I didn't see it mentioned, but the quick fix for this (assuming you don't depend on the order of id's) is just to alter your sequence to use the max negative int, and increment from there. Not a complete solution, but buys enough time to actually fix the issue.
Author here, we’re just getting started with these experiments and plan to apply them to more features on our roadmap. Future posts will be more detailed, based on the feedback we received here. Once we finish implementing these features, we’ll be happy to share the code and dataset.
There's not enough immigrants that actually are of financial benefit to Denmark. Only European immigrants are a large financial benefit throughout their lifespan, and Middle Eastern immigrants are a financial detriment even in their prime working years[0]. That is apart from the cultural effects of having a large portion of your population consist of non-Danish, and especially non-European immigrants, which might have its own detrimental effect on the birth rate.
It's not about race, it's about culture and education. For instance, Chinese immigrants are usually an economic boost anywhere they go, due to the can-do attitude and respect for education and business activity in the Chinese culture in general.
Also the Chinese immigrants in question, like many others, usually immigrate seeking a better life, it's a strong self-selection filter. Middle Eastern immigrants of last 10-15 years in Europe are refugees, displaced by wars; they did not choose Denmark (or other Western European countries) because they planned to integrate and to prosper there, they ran there to merely stay alive. They need a lot of help adapting. Even if they are very willing to work, they may lack the knowledge required for gainful employment, and there are only so many dish-washing and trash-disposal jobs.
Those who adapt can make it big; consider people like Freddie Mercury or Nassim Taleb.
The sultanate of Zanzibar is technically closer to Africa than to the Arabian peninsula, it was a remnant of the Omani empire, with very thick Middle Eastern influence, and obviously Muslim culture.
The problem with immigration isn't immigrants, it's racists. Immigration has never caused me any problem at all - it's added a lot to my life and my communities, in fact - and I've lived around many immigrants.
> Chinese immigrants are usually an economic boost
Chinese immigrants were hated and discriminated against for much of US history, going back over a century. You could hardly pick a worse example for your claim.
The US is built by uneducated immigrants - including from China - who came to the land of freedom and opportunity. China was a land of extreme poverty and illiteracy for much of US history (something Western countries had a hand in causing, and I'm very glad for people there that they have so much more prosperity now).
(However, the most prosperous Chinese people are in the democratic areas, Taiwan and, until recently, Hong Kong. It's freedom and democracy, not culture and language that matter. Give people freedom and they prosper.)
It's all just stuff fabricated by racists to rationalize their prejudices. Look at the horrors Europe has inflicted on itself and the world due to these prejudices and rationalizations - the most destructive events in human history. Enough.
More racism on their part - that's the problem, as I said. I also very much doubt that is true, but generally people do generally segregate by economic means, and first generation immigrants understandably tend to live in their own communities, everywhere. Where else do you find people to talk to, who understand you; where else do you even find dinner or some decent proper tea?
Middle Eastern immigrants are not (usually, relatively, on average) unproductive because of their skin color. They're unproductive because they suffer from a large language barrier, tend to have large families that use more government subsidies, are often traumatized by the conditions they escaped, have qualifications that are not recognized in Denmark and have to work menial jobs instead, face racism when they apply for jobs they are qualified for, etc.
> They're unproductive because they suffer from a large language barrier,
Immigrants everywhere come with a language barrier. If you live in the US, very probably your ancestors did. It's the same with every first generation from everywhere.
The barriers are not all the same.
Somebody moving from Norway or Sweden will have a much easier time picking up Danish. And European immigrants are highly likely to speak English, meaning they can communicate with Danes who speak English (virtually all of them) from day one.
You're really struggling to find problems. English is spoken all over the world - people all over the world learn it, in China, India ... places with completely unrelated languages.
I think it's both. I think race plays part in it because the trend follows with the descendants who often absorb (parts) of the culture. There's also not that much in their culture that would explain it, to me. In my experience they are often hard workers. It's very taboo to say, but there is difference between races.
Is it racist to say that there's difference between races?
DEI is important, specially Diversity. In order to have diversity, you need to have different cultures. Mass immigration erodes diversity. Diversity exists by having different nations with different cultures, not one culture everywhere.
