Project Kissinger (“transition to majority rule”) has been fully accomplished in South Africa.
Next, Europe will be expected to feed the endless newcomers “because of colonialism,” and it will become too late to get the Afro-Asiatic overlords off your back.
The Battle of the Cursołare - Lepanto: a Venetian Perspective
On October 7th 1571, the waters of the Gulf of Patras became the stage for one of the most decisive naval battles of the early modern Mediterranean.
At Lepanto, the fleet of the Holy League confronted the Ottoman navy in a massive clash of galleys, soldiers and artillery. The battle ended in a major Christian victory and marked a turning point in the naval history of the Mediterranean.
The Venetian Republic provided roughly half of the ships deployed by the Christian coalition, making Venice the largest single naval contributor to the Holy League.
Vault of Secrets - Unpopular HistoryHere’s a utopian photo of the socialist dream: getting into an East German Trabant—meaning “satellite,” and named after the Soviet Sputnik. In East Germany’s socialist, centrally planned economy, there was no competition. The government decided exactly how…
Enter the new utopian promise: the World Economic Forum (WEF) has decided that, in “Consumption 2.0,” the world will run on a sharing economy—a new, improved communism in which hyper-efficient capitalism looks a lot like state-controlled collectivisation.
The WEF has referenced Rachel Botsman, who argued in What’s Mine Is Yours (Harper Business) that online sharing platforms can enable a new form of collaborative consumption, in which citizens access products rather than own them. Under this new “better distribution” doctrine, “You will own nothing, and you will be happy” means you don’t own the car. You use online platforms to rent someone else’s idle vehicle only when you need it. That’s what the technology enables; the claim is that most people still won’t have the privilege of ownership, but distribution will be smarter and more frictionless thanks to online platforms.
This idea is also based on concentrated cities and the new digital collectivism envisioned by the players behind the curtain: the old idea, repackaged under a new name.
In East Germany, there wasn’t exactly a law that said, “You are forbidden from owning a second car.” Instead, the state-controlled allocation system made it practically impossible for an ordinary family to obtain more than one vehicle. The reasoning was simple: Why would you need more if you already had enough? The system was intended to prevent overconsumption among the masses.
In East Germany, government bureaucrats thoroughly vetted applications based on social merit, workplace productivity, and political loyalty. This is the point many of you may not like: the WEF promotes authors who look to Socialist China’s credit-score system and emissions-control penalties as a viable foundation for the next digital gulag.
Here’s a utopian photo of the socialist dream: getting into an East German Trabant—meaning “satellite,” and named after the Soviet Sputnik.
In East Germany’s socialist, centrally planned economy, there was no competition. The government decided exactly how many cars would be built, what they would look like, and how much they would cost. Because demand always vastly exceeded supply, the state could sell every Trabant it made, no matter how outdated or poorly assembled it was.
While the Western automotive industry was rapidly innovating with crumple zones, turbochargers, and electronic fuel injection, the East German state forced its citizens to pay upfront and wait 12 to 15 years for a car built around 1930s technology: a two-stroke engine. The Stasi (Secret Police) background checks were required just to get on the waiting list.
Because the waiting list was so agonizingly long, a bizarre economic phenomenon occurred: a used Trabant was worth more than a brand-new one. If you managed to get a new Trabant after 12 years, you could drive it off the lot and immediately sell it on the black market for up to twice its retail price. People paid a massive premium simply to skip the 12-year line.
When the Berlin Wall finally fell in 1989, East Germans flooded into West Germany, and thousands simply abandoned their Trabants by the side of the road, choosing to walk away from a symbol of 30 years of low-powered vehicles and economic stagnation.
The quagga was an extinct subspecies of zebra, primarily hunted to extinction because of its unique coat, which was unlike that of either a typical zebra or a horse. The last known quagga died on August 12, 1883, at the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, without a mate.
There were various theories that the quagga could be bred back into existence by combining a zebra and a horse. It can’t be done; the quagga was a unique species. Attention-seeking genome specialists promised they could “clone” it back into existence, but no such promises materialized.
The moral of the story is that once a unique part of creation is gone, it’s gone; nothing will bring it back. Be careful about what you leave to your posterity.
Lucullus rescued Asia from usurers who had established a predatory system to exploit the population, akin to modern practices where corrupt governments, merchants, and bankers conspire to tighten the financial noose—akin to the exploitation experienced by Germany during the reparations following the Treaty of Versailles. Lucullus was a distinguished military commander, who was trusted to address the most difficult situations. He said that he would prefer to save a single Roman from the enemy rather than seize all the enemy's wealth. Plutarch chronicled the situation Lucullus confronted in Asia:
"Lucullus now turned his attention to the cities in Asia, aiming to address the severe injustices and lawlessness that had plagued the province. The people had suffered immense misfortunes due to a long absence of justice. They were plundered and enslaved by tax-gatherers and money-lenders. Families were compelled to sell their sons and daughters, and cities had to part with their votive offerings, paintings, and sacred statues. People were often forced to surrender to their creditors and serve them as slaves, but the conditions leading up to this were even worse—tortures involving ropes, barriers, and horses, standing exposed under the blazing summer sun, and being thrust into mud or ice during winter. In comparison, slavery seemed almost like relief and peace. These were the dire circumstances Lucullus encountered in the cities, and he quickly took steps to alleviate these suffering conditions.
Firstly, he decreed that the monthly rate of interest should be no more than one percent. Secondly, he eliminated all interest that exceeded the principal amount. Thirdly, and most importantly, he mandated that a lender could claim no more than one-quarter of the debtor's income, and any lender who added interest to the principal was to forfeit the entire debt. Within less than four years, all debts were repaid, and properties were returned to their owners free of encumbrances. This public debt had originated from the twenty thousand talents that Sulla had imposed on Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount had been repaid to the money-lenders. However, through usurious interest, the total debt had been inflated to a hundred and twenty thousand talents. Consequently, the money-lenders felt aggrieved and raised a clamor against Lucullus in Rome. They also bribed some influential tribunes to take action against him, who had many politicians in their debt. Despite this, Lucullus was deeply beloved by the people he had helped, and other provinces wished for him to govern them, praising those fortunate enough to have such a benefactor."
Reference: Plutarch. Parallel Lives. Vol. II: The Life of Lucullus. Translated by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1914.
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