Today, I’m about to take the stage at one of Asia’s biggest human resources conferences—alongside one of my personal idols, physicist Dr. Michio Kaku.
My talk will be about how we’ve used AI at Mindvalley to accelerate productivity, creativity, and innovation. It’s a story that’s made our company an academic case study in AI transformation.
But I’ll also address something darker—something that’s hijacking our minds, our votes, and our shared humanity.
It’s the way AI is being used not to elevate us—but to divide us.
We see it every time we open TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube and get served content that perfectly matches our outrage.
So today’s newsletter is about this darker side of AI.
It’s about how AI is being weaponized to divide society.
And how ALL of us, but the immigrant and the person marching to get them out – are both being hijacked to serve a greater political purpose.
Let’s begin with the algorithm
Not the kind that builds robots.
The kind that feeds you headlines. Curates your outrage. Hijacks your empathy.
The kind that fuels TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and X.
These algorithms don’t just reflect your beliefs.
They sculpt them.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
AI doesn’t care about democracy.
AI cares about dopamine.
It optimizes for one thing: engagement.
And the fastest way to get engagement?
Fear.
Outrage.
Division.
So what do we get?
Not truth.
Not nuance.
We get emotional bait.
Headlines like:
“Trump ends the H1B Visa program.”
“Democrats halt the government because they want healthcare for illegals.”
And who benefits from this firehose of emotional manipulation?
Not the wise.
Not the kind.
But those most willing to say anything, no matter the cost.
And right now, the cost is being paid by immigrants. The very people we once promised to welcome, protect, and uplift.
America: the immigrant myth
Let’s start with the United States, where this lie has taken root the deepest.
In his recent speech at the United Nations, Trump declared that the U.S. government is being shut down because Democrats want to give healthcare to illegal immigrants.
Sounds outrageous, right?
Here’s what he doesn’t tell you:
The actual portion of the U.S. healthcare budget that goes to undocumented immigrants?
< 1%
That’s not a typo. Emergency Medicaid expenditures for undocumented immigrants are estimated to be less than 1% of Medicaid’s total spending.
That’s for emergencies—like if someone is bleeding out on a highway after getting hit by a car. The American way is to save a life.
The alternative? Let them die.
But 1% is still something, right? That could be going to regular Americans. How dare those undocumented folks leech off tax-paying Americans?
Now there’s the other great myth that the White House is perpetuating.
Far from draining the system, undocumented immigrants contribute $97 billion in taxes annually—equivalent to the tax output of the entire state of Ohio.
Yes, you read that right. The average undocumented immigrant in America actually contributes between $8K to $10K a YEAR in tax revenue.
Now imagine everyone in Ohio being told they’re not allowed to access any healthcare—even emergency care—despite paying taxes.
And when people say, “Well, they came here illegally,” let’s talk history:
For decades, the U.S. had a rotating door policy with Mexico.
Undocumented labor was quietly welcomed to do the jobs Americans wouldn’t.
Reagan tolerated it.
Bush tolerated it.
It only became a “crisis” when fear became a campaign strategy.
I want to be very clear, I’m not suggesting we allow illegal immigrants into countries; countries have border policies for a reason.
America spends $25 billion in budgeted per year on policing its border. What I am against is the villainization of undocumented migrants, the tearing apart of their families, people not having the right to due process and fair trial, because these are tactics that dictators use.
As a conscious civilized society, we need to be very, very aware of these tactics.
Obama himself deported $3M people from the United but it was done with due process – there are fairer, safer ways to deal with illegal immigrants.
But before we move on, let’s talk about crime. Trump has been suggesting that undocumented immigrants contribute vastly to crime. Data from the Cato Institute tells another story.
- Undocumented immigrants are 41% less likely to be incarcerated than Americans.
- Documented immigrants are 74% less likely to be incarcerated.
Immigrants are by FAR less likely to engage in criminal behaviour. But of course, it’s not convenient to tell the truth.
