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Comment by msgodel | Hacker News Reader

I'm fine with naming it although I think there are legitimate practical problems beyond just that.

Why is it wrong to not want to be made a minority in your own country? Most of the time when that's been done to other people it's been strongly condemned for good reasons. Why when it's done to some of the most productive (and I would argue just) people in history is it considered a good thing?

Why is it surprising that people prefer to be around other people like them and don't function as well with people who don't behave the same way?

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Why does race matter at all? Why would you become a minority? We’re defining minority here as racial and that’s totally arbitrary. It’s so arbitrary that if you look at the early 1900s you’ll see that Italians and Irish weren’t considered white and would be considered a minority.

Cultural differences are already massive across the US even amongst long time Americans. If you meet 10th generation Americans in New England, The South, The Midwest, and California their cultural differences are already at the size of a different country. There is no majority that’s being replaced. I know this because I’ve lived in those places and in Europe and Asia. The US has always been a place where cultures mix and change.

I’m sorry that makes you anxious. Harming others isn’t the way to resolve that anxiety though.

Why does anything matter if you can just define it to not be a problem?

If you cannot provide evidence which cannot be defined away then yes it’s not a problem. That is generally how problems work.

I can simply define racism to not be a problem and ignore you then.

Except that you can point to deaths, loss of productively, loss of revenue, etc caused by racist attitudes. And you can point to benefits caused by immigration.

I still have yet to hear an answer from my initial question about why any of this is a genuine problem aside from housing which I agree with but disagree on the solution.

To make progress concrete things need to exist for discussion around them to happen.

Deaths is an odd one to pick considering racial homicide statistics, so there's another problem for you to chew on.

I think the real fundamental problem we're running into is that we don't have a shared set of moral axioms. You've probably chosen international/interracial cooperation as one and I have not.

I have to admit I am quite intrigued by your ideology and feelings: it seems that you are acknowledging to hold racist beliefs but at the same time it bothers you to be called racist? May I ask why?

When did I say I'm bothered by being called racist? That sounds like an assumption you've made.

The reality is that I get called racist regardless of what I do so I've accepted it.

I guess I misunderstood what you meant here:

> you should have tried to have this conversation with us years ago instead of just calling us racist.

My complaint was the lack of productive conversation, not the name calling.

That is to say "instead of working with us to find a solution you simply dismissed our ideas (by labeling them racist and refusing to think further.)"

Why would that be a problem? Are minorities treated badly in America?

1) Minorities are going to have a worse experience anywhere just for practical reasons and additionally because of how human socialization naturally works. That's why we're so concerned about how they're treated and constantly do our best to help them.

2) The plurality or majority that replaces us will not be us and will not share our ideas (liberal democracy, market economies are two notable examples) which naturally we're going to prefer to theirs.

3) Globally people have been exceptionally unkind to minorities compared to how we've treated them. If they replicate that behavior here (and when they've been given the opportunity to they have) that absolutely is a problem.

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