Open Thread 148

This week’s Open Thread.

(1) Vitalik Buterin – Prediction Markets: Tales from the Election. Best explanation of why predictions markets were giving Trump 10% well after it was clear it was <1%.

(2) Balaji – How to Start a New Country. One of my favorite Indians. He discusses his new website (amongst other things) with Tim Ferriss in podcast.

(3) Scott Alexander reviews a biography of Recep Erdogan. Important to understand

(4) Glenn Greenwald got violently robbed in Brazil and only mentioned it a couple of weeks later. Meanwhile, Blue Checkmark hacks whine about being subjected to violence for being criticized on Twitter.

Greenwald is becoming increasingly based in general.

(5) Robert Stark is now blogging at Substack. Latest: An Alternative Vision for California.

(6) Peter Frost – Recent cognitive evolution in West Africa. The Mende of Sierra Leone show much lower polygenic IQ scores than the Yoruba of Nigeria (who score almost as high as African-Americans). Unfortunately, no data on Igbo.

Not too surprised about this. The Benin metalwork I saw at the British Museum was quite respectable.

(7) Russia Warns of Anti-White ‘Aggression’ in U.S. Good troll.

(8) RT: Armenia’s hapless PM Pashinyan to resign

(9) Paul Robinson on Western propaganda vs. Russian vaccines while accusing Russia of promoting anti-vaxx sentiment.

(10) /r/slatestarcodex on superiority of bullet points over prose. I sympathize with this.

(11) The Hill: The new race to the moon: the Artemis Alliance vs. the Sino-Russian Axis

(12) Roko on why rationalists (largely) failed to foresee crypto.

(13) Alexander Kruel – Fermi Paradox gets harder. Also on the seven tribes of intelligence in terms of mathematical abilities.

(14) Razib Khan – Enter Stepplandia

Comments

  1. This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.

    If you are new to my work, start here.

    Commenting rules. Please note that anonymous comments are not allowed.

  2. I was going to say that Glenn Greenwald was based for having 15 dogs on his Brazilian estate to ward off Brazilians, but then he mentioned that they cowered, and I began to think that he did not pick the proper type of dog to ward off Brazilians.

  3. Morton's toes says

    Unfortunately, no data on Igbo.

    That may be in the category of the collected data has been withheld because it is explosive toward certain propagandists with power.

    This book:

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41805294-beyond-the-north-wind

    has a bunch of Russian alternative pre-history claims. The best ones are about the activities of this fellow Alexander Barchenko who explored in the Kola Peninsula during the 1920’s and claimed to find relics pre-dating Stonehenge and Giza. Pyramids and labyrinths and such.

    One of McIntosh’s Russian writers has Atlantis in a Siberian Hyperborea and there are paintings with train-car-size sleighs drawn by mammoths as they had to evacuate the glacial onslaught. Great mix of fact and speculation.

    Fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champ_Island

    Are the spheres made by ancient craftsmen or are they geological freaks?

  4. Bardon Kaldian says

    Home Invasion should entail death penalty.

    As simple as that.

  5. Easy to come with a Steppe hypothesis to explain the Fermi paradox:

    It is not the Steppe that prevents space-conquest, but rather the lack of one. Many worlds lack a Eurasia-sized continent, and only have Australia-sized continents. There is a limit to what you can do with marsupials. Little martial or agricultural use in kangaroos.

  6. Occupying a Big Tech headquarters, or an international media headquarters would have proved better. And for the hat trick, occupying the offices of Harvard University.

    That’s where the real power lies in the US, the fourth and fifth branches of government which enabled the procedural manipulations.

  7. Wrt to the final meme:

    What liberals ultimately want is the “sporting purpose” test applied to imports, to be applied to all firearms (as in Australia).

    If a gun isn’t “Fudd”, liberals don’t think you should be allowed to have it.

    And we don’t need to qualify our arguments in legalities or even the US Constitution.

    The citizen has the right to the same small arms that the military does.

    The real colors of the US left are shown by the fact that they will never condemn a foreign law that is tyrannical.

    They will scream at any foreign restrictions on abortion or GayPride.

    Other than a law that proscribed firearms based on being black, I can’t imagine any law that the left wouldn’t excuse.

  8. Bashibuzuk says

    I remember reading about Barchenko expedition many years ago. One of the things that caught my attention back then was his reference to a legend by local Skolts about the great flood caused by a giant in a remote past. The flood supposedly drowned the main part of their ancestors land and forced their ancestors to settle in the present day Kola peninsula.

    Interestingly, although nowadays classified as a minority Saami ethnic group, in Barchenko’s description the Skolts did not self-identify as Saami and complained about other Saami and Russians taking their fishing and hunting grounds.

    The Lovoozero Saami on other hand told stories about their ancestors conquering this land from the magical Chud’, whom went into hiding “down under the Earth”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Finno-Ugric_substrate

    The languages of more eastern post-Swiderian cultures might have influenced Finno-Ugric languages as well. According to Peter Schrijver, some of these substrate languages probably had many geminated consonants (which is also characteristic of some Pictish inscriptions in a presumably non-Indo-European language)

    https://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/photos/000/318/31836.jpg

    http://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/doggerland/

    Also, paleo-Europeans were probably frequently Y haplogroup I. Which brings to mind the Megalithic Culture and neolithic Orkney.

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/aa/7a/06aa7a1151f69e30e747c9fa4ecfcd35.jpg

    When I first read about the flood that covered the Doggerland after the end of the last Ice Age, I immediately recalled the legend of the Skolts.

  9. Bashibuzuk says

    (14) Razib Khan – Enter Stepplandia

    Great read.

    Although we have no idea what language Yamnaya people spoke.

    Great read nevertheless.

    https://rossasia.sibro.ru/upload/iblock/8a5/v2017-03-ching18.jpg

  10. Alexander Kruel – Fermi Paradox gets harder

    Virgin humans – looking for aliens who are limited to 20th century radio technology.

    Chad aliens – enjoying dark matter and dark energy based technologies and violating currently known laws of physics.

    (11) The Hill: The new race to the moon: the Artemis Alliance vs. the Sino-Russian Axis.

    Well, in terms of orbital mechanics, lunar orbits are very bumpy (lots of potholes that will knock you out unless you power out of them, which is not tenable for a long duration spacecraft). If you want to stay by the south pole (and you do, for water ice, as the article mentions), you need to be as close to polar orbit as possible.

    There are only two inclinations available that match the requirements – 76° and 86° inclination – where you can safely park your spacecraft without it needing to burn fuel to overcome gravitational anomalies (potholes). Also , Moon is light so you don’t have much luxury when it comes to available altitude before you reach escape velocity. And on top of that, unlike regular Moon trip that you can go on every 90 minutes, your launch windows for polar orbit are spaced out by like two weeks.

    To summarize space geekery in plain English:

    1. Lunar poles are important because they have ice and ice is nice.

    2. Spacecraft parking space on polar orbits is very limited, arrival times are known weeks in advance, and therefore those orbits can be easily chocked off. Just like shopping mall parking lot right before Christmas.

    3. You might be interested in that because you can take Moon rocks, shape them appropriately and maybe slap some heat shielding, and then you can turn any city on Earth you don’t like into a boiling crater for very cheap (pretty much free if you use that ice for fuel) and you won’t be limited by nuclear weapons treaties so you will keep lawyers happy.

  11. This is the new national anthem of the Russian Federation:

  12. …we have no idea what language Yamnaya people spoke.

    We have a pretty good idea that they spoke an early variant of the Proto-Indo-European language. Close to Iranian, and Balto-Slavic languages that eventually evolved from it.

    They were mostly R1a and where they lived was later historically identified with Skyths, Sarmatians, other proto-Iranian groups and Balto-Slavic people.

    It is extremely unlikely that the continuum from Yamnaya to Sarmatians and eventually Slavs was interrupted. We can often determine what existed before by looking at what was there when we had records. (e.g. Herodotus.)

    The DNA data shows that the Yamnaya people formed by combining eastern hunter-gatherers with northern Caucasus people. The results varied but in general you get tall, robust, lighter-skin, and relatively hairy people who value honour above all else and seldom count pennies for pleasure. In that they differed from the bottom-feeders in the south and west who eventually created the Western and Mediterranean civilizations. They are still different, honour and truth have no meaning to most Western people.

  13. Blinky Bill says
  14. Blinky Bill says

    What’s everyone’s opinion of the new language translation feature here at UNZ?

    Has anyone used it and in what language?

  15. AltanBakshi says

    I don’t know much about Razib, but after he claimed that there are no primary sources about how Huns looked or about their ethnic characteristics and that only Muslim historians wrote about the brutality of Mongols, I can’t take him seriously. He is not very good authority on steppes if he makes such basic mistakes and doesn’t have even rudimentary knowledge of classical and medieval literature. He’s a hack and not a Khan, just a descendant of worthless slaves.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/no-russabia/#comment-4493125

    For our Ice-Age ancestors, the open steppe may not have been much more appealing than the semi-arctic forests, but by the Holocene, human ingenuity began transforming it into a landscape of vast possibilities.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe

    So what was the Mammoth steppe that humans started to inhabit 30 000 years before Holocene?

    That dire Roman view of the Huns: subhuman instruments of an angry God capable only of cruelty and avarice, was hardly unique.

    No, this is more of the view of romantic 19th century. Romans had more nuanced view understanding of Huns.
    Just look what Roman ambassador Priscus wrote about them. He even claimed that some Greeks had it better under the Huns than under the Romans. I’m not claiming that Romans didn’t see Huns as a threat or as barbarians, but the view was much more nuanced than Razib claims. Therefore Razib just replaced his imaginary caricature with another one. First he thinks that nomads were wildling barbarians, then he claims that they were civilised. The truth in reality is found between two extremes. In nomad society almost every man was a warrior so the militarisation level of nomadic society was almost incomprehensible to people of settled societies. Societies with such a high level of militarisation were by nature more martial and warlike, and therefore more barbarian from the viewpoint of Western modernity.

    If guy is named Khan and he is from Southern Asia, never trust him. I say this as a lifelong admirer and friend of Indian culture.

    The steppe is a faint, forgotten shadow next to this. Unlike Babylon, Rome or Egypt, the steppe warriors left no relics strewn across the landscape.

    What are Kurgans? You thick Paki bastard. Steppe is full of burial mounds and megaliths. I could mention the statues of Cumania, or the numerous ruins and ancient buildings of Crimea, Southern Kazakhstan, Volga area or Inner Mongolia, but let’s look something on the periphery of the steppe, the Republic of Tuva.

    https://s3.nat-geo.ru/images/2019/4/10/af1e80f274e94b6cb4c787b284cb80af.max-1200×800.jpg

    Here are the ruins of ancient Uyghur capital in Tuva, but Tuva has much more, they have numerous Scythian burial mounds and archeological sites, and even ancient megaliths called Deer stones.

  16. ravin' lunatic says

    the proper kind of ‘dog’ is equipped with an AR or BR

  17. “How to start a new country” – skips mentioning there already is a materialized ‘cloud country’. You know the one. In general the article seemed, er, a bit too optimistically naive about how things work; for starters, you will need a lot of asabiyyah to make it happen, not just a Patreon-level interest in tax havens or unrestricted degeneracy. Please refer to history and pre-history of said cloud country for practical advice on starting and maintaining one. It seems like a lot of work.

    Article did however in theme and style remind me of the relentless VC shilling of Uber pre-IPO.

    Perhaps a hotter take: India with a re-emphasized caste society is the ideal platform for actual ‘cloud countries’ (castes).

  18. Bashibuzuk says

    No.

    People often conflate Yamnaya with Steppe ancestry and Steppe ancestry with proto-Indo European, but it is an oversimplified view of a complex topic.

    Yamnaya were not R1a, but R1b.

    https://i1.wp.com/www.gnxp.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Haplogroup_R1b_World.jpg?resize=625%2C365&ssl=1

    Yamnaya did not directly produce modeen Western European populations, their distant offshoot Bell Beaker descendants did.

    Closer to the place where the early Bell Beaker Culture started (Iberic Extremadura, Portugal and Northern Morocco) people did not speak Indo-European languages in historically recorded times.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330729106_Turek_J_2012_Origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker_phenomenon_-_the_Moroccan_connection_In_Harry_Fokkens_-_Franco_Nicolis_Bell_beakers_in_Transition_Sidestone_Press_Leiden_pp_155-167_ISBN_9789088900846

    They spoke Euskera (Basque), ancient Iberic (an extinct non-Indo European language) and obviously (proto) Berber in Morocco.

    Basque males are nearly all Y haplogroup R1b today. Among modern Berber, some 10 to 15 % are R1b (although it’s probably a Roman Era remnant population). Also, around lac Chad the Hausa nomad cattle herders are mainly R1b and speak an Afro-Asiatic language (Chadic language family). It is the R1b V88 haplogroup, probably linked to Sea People, most probably Shardana / Sherden (ancient Sardinians) who obviously lived after the conquest of Western Europe by the Bell Beaker folks and were allied with the ancient Berber during the Bronze Age collapse.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherden

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meryey

    Yamnaya directly produced the Botai population, who domesticated the horse and Afanasievo people who first settled the Great Steppe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botai_culture

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasievo_culture

    Their direct offspring are the Bashkir who are overwhelmingly Y haplogroup R1b and speak a Turkic language.

    Therefore, we have no idea what language early Y haplogroup R1b people spoke in Yamnaya times.

    We know that (proto) Vedic Aryan language was spoken by Y haplogroup R1a Andronovo (Arkaim Sintashta) people, who came to the Great Steppe some 1000 to 1500 years after the Yamnaya people were replaced by paleo Altaic/Siberian Okunevo culture (Y haplogroup Q mostly, admixed with Y haplogroup R1b in the Steppe).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okunev_culture

    But that was many centuries after both Yamnaya and their distant Bell Beaker cousins faded away as distinct cultures.

    Bottom line: pots are not people, haplogroups are not languages.

    Do not projet the current linguistic situation on ancient populations.

  19. Bashibuzuk says

    Care to elaborate about the release?

    Thanks!

  20. Bashibuzuk says

    Razib Khan is mostly writing for a Western audience. He’s good enough for most interested Westerners.

    Then Turk Tengri above, Turkish holy Earth and Water said as follows: “In order to Turkish people would not go to ruin and in order to should be a nation again”, They rose my father Ilterish Kagan and my mother Ilbilga Katun, to the top and sat them upwards on the throne. My father, the Kagan gathered together seventeen brave Lords… Tengri gave them power. My father’s army was like wolves, their enemies were like sheep

    Ashina = Gök = (Heavenly) Blue = Sininen = Синий

    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elmar-Buchner-2/publication/258680404/figure/fig5/AS:[email protected]/Front-and-rear-side-of-the-iron-man-The-sculpture-was-chiseled-from-the-iron.png

  21. Erik Sieven says

    In the the article about the stepp there is this part:
    “But if the steppe looms so large in the story of our species and its development, why does it barely get a footnote? Where are all my fellow steppe-obsessed lay readers? Here, I think studying the steppe peoples brings up a fascinating aspect of historiography: when a people’s brilliance and originality translate into neither architecture nor texts, we are at great risk of underestimating or misunderstanding their contribution entirely.”
    I think there are some historians who have acknowledged the importance of the steppe for human or at least eurasian history. For example Immanuel Geiss who has written about “world history” an has pointed out that an understanding of the interaction between the people of the steppe and those surrounding this area is central for his concept.

  22. AltanBakshi says

    Ah the “Scythian” from Himalayas, made from meteorite iron, for a long time historians thought it to be a forgery, but it’s probably authentic. Extremely interesting piece of art.

    You thick Paki bastard.

    I was wrong, he’s not even a Paki, but a Bengali, therefore Razib the Fakekhan’s steppe ancestry is not 20-30%(respectable, substantial) as it is normally with people from Pakistan, but only 2-3%(negligible, marginal), maybe even less, as he’s from East Bengal.

    Ashina = Gök = (Heavenly) Blue = Sininen = Синий

    In Mongolian Хөх, or Khökh is blue, clear cognate of Gök, yes it’s highly likely that the Ashina clan was of Aryan origin, but why you are linking words for blue in Finnish and Russian with Ashina?

    Btw there’s lots of surviving Old Uyghur literature, especially Buddhist, with strong shamanistic influences. Funnily modern Uyghur is not descendant of Old Uyghur, and belongs to totally different branch of Turkic languages. Modern Uyghur is a close relative of Uzbek, but Old Uyghur is a close relative of Tuvan and Yakut languages, once again shows how artificial and modern creations/inventions people like Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Azerbaijanis and Anatolians are.

  23. Bashibuzuk says

    More data for the Belorussian and western Russian Corded Ware groups should shed more light on this issue, but already now it is highly unlikely that the influx of steppe ancestry will be explained by one single process or is the result of one group of people migrating. Rather there seem to be more and different processes, and more and different groups of people involved. Whereas the new single grave burial ritual associated with Corded Ware (Furholt 2019a) started around 2900 BC, there is no temporal priority for Yamnaya kurgan graves in the Carpathian Basin over early Corded Ware (as it was long supposed). Thus, it now seems that there might be a first, pre-Yamnaya movement of people from the east into central Europe who were buried in the earliest single graves with Corded Ware. During the same time, Yamnaya graves are found in the Carpathian Basin, and at a later stage some individuals from that source mixed with the first Corded Ware generations. This second, more closely Yamanya-associated influx of people became more dominant in central European single graves only after 2500 BC, when it was predominantly connected to Bell Beaker materials.

    https://indo-european.eu/2021/01/the-complexities-of-3rd-millennium-steppe-related-migrations/

    And 2000 years later:

    https://indo-european.eu/2021/04/iron-age-nomads-of-west-siberia-of-hg-q1b-r1a-and-basal-n1a-l1026/

    The history of the Great Steppe is complicated. Razib Khan is right about its importance to the World history, he is wrong about the oversimplified view on Yamnaya people bringing Steppe ancestry to the contemporary populations.

    Unless of course we consider the Bell Beaker folks as “Steppe derived” people, which is completely delusional because they were more Mediterranean looking and originated thousands of kilometers away from the westernmost extremity of the Great Steppe.

  24. Tried it on this post (with German). Seems to be Google translate or a service with very similar quality. Usable but not great.

    In general DeepL is much more useful. Example from this post: Balaji became Lieblingsindianer (American Indian) with UNZ/Google instead of the correct Lieblingsinder with DeepL.

  25. They should remake Rumble in the Bronx, but more HBD-aware.

  26. Blinky Bill says
  27. Daniel Chieh says

    Perhaps a hotter take: India with a re-emphasized caste society is the ideal platform for actual ‘cloud countries’ (castes).

    Vedic hyperpower odds increase.

  28. 12) The supposedly “Viking ” Rus are described by early Islamic traders on the Volga as Turkic (not kidding at all) and call their princes Qaghan.

