sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
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User ID: 2725
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
6hr ago
Source?
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
7hr ago
It is a tough sell to assume that the old law, made with incomplete information, was accidentally so perfect that attempts to improve it with more complete information are going to make it worse.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
7hr ago
Are we talking "traffic stop" unjust apprehension, or "barged into your home and put your face to the floor"?
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
7hr ago
Your example seems to prove the opposite of what you're trying to. If one of the possible reactions to obvious fatal injury is angrily ranting as if you haven't just been shot, then that makes the ICE video guy's ranting less indicative of whether he's actually hurt, not a proof that he wasn't.
The mistake is thinking that modern society broke men and women on a simple whim that could be reversed just as simply with a lil' bit of political will. In reality, we have had techno-economical changes that first uplifted many men and women from farming/peasantry to urban work, offshored a lot of labor that required raw physical strength to machinery, and interlinked industry in such a way that people no longer rely mostly on themselves and a few local craftsmen to produce all they need in life.
Meaning, the attempts to blindly RETVRN are not aligning the interests of men and women because regressing to the farmer economy is not really in most people's interest. Also, the men that are most interested in upending the status quo are, it seems, not really the kind of men who were capable of forming "grudging-but-functional relationships" before, let alone loving ones.
The way for west-of-Hajnal societies, I think, is nowhere but forward. Or, we can break down our factories, go back to villages and sit there waiting for the ever-dreaded Muslims, who have got a lot more experience in that kind of life, to overrun us.
Contra ergw and the rest, I do not believe most true incels are so productive that they must be appeased with government-issued wives or society collapses. It should be sufficient to let the incels have their AIfus, the femcels their serial killer LLMen, erect some basic fucking standards so that the eligible men don't poach the femcels too much and use technology to connect pair-bondable men to pair-bondable women for once. Instead of whatever it is the dating apps are doing.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
But it takes away so much of Russian civilization that it leaves you with very little to talk about.
I suppose so, at least in the sense that much of daily life revolved around religious significant holidays and much of international politics revolved around subjugating neighbours and imposing your religion on them. But how much of that is specific to Christianity?
Some of Hitler’s strongest supporters of his fascist activities were actually middle and older aged women.
According to common stereotypes the old women are the ones who idolize Putin, too. And middle-aged women notoriously staff the public offices.
I’m curious, have you ever read The Plot to Seize Russia?
No. (I have read Kids VS Wizards, though.) I admit I've kinda lost your train of thought.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
In the US, and correct me if I'm wrong, the progressive ideology considers the church important enough to take it over - gay/female priests, permissive doctrine, etc. In Russia the progressives are generally either milquetoast or militantly atheist.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
Sure you can say some things about it.
Am I not saying "some" things about it? If you want a historical/sociocultural essay, I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy. I was never interested in history lessons in school. What do you even want me to tell you about - tea etiquette?
I already conceded that many aspects of daily life will have stemmed in some way from Christian traditions. I also have said that in many of those, the Christian tradition is barely recognized as such, and some are quite blatantly originally Slavic Pagan. For most people I meet their moral compass, if they appear to have one, is quite secular.
Do you know if that’s true?
Without being Putin's butler I obviously cannot know if it's true. He certainly isn't known for drinking like Yeltsin was. His private life, to the extent he might have one, is not really the matter of public discussion. (Not because people are afraid or consider it impolite, but because it's simply not interesting. Those who want to hate Putin do it because of what he does in his capacity as the head of state, not any hypothetical grabbings by the pussy or private island trips. If there is any censorship of lurid speculation, of the kind that appears in the certain kind of pulp tabloids, I have not heard of it.)
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
In that case it looks like what you describe as Christianity being a profound part of Russian daily life looks like useless symbolism to me, and vice versa regarding my impression of American life.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
No one officially runs the church in the US. Not in the sense you may think. Most people here are a kind of very watered down, non-denominational version of a Protestant, which is basically a way of saying people just make shit up for themselves about what Christianity means to them and they pick and take what they want from the Christian references they grew up hearing.
