Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

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Arioch
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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

boldilocks wrote:Well, the third world is pretty rife with populations who have both a high reproductive rate and a history of ethnic violence, and yet 1st world societies (at least the european/american ones) don't seem too worried about importing them at rates never seen before in history, so there is some contemporary evidence of this happening.
The humans in third world countries are the same species as those in first world countries, so we're not really talking about the same thing. Europe is allowing immigrants mainly because it needs the labor (since many Europeans have decided to stop having babies)... though I think they are starting to see that mass immigration without cultural assimilation can have detrimental effects to society. But Loroi are a totally different species; they're not just blue humans with a weird culture. In the same time it takes 100 humans to produce 50 adult children, 100 Loroi can produce 224.
Werra wrote:Loroi get children at 10. Do any of the characters still have their only slightly older mums? With their lifespan it could even be Stillstorm.
Yes, Tempo's mother is only about 10 years older than she is. Her family is a good example of how the human concept of generational roles can break down when applied to the Loroi. Tempo's mother and Tempo's own first daughter are each about 10 years apart, and have a kind of sisterly relationship. At the start of the war, there was a huge baby boom as the reproductive restrictions were eased, and so Tempo has a sister, a second daughter, a granddaughter, and a great granddaughter who were all born at about the same time (now about age 24).

Stillstorm is an example of the opposite extreme; she's the second daughter of a much older mother, and so Stillstorm's mother and older sister were roughly the same age from her point of view, and were sort of indistinguishable in terms of relationship from various older aunts and other relatives.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arent »

Arioch wrote:Europe is allowing immigrants mainly because it needs the labor (since many Europeans have decided to stop having babies)
The political parties just fear bad press. Their political decisions are not dictated by what makes sense, but that they fear pictures of evil soldiers/police turning back crying children. There is no attempt to attract immigrants with the necessary skills and the illegal immigrants are entirely unsuited for the jobs needed.

By the way, how is the political system of the Loroi organized? Just a dictatorship? This has probably been discussed before, but it always stuck me as weird that highly advanced societies would still organize as unstable republics or dictatorships.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Arent wrote:
Arioch wrote:Europe is allowing immigrants mainly because it needs the labor (since many Europeans have decided to stop having babies)
The political parties just fear bad press. Their political decisions are not dictated by what makes sense, but that they fear pictures of evil soldiers/police turning back crying children. There is no attempt to attract immigrants with the necessary skills and the illegal immigrants are entirely unsuited for the jobs needed.
I think that's true in the recent mass exodus from the Middle East and North Africa, but in the previous era of immigration I think it was more about the need for cheap labor.
Arent wrote:By the way, how is the political system of the Loroi organized? Just a dictatorship? This has probably been discussed before, but it always stuck me as weird that highly advanced societies would still organize as unstable republics or dictatorships.
It's sort of a military oligarchy. While the Azerein has significant executive power, she is elected and requires the support of the military bureaucracy to be effective, so she doesn't have to engage in all the same internal shenanigans that many modern Earth military dictators did to stay in power. And while a military government can be inflexible, it does encourage a certain element of meritocracy... at least, then they're really fighting.

Are republics inherently unstable? They're the most stable form of democracy that I'm aware of.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I suppose some of it comes down to whether people are merely cogs in the machine to be expended and discarded as needed, or if they have any inherent value as an end in their own right. (It's ironic that anti-immigrant sentiment seems to hold that the immigrants are taking all the jobs, and that they are not useful for anything simultaneously.)

I'd suspect that at the tech level Humanity is at in the story, if the TCA desperately needed a rapid influx of population, and had the infrastructure to support the rapid influx, they'd pull a page from the Umiak's book or Plan B from Interstellar, and start employing artificial wombs. Sure there would be some people who protest and complain, but if it's a real do or die need, I'm not sure that sort of thing would stop anyone.