    George Vernadsky was somewhat unique in proposing an eastern and not northern origin of the Rus. I believe that he pointed out the usage of the term “Qaghan” in the terminology that the Eastern Rhos used in their vocabulary to describe their leaders. It’s been a while since I read his history of the early period, but he does go into quite a bit of detail in trying to make his case.

  29. Re13

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xbz4/eric-weinstein-says-he-solved-the-universes-mysteries-scientists-disagree

    ”I was somewhat holding this back because I’m afraid of what it unlocks,” Weinstein said, “and now that I know we’re willing to elect Donald Trump, not store masks, play footsie with China, be Putin’s bitch, all of this stuff… to Hell with this.”

  30. We’ll have to let Bashibuzuk be the judge of which connect-the- dots is closer to what he had in mind, yet somehow I think that the one that I posted of China might be closer to what he was getting at?. 🙂

  31. Bashibuzuk says

    It might have been both Eastern and Northern.

    Warrior elite clans were quite mobile in that era.

    It was named Migration Period for a reason.

    Also:

    https://historicus.ru/assets/images/Yaroslav_Mudrii_rekonstruktsiya_po_cherepu.jpg

    Yaroslav the Wise

    https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/PrRVdpMDPc9rR7yk8F5L6X-1200-80.jpg

    Attila the Hun (a somewhat unflattering Roman representation).

    Rurikid males are mainly Y haplogroup N, with some R1a. Hun nobility were mainly R1a, but there were also some Y N haplogroups among them.

    https://indo-european.eu/2020/08/xiongnu-ancestry-connects-huns-avars-to-scytho-siberians/

    About the Qaghanate of Rus:

    https://www.academia.edu/8634104/The_Rus_Qaghanate

  32. Thulean Friend says

    https://twitter.com/OrchidInc/status/1379860887423492098

    Two important points.

    First, the genomic revolution is a largely and strangely silent one, but it is ongoing. Expect these services to get massively better and progressively cheaper as time goes on. The “superchildren” worries are largely correct in their analysis but incorrect in their doomster propaganda. Technological change is if anything accelerating.

    Second, I note that the CEO is a cute brown woman:

    https://twitter.com/noor_siddiqui_/status/1379868487183527936

    This brings the unhinged manoid hysteria in the last OT (“women can’t innovate!1!”) into sharper relief and exposes it as the desperate attempt to smear women as it always was.

  33. Daniel Chieh says

    I’ve known more than a few children conceived by donation, and thus via artificial means. While one would think that would imply that they’re well selected(mothers often select eugenically), the maternal side often has real mental issues(schitzophrenia, etc) which they also pass upon their children along with various other failures in parental care.

    I’ll remain appropriately skeptical.

    As for female CEOs and “innovators”: Elizabeth Holmes. But as far as “unhinged hysteria”, I think that its adequate to note that the ongoing feminization of America has pretty evidently had its less than positive result.

    I suppose if more “patriarchial societies” flip American dominance in the next five or ten years, advocates of increasing feminization will have all sorts of entertaining explanations to provide as well.

  34. Thulean Friend says

    I’ve been reading up about the Myanmar crisis (the background to the 2021 coup and its repercussions). I have become extremely distrustful of Western media over the past decade. In its coverage, I never once felt I was being told even close to the full story, so I have been parsing together the shards from multiple one-the-ground sources (either in the country or in close proximity).

    The story goes something like this. The NED cut its fangs deep into the country for many decades. The main beneficiary of this support has been Aung San Suu Kyi. This could be surprising given the recent demonisation campaign of her, but this was likely a pressure tactic done to weaken her hand.

    The critical background is that containing China is much older than recent rhetoric would suggest, though the noise has merely escalated in recent years. Amazingly, The Guardian (!) carried an honest story reporting on US attempt of sabotage of a dam. The key factor was China’s backing. This is the role that she has been playing for years and for which she was handsomely paid.

    Aung San Suu Kyi is an old Western asset, and she has been the recipient of US “NGO support” and dark money for many years. In addition, there are various ethnic militant groups that the US has funded and enabled. The Rohingya crisis some of you may remember was a policy of the US to stoke both sides. The outcome sought was to destabilise the country sufficiently so that any Chinese projects would become untenable.

    When Aung San Suu Kyi was in power, she did do a few deals with the Chinese, which is what may perplex outsiders. If she’s an asset of the US, why would she do that? The simple answer is economic necessary. Myanmar is just as dependent on China economically speaking as Mexico is of the US. The inevitable gravity of China in that part of the world forces some kind of pragmatism. However, this pragmatism enraged the US, which is another reason why she was given the cold shoulder by her former patrons.

    The army perspective is almost impossible to come across. All their accounts have been deleted across US social media. I did managed to dig up a few statements from generals made in the early 2000s. They clearly made the point that if she and the ethnic guerillas that the US came to power, the country would descend into a Bosnian-style conflagration of the 1990s. This statement was prescient given the Rohingya crisis later on.

    The US fundamentally does not care about Myanmar. Nor does it think it can meaningfully shift the country to a loyal US puppet, given how close its economic links to China is. The goal is to destabilise it sufficiently by drumming up support among critical factions within it as to render it useless to Beijing, by perpetuating constant turmoil. If the Myanmar people are casualties, then so be it. In this sense, the playbook is similar to the one being played out in Syria, Venezuela or arguably even Ukraine.

    One last point. You often read in the Western press about “hundreds killed”. The impression one gets is that the army is mowing down innocent protestors on the streets for the sake of it. What a lot of people don’t appreciate is to just what an extent that the US has cultivated various ethnic groups inside the country and armed them to the teeth precisely for these kinds of eventualities. The army is in violent conflict with many of these.

    I do not think we will see a formal invasion of the US, into a country on the doorstep of China. But I do think we could potentially see every step leading up to that, but short of it, as in Syria. Myanmar allowed itself to be destabilised by letting groups like the NED, the NGO-industrial complex more broadly to proliferate for decades. That price for that lack of vigilance is coming home to roost.

  35. Shortsword says

    https://twitter.com/bneeditor/status/1382333570270834692

    Industrial production for Russia in January and February is basically 2019 levels. Not too bad but not especially good either.

  36. Morton's toes says

    We haven’t seen the end of the Elizabeth Holmes story. There is still a trial with a jury of Californians. She will likely be marketed to the jurors and the sensational gullible media as the victim in this mess. The lawyers are going to come up with something. They already sent a brief to the judge that she is crazy.

    It may end up being one of the wildest things ever.

    I cannot forget the day I referred to her amphetamine eye glow on an internet comment board and was bombarded by a small army of irate anti hate speech fanatics.

  37. Blinky Bill says
  38. Thulean Friend says

    Denmark has terminated its use of AstraZeneca after numerous blood clot cases were reported. The European Commission is cutting its deal with J&J and AZ in 2022, focusing on mRNA vaccines instead, largely for the same reason. The West will not admit it, but by refusing to consider Russian and Chinese vaccines, it unnecessarily delayed its own vaccination and now damaged its own population out of xenophobia/spite. Very, very foolish.

    mRNA vaccines need substantial cold storage infrastructure, which is fine for the EU, but that is something which the developing world does not have. Seems like Sputnik and Sinopharm/Sinovac will extend their home runs in the developing world as even the West admits – through its actions – that J&J and AZ vaccines are subpar.

    I’m personally annoyed that I can’t choose which vaccine I get, something which e.g. Serbs can.

    P.S. putlet has announced that he took his 2nd vaccine, but strangely no photo of either the first or the second vaccination has been released. Anyone got any guesses as to why he wouldn’t do that? Seems like a bizarre decision if you want to encourage vaccination (which announcing that you’ve taken the vaccines aims to do). Will only needlessly fuel anti-vaxxer conspiracies, a stupid own goal.

  39. Shortsword says

    P.S. putlet has announced that he took his 2nd vaccine, but strangely no photo of either the first or the second vaccination has been released. Anyone got any guesses as to why he wouldn’t do that? Seems like a bizarre decision if you want to encourage vaccination (which announcing that you’ve taken the vaccines aims to do). Will only needlessly fuel anti-vaxxer conspiracies, a stupid own goal.

    Retarded decision. Putin is probably an anti-vaxxer himself. Can’t see any other reasonable explanation.

  40. The Big Red Scary says

    Doubly retarded. Even if Putin doesn’t want to get vaxxed himself, he presumably wants normies to get vaxxed, so should just fake it on video with a lot of fanfare.

  41. The Big Red Scary says

    that J&J and AZ vaccines are subpar

    Maybe. But a 1 in 7 million chance of blood clots is for many people better than getting a wild infection, which can cause blood clots and worse.

  42. You are right about some things (R1bs, Basques, Africa and Bashkirs…), but wrong about the main point I made: Yamnaya culture was a predecessor of Skyths-Sarmatians-BaltoSlavs who spoke an early version of Proto-Indo-European and were mostly R1a (documented in almost every bone tested from Yamnaya and kurgans in Southern Russia-Ukraine).

    I understand that you have an emotional need to work in the Turkic-speaking Bashkirs who are R1b to the picture. Fine, but they are a small group to the the north-east, far from the Yamnaya core region. They seem to be a remainder of an ancient R1b spread from further south, there is a lot of R1b in ancient Anatolia. But we don’t know at this point.

    If you look at the map you linked it shows a huge empty gap of R1b’s exactly in the Yamnaya region, and no R1b’s have been tested there in ancient samples. You find a lot of R1a, and some I’s.

    Based on Occam’s razor and simple logic both physically and linguistically the people who were there in historical times (Skyths, Sarmatians, Balts and Slavs) and who are there today are very likely direct descendants of the people who lived there during Yamnaya culture. Don’t invent massive population shifts that are not in the data and woudl be counter-intuitive. For example how would all of R1b’s and “proto-Turkic” speakers simply disappear from that region?

    The same is true about Basques (you are right there), Sea People, and Western R1b’s in general. This issue exists because Westerners can’t emotionally accept that they are not descended from the original PIE tribes who lived in Ukraine and Southern Russia north of Caucasus. Most Westerners are descended from Western hunter-gatherers and farmer populations from eastern Mediterranean. Of course it was more messy and there were many other interactions, but the PIE originated almost certainly in the steppe as a combination of eastern hunter-gatherers (from northern and north-eastern Europe) and Caucasus people (who added a lot, incl. the propensity for hairiness).

    On a more character level, all steppe people had an exaggerated sense of honour and search for truth, almost an obsession if you read their early accounts. Nothing like that is a genuine part of Western and Middle Eastern psyche: there self-interest, deception and guile were valued more. That’s still the case. I don’t judge it and it is only a guideline, but one can observe it today in the Western mentality that has no sense of real honour (“win by any means” is the default) or of living in the truth (for God’s sake, see their media). It is self-interest not truth that drives the West. Fine, but it is important for the others to understand it.

  43. How do you know that is “1 in 7 million” chance? The data is very preliminary, often manipulated and there are clearly long-term effects. If something kills a few people right away, the same thing is probably not very good for everyone else who takes it.

    Regarding “wild infection”: it seems to kill (and hurt) certain demographic: older people, obese, people with some pre-existing illnesses. It is almost unnoticeable for everyone else. By all means, the ones in risk groups should vaccinate immediately. It is only prudent for everyone else to wait for better data: math comparing the likely outcomes. There is also a simple rule: when in doubt, it is better not do it.

    Your exaggerated sense of panic suggests a mild form of hypochondria. Actually, I believe that mass hypochondria can explain a lot about last year.

  44. sher singh says

    Lol. Took you long enough, but of course the Jatts rebelling against current version of Mughal rule are wrong.

    Anyway, can confirm Z-man is a fed poster after I pointed out he gives one sided coverage meant to rile up normies; he never responded.

    :thumbsup: (he has purported/admitted links to Israeli intelligence)

  45. Bashibuzuk says

    She is quite attractive though, perhaps her eye glow is part of her charm…

  46. AnonFromTN says

    Maybe OT (if you can be OT on an open thread).

    For the first time Russian foreign ministry officially named the US an adversary. Lots of Russians reacted to this with approval of finally calling a spade a spade.

    So far it looks like Putin’s scare tactics (openly moving troops and armor) to prevent further escalation in Donbass worked: Ukies soiled their pants, and they weren’t alone in this reaction: the US and its European sidekicks began to run around like cockroaches after the light is switched on in a badly maintained kitchen. Senile Biden was even told by his puppet masters to call Putin and propose a meeting. NATO officials look visibly shaken.

    However, the danger is not over yet. Several US warships entered Black Sea (which is more than 5,000 miles, or more than 8,000 kilometers for those who don’t use medieval measures, from Washington, DC), additional US troops are moved to Europe, as if they really believe that those puny forces can scare Russia. So, things can still escalate, although most analysts (including Western ones) predict the same scenario as in Georgian war in 2008: Ukraine attacks LPR and DPR, gets beaten to pulp after Russian intervention (which was essentially promised by Russian officials in case of Ukrainian aggression), the US and its lackeys raise a lot of stink, but don’t do anything. Stay tuned.

  47. AnonFromTN says

    Putin’s trademark is telling the truth (which confuses Western analysts no end, as based on their experience they expect politicians to tell nothing but lies). So, he couldn’t have faked something.

    Whether he actually got vaccinated is an open question: at his age and state of health it is hard to tell which is more dangerous, vaccination or the disease it is supposed to prevent.

  48. Bashibuzuk says

    The Sarmatians were descended from Yamnaya through the Afanasievo people. Scythians were descended from Corded Ware through Srubnaya culture.

    Yamnaya were R1b.

    Corded Ware were R1a.

    Both had “Steppe Ancestry ” (whatever that might mean for population genetics).

    Both descended from Siberian Mesolithic hunter gatherers of Y haplogroup R (Ma’lta Bouret people).

    Bell Beaker were R1b, proto Balto-Slav mostly R1a.

    Yamnaya are nowhere the ancestors of Balto-Slav people. If you’re Y haplogroup R1b, then you’re probably of Celtic (Vlakh) descent, which is cool: most Celts I know are nice people.

    The ancestors of Slavs and Celts coexisted in Central European Unetice Culture. That’s where the Indo-European language became the lingua franca of ancient European trade and religion. It was before Indo-European expansion in Hindustan and Middle East.

    History is long and convoluted and that’s interesting.

  49. . They clearly made the point that if she and the ethnic guerillas that the US came to power, the country would descend into a Bosnian-style conflagration of the 1990s. This statement was prescient given the Rohingya crisis later on.

    The Rohingya are less than 1 million people, not even 1/50th of the country, and aren’t liked by the rest of the country. Conflicts with them are not evidence of a Bosnia style conflagration. Myanmar should have ethnically cleansed every single one of them a long time ago. What could the U.S. do about it? Nothing. Keeping these people in the country is more destabilizing than eating sanctions and permanently ridding the country of them. Let the Bengalis deal with the problem.

  50. China has repeatedly said that if Taiwan declares independence it will invade.

    Russia is making clear that if the West grants an accelerated Nato membership process to Ukraine, as it has been asking for, then Russia will attack.

  51. Thulean Friend says

    You’re mixing two different aspects. The general that I quoted was not talking about the Rohingyas primarily but a wider sectarian conflagraton together with political polarisation (same ethnic group can still get to daggers drawn). The goal that the US was pursuing with the Rohingya was part of a larger strategy and shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. A destabilised Myanmar is better from the US’ point of view than a Myanmar safely in Beijing’s orbit without major internal upheaval.

    I largely agree with your assessment that the Rohingyas are essentially Bangledeshis, but ethnogenesis, if it persists, can become permanent. Ultimately all of our identities are created out of thin air because people decide for long enough, in sufficient numbers, that a new identity has been formed – and then stick to it. Such has the historical process been of all current and past identities.

  52. Back in 1976, President Carter did an interview with Playboy magazine in which he confessed to having mentally lusted; mentally committed adultery. Men often ho-hummed this — yeah yeah, been there done that — mental lust. But there was a big backlash against Carter — too much info; you are the President; a high level of dignity and privacy obtains. This reminded me of Lyndon Johnson showing his surgery scar.

    Biden went astray during the campaign, but seems to grasp this dignity point now. However, Harris, the almost-President, with her laughing and cackling and pastry snacks and sarcastic comments, does not grasp this, or cannot shake her non-gravitas mode.

  53. Blinky Bill says
  54. Have you ever seen video of her? VERY creepy.

    Steve Sailer postulated that a lot of elderly male investors were wrapped around her finger because she was a blonde. Seeing her move and talk, though, it is hard for me to believe it.

  55. Some what unrelated but I think digital currency like Cryptos are going to be a major means of tyranny in the future. China is leading the way in human enslavement via Crypto and no doubt the West will follow.

    A lot of people seem to be oblivious to the absolute nightmare that will be ushered in by digital currencies. It will lead to a degree of enslavement and servitude that would make Stalin blush.

    The purpose of an expiration date is obvious. You will not be allowed to save or own anything. You will be forced to spend all your money. That means further consumption and investment in stocks and bonds.

    It means more profits for corporations and higher stock prices for oligarchs. Do you want to save money for college, for a car, for a house? No can do.

    You will either have to borrow the money or rent it. The vast majority of people rarely can amass such liquidity in hand. They are forced to either sell property or save up.

    You will be forced to rent houses, rent cars, and borrow for college or to start a business. It means going deeper into debt and further fattening the banking cartels. Renting items instead of owning them is also quite lucrative for the rich.

    If you own a car, you only have to pay for its maintenance. If your rent one, you have to pay for maintenance and a rent, a further avenue for income. More income for the rich via rents and interests, less safety nets for the population.

    The more impoverished and cash strapped the population is, the more desperate they will be. Even if Amazon pays you 5 dollars an hour, you will be hesitant to quit the job, lest you starve. No savings means no security net, and permanent labor in search of sustenance.

    The end result will be the transformation of 80-90% of the population into destitute wage slaves, who own nothing and permanently toil away for subsistence.

    The handful of wealthy and bourgeois technocrat will benefit greatly however. Those who earn a large monthly income or already own substantial properties will be able to own anything, and will be able to further buy up properties from the masses.

    Each economic depression will bring with it new opportunities to further consolidate property holdings into fewer and fewer hands. As we saw from the 2009 financial crisis, the rich only get richer during economic busts. The big banks grew 35% bigger after 2009.

    The glorious future is fast coming to realization. You will own nothing, you will eat bugs, you will live in pods, you will work 16 hours a day, you will drink soy, the rich will fuck your wife, you will raise their kids, and you will be happy. Just watch netflix, drink soy and buy marvel toys, and all will be well.

  56. Morton's toes says

    She was accompanied in her hay day by an un-house-trained dog. Not a midget dog. A huskie.

