Primer on Immigration and Human BioDiversity

Our recent poll, “Should all Third World immigrants be deported from the West?,” has gained much attention but also highlights that there’s much confusion on what is central in discussing immigration into the West.  I thus offer this brief primer on immigration and human biodiversity.

Here are some key things to consider when discussing immigration.

Economics:  As Harvard economist George Borjas has shown, Third World immigration is driving down wages and lowering the standard of living both in Europe and the USA.  Third World immigrants also, since they use more in social services than they pay in taxes, drain the social services of Western countries.

Conservationism/ Infrastructure: More people in the West (through immigration) will put greater pressure on Western infrastructures and lead to environmental degradation.  (Do you want the West to look like this?)

IQ:  Outside Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), the rest of the world has considerably lower average IQs than European-descended countries.  As Helmuth Nyborg outlines in “The decay of Western civilization: Double relaxed Darwinian Selection,” allowing these people to immigrate to the West will prove dysgenic.

Crime and Corruption: Outside European-descended people and Northeast Asia, there might well be higher genetic tendencies toward violent crime. Also, outside European-descended countries (and isolated other places, like Japan), the rest of the world seems to consist of  low-trust countries, which results in more corruption, both in those countries and among those who immigrate to the West.  Bringing these problems into the West only makes the West more Third World.

Ethnic Genetic Interests:  As popularized by Frank Salter in “Estimating Ethnic Genetic Interests: Is It Adaptive to Resist Replacement Migration?” and “Misunderstandings of Kin Selection and the Delay in Quantifying Ethnic Kinship” (using ethnic genetic distances first outlined by Cavalli-Sforza), Ethnic Genetic Interests (EGI) shows that human populations are not fungible and that mass immigration could lead to the genetic extinction of certain groups of people.  It’s thus imperative for groups to maintain largely homogenous areas to further their genetic continuity.

There you have it.  Here are big four issues relating to immigration and, other than economics, they’re rarely discussed in the media.

Related:

“Who Supports Open Borders? Summary of Open-Borders Elite in USA”

Notes:

While IQ certainly is important, John Derbyshire doubts that the West needs to import any more high IQ people.

The French philosopher Alain de Benoist has offered the term “ethno-pluralism“: “a view stressing the ‘right of difference’ which asserts that each ethnic / racial group has the right to its own lands over which it can exercise complete sovereignty. This view envisions the world as a mosaic with a multiplicity of diverse races clearly delimited and with strict boundaries between them.”

Regarding IQ, here’s a roundup on the recent Richwine controversy where Richwine argued the US should not import low IQ immigrants.

Ted Sallis argues that ethnic genetic interests should be the primary concern when debating immigration.

Richard Spencer on the prospect of allowing white South Africans to immigrate to Western countries.

Updates:

[Coming….]

Human BioDiversity and Functional Socialism

In a previous thread, a commenter said that Robert Lindsay is a leftist and shouldn’t be trusted.  Actually, of all leftists, I think Robert Lindsay is one of the more interesting, especially his belief in HBD / race realism.  In a recent post, “Liberal Race Realism – A Brief Definition,” Lindsay writes that he believes in race realism but is also a committed leftist.  Elsewhere, he has said that he supports socialism.

I don’t find this to be problematic. As those in the Dark Enlightenment know, economics is a subset of HBD.  An economic system cannot make a dysfunctional group of people functional, but functional groups of people can probably make most economic systems work.

So, when does socialism work?

The prerequisites for functional socialism are:  racial homogeneity, small country, high social trust, a minimum IQ, etc.

For socialism to function, you must have high levels of altruism, and people are hardwired to show more altruism toward co-ethnics than toward people of other races.  Thus, racial homogeneity is a necessary (not a sufficient) condition for functional socialism.

However, you also need a high level of social trust.  People must believe that there are not many cheaters.  And if a country is smaller, people will feel more trustful and generally be more altruistic.  And a country must have a minimum average IQ to make any system work.

Haiti might have racial homogeneity, but it lacks social trust and IQ, and every form of government has been a failure in Haiti.

