The destruction of the Roman Empire isn't something I lament, and yet if present nation-states survive as long as the Roman Empire they will have done exceptionally well. At the same time I don't buy the narrative. It's a bizarre thing to compare modern migration with fleeing armed groups seeking conquest to replace the places they were fleeing.
It's like comparing the average migrant or refugee with ISIS.
> Prior to the migrant crisis throughout Europe, many expected that the migrants would integrate, become part of the normal mass of people, and it'd ultimately be a win-win situation for everybody. That belief was not well supported by history, and ultimately proved to be false.
I've seen nothing to "prove it false", but there's also a very significant difference a rushed an chaotic acceptance of refugees vs. planned migration programs, and either takes time to shake out.
> And in the US today, cities that express an extremely positive attitude towards immigration tend to rapidly express a different view once faced with large numbers of immigrants.
And yet the US managed to successfully do it before. Several of my own ancestors families lived in Brooklyn at a time where it was so full of Scandinavian migrants that it had several Norwegian language newspapers, and my great grandmother lived there a decade without ever learning English because all her neighbours and shopkeepers etc. spoke Norwegian. I've spent a lot of time looking at US censuses because for the sake of genealogy, and the US censuses of that era are astounding for the way whole streets were nothing but immigrants.
Somehow the US is still there, as much as one might joke about the state it is in.
> The most likely outcome is what we're seeing happen in much of Europe - parties that oppose the immigration would rapidly come to power, and end up working to mitigate the damage, and end such a population strategy.
Then they will crater their economies, and soon enough get thrown out of office. People are quick to support anti-immigran rhetoric until it starts hitting their wallet when eg. employers struggle to hire. These anti-immigration parties fortunes tends to be tightly linked to unemployment levels.
Compare Italy to e.g. the UK, where despite the anti refugee rhetoric and historically high immigration, people fleeing the Tory party are not going to the anti-immigrant right-wing parties but to Labour - the UK, unlike Italy, has low unemployment and regular newspaper stories about employers struggling to find workers. Once Italy's population decline bites a bit more, this will change rapidly.
The Goths were not seeking conquest, and were mostly unarmed; the Romans invited them in happily, the political leaders thinking they'd be able to exploit the migrants to their benefit. And both sides actually got along quite well for a while. The problem is that the Romans took in more refugees than the State could sustain, and when Rome found itself unable to continue supplying the Goths, conflict began. Wiki has a summary, at least somewhat reasonable, here. [1]
But you know, I'm not sure this line of discussion is even meaningful. If I convince you the Goths were nothing even remotely like like ISIS, is that going to change your mind on anything? Obviously not. So why bother? What I am curious is what would change your mind.
So if you look at this from my perspective, you're talking about a scenario where a government of a country would be basically endeavoring to replace its own domestic population, with a foreign one, all while somehow presumably trying to maintain some of the value that makes people want to migrate to the country in the first place. I think we could both agree that there's no historic precedent for this, immigration on a far smaller scale has shown a tendency to result in problems, and so on. Yet you seem confident enough in assuming that it might work, to simply assume it. This, to me, is pretty weird!
What, if anything, could ever possibly convince you that such a scenario might not be particularly likely to succeed in anything like a desirable fashion? And, vice versa, how could you sell somebody like me, who is skeptical of such, on it? I'm more than open to the concept, but you'd need a pretty solid argument.
The very start of the background section there points out the inclusion of soldiers. They may not have set out for conquest from the start, but the article you link to go on to point out that the Romans would have been aware that they were taking a significant risk from the outset in allowing a group of that size to enter and stay concentrated, and go on to point out that a lot of them were allowed to or managed to keep their weapons despite not being meant to, and then put in a situation where they starved. To try to compare that to a modern government taking in a number of refugees it can trivially feed, and to then further draw a parallel between a rapid influx of refugees like that with immigration is fundamentally flawed.
> What I am curious is what would change your mind.
A line of argumentation that isn't based in tropes usually used by far-right extremist racists. I'm not saying that is your motivation, because I can not tell, but what I can tell is that those are the circles I see these arguments used by. When they are then further based in characterisations about failure I don't recognise from what I have seen myself, then you have provided nothing to give me any reason to trust any of what you've said.
When you now start talking about replacement, you're playing further into that.
I'm an immigrant myself, and I've seen enough variety between immigrant groups that the moment someone starts treating all immigration the same, and conflating handling of refugees and immigrants, that suggests to me someone who has preconceived notions and is coming at it with an agenda.
> I think we could both agree that there's no historic precedent for this
No, we most certainly would not. I pointed out the US to you as an obvious example. I find it funny that you flat out ignored that I've already pointed it out.
> Yet you seem confident enough in assuming that it might work, to simply assume it. This, to me, is pretty weird!
Define "work". I'm confident there will be all kinds of problems. I'm also confident it will happen, because, I'm even more confident that the alternative is a level of economic and societal collapse that will lead to violently overthrown governments, so I see it as entirely moot whether it will go smoothly or not. People will make it happen and manage the results because the alternative is turning into a third-world country.
So you're just not only going to double down the Goth's "setting out for conquest", but now also starting to add in a healthy sprinkling of ad hominem? Ok.
It's like comparing the average migrant or refugee with ISIS.
> Prior to the migrant crisis throughout Europe, many expected that the migrants would integrate, become part of the normal mass of people, and it'd ultimately be a win-win situation for everybody. That belief was not well supported by history, and ultimately proved to be false.
I've seen nothing to "prove it false", but there's also a very significant difference a rushed an chaotic acceptance of refugees vs. planned migration programs, and either takes time to shake out.
> And in the US today, cities that express an extremely positive attitude towards immigration tend to rapidly express a different view once faced with large numbers of immigrants.
And yet the US managed to successfully do it before. Several of my own ancestors families lived in Brooklyn at a time where it was so full of Scandinavian migrants that it had several Norwegian language newspapers, and my great grandmother lived there a decade without ever learning English because all her neighbours and shopkeepers etc. spoke Norwegian. I've spent a lot of time looking at US censuses because for the sake of genealogy, and the US censuses of that era are astounding for the way whole streets were nothing but immigrants.
Somehow the US is still there, as much as one might joke about the state it is in.
> The most likely outcome is what we're seeing happen in much of Europe - parties that oppose the immigration would rapidly come to power, and end up working to mitigate the damage, and end such a population strategy.
Then they will crater their economies, and soon enough get thrown out of office. People are quick to support anti-immigran rhetoric until it starts hitting their wallet when eg. employers struggle to hire. These anti-immigration parties fortunes tends to be tightly linked to unemployment levels.
Compare Italy to e.g. the UK, where despite the anti refugee rhetoric and historically high immigration, people fleeing the Tory party are not going to the anti-immigrant right-wing parties but to Labour - the UK, unlike Italy, has low unemployment and regular newspaper stories about employers struggling to find workers. Once Italy's population decline bites a bit more, this will change rapidly.