Russian Elections 2021: The Thread

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 19, 2021 .155 Comments

For the past two days I have been awoken by loudspeakers in my neighborhood playing Soviet-themed music telling me to go vote in the elections in a radio announcer type voice. Here are the wealth of choices I have on offer in my district: Elena Gulnicheva, commie QT endorsed by Navalny’s “Smart Vote”. Incidentally, it looks […]

Open Thread 165

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 16, 2021 .273 Comments

Another pilgrimage to the Fortress Monastery. AOMI. Robin Hanson: The Insular Fertile Future. Reproductively successful cultures are insular from the global culture. Scott Alexander: Book Review: Modi – A Political Biography * AFGHANISTAN. Apparently internal frictions amongst the Taliban, with Pakistani-backed hardliners winning out and filling the Cabinet exclusively with Taliban (in so doing breaking their commitment […]

Woke Sexism: Women 2-3x More Likely to be “Targeted” for Crimethink

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 16, 2021 .138 Comments

Since the end of the Bush era, disinvitations and cancelation campaigns have become the near exclusive preserve of the Left, with the range of opinion warranting such attacks spreading beyond the traditionally taboo HBD/IQ nexus to encompass more and more areas, such as affirming the existence of physiological differences between the sexes. According to a recent report […]

American Gas Burners, Russian Nuclear Starships

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 16, 2021 .41 Comments

mal comments on a post from last year: Well, there’s nothing wrong with current Russian commercial space program such – they are launching OneWeb satellites now and there’s a Korean one thats supposed to go on Angara. SpaceX does have more launches but thats because they launch their own Starlink constellation and Russian Sphere is not […]

Homicide Rates in Africa

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 16, 2021 .22 Comments

Charles Murray was widely lambasted a few weeks back for this Tweet: Doesn't it make a difference to @davidafrench's argument that two of the core problems typically ascribed to centuries of American racism–elevated black violent crime and depressed mean cognitive ability–are found wherever sub-Saharan African populations live? https://t.co/ZSkSDF4BXW — Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) July 30, 2021 […]

Open Thread 164

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 10, 2021 .498 Comments

No Sovoks → 500 Million Russians

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 4, 2021 .303 Comments

Matt Yglesias might want a billion Americans. But there would have been 500 million Russians in the absence of the Bolshevik Revolution, as was predicted by Dmitry Mendeleev in a 1907 book. Putin, who it is now very clear reads my blog and Twitter, recently said as much himself in a meeting with schoolchildren in […]

Open Thread 163

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on September 3, 2021 .404 Comments

I was at the Army-2011 expo this week. Very cool, sort of like a military-themed Geek Picnic. POWERFUL COMMENT. Thorfinnsson on the Japanese economy. Adam Tooze: Chartbook #35: It’s not the fall that kills you …. Afghanistan’s looming triple crisis. “Afghanistan as a country where the costs of central governance exceed local capabilities, and is only […]

Ukraine Shuts Down Independent Media

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on August 29, 2021 .322 Comments

Since the start of this year, the Ukraine has mounted an accelerating campaign to shut down all “pro-Russia” (apostrophes because more often than not they’re not so much explicitly pro-Russian, as merely less anti-Russian and more oppositionist than the mainstream) media. Examples include: This February saw the shutdown of three TV channels (112 Ukraine, NewsOne […]

Commie Anti-Vaxxers

This about *default, tagged , was written by for on August 28, 2021 .215 Comments

Politics is tribal. “Conservatism” is situational. And so you can get some “unlikely comic book crossovers” if looking at the world through country-specific ideological prisms. According to one recent poll, the most pro-vax Russians are United Russia (i.e. the most pro-Putin) voters, presumably reflecting the official state position which is and has always been pro-vaxx. […]