Pre-immigration Scandinavia and Japan meet all these criteria.  For instance, pre-immigration (homogenous) Sweden had one of the best functioning socialist systems the world has seen.

So, yes, I think that socialism can work, if certain criteria are met.   But, as I note in the post on distributist economics, under any system you must still have selection pressure so that it doesn’t become dysgenic.

Related:

“Riots in Sweden are about race, not religion“

What are characteristics of the Dark Enlightenment?

Regarding the recent conversations on the Dark Enlightenment (here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), I’d like to offer a few comments.  (If you’re unfamiliar with the Dark Enlightenment, read British philosopher Nick Land’s series “The Dark Enlightenment“.)

As I’ve noted previously, the Dark Enlightenment, largely an American phenomenon notwithstanding Land, has much in common with the European archeofuturist or identitarian movement, although the later is less influenced by libertarianism (perhaps for the better).

But what are these underlying characteristics?

Here are some:

– A rejection of sociological universalism, and a preference for particularism.

– An acceptance of human biodiversity.

– An acceptance of Darwinian evolution, shunning egalitarian political correctness both from the left and from the Trotskyite right.

– On religion, if not agnostic or atheistic, then a preference for ancestral neopaganism or a form of Christianity that is ethnocentric and particularist.

– An acceptance of science and futurism as a means to improve at least some peoples’ lives while not rejecting one’s ancestral folkways (i.e. archeofuturism).  And a recognition that ‘progress’ will be available only to some, and not the entire human population.

– A rejection of The Cathedral (or whatever other names it goes by, such as Universalism or Political Correctness).

– The recognition that there is no single best political order.  As Aristotle notes in the Politics, some ethnies are better suited for monarchy; others, for aristocracy; others, for a limited form of politea.

– Skepticism about mass Third World immigration and the realization that human populations are not fungible but unique.

– A realization that liberty is incompatible with democracy, and that democracy leads to mediocrity.

–  A realization that terms like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ and ‘feminist’ are beyond their expiration date.

– A concern with bio-politics, oriented to a particular people’s biological and demographic imperatives.

– A rejection of egalitarianism.

Please leave other suggestions, or commentary, below.

Updates:

Radish Magazine provides a list Dark Enlightenment articles.

Education Realist discusses his placement in the Dark Enlightenment.

Nick Land warns (me) that Darkness will never be popular.

“Primer on Immigration and Human BioDiversity”

“The Laws of the Cathedral. Obey or Perish!”

Are distributist economic policies dysgenic?

Among many Trad Catholics, distributism seems to be the thing.  At a happy hour the other evening, some guy was yammering on about distributism and how it would cure all our ills.  It’s held up as the great panacea.

Now I can understand one’s dislike of the modern corporate-capitalist system in the West.  Corporate-capitalism (1) fosters transnational loyalties, resulting in things like corporations supporting mass Third World immigration into Western countries, (2) is ugly, as attested by the WalMart aesthetic, (3) is often environmentally unfriendly,  (4) is short-sighted, operating only in short business cycles, and (5) is itself dysgenic by its support of Mass Third world immigration into Western countries.

But is distributism any better?  Has it historical precedent?

Many distributist advocates point to Medieval Europe for precedent, but this is doubtful.

My recent exchange with Ron Unz on eugenics highlights a historic fact: much of Western history has been eugenic (see here, here, here, here and here).  Medieval England, in fact, was highly eugenic, as demonstrated by Gregory Clark’s findings in Farewell to Alms: the English upper classes reproduced at at 2:1 ratio over the lower classes, which resulted in the upper classes eventually replacing the lower classes through downward mobility and which resulted in a downward drift of genes and affiliative behaviors, such as decreased violence, and increased average IQ and innovation.

So, in reality, Medieval Europe was not the equitable distributive paradise that many distributists make it out to be.

But that aside, even if distributism were to be implemented today, how would it not be dysgenic? By redistributing wealth through welfare like practices, how would it not resemble the modern open-borders welfare state, which is itself highly dysgenic? Can distributists assure us that distributism would not be dysgenic?  How would it encourage the reproduction of the productive members of society and discourage the reproduction of the dregs?  How would it keep out the Third World hordes?  How would it safeguard one’s genetic interests?

