If you don't want memory safety, it seems like it'd be easier to use C++ with a static analyzer to disallow the parts you don't like. I suppose the lack of a good package manager would still be a problem.
The whole point of TFA (with which I fully agree) is that Rust is just generally a much nicer language than C++, once borrow checker is out of the picture. Discriminated unions (enums) with pattern matching alone are worth their weight in gold.
