Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Game Theory 4: The Immigration Trap

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Game Theory 4: The Immigration Trap

Today we will look at immigration. Who wins the game of immigration and who loses? Why do they win? Why do they lose? Okay, so let's look at the United States, which is where most immigrants go. And as you can see from this chart, there are certain ethnic groups that do better than other ethnic groups. So the Indian people make the most money in America. And this makes sense because India has a very competitive college system where only the best and brightest get into their technical institutes.

And then after college, they go to the United States to do graduate work. And they go on to Silicon Valley, become engineers, some become doctors. But Indians as a demographic are very successful. Then you have the other Asian groups, so Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese also do very well. East Asians do very well in school, and East Asians are known for being very hard workers. The white people are the majority, and they are the average. Okay? and they make about 70,000 US a year.

This is just average income. But then what's troubling is that as you go lower, you find that there are certain ethnic groups that don't do well economically. They include, of course, Mexicans, Latinos, as well as black Americans, who traditionally have been slaves in America. So the question for us today is that why is it that there are certain ethnic groups, specifically East Asian groups, that do well economically?

And then you have other ethnic groups, specifically Latinos and blacks, who do not do well economically. Okay? So the traditional explanation is that it's just that certain cultures, prize education, more. than other cultures. In fact, some extremists will go on to say that genetically, East Asians are just smarter than everyone else. Okay, so this is the PISA rankings. This is in 2018.

The PISA is the program for international student assessment. So every three years, the OECD, which is an international organization, all around the world, they organize tests for 14-year-olds in three sub-year-olds in three subjects, math, science, and reading. And based on these results, the OCD, which is primarily concerned with economic development,

forecast a nation's ability to do well economically in the next 10, 20, 30 years. As you can see from this map, there are certain countries that do outstanding on the PISA. The nations in green do really well, the nations in yellow are average and then there are these red nations that are below average meaning that they will suffer economically as you can see the nations that do really well are actually based primarily in East Asia and

they are Japan South Korea Vietnam China that's why a lot of people believe that in the future, East Asia will come to dominate the world economically. In fact, there are many who believe that already East Asia dominates the world economically, especially China. Then you have these other nations in red that will suffer economically. You have Latin and South America who traditionally have not done very well on the PISA. You also have Africa. and the Middle East that suffers on a pizza.

And then you have Indonesia, Malaysia, these countries that don't do well on the pizza. The nations in gray, by the way, are nations that don't have the development in order to actually have students take tests. Okay, they don't have the infrastructure, the logistics, you actually have students take tests. And so what you can see about the nations in red

is, first of all, they're probably based, in a region, Latin and South America, but also you can actually group them also by religion, okay, Islam. Okay, Muslims don't do well on the pizza and that's why there's great fear that Islamic countries will fall behind economically. Also another concern is immigration. So what's been happening is that Immigrants from Latin America have been moving to the United States and Islamic nations, the people have been moving to Europe. Now a lot of this immigration is driven by war.

So nations like Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq have seen themselves destroyed because America's war and terror, forcing millions of refugees to seek better opportunities in Europe. Okay, and so this is causing a lot of conflict because on one hand, these immigrants don't do well economically. On the other hand, they're moving to these very wealthy nations and that's causing a lot of conflict. So what's driving this conflict? Okay, so again, from the PISA rankings, it seems as though East Asians will come to dominate the world.

The problem is that when you actually look at American society and you look at who succeeds, it turns out East Asians don't do as well as you think they do well. If East Asians are the best students in school, and they go on to the most prestigious colleges, and they are the smartest of the highest IQ, you would think they would come to dominate American society. But that's not true, actually.

So this is a chart of new CEOs. And what this means is that from about 2000, Americans corporations, they tried their best to bring in more diversity into the corporate boardroom. Traditionally, CEOs, American corporations, have been white, middle-aged, and men.