Updates:

My tone above might seem to be a little harsh. I am not wholly opposed to distributism.  Who knows, it probably would be better than our current globalist regime of leveling corporate capitalism.  Nonetheless, I wanted to register some concerns.

“Primer on Immigration and Human BioDiversity“

Can Multi-Racial States Ever Function? Some Examples with Caveats.

Much has been written about the failure of multi-racial and multi-ethnic states.  Pierre L van den Berghe, Frank Salter, Steve Sailer, Robert D. Putnam, J. Phillipe Rushton, Jared Taylor, Satoshi Kanazawa, Kevin MacDonald, Miller McPherson, Neil Munro, Alex Rutherford, Rob Waugh and others have all written about the problems with multi-ethnic and multi-racial states.

From an evolutionary perspective, the instability of multi-racial states makes sense.  The more genetically diverse a state, the less likely people are willing to invest in the overall societal well-being.  For instance, small homogenous states (e.g. Sweden or Japan) of Europeans or North Asians seem to be at the pinnacle of state-wide altruism.  Everyone is closely related so by investing in the state (taxes, welfare, etc) one can still maximize his inclusive fitness.  But in multi-racial states, people aren’t so closely related, so there is probably no great desire to invest in the general well-being.  In fact, the more extreme — not only not investing in the general well-being but the general hostility between races — seems to be the norm in multi-racial states.   As Lawrence H Keeley points out in War Before Civilization, pre-modern history has really been a history of inter-tribal genocide.

OK, multi-racial states are failures.  Have they ever worked? Can they?

In an attenuated sense, there have been multi-racial and multi-ethnic success stories but there are many caveats to these stories.

Habsburg Empire: The differences here are largely ethnic, not racial, as the genetic distances between various European ethnic groups are small, but ethnic differences can still matter. The “other” is often defined by what is most proximate. The Hapsburg Empire was a multi-ethnic empire and largely successful.  What was its secret? Like most attenuated success stories, it pursued a policy of ethnopluralism — different groups were kept discrete; there were no governmental policies of forced assimilation, forced integration, etc.  The Habsburgs, in short, had no “busing programs” [carriage programs?].  Different ethnic groups were left alone and lived largely isolated from other groups.

The Roman Empire: Here we have a large multi-racial empire that was successful.  But, as in the case of the Hapsburg Empire, we have a policy of ethnopluralism — different racial groups largely live apart (except for mass immigration to Italy, which might have eventually undone the empire).  The Roman Empire largely cared only about collecting taxes and left various subjects alone.  In the classical sense, the Roman Empire was not a nation (a group of people related by blood — like Sweden or Japan) but but a collection of nations under the authority of the emperor.  There was also no forced assimilation.  While the Celts of Gaul eventually adopted Latin, most of the people of the East kept their indigenous languages and customs and Hellenized Greek remained the dominate language and culture of the East.

Switzerland: Like the Hapbsburg Empire, we here have a multi-ethnic state (not empire) and what is predominate in this multi-ethnic state is the demarcation of clear boundaries.  As this recent paper shows, ethnic boundaries in Switzerland are clearly demarcated and respected.

Pre-1964 United States:  In the 1960 census, the USA was 90% white, there were clear demarcations between white and non-white neighborhoods and the majority was self-confident and set an example for the rest.  Pre-1964 USA, although it had problems, probably could have continued indefinitely, but the Civil Rights Act and Immigration Act of 1964 have probably sealed its fate.

Success:  When surveying the above, factors that seem to lead to attenuated success stories are:  ethnopluralism (not multiculturalism), segregation, confident ruling class or majority, states demarcated into smaller nations, etc.

Failure: Notice that most Western nations today have the opposite of the above:  multiculturalism, the cult of diversity, forced integration, de-segregation, an unconfident ruling class or majority, policies of assimilation, etc.

Perhaps the most dangerous mix is when you don’t have a self-confident ruling class or majority, but rather a state divided into half between two racial groups, or into rough thirds of three racial groups with an assimilationist government trying forcing diversity upon everyone.  This has largely been the policy of the USA for the last 50 years and it’s falling apart.  A “race war” of sorts is already breaking out in California between blacks and mestizos.

