I linked that page because the iceberg metaphor is extremely useful. The rest of the page is feeler slop. It recognizes that cultural differences are substantive (e.g. concepts of fairness) and not only superficial (e.g. food). But it takes it as axiomatic that mixing those differences necessarily is a good thing.

Of course we don't have to take it on faith that mixing cultures is a good thing, we can look at actual results. For example, more than 200 years after they immigrated to the U.S. in large numbers, Dutch Americans are still more successful and orderly along many dimensions even compared to neighboring German Americans. For example, Dutch Americans, along with Mormons, were the two groups of Republicans to vote strongly against Trump in the 2016 primary: https://michaeljdouma.com/2019/05/19/dutch-americans-in-alie....

If you don't care about superficial elements of culture (food, movies), cultural influence from immigrants has made almost no positive impact on American culture. The most functional and orderly communities in the country in 1725 were New England Purtians, and the places populated by their descendants remain so in 2025.

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jacquesm a day ago | parent [-]

> I linked that page because the iceberg metaphor is extremely useful.

Indeed it is. But remarkably, it serves mostly to show why what you are writing is simply not true.

> The rest of the page is feeler slop.

You mean the bits you didn't bother to read before you linked the page? Or just the bits that you don't like?

> It recognizes that cultural differences are substantive (e.g. concepts of fairness) and not only superficial (e.g. food).

And this is news how?

> But it takes it as axiomatic that mixing those differences necessarily is a good thing.

Which indeed it is.

> Of course we don't have to take it on faith that mixing cultures is a good thing, we can look at actual results. For example, more than 200 years after they immigrated to the U.S. in large numbers, Dutch Americans are still more successful and orderly along many dimensions even compared to neighboring German Americans.

This is absolutely hilarious. Dutch Americans went to America not because they were so orderly or successful, they went there because there either was money to be made or because they were - case in point - deported. The same for many English and Irish people that made it to the early USA. My very high flying and orderly lawyer decided to figure out his ancestry and ended up at some criminal that had picked the boat instead of the gallows.

> For example, Dutch Americans, along with Mormons, were the two groups of Republicans to vote strongly against Trump in the 2016 primary: https://michaeljdouma.com/2019/05/19/dutch-americans-in-alie....

That's by a guy whose ancestors came from Friesland, arguably the most nationalistic of all of NL, but along the lines of how Catalans or Basques see their position in Spain. They cling to their history due to endless suppression of the Frisians by the Dutch (at the time, North Holland and South Holland), not unlike what the UK did to the Irish but a bit less brutal (usually, anyway). But fine, let's look at what he wrote instead of at who he is and what his ancestorship is.

He mostly argues that the Dutch have managed to set themselves apart from other groups of immigrants by staying true to their roots, but also that they have since assimilated and that those communities are now more mixed.

I know a bunch of people like that. Family members that emigrated long ago, you may have heard of them, they're amongst the wealthiest in the United States. They are no longer connected to the Netherlands in any practical way, the only thing that still links them is their last name, and a vague recollection that they had some Dutch ancestry. Their story is fairly unique, but there are many stories that are much more mundane without such insane commercial success. If not for their last names you wouldn't be able to tell their ancestry at all.

And sure, rural towns that were populated or founded by immigrants from one group tend to keep some of their roots alive, possibly as some kind of time capsule. Just like the Dutch Afrikaners, to name one weird offshoot of Dutch colonialism. Nothing to be proud of, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, the cities are the melting pots, and that's where far more people live of all kinds of ancestry than in the rural country side. That's also where the fear of the other tends to be a lot lower, simply because there are more others and it is much easier to live together because it is normalized. I employed the only non-white guy on an Island in Canada and I've seen up close how those former Dutch (and German) ancestors dealt with the opportunity to get up close and personal with other cultures. Hint: not very well. So spare me the great advantages of those orderly people who once upon a time came across the Atlantic to colonize the new land. They are no different than anybody else, and with a little luck their little islands are as racist as they come.

> If you don't care about superficial elements of culture (food, movies), cultural influence from immigrants has made almost no positive impact on American culture.

What???

> The most functional and orderly communities in the country in 1725 were New England Purtians [sic], and the places populated by their descendants remain so in 2025.

Yes, who would have thought that having a massive head start in money and education would lead to a lasting advantage over time? Where do you think the term 'old money' comes from? Immigrants as a rule, especially undocumented ones are not going to be hobnobbing with the wealthy New England old money descendants to pick up the finer points of dining table behavior or how to function in a social climate different than the one they came from. There are some exceptions but let's not kid each other here. But there is a very good chance that the UBO of their presence in the USA is exactly that group of descendants of those New England Puritans, and not the immigrants. And that allows you in turn to point at them as failures, rather than as the exploited.