    You might not have been charmed for long.

    https://animalso.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/alaskan-husky_3.jpg

  57. Caspar Von Everec says

    Fermi paradox always seemed kind of bogus. Stars stand at distances of light years apart from each other. Even if an alien civilization wanted to communicate with us, it would take their radio waves thousands of years to reach us.

    The first SETI messages were sent in the 1920s and its only been a 100 years. The Milky way galaxy has a radius of 24,000 light years. Even if an alien civilization received it, and replied it would take centuries to return.

    There’s little reason to believe that radio waves are even effective at interstellar communications. They are liable to red shift and disturbance. It could very well just appear as noise on their receivers. Plus due to the distance of space, it takes radio waves an eternity to get to a target. By the time a message gets to the recipient, the sender and perhaps even their kids are dead.

    Another argument given is that 85% of stars are red dwarfs. But even if main sequence stars like the Sun are 1%(its certainly more), that still place the number of stars in the galaxy at 4,000,000,000.

    Plus, being a tidally locked planet to a red dwarf isn’t a death sentence. There would be a warm ”evening period” at the juncture, and life could easily flourish in the dark side due convection heating by winds from the hot side.

    Gas giants like Jupiter house dozens of moons that are the size of planets, and are a top contender for holding life. Titan for example is very rich in organic compounds and has a dense atmosphere and oceans of hydrocarbons. Some methane based life may evolve there.

    As far as intelligent life goes, it could very well be abundant in the galaxy. If alien scientists looked at earth from a distance of 200 light years, they’d assume there was no intelligent life on the planet. No artificial lighting during night time, no dyson spheres, no radio waves incoming, no space station or colony on the moon, no artificial structure sticking out amidst Earths’ surface, none.

    But that would be the year 1821, the year Napoleon died and just 6 years after the congress of Vienna. Was Earth devoid of intelligent life then?

    For all we know, we may very well be looking at planets that have a Roman Empire or Ming China phase going at the time we saw them or at the present date.

    Plus, its likely that most industrial civilizations suffer dysgenic collapse before they can achieve space travel. Industrial society enables the existence of ideologies like feminism, liberalism and hedonism. Its likely civilizations collapse due to dysgenics and low birth rates or intermixing with more fecund but low IQ groups like Sub Saharans. Dust to dust.

    Its also probable that interstellar travel is simply not possible due to the laws of physics, problems such how the g-force limitations that would come with a vessel travelling at even .01c.

    Or it might require intelligence too great for biology to accommodate. The human brain is only 3% of the body mass but consumes 20% of the energy. There must be a thermodynamic limit to how large a brain can be. Its possible that an IQ of 300 would require a brain so energy intensive that it could melt or cause nerve damage.

  58. Shortsword says
  59. You’re mixing two different aspects. The general that I quoted was not talking about the Rohingyas primarily but a wider sectarian conflagraton together with political polarisation (same ethnic group can still get to daggers drawn). The goal that the US was pursuing with the Rohingya was part of a larger strategy and shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. A destabilised Myanmar is better from the US’ point of view than a Myanmar safely in Beijing’s orbit without major internal upheaval.

    I understand the point, I just disagree with the premise. Pointing the finger at the Rohingya is something almost everyone in the country can get behind. Ethnically cleansing them is not a dividing force, but the opposite. Looking at conflicts with the Rohingya as part of larger ethnic conflicts is misleading because the Rohingya problem can easily be solved, and there is nothing to the idea that an escalation of repression against the Rohingya necessarily leads to the same for other groups. I’ll try to put the point more plainly: No one likes the Rohingya, therefore it is a good idea to nip the problem in the bud. If it is the case that outside powers(the U.S. is not alone in this case, the Chinese have a long history as well) are stoking ethnic conflicts, then removing one of the more troublesome groups, who are disliked by the other locals, is actually effective for resolving local conflicts. Not doing so means yet another ethnic/religious conflict in the future. Right now, the Rohingya are weak, so the time is ripe for getting rid of them. Failure to do so will lead to big problems in the future.

    I largely agree with your assessment that the Rohingyas are essentially Bangledeshis, but ethnogenesis, if it persists, can become permanent. Ultimately all of our identities are created out of thin air because people decide for long enough, in sufficient numbers, that a new identity has been formed – and then stick to it. Such has the historical process been of all current and past identities.

    I agree with this(except for nitpicking the phrase “out of thin air,” since identities aren’t entirely invented, otherwise for example genetic differences would not exist), and it is exactly why I suggest not removing the Rohingya will cause more problems than whatever results from ethnically cleansing them. They have higher TFR than Buddhist locals, if the problem is not sorted out soon, there could be a Bosnia-like conflagration. But Rohingya being driven from their homes and into other countries is the solution to the problem, not a symptom of the problem.

  60. Mexicans doing the job white Americans won’t do.

    Flyover country whites can look to the plight of American Indians to get an idea what their future will look like.

  61. Johnny Rico says

    Classic. Thank you.

    “I don’t know what the fuck you just said,” Rogan finally says. “How about that?”

  62. Bashibuzuk says

    But I like dogs. I have dogs myself. My dogs are super nice.

  63. Kiev backed down and the mentors are trying to contain it. Too many moving parts, it is not over. Unstable and getting more so.

    We see a huge amount of Western lying. As always with lying the key question is: why? To score more propaganda points at home? to distract? or because that’s just the way they are? More is going on, they would like a lovely little war. It would solve a few issues.

    It is a mistake to look at past analogies, 1914, Georgia 2008, Syria, Yugoslavia, etc…this is different. There can be no compromise by either side, this is for all marbles. Washington wants Ukraine in Nato, fully “westernized“, with bases and control, possibly revisit Crimea (a nice peninsula to own). For Russia this is existential, they can surrender now, or wait to be taken apart in the future. Or they can fight.

    There will be no compromise, and no “peace settlement”. It would require West to lose face or Russia to surrender. We may get lucky and something else happens to distract. Or our luck could run out. Those are the fruits of deep stupidity, infantilism, yearning for being someone else, and having a bunch of geriatric morons as leaders. (Weren’t Brezhnev&Co. all geriatrics when they cleverly decided to invade Afghanistan?)

  64. So Ukraine, which was already far behind, continues slipping back even further. Nothing particularly surprising, you can’t build an economy on Atlanticist cargo cultism and IT outsourcing (cope of some Ukrotriumphalists on this board aside).

  65. Maybe he’s afraid of needles.

  66. It’s still not too late to buy Chainlink.

    https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1375953228614008837

  67. Europe Europa says

    Sputnik V and the Chinese vaccines are basically the same tech as AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson so are likely to have the same problem.

    I doubt Russia and China would be as willing to report very rare side-effects with their own vaccines, nor would the countries they’re supplying which are mostly close allies. In contrast relations between the UK and EU are already fairly poor because of Brexit, so they had no qualms about raising concerns about AZ.

  68. What’s a good time platform with which to buy crypto? I’ve been using Coinbase like a boomer; my ETH has been doing great but Coinbase doesn’t allow many others.

  69. AnonFromTN says

    they would like a lovely little war.

    But they won’t like a lovely little defeat. The US has enough egg on its face, would hardly welcome more. The defeat of Ukraine is so clearly on the cards that even Poles see it. Ukies don’t, but who cares about Ukies? There is also 6/7th of the world to consider. After Georgia was beaten to pulp, the whole third world rejoiced that the US got a slap in the face, albeit by proxy. The Guardian still had comments section back then, and the comments from the third world were rabidly anti-American. Some were downright scary, suggesting that all Georgians must be exterminated. The US earned a lot more hatred since then.

    Weren’t Brezhnev&Co. all geriatrics when they cleverly decided to invade Afghanistan?

    Depends on your comparison. Next to Alzheimer Joe and mad Pelosi, Brezhnev’s Politburo was a youth club.

  70. AnonFromTN says

    CNN lied. What else is new? CNN, like NYT or WaPo, was not caught telling the truth for many years now.

  71. AnonFromTN says

    Sputnik V and the Chinese vaccines are basically the same tech as AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson so are likely to have the same problem.

    I would not be so sure about that. First, AZ vaccine is based on a monkey adenovirus. I don’t know who was the bright spark behind this decision, but that was the dumbest thing to do. J&J is based on human adenovirus, like Sputnik. But it likely has different additives. Having developed chemical industry can be a bad thing: look at the ingredient lists on all US-produced foods, they read like catalogues of a chemical company. Or it might be the issue of purification: J&J was in a rush to get more money, so they might have cut corners, whereas Sputnik producers are not for-profit, so they might have done a better job.

    Chinese vaccine is attenuated (or killed, not sure) virus itself, so it’s a whole different ball game.

  72. Binance is the best CEX imo – but Americans are barred from using it and have to use Binance US, which I understand has a much smaller selection of coins. Europeans, including Russians, have many fewer restrictions in this respect.

    You can also use crypto as its meant to be used and use DEXes (decentralized exchanges) such as Uniswap or 1inch after transferring your Ether from Coinbase to your own wallet (e.g. you can easily set one up with Metamask). Main problem with dexes right now is the high ETH gas fees, which is a significant constraint if you’re buying in small quantities. There are ways to avoid that, e.g. using L2 scaling solutions like MATIC.

    Be careful. I think ETH will still do at least a 2x and probably a 4x before the end of the year, but I think it will be followed by a bear market in which it falls to lower than its present value (before exploding to $50k+ in the mid-2020s as DeFi eats TradFi).

    I’ll probably write this up sometime this month. Also, needless to say, NFA/DYOR.

  73. Morton's toes says

    PIE originated almost certainly

    You may be the only person in the universe who is almost certain on this topic. A few qualifiers and disclaimers will improve your rhetoric 50X. : )

  74. I have a side gig doing expert consultations for which I have to pay my own taxes; rather than pay my estimated tx quarterly I’ve just been setting aside 30%, putting it into crypto (wish I had started doing this sooner). This has paid off much more than the hit I’ve taken by not paying estimated tax during the year. But I’m emptying out the account and starting over when taxes are due in May. I’ll be close to zero (I’ll keep a few hundred in LINK) because I had to make some unexpected and expensive house repairs.

  75. There were some German physicists in the first half of the last century that were saying the same thing as the German physicist Hossenfelder says in that video today.

    Stark and Lenard, the leaders of Deutsche Physik, were Nobelists and great experimentalists. Einstein’s work in relativity is commonly believed by people as having had something to do with nuclear weapons and GPS, but in reality it had nothing to do with them or any practical applications.

    Weinstein’s work probably “unlocks” nothing and appears to be in the tradition of empty mathematics in the guise of physics.

  76. This issue exists because Westerners can’t emotionally accept that they are not descended from the original PIE tribes who lived in Ukraine and Southern Russia

    What is the exact issue that you think exists?

    In the small corner of Western Europe where I was born we were very happy when the experts said (not long ago) that we descended from Paleolithic people and we are equally happy now that they say that we have the same WHG+EEF+Steppe ancestry as everyone else in Europe (and in fact the highest percentage of Steppe-derived Y haplogroup R1b). The one thing that was always very clear to us, and we were actually proud about, is that our language did NOT belong to the IE family.

    Likewise, I have never heard any other Western European express any concern, in one way or another, about descending from Proto-Indo-European tribes. It’s quite a bizarre claim. Are you talking just about some small group of ancient genetics cultists?

    If anything, I would say that nowadays Western Europeans would find it cooler to learn that they descend from some exotic ancestors rather than from some tribes of White people in Southern Russia (and in fact that is what the largely undisputed OOA theory posits, to no one’s alarm).

    This is pretty much what I experienced in the Basque Country. At least in the past half of a century, and contrary to what I perceive in other regions of the European periphery, such as Catalonia, Padania or Ukraine, the emphasis was not in being “more European” but in being different. Basque nationalism has gone hand in hand with a leftist, anti-imperialist ideology that promoted solidarity with oppressed peoples of the Global South: Kurds, Sahrawi, Amerindians,… Same as Irish nationalists.

    As for your equally bizarre claim that Western Europeans are less truthful than Eastern Europeans, I don’t think that it’s worth my time going down that rabbit hole.

  77. This particular one is at the level of the Nazis in 1939 (on the eve of Poland getting attacked) saying that dead men in Wehrmacht unis were killed by the Poles.

  78. sher singh says

    None of those have any cultural relevance to a majority Christian population.

    History without context is just babble.

  79. They spoke Euskera (Basque)

    I don’t think so. It’s not even clear that Basque was ever spoken in the southern tip of Navarre (the only kingdom that encompassed Basque speakers on both sides of the Pyrenees).

    This is what Wikipedia says was the maximum extent of the Basque language based on existing toponyms:

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Euskararen_aztarna_geografikoak.svg/731px-Euskararen_aztarna_geografikoak.svg.png

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language

    My impression as a Basque speaker (the standardized version and two dialects) is that in those ancient times there must have been a huge amount of different tongues and dialects spoken in the different regions of Europe and communication must have been quite difficult. But not much is known about old languages that left little or no written record. Ancient toponyms and genetic proximity is probably the best we can base our guesses on.

  80. Max Payne says

    This brings the unhinged manoid hysteria in the last OT (“women can’t innovate!1!”) into sharper relief and exposes it as the desperate attempt to smear women as it always was.

    No so much that women can’t innovate as those that try to innovate push themselves to stardom levels as if they landed on the moon or something of actual worth (how motherly… a test to see if couples are genetically compatible for a baby).

    Call me when a woman reaches at least John Carmack levels, which is a base minimum. So far it seems like this woman just took a bunch of Pfizer, 3M and other available kits on the market and jammed them together to create a “new” procedure and called it her own. Okay.

    These same women tend to draw…. ahem… beta-male worshippers who are retarded (on all levels). Because when REAL engineers and scientists ask questions they tend to be labelled sexist (“don’t be mean, she got into university for engineering with a 60% average, as opposed to the men average cutoff of 90%”)

    How does it feel to be a beta? Aren’t you the same queer that also wants to get rid of MASCULINE vehicles in the city? You really are gay aren’t you?

  81. Boomthorkell says

    When I read the “Create a Nation” article, I realized almost immediately I had seen exactly this kind of set-up be beautifully realized in the book “The Diamond Age” (sequel to “Snow Crash”).

    Absolutely riveting, with one of my favorite societies being the one that forms social bonds through INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS AND EPIC versions of “partner trust falls.”
    It’s absolutely got a future in this world, even though Nation States will certainly continue to exist. The Space Age, until we end up with a 30-40k-style Imperium, will also be similar I’m sure and see this carried out on a galactic scale.

  82. One thing that worries me is that rt.com is not bothering much to let its large Western audience know that it was the Ukrainians who first started amassing troops and military equipment in Donbass.

    This may be just another instance of the legendary Russian lack of PR skills but it could also be that the Ukrainians have set in motion something that they cannot stop. Perhaps the Kremlin has decided that it’s not a bad idea to finally settle the matter after all, and the sanctions and Western media propaganda have already been discounted?

    Just this morning I read a BBC piece masqueraded as an expert analysis where they speculated about what could possibly be the reason for Russia’s military buildup. Of course, there was no mention whatsoever of the prior Ukrainian moves but they did make their readers believe that one possible reason could be Putin trying to gain back some popularity after the “Navalny crisis”. It would be hilarious if we weren’t talking about a huge media conglomerate trying to mislead the public about a potentially catastrophic military clash.

    Unless they know something that the rest of us don’t, the Ukrainians would have to be crazy to attack Donbass after the warnings they have been given but the signs are not good.

  83. sudden death says

    More likely considering that all the Covid vaccines are still somewhat experimental rushed affair at this point, Putin simply has all the possibilities and determination to avoid the virus even without vaxing – ever since Protsenko scare after Komunarka visit he has been requiring all the guests (only some Iranian refused to do so, IIRC) no matter domestic or foreign, to quarantine themselves for two weeks before personal meetings.

    btw, that also means no personal Putin-Biden meeting happening soon.

  84. it was the Ukrainians who first started amassing troops and military equipment in Donbass.

    Are you sure? Western sources, like you state point to Russia’s first amassing troops near the border, whereas Russian sources claim that it was Ukrainian troops that first started this build-up. I do know that prior to this massive buildup by both sides, more casualties than usual were being registered on the Ukrainian side.

  85. Max Payne says

    Why is everyone moving to substack? You’ve just decided to alienate the only readers of worth. If I don’t pay for software or movies or books you think I’m gonna pay for articles?

    I guess if you want an echo chamber of retirees thats one way of going about it.

    I wonder if I can make a side project of pirating paid features of substack into one large dump every quarter. Give back to the community that gave so much to me….

  86. Bashibuzuk says

    You are absolutely right about there being many regional languages spoken in the Iberian peninsula prior to the Celtiberic migration. I have mentioned ancient Iberian, I might have also mentioned Tartessian etc.

    When I wrote about Euskera, I just wanted to emphasize that the Bell Beaker Y haplogroup R1b people most probably have spoken a non PIE language in Spain since times immemorial. In fact, before the Celtic migration to Iberian peninsula and British Isles, I am not certain at all that any IE language was spoken in that geographic zone.

    But as mentioned in my earlier comment, we cannot know for sure what language the people spoke before they started using writing to record it. And even then, we often are unable to decipher the writing (Minoan, Pictish, Etruscan etc. come to mind).

    About PIE, I have a pet theory, which is completely unsubstantiated by any solid proof: I believe that it might have been first the language of the Tripolyan Culture, which possibly transferred it through cultural diffusion and intermarriage to both Yamnaya and Corded Ware. PIE later became more widespread in Europe during Unetice Culture era, leading to linguistic acculturation of both Y haplogroup R1a and R1b people and their respective haplogroup I allies.

    Again, just my own unsubstantiated hypothesis.

  87. Bashibuzuk says

    more casualties than usual were being registered on the Ukrainian side.

    Yes because Ukrainian soldiers started clwaring minefields preparing to open up approaches to the separatist positions. Doing this under enemy fire led to casualties, some also got blown away on the mines.

    Nothing to do with Russian Army on the other side of the border (yet ?).

  88. No, I am not sure. In fact, I was wondering myself if the big buildup of Ukrainian forces that I read about from multiple sources (including our host) was not a false narrative. Unlikely that these sources would all relay erroneous information but I guess not impossible.

    However, even if that was the case, it doesn’t explain why RT would fail to stress the purported prior Ukrainian buildup. Or why the BBC would also omit that essential fact of the Russian narrative (voiced by Kremlin officials) in an analysis of the possible causes of the Russian escalation.

  89. Bashibuzuk says

    Aren’t you the same queer that also wants to get rid of MASCULINE vehicles in the city? You really are gay aren’t you?

    ThuFri is possibly a Swedish lesbian who has a fetish on exotic immigrant girls.