And then their children turn out to be some of the most productive and contributory to a nation (in my experience), even despite some of the headwinds.
Perhaps in the US due to pre-selection, but in Europe the 2nd generation of those MENA migrants frequently becomes an even bigger burden to the host countries due to the former turning to criminal activities or radicalization.
"frequently" ... about as useful as my "in my experience", lol
Sorry, I don't buy that argument re: second generation. I've lived and seen it. Perhaps my lived experience isn't representative but I don't see second generation citizens turning to crime or radicalisation in huge numbers. I see them at work, and looking after their families. I fear the brush you are using is so broad as to, sorry, be useless.
Agreed. And the idea that you can call people criminals based on their ethnic heritage is plain racism - they are individuals who will themselves succeed or fail, be good or bad, just like individuals whose parents already lived in the country. Some of those people do bad things like promote hate and racial discrimination, but we can't say that about all of them; it's their individual choice and action.
"The study has faced criticism over its methodology, as it only studied rape convictions in Sweden. Experts point to the fact that just a small proportion of rapes in the country are reported to the authorities.
Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at Stockholm University, dismissed the study as “meaningless” as it only examined figures for convicted rape.
“They’ve only looked at convicted people, and they make up a fraction of all rapists,” he told Swedish broadcaster SVT."
Even ignoring the above, I can think of many reasons, statistical and otherwise for the apparent difference. Perhaps you should try using your brain matter to do the same rather than just posting random links.
I repeat: I don't see second generation citizens turning to crime or radicalisation in huge numbers.
It's because the ME immigrants that make it to Denmark are traumatized refugees from war zones, with education that isn't recognized so they can often only do minimum wage work if they work at all. That's not racist, that's a result of laws and treaties.
I can only give you the rundown for Germany, but I guess it’s similar in Denmark:
Basically the state spends to much money on humans in general.
A young qualified immigrant might have a less negative impact than a slightly older German person, but both of them will be money sinks in the long run.
Statistically immigrants in Germany are less qualified than the general population, so they’ll have an even more negative impact.
The only valid solution is to reduce the spending per person, both birthrate and immigration will only delay the problem.
Denmark should be in a slightly better position than Germany since their health system is cheaper.
> Statistically immigrants in Germany are less qualified than the general population, so they’ll have an even more negative impact.
I need to see some data backing this. Also regardless of stats, many war refugees(the net negatives as told by media) are actually highly qualified but the asylum process and qualification recognition process is eternal. On top of the trauma and uncertainty, they also need to learn a new language, find a new community, patiently go through all the dystopian meetings, cope with their loss of loved ones.
In reality, it is possible for them to be net positive because if things were faster, they would often out qualify the average locals and this also has some effects on wage and market(over supply, constant demand and all the economics).
Immigration only works if the immigrants adopt and support the social norms and outcomes that you desire. If the immigrants have no desire to work, pay taxes, and support the elderly then you won't want them.
Getting immigrants who work is a non-issue. I never heard of immigrants from India, China, Africa or Latin America who don't work so long as they entered the country legally. The issue you are alluding to has to do with genuine refugees and illegal economic migrants, who are not filtered at the border depending on their employability within the local market.
But the cultural shift is still inevitable. A foreigner is not a local, and it is neither fair nor ethical to expect a foreigner to transform themselves into a local.
I think, if you are concerned with the cultural shift, you can give immigrants temporary term VISAs and make it clear their stay is going to be strictly temporary. That was supposed to be how the Gastarbeiter system works. Thing is, when you have already on boarded a foreign worker and have had them working for you for 2 years already, you don't want to let them go and replace them with a fresh foreign worker who you have to retrain.
Assimilation as most people understand it does not necessitate an immigrant become completely indistinguishable from a native citizen. There are some baseline expectations that are not always met right now, such as learning the official language of one's host country, and sometimes its social standards. Most countries simply lack the necessary coercive incentives to make that happen systematically. I would argue that most Western cultures have become too individualistic at the expense of societal health, fueling the notion that assimilation is inherently unethical.
