Camp of the Saints II

[Starlight]

If a fleet of ships carrying 1,000,000 unarmed men, women and children left India and headed towards your shores what do you think the appropriate response should be for your nation?

Hmm, I tend to think the ideal response would be to partition off some land and put these people in it. They could then essentially build their own small country there in that land. Since Australia has squillions of miles of empty land that would be more suited in climate to Indian natives, I would suggest NZ should arrange to settle them on a partitioned-off reserve there if they headed towards here.

But honestly, 1 million people isn't seriously that many. Just about any Western country could integrate that many people into its current population with only a bit of effort. Germany took a million refugees recently. The US would barely notice a million refugees. For NZ, with our current population of ~4 million, taking an extra million people all at once would obviously be logistically difficult, but I'm sure we could manage it if it were truly necessary, it's not like we haven't got plenty of empty land, and we're an averagely rich Western country so it's not like we couldn't afford a massive government house-building initiative. Immigration here from India is already pretty high, there are suburbs in our largest city that are 90%+ Indians already.

I'm obviously assuming that there's some good reason in this scenario why the boats don't just get turned around and sent back to India. Presumably there is some widely acknowledge "good reason" these people are all fleeing their homeland.

In practice, international surveys show that ~87% of people would choose to remain in their own countries even if all countries in the world opened their borders and allowed complete freedom of movement. So there wouldn't actually be a devastatingly giant and unstoppable rush of immigrants, even if it were allowed.

[Meh Gerbil]

Hmm, I tend to think the ideal response would be to partition off some land and put these people in it. They could then essentially build their own small country there in that land. Since Australia has squillions of miles of empty land that would be more suited in climate to Indian natives, I would suggest NZ should arrange to settle them on a partitioned-off reserve there if they headed towards here.

But honestly, 1 million people isn't seriously that many. Just about any Western country could integrate that many people into its current population with only a bit of effort. Germany took a million refugees recently. The US would barely notice a million refugees. For NZ, with our current population of ~4 million, taking an extra million people all at once would obviously be logistically difficult, but I'm sure we could manage it if it were truly necessary, it's not like we haven't got plenty of empty land, and we're an averagely rich Western country so it's not like we couldn't afford a massive government house-building initiative. Immigration here from India is already pretty high, there are suburbs in our largest city that are 90%+ Indians already.

I'm obviously assuming that there's some good reason in this scenario why the boats don't just get turned around and sent back to India. Presumably there is some widely acknowledge "good reason" these people are all fleeing their homeland.

In practice, international surveys show that ~87% of people would choose to remain in their own countries even if all countries in the world opened their borders and allowed complete freedom of movement. So there wouldn't actually be a devastatingly giant and unstoppable rush of immigrants, even if it were allowed.

As I read along the point of the book isn't bashing poor Indians.
While they're painted with an ugly brush the target seems to largely be Western Civilization - the desire to be polite or correct above survival.
I don't know if that is wrong.

I identify with the author's frustration because if you would have told me before 9/11 that such an attack was coming, and furthermore, that they'd build a mosque on ground zero right afterwards, I would have laughed pretty hard. I would have predicted exactly the opposite - that Muslims being murdered in the streets (revenge) would be a daily occurrence. I'm pleased that we're that tolerant; I'm alarmed that we're that tolerant. It really is a mixed bag. I don't know the answers on this one and I'm thankful I don't have to give one.

[Meh Gerbil]

What is answer of yours?

In the book a tiny Egyptian vessel turns the fleet away from Egypt.
If that is all it takes I would order the US navy to escort the fleet back to India.

Immigration has to be on our terms.

I'd then get ravaged by the press and lose my next election.

[Starlight]

While they're painted with an ugly brush the target seems to largely be Western Civilization - the desire to be polite or correct above survival.
I don't know if that is wrong.

I think the idea that immigration can/could destroy Western Civilization is delusional.

The US, for example, was historically "a nation of immigrants". Did that destroy it? Of course not. Immigrants come to a new land, and their children grow up there and learn the customs of the land they are growing up in and adopt its culture. It's amusing to see immigrant parents here trying to force on their children the strict parenting or the customs from their home countries and the children just laughing it off - kids seem to be influenced an order of magnitude more by their friends and people their age than by their parents. I guess if you managed to import enough of one particular people group all at the same time, they might be able to maintain their own culture for longer before integrating, and thus keep their children mostly following their homeland's culture, but by the time you got to their children's children they would be fully integrated pretty much no matter what the immigrant grandparents wanted.

