New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

I was walking on the street the other day. It was fine summer, and I saw so many elderly walking outside. All of them were using one type of aid or another; some even had a social worker at their side. As I saw them, I was thinking that my 63% marginal tax was paying for it, while I part with 25% of my income after taxes to pay my mom’s pension. That monetary cost is nothing, I would gladly pay it for the rest of my life if it could give my mom a good life for that long. Her old age is my single biggest source of stress.

In the political sphere, some countries are tearing themselves apart on the question of immigration and identity. But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce.

So, we are paying an extremely high cost for letting God go on with His Slow Tormentous Cooking of Souls before Consumption, and things are only going to get worse, given the demographic expectations. Wouldn’t it make sense to put a big chunk of budget into creating life-extension tech?

> But immigration is the only thing that can replenish their workforce.

Unchecked immigration of people who do not share the majority of the destination’s cultural values leads to a monoculture that is terrible for everyone. Multiculturalism doesn’t work when everyone’s culture is equal everywhere. And unless it wasn’t obvious, I firmly believe in multiculturalism, but I believe we (here in Europe in particular) have been misled about what it should look like. And no it’s not about ethnicity.

And that’s saying nothing about the impact on source countries as some other comments go into.

Huh?

The problem in Europe is not immigration, the problem is there being no European country with a vision of the future for immigrants to buy into.

Aesthetic Traditions ≠ Culture. Traditions are just one aspect, but as Nietzsche wrote about the death of God, traditions are not a substitute for values.

America for hundreds of years has offered a shared vision of the future and values to immigrants of every background, and within <1 generation most immigrants become fully integrated.

When European identities are all built around stories from the past, and the only vision of the future being offered is one of impending doom and urbanist intellectual memes (climate apocalypse, population decline, social welfare breakdown, economic malaise, technophobia), it's no wonder that immigrants wouldn't want to buy into your culture. I'll enjoy your aesthetic traditions and take your free social welfare, but I'll keep my own culture and values, thank you very much.

When your sales pitch is: "we don't like new things here so there's nothing to create, but life here is easy, you don't have to do much because the state will take care of you!" I don't think you're attracting the best citizens.

> I'll enjoy your aesthetic traditions and take your free social welfare, but I'll keep my own culture and values, thank you very much.

And I have every right to want you out of country and my taxes not to be wasted on the likes of you.

Which is why socialism is fundamentally incompatible with immigration, and why the US, being a nation of immigrants, is structured the way it is (more individualist). Nobody wants to pay for the new guy to have a luxury first world lifestyle with free healthcare, education and pension.

The more a society adopts socialist policies, the less friendly to immigration it becomes.

Both the US and most large European countries had roughly the same percentage of GDP driven by central government spending (socialism) in the 1960s...roughly 25-30%.

Socialist policies have steadily grown that percentage in both regions, with it happening more dramatically in Europe. The US is now at 35-40%, and Europe at 45-50%.

You can map the slowly rising anti-immigrant backlash in the US (and especially in Europe) to this perfectly.