If you think this hysteria only affects undocumented workers, think again.
What happened when I tried to build a company in America
Let me tell you why Mindvalley—a global personal growth company—was forced to leave the U.S.
In 2004, I was legally living in New York. Visa approved. Business thriving.
Then, I was added to a federal watchlist.
It was called Special Registration—a Bush-era policy targeting people from Muslim-majority countries.
Here’s the irony:
I’m Hindu. And baptized an Orthodox Christian.
But because I held a Malaysian passport—from a peaceful, developed country with a Muslim-majority population—I was flagged.
For four years, I couldn’t fly in or out of the U.S. without a two-hour interrogation.
Every four weeks, I had to report to the NYPD.
I’d arrive at airports earlier than everyone else to sit in a room with agents who often asked, “How are you even on this list?”
They knew it was absurd. But the system didn’t care.
So I left.
And I moved my company to Malaysia—not for lower taxes or talent, but because I refused to be treated like a suspect for carrying the “wrong” passport.
We built something extraordinary.
Mindvalley now operates globally, has created thousands of jobs, and impacts people in over 100 countries.
And I made a promise:
If I couldn’t build in America, I’d recreate everything I loved about America in my own hood.
This is why Mindvalley became the first company in Asia to win the World’s Most Democratic Workplace award. It’s also why our office made Inc Magazine Top 10 Most Beautiful Offices in the World in 2012 and 2019. I recreated everything I loved about Silicon Valley culture in Asia and helped these ideas spread.
Eventually, President Obama declared Special Registration unconstitutional.
But in 2016, Trump tried to bring it back—under a new name: The Muslim Watchlist.
Only this time, social media was awake.
People protested. CEOs like Sergey Brin marched in the streets. Trump backed down.
But the same fear-mongering I lived through is now being used again.
To divide.
To distract.
To scapegoat.
Europe—The numbers, the narrative, and my uncle at dinner
A few nights ago, I was having dinner with a family member.
He said, “You know, Vishen, Europe is finally waking up. Crime is going up because they’ve let in too many immigrants.”
He’s not even European. But he’s been watching the wrong YouTube channels.
I looked him in the eye and said, “Let’s look at the data together.”
Yes, many Europeans say they feel unsafe.
That fear is real.
I feel it too.
I don’t wear a watch when walking around certain parts of London.
But that fear isn’t being caused by immigrants.
Multiple academic studies across Europe and the U.S. have found no correlation between increased immigration and increased violent crime. (I’ve linked to all of them in the blog post version of this article).
But it goes further. Despite what Trump says, crime across the world, and especially in Europe and the USA, are plummeting.
Why? Because as humans, we grow.
We evolve.
We become more conscious.
Anyone telling you otherwise is hijacking your fear for votes. This chart from Steven Pinker’s excellent book on why we need to be optimistic about the future shows just how much crime is decreasing. It looks at homicides, but the same is true for almost all levels of crime (the book is an excellent read!)
Trump’s Speech at the UN and his claim that the rest of the world is “going to hell”
By now, you should probably have read that Trump’s speech at the UN was widely seen as factually incorrect and described by many pundits as the worst speech any sitting American President has ever given on a public stage.
Trump says, “Look at Germany! Almost half the prisoners are foreigners!”
He’s not wrong—on the surface.
In Germany, around 48% of prisoners are foreign nationals.
But Germany is part of the EU.
“Foreign” includes people from Italy, Poland, and France—people who move freely within the union.
But we have to look better. Of the total incarcerated in Germany who are foreign nationals roughly 70% were non-EU nationals. And many were just the people Trump vilified. Afghans, Syrians and other refugees and people of lets just say browner skin complexion. So let’s examine data and see if it’s true that such people cause higher crime rates.
First, let’s zoom out.
Since the 1990s, immigration in Europe has increased by two-thirds.