    Something along those lines:

    https://64.media.tumblr.com/165508831afdee2e7eb83d417086b89b/tumblr_p8nj0ujWkE1xo18aco1_400.jpg

    Love is love…

  90. Coincidentally, I read the same BBC report this morning. I think that it would be helpful to get some good accurate information on how the build up on both sides started.

    I propose that for now, the Donbas be separated into two parts, along the same defacto borders that now exist. Both Byelorussian and Polish troops to act as peacemakers within a 5 mile corridor separating the two parts. This should help cool things down, and after a period of 3 years, a more permanent solution be sought, that might even include leaving things as they are. The current borders seem to include two areas that reflect more of a pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian orientation. This solution has worked wonderfully in the SouthWest of Ukraine, with a Northern Bukovina (Chernovetska oblast) and Southern Bukovina, Romanian. Everybody should be happy?…

  91. anyone with a brain says

    I have been wanting to write an article, called “A MARXIST LENINIST TAKE ON THERANOS”

    the thrust of it would have been that there was no scam, all the richfags investing in THERANOS knew it didn’t fucking work, basic biology and investigation would have told you that. but the true prize of THERANOS was the massive amount of health and gene data it would have collected, what Facebook did for private online information THERANOS was to do for private genetic and health information. The only issue was to convince the FDA to approve the bullshit blood test opening the gate to massive collection of genetic and health information of the public. The elite investors were sure as fuck they could pull the strings behind the FDA to approve it, but they couldn’t and they got caught with their pants down and claim they were victims to a scam.

    The scam angle is total bullshit.

    Honestly had the FDA approved it there would be no problem. THERANOS would be with a gajillion dollars and would have phased into regular blood tests for non-DNA tests or put out little devices like smart watches with little tubes dug into you wrist for real time blood analysis. it was also going to be a boondoggle for Pharma, your little bloodwatch would detect a change and recommend pills or supplements to you, so you could be at your “optimal.” the whole thing is nightmare-ish especially if employers start pushing it on employees, like they did with pedometers.

  92. In terms of reducing the pollution for citizens China, there superficially seems to be some small hopes of improvement in the country from their current nightmare.

    For example, an interesting report in YouTube, about the famous story of the city in China with 16,000 electric buses, which should superficially be very impressive and hopeful:

    Sad thing, however, is that a lot of the electricity will be generated from coal burning power plants, so air pollution will still be killing thousands of local citizens, just by a different mechanism than the automobile.

    Needless to say, it should be a higher priority for China to convert its coal burning power plants to gas burning ones, than to convert to EVs, even if the latter is also welcome – and the former is the main thing that Russia can actually be helpful to improve China.

    But China’s authorities seem more focused on support for a potential future car industry that becomes possible with the change to electric automobiles (especially with the slowness of Japanese automobile manufacturers in this market), than what should be a higher priority to reduce pollution by upgrading to gas power plants for electricity generation and eliminating use of coal.

  93. Coronavirus in Visegrad has continued as a disaster.

    Hungary had even EU’s fastest vaccination in the last couple months. But authorities’ prioritization of fast vaccination, instead of a sufficiently strict lockdown, was a predictable disaster.

    https://i.imgur.com/eKQoD7N.jpg

    The worst thing about the situation in Hungary, is that the authorities could have seen that Israel incompetently also had its most deaths during the rapid vaccination campaign (due to insufficiently strong and early lockdown). Yet Hungary repeated the same mistakes as Israel’s third wave, of focusing on a rapid vaccination campaign instead of a strict enough lockdown, but the situation in Hungary during the rapid vaccination has been even multiple times worse.

    Meanwhile, there are countries which are able to afford much slower vaccination, due to a sufficiently strong lockdowns during it, or (e.g. Japan) other anti-epidemic measures.

  94. The Kachins, Karens, Was, and the Arakans (basically the most powerful armed groups) are supplied and protected to a certain extent by China, how do you think those groups can get heavy ordnance and small arms that almost matches qualitatively what the Tatmadaw has? How do you they are being supplied? But perhaps having OMON-style riot police to handle protesters in the big cities instead of giving the job to the military who are ill-suited for this role may be a good idea also.

  95. As for the Tatmadaw, according to Wikipedia, they are the most capable fighting force in Southeast Asia, however you should have a hard time seeing this in their performance vs. the ethnic armed groups. One wonders how good they were vs. your regular Russian ground troops, or whether they have specially trained troops like the VDV. And the Tatmadaw sees to be doing a good job fo uniting the large part of the ethnic armed groups against them. Unlike Pinochet, Bolsonaro, the Turkish or Pakistan military, or even the Argentine junta, it seems that they do not have any base of support within the population,

  96. The Tawmadaw’s perspective can be fairly easily seen just by doing a search on the net, no need for social media. Basically, they see themselves as the only guarantor of unity in the country, and the guarantor or Bamar primacy in Burmese society. Although the Tatmadaw has a substantial number of integrated ethnic minorities in its lower ranks. That said they should maybe considering leaving the handling of the economy to civilian experts.

  97. wish I had started doing this sooner

    Sure, if you’ve invested in something that that is guaranteed to yield a positive return. What happens when the crypto currency’s value falls and your taxes still come due in May? Also, many S-Corps are automatically extended till 10/15 (use form 4868).

  98. sher singh says

    They probably want the gas infrastructure built first and there’s also first mover advantage.

    China seems to be moving away from those backend changes as more party members have an arts V engineering background.

    Superficial & visible changes instead of transformative ones.

    Idk, I’m not too well educated on this.

  99. Thulean Friend says

    https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1382204543308492801

    Seems like the Danish masterrace is taking Paul Romer’s ideas about mass-testing seriously. Large-scale vaccinations may not be enough if there are sufficiently strong mutations coming in from the third world where vaccination is sluggish. The Israelis are already reporting that the South African variant can break through the Pfizer vaccine, one shudders what happens when an even stronger mutation appears. Pfizer themselves have stated that making new jabs to deal with mutations shouldn’t be a problem, but as always the issue is ramp up time, distribution efforts, implementation etc.

    As I’ve long argued: lockdowns are essentially an admission of failure. You only do it because you failed to do mass testing & tracing correctly, togther with universal mask usage. It is those three ingredients that spared most of East Asia. It is an astonishing dereliction of duty by Western countries that they are not doing universal mass testing at this stage. It is harder to do the other two, especially universal mask usage, as whitoids have proven themselves to be more primitive than East Asians in complying with simple actions to improve collective actions outcomes.

  100. Morton's toes says

    One of the benefits to me from the virus nonsense is I had to read some books that I would not have read otherwise. One of the books I got was Gorbach Infectious Diseases. This is a medical school textbook over 2000 pp and obviously I did not read every word in it. But one item jumped out and knocked me over. At least 7 or 8 of the authors–it was enough I lost count–explicitly stated:

    if you have to analyze the patient’s blood make bloody sure you collect enough blood.

    Thanatos was a scam from Day 0 to anybody who was a physician. And this was also all over the internet from Day 1–doctors were saying this is impossible.

    The most interesting episode so far to me was that the killshot publicity was published in Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and before the story was published Holmes had a 1:1 closed door meeting with Murdoch begging him to spike the story. He had tens millions invested in Thanatos. Murdoch came out of this smelling like a rose. I hope he got a blowjob before he gave her the shove off.

  101. Daniel Chieh says
  102. Morton's toes says

    Tracey Ullman – Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch

  103. Have you seen the type of people that post at this site? And the type of writers that write at this site? Well a large part of them anyway.

  104. You already have 23andme and Ancestry, so the value add of Theranos in that respect seems low. I think it was just a scam by a pretty blonde in a turtleneck and a pajeet. Too bad the scientist in charge of actually doing the work didn’t realize it and suicided when he failed.

    Btw, would it be a big surprise if government required all testing laboratories to send all collected and labeled blood samples to some discreet medical facility? With strict gag orders, of course.

  105. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Karlin, is it safe to purchase crypto and store it on a device (phone, pc, etc.) hacked with many viruses (unfortunately relevant for me, strongly suspicious at least one of the commenters on your blog has hacked me)?

    Also, what kind of crypto wallets would you recommend (no need to betray personal details, of course)?
    Hot, Cold?
    Hardware, Paper, just on exchanges, etc.?

    Your preferred currency (one of) Coinlink is also interesting although I personally think that there’s simply way too much volatility among most cryptos to make reliable predictions (then again, you definitely know way more than I do about how crypto works).

  106. I think Ms Hossenfelder’s argument is against “Naturalness”, the idea that the mathematics gets beautifully simple the closer one gets to a theory of everything

    Stark and Lenard, the leaders of Deutsche Physik, were Nobelists and great experimentalists.

    She said elsewhere while disputing that any experiment was crucial to Einstein’s coming up with his Theory Of Relativity that it is derivable from Maxwell’s equations. Had he not been a Nazi Pascual Jordan would have got a share of Heisenberg’s Physics Nobel, Jordan was not only in the party, but a member of the S.A.

    Einstein’s work in relativity is commonly believed by people as having had something to do with nuclear weapons and GPS, but in reality it had nothing to do with them or any practical applications.

    Schrodinger, the German 100% gentile anti-Nazi, is the one that came up with the spooky aspects of quantum physics, which the “relational” interpretation says are artifacts of illustrative maths that don’t manifest in the real world, at least not to us.

  107. Rogan has had Eric’s brother Brett on a few times talking about the redefinition of racism and the danger of a Bolshevik revolution in the US. Eric is the managing director of Thiel Capital: that’s how he earns his living. Understandable if he doesn’t give up the day job, people listen to you on all subjects when you are making a fortune.

    There are two kinds of geniuses, argued the celebrated mathematician Mark Kac. There is the “ordinary” kind, whom we could emulate if only we were a lot smarter than we actually are because there is no mystery as to how their minds work. After we have understood what they have done, we believe (perhaps foolishly) that we could have done it too. When it comes to the second kind of genius, the “magician”, even after we have understood what has been done, the process by which it was done remains forever a mystery

    A few years after Nosferatu was filmed on Helgoland, Werner Heisenberg went there and created quantum mechanics. Sabine will tell you his magic had something to do with him being shown up during his doctoral examination, and subsequent self imposed study of microscope resolution .

    However, just is interesting to me is the reason Heisenberg went to the barren windswept island: he had been suffering from hay fever. Immune activation has a profound effect on a person’s state of mind. I suppose there is also a rebound effect when an amped up immune system is suddenly de-activated.

  108. I file as an independent contractor, not a corporation. If crypto tanks prior to May 17th I’ll either do a zero interest cash advance and pay it off in a few months.

  109. Europe Europa says

    I saw a report about Transformers statues being put up in Donetsk recently. Sums up the absurdity of it all, at war with “the West”, while idolising American pop culture.

  110. Daniel Chieh says

    That was when the West was less gay tbf

  111. Good luck on your new venture! I’ve recently returned to work and am also filing now as an independent contractor. Since its a part time gig (for now) and no huge sums of pay involved, my tax advisor has advised me to pay the income taxes all at once at the end of the year, and bypass all of the hassles of sending in the tax to the IRS 4 times a year. She thinks that the small penalty that I’ll incur will be worth minimizing the busy work.

  112. Daniel Chieh says

    It should go without question that you shouldn’t do anything with money on a computer that might have a keylogger to steal your passwords or passphrases. A two factor authentication can alleviate the issues but you should reformat if you serious believe that you are infected. Do a backup, reinstall, and then from a clean PC, scan and clear your backup if needed.

  113. TBH, I thought the transformers movies were pretty gay – at least, the second one, I believe it was. There was Devastator. Then they had another scene which showed part of a man which should not be shown.

  114. winnepeggreg says

    The US fundamentally does not care about Myanmar. Nor does it think it can meaningfully shift the country to a loyal US puppet, given how close its economic links to China is. The goal is to destabilise it sufficiently by drumming up support among critical factions within it as to render it useless to Beijing, by perpetuating constant turmoil. If the Myanmar people are casualties, then so be it. In this sense, the playbook is similar to the one being played out in Syria, Venezuela or arguably even Ukraine.

    Very good summary. Myanmar provides an overland route to the Indian Ocean for China. Destabilizing it helps cut off ocean access to China, so it’s the best option for the US if Myanmar can’t be fully in the US camp.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyQbdiEVEAYJjPO?format=jpg

  115. You sound like a hopeless hypochondriac. You are welcome to stick something up your nose twice a day, it’s your life. Over-medication on steroids. Instead, isolate the old, obese, sick and fearful and all will be fine.

    Enjoy breathing the fibers and carbon monoxide in the masks, I will stick with oxygen. Stanford has just started testing “the vaccine” on 5-year olds, you know, just in case a small child gets sniffles. Why not? Those damn toddlers are jeopardizing 85-olds quality of life. How evil.

  116. Daniel Chieh says

    The statues are mechwarrior and I suspect a lot of the references are to the ancient Transformer cartoons, which were pretty extensively pozzed in their own right(The Functionalist theology was seen as one of the most oppressive), but didn’t quite have the modern gayness.

  117. Thulean Friend says

    Doubling down on the Myanmar story. Nikkei carries a surprisingly neutral story that sheds light on what’s happening. As noted, the meme of the army vs unarmed protestors is a blatant lie. Nikkei is honest by telling it how it is: the army vs various ethnic militias, who have been cultivated/armed/funded by the US for decades. The latter part is what Nikkei leaves out (there are limits to what can be printed, after all).

    As I wrote earlier, the Rohingya is just one piece of the puzzle but far from the only one. The goal is thoroughly immiserate Myanmar from the inside. Beijing cannot easily intervene but there’s no point in allowing a failed state on its doorstep either.

    Looking back, it should have been more firm in “encouraging” the purging of the NGO-industrial complex from the country like it pushed Cambodia to do. It was too passive and now the costs of its passivity is apparent – and rising.

    P.S. Washington just sanctioned Russian OFZ bonds. This would have been a big deal 10 years ago but now it is largely a nothingburger.

  118. We move in different circles, so I will let your personal experience stand. I know very little about Basques and how they view the world, you are probably right. I did say that those were overall trends, if you need more “qualifiers”, well, maybe a book-format, this is short-hand.

    Westerners tend to be more into self-interest than honour. That is obvious to anyone who looked at history, myths, or the present. The self-serving media lying that West so blissfully engages in – given that it doesn’t have to! – supports my point. It is self-interest above all, you come across as lying opportunists, good for you, in private you even celebrate it. Unfortunately, honour and truth are connected – people who don’t value one will also deemphasise the other.

    West has done well using these characters traits, deception works for a while. In today’s world there are diminishing returns for hypocrisy and lying – it has become too obvious, too visible. There are consequences when you worship self-interest and guile. Maybe today’s sorry state of the West – unable to move forward or change, and slowly losing out – is an unavoidable result of hundreds of years practising self-interest (by using deception). But understand that I am describing the Western elites, obviously people are varied everywhere, you don’t have to be thin-skinned about it.

  119. winnipeggreg says

    As I wrote earlier, the Rohingya is just one piece of the puzzle but far from the only one. The goal is thoroughly immiserate Myanmar from the inside. Beijing cannot easily intervene but there’s no point in allowing a failed state on its doorstep either.

    The US strategy appears to be to destabilize/immiserate Myanmar to either make things difficult for Beijing by restricting commercial and ocean access or to goad Beijing into some sort of formal, direct intervention into Myanmar.

    In the latter case, Beijing’s intervention can be spun as aggression and expansionism, which generates political capital for the US in the geopolitical arena to take further moves against Beijing.

  120. A while back, I watched an episode of another ’80s cartoon show The Bionic Six, to test my memory of it. It was terrible trash, but I was amused to see how cucked it was:

    James Dwight “J.D.” Corey, aka IQ, is Jack’s and Helen’s remarkably intelligent, adopted African-American son. He enjoys amateur boxing, although he is not particularly skilled at it.[24] As IQ, he has super-intelligence (as befitting his code-name); moreover, while all of the Six have superhuman strength, J.D. is the strongest among them by a large margin.

    I fear that American-commissioned cartoons produced in Japan have damaged Japan more than being a base for American troops.

  121. AnonFromTN says

    More on the effects of Putin’s scare tactics. Using Lewis Carrol’s expression from Alice in Wonderland, it’s getting “curioser and curioser”.

    Days after Russian Foreign Ministry (via deputy minister Ryabkov) rudely told the US that its Navy ships should keep far from Russia in general and Crimea in particular “for their own good”, the US suddenly cancelled the decision to send its Navy ships to the Black Sea.

    Ukies are hysterical and keep soiling their pants: when the going got tough, the master abandoned his lackey.

    While the US SecState Blinken spews the BS about Biden-Putin meeting within weeks, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov said that Putin did not decide whether he wants to accept Biden’s invitation yet. He also stressed that new US sanctions do not improve the chances of such a meeting. Indeed, the US imposed new sanctions on Russia, clearly showing that talking to the US is a waste of time. Either Alzheimer Joe’s strings are pulled by several people who don’t talk to each other, or his puppet master has split personality (a symptom of schizophrenia).

    Europeans are also scared shitless. Four European countries, Austria, Finland, Iceland, and Czech Republic, rushed to offer themselves as potential venues for Biden’s proposed meeting with Putin.

    Stay tuned.

  122. Thulean Friend says
  123. Shortsword says
  124. I think that it would be helpful to get some good accurate information on how the build up on both sides started.

    That shouldn’t be difficult. The daily SMM OSCE reports are (or at least used to be when I was following them) reasonably accurate. They shouldn’t have missed a unilateral buildup of Ukrainian forces close to the front but I haven’t checked.

    As for the end solution of the Ukrainian conflict in the east, I don’t personally care too much as long as we get back to a situation where France would again see no problem in selling a helicopter carrier to Russia and everywhere you went in the world (even the Aconcagua base camp) it was full of Russian tourists. The Cold War was just a bad memory of the past and the benefits of free market economics seemed to be reaching our former enemies.

    With that said, I am generally sympathetic to any secessionist referendum. It shouldn’t be such a big deal to let communities decide which state they want to belong to when there is clear evidence that a good proportion in a given territory are not satisfied with the status quo. A referendum on both sides of the front in Donbass (or anywhere else where enough people demand it) would create a more stable solution than the simple result of some battles in 2015.

    Unfortunately, this kind of territorial conflict resolution only seems to work in some highly civilized countries, such as the former Czechoslovakia or the United Kingdom.

  125. American intelligence having decided the Russian forces arrayed are getting too powerful for this build up to be written off as a war of nerves seems the most plausible explanation for the US Navy ships turning back. None of those countries offering to host a meeting, count for anything. Germany does though, and it will tell Putin that hostilities will mean the end of Nord Stream. I don’t think it will work; apparently Putin has decided to stop Nato expansion permanently and now, because he knows no successor will have the guts to do it. Ms Simonyan’s statements indicate there has been a profound reassessment and consequent watershed in Russian strategic thinking. The timing may or may not be not a choice, the obvious explanation if it has been forced upon Putin would be concern about his state of heath and longevity. I think the decision to get more contiguous border with the West was taken because Russia must secure the West so as not to be caught with its pants down when it bows to the East.