I fundamentally agree with your comment. But for Denmark, it is very difficult to learn Danish. I lived there 3 years, took courses and was at end able to do my daily stuff in English, but a part of the society simply does not want a foreigner to speak Danish. You are forced to use English.
My girlfriend asked me once in a Restaurant (Cafe Norden in Kopenhagen) why I was ordering in English. Then, I spent the complete evening ordering everything in Danish, to always receive answers in English. And this nearly everywhere (not my bakery, the girls there could not speak a word of English, this was an exception). This was in the early 2000's. This never happened to me in all the other countries I have been living in. A Danish colleague simply told me that he does not like to listen to broken Danish, better switch to English.
Still have a lot of friends in Denmark, integration there is not easy, even for highly qualified people from the EU.
Danes are by and large all English speakers, probably the last generation who would have much difficulty with conversational English are all 70+ years old now. And while Danes are generally very polite and friendly with foreigners, there is a level of personal closeness (part of the "hygge" concept) that you will rarely penetrate if you are not a lifelong close friend or family member. This is another part of why real integration into Danish culture is nearly impossible for a foreigner.
I observed over my 11 years in the Netherlands that the friendliness and quality of service I received was greater when I spoke English and much diminished when I spoke Dutch. The Netherlands is, similar to Denmark, a place where people would seemingly prefer to speak English than listen to an accent on their native language.
I had a similar experience in the Netherlands. We could have a 30 second exchange in their perfect English or a laboured 2 minute conversation in my abysmal Dutch. I struggled to improve because everyone would immediately switch to English.
I commend you for your efforts and I'm sure they were appreciated even by those who switched to English with you. It sounds like you were in the infamous long awkward intermediate stage of language learning. Depending on the cadence of your language classes, three years may not be a long time. Intensive language programs with daily lessons and drills are exponentially more effective than typical language-learning programs spread out across short sessions sprinkled throughout the week/month. In my opinion, it makes a lot more sense to place newcomers in intensive learning programs on arrival than to accept they will not be functional outside of ethnic enclaves, and wait decades for their children and grandchildren to finally integrate, as other commenters suggest. It's not an easy process and we can't expect everyone to have the intrinsic motivation to do it all on their own, which is why incentives are needed.
Without establishing a hermetic environment a la the Amish, assimilation happens automatically in the next generation if a nation has basic structures in place like public education to some minimum standard and basic anti-discrimination laws to allow economic advancement. Children absorb the culture that surrounds them, often to their parents' dismay.
The data I saw is that by the third generation, only a few percent speak the language of their grandparents' country, and most marry outside their nationality.
In the US, Italians, Irish, and Germans, as just a few examples, all were treated as unassmilated aliens. People say the same things, generation after generation about newcomers. If you moved to a country with a different language and culture, you might make an effort to learn the language but you would still think, read, etc. in your native language. Your kids would know both languages; their kids would of course speak the language of their surroundings.
What solves these problems is a fundamental belief in freedom for all. People don't need to speak your language to be your equal and be just as human, with the same rights as you.
This was certainly true of my Polish ancestors. My great grandfather arrived at age 19. He never really became fluent in English but could get by when he needed to. My grandfather spoke both Polish and English but only spoke English at home once he had school aged children. My father really only knew the Polish swear words and I know a handful of Polish phrases that only get used amongst family at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Don’t ask me to write them down. I’ve only ever heard them verbally.
Italians, Irish, Germans in US are bad examples, because Americans and Western Europeans are basically one and the same culture, the only significant difference being the language spoken. I suppose integrating Chinese or Indian people might take much longer.
In fact, they were seen as very different cultures and the exact same things were said about them. Only in hindsight do people say what you are saying (and in hindsight they will say the same about today's immigrants). In fact, the world has never been smaller or more homogenous - people in countries all over the world dress like us, are exposed to our culture a great many already speak English. Before you spread damaging misinformation - there are few evils inflicted by and on humanity than those based on these prejudices - shouldn't you know what you are saying? Shouldn't we talk great care?
Here's Benjamin Franklin (Palatine refers to the Holy Roman Empire or Germanic regions, depending on the source):
"[W]hy should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind."