In that same period, crime has dropped by a third. (All data sources in the blog post related to this article).
So if crime is falling and immigration is rising, the narrative falls apart.
But still something seems off.
Why are there so many foreigners in jails in Europe?
Here, the analysis is simple.
Here’s what the science of crime shows us:
- Most crimes are committed by men.
Globally, men make up the overwhelming majority of both criminals and victims. In the UK, three out of four people arrested or charged are male. - It spikes in young adulthood.
Crime—especially violent crime—peaks in the late teens to early 30s. In almost every country, young men under 35 commit the highest share of crimes. - Most refugees and migrants in Europe?
You guessed it: young men under 35. That’s because they’re the ones most likely to take the risk of fleeing war zones, walking across borders, and seeking work in foreign countries.
So yes, if you bring in thousands of young men, that demographic will naturally show up more in crime stats—even if their behavior is no different from native-born youth.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting.
When researchers adjust for age and gender, the difference disappears.
A Syrian, North African, or Chinese immigrant commits a crime at the same rate as a white European of the same age.
In fact, in many studies (including from Stanford and the Public Policy Institute of California), immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens of similar demographic profiles.
So when right-wing pundits show you a scary chart without age or gender context, remember this:
They’re not sharing the truth.
They’re selling fear.
Crime is not an immigrant problem.
It’s a young male problem—everywhere, across all ethnicities and countries.
And here’s the good news:
Crime is falling.
Even among the most “at-risk” demographics.
Humanity is evolving.
But if someone’s trying to win your vote with fear, they’re not going to tell you that.
The culture gap
Now, there’s another debate I often hear:
“But can immigrants, especially those from Muslim countries, actually assimilate into Europe?”
Ah.
That’s a more interesting question.
The answer is: Absolutely yes.
When I hang out with my friends in Europe, they come from an eclectic and diverse bunch—Brits, Swedes, Italians, Indians, Americans, Canadians, Colombians, Egyptians, and Emiratis.
And one thing I’ve noticed?
Almost all of us have parents who were deeply steeped in their original cultures.
But among our generation—those of us in our 30s and 40s—our values are remarkably similar.
Sure, we may vote for opposite political parties, but our core values?
We believe in women’s rights. In fairness. In a democracy. In self-expression. In dignity.
But don’t take my word for it. There’s a scale that measures this.
In his book Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker discusses something called the Enlightenment Values Scale, which measures cultural attitudes toward democracy, equality, free speech, anti-corruption, women’s rights, and more.
What does the data say?
Enlightenment values are rising across the entire world.
Especially in the Islamic world. Especially in Africa.
Yes, these regions still have lower average Enlightenment scores than Europe or East Asia.
But they are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth.
According to the data, the average young person in the Islamic world today holds values equivalent to the average young European in the 1980s. (see the chart below)
You know what that means?
We’re talking about a two-generation gap.
That’s it. Two generations.
In fact, today’s 18-year-old in the Muslim world likely has more in common with a European 18-year-old than that European 18-year-old has with his own grandparents.
So if we want to claim that bringing in young immigrants from Muslim countries is somehow bringing in people who will “hijack” European culture, then based on the actual data, we might as well kick out our grandparents, too.
Because the gap isn’t between civilizations.
It’s between generations.
We are becoming more alike as a species.
Thanks to globalization, the internet, education, and shared media.
We are converging—not diverging.
And this new generation—the one crossing borders, dreaming bigger, seeking safety, opportunity, connection—they are not a threat.
They are the future.
Actual diagram of the Enlightenment Values scale from Pinker’s book.
Why right-wing politicians push the fear narrative
Because it works.
Because when it comes to actual governance, they underperform.
VASTLY.
So they rely on outrage. Fear. Division.
Let’s look at the numbers—over the last 30+ years of U.S. leadership.
Since 1990, the USA has had:
3 Republican Administrations: George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Trump
3 Democratic Administrations: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden
Now, let’s compare their performance on indicators of wealth, business, and economy.