    You mention Finland. Russia will choose Finlandization. Not by the West, by China. The Finns were smart and benefited greatly from their policy towards the USSR. From 1945 the Soviets knew they could win a conventional war against any opponent; taking Western Europe would be a forgone conclusion. Russia can no longer say that in relation to China. In the last resort, Russian conventional weakness increasing in relation to China will add to the credibility of Russia initiating use of their numerous battlefield nuclear weapons. Russia weakness will become an ultimate strength in case China gets any funny ideas.

    Already there are signs Russia is making the adjustment to relations with China. Just a few months ago Putin publicly referred to a Russia–China military alliance as theoretically quite possible. What actually is going to happen is the gradual coalescing of an implicit non aggression pact between China and Russia. The economic and demographic situation of China will be such that it will need energy–not land–as time goes on. Moreover, by being friendly with China, Russia will be shafting America, who will look on with a chagrin that can only be imagined. But first, Russia has to take a swath of territory along the coast between Crimea and the Donetsk People’s Republic

  126. (1) What Daniel Chieh said.

    (2) If you want exposure to crypto, I would recommend dollar cost averaging into it. Set aside the amount of your savings you want to keep in crypto, divide that pile into 24 months, and invest the same amount spread across those months into safe coins (e.g. you shouldn’t go wrong with 30% BTC, 60% ETH, 10% LINK).

    Safest method that doesn’t involve keeping your own wallet is using a centralized exchange like Binance, Coinbase, or Kraken.

    You can try to time the markets or get more speculative coins, but for that you’ll need to do much more research.

    Disclaimer: Not financial advice/do your own research.

  127. Korenchkin says

    The questions you ask indicate that you do not know enough to be making crypto purchases
    Don’t be a sucker, pay attention to the stories of people who lost their money and got scammed

    You can learn a lot by just lurking more

  128. Westerners tend to be more into self-interest than honour. That is obvious to anyone who looked at history, myths, or the present.

    These are complex things but I think that Western Europe has given some of the best examples of high-trust societies that made economic progress possible and maintained low rates of criminality.

    Even though these conditions generally decline as you move south in Europe, I grew up in an environment where lying and failing to keep your word was socially frowned upon. The motto of a handshake being more important than a contract was largely true. I became highly aware of how much societies differ in this respect when I moved to extremely low-trust Latin America. And then back to the very high-trust society of the US interior West.

    It is true that things are deteriorating badly in Western countries though. Our media are moving in the direction of the former Pravda in the USSR or Granma in Cuba. Censorship and thought control have started permeating all aspects of life. This wasn’t so in the past. You know that this is not the West that Slovakia decided to join in the 90s.

  129. …Joe’s strings are pulled by several people who don’t talk to each other

    They talk, in mgmt it is called a praise sandwich, like in “great day, how is your wife?” “oh, we are cancelling the project” and “have you seen the latest on Netflix?“. Joey-grandpa is faithfully following the script, they are good at process.

    The Navy ships cancellation was a strong message. There was also a sudden more-neutral UK court decision on Yukos and no NS2 in sanctions. In general a lot of stuff has been walked back. The goal is exactly what Washington says: “stable and predictable relations”: lock in the gains in Ukraine and wait to advance another day. These guys obsessively study the mistakes Nazis, Napoleon and the Swedes made when attacking Russia. They think that better timing might do the trick.

    By the way, the Czech offer to host the summit has a lot to do with Prague’s empty hotels and the resulting large unemployed Ukrainian service population. The fear is that if there is a war a few million will show up.

  130. AnonFromTN says

    Maybe Maidan really was a sneaky Putin plot to disband NATO by giving them Ukraine.

    According to Ukies, everything happening in the Universe is Putin’s plot, including solar eclipses and dinosaur extinction. They paint him as almighty and all-knowing God.

    Maybe they have a point: he has normal human intelligence, whereas Ukie elites are below chimp level. Biden has at least an extenuating circumstance, progressive (no pun intended) Alzheimer, whereas they don’t.

  131. AnonFromTN says

    These guys obsessively study the mistakes Nazis, Napoleon and the Swedes made when attacking Russia. They think that better timing might do the trick.

    I think you give them too much credit. Americans are notoriously bad at history, having virtually none themselves. Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is the correct one: they are just plain stupid, like their Ukie lackeys.

  132. …Maidan really was a sneaky Putin plot

    It is looking more likely it was. In 2013 Kremlin was in a no-win situation: a corrupt Yanuk negotiating with EU, snubbing Russia, his opposition pathologically yearning to “go West”.

    First thing Maidan did was to make taking back Crimea possible. It was not possible in any other situation. Then NS2: ostensibly against Ukraine, but in reality aimed at defanging Poland. With friendly Ukraine it was impossible to cut out Poland.

    Russia went from an awkward stalemate with assertive, costly, restless Ukraine to having a collapsing, hostile neighbour who you can do almost anything to. At the end, enough Ukrainians will get tired and things will be more normal. Russia will keep the gains.

    Alternatively Ukies get nukes and probably use it to force their way into living in Europe. What could Eritreans or Nigerians do if they had nukes? Visas for all! (Maybe that’s how they fooled the Swedes, a chump will be a chump.)

  133. You misunderstand, I think people obsessing about how Hitler could had defeated Russia are stupid. But that’s the level of thinking these ignoramuses engage in, they are like teenagers with silly what-if games. They also tend to believe stories that any misanthrope exile spins as holy truth. It comes out of lack of experience.

    We will never understand America without understanding that most Americans lack real experience. That includes elites: they sit around looking at maps, create slides, watch Hollywood flicks to reaffirm self-mythology, and – the worst thing – end up believing their own propaganda.

    Ukie elites are smarter: they have personal goals that they will probably achieve. They just don’t care much for what happens to “the Ukraine”. Canada is better, or even, I hear, El Paso…:)

  134. AnonFromTN says

    Ukie elites are smarter: they have personal goals that they will probably achieve. They just don’t care much for what happens to “the Ukraine”. Canada is better, or even, I hear, El Paso…:)

    That’s almost exactly what Rostislav Ishchenko said in 2012 about all Eastern European elites: they don’t give a hoot about their countries, they look for ways to relocate somewhere nicer.

    BTW, in his 2012 interview (available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mskzn7OgO1o&list=WL&index=45&ab_channel=2000%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BD%D0%B4
    He said that Yanuk is finishing the job started by previous “presidents” of burying Ukraine. He also predicted the downfall of Yanuk, bloody coup, and even its timing. His only mistake was that he named Yatsenyuk (who Vicki “fuck the EU” Nuland actually wanted) as the next “president”. Amazingly prophetic interview. Then again, he worked in Ukrainian Foreign ministry for years, so he clearly knows what he is talking about. Still impressive accuracy. Too bad it only exists in Russian.

  135. On a more character level, all steppe people had an exaggerated sense of honour and search for truth, almost an obsession if you read their early accounts. Nothing like that is a genuine part of Western and Middle Eastern psyche: there self-interest, deception and guile were valued more. That’s still the case. I don’t judge it and it is only a guideline, but one can observe it today in the Western mentality that has no sense of real honour (“win by any means” is the default) or of living in the truth (for God’s sake, see their media

    Ironic coming from you, among the least honest people writing here, and one who condemns honorable peoples like Poles.

  136. Shortsword says

    https://twitter.com/sputnikvaccine/status/1382716205509795842

    It’s dumb for the official Sputnik V twitter account to post things like this. The Russian vaccine is mostly accepted in the Western media now. Being hostile like this is unnecessary, especially on the official twitter account.

  137. AltanBakshi says

    The descendants of the White Huns in Afghanistan now speak Dardic and Burusho. The only words recorded by contemporain Byzantine among the European Hun horde were Balto-Slav (yep I know: shocking …)

    I don’t understand your logic, how Burushos, who are probably ancient relict of pre-IE language speakers, and Indo-Aryan Dardic people are descendants of Huns? Their lands are extremely rugged and mountainous, to me it seems that their lands have mostly been safe from ancient nomadic invaders, it took centuries before Muslims succeeded in invading of the Vale of Kashmir.

    Names of Hun elites are almost always of Altaic origin, it’s highly likely that majority of their subjects were of Germanic, Slavic and Iranic origin, therefore it’s not strange if there was somekind of non-Altaic Lingua Franca among them, similarly in ancient, early medieval, Bulgar empire elites spoke Turkish and masses spoke Slavic, still no one would claim that their elites did not differ in culture, language and physiognomy from the Slavic masses.

    Btw your Attila medallion was made during renaissance. As I mentioned before, there has been numerous descriptions in classical literature how steppe nomads, both Scythians and Huns looked. Mildly put they looked very exotic to Romans and Hellenes.

    Their descendants produced Huns by mixing with the Yenissei Tagar people producing the (proto) Hun Tashtyk culture.

    Yeniseian people are quite interesting topic, sadly I don’t know much about them, and it’s even sadder that there are so few of them left. I wonder how last member of Yugh people feels like?

    https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AE%D0%B3%D0%B8_(%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4)

    Turks appeared after the Huns imposed a thorough homogeinization of the Steppe nomad populations. They have always had a mix of different “Steppe ancestry ” haplogroups.

    Original Türks were more East Asian, I believe that Türkish urheimat lies in southern Siberia, somewhere near Altay and Tuva.

    Snorri Sturlunson wrote that the Aesir were descended from Turks (I am not kidding)

    As Snorri was an Icelander, he had no knowledge of Türks. Aesir is just another variation of Indo-European Ahura/Ashura, in other words its just a one category of gods.

    Aesir conquered the Vanir (Vene = Wends = Anty)

    Okay, I’m speechless…

  138. However, even if that was the case, it doesn’t explain why RT would fail to stress the purported prior Ukrainian buildup.

    You imagine that RT’s mission is to present the Russian side of things. But RT focuses on embarrassing aspects of western policies in the West and on western internal dissent, to undermine the power of their hostile elites (same as Chinese organs). All other news are ancillary. But if war breaks out, they will steer their focus to the war.

  139. “Enjoy breathing the fibers and carbon monoxide in the masks” – No selective filtration on molecular level is possible by a mask. Masks have no ability to separate selectively CO and thus increase CO concentration in the space between face and mask. Amount of air in the volume between face and mask is a tiny fraction of air that is inhaled through the mask. While exhaled air has higher concentration of CO (<10 ppm) than the ambient air (<100 ppb) by wearing a mask the amount of recycled (back inhaled CO) will be negligible. OSHA allows 35 ppm of CO in the workplace over an eight hour period. You are just repeating by insinuation cretinous memes of anti-everything loons.

  140. SIMP simp says

    Noisy civilizations get a Dark Forest strike from their neighbours.

  141. Bashibuzuk says

    Okay, I’m speechless…

    Yep. You remember the exchange we had about the “Finnish ” orja ?

    Here are the people who most probably brought Y haplogroup N among the Hun and all the others and imposed an elite originating among the Ugric people on top of many other ethnic groups:

    https://bigenc.ru/media/2016/10/27/1236115088/2636.jpg.88x-.png

    https://bigenc.ru/archeology/text/3906599

    More from our friend Carlos Quiles.

    https://indo-european.eu/2018/10/corded-ware-uralic-ii-finno-permic-and-the-expansion-of-n-l392-siberian-ancestry/

    Biarmia FTW!

  142. Me: It is important to understand that money first and foremost is a belief system and therefore tokens with most memetic potential will be expected to outperform regardless of underlying technology.

    Wife: Cute puppy! Buy! Buy! Buy!

    She got a bunch of DogeCoin under a penny so “cute puppy” is a legit investment strategy.

  143. sudden death says

    Ukraine in fact is still a major nuclear country, even if their facilities are used for civil purposes. It would be useful for them just start doing real preparation to blow up it all in case of an all out RF attack, meanwhile employing Israel PR tactics about nuclear status – no public comments and announcements, but not much great secrecy either.

  144. Ukraine is trying to blackmail itself into NATO by threatening to go nuclear.

    Well, Poland has been working on the means to deliver nukes so perhaps a mutual agreement can be made. Poland provides financing and Ukraine makes nukes for itself and its Polish ally.

    Young Poles want nukes for their country:

    https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/The-next-generation%28s%29-Europeans-facing-nuclear-weapons.pdf

    The next generation of Polish citizens stands out as pro-nuclear weapons and increasingly so—62.46 per cent of the respondents aged 14–20 years expressed that nuclear weapons made them feel safe (8.43 per cent more than those aged 21–30 years)

  145. Ukraine in fact is still a major nuclear country, even if their facilities are used for civil purposes. It would be clever for them just start real preparations to blow up it all in case of an all out RF attack

    I once read somewhere that in an existential crisis Ukraine could blow up the massive Zaporizhia power station which is upwind of Donbas and much of southern Russia, rendering these areas uninhabitable. Obviously this would be a nightmare.

  146. Did they ask what Germany thinks about nuclear Poland?

  147. ” It’s dumb for the official Sputnik V twitter account to post things like this. ” – Old habits of Soviet propaganda die hard.

    ‘Russia is up to its old tricks’: Biden battling COVID-19 vaccine disinformation campaign
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/08/white-house-use-every-tool-against-russian-vaccine-disinformation/4631972001/

    On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that four publications, all serving as fronts for Russian intelligence, have targeted Western-produced COVID-19 vaccines with misleading coverage that exaggerates the risk of side effects and raises questions about their efficacy.

    Meanwhile vaccination in Russia is very slow. Under 10%. This is not a good advertisement of vaccine being pushed for sales abroad.

    https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

    Russia Beat the World to a Vaccine, so Why Is It Falling Behind on Vaccinations?
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-beat-the-world-to-a-vaccine-so-why-is-it-falling-behind-on-vaccinations

    All kind of negative information (dis-info?) is being floated like those form Brazil and Slovakia:

    Regulator: Sputnik V in Brazil different from Lancet Study
    https://brazilian.report/liveblog/coronavirus/2021/02/03/regulator-sputnik-v-in-brazil-different-from-lancet-study/

    Slovakia Claims a Bait-and-Switch With the Russian Vaccines it Ordered
    Slovakia says that Sputnik V doses it received did “not have the same characteristics and properties” as a version endorsed by a respected British medical journal.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/world/europe/slovakia-coronavirus-russia-vaccine-sputnik.html

  148. sudden death says

    Are there any trials being done or finished regarding Sinovac or Sputnik V effectiveness against Brazilian, British or S.African variants?

  149. Don’t see why not. It’s a Western article, not a Russian one. Being ‘nice’ is pointless – Western media will go on a propaganda offensive as soon as they find or invent something to be upset about with Sputnik.

    If anything, Russia should do more propaganda offensives, not less.

  150. Germany doesn’t even assert itself against homeless Syrians.

  151. There I was complementing your hapless Poles and you complain. They indeed are honourable, but not always in touch with reality. Not a good combination.

    Regarding others, I am not sure about my people’s honour or even my own, we had too many bad historical experiences, we are who we are. But I always search for the best description of reality – the truth. You being on an autistic spectre don’t get nuance. Too bad, you do good research.

    One thing we should add about our steppe ancestors is that they plundered a lot. A tribe that lives of plunder needs to be realistic and have a sense of honour, otherwise rivals and internal disputes destroy it. Honour is a way to keep internal cohesion in a tribe – it had a purpose. But it’s still plunder. On gender side, the latest DNA research suggests a 14 to 1 ratio between men and women among the steppe invaders of Europe. There are a few possibilities there to consider, but I will leave it to others…

  152. sher singh says

    I just been doing the bots cuz better return but there’s this DCA bot.

    I just like hands-off approach, I’m not shilling referalls or anything just trying to do Seva.

    :thumbsup:

  153. sudden death says

    Even if older, obviously that’s still the same sharp Ukraine visiting version of Biden here:

  154. the amount of recycled (back inhaled CO) will be negligible.

    Not true. It has been tested extensively (e.g. a recent Danish study) and the amount of CO is measurably higher. It varies based on the mask, how tight it is, and and what the person is physically doing. “Negligible” is a marketing term that hides what happens. The miniscule fibers from masks are also released and enter your lungs, they are chemicals and paints. None of is fatal, but it is not good for your health in the long run. For old that doesn’t seem to matter, but children? Are we becoming insane?

    If what you say would be true, the mask would also be almost useless. Why wear it? Do you have any idea how tiny viruses are? How would a regular mask stop them?

    I assume you are also in favour of vaccinating 5-year olds – anything for your old hides to feel safer, right? Evil comes in many forms, a disregard for children and narcissistic selfishness of the old people today is in a category of is own. A true gerontocracy.

  155. Chernobyl almost took out most of Europe, but the liquidators stopped that from happening.

    I think the US in the 90s realized that if Ukrainians had nuclear weapons, every terrorist in the world would have nuclear weapons. The country is still as corrupt and oligarchical as ever. Biden may be more stupid than George W Bush, so I don’t know if he will condone that.

  156. You being on an autistic spectre

    One of the more bizarre of your dishonest fantasies.

  157. If what you say would be true, the mask would also be almost useless. Why wear it? Do you have any idea how tiny viruses are? How would a regular mask stop them?

    Do you really believe viruses just individually move through the air and into people?

  158. They will passive aggressively take it out on Poland by approving Nord Stream 3 🙂

  159. sudden death says

    Adding some news about ongoing vaxexperimentation:

    The head of Pfizer said in an interview aired Thursday that people will “likely” need a third dose of his company’s Covid-19 vaccine within a year of being fully vaccinated.

    CEO Albert Bourla also said annual vaccinations against the coronavirus may well be required.

    “We need to see what would be the sequence, and for how often we need to do that, that remains to be seen,” Bourla told CNBC in an interview recorded on April 1.

    “A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed,” he said, adding that variants will play a “key role.”

    “It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus,” he said.

    Researchers currently don’t know how long vaccines provide protection against the coronavirus.

    Pfizer published a study earlier this month that said its jab is more than 91 percent effective at protecting against the coronavirus, and more than 95 percent effective against severe cases of Covid-19 up to six months after the second dose.

    But researchers say more data is needed to determine whether protection lasts after six months.

    David Kessler, the head of US President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response team, warned a congressional committee on Thursday that Americans should expect to receive booster shots to defend against coronavirus variants.

    “We don’t know everything at this moment,” he told the House Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee. “We are studying the durability of the antibody response.

    “It seems strong but there is some waning of that and no doubt the variants challenge,” he said.

    “I think for planning purposes, planning purposes only, I think we should expect that we may have to boost.”

    https://sg.news.yahoo.com/pfizer-ceo-vaccine-third-dose-212713992.html

  160. “If what you say would be true, the mask would also be almost useless. Why wear it? Do you have any idea how tiny viruses are? How would a regular mask stop them?” – A frequent objections from ignoramuses.

