Awhile ago, Giovanni posted:
The Dutch and Flemish speak a mutually intelligible language, are of similar ethnic stock yet could not agree to be in the same nation. In fact, they violently disagreed.
One of the big causes for the divide:
The Dutch are protestant.
The Flemish are Catholic. Link
I also pointed out that there are also economic roots to the problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Movement#Transfers
Since the 1960s and continuing into the present time, Flanders is significantly richer than Wallonia. Based on population[16] and GDP [17] figures for 2007, GDP per capita in that year was 28286 € (38186 $) in Flanders and 20191 € (27258 $) in Wallonia. Although equalization payments between richer and poorer regions are common in federal states, the amount, the visibility and the utilization of these financial transfers are a singularly important issue for the Flemish Movement. A study by the University of Leuven[18] has estimated the size of the transfers from Flanders to Wallonia and Brussels in 2007 at 5.7 billion euros. If the effect of interest payments on the national debt is taken into account the figure could be as high as 11.3 billion euros or more than 6% of Flemish GDP.[19][20] Flemish criticism is not limited to the size of the transfers but also extends to the lack of transparency and the presumed inability or unwillingness of the recipients to use the money wisely and thus close the economic gap with Flanders.
Later I posted about how different Protestantism is from the Catholic Church, namely that it was created to increase productivity by introducing strict work ethic while discouraging extravagant behavior. In this case the Flemish Protestant culture was more economically viable but tied with the Catholic/Brussels Bureaucracy by the Nation-State, forcing them to make up for the inefficiencies of the other side. Generally the largest wedge between already different cultures is their inability to integrate into each others economics systems while they still compete for the same roles and responsibilities.
This causes tension, generally whoever is footing the tax bill will want to be in control of the policy decisions. Appeals to democracy do not sway the minority that must pay the taxes without seeing any return on their investment or improvement in the social situation.
It’s extremely difficult to economically integrate groups which come from different cultures and have different abilities. It’s easy to get nerds of different ethnicity’s to cooperate for example, they usually don’t believe in zero-sum games and have a shared sub-culture (like anime) which brings them closer together than they would be with others of the same race.
However, most cultures are zero-sum. There are social winners and losers, they don’t envision the power to create value and drag themselves up by their bootstraps. Instead of focusing on improving their internal dynamics, they attack and compete against those who are perceived as weak or close to their immediate social position. Most cultures also have a short future-time orientation, with the exception of Western and North-East Asian ones. While this is at least partially genetic (50-80% is the current guess), having a large number of individuals with low executive function, low future time orientation and a belief in zero-sum competition makes trust extremely difficult. Without trust the 21st century economy, with it’s dependence on virtualization and large amounts of information that no one can keep track of at any given time, simply cannot operate. Older economic models are also extremely impaired by it as well.
There are two commonly held views on conflict, the Marx class warfare version where people are so different from each other that they inevitably end up fighting each other. All of the angels and demons are lined up to fight. The other is Shakespearean, it holds that people fight because they are trying to do things that are similar. When people want the same things, the greatest, bloodiest conflicts spring up. Innovation suffers because of the opportunity costs of unbridled competition.
Move forward to 6 minutes in Video to see Peter Thiel talking about how people trying to do the same thing causes conflict:
Alt link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esk7W9Jowtc#t=6m
Any culture that wants to survive must protect itself from zero-sum predators and focus on it’s internal dynamics. Whenever a culture has people within it with a wide range of differences, the lowest common denominator of social norms tends to be the end result. Your culture must clearly define the roles of it’s inhabitants to restrict some of the competition while encouraging the exploration of new frontiers. Otherwise most of the advantages will be competed away and people will suffer from having too many options at the same time. Aptitude testing is a great aid, and it must be capable of testing a wide range of talents while keeping an eye on those with very little executive function. Excessive competition is nothing more than war by attrition. Competition without innovation means no profits and no ability to plan for the future.
Public opinion in most countries are not in favor of immigration
http://www.ipsos.fr/sites/default/files/attachments/globaladvisor_immigration.pdf
www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/the-downside-of-difference/story-e6frgcjx-1111112914289
Increased diversity depresses social capital, community behaviour, charitable behaviour and increases fear and isolation:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-06-25jl.html
6 out of 10 students in mentally handicapped school in Copenhagen are bilingual (likely because of cousin marriage)
http://avisen.dk/faetter-kusine-aegteskaber-fylder-specialskoler_155735.aspx
Immigrants in Norway Not Integrating Into Labor Market
http://www.emnbelgium.be/publication/report-norwegian-welfare-and-migration-committee
Immigrants in Sweden Not Integrating Into Labor Market
http://www.amid.dk/pub/papers/AMID_48-2006_Jan_Ekberg.pdf
See also:
The Problem With The Israeli Economy
https://colonyofcommodus.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/the-problem-with-the-israeli-economy/
FORWARD BASE B 