"A Nation of Immigrants"

[Raver]

@Raver why do you REFUSE to understand that "culture" is not static and that it has never been? Doesn't matter how many times that's been explained to you, in different ways, nope, you just don't get it. If I'm being polite and diplomatic, I wonder if it has something to do with unrefined, nuance lacking low D Si. Culture is a dynamic, living, breathing organism that expands, shifts, splinters, and atrophies. American, Canadian, French and Chinese culture today look different than they did 40 years ago, and 100 years before that, and 200 before that. And that can be said for just about any culture (especially when it has had access to the larger world and isn't utterly isolated, remote and cut off--and even they "fall" eventually). I don't know what world you live in where culture stays "preserved" in some perpetual state of stagnation. Over time, there are always changes, whether big or small, significant or insignificant. That is something implicit within the human experience. This is why arguments like yours are not rooted in reality.

Yes, I am well aware that culture changes and evolves over time. Obviously, 21st century Chinese culture is very different than 11th century Chinese culture and the same goes for French culture, etc. However, there is a big difference between a culture evolving naturally over time and a culture being rapidly and artificially changed in a short period of time via mass immigration. It is also important to note that culture just like technology still retains aspects that are hundreds to thousands of years old. We still use forks that are a relic of the 4th century, but we use them alongside cell phones. The fork was not replaced with another utensil like chopsticks, it was retained while new technologies were added for other uses.

Language is a good example of that, a part of culture that is preserved for lengthy periods of time despite clothing, music and other aspects of culture constantly changing. I guess my point is, I don't mind if current cultures add aspects to its existing culture, but I do mind if cultures are artificially replaced with new ones. Ideally, I would prefer if existing cultures keep adding and evolving within their existing framework or foundation rather than mixing in several cultures to form a new one or worst case scenario where foreign cultures replace old ones. I suspect that mixing in cultures to form a new one is likely the highest possibility out of the three scenarios. Anyways, I want the change of culture to slow down, not be stopped completely.

But you were just arguing the U.S. should take fewer immigrants so as to 'retain American culture'!

Yes, because even with fewer immigrants especially the ones that immigrated already, American culture will still change and improve, just not as dramatically.

Apologies; I thought you meant that American 'culture' was changing because of the influences of other countries.

No worries.

The U.S. isn't even going to top that achievement for a long time. Putting a human on the moon is horrifyingly expensive; all the more so because there's no profit that could possibly made from it with current technology -- at all. There's no way in hell a company could find investors for such a project. The only way it could possibly be done would be if one or a few of the wealthiest people on the planet funded the project entirely out of personal interest (presumably because they wish to be the person on the moon), which is unlikely.

Yes, that is true, but I believe you are underestimating the pressure from outside influence. You said it yourself, the main reason the US put a man in the moon was because they lost to the Soviet Union in the space race in many instances.

Replace Soviet Union with China and Space X and you can get a similar situation happening in this century. It won't happen until the 2030s at the earliest or even much later, but I believe it will happen some time in this century and in our lifetimes IMO.

https://www.space.com/china-moon-base-10-years.html

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/30/2...n-starship-aco

Yeah, I am well aware these are likely exaggerations and the real date will be much later, but I suspect the intention is there regardless.