So they're trying to diversify the leadership of American corporations. And it turns out that white woman, okay, have done the best. White women have been the most successful in climbing the corporate ladder in America. What's interesting then is that Latino and African-American men, okay,

they do okay, not great, but they do okay. And who is underperforming are East Asian men. You can see this from this map, where the growth in East Asian man, it's pretty steady. Now, there are different reasons for this. One reason is just that there's something called DEI in America, diversity, equity, inclusion. And the idea of DEI is to redress historical wrongs. And one historical wrong is the fact that women, minorities have been discriminated against American society and therefore they should be given better opportunities, more opportunities

to succeed. Okay? So you can argue that because of DEI, East Asian men have been discriminated against because, Historically, people believe that East Asian men have not been discriminated against, even though that's not correct, okay? So you can argue it's really DEI. But another way of understanding this

is figure out who succeeds in corporate America. And the answer is, if you look at the qualities of successful CEOs, well, first of all, they tend to be aggressive, okay, or assertive. Another thing is that they have high risk tolerance, or they take chances. Also, to navigate corporations, you need high EQ, emotional intelligence, empathy, or collaboration skills.

Okay? So these are the skills you need in order to order to do well in American corporations. And unfortunately, these certain skills, the stereotype is that East Asian men don't actually have these skills. Each Asian men are tend to be much more individualistic. They tend to be more cautious and they tend not to speak speak a lot, okay?

So East Asian men are not known for being articulate, which is something that you need in order to do well in a corporate boardroom where there's a lot of debate, where there's a lot of argumentation. We have to present your view, your opinion, very coherently. So what's interesting is that the skills that you need to do well in the corporate boardroom, Asian men don't have. And you can also argue that it's because each age man don't have these skills. They have other skills that allows them to do well in school.

For example, East Asian men are more focused. They're more Unitarian. They're grave obsessed. They are more compliant, more obedient. They like listening to authority. And that's why they do well in school. But what this means ultimately is a situation in which even though East Asian men do well economically, and they do well academically, their status, okay, status in America is not as great as their income would suggest.

In fact, you could make the argument that East Asian men are among the groups that at the lowest status in America, which makes no sense. But again, unfortunately, the evidence bears this out, especially the dating market. So again, remember, what is it that men want to do? Well, they want to obtain status so that they can find the most attractive mate.

Okay, so we're going to look at statistics from dating websites, online dating websites. This is from OKCupid, okay? Okay, Qaeda, which is one more popular dating websites in the United States. And so we have a lot of statistics about how people behave online. So look at this, guys, okay. And you're an Asian female, and a Asian man gets in touch of you, About 22% of these Asian female will respond to an inquiry,

a first message, if the person is an Asian man. But what's interesting is that if it's more white guy, then there's more interest, 29%. That's a pretty significant difference, okay? So this is just a first reply. Now what's interesting is that if you're an Asian, male, okay, what's interesting is that people are less likely to respond to you. Okay, so this is another map that shows statistics from the dating website.

Okay, so this is white woman, okay? Let's look at white woman and how interested they are in us. their ethnicities. If you are white, okay, Caucasian, they're very interested. In fact, they're the most interested. If you're black, they're not as interested, okay? If you're Hispanic, they're not interested. But look at this. If you're Asian, they are least interested. Okay? That's interesting. But look at this. If you are an Asian woman, okay? You're pretty interested in white guys. You're most interested in Asian guys, okay? And you're similarly interested in black and Hispanic guys. So it seems that in the dating market, one group that is most

discriminated against are East Asian men, okay? Another group that's also discriminated against heavily are black woman. Okay? So if you look at marriage patterns, there's also discrimination against East Asian men, okay? So 20% of East Asian women will marry white guys. So if you are in East Asian woman, you are attracted to white guys and you're attracted to East Asian guys primarily. But if you are in East Asian men, okay, all right, here, you're not that attractive to white woman. Okay? So 20% of East Asian women will marry a white person, but only 9% or 10% of Asian men will marry a white woman.