Although, if memory serves, a lack of manpower isn't exactly the bottleneck in the TCA or the Loroi Union. Rather it's more of a materials bottleneck. The Loroi have relaxed breeding restrictions, but they're not really to the point where they're hurting for fresh warriors. A lack of experienced warriors, maybe, but they still have the untapped option of exploiting the civilian population for numbers overall.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Angle »

boldilocks wrote:
Arioch wrote:I think human medical technology in 2160 is easily up to the task of figuring out Loroi in vitro fertilization... but doing so would seem to me to be a little nuts. The Loroi are a hyper-reproductive gene-tailored warrior species with a long history of uncontrolled population growth and internal strife... why would anyone deliberately open this Pandora's box inside their own society by giving them unlimited capability to reproduce?
Well, the third world is pretty rife with populations who have both a high reproductive rate and a history of ethnic violence, and yet 1st world societies (at least the european/american ones) don't seem too worried about importing them at rates never seen before in history, so there is some contemporary evidence of this happening.
Eh, that describes European populations until fairly recently. I myself am of italian descent - my dad has like a million siblings, but I only have one, and I'm not sure if I'm ever going to have children. Whatever trends are at play here, they seem perfectly capable of affecting immigrants within a generation or two.

Of course, none of that applies to Loroi, who, yes, are aliens, and ones quite likely to experience significant difficulty integrating into human society. Of course, with 140~ years of advancement in social sciences, it's entirely possible that that problem could be easily solvable? Though, again, probably not the story that Arioch wants to tell - advanced social sciences likely make for much poorer space opera than advanced spaceships and laser beams. ;)

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arent »

Arioch wrote: It's sort of a military oligarchy. While the Azerein has significant executive power, she is elected and requires the support of the military bureaucracy to be effective, so she doesn't have to engage in all the same internal shenanigans that many modern Earth military dictators did to stay in power. And while a military government can be inflexible, it does encourage a certain element of meritocracy... at least, then they're really fighting.
It's always a little difficult to come up with 'high tech' governments. In the case of technology, it's a little easier, you just say they have bigger, faster ships, can time travel or have biotechnology. But when it comes to society, it's difficult to imagine a credible, strictly more 'advanced' society.
Arioch wrote:Are republics inherently unstable? They're the most stable form of democracy that I'm aware of.
Well, that's what Plato said 2000 years ago. I do to a certain extend agree with him. Political parties tend to split the citizens into camps and turn them against each other.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arioch »

Arent wrote:Well, that's what Plato said 2000 years ago. I do to a certain extend agree with him. Political parties tend to split the citizens into camps and turn them against each other.
Adversarial systems have drawbacks, especially when taken to extremes, but competition is one way to keep systems working instead of stagnating.

What do you see as a stable form of government?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Angle »

Arent wrote:
Arioch wrote:Are republics inherently unstable? They're the most stable form of democracy that I'm aware of.
Well, that's what Plato said 2000 years ago. I do to a certain extend agree with him. Political parties tend to split the citizens into camps and turn them against each other.
Eh, sure, but you get similar problems in monarchies and the like. I've heard a convincing argument that it actually has to do with "elite" infighting. In that people would normally be pretty happy to just go along with most things, but once you have a portion of the "elite" who feel ambitious but shorted, they will naturally fan the flames of whatever disagreements exist in an effort to gain power. If its a democracy this means political parties, if it's not a democracy this means some other form of rebellion - see the French and Russian revolutions, for example. So, if this is true it suggests that democracies would be more stable because they can better channel these forces into something more productive and less destructive. See:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/12/b ... ar-cycles/
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/02/b ... f-discord/