Mhm, the current generation of kids of Turkish immigrants in Germany all seem to believe they are actually displaced Turks. I suppose thats what you encourage with double passport and voting for authoritarians at "home". (of course they are totally out of place in Turkey, that part of assimilation is unavoidable)
This is not borne out by the anecdata I have collected over the last 22 years as a foreign invader living in and observing Europe. Moroccans in the Netherlands, Albanians in Switzerland, even Irish Travellers in Ireland-- despite being integrated from primary school onward, all seem to be somewhat apart from the host culture even after several generations.
And yet they remain a distinct cultural group with different traditions and modes of living, despite integration at a school level. Apparently they've even diverged genetically[1] from the main population.
It often takes three generations. The first generation came willingly and thus have an incentive to put up with shit; the second generation did not, find people hating on them anyway, and understandably react by pulling back and doubling down on their heritage.
> you can give immigrants temporary term VISAs and make it clear their stay is going to be strictly temporary
In practice that rarely goes as intended. The first political party to say, "We changed our minds, you can all have citizenship," gets to secure power with an influx of loyal voters.
Maybe I misunderstand your point but... if these people are not citizens (i.e. they need a VISA) how could they actually vote for whatever party proposing this?
Well, if a party has enough votes to pass such a law, it means that the majority of the society has no problems with that.
Conversely, if this hypothetical party had a secret agenda to pass the law when they get elected, but they kept this a secret until then... first of all they will probably lose of voters in the next election.
Also, they might find out that former immigrants do not automatically reward this behaviour in terms of votes.
I do not find this scenario particularly realistic.
Integration is the job of the state as much as it is the job of the immigrant.
In America, we discovered basically by accident[0] how to bring in large groups of people and have them be economically and socially productive. Specifically, we had very generous family reunification programs, which outsourced the question of "what immigrants do we admit" to immigrants who had already successfully integrated. Effectively America became an invite system. The end result is that, for basically any background, every American city has a large and established immigrant population from that country for new immigrants to fall back on.
Other Western countries (e.g. western Europe, Canada, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan) didn't do this. Instead, they treated immigration as a transaction: you can't come in unless you have some immediately beneficial purpose, and permanent residency is going to be an even higher bar still. What this gives you is immigration systems that select entirely for disaffected, college-educated workaholic youths with no connections to the local city. To put it in the words of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney:
"America is a melting pot. Canada is a mosaic. In the United States, they don't recognize differences[1]. They don't recognize First Nations. And there will never be the right to the French language."
These words are telling, in ways Carney probably didn't intend. He is proudly admitting that the thing that sets Canada apart from America - the thing that they should fight with military force against a wannabe dictator with annexation dreams - is the fact that they can't integrate people worth a damn.
[0] Family reunification visas were originally intended to deliberately preserve racist prejudices in the US immigration system. This backfired comically.
[1] ...has this guy never heard the phrase 'African-American' before?
> Immigration only works if the cultures are very similar so that they can assimilate, or the immigration levels are very low.
People just make this stuff up, any rationalization for hatred. It's not hard to see how immigration has worked, how Europe integrates with itself (a continent that fought endless wars before the proto-EU was born), and how the US is a country of immigrants. Rather than repeat it all, see:
"... Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. ..."
It's very easy to see how immigration hasn't worked. Visit London, Brussels or Paris. Compare that to cities that have low immigration rates, like Warsaw.
Europe integrated itself because European countries have very similar culture, and are same/similar race.
You're comparing London, Brussels and Paris to Warsaw? I think most people would consider the former three to be much 'better' cities and greater successes - Paris and London are considered two of the greatest cities in the world! Right there with New York, also a home for immigrants from all over.
Yes, I have. You are living in an Internet disinformation unreality - just like the nonsense the right wing craps out about how horrible and dangerous NY is. As empirical data, look up real estate prices and tourism to the three cities, and see how Warsaw compares. Remember, people in Europe can easily go to Paris or Warsaw; going to London is a bit harder.
And that is with massive disinformation campaigns against immmigrants and 'liberal' cities.
(No offense to Warsaw - maybe only NY and Tokyo measure up to London and Paris.)
Improve the birth rate, yes, but you probably can't do that unless you deal with the resource situation as well.
