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suy  1yr ago (astralcodexten.substack.com)   Edited 1yr ago   3862 thread views

Scott Alexander on Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Effective Altruism

astralcodexten.substack.com

I made this a top level post because I think people here might want to discuss it but you can remove it if it doesn't meet your standards.

Edit: removed my opinion of Scott from the body

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What changed everything was Gorbachev's glastnost (openness) policy, people were allowed to talk freely and they decided that they don't like the Soviet system anymore.

But that ultimately reveals the answer as to why the Soviet Union fell: for one critical moment, the Russians lifted the boot.

Fast-forward 30 years, and now everyone there is clamoring for re-application of said boot.

Not everyone, only people who are misinformed.

The communist party tried to put the lid back and a coop was staged against Gorbachev and army units were sent to the Baltic countries etc. They failed because people were not afraid to talk about it anymore.

I don't know why Russians willingly blinded themselves afterwards. Of course, it was the government that gradually started to control information and played on their nationalistic feelings. Most people who support Putin, do it because they favour Russian supremacy, they want to feel that Russia is the greatest nation on earth. Globalization robs you of that. As many critics say that people in the European Union have lost their roots and exchanged their culture to material goods. When one sees oneself as a true carrier of civilization and the rest of the world as rotten, one can justify all brutalities in Ukraine.

But the reality is that Russian culture is nothing special, based on the same things that people value all around the world.

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