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Notes -
No.
Or rather, it doesn't matter if your baseline is of low intelligence so as long as you have a talented tenth that actually runs things. Sure, you wouldn't be able to get the results of higher SD nations, but you can get something like modern-day Rwanda or Ethiopia going. Not great, but certainly above the (admittedly low) norm.
What is far more impactful is the threat of pernicious ideomemes like communism. You can throw as much high-iq Asians and Slavic technocrats at it to no avail. Even the most degenerate of African states are paradises to say, Pol Pot's Cambodia. Communism, in terms of HBD, is equalivant to a primal reversion to humanity's primate ancestors, an intellect-shredding machine. Even if one must accept the premises of HBD, it gives one hope that the right ideomeme can produce results out of porportion of one's intellectual talents, but we haven't discovered the right solution yet.
Isn't that solution democratic capitalism?
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