Diversity At Work - An African American Develops A Flying Car, The Genius Of Elon Musk

Elon Musk, an African American born and raised in South Africa, naturalized in the United States, and now an America citizen, is responsible for some of the Twenty-First Century's most important inventions and technological advances.  

 

He was first to develop an electric car, his Space X is revolutionizing space travel and opening exploration and development of the moon and Mars, he has developed technology to return sight to the blind, is engineering futuristic ways of underground rapid transit, has advised the President of the United States on the future of Artificial Intelligence, and as a principled conservative has championed free speech and free enterprise. 

Yet, he is vilified by the Left.  In the most blatant, absurd, and indefinable accusation, progressives are claiming that because he is a multi-billionaire, he is ipso facto a Robber Baron, a predatory capitalist, an anti-social anarchist, and the leader of a cabal of like-minded oligarchs out to wrest control from the people and concentrate in their hands. 

He, Huang, Page, Ellison and others are out to dismantle the architecture of democracy and create an autocratic state of which they will be the politburo. 

Musk and his colleagues are inheritors of the great  industrialists of the early Twentieth Century - Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan who revolutionized the American economy and in so doing turned a simple agrarian society into an industrial powerhouse.  Musk et al are doing the same thing for the country, accelerating its economic preeminence, and preparing the world for the first post-human generation. 

When the human genome has become completely understood, genetic engineering can create a new race of human beings more resistant to disease, climatic variations, and other environmental hazards. A race more adept, able, and intelligent to control the world around them and which can reach formerly impossible levels of being. 

Once complete interface between mind and machine has been achieved - that is when the electronic circuits of the brain are connected to the AI-facilitated ones of the computer - human experience will instantaneously become complete virtual, allowing the individual to roam through an unimaginable cyberspace of his own creation. 

Engineers, currently working on a mind-machine interface will soon be able to seamlessly and completely link the human mind with the electronic circuitry of the computer thus creating a purely virtual world in which individuals will be able to instantaneously have access to all the world’s information, images, and experiences; to manipulate them at will,  and to create worlds of their own choosing. 

Artificial Intelligence, now just an important, revolutionary interface with human agents, will soon be completely integrated within the human brain.  Virtuality will not simply change the means of perception; it will define a completely new way of thinking - an unlimited, unimpeded, infinite intellectual and sentient world. 

Genetically engineered human beings, living in a perfectly virtual world where physical reality is meaningless and irrelevant, will be of a new race, a post-human race.

Ours will be the last recognizable, old-fashioned human generation – a human race unchanged since the emergence of homo sapiens 200,000 years ago.  Soon genetic engineering and symbiotic interface with the computer will alter this living fossil and render it recognizable only to paleontologists who will look upon it as today’s scientists look at Neanderthals, apes, and dinosaurs.  Slow, progressive Darwinian evolution will be a thing of the past.  Radical, immediate, revolutionary change will be the new algorithm.

As importantly, 'The Genie Out Of The Bottle' reality assures that there is no turning back.  No matter how much naysayers, Chicken Little The Sky Is Falling worriers, obstructionists, religious fundamentalists, and political fanatics may howl at the moon, this post-human generation will come.  There is no way to stop recombinant DNA engineering, mind-computer electronic symbiosis, and Artificial Intelligence. 

There has been a hysterical outpouring at the arrival of every new technology - the automobile, the phone, the electric light the computer, the smartphone, nuclear energy - and today's hysteria about AI, virtual reality, and genetic engineering is no different.  However as in all cases of technological advances there is no turning back. 

The American Left has made its name as The Party Of No.  America is not a land of limitless opportunity, intellectual brilliance, ambition, insight, and competitive energy, say progressives, but a hateful, acquisitive, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, rabid place of inequality.

Elon Musk and his cabal of billionaires embody all of these traits and represent a throwback to the unprincipled past of raw individualism, laissez-faire capitalism, and anti-communal greed. 

Theories like this hearken back to the International Jewish Conspiracy or The Trilateral Commission, absurdly nonsensical unfounded assumptions of corporate and social evil, creations of hopelessly uninformed, credulous minds. 

