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Rappaport posted:I'm sure we've discussed it in this thread or some other similarly themed one, but Altered Carbon (I've only seen the TV show, don't hurt me Lately I've had an idea in my head for a dystopian story where it's the opposite - only the rich are allowed to die. If you've got any debt, they pump you full of immortality drugs to keep you going until you pay it off (also the cost of the immortality drugs gets added to your debt). Maybe a little too grim.
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Aug 16, 2023 17:09
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It's a neat idea, but it sort of sounds like a variation on Dante's Hell. The misery is the point, right? The god-kings of industry treat people like disposable components, so the immortality or extremely prolonged life-spans of the workers would be a hindrance to the commodification of human lives and their toil. I suppose if there was an added component about reproductive rights, certainly a salient topic in the US these days, there's a somewhat coherent dystopia to be built there. An eternally damned, billions-sized immortal slave caste and a few dozen ultra-rich families who are the only ones who have children? That's bleak as poo poo.
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Aug 16, 2023 17:16
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Within 400 or 500 years computers will be powerful enough to simulate trillions of copies of Musk's consciousnesses living sexy awesomesauce lives, in the blink of an eye, over and over, and that will justify the misery and torture of the scant billions of meatslaves.
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Aug 16, 2023 17:23
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Reminded me of Chuck Hammill's 1987 letter 'From Crossbows To Cryptography' (that I can't find from any non-bitcoin/NFT/cryptobro site) where it's the libertarian who is saying "libertarians are suspicious of technology because it's always going to be the big government guys in hats and sunglasses oppressing everyone, but hear me out what if technology was good?" (from the libertarian perspective)
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Aug 16, 2023 17:27
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That again wheels round to "what kind of technology inherently favours distributed power" and short of self assembling star trek replicators I have no idea.
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Aug 16, 2023 18:20
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OwlFancier posted:That again wheels round to "what kind of technology inherently favours distributed power" and short of self assembling star trek replicators I have no idea. My friend, have you heard of a little thing called bitcoin?
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Aug 16, 2023 19:18
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Dirk the Average posted:That's demonstrably not true. Rent is completely absurd and out of control in many areas. Even if you're taking home $20 an hour, that's about $3,200 a month. Rent on a one bedroom apartment in my area is in excess of $2,000 a month. That's before utilities, which have also increased massively in recent years. Then you've got food, car payments, gas, health insurance, and other miscellaneous expenses. Ideally you'd be socking away some of it for retirement as well. There's almost nothing left actually enjoy at that point. in california if you work 40 hours a week on minimum wage you can make close to 30k a year before tax. i just checked craigslist there are a lot of places you can live in for 900 a month.... TheMuffinMan fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 19:49
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TheMuffinMan posted:in california if you work 40 hours a week you can make close to 30k a year before tax. Obviously, you technically can live in San Francisco on $30k (about 1/4 of people there currently do it already). It just sucks and you have to be incredibly optimal in your financial decisions and usually have some kind of government support. All of these things can be true at once: - Only a tiny amount of people (less than 2% in 2019 and probably even fewer now) actually make the federal minimum wage. - Only about 5% of people actually work more than one job. - You can technically not be homeless on a very small income in a major city. - Some of that is masked with government support, so their real income after transfers is not actually that low. - You are assuming that people will operate 100% efficiently and refrain from all leisure activities or major emergency spending. People arguing it is literally impossible aren't right, but you're also downplaying the many mitigating factors and non-financial problems of doing so. The actual lived experience of a poor person in America isn't working two jobs on minimum wage and you vastly overestimate the severity of the problem when you assume so, but the problem still exists and is still fairly severe depending on geographic location and individual circumstances, even if you act 100% rationally and are financially disciplined on a low income. The non-financial costs of constantly moving, crime, uncertainty regarding income and bills, etc. are incredibly difficult to calculate and will vary a lot for individuals. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 19:59
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OwlFancier posted:That again wheels round to "what kind of technology inherently favours distributed power" and short of self assembling star trek replicators I have no idea.  Then post WW2 there's a move towards "technology is bad and Big Science and atom bombs" but then not long after that the market capitalist "but what if you could buy freedom" people waded right in.
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Aug 16, 2023 20:10
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I wonder what Makhno would have made of nuclear weapons. I assume he would have wanted one, but I wonder if he would have wanted everyone to have one.
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Aug 16, 2023 20:17
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Stirner would definitely have approved of Mutually Assured Destruction as the ultimate form of individualism.
