JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
It's irrelevant what exactly was written there. The important part was what it represented - in the eyes of Latvians. For some, it represented the victory over Fascism, but for others it represented decades of brutal occupation. While there was some chance that Russia has turned away from it's Soviet past and bygones can be bygones, and maybe new Russia can be a good neighbor - the Latvians were willing to let go of the grudges of the Soviet past and ignore the occupation connotations of the monument. However, now it has become clear Russia did not abandon the past, on the contrary - they are eager to repeat it. There's no longer any illusion Russia can be a good neighbor to anybody, and there's no longer a place for consideration for anybody with pro-Russian sympathies. So, the monuments go down, together with whatever letters are written on them.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
In a purely technical sense - yes. The Baltics would prefer that Soviets didn't occupy and oppress them. But that doesn't mean they owe you - or anybody else - a historically accurate and consistent concept of how exactly would they achieve it, with 100% guarantee. They are entitled to just hate being oppressed, and that's it - no alternative history necessary.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I'm not sure how you make conclusions about "majority of Russians", given they are a totalitarian society where dissent is being violently suppressed. But the official propaganda is constantly questioning A and B, with some saying and others heavily implying that Ukraine's culture is nothing but a corrupt dregs of Russian one, worth at best to be laughed at, and Ukraine's nationhood is an unfortunate historical accident that needs to be corrected, and the Ukrainians themselves are just Russians who were misled by ruling Nazi clique into forgetting their true roots, and need to be liberated and deprogrammed. I have no means to know if "majority of Russians" agree or not - but I know for a fact that's exactly what Russian semi-official propaganda (i.e. propagandists not officially holding the government post but are allowed to exist - including on state-run TV - while all other voices are suppressed) and many Russians in private conversations wholeheartedly support. I have heard and read many people expressing these exact statements. And remember, if you express sentiments that are officially disapproved, you get heavy fine in best case, jail in worst. These people never been prosecuted, and are allowed to speak freely on the government-sponsored forums. You can make conclusions from there.
But denying B is the official position of Russia right now, and denying C has been since forever, and it has been occupying part of Ukrainian territory - by military action which you have managed to ignore somehow - since 2014. A is not officially denied, but denied both in propaganda and in action.
and has a right to exist as an ethnostate
Ukraine is not an ethnostate and never has been, and never wanted to be. It's a nation-state, as most of currently existing states are.
take Sevastopol away from the Russian Navy if it sees fit.
Sevastopol is not a property of Russian Navy.
Russia is objectively a multicultural state, and ethnonationalism was never practiced there by the state
It's not as multicultural as you think., certainly not in the Western sense of it. Surely, "colorful national traditions" are allowed, but only within the framework of the imperial culture. The exception now is Chechens, which have a peculiar arrangement where they have de-facto self-rule within Chechnya, as long as a) 99% of them "vote" as prescribed (of course, nobody cares how or whether they actually vote), b) the ruler is approved by Moscow and c) what they do outside Chechnya is subject to Moscow's approval. But not many others would enjoy such arrangements and certainly that's not what was planned for Ukraine. It's not exactly "ethno" nationalism - your ethnicity doesn't matter much, as long as you politically and culturally loyal to the Empire. They are not primitive genetics-based racists, that's not what it is about. It's about having one imperial culture and one single cohesive political movement leading it, obviously based on the Russian culture, but not emphasizing primitive genetic basis, but rather the cultural basis. Shoigu is Tuvan, but as long as he leads the Victorious Russian Army to glorious victories (ha!) nobody cares. Once he has thoroughly failed, of course, some would not mind reminding that he's not "real Russian" and that's why...
is laughable.
You may laugh as much as you want, yet this is exactly what the plan was - and still is. You can witness it by reading the February-time propaganda, when they thought they have already won. You can witness it by looking at their actions on the occupied territories, where the first thing they do is to convert everything into Russian, institute Russian-language schools teaching Russian curriculum, have cultural celebrities from Russia come to "support" the new order, etc. - and, in parallel, ship thousands of "refugees" from Ukraine to remote areas of Russia.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
It's not entirely correct that the right always adopts leftist policies. Gun control policies have been suffering multiple defeats over the years. Pro-life policies have never been abandoned. And while fiscal conservatism is mostly dead (or at least comatose), the taxes aren't as high as they have been at many periods in American history.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
Which standards are you talking about? Ukraine has huge (comparatively) ethnically Russian population and also significant number of other ethnicities. Which criteria do you employ to conclude it's an "ethnostate"?
