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Comment by factsaresacred | Hacker News Reader

> the "dangers" of multiculturalism, gender and ethnic diversity

I don't know if "dangers" is your word or his, but it's been shown (a priori and a posteriori) that multiculturalism and ethnic diversity erodes trust and causes social strive.

This is opposed to cultural pluralism, where a dominant culture exists and tolerates additional values that don't erode or threaten the dominant culture.

The reason I comment is because I sense once again an attempt to shame Thiel for his views rather than parse them for merit. During last year's election we had a similar form of hysteria in these threads because Thiel dared to exercise his right to donate to a cause he supports.

Really wish this 'shame as an argument' tactic would cease.

Edit to provide evidence of the 'downside of diversity': http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...

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It is rather less clear-cut than you claim: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13wwln_idealab.ht...

> Fearon and Laitin looked at 127 civil wars from 1945 to 1999, most often in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. They found that regardless of how ethnically mixed a country is, the likelihood of a civil war decreases as countries get richer. The richest states are almost impervious to civil strife, no matter how multiethnic they might be — think for instance of Belgium, where Flemings and Walloons show almost no inclination to fight it out. And while the poorest countries have the most civil wars, Fearon and Laitin discovered that, oddly enough, it is actually the more homogeneous ones among them that are most likely to descend into violence.

Even the following paragraph, where another researcher challenges the Fearon and Laitin study and claims mixed groups are more prone to conflict, says that effect diminishes when the single largest group is less than 45% of the population.

(I’ve been looking at the risks of civil war recently because Brexit, on that risk to the UK I have no firm conclusions).

> It is rather less clear-cut than you claim

My friend, my entire point was to illustrate that it is not "clear-cut". Far from it. We're in agreement ;)

If you wanted to illustrate that, you should not have written “shown (a priori and a posteriori) that multiculturalism and ethnic diversity erodes trust and causes social strive.”

Well, it has been shown by at least one (reputable) source.

And your unquoted "proof" is gathered exactly how? You state something as a standing fact without giving us the ability to check the stated facts (and underlying methodologies) ourselves.

So it seems to me that people using arguing strategies like you just seem to have done are eroding "trust" in a rational discussion more then anything else. Tactics like these are well below what I personally would classify as honorable discussion.

Calm down. I'll happily provide proof, I simply didn't want to overload my initial response with quotes and links:

> Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam -- famous for "Bowling Alone," his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...

You should consider reading about the rest of the research on the matter, or the words of Putnam himself:

http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/robert-putnam-says...

One study isn't enough in isolation. Reproduction, vetting, counter-studies, discussion and scientific engagement is what matters on the long run.

I have read that. He concedes the study is valid and the problems real and difficult. Then he adds his own opinion that nevertheless it's worth it.

> In the short term, he writes, there are clearly challenges, but over the long haul, he argues that diversity has a range of benefits for a society, and that the fragmentation and distrust can be overcome. It’s not an easy process, but in the end it’s “well worth the effort.”

“well worth the effort”. That's pretty subjective. I'm sure many would like to avoid "fragmentation and distrust" in the first place.

> One study isn't enough by itself.

There are many similar studies:

"A higher degree of ethnic diversity is associated with a higher incidence of civil conflict" - https://www.cgdev.org/doc/events/02.09.07/Matuszeski-JMP.pdf

I mean, this stuff is intuitive for anybody with a sense of history.

To be clear I'm not arguing against diversity per se. I raise these points to encourage us (as a society) to discuss - and not emote - these issues honestly.

> I mean, this stuff is intuitive for anybody with a sense of history

Intuitive has nothing to do with fact, plenty of factors might heavily influence what one considers "intuitive". For a lot of people the necessity of the death penalty is "intuitive", yet for many societies, it's an absolute no-brainer that such practices are medieval.

So again, unless there is a corpus of studies, all pointing in the same direction, with all the environmental factors completely eliminated using double-blind or other proper scientific methods, we cannot really conclude anything.

> We cannot really conclude anything.

Great! So when will we stop parading this nonsensical "diversity is our strength" mantra, or at least stop stigmatizing those that point out - as you have - that we cannot really conclude anything?

It has as much merit - and perhaps less, given the studies - as saying "diversity is not our strength".

You see the issue now?

When taking a controversial side, it's important to be calm and make cogent arguments.

It's hard. Especially when it feels like people are going out of their way to misinterpret or frame you. But it's worth it.

>Intuitive has nothing to do with fact,

Studies in soft sciences have even less to do with fact too -- it's mostly the fads of the day presented as fact.

This is an unfalsifiable position to take. So long as your opinion isn't common, you can claim this as proof that diverse populations lack the power to promote it.

> I mean, this stuff is intuitive for anybody with a sense of history.

Sure it's intuitive - that so long as "diverse" populations in a society have no power, the majority in power can happily sit and ignore the societal problems said people are facing. Once said populations actually get into a position where they have some degree of power, the majority will do anything they can to keep them down in an attempt to keep their artificially inflated standing in society.

The solution to that is, in my opinion, pretty obviously not to take the view that giving people the power to do something about the structural problems that they face in society is a bad thing.

Not a mod, but please don't tell people to "calm down" it is rude and condescending and adds nothing to the conversation.