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Aug 16, 2023 20:37
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Every time someone nukes a kindergarten, these nuke control people start coming after law abiding nuke owners 
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Aug 16, 2023 22:40
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OwlFancier posted:That again wheels round to "what kind of technology inherently favours distributed power" and short of self assembling star trek replicators I have no idea. The Kalashnikov.
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Aug 16, 2023 23:37
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Fister Roboto posted:Lately I've had an idea in my head for a dystopian story where it's the opposite - only the rich are allowed to die. If you've got any debt, they pump you full of immortality drugs to keep you going until you pay it off (also the cost of the immortality drugs gets added to your debt). The religious concept that sin and death entered the world at the same time has occasionally made me imagine metaphysical scenarios where the existence of death is a divine gift/failsafe to protect mortals from endless living torment at the hands of sadistic jerks. MixMasterMalaria fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 01:36
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TheMuffinMan posted:in california if you work 40 hours a week on minimum wage you can make close to 30k a year before tax. I find it weird that Americans, who claim to be from the greatest nation in history throughout the entire universe both observable and unobservable, insist on comparing themselves to the worst examples of whatever instead of to their peers. "YEAH YOU TOTALLY CAN LIVE ON RICE AND BEANS AND HAVE NO LIFE," chants idiot while dozens of other countries maintain living standards where people can raise families and have hobbies and enjoy their lives.
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Aug 17, 2023 07:08
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Fister Roboto posted:Lately I've had an idea in my head for a dystopian story where it's the opposite - only the rich are allowed to die. If you've got any debt, they pump you full of immortality drugs to keep you going until you pay it off (also the cost of the immortality drugs gets added to your debt). In the game Hardspace Shipbreaker, you work for a massive interplanetary corporation, breaking apart old spaceships for salvage and scrap. This is dangerous work, so the company creates genetic backups of their workers, to spin up a new clone if they die. And it says very clearly in section 19-C of your contract that everything produced by LYNX assets is 100% owned by LYNX. Including your genetic backups and any clones produced.
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Aug 17, 2023 08:09
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Weatherman posted:I find it weird that Americans, who claim to be from the greatest nation in history throughout the entire universe both observable and unobservable, insist on comparing themselves to the worst examples of whatever instead of to their peers. It's just working backwards from a conclusion someone's decided is correct and gently caress your facts and logic. Praxeology is magic, etc. One thread classic that I vaguely remember was jrod citing some kind of economic freedom list or whatever to compare countries and he was very jazzed about Saudi Arabia (someone correct me if it was some other nation  ) being a bastion of freedom, a nation that has slave labour, and so on.
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Aug 17, 2023 10:20
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Singapore always ends up high on those lists too, because something something no tax, despite having things like 80% of people living in public housing that would be called unrealistic socialism if you said "cool, let's do that here too" Also a bunch of prohibitions that should go counter to ideas of 'negative freedoms' or whatever. Is a man not entitled to the stick of his gum?
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Aug 17, 2023 10:26
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KozmoNaut posted:In the game Hardspace Shipbreaker, you work for a massive interplanetary corporation, breaking apart old spaceships for salvage and scrap. This is dangerous work, so the company creates genetic backups of their workers, to spin up a new clone if they die. This being a libertarian wet dream, the first thing that happens after you sign that contract is the company killing you to upload your consciousness.
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Aug 17, 2023 13:43
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Guavanaut posted:Singapore always ends up high on those lists too, because something something no tax, despite having things like 80% of people living in public housing that would be called unrealistic socialism if you said "cool, let's do that here too" There was a brief libertarian fling with Sweden after they actually topped the list of best countries for business for a couple years in a row. Sweden has no minimum wage, a low business tax rate, and most labor regulations and laws are dealt with by agreements between employers and trade unions, while the government generally stays out of regulating employment specifics and just sets the broad strokes minimum requirements. CATO had a phase where it was writing multiple articles that were essentially, "Statists say they want a social Democracy like the Nordic countries, but why aren't they implementing these changes?" and "What the U.S. can learn from Sweden." But, the libertarian and conservative readers weren't down with Sweden's other qualities and that phase died out. They used to be all about Saudi Arabia and the UAE until the Jamal Koshaggi thing made that a little difficult to maintain. Now, they are all about Singapore.