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
You're talking about Russians not upholding peaceful goals when they're not at peace.
No, I am claiming they never had peaceful goals and that's why they're not at peace now - because their un-peaceful goals has driven them to aggression.
So I have zero obligations towards them
That is true, but this is in no way supports the idea that your promises were genuine to begin with. It's more likely, you wanted to cheat them and take them other the easy way, but they saw through your deceit and you chose to do it the hard way.
from the perspective of Rome it's good
From the perspective of Rome it's also good to kill all the barbarians or enslave all of them. Screw the perspective of Rome, then. Why should I care what is their perspective if they want to enslave me? Ultimately, it gains me nothing - if they have enough power, they will enslave me, if they don't, I'll kill them and bury them and be free. How any "perspective" helps me here? There's no possibility of peace with them where I end up not enslaved - so why would I care about any "perspective" on their side?
This is how I feel we're holding Russia to unfair standards.
No, the standards are entirely fair. Russians want to control and conquer their neighbors - either peacefully or militarily. They failed to do it peacefully, then they failed to do it by covert (very badly disguised, but at least they pretended it is covert) limited force operation, and now they are failing to do it by open military operation. Their perspective - that of trying to enslave and control their neighbors - remain unchanged. And recognizing and openly talking about it, ripping off the veil of deceit they try to present - is not "unfair" to them. It may be unpleasant to them - as they would much prefer for us to be deceived - but it's not unfair.
so now Russia's goals changed from cooperative to punitive
They never ever been cooperative. They just tried to take over Ukraine by lesser means - first by installing a puppet ruler, then by instigating insurrections and grabbing territories when opportunity presented itself, and now by open warfare. It's no more "cooperation" than a robbery is a cooperation - what you are arguing is if you didn't promptly give the robber your wallet, it's "unfair" to fault him for trying to murder you, since you behaved "incooperatively", so he was "forced" to move to "punitive" means. That's bullshit, I do not owe a robber my "cooperation", and neither Ukraine owes Russia "cooperation" in its own destruction. It is entirely within Ukraine's rights to tell Russia to fuck off to any proposal or any attempt to intervene into their internal business, and any conquest action by Russia would be an aggression, and it's not "unfair" to say so. Russian is not entitled to anything at all with regard to Ukraine besides fucking off.
But I can't condemn Russia for trying to dissolve Ukrainian ethnonationalist identity when that ethnonationalist identity is part of what made Ukraine oppose Russian goals in the first place
Fuck Russian goals. Nobody in Ukraine owes Russians anything with regard to their goals, and they are entirely right and proper to reject any of their goals and pay to them no attention at all, and the only legitimate thing Russia can do is to shove their goals and shut up. Anything else is aggressive behavior, and it is entirely fair to point it out and call Russia what it is - an aggressor.
Additionally, Ukraine is not "ethnonationalist" - at least not any more than any other national state, from France to Japan to Israel to Malaysia to Germany to Thailand to Iceland - are. Ukrainians have their own national state and want to carry out their business without any other state interfering. It is totally right and proper for them to do so.
They're at war and in war you have no obligation to play nice with your opponent.
The fact that they are at war is their crime. The fact that they are also perpetrating this war in a genocidal and war criminal manner just multiplies their criminality.
I don't think "being free from foreign occupation" qualifies as a "fad". And yes, if you were a slave, maybe you don't want to keep things around that remind you about your slavery. Those who oppose Confederate monuments have a bit lesser claim since they personally never been a slave (the last US slave died in 1940) but still some claim to that remains. Unfortunately, the American Left destroyed that claim by attacking monuments to people like George Washington, Churchill, Lincoln, 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Cervantes, Frederick Douglas and others. They conclusively proven it is not about slavery. The situation with Baltic republics is different - the history we're talking about is still fresh, and it continuing today. It's like there was a statue of a Confederate general in Gettysburg while Lincoln was speaking there, and the war were raging on - I think if the people of Gettysburg decided to take this statue down, it'd be understandable, despite Confederacy being part of their history, undoubtedly. Not every historical even deserves remembering the same way - we don't erect statues of Hitler, we remember what he did in other ways.