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

icekatze wrote:(It's ironic that anti-immigrant sentiment seems to hold that the immigrants are taking all the jobs, and that they are not useful for anything simultaneously.)
That's actually not ironic, because both are simultaneously true. The importation of labor is a direct attack on the wage levels of the working and middle class.
Multi-ethnic labor forces also find it more difficult to organize into unions, so labor dispute outcomes become more favorable to the capitalist class.
In addition, third world immigration in europe has been an economic burden in the first-generation and is turning out to be an even greater economic burden for the second generation, and that burden is borne by the middle and working class as well, due to how their social welfare systems are structured. And those immigrants who don't work will still exists as potential workers, which means they still have a depressive effect on wages.
This means that the existence of these immigrant populations hit the working and middle class from both ends, economically speaking.
In this way, the indigenous population can be angry by pointing first at the immigrant labor decreasing their labor prospects and simultaneously point at the other part of the immigrating population increasing their welfare state costs while contributing nothing.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

Ok, so Loroi won't be flooding into the open arms of human territories once the war ends.

But what about humans seeking to migrate to Loroi worlds? Would they be allowed to, would/could they be useful?

Immigration
SpoilerShow
icekatze wrote: You might be surprised at how much an influence peoples' environment has on their behavior.
The general heritability of polygenic traits is actually around 80%. In addition consider that the childrens genes are already actively shaping the environment thanks to the parental generation providing it.
Which isn't even important imo, since european age brackets are well known. Why would migrants that come for wealth switch their culture if they know that in 30 years their people make up sizeable parts of the populace?
Fun fact: Berlin has a shortage of german children. In some schools 90+% of the children do not speak German as a primary language. Not new arrivals, 3th or 4th generation.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Arent »

Arioch wrote: Adversarial systems have drawbacks, especially when taken to extremes, but competition is one way to keep systems working instead of stagnating.

What do you see as a stable form of government?
I like Platos ideas of an actual aristocracy & also the 'imperial exam' in ancient china. Basically, the citizens took part in a competition, which had both martial (archery, horseback riding) and academic (mathematics, calligraphy etc.) subjects.

In fact, I wrote a fantasy story in which the society of the main characters is a combination of direct democracy and competition-based aristocracy similar to the 'imperial exam' ;)
Angle wrote:I've heard a convincing argument that it actually has to do with "elite" infighting. In that people would normally be pretty happy to just go along with most things, but once you have a portion of the "elite" who feel ambitious but shorted, they will naturally fan the flames of whatever disagreements exist in an effort to gain power.
Yes, I also think this competition is not necessarily bad, it just has to be resolved in such a way that it does not endanger the state itself. Right now, the competition between political parties is often not about good ideas and ability, but instead about defamation of the political opponent.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by kiwi »

I think it's fair to say that a major weakness of democracy is that just because you voted for it doesn't mean it'll happen.

Consider Brexit: even if someone is for, against or ambivalent, they probably agree that it would be nice if the British Parliament hadn't been massively tied up with it for the last 3 years.

Consider Greece: the Syriza party campaigned a few years ago on what might be called a 'no austerity' policy. People voted them in. The European central bank (or whatever it's called) then said 'no austerity, no money.' And lo, there was austerity.

--------------------------------------

Re migration: one very important thing to remember is that migrants buy stuff. Things like food and clothes and cars and trips to the movies. If they have children then that's a whole lot more spending and integration into the community. It's not a zero sum game. But if someone campaigns on 'migrants take your jobs' they mysteriously fail to mention this fact.

Re 'ghettos': that's a very loaded term. Before you complain "oh, those <insert ethnic group here> all clump together and speak strange languages and eat strange food," just think "what would I do in their place?"

I moved to a non-English speaking country for a few years, and it was really nice to be able to find a locksmith or a bank teller or a hairdresser or whatever who spoke my language. I could relax for a bit (turns out I'm not good at learning languages). And I made friends who also spoke English. (Note, I was part of an 'expat community' rather than a 'ghetto' because a) I was earning enough money to live in a nice little town and b) I'm white.) So what I did was to form a little English speaking bubble just like many people complain about. But what I also did - and I think we can respectfully ask the immigrants in our communities to do as well - is at least try to learn the language, and learn some of the customs, and acknowledge that we are living in a host country and just because something's different doesn't mean it's wrong.