I identify with the author's frustration because if you would have told me before 9/11 that such an attack was coming

I think Americans vastly overreacted psychologically to 9/11. It's like a tiny fraction of the destruction that the US has dished out to other countries around the world for decades. I would call it karma, or reaping what you'd sowed, but if it were either of those a looooooot more Americans would have died.

that they'd build a mosque on ground zero right afterwards

You know the mosque is a couple of blocks away right? It's not literally on the site of the destroyed buildings. If someone wants to build a mosque in NY, is there a certain number of blocks you think they should need to be away from the WTC site?

Should I, as an atheist, get to veto Christian churches being built near me? Not sure why Christians think they should get to veto Mosques, especially in a country that literally has religious freedom in the constitution and seems recently obsessed with passing Religious Freedom Acts at every level of federal, state, and local, to make extra extra sure that religious people have freedoms (albeit to be nasty to LGBT people).

[Darth Executor]

I think the idea that immigration can/could destroy Western Civilization is delusional.

The US, for example, was historically "a nation of immigrants". Did that destroy it? Of course not.

Of course it did.

The political husk is still there, the country as a whole is unrecognizable from its inception, and I don't mean the technological advancements. For all intents and purposes the original america no longer exists and much of what replaced it would have been anathema to its founders. If people back then could look at what immigration did to the US today, they would have never opened their borders, and it would have been the most decisive anti-slavery argument anyone could have possibly made to boot.

[Meh Gerbil]

<snip>

I'm trying to share some thoughts here, including admissions of things I don't know.
If you're going to turn that into rants about why you hate America it is going to make for boring conversation.

[Meh Gerbil]

I think the idea that immigration can/could destroy Western Civilization is delusional.

What did Europeans immigrating here do to the original inhabitants and culture?
The idea that immigration cannot destroy a culture has been proven to be wrong multiple times throughout history.

[demi-conservative]

Starlight, showing ignorance of his proudly, also lack of education:

I think the idea that immigration can/could destroy Western Civilization is delusional.

The US, for example, was historically "a nation of immigrants". Did that destroy it? Of course not.

Also,

Just about any Western country could integrate that many people into its current population with only a bit of effort. Germany took a million refugees recently.

What part of rapes, also unemployed people leeching welfare money is easy to integrate?

In practice, international surveys show that ~87% of people would choose to remain in their own countries even if all countries in the world opened their borders and allowed complete freedom of movement. So there wouldn't actually be a devastatingly giant and unstoppable rush of immigrants, even if it were allowed.

Can't even do basic math!!

13% of 7 billion is 910 million people.

[Sparko]

just tell them that new zealand is closer and Starlight has room on his couch.

[simplicio]

Cool thread.

How many persons is too many?

[simplicio]

Not sure where your idea that it's just one ship came from. However, America is relatively safe from such a hypothesis because of the relative difficulty of getting that many people this far in anything remotely seaworthy. Heck, it's difficult enough just getting people across a short stretch of the Mediterranean (now reading The Lightless Sky).

Contrary to seer's blithe response, it would not be easy to absorb a million of anybody all at once - even hardworking people who speak the same language. It would be a huge strain on any country's resources.

Not so sure America is safe from that threat.

Trump want to build a protective wall on the southern border, because of the fear of too many coming in.

[One Bad Pig]

Not so sure America is safe from that threat.

Trump want to build a protective wall on the southern border, because of the fear of too many coming in.

Get back to me when you understand the argument I was making, k?

[simplicio]

Get back to me when you understand the argument I was making, k?

You wrote that America was relatively safe from such a hypothesis. Was the hypothesis about boats, or about immigrants? I read the book, and I can assure you that it is widely read in certain circles because the book is NOT about boats.

Trump ran for President and one of the major issues was about immigration, and building a wall, but not a wall along our northern border, apparently few are worried about Winnipeg or Calgary or Guelph.

Since so many do argue that immigration does pose a threat to the US, then my comment makes sense.

One point is that we could easily accomodate and assimilate any number of Canadians, but not Mexicans or Muslims.