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Aug 17, 2023 14:25
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Rappaport posted:It's just working backwards from a conclusion someone's decided is correct and gently caress your facts and logic. Praxeology is magic, etc. There was also a completely separate time where he had another list that said New Zealand was one of the most libertarian countries and the thread had a great time with that one 
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Aug 17, 2023 15:31
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theshim posted:I wanna say it was Qatar? I'd have to go back and check. Either way it was very stupid. Qatar and the UAE, if my memory serves. He also clearly hadn't read the list, as he was flustered two or three seconds later when someone pointed it out.
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Aug 17, 2023 16:27
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TheMuffinMan posted:in california if you work 40 hours a week on minimum wage you can make close to 30k a year before tax. Yeah, some random posting on craigslist isn't living "comfortably." You still haven't broken down the rest of the expenses as well, nor have you broken down how much this hypothetical minimum wage earner actually earns. There's also no budget for any sort of retirement fund, and no real budget for luxuries of any type, including decent meals. You end up with an incredibly spartan experience in a shared living arrangement. There's no financial security, and you're one bad expense away from homelessness. That's not "comfortable" by any stretch of the definition for a country as developed as the US.
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Aug 17, 2023 17:04
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Fister Roboto posted:Lately I've had an idea in my head for a dystopian story where it's the opposite - only the rich are allowed to die. If you've got any debt, they pump you full of immortality drugs to keep you going until you pay it off (also the cost of the immortality drugs gets added to your debt). IME this doesn't really work for anyone who doesn't have depression brain. They'd spend the story going "why do they want to die instead of for their lives to be less lovely?"
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Aug 17, 2023 18:31
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What they want doesn't matter because the decision is made for them. Ideally they would live forever and have a comfortable eternal life, but in this hypothetical society the wealthy would see the former without the latter as more profitable. There's also a recurring theme in fiction that deals with immortality, that living forever might not be that great. You don't have to be depressed to contemplate that. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 18:38
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Fister Roboto posted:Lately I've had an idea in my head for a dystopian story where it's the opposite - only the rich are allowed to die. If you've got any debt, they pump you full of immortality drugs to keep you going until you pay it off (also the cost of the immortality drugs gets added to your debt). It's been done. KW Jeters has a thing like this in Noir where if you die owing money they harvest anything valuable from your body, replace it with cheap, semi-disposable cybernetics made in overseas sweatshops, revive you and put you back to work until your debt (now including the cost of revival and replacement parts) is paid off. They're called the InDeaded, and the main character's mother or ex-wife is one (it's been a while since I read it so I forget which she is).
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Aug 17, 2023 18:39
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"This" in my post refers to the story hook. The hypothetical non depressed people are readers.
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Aug 17, 2023 18:41
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Captain_Maclaine posted:It's been done. KW Jeters has a thing like this in Noir where if you die owing money they harvest anything valuable from your body, replace it with cheap, semi-disposable cybernetics made in overseas sweatshops, revive you and put you back to work until your debt (now including the cost of revival and replacement parts) is paid off. They're called the InDeaded, and the main character's mother or ex-wife is one (it's been a while since I read it so I forget which she is). Oh nice, I'll definitely check that out. Blue Footed Booby posted:"This" in my post refers to the story hook. The hypothetical non depressed people are readers. OK? I'm trying to address the question that you said the hypothetical readers might ask. And the answer is that their (the characters of the story) desires are irrelevant because more powerful people than them have coerced them into eternal exploitation. And I didn't say that they all want to die anyway, just that the rich are the only ones who are allowed to. Anyway, I've probably posted enough about my weird scifi ideas in the libertarian thread. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Aug 17, 2023 |
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Aug 17, 2023 18:43
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Fister Roboto posted:Oh nice, I'll definitely check that out. It's kind of unevenly written as I recall (disclaimer, I last read it 20 years ago). Jeters is one of those authors who comes up with a bunch of neat ideas but doesn't always have quite the narrative chops to connect them, adequately. Still, conceptually he brings a lot to the capitalist dystopian table.
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Aug 17, 2023 19:04
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Qatar and the UAE, if my memory serves. He also clearly hadn't read the list, as he was flustered two or three seconds later when someone pointed it out. IIRC he came back with a different list where, by whatever reckoning he applied, New Zealand and Germany were closer to the libertarian ideal than the USA. I think mostly by some backwards-rear end logic like 'they have good living standards and strong economies so they must be libertarian!'
