Why Diversity Increases Selfishness

Theodorik

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Why Diversity Increases Selfishness
Many people have noticed that in a diverse city like Los Angeles or New York City, people are cruel. They will walk by a person dying in the street and ignore them. Women wearing millions of dollars of jewelry will step over dying drug addicts in the street without a second thought. Physicians have no qualms about cheating Medicaid out of millions of dollars. Financial swindlers will steal the life savings of thousands without a second thought. But in a small town, where the people are alike, everyone takes care of their neighbor.
Certainly, a love of Mankind and love of all creatures does exist in some, but scientists have discovered that most altruism is naturally ethnocentric. The hormone oxytocin makes people more altruistic, generous, and kind. But only to people in the same ethnic group! Could this be why God commanded the Hebrews not to mix with other groups? Maybe God didn't want them to become wicked and decadent like diversity societies such as Babylon.
In the experiment, performed in the Netherlands, men were injected with oxytocin. Then, they were more altruistic towards men with Dutch names, but not German or Muslim names. They felt altruistic to a Pieter, Martijn, or Geert; but not to a Helmut, Muhammed, or Pedro.
This is another reason why immigration and diversity increase the amount of hate, selfishness, cruelty, and crime in a society. A welfare state works well in a homogeneous society, such as Sweden once was, but when immigrants invade and try to freeload, all people in need find the safety net pulled out from under them. The main reason that the United States is the only Western nation without universal health care is that when Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman proposed it, the South was concerned that they would have to integrate their hospitals with blacks. Now that immigrants are pouring into Sweden and the Netherlands, the safety net is being pulled away. Today, there are homeless Dutchmen and homeless Swedes that wouldn't have existed forty years ago.
This may also explain why interracial marriages have a much higher rate of failure, violence, and problems and why step-parents are much more abusive to children than the natural parents. And why grandma takes better care of the children than daycare costing $12,000 a year, staffed by child care "experts" who have no genetic connection to the victims.
"Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism
Carsten K. W. De Dreu1
, Lindred L. Greer, Gerben A. Van Kleef, Shaul Shalvi, and Michel J. J. Handgraaf
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Edited by Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved December 21, 2010 (received for review October 12, 2010)

http://dtserv2.compsy.uni-jena.de/_...u_2011_OxytocinPromotesHumanEthnocentrism.pdf
"Human ethnocentrism--the tendency to view one's group as centrally important and superior to other groups--creates intergroup bias that fuels prejudice, xenophobia, and intergroup violence. Grounded in the idea that ethnocentrism also facilitates within-group trust, cooperation, and coordination, we conjecture that ethnocentrism may be modulated by brain oxytocin, a peptide shown to promote cooperation among in-group members. In double-blind, placebo-controlled designs, males self-administered oxytocin or placebo and privately performed computer-guided tasks to gauge different manifestations of in-group favoratism and out-group derogation."
Females were not used in the experiment since oxytocin can cause them orgasms or miscarriages. This experiment helps explain why in military history soldiers from the same community fight much better than regiments ruined by diversity. This may also explain why the U.S. has lost every war since World War II as our military becomes more and diverse and less and less willing to fight. Even empires like the Roman Empire used homogeneous military units. The Romans would settle different ethnic groups in one area when they wanted to weaken the people and sap their will to fight for freedom. Empires have often used diversity to stifle freedom, independence, and local cooperation. Today, the liberal global plutocracy is using forced diversity to weaken the will of peoples all over the Earth to resist tyranny and oppression.

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Here is a study by a Harvard professor which also shows that diversity increases distrust and crime and decreases community spirit, charity, and altruism:

Harvard Prof Says Diversity is Harmful

The healthiest societies are all homogeneous.

The slogan "Diversity is our strength" is just a liberal meme with no proof, evidence, or argument.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...vard-professor-says-ethnic-diversity-not.html

"According to a recent study by a well-respected Harvard professor, the findings appear to show that ethnic diversity has a negative impact upon communities, not only between different races, but between same raced individuals. A quote:

"In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us. "
—Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam

."... While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn’t dared announce it “until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it ‘would have been irresponsible to publish without that.’”

"Professor Putnam found that trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history". While no more than 12 percent of L.A.’s whites said they trusted other races “only a little or not at all,” 37 percent of L.A.’s Latinos distrusted whites. And whites were the most reliable in Hispanic eyes. Forty percent of Latinos doubted Asians, 43 percent distrusted other Hispanics, and 54 percent were anxious about blacks. But his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians' picnic".

"When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust."


Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...-says-ethnic-diversity-not.html#ixzz25TxRkzAe



 
Yes, indeed, this "pure" group of Dutchmen was created in a petri dish by aliens from a solar system far, far, away and beamed down to Holland...Dutchmen who are genetically programmed to be incapable of altruistic feelings for anyone different from themselves.

