obvious if you actually read it. Once again I am disappointed by the quality of the top comments on Hacker News.
Well, there was one true part to it: Communist world fell apart and a huge number of people who were once locked in behind the Iron Curtain, were set free. To them, the change was very real.
I get what this article is trying to do, but it is likely to achieve the opposite. This is not going to succeed in pulling the wool over anyone's eyes, because it goes directly against most people's first-hand observed reality. To the people this is trying to convince, this will - rightfully - look like smartassery and dissembling.
You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally instead of giving them a political opinion thinly disguised as a paternalizing history lesson.
This article directly reinforces about five different right-wing narratives.
The issue is the narrative that immigration is fine and desirable as if that was an universal truth and if immigration should therefore be encouraged as a matter of course.
I think this is a big mistake of some of "the left" to go down that route because it is not fact and people are increasingly pushing back against that narrative (judging by election results throughout Europe and US)
The topic does not have to be partisan as it touches on core aspects of society and national culture, which ought to be discussed and debatable in a non-partisan way.
My theory is that this an evolution over time of anti-racism movements that started (in Europe) mostly after WWII: immigration -> anti-racism -> accept diversity -> diversity is good -> promote diversity -> immigration is good -> promote immigration.
I was really disappointed of the article. This is obviously mental gymnastics to make immigration look better.
They should have done a report about the living situations in Syria (or insert bad country of your choice) and that would have created more acceptance for the people from there moving here.
> You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally
This is also problematic. Quite often surveys get results that on average people feel their life is improving and the average is sinking in an alarming way. I doubt Musk feels his income is threatened by an insufficiently Aryan immigrant in Germany.
(If I have to go "give onto him' on X to use facts like Musk is associated with German neo Nazis while he can make up whatever false narrative to power he likes then it seems to me like we have found his real goal. Look up his friend's meeting in Austria.)
> because it goes directly against most people's first-hand observed reality
Most places in the US are relatively untouched by immigration, or put another way, southern border issues are irrelevant to Americans unless they live in a State on the US/Mexico border. Immigration is a classic right wing demagogue issue. Arguing in favor of it isn't going against people's "observed reality", it's contradicting what they heard on talk radio and Fox News.
> You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally
If you get Social Security it will likely be due to millions of immigrants paying into it while not eligible for it. You probably eat stuff grown on a farm, you probably use stuff made in a factory, all heavily immigrant labor because Americans do not want to do it no matter the compensation.
>To the people this is trying to convince, this will - rightfully - look like smartassery and dissembling.
If you assume they're trying to convince adults, sure. But instead, I think they're trying to convince low-level policy-makers. Educational professionals, mid-level bureaucrats, etc. And convincing those people are easy, they're already sold on this. Why do they want to convince them? Because those are the people who can indoctrinate. Not just school teachers... the bureaucracy is astounding in how well it works towards this end. Someone will need to navigate red tape, and they will be given very obvious hints that to fail to pay lip service to this narrative risks that which they want most from the bureaucracy.
From there, then people who hold contradictory opinions will start shutting up in all government offices, lest HR do its thing. And the final part is where the private sector starts imitating government because it knows which way the wind blows.
>You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally instead of
But how can you do that when personally, for them as individuals (or probably even collectively), immigration isn't good for them? Sometimes the only way to win is to cheat, and I don't know if winners know that, but the cheaters certainly do.
Nobody is talking about "pure cultures," this is a strawman used to trick people into reading a purely political essay.
It's also as dishonest as an article about a corrupt politician called "There are no perfect politicians."
If everybody was always globalized (and by this they always actually mean competing against poverty stricken people for work, and the freedom for foreign oligarchs to own large parts of your country), somebody needs to tell me why Europe didn't always have potatoes, tomatoes, corn, chocolate and syphilis, and why 80% of the American Indians died of European disease.
I can only surmise that the intended audience was like-minded academics. Most anti-globalists who believe in purity of culture aren't going to bother with the length and verbosity of this essay.
If academic types produce such weak arguments, they really don't have anyone to blame for the loss of prestige and trust of academia but themselves.
Almost anyone older than 50 is very aware of the fact that while there always has been some movement of ideas and people among the nations, the degree of those movements is much higher today, and the consequences much more massive. For example, presence of Islam in Western Europe used to be negligible until the early 1970s. Nowadays European cartoonists must tread lightly around possible blasphemy lest they want to be spectacularly murdered.
Plenty of locally specific cultural traits have disappeared as well, or are at least endangered, the same way that bonobo or kakapo are. Food is starting to be startingly similar across the globe. If you look at a new glass-and-steel building at a photo, you can't tell if it is in Dubai or in Stockholm or in Nairobi. Go to Papua-New Guinea, switch on the radio and you will hear Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift. Etc etc.
[+] [-] karaterobot|1 year ago|reply
"People used to read newspapers every day, now they feel a sense of panic if they can't find their smartphones; nothing new about that."
"Paleolithic tribes traded beads and flint knapping techniques, now there's an unimaginably complicated logistics chain that knits the world together like a nervous system; nothing new about that."
It would be a specific instance of a false analogy. Would it be too cute to call this a rhyming fallacy? History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, etc.
[+] [-] bunderbunder|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alganet|1 year ago|reply
Is this claim falsifiable? Yes. One could disprove it by demonstrating a culture that never had any mixing.
This claim is very different from the claim "nothing new about that", which is a classic straw man.
The author offers some evidence for all this mixing. One can argue about the quantitatively nature of it, but not the qualitative. Human cultures qualify for what can be described as intermixed. Again, all we need to do to disprove this claim is present one pure culture.