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Aug 17, 2023 19:10
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Fister Roboto posted:What they want doesn't matter because the decision is made for them. Ideally they would live forever and have a comfortable eternal life, but in this hypothetical society the wealthy would see the former without the latter as more profitable. There would definitely be a subset of people who think "wow i get to live forever in the drudgery mines, truly capitalism is the great innovator"
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Aug 17, 2023 19:12
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BalloonFish posted:IIRC he came back with a different list where, by whatever reckoning he applied, New Zealand and Germany were closer to the libertarian ideal than the USA. I think mostly by some backwards-rear end logic like 'they have good living standards and strong economies so they must be libertarian!' polymathy posted:I went back and looked at the report I originally posted. 
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Aug 17, 2023 19:19
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BalloonFish posted:IIRC he came back with a different list where, by whatever reckoning he applied, New Zealand and Germany were closer to the libertarian ideal than the USA. I think mostly by some backwards-rear end logic like 'they have good living standards and strong economies so they must be libertarian!' This is also why the Confederacy had more freedom, yeah you might be a slave but you're living in a smaller country than the US was and smaller population = more free
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Aug 17, 2023 20:28
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small government actually refers to the size of the politicians
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Aug 17, 2023 20:29
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OwlFancier posted:There would definitely be a subset of people who think "wow i get to live forever in the drudgery mines, truly capitalism is the great innovator" I would absolutely be one of the people saying that because being a paid influencer making social media videos about how sigma and manly it is to mine coal and pay your debts is much better than working in the mines myself and the pay is higher too
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Aug 17, 2023 20:31
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OwlFancier posted:small government actually refers to the size of the politicians 
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Aug 17, 2023 21:18
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OwlFancier posted:small government actually refers to the size of the politicians Ah, that's why Ben Shapiro is so fond of it.
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Aug 17, 2023 21:59
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Been reading Quinn Slobodoans book “Crack Up Capitlalism” and his writing is great. He slips these quotes in that are just merciless. quote:When the British announced the departure of their navy, a Dud advisor from the United Nations, Albert Winsemius, offered to pieces of advice. The first was to crush the communists, which let had already begun by imprisoning opposition and outlawing par ties and independent trade unions. Winsemius went further. "I am not interested in what you do with them, he summarized later. To can throw them in jail, throw them out of the country, you can even kill them. As an economist it does not interest me, but I have to tel you, if you don't eliminate them in Government, in unions, in the streets, forget about economic development.?? The second advice was to let Rafles remain standing. They should not repeat the error of indonesian freedom fighters who tore down a statue of the Dutch colonial ficer who had massacred the Indigenous population in the conquest of the archipelago." The Raffles statue would be testimony But then about South Africa: quote:Reason magazine asked: "How hard is it to get South African citizenship?" It made the eyebrow-raising pronouncement that "it is possible that in the past decade no country has moved further toward a libertarian society than South Africa.??
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Aug 18, 2023 00:58
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Yeah Quinn Slobodian did some great dives into some of the wild racist free market 'laboratory of freedom' bullshit apartheid South Africa was testing and then claiming as 'oh yeah, this is what freedom really is' in the 80s:The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa posted:In the 1980s, South African libertarians set up a deregulated zone that they sold to the world as ‘Africa’s Switzerland’. It was a sham, but with its clusters of sweatshops, it was very modern – and in some ways it anticipated the world we live in today. Excellent example of the Free Market being something that happens to you, enforced by the pigs with guns lurking just outside the borders, and funded by constant state subsidy.
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Aug 18, 2023 01:38
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The whole bantustan scheme (of which Ciskei was a part) is almost comical since its advocates were required to be either transparently full or poo poo or utterly delusional, a phenomenon that also applies to a lot of libertarian projects. Not only would bits and pieces of (mostly unprofitable) land in South Africa be set aside for "independent" black states totally dependent on the Apartheid government for practically everything, but the idea was that blacks in South Africa "proper" would be stripped of citizenship and forcibly sent to their ostensible tribal "homelands" where they could instead enjoy citizenship in the glorious Republic of Ciskei or whatever, while still being dependent on "crossing the border" into South Africa to find work in mines and whatnot, their status now being reduced to that of migrant workers who could be deported "back to their own country" at any time. Meanwhile once all this was complete, the plan was for the South African government to declare to the international community "there's no black people in South Africa, they live under sovereign states of their own choosing, ergo South Africa doesn't have a problem with white minority rule because akshually we're clearly the majority and we are proud to announce Apartheid has ended.  "
Enver Zogha fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 03:16
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