But like it or not, they're art
That's a very weak argument. First of all, they are not that beautiful. To be honest, there's a lot of "art" like this anywhere, and any second-rate sculptor could produce it, given necessary payment. Second, anything is "art", as Duchamp has proven us with his famous "Fountain". That works both ways - if anything is art, then why should we be so deferential to it? So, it's art - to the garbage heap with it. Third, it's not much chance Baltics would ever forget they were occupied by the Soviets, at least not soon. So there's no real "historical value" to this symbol of Russian domination over them - they already know Russians dominated them, they don't need a reminder.
History never looks kindly on people who destroy historical artifacts
History is who? If somebody in the future would lament over the historical value of Soviet artifacts and their unique value lost to the future generations - I think Baltic people could live with it without losing too much sleep. And ultimately, it's their decision, they don't owe anything to a hypothetical future history freak obsessed with Soviet artifacts. The historians can use the photos if they like.
I personally view people like that as barbaric savages.
Neither they owe anything to you. If you think Soviet domination artifacts are beautiful and majestic, you can order one to be erected on your own property for your own money (it is possible people who designed that one may be alive yet, or at least left the buleprints intact). Baltic people do not owe you any resources or any of their territory, or in fact any effort at all, to satisfy your feelings.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I am not saying gun controllers in New York (one of their primary bastions) are completely vanquished. I am just saying they were handed a defeat, and that the right never abandoned the cause and never adopted the leftists policies. I do not claim the right won ultimately, finally and completely - not even on gun rights - I am just saying they have not abandoned the struggle, and the struggle has not been in vain.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
Lenin hasn't been any different from Stalin - the only reason why red terror has been attached to Stalin's name but not Lenin's was because Lenin died relatively soon after taking power, and has been gravely ill even before. But he was not an iota less enthusiastic about suppressing dissent and killing the enemies of the revolution (by which he, as well as Stalin, considered anybody who opposed his rule). He may be less paranoid than Stalin (which didn't serve him well - that's why Stalin could take over at the first place) and with slightly more pleasant manners, but there weren't substantial difference between them. He wasn't some unicorn-riding idealist hippie dreamer, like many in the West consider him. Read his contemporary letters, especially ones concerning the Red Terror, and you'll see it.
As for national policies of Soviet regime, they underwent several evolutions. Intermittently, they oscillated between giving the local elites more power (especially if this was necessary for promoting Moscow's goals) and taking that power back. What I talked about was the state of these policies in mature Soviet empire, not Lenin's initial designs.
However, Lenin's revolution scarcely could end up in anything but blood and terror, because by design that's what they were building - an oppressive totalitarian state. It's not some mistake where things went unexpectedly wrong - they actually succeeded to build exactly what they set out to build. Namely, a totalitarian socialist dictatorship.
all children in Ukraine were taught the Ukrainian language in school.
Formally, yes. But if they didn't speak Ukrainian at home, they rarely were able to speak or read it unless they wanted to. The quality of such teaching was quite low, I can witness to that. When you talk about Ukrainian culture or Ukrainian history, it was even worse - the whole thing was mostly how it lead Ukrainians to the peak moment of their history - joining Russia - after which pretty much nothing of note happened. Ukraine though were in privileged position (very privileged - formally Ukrainian SSR was a separate state, they had a seat in the UN!) Together with Belorussian SSR, the two slavic SSRs were privileged republics, other ethnic republic got much less deference than that.
Gorbachev removed Soviet aggressive stance abroad, and enacted actual democratic reforms domestically
That's giving him a bit more credit than he deserves - more correct would be to say he presided over Soviet aggressive stance abroad disintegrating, due to overall collapse of the state driven by multiple economic and political factors, and refused to spill too much blood to delay the inevitable collapse for a bit more. Here opposing him to Stalin is appropriate - Stalin wouldn't have hesitated, neither would Khruchev (1956) or Brezhnev (1968). As for democratic reforms, he tried to do as little as possible to keep the state from collapsing and keep the socialist dream going - unfortunately for him, by that time nothing could be done for that. Briefly, the democracy broke out in Russia - only to be promptly extinguished.