Before I go into the numbers. Who do you think performs better?
Pause a moment and guess…..
When I surveyed my audience, over 45% said Republicans. At an entrepreneurship meeting recently in the USA, 90% said Republicans.
Yet the real data shows that Democrats outperform in almost every major category.
- GDP Growth: Democrats averaged 3.46% growth; Republicans 2.4%.
- GDP Per Capita: Higher growth under Democrats in every decade.
- Job Creation: Democrats created 87.8 million jobs. Republicans: 31.9 million.
- Unemployment Rate: Lower under Democrats—5.4% vs 6.2%.
- Stock Market Performance (S&P 500): Democrats averaged 14.4% annual return. Republicans: 8.8%.
- Deficit (as % of GDP): Republicans average defects ~2.68%, Democrats ~2.57%
- Inflation: Lower under Democrats.
- Infrastructure & Innovation: Democrats championed large-scale investment (CHIPS Act, Infrastructure Bill). Republicans leaned on deregulation and tax cuts.
Feel free to use your favourite AI to look up any of this data on your own.
The conclusion?
Democrats govern better.
Republicans market fear better.
And they’ve learned how to weaponize the algorithm.
Now, to be clear, the comparison I’m making here is purely on business metrics.
Many of my entrepreneur friends—people I deeply respect—have told me they vote Republican because they prefer Republican business policy.
When I shared this data with them, they were genuinely shocked. Most had been convinced that Republicans outperform Democrats on economic measures.
Now, if you vote Republican because you align with conservative values, your Christian faith, or prefer Republican tax policies—that’s absolutely okay. Vote Republican.
But let’s stop repeating the myth that Republicans are better for the economy.
When it comes to actual business performance, the data just doesn’t hold up.
And so distraction and division become the political game.
The original Republican Party (pre-Trump) had deep respect for immigrations.
Reagan said, “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.” (From Reagan’s remarks near the end of his presidency)
And Bush said, “Our country is a country of laws, and we’ve got to enforce our laws. But we’re also a nation of immigrants … America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time.” (Address on Border Security and Immigration, May 2006)
But the current administration. I think many ex-Republican Presidents would be rolling in their graves.
What you can do next
Don’t believe the villainization of people who are struggling to feed their families and get a leg up in life.
The next time you see an immigrant delivering your food…
The next time you’re served by a man with an accent…
The next time you step into a cab with a driver from a distant land…
Ask them their name.
Ask where they came from.
Ask why they came here.
Ask what they left behind.
Because they’re not your enemy.
They’re not here to take your job, your healthcare, or your safety.
They’re just trying to live.
Just like your grandparents once did.
And if we keep letting fear win—if we keep letting AI divide us—
Then the greatest con of the 21st century will be complete:
The powerful will keep stealing from you.
And you’ll keep blaming the powerless.
It’s time to wake up.
To research.
To think.
To reconnect.
To choose leaders who build—not burn.
Because democracy will not survive another decade of algorithmic fear.
But it might—if we start choosing love over division, and truth over dopamine.
If this newsletter stirred something in you, I’d love to hear it. Leave a comment below. Do you agree? Disagree? Have a story of your own? I read every single one because these conversations matter more than ever.
With fierce compassion,
Vishen
REFERENCES AND SOURCES OF DATA MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
A foundational study by Luca Nunziata (2014), published as an IZA Discussion Paper titled “Immigration and Crime: New Empirical Evidence from European Victimization Data”, examined European victimization surveys and national immigration data. His conclusion: immigration does not raise actual crime rates, though it may increase fear of crime due to perception biases. You can read it here: ftp.iza.org/dp8632.pdf. Nunziata later published a peer-reviewed version in the Journal of Population Economics (2015), confirming the same result — “no effect of immigration on crime victimization” (ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jopoec/v28y2015i3p697-736.html).
