Immigration: the strategic picture

you will be bringing in a cloud of third-world dysfunction that makes these things more likely.

So, in aggregate, yes. You are expanding the influence of their culture, at the expense of ours.

Probably true. But there again, it’s likely that Sergei and Yulia Skripal thought they were safe from poisoning…

But they weren't, Gemany's issue was a feeling of hopelessness which was seized on by Hitler in the very common nationalist vote winner. 
Germany should be great, its Jews fault you are all ailing. 

Very many countries have fallen into this trap. Look at us now, we are doing badly and its been going on for a number of years. Nationalistic leaders are using the same levers to gain power, this time its immigrants fault that schools are falling down, its queer people ruining the country. 

Basically its not OUR fault, its NEVER OUR fault. 

In defence of Orac's position, if enough Ukrainian's came here they would significantly change our culture. We would become a Russia loathing country and far more Christian religious.
That is why I say its about the number, not the type. 

I fear for the future. And bear with me, because what I am about to say is relevant to immigration and the refugee crisis.

Climate stability is something we have only really had for the last 12,000 years or so during which time agriculture and animal husbandry has developed, both essential for creating the food surplus necessary for the development of civilisation. It is not unreasonable to infer that the development of the reliable agriculture necessary for civilisation to develop was only really made possible by that stable climate.

We are now changing the climate and raising global temperatures far faster than food chains can adapt to. Most of our agriculture, and the animals we rear which also depend upon it, rely heavily on a dozen or so staple products like wheat, maize and rice. We risk tipping the climate past a point where the production of most of these could collapse on a global scale. That could result in global famine. And literally billions of potentially starving refugees on the move. There could be millions in small boats, not thousands. And as a nation unable to feed itself even if our own agriculture remains productive, with our own people going hungry and possibly starving, hearts will harden to extreme extents. Politics would likely result in the rise of far right extremists. We'd likely end up sinking the boats to try and avoid being overwhelmed.

When it comes to the refugee crisis, if food supply collapses we ain't seen nothing yet.

In the shorter term of course we can avoid creating more refugees by resisting the temptation of going into other countries and fucking them up even more than they were before.

And any aid to make the source of today's refugees places safe for them to stay in needs to be better targeted. We should certainly not be supplying arms to such places, nor should we be giving aid to corrupt governments or those spending money on arms. We should have NGO's funded by our aid on the ground, in control of where this aid money is spent, with an emphasis on infrastructure spending and business investment to facilitate the building of  functioning and more prosperous societies. 

Well yes but I feel that's comparing apples with oranges somewhat and as you say it's never going to happen.

So yes, transferring the entire population of another country to this one would bring all of that country's problems with them (barring those relating to local environmental factors).

However this doesn't challenge my assertion that refugees aren't going to recreate the problems that they fled from or that such things are a result of their culture.

Like I said, an influx of Ukrainian refugees didn't see lots of mini Putin's attacking Ukrainians. Nor do I see how Ukrainian cultural practices led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Yes - and this is the finest level of social destruction one could reasonably expect - a general loss of trust. If the societies are significantly different, you can also expect influence competition, ghetto-isation and compromise to be weakened. In the case of politically hostile societies being forced on unwilling communities (as we have seen in the UK), then all this is amplified. The solution so far has been to up the ante to force people from one group to shut up about their disagreement.

My sense is that the amount of bad will that has been backed up by just forcing the issue again and again is now colossal.