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South Africa : The Ultimate Red Pill
There's been quite a lot of speculation on what Elon Musk's red pill moment was. Some have said it's that the government interfered with his space launches. Others have said its because his kid transitioned from male to female. But it's hard to write the story of Elon without considering where he grew up: South Africa.
South Africa is a cautionary tale. It's the ultimate failure of the progressive experiment.
The decline of South Africa since the end of apartheid has been as stunning as it was predictible. At one point, a small population of 3 or 4 million white South Africans was able to build a suprisingly advanced society. They performed the first human heart transplant. They had nuclear weapons!
But over time, international pressure against apartheid mounted and South Africa became a pariah state. In 1994, the apartheid government caved and allowed blacks full participation in democracy. Optimism was high. F. W. de Klerk, the last white president, even ran for another term. He got 20% of the vote.
The man who won the office with 63% of the vote, and who de Klerk would share a Nobel Peace Prize with, was Nelson Mandela. Today, Mandela is often compared to Gandhi or MLK, but that is not an accurate representation of his earlier years when he viewed himself as a guerilla in the model of Che Guevara. Fortunately for his image, he was arrested in 1962 and imprisoned until 1990, largely avoiding personal involvement in his party's genoicidal rhetoric of "Kill the Boer" and the infamous use of the South African necktie which involved placing a tire around a person and then burning them alive.
Neverthless, as President, Mandela managed to be mostly conciliatory towards whites. The Truth and Reconcilation Committee was an effort to bury the hatred of the past, and was largely viewed as succesful at the time.
But the rot had already started. Mandela's term saw the imposition of huge amounts of welfare spending and affirmative action. There was an influx of illegal immigrants from poor countries nearby, but an outflux of whites and coloreds. As a result, the percentage of whites in South Africa fell from 13% in 1995 to just 7% today.
After Mandela, things would get much worse. Thabo Mbeki, the next President, denied the link between HIV and AIDS, and the number of South Africans suffering from the disease skyrocketed to a quarter of the population. After him came Jacob Zuma, a polygamist, who would rehash the "kill the Boer" song during a 2012 rally.
Today, South Africa is in shambles. The passenger rail system, which once served 600 million annual journeys, is now essentially defunct. The electricity grid is teetering. Life expectancy and GDP per capita have been stagnant for 40 years, while nearly every other country in the world has seen staggering increases.
Worse, though, is the fate of rural white farmers who have been subject to attacks in which they are tortured for several hours and then murdered. Almost none of these attacks are prosecuted, meaning the farmers can be murdered with impunity. In fact, the government of Cyril Ramphosa, the current president, has proposed seizing white-owned farms without compensation, echoing what happened in Zimbabwe.
It was in the context of all of this, that today the Trump administration said it will grant asylum and a rapid path to citizenship for white South African farmers who flee to the United States. Furthermore, the government will cut off all aid to South Africa.
This will likely hasten South Africa's decline, and it's an acknowledgement that there is no longer anything there worth saving. South Africa is a failed African state, no different than many others. But despite everything, I'm not sure what could have been done differently. Apartheid is morally reprehensible, and at the same time it was the only way to keep South Africa from falling apart. That's all in the past now. It's time for the elves to get back on their ships and sail back to Valinor. And pity the ones that stay behind.
I have a proposition for you: We hand all political power in the US over to the blacks. As a white guy, you'll probably be forced to live in a designated area an hour outside a major city, where you'll be forced to take a bus in every day to do manual labor for ten bucks an hour. You will be barred from most public accommodations, and will have to get official permission before traveling anywhere outside your home; even going to work will require you to present proof that you actually have a job. Your own political power is nonexistent, and the government doesn't even pretend that you have anything resembling civil rights. The tradeoff is that the United States sees unprecedented GDP growth. Do you take this bargain?
In this thought experiment, how do you square 'unprecedented GDP growth' with 'ten bucks per hour'? Cost disease still exists even if all the high-paying jobs are taken by the negro overlords (although if we're trying to be realistic, at least make them Chinese or something).
You mean like a suburb? You make it sounds as if commuting an hour by bus is some god-awful fate rather than a normal commute in countries with public transport.
Pretty easy.
These are the only two that genuinely sound bad.
For most individuals in democracies, they have no political power. Depending on what you mean by civil rights, that could also be said to be true.
In this thought experiment, the growth is unprecedented compared to other white countries. Compared to rich blacks who live in big houses, drive big cars and sit in comfy offices doing nothing, your life of menial labor is rather miserable, always had been and always will be.
Okay so the average GDP per capita in the EU is $40,000 today. In exchange for being ruled over by a small group of Africans who earn more than us and limit our movement and freedoms, the UK can quadruple its GDP per capita to say, $160,000? (the real life gap between SA and Nigeria) Honestly it sounds like a pretty good deal. British people get to live amongst ourselves, and with our newfound wealth we can just build strong communities in the limited parts of the country we're allowed to live in.
Although I'll be honest, this is a tricky hypothetical because it requires me to change too much to really make it analogous. Like, do Europeans in this hypothetical world commit tons of crime and corruption while the Africans are smarter, more law-abiding, more organised and better able to run things? Are the real life IQ differences flipped or are you just making one group smarter or dumber?
If you want better (but even more provocative and inflammatory) analogy, here is it.
Imagine the world looks as it is, except there is one large country looking like something from far future (Star Trek future, not Mad Max future).
In this land, ordinary menial laborer has big house affordable elsewhere only to millionaires, flying car and personal holodeck entertainment. Even basic health care can treat nearly all illnesses and diseases, including old age. The land is orderly, crime and violence is something unheard of.
What country is it?
It is Israel. Great Messianic Kingdom of Israel from Nile to Euphrates. It is Jewish land, but Gentiles can live there if they know their place.
As Gentile laborer, you live in Gentile community, travel to work and back in your flying car on specially designated Gentile flight tracks, and have to obey and defer to your Jewish bosses. While you have mansion and flying car, every Jew has Versailles sized estate and personal starship. And this is how it always will be. You and your children will be always laborers, will never rise up above their station. This is how G-d wills it.
Will you sign up for this deal?
Alternatively, if the Messiah decides to add country where you live to the Kingdom and bring the Messianic Order there too, will you fight, protest or welcome your G-d ordained overlords?
Aside from the difficulty of squaring 'menial labour' with flying cars and personal holodecks (do I wear a mech suit while stacking shelves or something?), I'd sign up for that in a heartbeat.
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