Here's an attempt to steelman just one of the things you bring up: the great replacement theory.

The United States, like many developed nations, is experiencing a fertility crisis: it doesn't produce enough families and resulting children to sustain it's current population.

The US could take steps to address the underlying problems that result in declining fertility for it's current population, but it's unlikely to do so for several reasons that all boil down to political realities where the people that are most incentivized to vote (retired people who earn social security) would probably bear the brunt of the (significant) costs of such solutions. See the idea of "concentrated benefits, diffuse costs".

So instead the US uses immigration to fill the gap left by declining fertility rates (an option not equally available to all developed countries), resulting in young US citizens continuing to struggle to form families, and producing a fraying of the social fabric that such an inability to form families is likely to have on a society.

So you can see why some people would be duped into such a conspiracy theory, which purports to explain what people are seeing with their very eyes.

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projektfu 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

That's not really steelmanning. You can't steelman a position by saying it's not the real position but it dupes the rubes.

The great replacement theory is the theory that there is an intentional effort to dilute or replace the capital-W White, meaning the historical English/Scottish/Scotch Irish, population of the US, with immigrants and former slaves, and it usually involves a part that says that it is being done to weaken the country against its international competitors. A third part that is usually involved is that the process is being facilitated by and for the benefit of people like "international bankers", "cosmopolitans", "elites", etc., terms which have an antisemitic history.

To steelman it, you would have to steelman at least the intentional dilution part. Not just to say that it is hard to meet our demand for labor without immigration but that someone is coordinating it. Further, I don't think it has any meaning without the part that says it is being done to weaken the country, which you would have to show that not only would it weaken the country, but that is the intention of these coordinators.

Without that, you just have a demographic argument. If "Whites" do not have many children, and the population would otherwise shrink as a whole, while immigration is needed to satisfy demand for labor, then their proportion will shrink, but it is not "great replacement" without it being intentional/directed.

	▲	dnissley 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It is what I consider steelmanning. Not of the conspiracy itself (I'm not interested in that, since the literal version isn't even well agreed upon by most of its believers) but of the observable pressures that make the conspiracy attractive. I think I could convince an average believer in the great replacement theory (who would be a casual believer that doesn't know many of the specific details you've listed at length of the "official" version) that my restatement of the issue is what they're actually concerned about. In fact, I have had productive conversations with right wingers who express such a casual belief in this theory by telling them what I've written here in the comment you're replying to.

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akimbostrawman 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>So instead the US uses immigration to fill the gap left by declining fertility rates

Because that is working so good for Europe? At some point you need to understand that replacing a population is not the solution for low fertility population.

	▲	dnissley 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think we agree, but in case I wasn't clear I will restate this more plainly: patching over the problem of fertility with immigration is toxic to the social fabric of a nation.

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johnnyanmac 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If anyone reads this and think it's not the fault of the politicians, or at least the boomers for "not wanting to help their children/grandchildren", it's pretty clear that their goal wasn't to solve the fertility crisis.

On top of that I don't even think most boomers need to be inconvininced. Increase capital taxes, remove the ceiling for SS taxes, give wokers a 4 day workweek, raise minimum wage, invest in 3rd places. A few steps give people the time and energy to meet and make families.

But it seems like we really will just go to civil war before we make sure rich people contribute to the nation.

	▲	dnissley 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I disagree that the measures you're suggesting will move the needle on fertility, since they will be enjoyed by singles, dinks, and families alike. If you want more children you have to reward mothers directly and significantly in line with their potential earnings. Not a paltry few thousand dollars, but more than enough to offset the price of daycare in hcol cities. I want to mimic social security but for families, and that means concentrated benefits (that directly incentivize voting turnout and interest group formation). At the same time I want our country to continue to be competitive globally when it comes to business, and not turn into whatever Europe has become. We can't just add this as a line item to our budget. We are not that rich and we have financial problems that are looming.