That's also the impression I got, and the fact that Christianity in the US is so "headless" and the Presidents still swear on the Bible and pay general lip service to it makes me think the Christian tradition in the US is a lot stronger than in Russia. Even if Russian clergy have swaggier drip.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
whereas I see it as the power Christianity had over time to extend its range even into the mundane and ordinary aspects of life while continuing to preserve an elite status in other respects.
I see it as Christianity extending its range into the mundane and ordinary aspects of life, and then everything more substantial than that withered and died, with a gilded facsimile painted over the top by the state. You tell me whether that's "continuing to preserve an elite status" in your books.
Re: alcoholism, I do not truly know how things are in the poorer/more rural regions right now. Urban youths seem to drink far less (matching the decline of socialization). But what the culture says about 15-30 years ago is that yes, absolutely, people drank a lot. I doubt balding pot-bellied middle-aged men splitting a bottle of vodka three-ways (a typical stereotype) give off a lot of that masculine gangbanger energy, though. I do recall the stories of how thug lords were very visibly Orthodox, but can't speak to their veracity.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
I don’t know how you can speak meaningfully of Orthodox Christianity without the church. That’s like speaking about governance without the state. By this logic most of Christian history the world over should be discarded and throw on the scrap heap as a grift.
You can speak of governance without the state pretty well. There's the king far away in the capital, and then there's your local lord who actually determined the minutia of your life. Totalizing nation-states are recent.
And maybe I'm not very well-versed in Christian theology (rather, not at all), but I don't recall Jesus Christ saying anything about the Pope and the cardinals and Patriarchs being very important for Christianity. Didn't people believe, back then after his death, that the Second Coming would happen within their lifetimes?
The average American shares much more in common with the average Russian in that neither is anywhere near as religious as the average Jew in Israel or Muslim in the Middle East.
I'll take you up on your word. Now that you mention it, by the way, I realize I have no idea who actually runs the church in the US.
it was either after Stalin’s death or the dissolution of the USSR that Russians found a great sense of relief and refuge in going back the historic traditions of their church.
I don't know about the church. I would assume that after Stalin's death, Russians found a great sense of relief and refuge mostly because Stalin's time was characterized by political purges of anyone who slightly misstepped on the party line. Not necessarily in the direction of religion. As for the dissolution of the USSR, well, it is widely reported that things just went to complete shit in general for a few years after that. Maybe half of the country rushed to the church while the other rushed to the bottle (or worse). I don't have the statistics. What I know is that while I was baptized, neither my parents nor grandparents have been particularly religious in all the time I remember them. No Lent, no special meaning given to Orthodox Christmas, etc.
Disentangling the entire concept of "conventional morality" as we know it today from Christianity (in general) is admittedly hard. And religion had been important before communism. And we do say "oh Lord" in the moments of exasperation. It's in the language. But all of that is distant from churches, and very distant from high-ranking clergy who pose in gold-laden robes, drive luxury cars and bless tanks that drive out to the west. (Originally my disagreement was about the notion that the Patriarch's promise to be godfather to third children would have any sway over those who aren't already in the most churchgoing percentile and having 5 kids.)
(From what I heard, the saints many Orthodox Russians pray to are basically rebranded local pagan deities. So take the Christianity away from that, and how much would you really lose?)
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
1d ago
Okay. What I observe is that for most Russians, the most relationship they have to Christianity is owning a cross from their childhood baptism and maybe a habit of perfunctory praying when frustrated with something, if their family was religious. Instead of devout, spiritual, cultural or intellectual, I'd call it rudimentary.
Believe it or not people ‘do’ make that argument, and it rings pretty true to most astute observers. It’s one of the things that sucks about this society.
Well, it doesn't ring true to me. I think blowing up a trade center is a big deal whether you worship money or not.
It’s the one people use every single day.
But people don't use it every single day. That's kind of my entire point. The reaction to a historical church's defacement proves its historical value, not spiritual.
And I really don't think there would be an enormous lynch mob. Cops, at best, if someone saw it. If Russian Christians are capable of organizing in mobs, lynch or otherwise, I had never seen it. Nothing like that one Muslim holiday that has them fill the streets facing the mosques.
