Indians Run 7-Elevens; Vietnamese Run Nail Salons... WHY?!

Join Malcolm and Simone as they dive into the fascinating concept of 'Non-Linear Ethnic Niches' and their dominance in various industries, from grocery stores in Detroit to Dunkin Donuts in Chicago and Vietnamese nail salons. They discuss examples from Arc Ethereum's research, the historical and economic implications, and even ponder whether such niches can be engineered ethically for future techno-feudal societies. Alongside, they explore the significance of such niches, historical parallels, and how they could play a role in a post-globalized world driven by AI and demographic shifts.

[00:00:00]

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be talking with you today, especially because I just learned about this thing. It's really weird. From Arc Ethereum. He, he writes, did you know that Chian own 90% of the grocery stores in Detroit? 40% of the truck drivers in California are Sikh, and about a third. US Sikhs are truck drivers and that 95% of Dunkin Donut stores in Chicago in the Midwest are owned by Indians, mostly Gujarati Patels. What?

வணக்கம் உங்கள் அலுவலகத்தின் நேரத்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின்

முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் முதல்தின் ம

Simone Collins: And then in New England and New York, 60% of Dunkin Donuts are operated by Portuguese immigrants.

90% of the liquor stores in Baltimore are owned by Koreans. And all of these are apparently what ARC Ethereum calls and other people, other people's [00:01:00] had called non-linear ethnic niches. And it like, these are these weird industries. That are dominated by ethnic groups, but not like, because obviously those ethnic groups should dominate them.

No,

Malcolm Collins: I think it is obvious. I think that they were just bred, I think Indians are bred to run convenience stores. This is, it's an entire country breeding experiment to create the perfect convenience store owner. I'm gonna put like an APU thing here.

Simone Collins: Well, no liquor stores and Koreans. There are more like Cambodian donut shops.

Why Cambodians and Donuts? No. There is no, and like by the way, in, in all the research on non-linear ethnic niches, they remove all the ones that should be considered obvious, like Chinese people and like Chinese restaurants. 'cause obviously like Dove, of course they would maybe dominate that. Although I feel like.

Actually they don't. So you might, right, like, aren't Chinese restaurants mostly like Korean run or something? They're mostly

Malcolm Collins: run by Koreans. Yeah. Or Mexicans. I feel like I've seen more Mexicans running No, no, no. It's mostly Koreans because white [00:02:00] people can't tell the difference. And so they're like, oh yeah, this makes sense.

It just seems authentic.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But no, they, they've actually parsed this out and here's the thing. Okay. Ethereum who introduced me to this concept, and we've done some podcasts and other essays he's written, he, he's, he's fun in that he is spicy takes, we don't necessarily agree with all of them, but they're quite interesting.

He thinks they're terrible and I think they're freaking awesome. Okay. Okay. Go explain, explain the regression of everything that we've ever done is society, and I'm like, this is. Exactly what we need right now. You,

Malcolm Collins: you wanna create some sort of like, ethnic carve out for my, our family and people. I

Simone Collins: want to make a non-linear ethnic niche.

I want to engineer one. And so what I wanna do with this episode is I wanna walk you through mm-hmm. Some of the examples here that Ark Ethereum describes. 'cause it's one, this is just super interesting. I, I, I like, I guess we've, we've kind of seen it, but I never really thought about it. Because, you know, I don't see race, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I don't, I don't know. I

Simone Collins: didn't know Of course not. Of course not. Yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: only, I only see race. That is the [00:03:00] only thing I use to judge people is just race.

Simone Collins: Just like Jack, Jack Donkey just sees numbers on top of people's head.

If everyone could see the world the way I see it, it would be a better place to live. I bet that's true, Tracy, but , I guess I just see the world the way I see it.

Is he letting me keep this? I think so. I wish I was there so I could play with it. Hi Miss Levin.

Simone Collins: You just see like I. They're, they're race. Have you played ethno, guesser? This is a little off topic, but

Malcolm Collins: No.

What, what is ethno? Guesser. Oh

Simone Collins: god. We shouldn't go into it too much. No, tell me. It's a game. No, you like it's this new game where you see men and women, I think composite faces, and you're supposed to like, choose. Zi would

Malcolm Collins: be really good at this. He can like, no,

Simone Collins: he's like, he, yeah, no, he, he obviously is gonna be like the world class ethno guesser winner.[00:04:00]

But like now everyone can try to become like Zi Kahan get better at judging people's ethnicities upon sight. Yeah. He's, he is, he is insanely good at, I don't know how he does it. But anyway, now you can become good at that too, through the game. Ethno, guesser. But anyway yeah, I don't see the world like that.

I just see, I just see like. The number of actions that I might need to complete to end an interaction with someone and get away. I think that's probably how I see the world anyway, though. I wanna walk you through some of his examples. Then. I wanna walk, walk you through the, the unifying elements, like how these form I.

Because what these, we, these niches are, are essentially like industries that come to be owned by a group of people that thereby create high barriers to entry and have a distinct advantage in an industry. And while ARC Ethereum thinks these are awful in a post demographic collapse post AI world where we end up with techno feudalism, this could be the thing that saves your people.

You know what I mean? Like you want to own an industry. [00:05:00] Yeah. And he's just assuming that we're going to like, continue with globalism, that we're gonna continue with open markets and I don't think we can. Depend on that. So I'm like, alright. I mean, he's like, oh, it's like this horrible cast system. And I'm like, I mean, yeah, but if the shoe fits, wear it right.

Like this is what we're headed towards. Well, you, you have four ethno cast systems. No, I'm not for it, but like, if that's what we're headed to, wouldn't you rather make sure you're in a good group?

Malcolm Collins: Surely he has some hypothesis here.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. So let's, let's let's just to, to quote him and why he thinks they're bad.

He says. Non-linear ethnic niches are harbinger of the reversal of centuries of social progress toward interpersonal cooperation and economic progress toward larger, more homogenous and better integrated markets. I don't know if I'd like homogenous markets but anyway, they are super interesting. So he quoted, and he didn't come up with this concept in a 1999 and New York Times article.

They are defined as a certain ethnic group becomes entrenched in a clearly identifiable [00:06:00] economic sector. Working at jobs for which it is no evident cultural, geographical, or even racial affinity again, like Cambodians and donut shops. He starts with this example tha