If you fear some kind of demographic overtaking, I suggest that you campaign now for strong legal protections for those of differing faiths, genders, sexual proclivities (e.g. not criminalising premarital sex) etc. That way, when things do change there are protections for you already in place.

----------------------------

To lurch back towards the alleged topic, immigrating to a Loroi settlement might be pretty tough because (at least based on what we've seen so far) you can't learn to be telepathic. The local service providers (of whatever stripe) might be uncomfortable speaking to you and/or always think you're out to scam them. I think Arioch has indicated that most recent Loroi births have been allocated to the military and I guess then that the civilian population will skew a little older.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

kiwi wrote:Re migration: one very important thing to remember is that migrants buy stuff. Things like food and clothes and cars and trips to the movies. If they have children then that's a whole lot more spending and integration into the community. It's not a zero sum game. But if someone campaigns on 'migrants take your jobs' they mysteriously fail to mention this fact.
That's good for the capitalist class, but since most 3rd world immigrants aren't actually gainfully employed it just means that the working and middle class are paying taxes that go to immigrants that then go to buy products, causing the increased demand for those products to increase the price for the working and middle class. In effect, this again hits them coming and going.
kiwi wrote:Re 'ghettos': that's a very loaded term. Before you complain "oh, those <insert ethnic group here> all clump together and speak strange languages and eat strange food," just think "what would I do in their place?"
Well, most whites can't do that because it's expressly prohibited by law and socially prohibited through repression in western countries, while non-white ethnic groups are encouraged to do so and face no legal problems for doing so.
kiwi wrote:I moved to a non-English speaking country for a few years, and it was really nice to be able to find a locksmith or a bank teller or a hairdresser or whatever who spoke my language. I could relax for a bit (turns out I'm not good at learning languages). And I made friends who also spoke English. (Note, I was part of an 'expat community' rather than a 'ghetto' because a) I was earning enough money to live in a nice little town and b) I'm white.) So what I did was to form a little English speaking bubble just like many people complain about. But what I also did - and I think we can respectfully ask the immigrants in our communities to do as well - is at least try to learn the language, and learn some of the customs, and acknowledge that we are living in a host country and just because something's different doesn't mean it's wrong.
Why should they care to learn the language, if those who speak it are conjectured to be a minority eventually anyway?
kiwi wrote:If you fear some kind of demographic overtaking, I suggest that you campaign now for strong legal protections for those of differing faiths, genders, sexual proclivities (e.g. not criminalising premarital sex) etc. That way, when things do change there are protections for you already in place.
Those protections are currently in place but have, like in the US, been explicitly denied whites. (And the supreme court has upheld this legal interpretation in terms of, for example, college admissions.) And going by the present state of politics that only seems likely to worsen if you are white. It seems far more workable to have a middle class/working class campaign for the ending of immigration and the repatriation of those immigrant populations that are already here and ethnically foreign. The de-criminalization of premarital sex has had no positive impact on the european population growth, so I'm not sure why you would suggest that. In fact, looking at the implementation of the liberal policies that you mention, every single last one of has been implemented in western nations, and in every single western nation the indigenous population has moved towards negative population growth.
Though, interestingly, that negative population growth is not universal, at least not in the united states. Right-wing / conservative whites are actually reproducing, but left-wing progressive whites are collapsing. As such, the future of western politics seem to be one in which it will be white right-wingers (a mix of germans anglos and italians) vs non-white left-wingers (mainly hispanics). (With a tiny minority of each population crossing between political isles.) It will be a turbulent time, luckily I won't be alive to see it.
kiwi wrote:To lurch back towards the alleged topic, immigrating to a Loroi settlement might be pretty tough because (at least based on what we've seen so far) you can't learn to be telepathic. The local service providers (of whatever stripe) might be uncomfortable speaking to you and/or always think you're out to scam them. I think Arioch has indicated that most recent Loroi births have been allocated to the military and I guess then that the civilian population will skew a little older.
Sounds like those Loroi need to check their telepathic privilege and stop it with these anti-human bigotries.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by cacambo43 »

kiwi wrote:Re 'ghettos': that's a very loaded term. Before you complain "oh, those <insert ethnic group here> all clump together and speak strange languages and eat strange food," just think "what would I do in their place?"

