Squinting ahead into the 21st Century, most people are looking to China or the Far East generally or Europe (ha!) or Russia (ha! ha!) to be the next big player. My money’s on India. They’re big, they’re clever, they’re charming and they make excellent 1950s Hollywood musicals. It’s a country not without problems, but I’m betting she has the stuff to pull herself together and kick world ass.
So it’s worth noting that, genetically, they’re the same people as the Pakistanis. And Pakistan is a shithole.
The difference is, Pakistan is Islamic. And India — well, it’s not truly in the Anglosphere, but it was blessed with a period of British colonial rule and absorbed the lesson. Ipso facto it is not race that maketh a shithole. It is ideas.
Sure, being a colony is a drag, but the combination of Capitalism + English common law has been an unbeatable formula for prosperity, growth and invention wherever it has been applied, from Hong Kong to Rhodesia. Even when applied at the ass-end of a gun. The purer the tincture, the surer the cure.
Don’t give me that shit about Islam and algebra or medicine or whatever. That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago and it takes credit for stuff filched from the better cultures it absorbed. The few real Muslim innovators skated close to the edge with their own religious leadership. Purist Islam is conformist, repressive, hierarchical, intolerant, dogmatic. Innovation needs flexibility, tolerance for eccentricity and the willingness to absorb insult without riots or sawing off heads.
In the end, I have no worries who will win the argument. Everybody wants to live in a world with antibiotics and television. Even Osama luv him sat-phone. A caliphate could limp along at a frozen level of technology for a while (the Soviet Union made it almost a century, after all). But the nerds will win the long game, because they have allllll the mana points. This is why the “demographics is destiny” argument falls flat for me — I believe a thousand strong, stupid young men will lose a prolonged fight to ten geeks.
The question is the body count.
13 Comments
This is one of them there trick questions ain’t it?
Just angling for my spot on the “Behead Me First” list.
I once did a bit of Africa travelling with a friend who was stationed there as a Peace Corps worker. Even though ALL of the countries he had been in would qualify as shitholes, his theory was that the formerly British colonies were the least shitholey of the bunch. Some vestige of how a country could be run without becoming 100% corrupted and chaotic seemed to have been passed down.
Geeks are good at hiding and
picking the battles they know
they can win.
They may in lots of cases be
young, but they ain’t young,and dumb.
Howzat for an angle?
If you get a fatwa calling for your beheading, let me know. Then I’ll know what to do to get the same.
You and skinbad bring up an interesting point. Pakistanis, and even some Indians, are fond of waxing eloquent on how the British messed up South Asia. But it reminds me a bit of the sketch in The Life of Brian where someone asks (rhetorically), “What have the Romans done for us?” (“Us” being the Israelites.) After some discussion, the question becomes: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Although the Brits may have messed some stuff up (but, honestly, what imperial power hasn’t?), some people don’t give them credit where it’s due.
I think one reason Pakistan is in such a horrid condition whereas India is rising is because India was established as a secular state and on the remains of a polity that at some point or another existed as a historical fact for centuries, if not millennia, whereas Pakistan was established on the basis of religion and as an artificial construct with nothing historical, ethnic, cultural, et cetera, to serve as a foundation.
Compare Malaysia and Burmah.
Both ex-british colonies, one Islamic, one not. Which one is the more successful?
In Malaysia, its the Chinese population that is responsible for any economic success while not allowed to own any property. The Muslim population largely does nothing much at all besides collecting rent on the shops and factories that are run be the Chinese. There is tension between the two camps but the Muslims know where their bread comes from.
I dislike retarded persons. chinese men have small dicks
I’m a former muslim – was born into a hardcore muslim family, even lived in the promised land (Saudi Arabia) for over a decade. Islam is destined to fail. You are so on the money with Pakistan vs India. Every single state based on Islam has turned into 100% weapon’s grade horseshit. There are so many muslim fuckheads today who wax lyrical about the glory days of the caliphates and how they will reclaim that by overthrowing democracy and instituting theocracies again. Ha! The caliphates failed for a reason – they were non-sustainable as functional forms of governments. They didnt’ fail once – they crashed and burned repeatedly over several centuries until the coupe de grace of WWI ended the ottoman empire. I’ve seen just how retarded Islam is from the inside, both as a muslim and as someone living in the most islamic society on earth, and let me tell you all, you have nothing to fear from islam. It can’t do shit. They can’t unite to fight the rest of the world. They can’t make weapons. The only planes they can fly are hijacked airliners – good luck in a dogfight! Seriously, this is a culture that is doomed to fail because its followers are terrified to actually learn and broaden their minds. Islam knows that any who do get a real education end up leaving. So don’t fret. If there ever is a War, you’ll be fighting only the detritus. The smart muslims are no longer muslims.
Fraggle compares Malaysia and Burma developments and claims
Malaysia is successful because it is islamic. The truth is that
35 percent of the poulation is Chinese and 10% Indian. These minorities stand for 110% of the success of Malaysia. Without them Malaysia would be poor as Somalia.
IAWTP
WTF only your stupid shitty christianity is retarded,
and im not from pakistan,
im from saudi arabia
malaysia is a good example of a corrupted and retarded country. the government are siding towards those malays when they dont realise that they are pathetic and dont contribute to the society. all their police does is to collect bribes from foreigners? their mentality is of a dog, trying to look down of people while they cant?
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