A landmark British study by Bell, Fasani, and Machin (2013), “Crime and Immigration: Evidence from Large Immigrant Waves”, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics (MIT Press), looked at two major immigration waves to the UK — the asylum-seeker inflows of the late 1990s and the “A8” Eastern European workers who arrived after the 2004 EU expansion. Their data show no increase in violent crime, and only a small, temporary rise in certain property crimes during the asylum wave (which later reversed). The full working paper is available from the LSE: eprints.lse.ac.uk/59323, and the published journal version is here: MIT Press PDF.
In Germany, one of the most examined European cases, Maghularia and Uebelmesser (2019, updated 2023) conducted a detailed district-level analysis over 2008–2019. Their study, published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, found that before the 2015 refugee inflow there was a weak positive association between immigration and certain crimes, but this turned negative or insignificant afterward. Over the full decade, the average effect of immigration on overall crime was statistically zero. The study is available at sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268123001713.
Huang and Kvasnicka (2019), in their IZA Discussion Paper No. 12469, titled “Immigration and Crime in Germany”, reviewed the European evidence and presented new results using official police data. Their conclusion echoed earlier findings: no evidence that asylum seekers increased violent crime; small upticks in non-violent or migration-specific offences were explained by demographics (young male populations) and economic integration barriers. Download here: ftp.iza.org/dp12469.pdf.
Similarly, Dehos (2021), writing in Regional Science and Urban Economics, analyzed Germany between 2010 and 2015 and found no increase in overall crime attributable to asylum seekers once migration-related offences were excluded. There was only a small increase in property crimes after asylum recognition, which the author attributed to temporary economic hardship rather than cultural factors. (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166046221000341).
Recent empirical summaries continue to reinforce this conclusion. The Ifo Institute’s 2025 analysis of German police data found no correlation between the share of foreigners (including refugees) and local crime rates — effectively confirming the earlier decade of literature. Likewise, a comprehensive international survey by Marie and Pinotti (2024) in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reviewed studies across Europe and the U.S., concluding that “the bulk of credible evidence finds no systematic relationship between immigration and violent crime.”
Even broader meta-reviews, such as Gehrsitz and Ungerer (2022) in Economica, stress the same point: high-quality studies using causal identification find no significant effects on violent crime, and only minor, temporary effects on certain property offences.
For accessible summaries of this literature, the IZA World of Labor review, “Crime and Immigration” (wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/33/pdfs/crime-and-immigration.pdf), concisely notes: “There is little evidence that immigration increases crime; at most, small, short-term effects appear in specific contexts.” Another readable synthesis is “Immigration, Crime, and Crime (Mis)Perceptions” from the Inter-American Development Bank (publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Immigration-Crime-and-Crime-MisPerceptions.pdf), which explores how public fear often rises even when actual crime does not.