These sentiments are hysterical because they have no foundation.  These men alone have created tens of thousands of jobs, jettisoned America into a revolutionary future, one which promises rewards for everyone far greater than ever before imagined.  They, other than commonly held sentiments of enterprise and patriotism, do not form an insurrectionist group bent on world domination. 

When conservative commentators have ironically noted that the Left's premier program of Diversity Equity Inclusion has worked wonders - men like Elon Musk have risen to the top of the American socio-economic pyramid and have shown the world just what individuals of African origin can contribute - progressives shout 'racism'.  America has always favored white men, and once again is showing its true colors. 

However, in so doing those commentators and their many supporters are pointing out the fallacy of the progressive racial agenda.  Africans despite decades of independence and every incentive and opportunity for rapid development have done nothing, and are mired in underdevelopment, corruption, poverty, and economic indolence.  During the same period South Korea, China, and India have become world economic powers. 

The old shibboleth of colonialism has long crumbled. This is no longer an excuse for such miasmic mismanagement and endemic corruption.  The progressive myths of the sentience, natural intelligence, forest-bred environmentalism, tribalism's communalism no longer have any credibility. 

Slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation are similar shibboleths which are no longer excuses for the bottom-rung academic, intellectual, social status of the black American population.  As much as liberals may limn the praises of inner city street culture, it is dysfunctional.  

If a policy of individualism, opportunity, talent, ambition, desire, and competitive spirit had taken the place of the one of entitlement, identity, racial politics, and white guilt, the situation in America would be quite different. A race-blind American culture of success determined by talent, ability, and enterprise might well be multi-racial and diverse.   

So the ironic statements about Musk, the African American genius, might well serve to expose the hypocrisy, myopia, and febrile fantasies of the progressive Left. 

Meanwhile, these same progressives are calling Donald Trump 'Racist' for calling out the anti-white pogroms of South Africa and Zimbabwe whose governments have deliberately expelled white farmers, resulting in the complete failure of agriculture, and the downward spiral of economics and finance.  Those whites who have chosen to remain in South Africa are subject to continuous racial hostility in an attempt to force them to leave. 

Donald Trump has welcomed these white Africans to the United States and has been roundly criticized for it.  Yet his welcome is yet another unveiling of progressive reverse racism - a hard and fast animus against white European-origin Americans as legatees of slavery, colonialism, and cultural assassination. 

White European-Americans have a lot to be proud of, for their forbears created Western civilization - arts, letters, literature, philosophy, science, music, and more while Africa and its diaspora have contributed little. 

It is not racist to be legitimately proud of your own culture - the whole progressive ideal - but when white Europeans express such historical patriotism, they are vilified.  

Citing Elon Musk as a great African American should be a wake-up call to the ideologically fanatical Left, and show Americans the true nature of 'diversity equity inclusion'

Sexual Entitlement - Reparations, Retribution, And A Pound Of Flesh, A Woman's Right

Alicia Mill married at a time when everyone did. There were the outliers, the math whizzes who took jobs at IBM, the few who thanks to family connections went on to Wall Street, the odd lesbians, and the simply unmarriageable - those at the end of the bell curve who as desperately as they might want a Yale marriage, were left alone. There's someone for everyone, goes the old adsge, but some women are simply beyond the pale. 

Not so Alicia who was attractive, intelligent, and with all the social graces a Boston Brahmin background could afford.  She was la creme de la creme of New England society, sure to marry well to someone of her class, live a prosperous and generously endowed life in New York, Palm Springs, and St. Bart's. 

Which she did, to Barrington Pierce Alling, direct descendent of President Franklin Pierce, heir to the Barrington family of Northumberland and first colonial settlers of northern New England, and relative of Fielding Alling, financier, confident of J.P. Morgan, and one of New York's first families. An arranged marriage could not have matched a more perfect couple. 

Yet for every perfect algorithm, there are dropped stitches, imperfections, and flaws overlooked in the suspension of disbelief.  