Many pundits want to believe that the USA will mix into a “uniform coffee-colored nation” but this is highly unlikely.  Latin American countries have had centuries for this to occur but the patters across Latin America are largely the same:  a small European upper class and below it large segregated masses of Mestizos, Mulattoes and Amerindians, which are almost always mutually hostile.  In Latin American countries we most often see a color continuum; the lighter one is, the more likely he is to upper-class; the darker one is, the more likely he is to be lower class.  (Perhaps this has to do with a biological fact that fairer people are better adapted to function in modern states?)

In short, I tend to agree with the critics of multi-racial states.  They are rife with problems and often end in racial or ethnic strife.  And when multi-racial or multi-ethnic states are largely successful, the states or empires are clearly demarcated into smaller entho-states within the larger state.

Updates:

“Primer on Immigration and Human BioDiversity“

Chinese Eugenics

The Edge recently asked “What Should We Be Worried About?” and solicited the responses of 155 scientists, academics and writers.  The response below received the most attention.

Chinese Eugenics

Geoffrey Miller, Edge, Jan. 14, 2013

China has been running the world’s largest and most successful eugenics program for more than thirty years, driving China’s ever-faster rise as the global superpower. I worry that this poses some existential threat to Western civilization. Yet the most likely result is that America and Europe linger around a few hundred more years as also-rans on the world-historical stage, nursing our anti-hereditarian political correctness to the bitter end.

When I learned about Chinese eugenics this summer, I was astonished that its population policies had received so little attention. China makes no secret of its eugenic ambitions, in either its cultural history or its government policies.

For generations, Chinese intellectuals have emphasized close ties between the state (guojia), the nation (minzu), the population (renkou), the Han race (zhongzu), and, more recently, the Chinese gene-pool (jiyinku). Traditional Chinese medicine focused on preventing birth defects, promoting maternal health and “fetal education” (taijiao) during pregnancy, and nourishing the father’s semen (yangjing) and mother’s blood (pingxue) to produce bright, healthy babies (see Frank Dikötter’s book Imperfect Conceptions). Many scientists and reformers of Republican China (1912-1949) were ardent Darwinians and Galtonians. They worried about racial extinction (miezhong) and “the science of deformed fetuses” (jitaixue), and saw eugenics as a way to restore China’s rightful place as the world’s leading civilization after a century of humiliation by European colonialism. The Communist revolution kept these eugenic ideals from having much policy impact for a few decades though. Mao Zedong was too obsessed with promoting military and manufacturing power, and too terrified of peasant revolt, to interfere with traditional Chinese reproductive practices.

But then Deng Xiaoping took power after Mao’s death. Deng had long understood that China would succeed only if the Communist Party shifted its attention from economic policy to population policy.

[Continue reading….]

Updates:

Another notable response to the Edge symposium is Douglas T. Kenrick’s “Is Idiocracy Looming?”

David Galton:  Did Plato and Aristotle first popularize eugenics?

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Israel and African Immigrants

As noted by Tyler Cowen, Israel has finally admitted to sterilizing African migrants.  The Independent reports:

“Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.

The government had previously denied the practice but the Israeli Health Ministry’s director-general has now ordered gynaecologists to stop administering the drugs. According a report in Haaretz, suspicions were first raised by an investigative journalist, Gal Gabbay, who interviewed more than 30 women from Ethiopia in an attempt to discover why birth rates in the community had fallen dramatically.”

Of course, Israel doesn’t want Africans immigrating to Israel, even if they are nominally Jewish.  Benjamin Netanyahu has built massive fences and has deported already many of the Africans.  Back in 2010, Netanyahu said:

“We are flooded with surge of refugees who threaten to wash away our achievements and damage our existence. They are causing socio-economic and cultural damage and threaten to take us back down to the level of the Third World. They take the jobs of the weakest Israelis.”

If only such patriotism were allowed in Western nations!

Update:

Here’s Steve Sailer’s recent TakiMag article: “Israel’s Fertility Policy Bears Fruit“