Hello 2015!

In fact homogeneous societies are more peaceful, give more to charity, spend more on public goods.

How is that even remotely relevant?…

often, yes.
and class

Sweden's weird. They're either really right (social services, support for parents and children) or really wrong (drug and prostitution policy, and their disastrous charter schools experiment).

Could we perhaps countenance the possibility that Sweden really has done this wrong? Concentrating poor, mostly Muslim, immigrants to the extent that they comprise 40% of Malmo’s population (versus 3.5% of the national population) hasn’t worked out…

Hey! We got Zlatan Ibrahimović from there...

If you are going to quote from that article you could at least read all of it.

Yes, it says that:
Foreigners are thus 6.2 times as likely to be incarcerated than Swedes, or 520% higher…

@ alobar,

1. You mean the Putman research I noted above?

2. In terms of Sweden, they certainly have had significant immigration in the past 30 or so years. And this has had quite mixed results, depending on…

Like good support for the average Joe , but less for those who break the mould.

From wikipedia :

"As of 2010 however, 1.33 million people or 14.3% of the inhabitants in Sweden were foreign-born. Of these, 859,000 (64.6%) were born outside the European Union and 477,000…

is because the US and its States have long had weak commitment to social welfare, whereas many nations in Europe have strong commitments. Nothing to do with population diversity at all. #pfft

It's a pretty important question, especially considering the possibility that…

The benefits of a mono-cultural are seen in Scandanavia where you have high levels of interpersonal trust and cohesion.

The research by Harvard's Robert Putman shows that the downside of diversity is that it reduces social capital. You get less community engagement, less trust.

"Putnam's findings reject both…

"net immigration" doesn't feel like a logical phrase to me, though I note it's used a lot on the internet. How can there be a net value to something going one…

I think one problem is that a persons sense of identity is too important.
I have been watching documentaries. One posed the question: "but the proportions of migrants are small (10%, 14% 11%)" and wondered why that should be a problem. I…

Not so much Pomo, more Classical Mechanics, in Hamilton, well, Maramarua, on the way to Hamilton.
Hamiltonian
A simple interpretation of the Hamilton mechanics comes from its application on a one-dimensional system consisting of one particle of mass…

Pakeha culture shares some ingredients with its largely European cultures of origin: such as the English language, the Westminster Parliamentary system, the traditions and the conventions of the Open Society, in which every person is entitled to seek truth through a process of unfettered investigation and open…

The grossest expression of this view came in a letter I received from a Hamilton reader who told me that I was known in the United States as a "nigger lover", and that I had betrayed my own culture…

The Treaty of Waitangi and immigration

In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi acknowledged that British subjects were already in New Zealand. Implicit in Māori agreement to the treaty was that more immigrants would come from the United…

Yes.

so you're saying that some notion of "European" NZ is legitimate?

that sounds like a claim of closed mindedness. Left is just a generalisation…

Only if you believe different cultures don't share similar human values. How come you seem so invested in…

The article reviews The British Dream by David Goodhart and The Diversity Illusion by Ed West.

Only in the last two or three years has it become possible to discuss immigration in…

Since most of it was tl/dr to me, I'll just respond to the last part: diversity can be about other things than…

Life the in…

That doesn't support the argument one way or the other, it is like saying "these are only computer simulations…

Well, they're pretty good for mass production of food. That's how we're doing it here. So the "goodness" comes back to "good for what? Good for whom?" yet again. Of course it's not good for diversity – by definition.

I think it means living where there…

nice try

But, of course, this is the result of computer simulations of reality, not reality itself. Our identities, social relationships and actual neighborhoods are far more complex than simulations can get at.

I'm not sure how to define community (in this sense) , but I think it means living where…

I can see that highly coherent communities are probably stronger in wartime, for instance. Indeed, they've got a…

Thanks Geoff. I'm sad for your loss, but cheered by what you've said about that community.

No, it's a tiny factor. Our skewed financial system and investment culture are mostly to blame.

It still doesn't mean different cultures can't inhabit one city . And I can't say I've noticed many NZ cultural institutions being destroyed by recent immigrants .

Because the immigrant population might be less interested in infill than the non-immigrant? The inner suburban “gentrification” of Auckland did the exact opposite, driving out immigrant populations. Suburbs that had been sneered at due to their density and the cheap shoddiness of…

Yes I see I don't know how he arrives at that figure (he…

Sounds like one…

It was a quotation taken out of context and used to support a point the article quoted from did not support.

Again, got a link for that wikipedia quotation? It's kinda hard to assess the quality of an argument without a context for the quotation.