So this leads to a disparity in the marriage. market and what this means is that for East Asian men under 25 years old 75% are single meaning they cannot find a date or a partner okay okay so this leads to a very very stark conclusion for East Asian men the reality is that if you're in East Asian men in America people don't find you that attractive. Okay, so they did a lot of studies about the dating market in America and the radical conclusion that they have is that is this, okay?

A white woman, okay, is more attracted to a white man than an Asian man. And how do we know this? specifically, if a white man makes $62,000 a year, for the Asian man to be as attractive to her, the man, the Asian man needs to make $200,000 a year. That's a huge, huge difference. In other words, a white woman will be attracted to the average white guy and she will only be interested in the highest earning Asian guys. Okay, but not only are they making a lot,

but these Asian guys are actually at the top of their fields. Because $500,000 in America is actually a lot of money, okay? So you have to be a surgeon, you have to be a top lawyer, you have to be an entrepreneur in order to be attractive to just the average white woman, not even the most attractive white woman. So this is actually a pretty stark situation for Asian men. And so you have a really strange situation where

Asian men, East Asian men did everything right. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. They went to school, worked hard in school, got the best grades, then worked hard at their jobs, and did very well in their jobs. But now two things have happened because they followed the rules. because they're living right. They didn't commit any crime.

They're not on welfare. They pay taxes. They can contribute to the community. But because of these two things have happened. One is that they're not able to climb into status positions in America. They're not CEOs. The other thing is that they're problems finding a very good mate. Okay?

It's easy for them to find someone off their status or below, but it's very hard for East Asian men to actually marry up and improve their status and social economic standing in America. All right? All right. So this leads us to a very, very stark disparity, right? So let's look at this, guys. You have East Asian man, and here's how they play the game of immigration. They do one in school, okay?

They have good jobs, employment, yes. They have, they're not in welfare, okay? They don't go to jail, okay? And then you look at other minorities, okay? Specifically, Hispanic, black, and Muslim, okay? Well, they don't do as well in school, okay? They don't make as much as East Asian man. They're more likely to be in welfare

and they're more likely to go in jail, okay? All right? So you would think that East Asian man will ultimately triumph in the end. But what is really disconcerting is that, according to game theory, East Asian men are playing the game wrong. whereas these other groups, these Hispanics, these blacks, these Muslim groups, they are much more likely to win the game.

Okay? So how can we explain this? And that explanation is actually pretty straightforward, but it's actually very disconcerting or very disturbing. The answer is, if someone invites you to play his game, don't agree to play by the rules because the game is set up so that you will lose otherwise why would he invite you think of a casino right a casino is like please come in and play our game do you think a casino is fair if the casino were fair the casino go bankrupt right the casino is set up so that you have to lose.

Otherwise, they go out of business. Now, same thing with immigration. If a nation, like United States, is inviting you into their nation and you play by their rules, you will always lose. Okay? And this is what's happening to East Asian men

where they go to the United States. They play by the rules, and they'll never climb into status positions. And their woman will be married off to white men. The most attractive of all Asian women will be married off to white guys, whereas East Asian guys will make their money and then stay at home and play video games all the time. Okay? The game is rigged. So the only logical strategy, according to the game theory, to this situation is to break the game, cheat.

Okay? And that's what the other minorities are doing. And how do you do that? Well, you don't play the game, you don't go to school and obey the teacher, okay? How to win is by sticking together and having lots of babies. And over time that will enable you to win the game because of demographics. It doesn't make sense. You're much better off not going to school, being poor, but staying together, being cohesive, and having lots of babies, rather than going to school, getting good job, every you've been told to do,

because ultimately your energy will be stolen from you because of the rules of the game. Does that make sense, guys? All right. All right. So, okay, so again, immigration is very important because all in the world, poor people are going to rich countries to seek better opportunities, right?

So it's really North America, primarily at States, Canada, the United States, then you have Australia, New Zealand, in Europe, okay? And countries that are going to these places are China, East Asia, basically. and you have the Latinos, the Africans, Middle East, okay? And again, you have a situation where East Asians are much more likely to go and conform, but then you have other groups that go and refuse to conform. And as I mentioned, from a game theory perspective, it is better in the long term for you as a person not to conform, not to play the rules of the game, then to actually play by the rules of the game.