Finally, Nunziata’s earlier conference version, “Crime Perception and Victimization in Europe: Does Immigration Matter?”, presented at the IZA Annual Migration Meeting, offers the early theoretical framing that would go on to guide much of this research: crime perception ≠ crime reality. It’s archived here: conference.iza.org/conference_files/amm2011/nunziata_l1447.pdf
451 Responses
Dear Vishen, I am so uplifted to read you, and I honor your courage and clarity. I am going to share your text as widely as possible. I am a French woman aged 52, today astrologer and painter, whose great grand-parents came to the North of France to escape from spain’s Franco dictature. They worked in the cole mines in the North of France. My grandfather worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, till one thousand meters under earth’s surface. He worked there among many other migrants from Italy, Poland, and then Morocco, for instance, who shared the strong solidarity forged by their situation of being slaves to the rich owners of the mines. He died at the age of fifty in 1976 because of Cole dust in his lumbs. He was known and remembered by all as a good and peaceful man. He contributed to the wealth of those times, even if the fruit of his work was not shared but stolen by the mine owners. There is a museum in memory of the cole mine nowadays, as the mines are closed. One very interesting fact is that this museum happens also to be a museum of social progress conquests. Those working migrants had found the strength to fight against the Powerful. They found their own power and claimed social rights that made the whole society become better and safer. They forged a future with more dignity. And many of them had the inner drive to create beauty as painters on Sundays, their only day off. Humble and poor people from different countries, who share the constraint of being sent, for instance, to war or of working as slaves of inhuman industries, are strong seeds of democratic ideas. Perhaps that’s why power people prefer to divide them, to divide us from them, and to deny their dignity and their right to express themselves and even exist politically. I am full of hope about the shaping power of humble and conscious people today too, as you mention it. I feel that they need to get their teeth into something meaningful and they may not eternally accept to be conditioned and weakened by a whole lot of bad ideas spreading fear and powerlessness, from non-food to non-sense and non-feel screens tending to build isolation and despair… People feel, they have their bodies, their souls, their minds, their sense of dignity, and even if some are seriously weakened, they can take themselves back ! You are helping in that direction. I send all my best thoughts to you and I thank you so much for your words, Vishen. Charlotte
Vishen,
I rarely take the time to read an email or a blog post. This is the second one I’ve paused to read in its entirety. Thank you for this. We, in the U.S., are in a place in history that is unprecedented for this country, but not unheard of. This country was founded on stolen land, then our history with slavery, then Jim Crow laws, and now this. My hope is that these moments begin to open the very eyes of people that they are instilling fear in so that they can “see” this is not an “us” vs. “them” battle, this truly is a fight for our democracy. As a multi ethic America I hope that we come to appreciate the vast differences, beautiful cultures, and true community that can arise when we accept people for who they are, as they are. I keep that hope daily, and I appreciate your courage to share and the data backing up your shares for the moments that I am in conversations with others that don’t understand the bigger picture. Thank you for you blog, for your work, and for your commitment to improving the world with Mindvalley. This has been life changing for me.
Vishen, Please keep Your Political Views, of America, to YOURSELF!!!
No person here needs to hear your long negative verbiage about America’s current President who was
Elected by majority in Every Area this year!
You leave out the Most Relevant Facts that occurred during the Biden Administration. Biden used all his
Presidency to Undo Everything President Trump had accomplished during his first 4 years. Especially
Immediately opening our borders and having people brought in here from all over the world who were the
Worse people in their countries – even sometimes out of prisons, Flooding America with several Million Illegal
Aliens. Yes, America IS a nation of Immigrants. We, like every country, have a Process, a good process, to
Come to America and have a New Life. You write as if the problem is simply Immigrants or Illegal Immigrants.
You know well that Millions of Illegals were dumped into America during the last four years. And THAT is what
President Trump is having to deal with. It was a setup from the previous administration and he has done what
He Had to do as far as to Secure our Borders. And he successfully did that almost immediately.
Our Democratic Party doesn’t seem to have an agenda of its own except to Undo Everything President Trump accomplishes. They never talk about what they propose other than going against Everything President Trump has done or proposes To do.
Please do us all a favor and QUIT writing about Your Political Views. We don’t need to know and actually prefer to Not
Know how Completely biased you are. I’m sorry you had to go through the processes you did but none of it was personal to you. So it is reasonable that you are Very Left in your views and experiences. That in itself indicates
Of course you are biased, understandably so. Just know that not necessarily half of MV American members are Leftist.
Maybe – Maybe Not.
Thank you Vishen for the courage of shading light on topics that many seem to consider too far way from personal growth. I am surprised to read comments that flag your commentary as “political” and so not entitled to be shared on an educational platform. I simply do not consider it possible to grow without assessing the social implications of our individual behavior or without evaluating the ethics of our leaders.
Once again you have shared very useful material. Thank you.
WONDERFUL. Thank you.
I love this thank you, please write one about Britain so I can send it to people there, I now live in nz and am shocked and saddened about how people in Britain keep telling me anti immigrant stories.