... and I think we can respectfully ask the immigrants in our communities to do as well - is at least try to learn the language, and learn some of the customs, and acknowledge that we are living in a host country and just because something's different doesn't mean it's wrong.
Which they by and large DO, despite sound bites and social media shares to the contrary. Just because someone is speaking another language around you doesn't mean they don't know your language too. This is especially true of the 2nd and 3rd generations. Immigrants (legal an otherwise) are statistically less likely to be a burden to "the state" than citizens/born-heres.
kiwi wrote: If you fear some kind of demographic overtaking, I suggest that you campaign now for strong legal protections for those of differing faiths, genders, sexual proclivities (e.g. not criminalising premarital sex) etc. That way, when things do change there are protections for you already in place.
Right. I don't care what cultural or linguistic values you bring to this country, as long as you are working to better the society and keep moving it to a fair and just democracy for all to and uphold the law and values of the Constitution - including ALL the amendments. (And yes, I know that interpretation is always going to be a bone of contention, but the current administration and its enablers aside, at least we generally have had a basic set of facts and baseline government we can agree on here in the USA.)

CJSF
----------------------------

To lurch back towards the alleged topic, immigrating to a Loroi settlement might be pretty tough because (at least based on what we've seen so far) you can't learn to be telepathic. The local service providers (of whatever stripe) might be uncomfortable speaking to you and/or always think you're out to scam them. I think Arioch has indicated that most recent Loroi births have been allocated to the military and I guess then that the civilian population will skew a little older.[/quote]

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

cacambo43 wrote:Which they by and large DO, despite sound bites and social media shares to the contrary. Just because someone is speaking another language around you doesn't mean they don't know your language too. This is especially true of the 2nd and 3rd generations. Immigrants (legal an otherwise) are statistically less likely to be a burden to "the state" than citizens/born-heres.
That's certainly not the case in my country. Here, both 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants are a burden on the welfare state, in that they are taking more out of the system than they are putting in, and I am not aware of any 1st world nation where that is not the case.
cacambo43 wrote:Right. I don't care what cultural or linguistic values you bring to this country, as long as you are working to better the society and keep moving it to a fair and just democracy for all to and uphold the law and values of the Constitution - including ALL the amendments. (And yes, I know that interpretation is always going to be a bone of contention, but the current administration and its enablers aside, at least we generally have had a basic set of facts and baseline government we can agree on here in the USA.)
Why should non-white immigrants care about laws made by white people for white people? I think you are making an unfair demand here, that your way of organizing your society is the one best suited to these immigrants. And your statement about bettering society reveals your bias. These immigrants may well prefer the new society they're building, that they improve your society by ignoring the law and values of the constitution.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

cacambo43 wrote:Which they by and large DO, despite sound bites and social media shares to the contrary. Just because someone is speaking another language around you doesn't mean they don't know your language too.
That's not the case everywhere. I live in an area with lots of arabs. Many have trouble speaking the language, some can't even understand German well. I'm not talking about fresh migrants here, it's often a problem with the women. Old women who brought up their children in this country can hardly speak German or navigate German society. That's what happens if you live your life either behind closed doors or under a hood, obedient to your husband.
cacambo43 wrote:This is especially true of the 2nd and 3rd generations. Immigrants (legal an otherwise) are statistically less likely to be a burden to "the state" than citizens/born-heres.
Sorry, but that's wrong. Police, courts and prisons are mostly kept busy by immigrants or their descendants. The trick is that not all immigrants are equally bad or even bad at all. East Asians, Slavs and inner european migrants pretty up the numbers massively, while north african/arabic migrants do commit far more crimes on average.
cacambo43 wrote: Right. I don't care what cultural or linguistic values you bring to this country, as long as you are working to better the society and keep moving it to a fair and just democracy for all to and uphold the law and values of the Constitution - including ALL the amendments.
It's not working in Europe. I can tell you that much.
boldilocks wrote: I think you are making an unfair demand here, that your way of organizing your society is the one best suited to these immigrants.
Fully agree. It presupposes that our way of life is so superiour that all the brown people are just waiting for a chance to throw away their own values.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

