Quote from: macsga on September 18, 2015, 08:11:55 AM

Quote from: trollercoaster on September 17, 2015, 11:55:01 PM

Those quoted countries appear to be some of the worst in Europe not that the whole place isn't a mess.
I don't think innovation in the areas of science and technology will be coming from mother Europe any time soon, instead from Asia.
From my perspective it looks like Europe and the West as a whole have condemned themselves to civil unrest, warfare, totalitarianism and degeneracy rather than progress.
I think there will be an exodus away from the west once this crisis becomes more clear.

I boldly disagree. Determining a human behavior by addressing whole countries is a generalization which is ineptly perceived. To give you an example: Who can tell for sure that the poor Nigerian emigrant that came in Greece at his age of 6 and now studies molecular biology won't be the one who finds the cancer treatment?

Technology and innovation is not country oriented; and frankly, not even person oriented, really. There are no "genes" for smart people. Everybody has equal chances to achieve magnificence as everybody else. Take for example the best students in the US Universities. Most of them are emigrants. You know why they excel? Because they have no alternative! THEY WANT TO SUCCEED!

It's no different for any other country in the whole planet. I believe that the "injection" of desperate people within EU (and elsewhere) will rise the probability of innovation, instead of decreasing it. Those people have something in common. They're children of a lesser God to the eyes of locals. And they WANT to succeed in order to change this. I believe most of them will eventually manage doing it.

I agree on the civil unrest part; but requires us, to reject the emigrants from our neighborhoods. Which IMHO is inhuman and unfair.

Generalizations are how we function in a complex and multicultural society. Average IQs tend to be an indicator of a general population. I don't think individual cases and outliers should be used to assess general trends- sure there are probably lots of freedom loving liberal Syrians or Somalians, doesn't mean I want to live in a neighborhood full of them or that I want my kids near the offspring of these traumatized families. I think focusing on the brilliant (potential) individuals runs dangerously close to a strawman argument. I'm not as positive as you about the future, but I do not think the sky will fall either.

To be frank, the only thing that bothers me is the cultural clash and the inevitable raising of my already exorbitant taxes. Beyond that, it's not like I will be living in those neighborhoods (for now, back in London it's another case entirely) or that they will be competing for my job. I think it's somewhat humane what Germany are doing but far less altruistic than they claim (birthrates and all that).