Thank you for your post Vishen, it’s quite useful to revert back to figure and open again our heart to compassion, love and dignity
I greatly appreciate your efforts to present more data on the topics and keeping “human” first as opposed to demonizing “others”, I fully appreciated the idea that, America’s “immigrant” issues are not actually an immigration problem but a people problem. I’ve never appreciated any policy that makes a label then uses it to dehumanize an entire demographic.
thank you, I enjoyed reading this.
Dear Vishen,
Thanks for this eye opening article! You truly are on a league of your own.
Keep inspiring!
Your favorite book must be “How to Lie with Statistics”
You have such a great gift inspiring people and motivating them.
WHY are you using it for harm and division?
The ‘Be Kind’ crowd who attacks people with other views every chance they get…
Who celebrates when someone gets killed for speaking their mind.
I see every day how the people you praise and protect are destroying our state and our country, brainwashing good people.
And some of that is being done by not arresting criminals, by not incarcerating them. Makes fro great numbers, doesn’t it (well done, California Governor and DAs!)
But you go to your questionable islands with depraved millionaires who want to get rid of all of us and revel in the heaps of cash you’re making.
How do you sleep at night…
Thanks, for so much clarity. I’m not up with AI, algorithms or what have you. I heard crime was going down, but heard some of my collegues having completely different stories. And since this is not my field of expertise I never looked it up. Who was actually right and who was wrong. You gave me the tools to hold my opinion with confidence.
Yolanda
Sorry, but politics should not have no place here or you risk to destroy the peace of this community. Whatever Trump says, whatever democrats say, whatever journalists say, we never know the real truth or the full picture and therefore we are all brainwashed no matter which party we prefer. In Germany we are facing a lot of statistical misinformation via the classical media where many people still take there news from. So they get a completely wrong perception until they do their own research what many don’t do. Furthermore, you are referring to a harmless crime study for Germany from 2015 and another one from 2019, but today the statistics give a completely different picture so please use relevant information before you build a picture (isn’t this also brainwashing?). Therefore a lot of discussions are on a wrong basis. And what we also learned latest since Covid, a case study usually generates the result the sponsor or the political owner prefers to see.
I’m disappointed to read this article on this platform.
For the first time in a long time
I took the time to read through a newsletter until the end. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and research with us. Brave and so important.
As always Vishen, thank you for who you are and for speaking truth. I didn’t realize all you had to endure while in the US or that you moved out of the country. It makes sense now because I stopped getting your posts and info about programs at MindValley. I’m so happy to be hearing from you again. The world needs you now, more than ever.
Absolutely YES!! Thank you Vishen. xo
Im in total disagreement with your article, I’m an immigrant came to this country 15 years ago and I don’t experience hate but aceptance and sooo much oportunity, and that in my own country I could never have even if I worked 20hrs a day. I would like to know the source of all your information specially about the budget because knowing and experience first hand all the free resources for immigrants I can tell you already that I can confirm that the budget your are talking about is not realistic or true. When I came here I asked for hand outs like anybody else until I starting to see and understand how money works, I was ignorant. I became a citizen and now I see why people are complaining because instead of me bringing more money I’m actually bringing less, my family and friends have come to USA to have their babies and pay nothing for all the medical care, a lot of friends live in California and their family members who live in Mexico come often to get healthcare for FREE, Im very interested in knowing the source of your information. If you said that you had enough of being treated like criminal because you were interrogated for about 2 hours every time you were coming to USA, you don’t feel like that happens in another country? Why do you feel you have rights in USA but if another country does that is ok? Im proud to call myself US citizen because this country has given me way more that I can ever dreamed. Im not feeling entitled but thankful. Your article brings division and misleading people to believe what is not true. Im so sorry I got your subscription because I do not align with your beliefs and perceptions. Frederick Douglas said “if there is no struggle, there is no progress”. I refused to think of myself as a victim, I choose to be a person with opportunities and too much thankfulness in my heart.