    First, air molecules like O2, CO, CO2, N2 have kinetic size of about 300 pm (picometre) while viruses are 300 time larger (100 nm (nanometre)). Selective filtration of air molecules that you presuppose in your moronic argument with materials that are used in masks is not possible. If you find a cheap material that can filter out CO2 from air you will become a billionaire.

    But masks are quite effective at stopping viruses.

    (1) Virus often travels on micro droplets that are much larger than viruses.

    (2) Electrostatic forces play a role in filtration stopping smaller particle than the openings between fibers of the mask material.

    (3) There is a virus dose threshold that needs to be crosses to initiate an infection. Therefore a mask that is not 100% efficient when tested in a laboratory might be 100% effective when it comes to prevention of a singular infection.

    (4) Masking with not 100% effective masks reduces the probability of infection meaning that the mean numbers of contacts not leading to infection is larger. Infectious individuals remain infectious for a finite time. By wearing a mask probability to outlast their infectiousness increases. If the infectious ones also wear masks that probability is significantly higher. If almost everybody wears a mask the number of secondary infection can be reduced so that the R0 will be close to 1 or even below 1.

    Many tests of masks were done on aerosols including real viruses like this one from Japan using Covid-19 aerosols showing mask effectiveness. Note that the scale is logarithmic on Y-axis.

    Effectiveness of Face Masks in Preventing Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
    https://msphere.asm.org/content/5/5/e00637-20/article-info

    In this study, infectious SARS-CoV-2 was exhaled as droplets/aerosols and mask efficacy was examined.

    To allow quantification, we conducted our studies by using a relatively high dose of virus, and under these conditions, it is possible that the protective capacity of the masks was exceeded.

    The Danish study that you brought up says nothing about CO or CO2. BTW, the Danish study has several serious flaws. If you look closer at their data you can come up with the conclusion that masks were actually very effective if self-administered anti-body tests were put into question and only groups that had symptomatic infection or PCR confirmed infection were included:

    https://www.unz.com/article/the-emperors-new-mask-where-is-the-evidence/#comment-4529685
    Apart from the statistical significance issue since numbers are small we could theorize that for people who ended up symptomatic (group C) masks offered 50% (factor of 2) protection and in the group B 100% protection. If the two groups B and C were combined providing that they are exclusive masks offered 67% (5:15) protection.

    Does wearing mask increase recycling of CO? Yes, slightly but it is negligible. You can do your own calculation. The volume of one inhale (1000 ml) to volume of air contained between mask and face (<100 ml) which means that CO from previous exhale contained in the space between mask and face is diluted by factor of 10. Assuming the worst case that CO concentration in exhale was 10 ppm we get 1 ppm of CO in the inhale which is 35 times lower than what OSHA specifies as safe working environment.

    As far as micro fibers and particles being shed by masks the issue was brought up before but I haven't seen anybody quantifying it in lab testing. Personally I would rather wear masks that may have some shedding problem than breathe air in places that have high PM2.5 and PM10 pollutions. In Beijing in 24 hours you will inhale 5 g of PM2.5+PM10 particles (14,400 inhales of 1000 ml each in 24 h), see:

    https://www.iqair.com/us/china/beijing

    Note than one surgical mask weighs about 3.5 grams. So in Beijing you may inhale more by weight particles per day than the weight of one surgical mask. I am sure that masks do not shed themselves to nothing in 24 hours.

    It is interesting that scoundrels like you like to resort to “Think of the children” or “What about the children?” cliche:

    Think of the children
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

    It was an exhortation in the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins, when the character of Mrs. Banks pleaded with her departing nanny not to quit and to “think of the children!”. The phrase was popularized as a satiric reference on the animated television program The Simpsons in 1996,when character Helen Lovejoy pleaded “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” during a contentious debate by citizens of the fictional town of Springfield.

  161. I do not know.

  162. AnonfromTN says

    American intelligence

    Sorry to point this out, but “American intelligence” today sounds like a contradiction in terms. Even newspapers of presumed US allies, such as France, habitually call Alzheimer Joe “senile president”. The worst thing is, they are correct.

    Ever since the CIA was requested to provide and confirm fake pretexts for the Iraq war (the world remembers Powell’s tube with laundry detergent at the UN), everyone with a modicum of professionalism and dignity left, leaving mostly “yes, massa” shit. That’s why all seventeen (!) US intelligence agencies learned about Russian takeover of Crimea and Russian deployment to Syria only after the fact. If there is anyone still left in those intelligence agencies with any abilities, they are going to be disgusted with current stuffing policies and leave in a hurry.

    No enemy ever was as effective at bringing the US down as its “elites”.

    As to Russia, it will recognize Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, like it recognized South Ossetia. It will help them retake their entire territories (entire regions that voted in 2014 referendum), but it won’t take any more of Ukrainian cesspool. Ukrainian industry is almost completely destroyed, what remains is hopelessly outdated, Ukrainian agriculture is in decline, Ukrainian infrastructure is on its last legs, Ukraine owes external lenders more than what remains of it is worth, etc. So, taking over more of that shithole than absolutely necessary would be extremely stupid. Unlike Biden, Putin does not suffer from progressive Alzheimer’s.

  163. If slavery had never happened, perhaps, the Caribbean would have become populated mainly by Europeans. And, if so, I wonder if the islands would have become the laboratories for democracy which the United States failed to become because of its largely contiguous nature.

    Either that, or, probably they all would have been annexed by the US.

  164. Even the forever-war types probably tire of garrisoning places inhabited by mountain Pashtuns, after twenty years.

    I won’t applaud him unless he pulls out of Iraq. Won’t happen, though.

  165. No enemy ever was as effective at bringing the US down as its “elites”.

    No matter how far down its elites have brought it, still you seem to live and work in the US rather than in Mother Russia, where the elites there continue to build their country up? What a sorry sight you are Professor, willing to give up the grandeur of living in Russia for a couple of American bucks. Not to mention that you’re training the next generation of scientific elite that will be serving US interests, and not those of Russia. What a pathetic sight you are, where your loud and incessant critique of the US cannot muffle the sound of your feet shuffling to the sound of a US drummer.

    https://youtu.be/1xnHJI89PcE

    Our very own Professor (in disguise) dancing the “chichotka” on US soil – he finds that the pay is better than back home, and the benefits aint that bad either?. 🙂

  166. AltanBakshi says

    Hah, even so Russia would survive, but whole Dnepr Ukraine would become a radioactive wasteland. Hey we are speaking about Khokhols, not Imperial Japanese of the 30s and 40s with their kamikazes.

  167. It’s a cope. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has a radius of 30 km, and almost all of it is perfectly safe to inhabit, even in 1987.

    Probably in net terms it saved lives thanks to radiation hormesis.

  168. sudden death says

    Chernobyl was not whole station blown up, just one section. Also, radiation is not only one objective, other being incresed potential cost of occupation by destroying main energy sources.

  169. Rattus Norwegius says

    Americans have a history as long as any people. Not only do they have the history of the Native Americans. The history of the British founders prior to settlement in the Americas is a key part of US heritage. Is it possible to understand US history without knowledge of British history? Additionally immigrants from the rest of the world have also brought their history.

  170. https://emerging-europe.com/news/inside-crimeas-water-crisis/

    Crimea has always been an arid region with comparatively little rainf and snowfall. What rivers there are are significantly smaller in volume than the Dnipro, for example. In the 1950s, only 155 out of 926 settlements had consistent access to clean drinking water. This prompted Soviet authorities to begin constructing the Crimean Canal in 1957 – three years after administration of Crimea was transferred to the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

    Completed in 1971, the canal diverted water from the Kahkovka Reservoir in southern Ukraine, fed by the Dnipro. With independence, maintenance of the canal was neglected and by 2013, water flows were just one-third of 1980s levels. Despite this, the situation did not reach critical levels until the canal was fully dammed in 2014. For Ukraine, blocking the canal was one of the few methods it could employ to put pressure on Russia.

    Putin has decided to keep Donbass and he the water situation cannot be left as an excuse for his successors to hand it back.

    MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. The problem of water supplies to Crimea can be resolved by summer to make vacationing on the peninsula trouble-free, Crimea’s envoy to the Russian president and deputy prime minister of the republic’s government, Georgy Muradov, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published on Thursday.

    They are going to take the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and Kherson too. Blocking the North Crimean Canal was a big mistake by Ukraine. Putin is not willing to leave Russia needing Ukraine for anything, The Nord Strom pipeline west is get rid of their stranglehold on gas, now it’s time for the water. Ukraine will never be safe again, which will stop them getting any funny ideas. Russia has decided to settle accounts in the West, which is cutting Russia off anyway. In future, Russia will look to the East, which is the future.

  171. AltanBakshi says

    So by your logic it’s impossible to claim that Chinese or Jews have more ancient history than the English or the Finns?
    After all English history is Brythonic Celtic history and Celtic history is Roman history, and Roman history is Hellenic, etc, etc. In my opinion such attitude towards history will lead to extreme of nihilistic relativism. Americans as a nation have no ancient history, and that is what matters, like all new things they are an aggregate product of past phenomenona.

  172. Chinese professor: There were no ancient western civilizations; just modern fakes made to demean China
    https://taiwanenglishnews.com/chinese-professor-there-were-no-ancient-western-civilizations-just-modern-fakes-made-to-demean-china/

    “The ancient Egypt we know today is actually a fairy tale fabricated by the Western orthodox historians since the 19th century.”

    The intention of this vast occidental conspiracy in fictionalizing these three civilizations to appear to be older than Chinese civilization was to “weaken the glory of Chinese civilization. Chinese civilization is more ancient,” Huang said

    “The West is always making up history and falsifying ancient relics. The main purpose is to belittle Chinese civilization. I want to justice for Chinese civilization!”

    That some Russians (like Lomonosov, Morozov, finally Fomenko possibly under auspices of KGB) engaged in inventing new history and mythology that degrades West I can understand but that some Chinese have a similar need is to me is a surprise and much harder to understand:

    Lomonosov’s Bastards: Anatolii Fomenko, Pseudo-History and Russia’s Search for a Post-Communist Identity
    https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1222&context=theses

    “Lomonosov took issue with the idea that the Slavs were backward prior to Riurik and claimed that the Varangians as we call them today were actually people of Slavic ancestry. More implausibly, Lomonosov traced the Russians deep into ancient history. Ancient Slavs or proto-Russians, Lomonosov insisted, participated in such great historic events as the defense of ancient Troy, and the destruction of Rome by the eastern hordes. Troy was certainly a popular starting point in the eighteenth century.”

    “Fomenko trawled through the history of Eurasia, Byzantium, and Rome to show that historians all around the world appropriated the achievements of Russians to boost the prestige of their own national history. Arguably, Fomenko’s greatest achievement is the invention of a Slav-Turk empire that allegedly dominated the first half of world history, that is, until the seventeenth century. This ‘Russian Horde’ as Fomenko named it, was based in the area that we normally associate with the Golden Horde founded by the Mongol khans in the thirteenth century.”

    “After the Turkic conquest of Vienna was covered up by a humiliated West, Saint Stefan cathedral was purged of all signs that it was conquered, and the symbols of the Russian Horde consigned to the museums, ignored by the historians until Fomenko’s expert eye rediscovered them. Just as importantly for Fomenko, the ancient drawings of the siege of Vienna of 1529 clearly show the presence of Christians among the Turkic troops –regiments march under banners depicting crosses. As is well known, Sueliman the Magnificent had a Greek general, Bulgarian miners and countless Christian soldiers in his army. For Fomenko, a perfect example of a successful combined Turkic and Orthodox war against the Catholic West.”

    “In 1924-1932 Morozov published his last and most comprehensive work, the seven-volume Khristos…Morozov claimed with good reason that ancient sources used by historians were rarely originals. Instead all we have are copies of copies. For Morozov, these were most likely written during the Renaissance. The so-called Dark Ages that linked classical civilization to the Middle Ages were understandably opaque to the early moderns. According to Morozov, these centuries never existed. They were a figment of the West’s imperial imagination.”

    “Iaroslav Kesler is a Professor of Chemistry at Moscow University who argues that modern history has been falsified to deny the existence of a Slavic-speaking world empire whose center was Constantinople. The culture of Europe was Slavic until the seventeenth century. On the other hand, the Slavs fell under the sway of the Turks at that time; Peter the Great paid tribute to the Ottoman sultan, who was the most powerful ruler in Europe. Wars between Sweden, Poland and Russia in the eighteenth century represented conflict between the shards of the disintegrating Empire. While its military power rose and fell, Russia has always been the bearer of a higher form of civilization.”

    “The Jews living in Spain in the fifteenth century were not Jews in any religious sense but bogobortsy who served the Slav-Turk Tsar or Great Khan. The khans themselves were the generals or tsars (Caesars) of the Russian Horde, that is, its military wing. The civilian wing of the Russian Horde was under the sway of the princes led by a Grand Prince.

    “It is no coincidence for Fomenko that at the beginning of August 1492, one day prior to the commencement of Columbus’s first journey, tens of thousands of Jews were banished from their homes by the Spanish authorities. As Fomenko speculates, the Spanish Jews were the bogobortsy of the Russian Horde. They were not banished because of an Inquisition but were soldiers temporarily based in Spain as they prepared for a long and arduous military mission on behalf of the Russian tsar-khan.”

    “By stressing the fact that the Slavic-Turkic empire occupied approximately the same territories as the former Soviet Union Fomenko indirectly lays claim to the former Soviet colonies, not in the name of the Great Russian nation as it had been done before, but rather on behalf of a multi- cultural, bilingual mixed-ethnic Russian Horde. Upon closer investigation, it turns out that, according to Fomenko, the majority of ancient tribes living on the territory of the former Soviet Union were Russians. Khazars Pechenegs, Polovtsy, and Genghis Khan were, in the end, Slavs. In the patriotic Russian imagination, it does not get much better than this.”

    Anyway, Fomenko is very entertaining . I wonder if there are comics based on Fomenko in Russia. The article about the Chinese revisionist professor I found while searching the topic of forgery and rewriting of historiography in China that supposedly was practiced by each new dynasty, so the question is to what extend the history of China has been constructed, fabricated and distorted.

  173. Bashibuzuk says

    Lomonosov took issue with the idea that the Slavs were backward prior to Riurik and claimed that the Varangians as we call them today were actually people of Slavic ancestry. More implausibly, Lomonosov traced the Russians deep into ancient history. Ancient Slavs or proto-Russians, Lomonosov insisted, participated in such great historic events as the defense of ancient Troy, and the destruction of Rome by the eastern hordes.

    Lomonosov did nothing wrong. He just followed in Gizel’s footsteps. Notice that Gizel was Prussian by birth, possibly a Germanized Balto-Slav / Wend.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_(Giesel)

    And yes, Balto Slavs were among the Hun hordes and possibly might have also gone along the Vandals and their Alan allies sacking Rome. In medieval chronicles the Rus Rurikid were often described as rightful heirs to Vandals and Rugians.

    You see, borders and nations are a recelatively recent invention.

    And commonly admitted Western historic interpretation is actually as laughable as Fomenko’s new chronology. The only difference is that Fomenko is building his historical metanarrative in front of our very eyes, while the West did it during the Renaissance.

    Have you heard about Peter the Great starting to read the Missal of Reims in front of his amazed French hosts?

    Turned out the “Holy Relic” the French used for centuries during the ritual of their Kings coronation at the Reims Cathedral, was in fact a richly decorated copy of Gospels that belonged to Anna Yaroslavna, the Rurikid Queen of France and mother of Philip I. The Missal of Reims was written in Church Slavonic, using Cyrillic alphabet. The French literati believed it being an exotic Greek transliteration of some ancient Aramean or Hebrew original. Laughable ? You bet it is.

    History is always a myth.

    (Everybody lies, as Dr House has famously asserted in the TV series.)

  174. Shortsword says

    https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1382725487655534593

    Lim argues that the real political crisis facing the U.S. is not extremist violence but erosion of the First Amendment. He says that restrictions on online speech have already brought the U.S. to the verge of communist tyranny, that “we are one foot away from 1984.” After a moment, though, he offers a sizable qualifier: “I never actually read the book, so I don’t know all the themes of the book. But I have heard the concepts, and I’ve seen some things, and I thought, ‘Whoa! That’s sketchy as f—.’ ”

  175. Shortsword says

    They are going to take the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and Kherson too. Blocking the North Crimean Canal was a big mistake by Ukraine.

    Seems unlikely. There is infrastructure construction in Crimea going on right now to be able to deal with the water situation without having to use the canal.

  176. No, it would blow east/southeast away from the Dnipro. I heard rumors that Azov (national guard) are responsible for security of that nuclear plant, which is the largest ne in Europe. I don’t recall the source, so I don’t confirm it – it may be BS – hopefully it is.

  177. Europe Europa says

    Russians don’t do good will with the West, it’s seen as weak and as appeasing the enemy. Westerners who think they can find some common ground to co-exist with Russia on good terms are deluding themselves.

    You can’t be pro-West and an ally of Russia. To be an ally of Russia you have to totally denounce “the West”.

  178. AltanBakshi says

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/97/7e/a8/977ea8d704cfec23c0f68e51e33d4722.jpg

    The plant is right on the river Dnepr. Do you really think that if one of the world’s largest nuclear plants would explode, it would not completely pollute adjacent bodies of water?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Kernkraftwerk_Saporischschja.JPG/1200px-Kernkraftwerk_Saporischschja.JPG

    Maybe pollution would not travel far upstream, but at least settlements downstream, like Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson would be in a far worse state than Volgograd or Stavropol.

  179. Bashibuzuk says

    Post-Communist “Russian ” elites have transferred around 1.8 trillion $ to Western financial cartel. How about that as “good will ” ?

    Of course morons on each side of the sick (or should I write sock) puppet show will decry “muh agression “. But that’s what makes them morons in the first place.

  180. And yes, Balto Slavs were among the Hun hordes and possibly might have also gone along the Vandals and their Alan allies sacking Rome. In medieval chronicles the Rus Rurikid were often described as rightful heirs to Vandals and Rugians.

    You could be onto something here. What do you make of the usurper Roman emperor Odoacer? Although historians have never been able to settle on his precise pedigree and ethnicity, the 5th century conqueor of Rome’s family history lies somewhere in the murky past of Atilla’s empire. It’s telling that the first ethnonym included in his desciptor enshrined in a plate in Salzburg includes “king of Ruthenes” Atilla’s beginnings in Europe included a long incubation period in Ukraine. Odoaker’s name was loudly pronounced during the burial ceremony of Bohdan Khmelnitsky by a Cossack starshina, making a clear analogy between the two.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Odovacar_Ravenna_477.jpg/220px-Odovacar_Ravenna_477.jpg

    “king of Ruthenes, Geppids, Goths, Hungarians and Heruls” (Odoacer Rex Rhvtenorvm Geppidi Gothi Vngari et Hervli).[6]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoacer

  181. AltanBakshi says

    A small correction, Dnepropetrovsk is situated upstream from the town of Energodar, where Zaporozhye nuclear plant is, still in my opinion it’s close enough, that it would be impossible to explode the plant in such controlled manner that Dnepropetrovsk would not suffer horribly from radioactive pollution.