When I hear of any activism from Russian Christians it is usually top-down state-adjacent bullshit like canceling permits for Halloween cons for vaguely-danced-around reasons. Another example of the reasons for my general disdain towards ROC.
According to that logic America's reaction to 9/11 showed that their true God is the God of Capitalism.
"How would the country react if someone blew up a public place of theirs" is an atrocious measure of their dedication to that particular public place's importance in each citizen's lives, specifically. You don't have to be religious to dislike someone blowing up religious buildings in your country.
Now, if someone blew up a mosque, I can see many non-Muslim Russians being apathetic to that.
To call your tradition a "grift" I think is an insult to your history.
I did not call "my tradition" a grift, and certainly not the broader kind of traditions that stem from Christianity without being explicitly recognized as religious. I called the church, as in the government-adjacent institution, a grift.
Regarding Christmas as a consumer holiday, it might provide some perspective that while in the Catholic West, as I understand, Christmas is synonymous with the winter holidays and New Year's Eve is an afterthought, in Russia New Year's Eve is synonymous with the winter holidays and Christmas is an afterthought. It is not nearly popular enough to be a consumer holiday.
According to the latest polls, while up to 70% of Russians consider themselves Orthodox, 6% of those have been to the church within the past month, and 10% commit to fasts. Polls are subject to selection factors, but we have a specific number of those who were in church for Orthodox Christmas in 2024 - 1.4m people, which is about 1% of Russians.
Anecdotally, I live here and while I know a few people who were part of the faith as children, I know no one who has ever mentioned adhering to any religious ritual as an adult, aside from the universally enjoyable ones like eating the Easter pastries or painting eggs. Weddings rarely involve the church, too.
I have got the impression that unless you are extremely urban and Blue in USA, your circle of acquaintances will include practicing Christians to the point where they will not stand out. In Russia, the bubbles of atheists and the Orthodox do not appear to mix as much.
My observations fit my theory that the Russian Orthodox Church is largely grift and a tentacle of generic pro-state ideology.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2d ago
Maybe Russia could reverse their demographic decline with what Ilia II did in Georgia by promising to baptism every third child.
I have to admit I don't quite see what the incentive would be here. Having "Godfather: Patriarch Kirill" on your kid's birth certificate? I don't think the demographics who need the incentive really hold the church in such a high regard.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2d ago
Be careful that you don't trip on the AIphemism treadmill.
The parts of Russia with strong cultures have not been painted as literal inheritors of the German Nazi cause who must be annihilated as a state and entity. Also, the parts of Russia with the strongest non-Russian cultures are, you have guessed it, Muslim. Not "Slav convert" Muslim, but Central Asian Muslim.
I am telling you once again since you do not even address it - Russia is not some sort of based trad anti-White Replacement haven. All the trends that make people crow about "replacement" are there at only slightly weaker, combined with the kind of government ideology that is really not promising for newly-subjugated Enemies of the Glorious Fatherland.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
3d ago
Why would any Ukrainian who cares about his ethnicity care about that, when Russia promises to actively cancel the entire concept of Ukraine and paint it as wrongheaded Malorossian nazi sympathizers as soon as it's done?
It's clearly been too long since you've had an actual existential war if your concept of being replaced is limited to "London is less than 50% British". Try zero percent. Ethnicity null can't take up any percentage of the former country, after all.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
3d ago
Wrong. If they want ethnic Ukrainian culture, Russia is their worst nightmare. On account of actually having an explicit policy to destroy them as an ethnicity and fold them into Russia, as opposed to whatever it is you're insinuating Macron and Keir Starmer are doing.
Not even close.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
3d ago
This is framing the state of the war as a difficult uphill battle, as opposed to a doomed downhill battle.
If someone did that, then I think that instead of getting pissed inarticulately, the people would point out that according to all trends, AI is going to replace cheap imported labor in white collar jobs before it replaces the productive white mottizen, and at any rate there's going to be blue collar work left.
You could learn from resident fedposters and just go straight to "try that with me and I'll poison you in your sleep" instead of spending 10 posts on sarcasm.
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