One crucial factor, distinguishing Soviet project from successful revolutions
Soviet project was a successful revolution. They just had very different goals from what French or American revolutions had. Imposing their vision on others (ultimately, the whole world) was also the part of it, the part that they failed in (due to Marx's economic and societal theory turning out to be utter bullshit) and subsequently abandoned, satisfying themselves with opportunistic conquest when possible, and "peaceful coexistence" talk where they were too weak. The "World Revolution" was their initial goal, and even though it became clear pretty fast they won't achieve it anytime soon, they never abandoned the dream of subjugating every country there is to the communist rule. Because if their system is the best ever, why deny others the glorious future of communism?
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
Martha's Vineyard is hardly a barren wasteland, and for 50 people you don't have to have too many "facilities" - any sizeable community building (and, I suspect, a number of private villas, owners willing of course) could host them for a short time.
And to think about it, if I were a migrant trying to get to, say, Boston, and they told me "we'll fly you for free within 100 miles of there, and then bring you to a place where Obama has his home, and then they'll feed you and take you further on the way - or you can spend nights under this comfortable bridge right here and hope for better options" - I'd sign up as fast as they'd let me. Literally no downside for me in this. If I knew it's a publicity stunt, even better - that means nobody would dare to mistreat me, in fear the other side would point and scream. Why would anybody need to deceive me for me to agree to something I'd want to do anyway?
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
You mean, they'd be rounded up and taken to a military base? On what grounds? Wouldn't that be, like, illegal, unless they committed some crime? Poverty, as far as I know, is not a crime currently.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I'm looking at Google Map, and I can see resorts, inns, restaurants, campgrounds, school, hospital, golf & tennis clubs, etc. Wikipedia says their population is about 17 thousand people. I suspect it would be possible for them to accommodate 0.2% increase in population for any time, if they would like to, and the monetary cost and organizational effort and inconvenience suffered would be negligible. Of course, they don't owe to do that to any bunch of strangers that show up at their doorstep... but that's kinda the point of it, not?
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
Re 3 body problem, the good parts are the ideas. The literary execution, imho, sucks. I mean, it's not awful, but it's kinda just ok maybe, not something great. The ideas, however, are very good. Of course, I am judging via translation from an unfamiliar culture, so I can't really decide where the problem lies, but if you read the main plot details, and thought about the problems raised there - you haven't lost too much by not reading all of it, IMHO.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
The fur hats are likely from Eastern Europe - which makes sense. If you live in a place where it's cold in winter, you wear a fur hat. If you are rich, you wear a hat with a lot of fur that's expensive. If you are a leader of a poor Jewish community that wants to show that you aren't worse than others, you adopt a style that reminds one worn by surrounding nobility. If you want to show you're keeping the tradition established when your ancestors lived in a poor Jewish community in Eastern Europe, you wear the same style an Eastern European rabbi would.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I am so old I remember when neutral style was actually the pride of Wikipedia... But I guess fighting for The Cause is more important nowdays.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
They have 100k population in peak tourist season, as I heard. That means they are probably equipped to deal with all common conditions that can happen in a population of 100k people that are having a good time. Of course, they might not be able to handle Dr. House level medical mystery - but do you think whatever medical services the illegals are getting under a Texas bridge beat whatever services they can get in Martha's Vineyard hospital? I don't think the bridge would win this competition. I'm sure somewhere on the border there might be one or a dozen of Dr. House's that can spot rare medical conditions and act promptly on them. The chance of a random migrant that is one of tens of thousands passing the border every month to meet that specific Dr. House at the specific moment they are at the border - I'd evaluate it as rather low.