Thank you for this post. You’ve clearly outlined what many of us know intuitively to be true. We need more understanding of how the narrative is being manipulated, and for what purpose. When we educate ourselves, and the data proves factually the truth, it’s hard to ignore. But how to convince those that buy into the rhetoric, into the lies, into the fear-based narratives that are fed to us? So many would rather have their bias validated with media that feeds them an algorithm born from those that would profit off of that fear. They believe stories fed them from a controlled media with an agenda. Here in the US, we need to put safeguards back in place – the Fairness Doctrine, to start. And we need to rebuild our education system to teach critical thinking. It’s not just about political parties, it’s about economic parties, with deep pockets that control this narrative, and control our government, our courts, all of our systems. It starts with truth – and posts like this – they have power.
I 100% agree with the comment above that this blog post should be published on the front page of every newspaper, as well as promoted on social media (which I avoid like the plague). Thanks for speaking up on this urgent issue, Vishen!
Unfortunately, I am very sorry to see this attempt at propaganda in an attempt to seem compassionate and caring. There are strong arguments to be made that some of the resources used to back up your claims are false, skewed and misleading but getting to the bottom of what the actual, statistical facts are, would take far more than the time and space allowed here. ( I used Grok and came up with a completely different conclusion than you did). I use the word “propaganda” because you seem to be trying to convince me that one side is better than the other and your “argument” was not weighted equally but feigning that it was. You also conflate legal immigration with illegal immigration. Legal immigrants and those working towards it, is indeed a beautiful thing and I wish our system here in the US was more accommodating to those trying to become legal citizens. I work in agriculture and know many legal and illegal people, they are not here to harm or hurt us. Your argument is conveniently trying to convince us that all illegal immigrants would fall into that category. There is NO question that there is an entirely different group of illegal immigrants that are (in any country they have invaded) not here to be productive but to indeed do harm through crime, violence or abuse of the compassion and assistance given to them. Forget the reports and algorithms, the analysis and statistics, look and feel with your own heart, eyes and mind. The violence and crime is absolutely on the rise at an alarming rate, to say otherwise seems to ignore reality. To say one is better at governing and the other only leads by fear is an extreme take. There is strength in diversity of opinion but when one side starts saying that they have all the correct answers and the other side has none…huge problem. Quite frankly, that is all I see in the democratic party nowadays. They refuse to acknowledge any positive from the “other side”. They are the ones leading through fear and promoting it in fact. If you are a conservative voice, YOU are the one that must live in fear of being targeted with hate, contempt and even death. You are the one that needs to put up bullet proof structures when addressing crowds. If you are a voice from the left, there is no fear, you can be violent, both in language and physical assault, you can say and do the most outrageously awful and despicable things to another human being just because you think differently than them and you will likely be applauded for it. Justified even. You can live in Democrat run cities and they are run into the ground with homelessness, lawlessness, drugs and crime etc. They are not becoming more beautiful, safe and thriving under their leadership, I don’t care what there biased reports and statistics claim. When people can only see the positive in one ideology or political party as you have done here and not the strengths of the other. We will continue to see the divide grow and become more extreme with time. I am so sorry to see Mindvalley become political propaganda and wish you had never gone here. It is one thing to speak of love, kindness, compassion and all things good but this is not what you have done, you have pushed an agenda and it is unfortunate.
Thank you so much for sharing this! I always say borders are imaginary, people are real. I worry for the safety of my husband and kids who are asian and darker-skinned living in the U.S. Do they need to carry around their U.S. passports to not be kidnapped? Will someone spew hate or violence at my husband who is so gentle and loving? I feel so responsible for them while my in-laws are on the other side of the world, unable to even visit. I look forward to being able to move back to his home country where we were much safer. Let’s hold in our hearts every person we encounter as our child, as our family.