Karl Denninger is not at all sanguine about the future of a United States that has lost an average 10 IQ points or more since 1965:
You need about a 115 IQ to build and maintain modern civilization.
Examples? Too many to count. How about Flint’s water system? It poisoned a bunch of kids, remember?
Why didn’t it poison kids for the previous 80 years? It had been there that long, with the same lead service lines, but didn’t poison anyone.
Is lead a great material for water feed pipes? Depends on when. Today, no. HDPE is better in all respects; it can tolerate freezing, modest movement and it is nearly impermeable to both the water and outside contaminants, including the chlorine used for disinfection. You probably know this stuff today as “PEX” in a house but in larger diameters — usually black in color and heat-welded at junctions — it is commonly used for water mains as well.
But 80 years ago it didn’t exist.
Lead did. And it too can tolerate a modest amount of movement and is nearly impermeable to contaminates inside and out. Oh, and it self-protects almost-immediately if the water balance is held at the correct level and thus the oxide and mineral layer that immediately forms on it, while the lines are being flushed during installation and the tests on the house, render it safe.
Now put an acidic water supply down it and that layer is destroyed with the lead leaching into the water.
The 115+ IQ people who built and ran the water plant at Flint all those years knew this, and knew how to keep it safe. They drank out of the same lines and so not only did they know how they had plenty of incentive to not screw up — and as professionals who were smart, they didn’t screw up.
Then Shaqueena, or her analog with a <115 IQ took over. And changed the water source. And, at the same time, didn’t check and make sure the chemical and pH balance remained correct because the intellectual firepower to do so was simply no longer there. The result was a bunch of poisoned kids.
Would you use a lead service line today for a new installation? Of course not. But is it unsafe? Not as long as the people running the plant are of sufficient intelligence to operate modern industrial and environmental machinery and not fuck it up.
John Red Eagle and I warned about this back in 2015 in CUCKSERVATIVE. The same problem that is presently afflicting the USA is about to hit the UK and Europe as well. It’s not noticeable at first, because it doesn’t matter if your kebab sellers, taxi drivers, and other common immigrant occupations are filled by newcomers with lower IQs than the natives.
But once the second and third generations start competing with the natives, and outcompeting them thanks to DEI initiatives and shameless ethnic nepotism, the lower-IQ effect hits with a vengeance, particularly as they begin claiming policy-making positions for which they are absolutely and unequivocally unsuited.
Translation: US infrastructure is going to rapidly decline to the Mexican level. Northern European infrastructure is going to rapidly decline to the US level. Southern European infrastructure won’t change. And the relative power of China and Russia vis-a-vis the West will continue to increase.