Truly terrible takes you can expect to hear a lot more of over the next 2 months based on painful experience of the climate discourse - a thread.

1. 'Hospitals are not actually being overwhelmed - look at this cherry picked data point I found.'
2. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, but it is OK because they are not being overwhelmed everywhere.
3. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, but we couldn't have possibly known this would happen or done to stop it.
4. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, we could have taken action to stop it, but that action would have cost too much - here look at my economic modelling (which is much better than your economic modelling).
5. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, it is bad, but we can adapt to it by increasing hospital capacity (and no, we will not advocate paying any more in taxes to do so).
6. Hospitals are being overwhelmed, it is bad, but we can innovate our way out of the crisis (but no, we will not advocate for any policy or tax changes to enable innovation except for more deregulation).
7. (Post inevitable lockdown, once infections are falling and vaccines are being deployed) Look, we told you there was nothing to worry about. What a massive and damaging over-reaction that lockdown was.
All these takes will be demonstrably counter to ample evidence and genuinely dangerous in creating a political climate where measures to tackle infections are delayed and then disobeyed.
Anyone who points this out will be accused of being an 'enemy of free speech', wanting the economy to crash, or being part of an elite conspiracy.
And the commentators and titles that peddle these takes and as such do genuine harm will face precisely zero penalties and will engage in no reflection, all the while pillorying those working to deliver the policies and innovation that will bring an end to this crisis.
The only good news from the climate discourse is they will be proved wrong eventually and will fail to halt the sensible and necessary measures required to deliver urgent progress. The tragedy is that progress will be slowed by their relentless recklessness.

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Should we go into the details of these 125 years?


SA is built on the exploitation of labour. That labour has functioned on alcohol unfortunately. Very few people consume liquor purely for enjoyment unfortunately. When SAB opened its doors 1895 workers were paid in alcohol- the dop/tot system. 2 years into SAB's establishment

The Prohibition Act is introduced. This means black people are barred from buying your wines, beer etc. So SAB's products are exclusively for white people. But during this period beer brewing by Black women is the norm. Ayinxilisi ncam ke this type of beer. Apparently it had some

Nutritious elements to it. Now some of the context around drinking culture during this time is migrant labour to the mines, further land dispossession, the Anglo-Boer Wars, Rhodes corruption (our first state capture commission if you will) which leads to his resignation.

This context plays a role in how our cities and small towns are constructed, how they lead to the confinement and surveillance yabantu. Traditional beer brewing is identified as a threat because buy now mining bosses have identified that there's money to be made here.

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