>>63902027
>The basic problem with the Arabs and Iranians and why they lose wars to more advanced, industrialized countries is they never had an Enlightenment.
Also a slide on this. A lot of this is "common sense" to whites but most Muslim societies have struggled with the modern world because of the challenge it posed to ordering everything according to Islam, and you get a radical reaction to that onrush of new ideas with radical and militarized Islamic groups. The Islamic Revolution in Iran sharply threw the gear into reverse after the Shah's modernizing reforms. But there's an un-self-critical core of that because to self-criticize one's own system is like saying Islam has flaws, which is unthinkable. The secular nationalists in Arab countries like Nasser only half-heartedly pursued it.

China by contrast had a very radical pro-modern revolution in the 50s/60s, and there's a lot of emphasis in the political culture of technocratic, engineering-based solutions to problems. Xi is constantly talking about reform, reform, REFORM. Now that is also probably an attempt to throttle the Chinks out of their tendency to sit around jerking off. I'm just saying it became a fascination with these Chinks to look at science and technology as ways to help them compete, which is why do compete, and that also requires an understanding of the scientific method as a way of solving problems, along with the futurist aesthetic:
https://youtu.be/Ef8R2MBcruE