So, yeah, there's a lot that changed from newspapers to phones, but there is also an undeniable trend that connects them. That's why it's not a falacy per se, but similar claims could be falacious. Trying to come up with a falsifiable scenario for the _specific claim_ is what settles the matter.
[+] [-] Neonlicht|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] _fat_santa|1 year ago|reply
I live in the US and for us the concept of two Christian factions being in conflict is just so foreign. You drive around just about anywhere in the US and you will come across Protestant churches right next to Catholic ones.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines
[+] [-] amenhotep|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|1 year ago|reply
But we've always had clearly distinguishable systems, and seen as a whole then cultures have been separate and unique.
[+] [-] mmooss|1 year ago|reply
What makes you say that? My impression is that people perceive it as they typically perceive categories and reality - they think it's simple. When you actually look at it, it's a mess. Culture is very complex, so it is even more of a mess.
Culture also changes constantly, so what you define today is different tomorrow.
> cultures have been separate and unique
That does not at all match what I know or experience. I suppose theoretically, a small isolated village might be separate and unique.
[+] [-] dartos|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 9999px|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ARandomerDude|1 year ago|reply
Look at the hero image at the top of the page. I know what you're thinking: "cultures are so intermingled that I can't tell if this is the Netherlands, China, or Congo."
[+] [-] hexator|1 year ago|reply
It's also more about globalization than immigration, which would be obvious if you actually read it. Once again I am disappointed by the quality of the top comments on Hacker News.
[+] [-] aaron695|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unixhero|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|1 year ago|reply
80 years ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square_Christmas_t...
A little longer https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zjcxwty#zgpbg7h
[+] [-] LargeWu|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] josefritzishere|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anovikov|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod775|1 year ago|reply
You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally instead of giving them a political opinion thinly disguised as a paternalizing history lesson.
This article directly reinforces about five different right-wing narratives.
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|1 year ago|reply
The topic does not have to be partisan as it touches on core aspects of society and national culture, which ought to be discussed and debatable in a non-partisan way.
My theory is that this an evolution over time of anti-racism movements that started (in Europe) mostly after WWII: immigration -> anti-racism -> accept diversity -> diversity is good -> promote diversity -> immigration is good -> promote immigration.
[+] [-] blueflow|1 year ago|reply
They should have done a report about the living situations in Syria (or insert bad country of your choice) and that would have created more acceptance for the people from there moving here.
[+] [-] fredfoo|1 year ago|reply
This is also problematic. Quite often surveys get results that on average people feel their life is improving and the average is sinking in an alarming way. I doubt Musk feels his income is threatened by an insufficiently Aryan immigrant in Germany.
(If I have to go "give onto him' on X to use facts like Musk is associated with German neo Nazis while he can make up whatever false narrative to power he likes then it seems to me like we have found his real goal. Look up his friend's meeting in Austria.)
[+] [-] mionhe|1 year ago|reply
I didn't see that. Which ones?
[+] [-] camgunz|1 year ago|reply
Most places in the US are relatively untouched by immigration, or put another way, southern border issues are irrelevant to Americans unless they live in a State on the US/Mexico border. Immigration is a classic right wing demagogue issue. Arguing in favor of it isn't going against people's "observed reality", it's contradicting what they heard on talk radio and Fox News.
> You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally
If you get Social Security it will likely be due to millions of immigrants paying into it while not eligible for it. You probably eat stuff grown on a farm, you probably use stuff made in a factory, all heavily immigrant labor because Americans do not want to do it no matter the compensation.
[+] [-] NoMoreNicksLeft|1 year ago|reply
If you assume they're trying to convince adults, sure. But instead, I think they're trying to convince low-level policy-makers. Educational professionals, mid-level bureaucrats, etc. And convincing those people are easy, they're already sold on this. Why do they want to convince them? Because those are the people who can indoctrinate. Not just school teachers... the bureaucracy is astounding in how well it works towards this end. Someone will need to navigate red tape, and they will be given very obvious hints that to fail to pay lip service to this narrative risks that which they want most from the bureaucracy.
From there, then people who hold contradictory opinions will start shutting up in all government offices, lest HR do its thing. And the final part is where the private sector starts imitating government because it knows which way the wind blows.
>You want people to be fine with immigration? Tell them why it is desirable for them personally instead of
But how can you do that when personally, for them as individuals (or probably even collectively), immigration isn't good for them? Sometimes the only way to win is to cheat, and I don't know if winners know that, but the cheaters certainly do.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pessimizer|1 year ago|reply
It's also as dishonest as an article about a corrupt politician called "There are no perfect politicians."
If everybody was always globalized (and by this they always actually mean competing against poverty stricken people for work, and the freedom for foreign oligarchs to own large parts of your country), somebody needs to tell me why Europe didn't always have potatoes, tomatoes, corn, chocolate and syphilis, and why 80% of the American Indians died of European disease.
[+] [-] shrubble|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] buzzardbait|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] inglor_cz|1 year ago|reply
Almost anyone older than 50 is very aware of the fact that while there always has been some movement of ideas and people among the nations, the degree of those movements is much higher today, and the consequences much more massive. For example, presence of Islam in Western Europe used to be negligible until the early 1970s. Nowadays European cartoonists must tread lightly around possible blasphemy lest they want to be spectacularly murdered.
Plenty of locally specific cultural traits have disappeared as well, or are at least endangered, the same way that bonobo or kakapo are. Food is starting to be startingly similar across the globe. If you look at a new glass-and-steel building at a photo, you can't tell if it is in Dubai or in Stockholm or in Nairobi. Go to Papua-New Guinea, switch on the radio and you will hear Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift. Etc etc.