I don't think the 80% figure is correct ,
net migration peaked at around 40,000 in 2003 ,
http://wikinewzealand.org/?cat=232 but overall population increased by around 78,000 , so even in peak years it was nowhere near 80%

One benefit of those "different" people could be house prices won't be affected as…

That quote comes from here:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44170.html

Cherry picking seems to be a popular sport. That very same article also states:

Today’s world is different from that in which we evolved, and we need to adapt. Just as sweet and fatty foods are far more accessible today than they were a…

No, I don’t think the DoS is in the habit of publishing deliberate misinformation. But the numbers you cited are very strongly influenced by historical immigration laws and business conditions that no longer apply.…

That's called cherry picking. It's like judging rainfall on one month.
Another issue is that we can't do much about natural increase but we can about immigration. National, Labour and the Greens are pro immigration (as far as I can tell) and I believe…

"3.2 Impact of migration on population growth

New Zealand’s estimated resident population at 30 June 2011[14] was 4,405,300, which is an increase of 37,500 (0.9 percent) from the 30 June 2010 estimate of 4,367,800. Population growth in the year to 2010/11…

I wouldn’t call a 20 year period misleading? The stat's myth buster seems like misinformation (deliberate)?
and I don't like this either:
__Productivity Commision:
We recommend that you:
a agree to the inquiry selection process set out in Appendix…

That quote comes from here:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/44170.html

And to add, much of Auckland's growth can also be attributable to head office drift and provincial youth moving to the big…

damn efficient 'reasoning'

Okay, fair enough, true for that period, but a little misleading. Those numbers are strongly influenced by years like 2002, with a net inflow…

Yes, really:

To a great extent, future Aucklanders will come from current Aucklanders – our kids, their kids and their kids. About 60 per cent of Auckland’s future population growth will come from births in our current population. Consider this: one-third of all children that live in New Zealand,…

Infill has been has been driven by baby-boomers, often in suburbs where existing Pacific immigrant populations have been displaced. You don't see a lot of it in Howick.

So Asians are in no greater a danger of becoming a majority in Auckland than any kind of expat in Beijing in the next few years.

Kiwis are being excluded from the property market by the high cost…

That figure came from here:
80% of our population growth in the last couple of decades has been the net inflow of non NZ citizens .
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/mi-jarrett-comm.pdf
It’s also a nonsense given that the large majority of people even…

The words "second colonisation" were used in the documentary The Last Resort…

Garden centres had a boom when the GCC hit around 2008.

No, it’s not obvious at…

Yes, that's a strange observation – urban intensification does contribute to less growing of one's own crops, but I wouldn't say immigrants lead the charge on…

My point was that Dicken's novel's…

It's changing, certainly, but it's not totally chaotic. As organisms, we're more alike than we're different – it's a quantum leap to even the nearest species, and the range of species is huge. Even…

is fair enough. Seeing more heat than light here though.

However,…

I think I can see it. Essentially, the question of whether more diversity is a good thing is not settled according to JH. He's asking why it's good. Good for whom? Good for what purpose? Good in itself, perhaps?…

No. Just the usual dictionary definition.

And what of the effects on the culture of New Zealand’s working classes of mass migration. How many people these days have hens or grow their own vegetables?

How is that even remotely relevant? Are you…

hating butchers, bakers or candle-stick-makers is unlikely to feature

Ooh, do tell.

You're on the verge of "protesting too much" there.

There were many things about his age that bothered Dickens, from the class system to the power of the church. But London in particular has long reflected the world. It has had succession of prevailing cultures, a Jewish…

It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants – from anywhere – as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still…

I find it fascinating and it appears to explain why multiculturalism is a failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/world/americas/05iht-diversity.1.6986248.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
__but I did notice that abstract talked about “in-group” vs. “out-group”, so nothing to do with racism at all, and the principle is likely to apply…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB0ZOu_EZ2M

That would explain the frequent outbreaks of tribal warfare in Europe. Ukraine being the latest case in point – though, of course, it hasn't quite got to actual warfare yet.

The phrase "evolutionary psychologists" never inspires much confidence, unfortunately, but I…

So..... the traditional pale skinned immigrants don't bother you?

Yep , just read wiki on her .
Scary.

Racists are weird. There's what DeepRed says about covert racism. But overt racists? I never could figure out why I meet so many white supremacists in China.…

Covert racism can…

Was it Rowan Atkinson ( in character ) that said "But we've got the recipe now ,…

and harder for some of us than others to believe that's our decision in any case

It's easy to generalise about groups of people by cultural, religious, racial or any criteria if you don't have personal contact with…

I do , and I suspect most people reading this will too , but it might be a different story on another…

Whether the 'sets' of life's Venn Diagram
abut and abrade rather than
overlap and abide
or suffuse into a solution...

...a lot like handling any toxic element,
and humanity is just as corrosive
as…

There's always a short-term tension between efficiency and inclusiveness. The latter seems less useful when decisions don't require smart design or long-term buy-in.

Unfortunately bozos like our current government can't seem to tell when that applies and when…

Quite. In some respects, diversity could negatively impact on tolerance, if it means more people with conservative social or religious views.

I do regard a broader range of faces…

It's just another word for variety. Not recognition, tolerance or respect, which is what you seem to be conflating it with.

Now that's an ear-to-the-ground perspective! I've always loved that about Auckland: riding the bus and hearing all the different accents and languages, and trying to place them.

The community…

Generally, for the chattering classes "Auckland" is the old tramway suburbs.

From following the link it looks as if that chart came from a 2000 study…

I know some people get annoyed with the "think of the restaurants!" thing, but yeah, Dominion Road has transformed in the past decade. For me, it's Avondale Markets — I ride there on my bike on a Sunday morning and…

Definitely. Racism is still alive and well in Auckland, often it's just obscured under the inherent embarrassed politeness many Aucklanders cultivate.

It's certainly better here than…