Alicia was perfect as far as checking the boxes of perfection were concerned, but she had some nasty, overlooked, but seminal traits that were so inbred and familial that they were overlooked, cloaked as they were with the mantel of breeding, education and social ease. 

These 'imperfections' were nothing serious - no horrendous reserves of anger, hostility and frustration - and were only what was taken for granted in women.  A kind of Don't Tread On Me uber-feminism bred of privilege, the suffrage of great aunts, and naturally occurring defiant pride. 

Alicia's forbears had had to put up with patriarchy, male privilege, Victorian mores, and second-class citizenship, and the canniness, calculated chicanery, and downright castrating ambitions of women in her family were to be expected. 

Of course no prospective mate in a love culture bothers with deep inquiry, and is happy to be romantically taken with a beautiful, charming, complaisant lover.  In Third World countries like India and Turkey where arranged marriages are still common, delving into these matters is de rigeur. No woman or man wants to be surprised. 

Caste, skin tone, and breeding may be important and decent markers for compatibility, but the real meat and potatoes of a marriage lies within. 

America being a love marriage culture, this inner world of psycho-social dynamics is overlooked. 

And so it was that Alicia, more endowed with the family traits of a certain stubborn righteousness, turned on her clueless husband soon after their wedding, a fabulous affair, one of many days, held on the lawns of Barrington Alling's family estate overlooking Long Island Sound. A wedding reported in the New York Times and even in the Wall Street Journal usually not given to social reportage. 

Alicia was a 'tweener' a woman caught between prim Victorian rectitude, pre-Sixties pride, and the first loud, insistent demands of feminism.  She was a product of all three when she signed the marriage contract, had nothing but love in her heart when she did, but proceeded to exact her due from day one. 

Living with a man was something new, untried, and unexpected.  True, she was the daughter of a marital union, but her mother and father, both independently wealthy, went about their own business, sat at the opposite ends of the formally-set dining room table, and retired to separate bedrooms.  Tooth-by-jowl arrangements had never been discussed; and yet there she was, seeking some cold comfort under the duvet with a a snoring, restless man. 

'Can't you do something about the snoring, darling?' she said one morning not long after the honeymoon.

The dutiful husband tried nasal separators, sleeping posture aligners, a variety of over-the-counter and organic alternative remedies, but no dice.  Not only did his snoring continue, but increased in volume and depth as the weeks wore on. 

'I love you, sweetheart, and I am always there for you and will come when you ask...' but she decamped in the spare room which she made her own - dolls from her childhood, balms, creams, and lotions, an Edwardian full-length mirror, and peace and quiet. 

As far as the promised visitations, they became few and far between. Sex wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and there was plenty to be had in other quarters if she so desired. 

After that - the tethers that bind having been loosened and the emergence of her own private life encouraged - it was a quick step to de-masculinizing the rest of her marital life.  

He - dear Barrington - was either to be home on time for dinner or to give a good accounting of his whereabouts.  Toilet seats were to be permanently and irreversibly down.  Hairs in the sink - an affair for the upstairs maid - couldn't be overlooked in the interregnum, and she called her husband to task at each and every errancy. 

Nor was it long before Alicia took a lover - a surprising liaison given her pedigree since Arnold Bates was not of her kind.  Not quite the Connie Chatterley-Mellors epiphanic union, but satisfying in ways that poor Barrington would never understand.  

Rutting was what it was all about, and more delighted she could not be until Arnold and turned out to be not unlike every other man she had come across. Except for a rather wolf-like sexual attention, he was her uxorious husband with a big, overly-responsive dick. 

Barrington, as considerate and sensitized as he was to female needs, had soon had enough of his wife's hectoring, noodging, and incessant harping.  He settled for Amanda from Accounting for his first extra-marital affair, but quickly moved upscale until he was in Turkish pasha territory, an idyll and promised land from which he did not want to return. 

'Where have you been?', Alicia asked  having been up half the night waiting for his key in the lock. 'Working at the office' no longer held water, and the two had it out at two in the morning, both contrite and promising to mend their ways. 