I know it sounds weird, okay? But according to game theory, that's the best outcome for you. So an example is in Europe, okay? In Europe, they have a huge Muslim problem. These Muslims are less likely to integrate. They don't do very well in school, but they will claim welfare. They will have lots and lots of babies, which is a drain on the economy of these nations. And what this means is that in the year 2050, okay, in the year 2050, this is what's going

to happen. In Sweden, one fifth of the population was will be Muslim. In the UK, 17%. In France, 17%. In Germany, 11%. In Italy, it will be 12%. So it seems as though there's a population replacement going on.

But not in that, but because Muslims are much more likely to have more children than Europeans, the populations, our Muslim will be younger, more energetic. Whereas the Europeans will be much more old, they'll likely be retired. So if this trend continues, then Europe will eventually be taking over

by the Muslim minority. Okay? And so the Muslims, they don't do well in school and they don't be that much money, but look at their value. First of all, they are cohesive, okay? Because of their religion, okay? They are energetic because you're young, okay?

And they're united because, quite honestly, the Europeans don't really like them. They are an outcast, they're considered an enemy by the Europeans. So if trends continue, then it is most likely that Muslims will control Europe in 25 years time. Doesn't make sense? But not only that, but you look at America,

let's look at America. You have a similar situation going on, sorry, okay, look at 2050, what's happening, okay? All right, so the white population is declining. Right now as a majority, but by 2050, it will no longer be the majority. Asians are increasing by a bit, but not that much, okay? But the real growth is in Hispanics, in Hispanics. Okay, and not only are they growing in up to numbers, but again, there are much more young,

much more energetic group who are more likely to have children, okay? And they are united because they are Catholics. So they have a common religion, they have a common language, they have a very similar common cultural traits. So that's it. According to a game theory, if you're an immigrant, your best strategy is not to do it in school and make a lot of money. That will get you nowhere.

You're just playing by the rules of the game. Your best strategy is to stick together with your ethnic group, have lots of babies, maintain your religion, and over time, your children, your grandchildren will come to dominate the nation. Okay? Doesn't make sense, guys. Any questions before I move on?

The problem with this is that there is no way that the majority, the white people, will just sit back and let this happen, okay? You're going to have a lot of violence and a lot of conflict. Because from the white perspective, this is population, replacement. If we just let demographic trends continue, if these outsiders just have a lot of kids

and we don't have the kids, then eventually our culture will be destroyed and they're right. Historically, they're right. And how do we know? Because let's talk about some history. All right. So last semester, we talked about the proto-Indo-Europeans.

right okay so this is europe this is asia Anatolia okay so remember that after the ice age hundred gatherers spread around okay okay you have hundred gatherers around but then because as the earth was warming this allowed for agriculture and so a new group came in a being that focused on

culture, okay? These are the farmers. These are farmers. And they arise primarily in Anatolia and the Levant in Mesopotamia because that was the warmest part of the globe that was most amendable to agriculture. But then if you remember, there's always climate change. And because of climate change, they're not forced to migrate. Okay? And a lot migrated to Europe. and when they went to Europe, they forced out the hunter-gatherer. Okay? It was not violent because hunter-gatherers have very few people, and they're allowed, and they can move about, okay?

But eventually what happened is that the farmers were able to displace the hunter-gatherers. Okay? Now they're established in Europe. You also had farmers who went into the steps. But remember from last semester, we discussed the steps on how, because it's grassland, you can't actually farm there, or it's very hard to farm there, so they develop a new economy called nomadic pastoralism. Which is to say that they raise sheep, gold, and cows, and they migrated it from one area of the grassland to the next. Okay? And as a result, they became very strong, very aggressive people.

