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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   38183 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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I don't think South Africa is a perfect example. I can't tell whether your South Africa % is too high or too low, depending on whether you are including the Coloured population, which is of mixed ancestry.

In any case, my impression is that South Africa has been in a pretty dramatic decline, that I don't think is due to the mere percentage ancestry. Zuma's presidency was, as far as I understand, pretty terrible and corrupt, and the same party remains in power. People leave the country. Affirmative action is in place for employment.

At this point, they're having routine power outages, when that wasn't a thing in the past.

And, of course, they have the highest unemployment rate in the world.

Not exactly a fair measure.

Zuma's presidency was, as far as I understand, pretty terrible and corrupt, and the same party remains in power.

Do you think Germans would have elected for themselves someone as grotesquely corrupt and dim as Zuma ?

We know from America that highly black places routinely elect from their own ranks very bad leaders.

I don't believe you can separate the two easily.

Do you think Germans would have elected for themselves someone as grotesquely corrupt and dim as Zuma ?

They did elect a guy who wanted to start a war of choice with the Soviet Union.

Zuma couldn't conquer half of Europe in two years. Furthermore, there were many good reasons for Hitler to attack the Soviet Union - the gigantic army they were building to attack him with being first and foremost.

In free & fair elections he never got more than 33% or so.

But in a parliamentary system, it’s a frequent occurrence that the head of government doesn’t win the popular vote.

Argentina is 90% white and has elected a long series of terrible political leaders who took it from being one of the wealthiest countries in the world to being poorer than Mexico through mismanagement. Granted very few of those whites are German, but white/Chinese San Francisco went into a tailspin by electing terrible leaders who wrecked the place through mismanagement.

Demographics will not save you.

white/Chinese San Francisco went into a tailspin by electing terrible leaders who wrecked

People who're incredibly well insulated from consequences by virtue of having so, so much money used to be rather rare in our past.

Demographics will not save you.

Are you truly implying governance quality in predominantly black and predominantly white counties in the US is in the same ballpark re: corruption, competence etc?

No, black and white Americans are not on average equal in abilities. But white people are pretty capable of screwing things up for themselves. I mean, Russia and Argentina are both run pretty much entirely by white people and they’re both screwed up. Not as bad as South Africa, but my point is that not every problem can be traced back to black people. Even within the US there’s plenty of mismanagement by white people.

White nationalist utopias aren’t quite as dumb as black nationalist utopias, but it’s still missing the whole picture.

I never said a single thing about utopia.

That white people can screw up is well known, but with whites, it's the complete screw-ups (Argentina, Russia isn't really a true example as Ukraine, which started from a slightly higher base is worse off) are the exceptions. Moderate screw ups abound though.

Or perhaps GDP is not a very good measure of civilizational worth. Though Argentina is acknowledged to be the exception.

What about literally every other metric, from murder rates to life expectancy to, I dunno, the condition of public parks? I suspect South Africa will be far behind Argentina.

What about Ukraine, which had a population with a comfortable average IQ and a smart, sizeable Jewish minority, see Zelensky, but which was laughably poor before the war? Ukraine has lower GDP per capita and lower median income than South Africa (pre-war).

Crime, general pleasantness etc are all good retorts of course; Ukraine was arguably a nicer place to live pre-war, although my guess is most white South Africans wouldn’t make the move in 2019 even if offered (generally they hold out for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, sometimes Britain, or bust).

Ukraine was arguably a nicer place to live pre-war, although my guess is most white South Africans wouldn’t make the move in 2019 even if offered (generally they hold out for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, sometimes Britain, or bust).

The obvious answer seems to be that they don't want to move to a country where they don't speak the language. Afrikaans is a hybrid of 18th century English and Dutch, so obviously an English (or Dutch) speaking country is preferable to an Eastern-European country.

What about it? This is sophistry. Argentinians don't move to South Africa either, and Ukrainians are uninterested in both; even a laughably poor Ukrainian, if in a position to choose, would consider to the tune of 60-80 other destinations before looking at SA.

Most people assign non-zero value to remaining in their home country; leaving aside obvious issues like refugees and job offers, they prefer to «move up» to a categorically higher-status one – and/or one that is culturally close. For Argentinians, Spain and Italy; for South Africans, the Anglosphere; for Ukrainians, Canada and Poland, though they aren't very picky at the moment.

A more serious question would be something like: where would a random third party, say a Thai (knowing no respective national languages, etc.) prefer to move, if forced to choose between those three options and well-informed. It's quite abstract, of course, a Thai would still try to move up.

Hm, Germans electing a leader whose policies destroyed his country? Nosiree, can't think of a single historical example of that!

Maybe so, but we do strongly select for the ability to keep your corruption beneath notice. At least when you're running for office.

Do you think Germans would have elected for themselves someone as grotesquely corrupt and dim as Zuma ?

They famously elected Adolf Hitler (yes, I know, he was appointed, but that's how a parliamentary system works), who may not have been "dim" or "corrupt" but certainly screwed up Germany royally.

but certainly screwed up Germany royally.

I mean, was it not pretty much "give me liberty or give me death"?

The trajectory of history - Europe ending up dominated by economically stronger powers of US and Russia was fairly obvious.

Unifying Europe and destroying communism by the only method possible at the time was the logical, if risky countermove.

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