But before long of course, Alicia, as much as she hated herself for such bourgeois inanities, was after her husband for pee on the floor, pots left on the stove, leaves caught in the downspouts, and shirts on her side of the closet. 

She simply could not help herself. No matter how she tried, the umbrage remained. The toilet seats, the hairs in the sinks, the leaves in the drain, the diffidence, the excuses, the indifference were not just incidental, bothersome, usual interruptions of marital accord, but symbolic of a growing disregard for her feelings, her being, and her self. 

She upped the ante and found surprising ways to take her husband to task, to bring him around, to tame and domesticate him. 

She was owed that much at least. She had not signed on for such penance. 

It got worse.  While never descending to the bathos of George and Martha in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf where the characters 'flay each other to the marrow', it was pretty bad.  Marriage was bound to have its ups and downs, but never this - this complete regard for female integrity, the essential value of woman. 

It got even more worse.  The Michael Douglass film, The War of the Roses, was only a milder version of the affair between the Allings.  No physical violence, no broken furniture, no racks and bastinadoes, just pounds of flesh taken in very small pieces, Mao's 'death by a thousand cuts'. 

'This is my right', said Alicia as she enjoined her husband in this war of wills. I am fighting patriarchy, male privilege, and machismo.  I am the castrating goddess Kali.  I am the Destroyer, the Enabler - or words to that effect as she planned her next assault. 

In modern, less mythological terms, she was simply bringing the fight to the enemy in a campaign of reparation and retribution.

She failed of course.  Barrington simply gave notice and left, and Alicia was left with the empty house, the mortgage, and a mess to clean up. 

Be careful what you wish for is the old Chinese proverb, but Alicia standing amidst the detritus couldn't even remember first principles - why she had bothered to get married in the first place. 

But what's done is done.  Barrington is living in Tampa Bay with his young wife, and she, Alicia, is making do. 

Ukraine, Russia, And The New World Of Machiavellian Realpolitik - Zelenskyy Must Go

Even a cursory look at world history and the political philosophies which underlie it, shows that territorialism, geopolitical hegemony, and empire are the rule rather than the exception.  Not only have empires been a part of history, but they are recalled by modern world leaders who see them as a Golden Age of high culture, moral principle, and order, and they are not wrong.  

The great empires of Persia, China, India, Japan, and Europe were indeed all characterized by periods of intellectual energy, wealth, and cultural influence. While criticized today as profoundly anti-liberal and dismissed by historical revisionists for their lack of inclusivity, civil rights, and democracy, they were the ineluctable, irreversible expressions of human enterprise and human nature. 

What is human nature but a defensive, territorial, competitive, survivalist mechanism?  It expresses itself in family, sexual competition, regional autonomy, and nationalism.   The behavior of children and the behavior of nations are similar.

Some political philosophers insist that with the proper care, will, and determination the world will evolve to a non-violent, inclusive, respectful place; that human nature can be blunted and overcome; but this is fantsy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is but the latest example.  

Vladimir Putin is no historical renegade, a delusional monomaniac, and a man out of touch with history.  He is expressing the same ambitions that the Shahs of Persia, the shoguns of Japan, and the emperors of China and India had.  Putin is not an anomaly or an outlier. He is one of many. 

The war in Ukraine has gone on now for years, and except for those frantically holding on to Cold War hysteria and the Domino Theory, most people want it resolved and ended - which will involve compromise - the ceding of Donbas to Russia, territories already Russian in language, cultural, and political allegiance, deferring consideration of Ukrainian NATO membership which Europe never really supported (the idea of defending a corrupt, venal, and self-interested regime was folly) and defining a new trade algorithm including grain, rare earths, and gas. 

Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, was an advocate of realpolitik - a foreign policy devoid of moral exceptionalism and principle, which admitted and promoted alliances with whatever nation furthered America's interests, which committed America to positions of strength and a willingness to use it to promote its security and influence, and to engage in war only to further them. 