So you can reduce pensions, improve the situation for the youth, take efforts to get an improved birth rate, making use of the resources lost to pensioners, and then maybe you can raise the pension later on once you realize things are stable.
The centre right often argue for less taxation ‘to grow businesses’. The argument being that the economy grows and that’s how the money is recouped. At least that’s what’s happened here in New Zealand.
Looking past ones next pay day does seem universally difficult.
You have to grow your economy at a rate that allows you to pay for the additional pensioners.
Birthrates seem very hard to change and even if change would happen it is much too slow.
Germany did the experiment on immigration and has not seen GDP growth for half a decade. There the system is failing far worse in some ways, but in Germany employees are paying directly for the pension plans, so the state just raises the employee contributions.
Because Germany does nothing to attract and keep employable immigrants. They only want to keep immigrants which completely tow the line of only speaking German, which inevitably attracts mostly bottom of the barrel. Significant portion of highly qualified workforce in Germany is umemployable because of refusal to conduct business in anything other than German.
Also, the beaurcracy is the real culprit for growth.
The total fertility rate (number of children per woman) seems stubborn against attempts to raise it.
I suggest instead altering the male/female ratio, so a stable or growing population can be maintained at lower TFR. Technically, filter sperm to remove those with Y chromosomes before artificial insemination.
I feel like there really hasn't been sincere data-backed methods with proper resources behind them, for example governments giving out minor cash benefits to parents of a few thousand dollars when that's a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of raising a kid and is not going to convince anyone who wasn't already going to have kids.
Also, that's a wild solution. You'd have to do away with monogamy which would cause some pretty insane societal shifts. However, as a straight guy I can see the appeal lol.
The issue with low TFR seems to be difficulty of forming relationships, not failure to have children once relationships are formed.
I'm imagining it becoming a social norm for single women to have (at least) a single child. Perhaps they'd team up to make raising them easier, forming loose family-like units. Romantic attachments would be optional.
One consequence of such a situation would be an incentive toward private positive eugenics. Women would prefer semen from top quality donors.
At least in the UK the cost of childcare is a major factor putting people off.
People simply can't afford to send a kid to pre-school childcare because it's 2 or 3 thousand GBP per month. So you have to stay at home to look after them, but then you can't afford the rent/mortgage and/or food because you're not working. Woe betide you if you earn over 1 penny over 100K GBP because then you get zero help with costs.
They need to provide more government funded (i.e. universally free non-means-tested) pre-schooling like they do for 5-18 year olds.
I love this as a science fiction thought experiment but altering the male/ female ratio will never happen.
If someone tried to implement it- aside from the obvious problem of authoritarianism- the resulting male minority would live life in romantic "easy mode" so people who want the best for their kids would want male children and rebel against a system more likely to give them female children who would find romantic prospects difficult.
I suppose if someone invented a way to alter sexuality to allow straight women to opt into becoming gay the romance problem could be mitigated, but I'm guessing that this is impossible given the human brain is only so neuroplastic in adult years.
Or more. The prevalence of males seems to be an unfortunate consequence of evolution. There's an evolutionary equilibrium of nearly an equal chance of a male or female offspring, even though the ability of the species to reproduce would be higher with mostly female offspring.
No no, not like that. Well, maybe, but no. Most men are useless from a reproductive standpoint because they're not the bottleneck. Women are the bottleneck. More women means no more bottleneck, means more children per person.
Also sexual selection is a thing and I think we were really never meant to have this many men. Men seem good for being really successful or otherwise dying, not much in the middle.
But also, all this talk is purely from a reproductive standpoint. Human societies also need to consider fairness and rights.
If TFR stays well below 2, there's going to be major change sooner or later. The question becomes which change. Maybe the Amish will take over the world? Or maybe some solution we find really weird will be adopted by some other minority and they'll dominate.
No one knows how to increase the birth rate. And all the studies show that immigration increases the budget deficit, not reduces it (at least in that way in which it is being implemented now).
Actually the factors inhibiting birth rate are well known, but the actions to take are not something states wants to take. In Europe you cannot even talk about it, usually, unless you talk to younger family members and ask them why they don't want kids at or or just 1 or 2 max. There are economic, education and legal aspects that are clear for anyone that looked not farther than 50 years ago when having 3-4 kids was not exceptional.
