I really enjoyed this Australia talk by Molyneux, although the concepts seemed a bit confused to me. I wonder if he'd agree with the following?

Human beings are discrete entities. It's like that game I play with my kids, where I pretend to know what they're thinking, then pretend-scramble to come up with excuses when I get it wrong: "I was, uh, just seeing if you were listening!" There is no magical "hive mind collective"-- people are individuals, with their own bodies, and their own minds, and they take their own actions.

Therefore, it only makes sense to judge someone based on their characteristics as an individual; the classic example is, if someone walks into a job interview for a factory work position, it's not rational to refuse them purely based on the fact that the birth date on their application shows that they are a Gemini-- rather, you should try to discern individual traits relevant to the job, like their strength or attention to detail.

A corollary is that it only makes sense to feel pride or shame based on the direct consequences of your actions. For example, if you build a house with your bare hands, and it turns out really well, it's rational to feel pride. If you rob a bank, it's rational to feel shame. But if your brother robs a bank, and you had nothing to do with it, it does not make sense to feel shame. If a Chinese person builds a monument all the way across the world and you are Chinese, feeling pride would be irrational-- you didn't build the monument!

How does one learn about the attributes of an individual? Let's say you just met someone for the first time, and you know nothing about their character or personality. The only information you have to go off of is the fact that they are wearing a polka-dotted clown suit-- which leaves you with the negative impression that they are a weirdo. This isn't bigotry-- you're just evaluating someone using the only data at your disposal.

Or how about this one: if you are in an army, part of an active battle in the middle of a war zone, and some guy jumps out, carrying a rifle and wearing the enemy's uniform, you're not being a bigot by shooting him. Yeah sure, maybe over a beer you'd find out he's actually a really nice guy! But in that moment, you only have limited information via which to judge the person.

It's like that Al Sharpton quote, where he said when he's walking around in the dark, and he hears young people behind him-- he's relieved when they're not black. He's not racist: he merely knows that something like 87% of the violent crime in his city is committed by black youths! It's not bigotry to try to put some distance between you and them: you deal with the information you have, in the moment.

So what is bigotry then? It's when you don't change your opinion in light of new information. Let's say you find out that the polka-dotted suit person was only wearing it because they had rushed back from their job in the circus and hadn't time to change, yet you still think they are bizarre and thus treat them poorly-- you are being closed-minded: a bigot.

Or let's go back to the black youths example: if one of those individuals is on trial for a crime, the evidence clearly seems to indicate their innocence, and you still convict them on the basis that black youths commit most of the crimes-- that is bigotry: you did not modify your view of them as you obtained new information about them and their circumstances, as a discrete human being.

The concept of a country or of borders only makes sense to me based on evaluating the character, world view, and values of each individual, as best as possible. To me, people who can pass a values compatibility test, or who have the personal vetting and approval of citizens who know them, and who themselves have run the immigration gauntlet, could come in: everyone else would be denied

It's just like your own house: do you let complete strangers come into your home, across your "borders"? Do you let people in who actively do not share your values-- who you think will steal from you, or attack you, or with whom you otherwise share nothing in common? Of course not; you let people in only if you know them personally and can attest to their character, or if a trusted friend recommends them directly. This is a rational position based on the above exposition.

But in today's world, where the values of each country are so diluted due to mass immigration of people with wildly diverging value sets, to the point where the average Westerner essentially has nothing in common with his fellow "countrymen"-- the notions of "nationalism" or the "nation state" in general make no sense. Only successive secessions, where masses of individual people who share values congregate together and re-formulate new borders, will help to put things right.