In other words, if I were sick with some mysterious disease and was offered to be dropped next to Martha's Vineyard hospital (2 hr drive to Boston) or at a migrant camp in Texas (2 weeks to see a nurse because there's 5 to 10k people crossing the border every day?) - I know what I'd choose.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
That's obviously not so for "any quantity" - a single person who speaks non-English language would neither necessitate nor able to support all these highly paid professionals speaking their particular language. Of course, if you have a lot of persons that speak only or preferentially non-English language, they would create a demand for professionals speaking their language and be able to support such professionals. But that number is well above 50 for most professionals.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I expected Trump having some corrupt deals - I mean, he's a billionaire RE developer from New York, he must have cut some corners and greased some palms. But I see that they are digging into him for 6 years now, with all force of the FBI, DOJ and every Democrat local prosecutor in the nation, and so far they got zilch. I mean not just zilch as court convictions, the worst thing he did that I know (which I knew before he run for President, actually) is that he lent his name and likeness to a fake university which charged simpletons a lot of money to teach them to make money. Which I guess is a sleazy thing to do but hardly literally Hitler. The rest is just routine stuff where the taxman disagrees with you on the value of some property - as a homeowner paying property taxes (obviously much less than Trump does) I know what it's like. So I am moving to the conclusion there's actually nothing on Trump - at least nothing worth talking about. He is that clean, somehow, otherwise they'd found it by now. That doesn't mean they can't manufacture some crime to get an indictment - partisan control combined with partisan fervor does wonders to the notions of justice - but he looks surprisingly less corrupt than my priors were.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
How this is "Wellness"? It smells a lot like CW.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
Seriously, when posting this you didn't expect this will come out as a debate? If that's the case, I think, as rationalists say it, you should seriously adjust your priors.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
As somebody who did it after puberty, this is definitely not true, at least not for me, and I didn't feel any noticeable loss of function after, compared to what it was before. Of course, individual effects may vary, I can only talk about my own experience here.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
The mention of the Jewish origins is not a problem by itself, the "don't expect much" part is the problem. It's certainly not kind, it doesn't make any important point (unless "Jews are by default people that you can't expect much from" is the point, hope it weren't) and it was much more antagonistic than necessary. That's breaking 3 of the first rules right there. If it were expressed as "he is a Jew so it is understandable he is inclined to follow Jewish tradition" then I think it'd be much less objectionable.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
I don't know much about this conference, but from the tone and keywords in their public materials it sounds a lot like a gathering of offense-seekers. When a lot of people who are concentrated on seeking things to be offended at and hyper-over-react over them get together, I guess some people offending some others and some people literally shaking and some people complaining to Twitter would only be expected.
JarJarJedi
1yr ago
By default, about 99% of mentions of the "far right" in the press means "not socialists". I mean, of course they could be really far right, and true far-right exists (even discounting widely accepted mis-classification of Nazis as "far-right") - but this term is so consistently and thoroughly abused that I want to see proof they are actually "far" before I make any judgement on the subject.
It's probably not good for Ukraine because for some reason beyond my comprehension both tribes framed the Ukraine issue as tribal, and since the pro-EU tribe is (at least in words, though much less in deeds) pro-Ukraine, that pushed the EU-skeptic tribe automatically to become Ukraine-skeptic (see Hungary). It doesn't always happen - e.g. as far as I know, UK conservatives are firmly pro-Ukraine, and actually help in deed much more, than EU does in speech and Macron in his "fireside chats with Putin" over the phone. So maybe Italy will resist the temptation of easy tribalism too.
As for the rest, a lot depends on what "far right" actually means in this case - as it means next to nothing specific in general.
It's not counterfactual. It's very factual - Soviets kept Baltic states under occupation for decades, and Russia just showed they are fully embracing the Soviet doctrine of occupation and subjugation of bordering nations. In fact, they are willing to go further - while Soviets nominally embraced the "multicultural" doctrine (the reality was more complex, but at least the goal was not to completely destroy the subject cultures), the Russians are openly declaring Ukraine is a "fake nation", Ukrainian culture does not exist, Ukrainian language is a mere "corrupted dialect of Russian" and one of the first things they did when occupying Ukrainian territories was to take over the schools to institute Russian-driven learning programs heavy on emphasizing how Russia is the only thing around that has the right to exist. All that points not to "multiculturalism" but to embracing full-fledged cultural genocide of neighboring nations, intending to wipe any non-Russian identities that might exist there.
Seeing that, there's no wonder Baltic states have little tolerance for endorsing and lauding any actions of Soviet occupiers or the current Russian government. Nobody cares "what happened if in 1940s..." - but a lot of people care what actually happened and what is happening now. Removing Soviet monuments is a way for them to show their rejection and lack of tolerance for any Russian expansionist ambitions.
More options
Context Copy link