>And your unquoted "proof" is gathered exactly how? You state something as a standing fact without giving us the ability to check the stated facts (and underlying methodologies) ourselves.

Discussion also implies trust. People don't have to bring evidence for everything they say, especially when other people can very easily look up relevant information online.

This whole comment thread is (ironically) a succinct illustration of the original point: it's difficult to evaluate claims about "multiculturalism" on merit, because people get touchy.

The absolute irony of a post on an account whose handle is "facts are sacred" that just declares that "multiculturalism and ethnic diversity erodes trust and causes social strive" without providing any form of justification, proof, actual study about the subject, without thinking about the pre-existing bias that might exist in society to make that all of that difficult on a daily basis. Weak sauce.

This is exactly how ethnic nationalism in America becomes normalized. Reminds me of the kid who protested in Charlottesville explaining that he wasn't a racist, he just really hated mass immigration and the ensuing diversity after 1965 (which was when immigration became accessible to non Europeans..).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

This is an actual slippery slope. Proposing drastic cuts to legal immigration would have gotten laughed out of the mainstream Republican party in the Reagan-Bush-Dole-Bush era.

>This is exactly how ethnic nationalism in America becomes normalized.

Sounds like you're preaching censorship, both of speech and of research. Is this really the position you want to take?

The poster did provide references in response to your comment on this thread an hour ago and you responded to it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15711131

Canada would disagree with you. One in five people living in Canada was born in another country [1]. Canada is officially a multicultural country [2]. Yet, there is a lot more trust and a lot less social strife than in the U.S., to use a comparison with the article you quote from the U.S.

[1] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-01...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Multiculturalism_Act

Isn't that cherry picking? At least in terms of the US. Why not compare the US to Japan?

The person I was replying to was referring to a study about the U.S.

Cherry-picking Canada vs Japan to compare the US to.

> I sense once again an attempt to shame Thiel for his views

You say that like there is some sort of hidden agenda. Personally I think there is nothing even remotely wrong with shaming Thiel for his deeply intolerant views. In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

And what exactly is intolerant in Thiel's views?

Just because an individual opines on something doesn't somehow turn it into a sudden irrefutable fact. And that wiki article is completely devoid of examples aside from giving a number of other views on the topic - in which literally every single one disagrees with him. It's no different than arguing that the key to solving violence is violence. Wrapping a layer of specious logic around it makes it no more reasonable a suggestion.

It's interesting too in that I think everybody can see that violence inherently breeds violence, yet many remain blind to the fact that intolerance too breeds intolerance. We have two ends of political extremism today. The many things they have in common include the fact that they both are completely intolerant of the other side as they consider the other side completely intolerant. And as the mutual extremism grows, so too does the self righteous intolerance. That's going to end well...

It's interesting too in that I think everybody can see that violence inherently breeds violence

On the contrary, we created an official group tasked with dealing out violence (the police) because it's generally accepted (whether it's true or not) that some violence must be met with violence.

The police obviously are not tasked out with dealing violence. They stop violence and are certainly capable of defending themselves when necessary. In the US this line between defense and aggression is becoming blurred, but that's more of a deterioration of a society than the actual role of police.

And that blurring supports the point. As police face more regular violence, they themselves tend to become more violent, leading to even more violence against them, and vice versa. In countries where the police face no violence, they often are not even armed. Take for instance Iceland which may have an even greater percent of their population armed than the US (our per capita ownership rate is so high because many gun owners own many guns) - yet their police are unarmed. 2013 was a sad year for Iceland. It was the first year that their police fired a gun at a civilian, ever [1].

It always leads to sort of 'which came first the chicken or the egg' type question, but the point is absolutely clear that intolerance breeds intolerance in much the same way that violence breeds violence. And it's quite sad watching people fall into this. People don't seem to understand that nearly all the evil in this world is and has been done by people who felt they were the 'good guys.' "No no, it's different this time. We really are the good guys! History will prove us right!" Said everybody, ever.

[1] - https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1203/Lots-of-gun...

The police is tasked with physically restraining and imprisoning certain people. That's violence, whether they do it with a gun or not. Litla-Hraun is not an hotel.

Considerations about the aggressiveness of the US police force specifically are certainly an important topic, but wholly irrelevant here. I'm not from the US, nor was their brand of policing on my mind when commented.

Right they meet even violent offenders with "physical restraint" so long as they are not met with violence. And "physical restraint" is little more than asking a person to turn around and cuffing them, and in some cases - that's not even involved.

We could discuss the ethics of imprisonment, and I expect we'd agree. But you certainly can't claim that police's task is to deal out violence - particularly preemptive.

You have a funny concept of violence if abduction and imprisonment under threat of physical force don't count. I guess the robber that steals at knifepoint is also non-violent if he doesn't actually plunge it when the victim complies?

Got some references to back up your argument?

Yes. Updated my comment.

It's not my word, I think being exposed to other cultures and people is important and beneficial.

Whatever the "danger" must be rather small, if you consider the success of multicultural U.S.A.

Any credible source for your bold statements? Otherwise we can conclude the Russian trolls have also infested HN.

"Everybody that disagrees with me is a Russian troll".

I weep for critical thinking.

And we all weep for your woeful efforts to present thinly-veiled bigotry as fact.

The poster did provide references on this thread an hour ago.

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