And again, because of a population, because of climate change, these people are now forced to migrate to Europe, okay? They migrate to Europe. And what happened now? Well, now there's a war that lasts 100 years, 20 years, in which the pneumatic pastoralists, the Amaya or the Puerto Rwendo Europeans, they displaced or they eliminated the farmers. And so what happened, we noticed from genetic studies is that the men, the European farmers, were killed, and the woman were taking as basically brides, okay, slaves, basically.

Okay, so this is a population replacement. And this, historically, is what happens. Okay? One group comes in and replaces the other. And throughout most of the human history, this is a constant cycle because the steps were extremely violent and chaotic. And this forces groups to constantly migrate to other places in search of safety. And in each time, there is population replacement.

Okay? primarily in the elite okay so we so there are very few instances of situation where groups come together and they are peaceful no because you don't you only have one elite and the and one elite must replace the other elite okay doesn't make sense guys all right so if this is historically the situation How did we get into a situation where immigration has become the norm in today's world? Okay? Before, historically, we believe that you have to stay together as part of your group.

Otherwise, you'll be eliminated. And now we believe that, hey, if you don't like where you are, it's okay just get up and move somewhere else. And maybe it'll be a better economic opportunities for you. This is a shift in mentality, a shift in mindset. Okay, this came about because of the British Empire. Alright. Okay, so this is Europe. This is South America, USA, Canada,

Australia, New Zealand. Okay, all right. So, you have Spain, and you have Spain, And Spain, because of the Ottoman Empire, Spain cannot access the East Indies trade. So it had to figure out new ways to access East Asia, China, India, because that was where a lot of spices were, okay? There's huge demand for spices. So they started to chart new areas, Spain and Portugal primarily.

And what they discovered was there's all this new territory in South America. Now, South America is interesting because in South America, you had a huge population and there was a lot of mineral wealth, silver and gold. And so what they could do was they could go over there and enslave the population, okay? So slavery.

And then you convert them to Catholic religion. All right. So basically, the easiest areas to colonize, sprained in Portugal took right away. But then afterwards, Britain, England, start to play this game as well. Okay? And they also sent colonists. But the problem was that there was no large population to enslave. Also, there are a lot, especially the United States,

there are a lot of aggressive Indians, okay, natives. And so the solution was, the United States, after one independence from Britain, it welcomed immigrants from Europe, specifically Ireland, Germany, Poland, these places. The reason why is they needed to displace the natives. Okay? And then immigrants were then encouraged to go to Canada and Australia

to build their economies as well. So in other words, immigration today, it is a historical accident. The Americans were responding to the specific needs of that time. They were a small population against a hostile people, the natives, in a very large area. And so they needed people to come and farm and then, the area and that's why America welcome immigrants and this is new in human history where you could go to a new place and become a citizen okay usually if you

went to a new place you went because you were a slave you were conquered in war and you went as cheap labor okay so in America and so America they welcome you as citizens if you were willing to contribute and they allow you get rich if you worked hard. Okay, now fast forward, and America becomes an empire because it's allowing all this energy to concentrate in America. You have World War II, you have World War II, and America triumphs in World War II.

And now America can set the entire rules of the game for most of the world, for Western Europe. And at this time, America set to Europe, You guys fought wars, you guys had fascism, because you are a close society, okay? Close society means you don't want immigrants, you're all very nationalistic, and therefore you are violent.

America won the war because America is an open society which welcomes immigrants, which is a multicultural society that encourages people to get rich and be happy, And so Europe, if you want to be like us, if we want to prevent World War III, then you have to become an open society as well and welcome immigrants just like we do. Okay? And that's why we have the situation where we have where now Muslims are going to Europe and others are going to America. Okay?

And what we need to recognize is that immigration It's a new game developed because of certain historical circumstances. But it's not sustainable in a long term. And so the idea that you can just work hard in school, then go to America and become wealthy, that can't be true anymore. In the future, according to game theory, what's going to happen are these violent conflicts between different demographic groups because each group is trying to set the rules of the game.

the rules of the game. Because if you ever set the rules to the game, will always win the game, meaning they have access to the best jobs, they have the high status, and they have access to the best-looking woman, which is ultimately what every man is looking for. Okay?