  182. Shortsword says

    https://twitter.com/bneintellinews/status/1383022383322296322

    Russia had positive industrial production y/y in March. The recession started first in April 2020 so close to recovery?

  183. Well, the definition of a recession includes the reporting of four consecutive quarterly periods of downward activity, I’m not sure of how many upward quarters signals the end of such a recession?

  184. Chernobyl is about 15 km further from Kiev than Zaporizhia from Dnipropetrovsk.

    Also Odessa, Kherson and Mykolaiv are upwind, the opposite way, from Zaporizhia. The fallout would hit Donbas and Russian areas like Rostov on Don and Volgograd heavily. How much would the damage cost?

  185. AltanBakshi says

    I have understood that the groundwater contamination and leakage of radioactive pollutants to Dnepr was extremely close with the Chernobyl incident, but successfully avoided with hard work and some luck. Zaporozhye plant is much bigger than Chernobyl, and it’s situated right on the massive body of water, Kahovka reservoir of Dnepr river.

  186. It’s a cope

    It’s more of a warning, or a reminder. Historically, consequences have been horrible when a power stumbles into a war while overestimating its position or underestimating the potential consequences. Did the Kaisers or the Tsars imagine what would happen as a result of their adventures among the pygmy countries of the Balkans?

    So far, no country with extensive nuclear power has ever been directly invaded and occupied. Although Russia is several times stronger than Ukraine, since World War II (or perhaps Korea, taking into account Chinese involvement) there has not been a major war between countries as closely matched or with armies as large as those of Russia and Ukraine. Russia will ultimately win, sure, but we can’t be certain at what price. Is it worth the gamble (for Russia)?

  187. Yes, but the Dnipro flows away from Chernobyl and to Kiev, while Zaporizhia is downstream from Dnipro. The radiated water would go to Kherson (the wind would not reach that city but the water would), en route to the Black Sea. The Crimean water canals that Russia seemingly wants would be fully radiated.

  188. AltanBakshi says

    Now you really are coping. Ukrops are not Islamic suicide bombers or Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Ukraine as a nation is not great enough idea for Ukrainians to commit such mass sacrifice or suicide attack. Even if exploding of Zaporozhye plant would not somehow magically pollute Dnepr downstream, it surely would utterly destroy cities like Melitopol, Mariupol and Berdyansk. Simply put Khokhols don’t have enough willpower for such sacrifices.

    It often seems to me that inhabitants of Ukraine’s far west and members of nationalist fringe, seem to always forget how little of emotional investment common denizens of their country have in the nation of Ukraine. Real patriots don’t want to leave their country permanently, which is not the case with majority of young Ukrainians.

  189. It often seems to me that inhabitants of Ukraine’s far west and members of nationalist fringe, seem to always forget how little of emotional investment common denizens of their country have in the nation of Ukraine.

    Yeah right. The protesters in Kyiv were made-up of all stratas and regions of Ukrainian society. Can you point to any other national protest in the world, over the last ten years, that so poignantly reflected the will of any nation? Any??…..

    https://youtu.be/a94mNfmZ1gc

  190. Ukrops are not Islamic suicide bombers or Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Ukraine as a nation is not great enough idea for Ukrainians to commit such mass sacrifice or suicide attack

    It would only take a few fanatics. You think Azovites couldn’t do this, if it looked (as Putin stated) like the end of Ukrainian statehood? They might even be able to set up the chain reaction and get out in time.

    Likely they would not, but what are the chances they would? 10%? 20%? 5%? Is it a risk worth taking? And what would Russia do in response to getting Donbas, Rostov and Volgograd fully radiated. Nuke Kiev? In that case why wouldn’t some fanatic commit an attack with a dirty bomb in Moscow and other cities? Ukraine is full of material for that and has plenty of people with the appropriate expertise. Rus civilization could therefore end by a series of stupid dominos falling. Who will be laughing as always?

    History is full of miscalculations based on a combination of pride and underestimation of risk. Some Serbian official once thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to kill an Austrian archduke. Thirty percent of his country’s population would be killed. Serbia was small and weak. Russia was huge and strong and had the backing of the great powers of Britain and France. Hundreds of years of Hapsburg and Romanov rule would end due to miscalculation of risk, mistake upon mistake, regardless of who was right or wrong.

    As I said, no one has ever attempted to invade and end a fully nuclear country. Is a conflict over the Donbas sh*thole worth finding out what that could mean?

  191. China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms says

    I looked up Huang 黄河清 on Chinese boards. His background is art history, and is not taken very seriously on those claims.

    some Chinese have a similar need is to me is a surprise and much harder to understand:

    There’s a hard core traditionalist fringe that likes to negate Western civilization. They are very pro-the nationalism aspect of CCP, „A Century of Humiliation“ and shit like that. So thus should be considered far right.

    topic of forgery and rewriting of historiography in China that supposedly was practiced by each new dynasty, so the question is to what extend the history of China has been constructed, fabricated and distorted.

    Distortion most definitely. I touched on it here.

    Ha, but isn’t a tradition to slander the dynasty that one overthrows? Are all those Ming emperors really perverts or just what we are told to believe by Manchu appointed historians? I’ve heard the saying that History is a Dark Forest (a la Liu Cixin), once one dig deeper into original sources more skepticism one must apply.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ceo-demographics-mirror-coffee-salons/#comment-4553780

    The 24 Histories is very politically oriented in 2 main ways.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-Four_Histories

    1. Each dynasty is responsible for appointing official historians to write up on the previous dynasty, and will tend to heavily distort narrative to legitimize the current dynasty, case in point Shang-Zhou and Ming-Qing transition
    2. Each reigning emperor knows full well that his deeds will be reflected by posterior history, so unless they are really based, will be conscious of this and restrain untoward behavior (very meta)

    For the most controversial characters, Qin Shihuang, Cao Cao, there is a historiography of their depiction’s drastic changes across last two millenia. One can most certainly assume this will be the case for Mao.

    Most of these historiography questions are very specific so would only interest expert Sinologists. Except for this one…

    By stressing the fact that the Slavic-Turkic empire occupied approximately the same territories as the former Soviet Union

    So it happens there is a near exact parallel in PRC to claim the Yuan dynasty as legitimately Chinese. And I must say that their argument is pretty compelling.

    Back to Han Nationalism, one of their main take is 元清非中国论 Thesis that Yuan and Qing are not truly Chinese. Actually among the first one to hawk this were Japs, who argued China has accepted conquerors before, so why not another one.
    But this is being debunked now by PRC historians with arguments that I think is pretty compelling. The Confucian scholars came to agreement that non-Hans can be accepted as legitimate dynastic rulers so long as they accept the two above-stated conditions (not the case for Japs). Also, Yuan is much more sinicized than previously thought, for example the 4-caste system turned out to be fake news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty#Social_classes . And many of the later battles were basically Han vs. Han https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yamen
    However, one aspect of accepting Yuan is acknowledging that China had once tried to invade Japan.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-144/#comment-4527930

  192. It is possible that the burning of books and burying of scholars is a convenient myth.

  193. China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms says

    Was there alot of overlap between East Germanics and West Slavs?

    The reconstructed Proto-Slavic language features several apparent borrowed words from East Germanic (presumably Gothic)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language

  194. AnonFromTN says

    Americans have a history as long as any people.

    There are obvious caveats in this statement. Let me point out three out of many.

    The history of Native Americans includes mass genocide, not only by the original settlers, but also by the US government long after that (e.g., google “trail of tears Navajo” to get info on one of many examples).

    As to the rest, it is revealing that a building 300 years old is considered old and historical in the US, whereas in many places it would be considered relatively new and unremarkable.

    Many immigrants come from places with rich history, but the history of those places continues in situ and not in America.

  195. Shortsword says

    That’s just arbitrary definitions. The important part is that the economy is basically back to pre-Corona level (although I believe the industry is ahead of others sectors).

  196. AnonFromTN says

    Blocking the North Crimean Canal was a big mistake by Ukraine.

    One of many. Although one can call them mistakes only assuming that Ukrainian elites ever cared for Ukraine, which is not the case. The key mistake of Ukraine is that it gave power to a bunch of disgusting compradores ever since 1991. The rest was inevitable.

    As to water for Crimea, this issue is being solved by a number of approaches. As Crimean leadership said more than once, Ukraine lost its chance to sell water to Crimea, they won’t buy it under any circumstances now.

    Ukraine will never be safe again, which will stop them getting any funny ideas.

    If the policies of its elites continue in the same vein as today, Ukraine may not even exist 10-20 years from now. Alternatively, it might retain the territories Bogdan Khmelnitsky united with Russia in 1654, which is ~1/6th of current territory. The only thing that prevents Russia from taking over most of it is the price: everything in that god-forsaken land needs rebuilding and upgrades, while the means of production (and therefore of generating revenue to cover the costs) are either dead or decrepit beyond salvage.

    Using terminology of old Russian joke, Ukraine today is an elusive Joe
    (here is the joke:
    Two cowboys are drinking in a saloon. Another cowboy enters. One says:
    – Look, this is elusive Joe.
    – Do you mean to say that nobody can catch him?
    – No, what I mean is nobody is interested in catching this piece of shit.)

  197. China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms says

    Tacitus writings about Germanic tribes is possibly a later day fabrication, as are many texts of supposedly antique Latin and Hellenic origin.

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/opinion-poll-is-russia-europe/#comment-4544363

    Must I say there is something to this…

    Möglicherweise wollte Tacitus der Dekadenz der römischen Sitten ein positives Gegenbeispiel (Sittenspiegel) entgegenhalten; dafür spricht, dass er die Germanen an einigen Stellen stark idealisierte.

    Possibly Tacitus wanted to counter the decadence of Roman customs with a positive counterexample (moral mirror); suggests that he strongly idealized the Teutons in some places.

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(Tacitus)#Sittenspiegel-Theorie

    In this case it may be called the Romance of Germania

    Another amazing parallel, „History as a Mirror“ analogy is heavily employed in Chinese historiography.

    The Zizhi Tongjian (Chinese: 資治通鑑; lit. ‘Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance’[note 1]) is a pioneering reference work in Chinese historiography,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizhi_Tongjian

  198. Bashibuzuk says

    Yes the Anty Wends (proto Balto-Slavs) were under Goths rule for some 250 years. Both populations lived side by side and intermixed in modern day Ukraine.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernyakhov_culture

    That was before the Huns came and replaced the Goths. Under the Huns they were even more intermixed while moving West. Huns were a minority in their own horde, just like the Mongols were a minority in the Golden Horde. The main part of the army was made of different people that they conquered and united (Eastern Goths were also conquered and joined the Hun Horde).

  199. The history of Native Americans includes mass genocide

    So which countries pass this test? Russia, China, or Japan? England? Scandinavian countries?

    And I won’t mention shittier countries.

  200. Bashibuzuk says

    We had a couple of comments exchanged about Tacitus Germania on that thread. Have a look if your interested and draw your own conclusions.

    I agree that history is indeed like a mirror, in that it is very subjective. I don’t believe history is a science. For me it is a well structured rational mythology.

    If we want to understand the past we need to look into ancient genetics (only Y haplogroups, mtDNA is nearly irrelevant) and archeology. Only hard data, historical and linguistic interpretations are often manipulated for political and / or religious reasons.

    Follow the haplogroups, look at the archeological artefacts, that’s what I concluded. This is what I stick to.

  201. You can personally do whatever you wish, one mask, even 3-4 masks. Everything in small amounts and for a short time is negligible. That doesn’t mean it is not undermining your health, especially a small child who sits in front of a video screen with a mask “learning” remotely because elderly teachers “have to be protected 100%”.

    But your attitude to young people is to reminisce about a pre-diluvial Mary Popkins, whomever that is and some dumb cliches from your boomer years. May I suggest that it is perfectly within the young peoples’ right to reciprocate when your time comes, “think of the old geezers!” would be a nice slogan as the power goes out.

    You are by instinct a gerontocrat and a bit of a hypochondriac. Your ruminations on slightly, negligible, flaws is a summary of a person who is trying to convince himself. Do whatever you want, masks, lockdowns, all you hypochondriacs can stay in bed all day endlessly measuring your oxygen intake. But using your elderly power to stop the society and hurt others is pure evil.

    Evil people always try to control others – that is the essence of evil and a always has been.

  202. AnonFromTN says

    So which countries pass this test? Russia, China, or Japan? England? Scandinavian countries?

    To the best of my knowledge, neither Russian nor Chinese empires ever genocided conquered populations. They either assimilated them or left them to live where they were, as long as they abided by the laws of the empire. Japan genocided Ainu. England did not genocide anyone in the vicinity (Welsh, Scots, or even Irish), but British colonial empire was guilty of many genocides overseas (e.g., Tasmania is an extreme example). Don’t know much about Scandinavian countries: after Peter the Great annihilated Swedes near Poltava in 1709, all Scandinavian countries were European backwater and remain so to this day.

    Did I answer your question?

  203. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/media/images/64546000/gif/_64546399_transdniester_map.gif

    The Moldovan President- Maia Sandu is demanding that Russian troops leave, if they do she may well get her wish to join the EU. I think Russia needs mountains or water (not for drinking as a barrier) for security in the West. There are no mountains, so Putin will have to advance to the Diester. He knows only he has the determination to do it and unless he secures the Western border, Nato will inexorably advance. Think it is a coincidence the Chinese are suddenly threating Taiwan while all this is going on? Russia and China are already coordinating against the West.

  204. Gerard1234 says

    So which countries pass this test? Russia, China, or Japan? England? Scandinavian countries?

    Russia, quite obviously, passes this test ( of it’s history not relying on mass genocide).

    Wars, yes, but then all these peoples of the Russian empire and then USSR became equal citizens involved in all institutions

    FFS – there are more Tatars or Chechens or Avars+Dargins in Russia…..then there is Native Americans in all the US! So it is a non-comparable situation

  205. Gerard1234 says

    The intent is disputed for it to be called a genocide necessarily( industrialisation, bad luck viewed as the main causes) , but the British were responsible for the Irish Famine in the 1800’s.

    Demographically from deaths and mass emigration to North America, Ireland has never recovered to it’s demographic level since then.

    Maybe it’s the only country in the world with less population now compared to 1840.

    How “civilised” the ethnic people were could be used as some sort of “justification” for genocide….but even with the most primitive people I could never seen Russian world doing that

  206. High-trust societies can also be lying societies, esp. in media. The current Western media lying is about conformism – they all try to think the same way in order to please the powerful. That is very much a feature of a high-trust society, people don’t want to offend so they repeat what is expected of them.

    We are perceiving the context differently so it is hard to understand each other. I for example find that Southern Europeans are less trustworthy, but they see reality more clearly. Their institutions, media, government, academia are more truthful, although often more corrupt.

    Absolutely the worst are the high-trust Scandinavians: they are honest but extremely uncritical in their thinking. They end up with complete bulls..t peddled to them like “migrants are saints” or “there are Russian submarines in our harbour” and Scandies like obedient poodles repeat it. Honesty doesn’t mean that you seek the truth. Conformist never seek the truth, they seek society’s approval. Those are two different things, especially lately.

    Slovakia is a small, transitional society. To assign what they “wanted in the 90’s” is hard. At that time they wanted the Western style social democracy, to preserve “socialism” but with openness and less ideology. There was – and still is – a zero interest in geopolitical games and silly warmongering ala Nato. That has not changed much, but elites are what they are. They like to be bought. Not that different from the West.

  207. Did I answer your question?

    I appreciate your candid views, but I must reply with my own:

    I believe that you are spouting Cold War propaganda, out of habit, but which is ideologically outdated. I mean, exactly what purpose does it serve now? Harping on old colonization by Euros is a core tactic of the new bioleninist colonization of the West. Does it benefit Indians living on the rez? Does it benefit Russia to have the US and Western Europe demographically transformed? I’ll tell you one thing: ’50s America would not being hating on a non-communist Russia, like the current America is.

    Does it benefit Euros to be demographically transformed? Does it diminish the woke globohomo regime that controls America now?

    I believe it is mostly a harmful narrative.

    And as regards historicity, I often find it to be non-cogent. Yes, Amerinds lost dominance of much of America. There were countless benefits to Indians. Such as not fearing a night raid, in which you would face horrible torture. Or having writing, or many Old World crops and animals. And new technologies like vaccination. There are many more copies of Indian genes now than there ever was previously, though they are often in mestizo form or very diluted. There were orders of magnitude less Indians killed than there were Irishmen, to give one example. Though, I am sympathetic with the ethnic view Indians take; I don’t think they should be expected to celebrate their own conquest.

    But that is not getting to the heart of it. Why do other people bring it up and attempt to use it as a hammer? Well, I think it is mostly jealously. Maybe, some lament the loss of wild, primitive cultures. But let’s be realistic: America was always going to be settled by Old World powers. That heritage Americans were the ones who did it first, hardly reflects badly on them.

  208. FFS – there are more Tatars or Chechens or Avars+Dargins in Russia…..then there is Native Americans in all the US!

    They were Old World people, with Old World crops, and Old World disease-resistance. Undoubtedly, they lived at a much higher population density than Amerinds in the contiguous states.

    But it was not my purpose to try to shit on other countries, so I meant nothing against Russia in particular.

  209. AltanBakshi says

    Can you point to any other national protest in the world, over the last ten years, that so poignantly reflected the will of any nation? Any??…..

    Do you remember the Arab Spring? I believe that greater proportion of people of Tunis actively participated in their revolution, than Ukrainians with their евромайдаун.

    Next you will claim that October Revolution was the reflection of the will of the Russian people. At least it was as democratic event as the Euromaidan.

    Don’t be so silly Mr. Hack, and face the harsh truth, and the truth will set you free!

  210. AltanBakshi says

    The Qing dynasty committed a mass extermination and genocide of Mongolic Dzungars in the northern half of Xinjiang in the late 18th century. Though it was not committed by the Han, but by their Manchu overlords and Khalkha Mongol warriors.
    It was a genocide par excellence, and a extremely sad result of decades of war.

    Though Russian empire did not commit genocides, one can’t deny that there were multiple genocides on a smaller scale happening in the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin.

  211. Daniel Chieh says

    The Qing dynasty committed a mass extermination and genocide of Mongolic Dzungars in the northern half of Xinjiang in the late 18th century. Though it was not committed by the Han, but by their Manchu overlords and Khalkha Mongol warriors.

