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▲ AndrewKemendo 3 hours ago

I’d love to hear why someone shouldn’t migrate when the environment gets hostile to their way of life?

Seems like an obvious move to me.

▲goodmythical 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is not necessarily obvious to all. Some choose to stay out of a belief that there is a chance that order can be restored or perhaps created for the first time and that it is worth staying to participate in the work toward the prefered order.

This happens in all sorts of queer communities. Some do leave for the greener pastures, but some choose to stay and fight to build a supporting community where they already live. Some believe that they should not have to flee to the gayborhood in order to live their lives.

If every pro-choice individual left a pro-life community, the pro-life community will suddenly have zero votes against pro-life candidates/policies.

If all of the immigrants (or at least the ones with skin colors that trigger people, because no one seems to mind a white Swiss immigrant), knowing that many in the US are openly hostile toward them, simply left or chose to never enter in the first place, the US would never have a chance to develop a tolerance for these peoples.

Many Jewish people, given the chance to flee, chose to stay in Hitler's Germany in order to help others flee/hide, or support others in the area doing things like getting groceries to families that were at greater risk of harm.

Taken to an extreme, everyone at risk in a community leaving would only distill the hostility in to a pure un-hindered hatred that will take far more effort to address in the long run.

It is a personal decision that any who find themselves in hostile territory must make. Fight, flight, or freeze?

▲AndrewKemendo an hour ago | parent [-]

> Taken to an extreme, everyone at risk in a community leaving would only distill the hostility in to a pure un-hindered hatred that will take far more effort to address in the long run

I think I understand the instinct behind this, but I’m not sure if it’s actually mechanically true.

What I’ve seen in practice is that when there’s an exodus of any major part of any group, then the group effectively dissolves

You’re right there may be some kind of final consolidation period of dogmatic people, which often splinters, but it mostly seems like exodus leads to long term dissolution, which seems like the goal of leaving it

Hence “vote with your feet” is the best protest

▲goodmythical an hour ago | parent [-]

I think that depends on the scale.

If it is possible to get enough to leave such that the underlying community collapses, then it can work.

But if the effected population is 10%? 1%? If those individuals aren't in positions integral to the existence of the community?

If the 1% that left say the US were the "top 1%", then that would certainly cause waves, though I'm not sure it would completely dissolve the US. If on the otherhand the 1% that left were...hold on what's a 1% demographic..."everyone with rheumatoid arthritis", "those suffering from celiac disease", "people with natural red hair", "american indians", "chinese americans", etc then the US that remains is probably not a whole lot different from the US that was.

Brief research points to networks surviving random departure at rates as high as 50% (a random half of town folk leaving for different reasons) and loss of core individuals (healtchare/teachers/admin) at between 10-25%.

It seems there is indeed a threshold where collapse can be triggered by sufficient flight, and of course we've seen this in digital communities like digg.

I guess I'm just looking at like, if you're say a thousand racial minorities in an on average racist city of 100,000, and you all leave, the ratio of racists to non-racists will increase assuming the minorities aren't racist themselves. There is now less reason for the non-racists to campaign on behalf of the minorities because now there are fewer instances of injustice, and less reason for the racists to change their minds because they are less likely to engage in any racially driven encounters that give them the opportunity to change their mind.

I can see the appeal of leaving. You do the math, figure it's never going to change or won't change soon enough, the impact on your life is too great, leaving doesn't cost as much as staying does, and so you leave.

But suppose you've got lots of friends/family in the area. Elders you take care of. A neighbor whose pie is almost literally "to die for". The racism sucks, but your boss isn't racist and there's really only the one guy at work, so it's really just the subway that's a problem. Now staying is less expensive than leaving so you stay and make the most of it - vote to get someone like you on the city council, organize or participate in a support group, see something say something.

There is no one answer to fight or flight. It will always depend on the exact relation between the oppressed and their oppressor(s).

▲ericmay an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly. I tell people complaining about housing prices in New York City and California this all the time! There are other great places to live. It’s an obvious move if your financial expectations aren’t being met.

▲lisplist an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's definitely reasonable to consider moving if where you live just isn't worth it for you financially. Still, if you don't like it then leave is generally not great advice instead of asking our politicians to actually support policies that make our lives better.

▲ericmay an hour ago | parent [-]

I agree with you, I’m just pointing out the same logic applies to this astrophysicist as it does to anyone else with a complaint.

Folks seem to want to celebrate this case just because they think it matters and makes the US look bad.

▲bilbo0s 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That just turns into a revolving door. People who can’t make it in California moved to Arizona and Texas. Then complained about Arizona and Texas and moved to Florida. Then complained about Florida and are now moving to the next region.

Without ever considering the possibility that things are just less affordable all across the US. There’s multimillion dollar condos even in tier 3 places that aren’t even all that. Like Madison or Pittsburgh. Let alone talking about getting a house in these areas.

We gotta get the government refocused on affordability. That’s really the only way forward. Young people really have to be given a fair shot here.

▲etchalon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you're confusing "financial expectations" with "financial resources".

▲AndrewKemendo an hour ago | parent [-]

It’s desire that you’re getting stuck on.

The amount of Cubans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans Panamanians, etc… who had literally nothing and no resources to their name, who walked or hitched to the United States or Canada to back breaking labor to put their kids into high school is staggering.

Similarly for pretty much every cab driver and worker in Dubai, who is from Bangladesh or India or Kuala Lumpur or whatever…

In fact, I knew a very successful Honduran restaurant owner in Houston, who was deported twice from the U.S. between 1980-2000 finally got his citizenship on the third trip.

▲ericmay an hour ago | parent [-]

That’s how it worked for everyone coming to the United States. You might get a fever and die on a ship sailing from England. Irish and Italian settlers were treated harshly and worked in factories as children. People came from China to California to help build the railroads. This is just a recency bias.

▲madaxe_again an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I find peoples’ recalcitrance to relocate hard to comprehend. They’re always like “ah, but kids, family, work”, while talking about little much other than how they hate where they live, hate their job, can’t stand Sunday lunches with their parents.

I have a kid. I have family. I work. I move continents when I get bored of the one I live on currently.

On which note, hi from Brazil. 9th country in which I have lived.