Really man, you've just been schooled in a basic principle of law, your stated profession by a foreigner. That's roughly in line with you having to explain to me what RMS power stands for or how to set up a for loop in C.

You then deflect to a bunch of utter tripe about the country that I'm from, on which you have projected a whole bunch of your own feelings which are completely disconnected from reality on the ground. Now you're pulling in the end result of a couple of hundred years of head start by the first wave of immigrants as a proof point that other cultures are at best a neutral or very slightly positive contribution, if not the source of many negatives.

Maybe take a breather and think this over, you are not exactly anonymous on here and you have a real world reputation to consider.

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rayiner a day ago | parent [-]

> So spare me the great advantages of those orderly people who once upon a time came across the Atlantic to colonize the new land. They are no different than anybody else, and with a little luck their little islands are as racist as they come.

The Dutch built multiple advanced societies on three different continents (their homeland, the Americas, and South Africa) whilst Bangladeshis have not succeeded in building any. I care a lot more about how they did that--and not breaking whatever cultural magic is responsible--than about how nice they are to foreigners.

You seem to take Dutch (or American) culture for granted. I think of it as a fragile local optimum and that we should be terrified that immigration will cause regression to the global cultural mean.

> Yes, who would have thought that having a massive head start in money and education would lead to a lasting advantage over time? Where do you think the term 'old money' comes from?

The head start doesn't count for much. If it did, Mexico would be richer than Massachusetts. Utah was populated by Mormons fleeing religious persecution more than 200 years after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony, but its median income is only 6% behind.

Regardless, it's not a money thing. Italian Americans, for example, overtook English Americans in income long ago. New Jersey has a similar median income to Massachusetts. But Massachusetts is a far better state than New Jersey on most social metrics.

> But there is a very good chance that the UBO of their presence in the USA is exactly that group of descendants of those New England Puritans, and not the immigrants. And that allows you in turn to point at them as failures, rather than as the exploited.

This is a third-world way of thinking. Societies get rich by creating the social and legal conditions that allow building things and running businesses, not by exploiting people. That's why culture matters so much for prosperity.

	▲	jacquesm a day ago \| parent [-]
		The main reason why the Dutch do what they do is because: - it takes less than 2 hours by car in any direction to be abroad where they speak a different language - NL has been overrun historically by (not in any particular order) the Romans, the French, the Spanish, the Germans and has been in long and complicated wars with all of these, and in many cases more than once. - In spite of being tiny what you know as 'the Dutch' is internally extremely fragmented, there are at least 10 different cultures, this isn't so much a country as it is a bunch of mini countries in a trenchcoat, with the dividing lines not being so much geographical as cultural. - Trade. You can't really do much here other than think and grow potatoes and beets. Other than some natural gas in the North we have no natural resources worth mentioning, though at some point we had some coal mining in the Southernmost area. So trade it is and in the past trade meant shipbuilding. - Theft. Slavery. Colonies. Exploitation. NL absolutely excelled at all of those at some point in the past. Bangladeshi's not being able to emulate the Dutch in that sense should not come as a surprise: we were small but absolutely ruthless in war and in trade at a time when the cards in the world were being shuffled. We did not suffer from the resource curse and very early realized that religion is a personal thing and so limited the amount of influence that the various religions had here. And finally, science was adopted wholesale because it was good for business. Those factors, as well as a culture steeped in work just to keep the country in existence (without all that work it would simply disappear and become a river delta again) are where the main differences with a place like Bangladesh lie, and I don't doubt that the potential for doing this is present in many places that are not doing well today. At the same time: the current generation of Dutch people are losing sight of all of this, they take it all for granted and it's theirs to lose. Abroad in those colonies the Dutch have been horrendous and the amount of wealth plundered (from places like Bangladesh) is off the scale, the only countries that can compete are England, Portugal and Spain, and Belgium to some degree as well and that's not a pretty story either. This is a small country that is fabulously wealthy that has been built on a lake of blood. And because the blood wasn't spilled here we can pretend that we are the good guys but make no mistake, we pretty much invented genocide and have committed war crimes that we are proud enough of that the perpetrators have major streets named after themselves. We more or less invented externalization. So so much for 'Societies get rich by creating the social and legal conditions that allow building things and running businesses, not by exploiting people.' This is not the country you want as an example for that statement.