One is implemented with the will of the people (in a functioning democracy) and the other is not.
Equating the two and then correlating that to dog whistle terms like “genetic extermination” which has no scientific basis (except in terms of pest control) is disingeuous.
I assure you that there is nothing disingenuous in my comment, and not everything is a "dog whistle". A dog whistle for what, if you mind?
No people has ever willed to be colonised (and that was the proposal in the comment I replied to). Immigration is a different matter. The people in history who welcomed being colonised were very sorry for it afterwards.
Genetic extermination is the same as genocide, and it has happened countless times, it is happening right now, and it will continue to happen as long as humans are faulty beings.
You have yet to explain why genetic extermination (whatever you mean by that) is undesirable.
Naming a natural evolutionary occurrence (and I mean genetic mixing, not colonization) a pejorative doesn’t make it so.
There is plenty of genetic mixing happening in the world in the last single generation without any colonization. Go back in time far enough and you can draw a line from any major event to a calamity that came after it. It’s quite easy to see through your veiled prejudice for inter-racial breeding.
> I'm saying that when people start proposing and planning colonisation of a foreign country, genetic extermination usually follows.
And I don't disagree with you.
What I'm objecting to is your hyperbole; on further thought I don't care much for your throwing around of this "genetic extermination" term either.
"Extermination" implies a third party is involved and has a hand on the gas valve. A more appropriate euphemism would be "genetic extinction."
Genocide is explicitly defined as "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group." The immigrants are not arriving onshore and butchering the natives.
Words have meaning and this one does not invite ambiguity. A genetic clique disappearing because of cross-breeding is not goddamn Genocide. It's just Nature.
And again, I'd argue they're doing it to themselves. They just handed the title of Miss Japan to a Ukie. Now this. Nobody's making them sell out to foreigners. They could just as easily halve their pointlessly-bureaucratic workweek and subsidize childcare.
> Genocide is explicitly defined as "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group." The immigrants are not arriving onshore and butchering the natives.
No, but when immigrant/coloniser diaspora becomes large enough in numbers they rise up against the natives and start displacing them, most often violently. As seen almost always throughout history, or in the news tonight.
> It's just Nature.
Nature is nature, and human policy is separate from that. Displacing enormous amounts of people to "fix" some imaginary GDP number is as far from nature as can be, unless we argue that war and genocide is a natural behaviour among human beings. Which unfortunately I think we can. Then again if it's "just nature", then why do people here argue for organising mass migration to Japan. Let nature have it's course then?
As for the rest of your comment, you are arguing automatically based on what you have imagined that I wrote, even though I tried to clarify to you. I don't know how I can get my point through, so you can understand that I connected organised foreign colonisation / mass migration to Japan with genocide. Because one usually follows the other.
Even an outright military invasion can be less of a threat to a nation, since some conquerors only want to extract resources and tributes without taking over the land by putting their own population there.
There's a discussion around the english words for people who come to a country. Some people are "expats" and some people are "immigrants".
I was talking about "immigrants" rather than "expats".
Of course this dynamic has many facets to it. I've met some people in Thailand who couldn't give a shit about Thai people and just wanted to save 50% on their latte. This is a common "expat" sterotype.
There has been, and still is a lot of "orientalization" of Japan, but almost every immigrant you meet in Japan today has a deep love for Japan in some way. (Also because only the truly dedicated would go to the trouble to be able to stay). So if Japan decided to start allowing more people in I feel like they would all fall more on the immigrant side than the expat side.
There isn’t really any ambiguity about the two terms. That’s a dog whistle by people who want to see racism where there is none.
They usually say something along the lines of “so when black and brown skinned people go to Europe they’re immigrants. But when white people go to Japan they’re called expats?”.
The omitted difference being that most white people going to Japan do not stay permanently.
The japanese also differentiate between 移民 and 駐在員 (expat)
Wow, this comment comes across as extremely nationalistic, sorry to say but to the point of being fascistic (and I’m not one for using this term lightly).
I agree the tone was aggressive but this is arguably a real issue and it's not as simple as it seems at first
Israel as a "Jewish state" is arguably a place that would not exist if they let in unlimited immigration because it would soon be majority not Jewish. I see that's in conflict with the idea that people should be/do whatever they want. I don't see how to reconcile the two sides.
Radiolab had an episode on this issue WRT to Samoa (https://radiolab.org/podcast/americanish-2306) My memory of the episode is the first half they paint the picture of a particular seemingly "racist" local trying to keep non-Samoans from owning any land. Most people are okay with it, then this person whispers in their ear and suddenly they're against it.
In the second half they go over why. The reason being rich non-Samoans would quickly buy up the entire island and there would be no Samoa / Samoan culture anymore. I don't know how to resolve that.
Part of me thinks they Samoans, Jews, Japan, British, Native Americans, etc... should not disallow immigration. It seems anti-democratic, anti-liberal values. On the other hand, something will be lost, something that seems to have value, which is the cultures of the people there currently.
> The reason being rich non-Samoans would quickly buy up the entire island and there would be no Samoa / Samoan culture anymore.
isn't this more of a class (rich vs non-rich) issue than an immigration issue?
> I don't know how to resolve that.
allow only people who live long-term and actually reside there to buy property might be one strategy?
> On the other hand, something will be lost, something that seems to have value, which is the cultures of the people there currently.
its true but its also true many of those cultures most prized traditions come from the intersection of native and foreign creating something new in the first-place... something might be lost but another gained...
--
btw, slight tangent but i think there is also a contradiction with immigration policy in regards to attracting rich foreigners: many countries want them because its supposed that they bring capital/money with them in the hopes of spurring investment and local economy but the flip-side is what you describe where the rich foreigners start owning/dominating things to the detriment of locals... and countries conversely don't want the non-rich to stay long-term because they aren't perceived as high-class/desirable yet they are the ones that work in the 'productive economy' which might help the locals more in the long and short term....i think there is an issue there as well...
> isn't this more of a class (rich vs non-rich) issue than an immigration issue?
That Doesn't really seem to matter if there are few rich Samoans and lots of rich foreigners. Their culture will still disappear if they have no where to collectively live and access to the things the culture cherishes.
> allow only people who live long-term and actually reside there to buy property might be one strategy?
That's one idea. It has the issue that you can't sell your house if you can't find a local to buy it, even if you desperately need the money.
Nationalism was historically the reaction against imperialism. Some empires transformed into nation states, such as Great Britain. Most countries who are independent today are independent because of nationalistic movements against imperialism and colonisation.
Wait, who is talking about colonization? The Royal Navy isn't planning an invasion of Japan; nobody is forcing anything on the country regarding immigration or demographics. The country has chosen to keep immigration low for decades, as is their right. Now they are facing a demographic crisis and could choose to relax those policies to help alleviate population concerns.
Because I want their shit. Their land and what’s under it. Their seas and what it gives me access to. And either I’m going to take it or they’re going to let me share.
This kind of abject “why won’t you leave us alone” only works on people who listen. Not on people who compete. And the people who listen couldn’t compete in the first place.
My country has been colonized by Spain for 333 years, as far as I know my kind did not go poof. We just inherited all the colonizers language and bullshit.
You are most probably the product of the colonisers, ie "your kind" did not exist in your country before being colonised.
Back to Japan, it is not like there is vast spaces of fertile land there that "needs" to be put under plow by colonisers. It is already a very densely populated country.