I also think your logic is a little faulty. Diversity doesn't create selfishness. From the Christian perspective, man is inherently flawed, "fallen" to use the proper term, or "selfish" ,and is redeemed by Jesus Christ. Whether you believe that you are redeemed by "faith and works", or "by faith alone", the behavior of your "Dutchmen" is not that of someone sanctified through Jesus Christ.

I really wish that some of the people who bemoan the decline of western civilization and find the cause of that decline at least partly in the loss of belief in Christianity had some clue what Christianity actually teaches.
 
If you could create a city consisting of one ethnic group, but with the same economic and social divisions as New York or Los Angeles, where life is difficult for those on the bottom rung of society, people would create a system that would put certain members of that homogenous ethnic group into a separate category somehow, in order to have some group that the majority could believe deserve to be on the bottom. It's a fear response by people who don't want to be on the bottom themselves. Race and colour are handy divisions to use, but there are other ways to do it, such as the untouchable classes in India and Japan.

Rome was a very diverse society where anyone from any country who assumed the language and culture of Rome could be a Roman, provided they were free and held Roman citizenship. Perhaps the widespread use of slavery made the perceived need to create artificial categories of "inferior" seem less necessary to the Roman mind. Whereas 18th century London was a fairly homogenous world but social class divided people into the "deserving" (i.e., born wealthy) and the "undeserving" (i.e., born poor). Life for the poor in 18th century London was nasty, short and brutish, and the upper classes believed that all the poor were lazy and dishonest, even though the poor mostly had the same ancestry as the wealthy.
 
Hi Theodorik..interesting post.
I`m just going pick up on some things as I read down, okay.
First I want to repeat a few things made in the first two answers here...I likewise do not think diversity increases selfishness, I believe that to be a false equation. I also use the example of Rome and Greece as proofs against this theory.

I also don`t see this as the reason some swindlers steal peoples life savings and physicians cheat Medicaid out of millions. IMO this is plain and simple old style greed..there is nothing to show these same people would not do the same in a homogeneous population.

The abuse of children..I see that as a different kettle of fish altogether, and quite unrelated to diversity.

Small town neighbourhood, no mystery really. Their size is what helps create the climate to get to know all your neighbours and in forging relations. Thus you get the helping out of your neighbour when needed. Big cities don`t give this same advantage. And many small towns today are home to people from different backgrounds and cultures.

As for the soldiers, I don`t think men from the same community fight better. I think the unit of men, the fact that they have trained together and rely on the other to watch the others back, is what makes them close. And a unit of men is not always made up from those in your own community.

I honestly don`t believe diversity causing selfishness, is to be blamed for some people hating others from different cultures, I think that's probably something else.
Another point, and I have said this before, when times get hard people first blame their governments, after that they look to blame immigrants unfortunately. Take away immigrants and they will likely replace them with something else to vent their frustration on.
 
Ethnic groups form groups for protection and survival.

The most successful group would be the Jews as their existence was threatened when the Babylonians first got the elites into the Babylonian captivity. The religious class being the most intelligent figured to break the religion into smaller groups just as the terrorists are doing - creation of cell groups. The Jews formed groups of ten called the minyans. If there were nine a friendly stranger was invited into the group and services were carried out.

Now a Hungarian of German ancestry told me more about Jews that I didn't know. He said Jews have a 'nose for business'. The minyan gives any member three chances to start a business and the whole group would invest and help (after all their money is in the enterprise). Group think comes to mind brain-storming. Ten brains are better than one. If the three chances fail that is it for him or her. Of course now the knowledge how Christians were forbidden to engage in money and lending gave the Jews the chance to became experts in money. With so many years of dealing with money they found ways enriching themselves both ethically and unethically. Their easy access to money also helped Jews form businesses and succeed.
 
Totaly wrong conclusions in post 1. Big cities create anonymous environment, regardless if it is New York, Shanghai or Kinshasa. When people don't know each other they are not on their best of behavior. In small town or villages where people know each other, they tend to behave better knowing that they reputation is in constant evaluation.

I would also say that selfishness has not much to do with trust, or child abuse, or being racist.

Many people have noticed that in a diverse city like Los Angeles or New York City, people are cruel. They will walk by a person dying in the street and ignore them.
These are cities of 15 million people, bigger than most countries on this planet. With such population you will find any possible story of human interaction. Stories about ignored dying people are few in between. We are not hearing much about dying people saved by strangers, because they were saved, lived, people went about their own business, so no news on TV.