Everyone knows. Stop contraception, stop woman education, stop abortions, reduce woman rights to 1800. Remove children rights, make environment where children are productive and bring profits to their parents, so they have financial incentive to create children.
Right, if anyone here has taken a human geography course this is the obvious answer. This is why birthrate was so high for so long. As nations developed and gained rights for women, it went lower and lower and lower.
And it makes complete sense. The reality is having a child kind of sucks for a woman, and I, nor anyone else, can blame a large portion of women for just saying "eh... no". I would probably say no, too, although it's hard to tell, because I'm not a woman.
Having children was once a boon, because conditions were shit. Now it's a burden. So, people will treat it as a burden.
Either make it less burdensome or revert women. Nobody wants to do the latter, so we must do the former. We have to invest in children, because children are a Nation's investment.
Not having to work as much to live seems like a decent way to increase birthrates. Having kids is/would be much easier if parents were at home more often and able to care for kids instead of contracting out childcare to daycare centers because you cannot afford to not have both parents working full time. But it comes at the cost of not growing as fast and being less attractive to capital investors/owners who are reaping by far the highest percentage of profits currently.
The elephant in the room that is getting some attention is demographic collapse. It’s been politicized, unfortunately, and seized on by strange people, but the fact remains that we’ve stuck our heads in the sand here. The seriousness of demographic collapse cannot be overstated. Social and economic collapse are inevitable unless something (morally licit, of course) is done to boost birth rates to above replacement rates, or kept at replacement levels. Once we reach a point of no return, it will be impossible to reverse course.
There’s a lot working against healthy demographics. We have decades of alarmist, misanthropic, Malthusian propaganda from types like Paul Ehrlich. We have now a hyperindividualistic culture - politically, socially, and economically - that is hostile both functionally as well as in sentiment toward the healthy function of family, and secondarily the community life it produces, as well as mental health). The logic of consumerism does not sit well with family life, because family life is not something that can be monetized. Consumerism relies on maximizing spending of the atomized individual, and in order for that to work, one must maximize the work done by that individual. Family life interferes with the regime of constant spending and the reign of total work. (Ironically, this makes the celebrated careerism of feminism an expression of this all consuming capitalist drive. It stigmatizes motherhood with demeaning labels like “stay-at-home mom” and celebrates the very office jobs that are the stuff of comedies.) Today, we understand everything with reference to the individual, even anachronistically reinterpreting history according to its alienating categories. Some governments have enacted pro-natalist policies, but they’re typically weak, superficial, and ineffective. We’re addicted to patterns of life formed over the last 70 years that we don’t want to let go of. Governments need to take much more serious measures that drastically favor, prioritize, and protect the family, through and through. Good luck doing that in our democratic societies. Addicts typically change only after they’ve experienced a crisis and hit rock bottom, and by then, it may be too late.
Immigration, of course, is no solution. The belief that immigration can fix the problem is itself rooted in the logic of hyperindividualism, where atomized individuals can be replaced by other atomized individuals to achieve net conservation or even gain according to the numbers. Cultural realities are totally ignored. The rate of immigration that a country can successfully absorb is not enough to outpace demographic decline. Exceeding that rate undermines the whole point of using immigration to compensate for demographic decline in the first place, since mass migrations are always harmful to host populations. You’re basically talking the collapse of the host populace and the formation of new ones in its place. Furthermore, immigration drains the populations of other countries, ones that are likely also facing demographic issues, which basically makes richer countries parasitic and callous about the continuity and futures of other peoples, until there are no more populations to drain of people anymore.
Raising the birth rate is extremely difficult and immigration will destroy a country's culture if not managed properly.
For an interesting case study, compare Japan (who refuses to allow mass immigration and is at risk of going extinct) and the UK (who has embraced it and is on the way to becoming Muslim-majority). It'll be interesting to see in 50 years which one has had better outcomes.