Status, attractive woman, power money. Okay. All right, does that make sense, guys? All right, any questions? Okay, ask one question, then we'll be. one question then we'll we'll finish class okay can we really do something about the current immigration or we don't have any ability to change it okay that's a great question and I'm sure everyone's I was a few with this question

which is like what can we do about this situation well I mean the problem is and I hate to say this, but immigration is not natural. Okay, and what I mean by that is that if you're born into a community, what is natural is for you to want to help this community grow and develop. You want to contribute to this community. What is not natural is for you to say, you know what, this community sucks,

I'm gonna go find a new community. Because if everyone did that, then no communities could ever exist. Okay? So 9% of people, what their natural inclination to do is to want to work hard and make the community a better place. And that's what everyone should be doing. You always have minority people, maybe 1%, 2%, who are sort of strange and that they're different ideas. And they're not going to be able to conform to the community. And historically, these people have been killed by the communities.

And so it's natural for them to get up and leave. Okay? So, but that's only a small group of people. So what's, what is natural is for people to want to just stay where they are because they love their neighbors because they love their family and they want to help their community get stronger and stronger. And unfortunately, because of globalization, because of mass media, because of the internet, of the internet, for another reason, young people believe that what's important is their own individual happiness, their own academic opportunity. So I'm going to go wherever there's more economic opportunity.

So for example, Chinese students, the very best are like, you know what, I'm probably to make more money in the United States, so I'm going to work hard, they immigrate to the United States, and then start my own company, get rich, and all that. And you know, some people have been very sense of doing that. But if you think about it, this is not good for China, right? As a nation, why would you encourage your best and brightest to take their skills, move somewhere else, and contribute to that economy rather than to your own economy? And so we're in a very strange situation.

And we are in this situation because, for the longest time, America was a global hegemon, and it could write the rules of the game. And I keep on telling you guys this, whatever writes the rules of the game, will always win. Okay? So globalization system is set up so that America

could extract in the world resources and these resources include talent. Okay? So we have a situation where the best

and brightest goal in America because that's where they're most likely to thrive. But now the world is changing. America is not

becoming, it's not longer the global hegemon. Russia, China, these countries are rising as well. And so nations now are much more interested in being able to maintain their best of rights, their talent, their human capital. And this is the way it should be. If you're born in

China, then your priority ought to be like how to make China a better place. It shouldn't be like, I'm working really hard in school so that I can get a visa to go study United States. That makes no sense okay so um and look the reality is that um if you're in states you make a lot of money but you're still in me low status okay and that's a situation i found myself in in north america where you know i worked really hard in school i went to yale and i couldn't make a lot of money as a lawyer as a doctor but i recognize that you know what if i just stay where i am i'm not I'm not going to ever achieve my potential. I'm not going to achieve status in America.

I may be wealthy, but I'm never going to achieve high status. That's why I chose to come to China, because I thought there were more opportunities to obtain higher status in China than in the United States, where I'm not white. I'm East Asian, and there's going to be a lot of stereotypes and prejudice against me because I'm East Asian. Okay?

And quite honestly, I was right in my assessment. investment. All right. So yeah, you're saying what can East Asians America do about this, right? And unfortunately, according to game theory, they're stuck where they are. Okay. That's why, you know, I chose to leave, but if you're East Asian in America, I'm not saying for everyone, okay? I'm sure there are like thousands of very happy East Asians who have married very well and they have very good lives, okay? But for the majority, you can have decent lives, but you're always going to be low status. And quite honestly, a lot of East states are happy with that situation. A lot of these stations are just happy, you know, getting by, making good money, and then we don't worry

about status. Okay. But the problem is that the children and grandchildren are kind of screwed over because it's going to be very hard for them to marry. Okay. And again, there's, there's a lot of East Asian men who are single and they have problems on the dating market. Okay? Any more questions, guys? Is that clear? Great, okay. So we will continue this next week.