Werra wrote:
boldilocks wrote: I think you are making an unfair demand here, that your way of organizing your society is the one best suited to these immigrants.
Fully agree. It presupposes that our way of life is so superiour that all the brown people are just waiting for a chance to throw away their own values.
Exactly. There's a weird sort of moral superiority among neo-liberals that leads to the sense that those who move into what are actually becoming more like economic zones than nations would have or should have any kind of loyalty or love for the philosophical, cultural and legal institutions and norms of those economic zone.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

I think this is a perfect time to point out the classic, textbook example of authoritarian propaganda that's increasingly at work in the world. First, create a crisis. Second, blame someone else for it. Third, profit. Works all the gorram time.

Even though, statistically, immigration into the US is at a historic low, and immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born people, the authoritarian base here is absolutely convinced that we're at a historic crisis point from the increasing waves of incoming people. (Meanwhile, white collar crooks continue to embezzle millions at a time and get a slap on the wrist at worst.)

You can look back at the history of immigrant groups, like the Chinese when they were building the transcontinental railroad, or the Irish, when they were fleeing starvation in a country that was at the time a net exporter of food. The arguments against them sound exactly the same.

But I digress... This is supposed to be the Loroi question and answer thread. From what I recall of earlier threads, rules and restrictions on the newer Loroi colony worlds are a bit more relaxed than the older homeworlds. I agree that humans would have a rough time living on a largely Loroi world, and probably would be avoided by the native populace, but if the world already has a population of other union members, like Barsam or Neridi, I think that humans could at very least fit in there. There might even be a larger percentage (in the same way that 2% is larger than 1%) of the Loroi population that enjoys the company of outsiders.

Sure, the older, more traditional Loroi might scoff at the youngsters these days and their cell phones and tattoos human friends, but I'd imagine they'd find a way to get along eventually.

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by Werra »

What makes us so certain that the young Loroi will be the open minded ones? Aren't the younglings pumped full of propaganda and hadn't had the older ones centuries of time to make their own peacetime experiences with aliens?

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Re: Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

Post by boldilocks »

icekatze wrote: Even though, statistically, immigration into the US is at a historic low, and immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born people, the authoritarian base here is absolutely convinced that we're at a historic crisis point from the increasing waves of incoming people. (Meanwhile, white collar crooks continue to embezzle millions at a time and get a slap on the wrist at worst.)
Both of these facts are incorrect. Immigration is higher in the united states than at any previous time (a million immigrants a year for the last 20 years, the only comparative numbers pre-1960 was during the industrial revolution), and they only commit fewer crimes if you compare them to blacks and hispanics.
icekatze wrote:You can look back at the history of immigrant groups, like the Chinese when they were building the transcontinental railroad, or the Irish, when they were fleeing starvation in a country that was at the time a net exporter of food. The arguments against them sound exactly the same.
Actually there were distinct differences in the arguments made, but one thing in common was that their presence was disruptive to existing communities, which was not an unjustified complaint then, nor is it an unjustified complaint now (it's also illegal these days to create covenant communities or otherwise attempt to maintain your ethnic or cultural neighborhoods).
icekatze wrote:But I digress... This is supposed to be the Loroi question and answer thread. From what I recall of earlier threads, rules and restrictions on the newer Loroi colony worlds are a bit more relaxed than the older homeworlds. I agree that humans would have a rough time living on a largely Loroi world, and probably would be avoided by the native populace, but if the world already has a population of other union members, like Barsam or Neridi, I think that humans could at very least fit in there.
I think the existence of "invisible people" might be very unnerving for the loroi.

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