This is using the same flawed logic that has had people shouting about overpopulation since the 70's: assuming current* population growth rate will continue indefinitely
The difference is that this is a change in the demographics of a population, not the overall growth, which is limited by resources available. The growth of Islam isn't constrained by anything other than the cultural practices that lead to them having more children than the rest of the population and the tolerance of the country for immigration. These things could definitely shift to balance the scales but there's no guarantee that happens and there have absolutely been many times in history where a native population has been displaced by the growth of an immigrant group.
Nicholas, is it clear that at any point in the near future, let's say two generations (30-40 years) the Muslim population will not be a majority in the UK? I don't understand why you continue arguing.
You are not making your point any favour. It is right that everyone is calling you out for your xenophonbic BS.
If it grew 10x between 2001 and 2009 (starting from a very small base), then between 2009 and 2023 it grew by only 0.3x (see graph below).
So rate of growth went from 10x to 0.3x in around a decade, this is a hugely significant deceleration. It actually implies muslim community as portion of population is heading lower.
You're not comparing the same stats. The original stat was growth rate compared to the rest of the country. Islam's overall growth rate has been fairly steady for decades, although admittedly it has slowed, but at a rate that could conceivably stop above Christianity, which your chart shows is decreasing about as rapidly as Islam is rising. I think it's reasonable to project that it may settle below Islam eventually. Realistically, there will be continued backlash by native English and that may temper immigration, though even if immigration stops, the birth rate of Muslims in the UK is still much higher than native population.
However - if we're including atheist then clearly that'll be the majority position.
Ah, it's the same argument that my mum uses to say that if we don't do something about "the gays" then straight people will disappear, after all "there are a lot more of them than there used to be".
The most recent birth rate stats I can find is 2005-2010 where Muslims have a birth rate of 3.0 while the rest of the country is at 1.8. Estimates say it's more like 2.5 now, but the current overall UK birth rate is only 1.57 from a quick Google.
Yes I know the stats hover around roughly that, which is why I requested you to post those numbers as proof for anyone questioning it. There's also the very concerning fact that the last census conducted was before the immigration boom period (2010 or 2011 iirc), so literally everyone is working on outdated data.
Maybe not in one generation, but in 2-3 generations, the UK will definitely turn Islamic, especially given the exodus of other communities. The irony is that the well-off British are settling in the UAE en masse, a distinctly Islamic country, and driving property prices up there. It's not that much of a concern since local housing is distinctly separated from expat housing.
Actually, OP has given information that proves exactly that. Maybe not in one generation, but Lebanon was in a similar situation where the Muslim population, which was firmly a minority in the 1940s, outbred the Christian population and is currently more than the latter.
I don't have a horse in this game - I'm Muslim after all. But I've experienced London pre-immigration boom and post-immigration boom and I definitely prefer the former, like some of my Muslim peers. The fabric of London has already been destroyed, especially when given the fact that London natives have been priced out of their own homes. Given what I've seen firsthand, and what's preached in the mosques of the UK by unleashed and unhinged Imams, the UK is on track to become a Muslim country in 2 or 3 generations.
As a user myself, I'm not sure. Assistant is a separate view so it's easy to never interact with it but yeah, I can see why that might be a work policy issue. You could try requesting that as a feature in https://kagifeedback.org. The team are quite responsive there and historically Vlad the CEO reads every post.
Curious is it no AI or no LLMs policy? Search has used some form of AI since inception.
Are you imagining one switch toggle that would disable it at the team account level (or individual account level - in which case it would theoratically still be opt-in and 'available' like it is now).
Genuinly trying to understand the UX of it that would comply with the policy.
Then you shouldn’t have been using Kagi in the first place, because they’ve always had an AI summarizer feature available by appending a question mark to the query. So just like you can choose not to use that, which has always been there, you can choose not to click on Assistant and stick only to non-AI functionality.
They're nothing too major— some extensions don't work or only partially work, it locks up occasionally and needs to be force quit, the integration with iOS password managers seems wonky and sometimes targets the wrong field.
I think it depends on how you define a lot of stuff, and what you think the effects are.
If you think there are mental health effects, then it's really no different than outlawing anything with negative effects. "I don't know why we outlaw fentanyl. Nobody is being forced to use it. Don't use it personally if you don't like it."
If someone believes that these type of apps pose a real danger to people and society, it's a take that makes sense.
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