Do you remember this infamous story from China, when a child was run over by a car (twice) and many people (of similar ethnicity, if not the same) walked by till someone finely helped this child?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAo2eUpaDfo
 
I think Charles Dickens did a fine job of describing how, once a city becomes large enough that people don't know their neighbours, the poor are demonized as inherently lazy, immoral and criminal, and not worthy of help. He also describes how members of the underclass internalize that view of them and develop toxic subcultures that appear to justify the better off not bothering to help such people. The novels of Dickens reflect the actuality of what life was like in 19th century London, after it grew into a metropolis but before it became ethnically diverse. If I lived in the London of Dickens, I wouldn't have stopped to help a dying beggar in case he was faking faintness in order to get a chance to cut my throat. Things like that don't happen in villages where everyone knows your name and family history.
 
Just an addendum...

People really shouldn't base their judgments of a place on sensationalized news stories, or movies, or television shows. I've lived through two black-outs in this city and was in Manhattan on 9/11, and everyone I encountered was unfailingly helpful and kind. How can people be called callous and unfeeling and selfish when they go up ten or more flights of stairs in the dark armed with just flashlights to bring water and food to elderly people, or let people from the upper floors use the bathroom and wash up in their first floor apartments, or set up a routine to check every morning that everyone in the building is still alright.

The people of this city were more than kind when the circumstances called for it. On 9/11, people gave other people water, cleaned their wounds if they could, held them if they needed it, picked them up on the other side of the bridges and went hours out of their way to bring them home. And it was about more than just acts of kindness. I saw acts of heroism on 9/11 that still make me choke up to remember them, and those people didn't stop to think whether the person for whom they were risking their lives was black, brown, yellow or white, or what religion, if any, they practiced.

New York gets an undeserved bad rap...no nonsense, yes, always ready to puncture pretense, yes, brusque definitely, sometimes rude, but when you need them, they're there for you.
 
Ethnic groups form groups for protection and survival.

The most successful group would be the Jews as their existence was threatened when the Babylonians first got the elites into the Babylonian captivity. The religious class being the most intelligent figured to break the religion into smaller groups just as the terrorists are doing - creation of cell groups. The Jews formed groups of ten called the minyans. If there were nine a friendly stranger was invited into the group and services were carried out.

Now a Hungarian of German ancestry told me more about Jews that I didn't know. He said Jews have a 'nose for business'. The minyan gives any member three chances to start a business and the whole group would invest and help (after all their money is in the enterprise). Group think comes to mind brain-storming. Ten brains are better than one. If the three chances fail that is it for him or her. Of course now the knowledge how Christians were forbidden to engage in money and lending gave the Jews the chance to became experts in money. With so many years of dealing with money they found ways enriching themselves both ethically and unethically. Their easy access to money also helped Jews form businesses and succeed.

From what I know a Minyan means the number of people required to hold a service in the Synagogue, that number is 10, has nothing to do with money or business for all I know.
 
A minyan was essentially a gathering in the one of the group member's house especially if the house was large. It is too expensive for ten people to maintain a building merely for weekend worship purposes. The business meetings are usually informal not related to religion. The contacts in the services do provide opportunities for entrepreneurship. That is the way I see it.

One can see if they follow the one tenth tithe giving then the number ten is perfect. The leader who serves a 'rabbi' would be having an average income so he could devote his time to religious studies while maintaining his/her standard of living. If more than ten then the leader or 'rabbi' is above average in income. So one can see how religion flourished with the one tenth tithe giving.

Religion gives a good opportunity for business success. The Mormons also are successful in business. Religion provides the glue as trust and fellowship provides certain behavior that enables a business to succeed. The boss usually being the head of the religious group or a director prevents executives from extreme exploitation and workers feel safe and well rewarded so the the business thrives. There is honesty and trust develops from it. Where these are absent then there is trouble.
 
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If you could create a city consisting of one ethnic group, but with the same economic and social divisions as New York or Los Angeles, where life is difficult for those on the bottom rung of society, people would create a system that would put certain members of that homogenous ethnic group into a separate category somehow, in order to have some group that the majority could believe deserve to be on the bottom. It's a fear response by people who don't want to be on the bottom themselves. Race and colour are handy divisions to use, but there are other ways to do it, such as the untouchable classes in India and Japan....

Yes. Also compare the Cagots in France, an "artificial" lower class if there ever was one. They looked the same as everyone else, they went to the same churches as everyone else, and they spoke the same language (French or a regional Romance language). The difference was that their parents were labeled Cagots.

Consider the South Park episode "Ginger Kids". It explains how Cartman, whose nature is to be bigoted and prejudicial, can adjust the target of his prejudices to any group that he perceives to be different to him in any way. It doesn't matter what that difference is, what matters is that he can find a difference.
 

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