Kissinger was a Machiavellian:

Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong  

It is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two must be lacking. 

 

Politics have no relation to morality

The leader should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands

 

Donald Trump has revived realpolitik and Machiavelli. Support for Ukraine has been based on moral geopolitical principles - Ukraine is a bastion of democracy and a bulwark against Russian hegemonic imperialism, and no matter what the cost, it must be defended - which have no relevance to America's interests. 

Ukraine is of limited geopolitical import. While its rare earths and grain are of interest, America is not beholden to Ukraine for them.  It is not a military power nor is it geographically strategic.  It does not control waterways, land bridges, or critical airspace.  No Gulf of Aden or Straits of Hormuz. 

For all its protests, Ukraine is not a model of democracy, a fearsome defender of constitutional principles with the resolve and power to defend them.  The countless billions poured into the country for 'defense of democracy' have never been fully accounted for, and have served principally to keep what amounts to keeping a corrupt regime in power.   

Russia on the other hand is a member of the new Machiavellian triumvirate joining America and China in a nuclear power bloc which controls world geopolitics.  It cannot be ignored, and must be thought of as an adversary but not an enemy.  Alone or together with China, Russia to a large degree determines America's interests in the Middle East, the real center of geopolitics. 

Trillions have been spent propping up a Ukrainian regime run by profiteers and canny manipulators. Ukraine's 'democracy', has been far from the ideals of Oliver Cromwell, Jefferson and Hamilton, Locke and Thoreau, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Hardly worth supporting.  Yet the West has continued its idealistic generosity while the country was being destroyed.  

American focus should have been on Russia; and within a Machiavellian and Kissingerian foreign policy perspective, dealt directly with it, a world military and economic (resources) power. The United States after the fall of the Soviet Union missed its chance to form a productive alliance with Russia, and instead piled on.  It continued its Cold War animus and kicked Russia while it was down. NATO moved troops and missile bases closer to its borders deliberately sending the message that the country would never again threaten the European alliance.  The West bullied Russia, took advantage of it, and underestimated its power for resurgence and geopolitical influence. 

In the war in Ukraine, the West is still fighting the Cold War, and under the new geopolitical algorithm, Ukraine cannot win. 

Trump's recent deal with Russia for diesel fuel to help stabilize US pump prices is the latest example in America's new focus on realpolitik.  Throwing Ukraine under the bus?  Hardly, just practicing world politics as they should be played. Support for Ukraine was always for principle never for practical reality, and now Trump, radically changing course, becomes a worth adversary of Russia (and China). 

Cut all new financial and military support to Ukraine, thereby forcing it to the bargaining table.  The settlement will favor Russia but that was always in the cards and part of the realpolitik game.  

Any world leader who puts moral concerns over geopolitical ones is headed for defeat.  History's victors have been notoriously dismissive of morality.  Genghis Khan, who swept out of the steppes to conquer more than half of the known world was brutal, consequential, and single-minded.  The French kings who mobilized the Crusades were not tolerant, inclusive-minded monarchs, but rulers committed to punishing Muslims for their slaughter of Christians in Jerusalem and for their avowed hatred of the West.  

Political philosopher James Vaccano expands on the notion, including Nietzsche in the discussion:

The internal competition between tendencies or natures that Machiavelli recognizes in individuals and groups and that Nietzsche sees as multiple drives is a form of “agonism.”  Agonism is the idea that conflict and struggle are the natural basis of life and that this is replicated in social, political, and cultural life. Human artifice can in many ways transform nature, but it does not eliminate the presence and preeminence of conflict in individual human consciousness and Nietzsche’s Machiavellianism in social groups.

The world has never been one of compassion, compromise, or good will; but always ruled by realpolitik and the ineluctable human nature which fuels it. 

Donald Trump in joining in the Machiavellian, realpolitik world view of Putin and Xi of China, has joined the world's ruling triumvirate - not one united and collegial but joined in outlook, perspective and policy. 

It is time that the United States and Europe realize the handwriting on the wall and cease their reflexive, idealistic support for Ukraine.