    Though it is notable because of how rare it was.

  212. AnonFromTN says

    I see your discussion of masks with utu veered off the path of reason. Let me remind both of you of facts.

    One, there is no scientific study showing that masks reduce the chances of either infection or transmission of covid. This does not mean that they don’t, it only means that there is no scientific evidence for it. Thus, mask mandates are not based on science. Therefore, people rightly suspect that they are issued in pursuit of nefarious ends. Especially in view of the fact that there were studies showing that masks do not reduce the chance of infection or transmission of flu virus, which is quite a bit bigger. So, masks are very likely useless from medical standpoint. Apparently, they are useful for some powerful forces for non-medical reasons.

    Two, masks do impede your breath. E.g., I only get shortness of breath, which is supposed to be a symptom of covid, when I wear a mask, so I take it off whenever possible. They hardly do any more physical harm (unless the reports that masks contain some asbestos-like material which the wearer breathes in are true). However, forcing small children to wear masks is an unforgivable child abuse. In addition, widespread mask wearing promotes mass hysteria (which probably was one of the purposes of mask mandates).

    Summary: a) we do not know whether masks have any epidemiological benefit; b) masks produce little physical harm; c) mask mandates produce huge psychological and social harm.

  213. Quite prescient. Yanuk was a fool. Ischenko was right, it is a standard comprador behavior, common all around the world, also in Western Europe today.

    My summary of the elite position is that they are told they can do anything at home (corruption, cheating, whatever…) as long as on a few key geo-political issues they are loyal to Washington. One of those issues is Ukraine-Russia. Another one, migration. The elites are left alone unless they show hesitation in one of the key areas. Washington doesn’t micro manage (including Germany, etc…) but as a proper overseer only insists on loyalty in a few key areas.

    To complicate it, there are also noisy ambitious local people who adopted this ideology, internalized it because they believe it. Some sincerely, others out of self-interest, most probably a bit of both. This is by no means all externally driven, but people respond to incentives.

  214. AltanBakshi says

    Well there are couple other cases in Chinese history, though they have happened so long time ago, that one can’t be sure of their historicity.

    One is the mass extermination of Jie barbarians of Later Zhao, by general Ran Min.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jie_people#history

    Jie people were probably Yeniseian, who are extremely interesting artefact group of some highly distinct ancient race, like Ainus of Hokkaido.

    https://bigasia.ru/upload/pics/2018/07/Voino/New%20Folder/10/Keti/kety5.jpg

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/55/12/cd/5512cddfbda67df32709708973cf6d7b.png

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/P252_Men_and_children_of_the_Yenisei-Ostiaks.jpg/1280px-P252_Men_and_children_of_the_Yenisei-Ostiaks.jpg

    These people are Kets, they are the largest surviving group of Yeniseian people, there are only around one thousand of them left.

  215. AnonFromTN says

    I think Russia needs mountains or water (not for drinking as a barrier) for security in the West.

    You might be right, but one cannot change geography. Ukies might see Putin as an almighty god, but he isn’t. As far as Transnisria is concerned, Russian troops will remain there at the request of the people living in the region (including Moldovan nationals; Moldovan is one of four official languages in Transnistria). This won’t change, so Sandu (or any other puppet the Empire installs in Moldova) can say anything until s/he/it is blue in the face.

    Think it is a coincidence the Chinese are suddenly threating Taiwan while all this is going on? Russia and China are already coordinating against the West.

    They don’t even need to coordinate. Anyone is more likely to make his move when the adversary is distracted. The only thing that unites China and Russia is common enemy: they don’t want to surrender their sovereignty to the Empire. Seeing how imperial vassals fare, I’d say it’s a smart policy. Seeing how the imperial policies push China and Russia to an alliance, I’d say that imperial elites are even dumber than one would think possible.

  216. AnonFromTN says

    one can’t deny that there were multiple genocides on a smaller scale happening in the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin.

    Stalin’s repressions were not genocides. He was a true “internationalist”: targeted anyone his regime deemed potentially dangerous regardless of nationality. It does not make him a nice person, but he was a brutal emperor of a multi-national empire, not a primeval tribal nationalist.

  217. AltanBakshi says

    Some nationalities were specially targeted, for their suspected disloyalty towards Soviet regime or hidden pan-ethnic aspirations.

    People like Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Ingrian Finns were decimated after Stalin’s repressionary measures. No one can claim honestly that most Russians were uprooted from their traditional lands, or that over 1/4 of them died because of mass killings and deportations. Kalmyks suffered greatly, about half of them died violently after Communist takeover of Russia, in 1920s they tried multiple times to resist decossackization, with extremely sad results.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_the_Ingrian_Finns

    Though Don cossacks, like all Cossacks of history, were mostly Russians(substantial minority of them were Kalmyks), it could be said that what Communists did in the Don Oblast region after the Civil war, was a genocide, cultural traditions and ancient way of life of whole people were completely wiped away.

    Still I’m a ruthless pragmatist, I do understand Stalin’s choices, early Soviet Union had just gone through a Civil war, in which their opponents were supported by an international coalition of imperial powers, like British and French, so it’s not at all puzzling if Stalin was so paranoid. Even so killing of such historically loyal and patriotic subjects like Cossacks and Kalmyks is unforgivable…

  218. Johnny Rico says

    Thank you. Very informative. How did you know I was reading a biography of Heisenberg right now? Lol

  219. Next you will claim that October Revolution was the reflection of the will of the Russian people. At least it was as democratic event as the Euromaidan.

    No. Euromaidan represented the will of about 40% of Ukraine (versus 25% opposed). Bolsheviks represented the will of 25% of the people in the Russian Empire. So Euromaidan represented more demos than the October Revolution.

  220. AltanBakshi says

    Really AP? Till mid 1918 Left Socialist Revolutionaries of Russia were in coalition with Bolsheviks. I don’t know how popular the left wing of SRs was, but as a whole they were the most popular party of Russian Empire, and my intuition says to me that if party is named “Socialist Revolutionary”, then it must be likely that their left wing is more popular than their right wing. Therefore I will claim that during the October Revolution Bolsheviks and Left SR together represented around half of the people of Russia, or at least 40% of the people.

  221. AnonFromTN says

    Stalin was guilty of many things, although a lot fewer than he is accused of by libtards. I don’t know about other small nations, but as far as Crimean Tatars are concerned, I’ve heard an opinion that Stalin’s deportation saved them from a worse fate. Some older Crimean residents say that because of what many Tatars did during Nazi occupation of Crimea, a lot of Crimeans were itching to hang them on nearest trees.

    I know that in quite a few Soviet cities liberated by the Red Army from Nazis NKVD troops came a day or two later than the regular army. Likely deliberately, to give residents a chance to deal with Nazi collaborators. In those cases most Nazi collaborators were lynched by the locals, saving the state the trouble of trials and the expense of keeping that scum in jail.

  222. Bashibuzuk says

    Kets are perhaps the Old World population the closest related to Native Americans.

  223. AnonFromTN says

    Based on my sources in what used to be Ukraine under Yanuk, he was a liar and greedy short-sighted thief, whereas the scum that came to power after him are liars, thieves, and murderers. By 2014 likely more than half of Ukrainian population was against Yanuk, but fewer than 10% were for the scum that seized power. As one of Ukrainians said on camera, if we knew what’s coming, we’d crowd-funded another golden loaf and gifted it to Yanuk. People rarely appreciate that things can get a lot worse than simply bad.

  224. This is a powerful argument in favor of Russia paying reparations for Communism.

    However coalitions and splinter groups don’t reflect popular will as much as do elections. In the actual election only 23% of people voted for Bolsheviks, versus 37% for SRs.

  225. And you know these “numbers” so precisely? How? Are you sure every person in both cases had a single, well-formed opinion? No ambiguity? No people who liked mayhem or wanted a revenge and never thought much about ideology? No pissed off SR peasants who wanted to get even? Are you going to post “Wikipedia”, since we all know that Wiki is both objective and has a way of knowing everything?

    And you still deny that you are on the autism spectrum…you don’t get context.

  226. By 2014 likely more than half of Ukrainian population was against Yanuk, but fewer than 10% were for the scum that seized power

    According to the KIIS poll at the time of Maidan and prior to the overthrow, 41% supported Maidan and 25% opposed. Furthermore, the parties that came to power after Maidan had won the previous parliamentary elections (still under Yanukovich) popular vote, with over 50% of the vote.

    So your 10% claim is either only true of Donbas or a lie if applied to the whole country.

  227. And you know these “numbers” so precisely

    Polls were conducted during Maidan and they don’t contradict election data. Numbers for Russia come from the 1917 elections.

    Are you going to post “Wikipedia”, since, of course Wiki is both objective and has a way of knowing everything

    Wiki is very convenient but of course the article should be sourced.

    And you still deny that you are on the autism spectrum

    Nothing wrong with being so, but this is rather ridiculous. You can’t help but place a lie in each of your posts though – I understand.

  228. It’s a cope because irradiated post-meltdown wastelands is a literary/video game meme.

  229. No, the Right SRs were relatively more popular. The split was 1/3 to 2/3. Also, the Left SRs were nowhere near as radical as the Bolsheviks.

    SR government would have basically been just a more pro-peasantry orientated Social Democracy in the context of that period, i.e. land redistribution, not confiscations, or the later collectivization.

  230. AnonFromTN says

    Ukrainian “government” believes a lot of things. You can find comparable variety of beliefs in any lunatic asylum.

  231. AnonFromTN says

    Sorry to disappoint, but support of your favorite scum in Donbass was way below 2%. Hence, we have what we have.

  232. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a film clip is worth a million. You’ve provided absolutely nothing (‘I believe”, doesn’t count) to substantiate your worthless claims. AP, our resident statistician refutes your “beliefs” quite well in comment #235.

  233. sher singh says
  234. Rattus Norwegius says

    ‘As to the rest, it is revealing that a building 300 years old is considered old and historical in the US, whereas in many places it would be considered relatively new and unremarkable.’
    Many old European cathedrals and castles are just as relevant to US history as they are to Britis, German, etc history.

    ‘Many immigrants come from places with rich history, but the history of those places continues in situ and not in America.’
    America was founded by British settlers, and the culture they created has been the dominant creed of the US. Later immigrants have mostly immersed themselfes in this British derived culture, while also adding something of their own. How inaccurate is it to characterise the American culture as somehow not a continious, uninterrupted continuation of British culture and history? The impact and heritage of other immigrants is less obvious and marked than that of the British, but still there.

  235. I was hoping to see a reply to my comment #196 regarding Emperor Odoacer and his role in the Hun/Slav migration to the West? Whether you’ve come across him and his mission in your studies of the topic?

  236. Rattus Norwegius says

    ‘So by your logic it’s impossible to claim that Chinese or Jews have more ancient history than the English or the Finns?’
    The Chinese and Jews have a longer written history, and longer history as a clearly defined group. However being Jewish 2000 thousand years ago and being jewish now is not the same thing. It is merely related phenomenon.

    It is similar with the English, whos national identity formed after the German migration to Britain. Prior to this the history of the English include the various Germanic tribes that would migrate to Britain, and that of the then autochthonous inhabitants of Britain. The Celtic speaking Britons were themselves descendants of continental migrants from Europe who brought the Celtic language with them, also descending mostly from pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain.

    Just as the experience of the Jewish inhabitants of Roman Israel cannot be isolated from Jewish history, so cannot the experience of the East European Jewry of the Shtetl. What matters is not Geographic areas or political constructs, but the experience of human beings.

    ‘like all new things they are an aggregate product of past phenomenona.’
    You could say the same about Russia, Ukraine, Israel, France, Turkey, etc.

  237. So you were simply lying when you mentioned 10%. Thanks for clarifying.

  238. “You can personally do whatever you wish…” – Listen Beckow, do not change the course of the discourse. The discussion was not about personal preferences. It was about facts. You have made several false and ridiculous claims about carbon monoxide and particles concerning masks. This case is close, just read my comment again. In fact I was surprised that you would fall that low and adopt obscurantist position of American deplorables just for the sake of being oppositional because while it is well established that you are a liar w/o a moral fiber in your body we also know you are not that stupid to argue in favor of nonsensical propositions. Obviously you will not back off and proceed with ad hominem constructions and projections because that’s your nature. Must be the sense of honor (another of your opportunistic nonsensical confabulations) gifted to you by the R1a haplogroup that must be preventing you from conceding.

  239. “Let me remind both of you of facts.” – You want facts read my comment. An leave me out of your heart to heart conversations with another sovok.

  240. sher singh says
  241. AnonfromTN says

    Modern American and British cultures have the same ancestor: seventeenth century British culture. But they evolved into quite different entities. It’s like us and chimps: we have the same ancestors, but evolved into different species. American English is so different from British that when I was in the UK some years ago, they didn’t even catch my Russian accent behind an American one. As an American born and bred post-doc in the lab where I was a post-doc 1991-5 aptly said, the US and UK are two countries divided by the same language.

  242. AnonfromTN says

    Trust a Ukie to claim “peremoga” when defeated. It is not surprising that some Ukie generals claimed that their shameful defeat at Debaltsevo was a “brilliant operation” of Ukrainian forces. Pathetic.

  243. AnonfromTN says

    Did I talk to you? You are perfectly safe: I would talk to a lamppost before you. Might get a more meaningful conversation.

  244. Thulean Friend says

    Finally some sense.

    https://twitter.com/sputnikvaccine/status/1383115628156960768

    The COVID situation in India is really bad. Offical numbers are wildly at odds with the bodies going into crematoriums. India refuses to releases excess deaths data. Looks like China and even Bangladesh will add to their lead against the country. Bangladesh recently passed India in per capita income, for the first time in history. I’m a skeptic about whether that can last, but one has to acknoweledge that they’ve handled Covid better.


    On a lighter note, Dogecoin is doing fantastic (yay!).

    https://i.imgur.com/m0CjtHs.png

    This has predictably enraged the seething nocoiners. They claim its all a bubble. Maybe. But how do these nocoiners explain this:

    There’s a single New Jersey deli doing $35,000 in sales valued at $100 million in the stock market.

    If you look at metrics like stock market cap/GDP in the US it is at all time highs, far surpassing even the 2000 IT stock market bubble. It’s a mistake to look at these stories in isolation, I think we’re seeing a broad-based asset class upsurge, with crypto being the clear winner of the last year or so.

    As the Biden administration prepares to tax wealth, we could see even stronger inflows into crypto. Some of the recent surge may already have been a defensive hedge away from more traditional asset classes to diversify into new ones.

  245. You defeated yourself.

    Let’s review your latest lie (or ignorance) about Maidan and Ukraine:

    Sorry to disappoint, but support of your favorite scum in Donbass was way below 2%.

    Support for Maidan in Eastern Ukraine:

    http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=231&page=1&y=2014&m=2

    7.5%

    Probably it would be lower in Donbas than in Eastern Ukraine as a whole, perhaps around 5% in Donbas.

    But you don’t believe polls? Well, under the Yanukovich-run 2012 parliamentary election of 2012, in Donetsk oblast 5.2% voted for Yatseniuk’s Fatherland Party, 4.75 for Klitschko’s party, and 1.2% voted for Svoboda. These were the three Maidanist parties who came to power as a result of Maidan. So about 11% of Donetsk oblast voters.

    Thank you for again demonstrating either how little you know about Ukraine, or how dishonest you are about Ukraine.

    And if you actually spoke Ukrainian you would spell it as “peremoha” not “peremoga.” Is “peremoga” your alleged “Lviv dialect”, that you claim to speak because you lived there until you were 4 years old?

  246. Any chance of Sweden opening its border by August? I am still hoping to visit there in late summer.

  247. Morton's toes says

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/nft-future-of-money.html

    Also Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay is free online at gutenberg.org:

    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518

  248. It was brilliant , the speed of retreat was amazing , just wondering how many died thanks to racing

  249. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Yeah, I know.

    Me asking (wouldn’t have bothered without doing rudimentary research) is because I still haven’t decided to go into crypto just yet.

    In fact, so far I’ve missed out on a bunch of opportunities to invest in profitable things with good payoffs (e.g. the upcoming Chinese digital yuan/rmb) because I was wary of scams or dangers.

    Of course, rational and reasonable precautions are appropriate and I don’t think you need to worry or lecture me about crypto.

  250. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Your spread recommendation is interesting.

    Clearly you don’t think much of Litecoin?

    Disclaimer: Not financial advice/do your own research.

    Of course.

  251. Crypto is a (local) bubble, though I think it has some ways to go before popping (my guess is $100k BTC and $10k ETH). On the macroscale, ofc, it’s not a bubble, because by 2025, $2,400 ETH will seem absurdly cheap.

    Dogecoin absolutely is a bubble, though. No use case, a coin sustained entirely by memes. It could still hit $1 this run but it’s going down 99% during the bear market and will leave a lot of the stupider normies who get in late with heavy bags.

    Still, being the archetypal memecoin does have value, so it will spike again come the next bull run. And there’s a good chance Doge will end up on the Moon, literally: https://www.metaculus.com/questions/6966/spacex-puts-literal-dogecoin-on-literal-moon/ It should almost certainly go above $1 then, even if it doesn’t this time round.

    But how many of the normies aping in now at 30c will wait long enough to cash in on their gainz? Close to zero, I think.

  252. Bashibuzuk says

    Odoacer is a well known historical character, but I don’t think he had anything to have with (proto) Slavs settling in Central Europe.

    When the Goths settled in modern day Ukraine, they subjugated the native populations. Jordanes in his Getica writes about the Antes (Анты / Anty / Wends) being a “numerous, but weak” population which attempted to resist the Gothic settlers moving into their territory only to have their King (named Bozh) crucified by the Goths and a dozen of their higher tribal leaders executed. After that there was no more resistance by the Wends against the Goths.

    The population ruled by the Goths then formed the Chernyakhov culture, which was higher in its overall achievements than the native cultures in the area, with the exception of its more romanized parts. The Goths divided into two competing dynasties, which lead to the territory being divided between Eastern Ostrogoths and Western Visigoths.

    When the Huns came in the Black Sea steppes, the Goths were crushed, the Ostrogoth joined the Horde, while the Visigoths took refuge in the Roman ruled territory. They asked for protection by the same Roman Empire (its Eastern/Byzantine part), which they raided and ransacked for generations. Things didn’t go well, with Romans understandably abusing and mistreating the Gothic refugees. The Goths revolted and the Byzantine sent them West into the Latin part where the Goths became the military elite in a couple of generations and finally replaced the last Latin Roman Emperor with their own King Odoacer. The Byzantine recognized Odoacer as the King of Italy, while he himself recognized the Byzantine as his nominal imperial superiors and the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantinople definitely overshadowed Rome.

    During all that time (4-5 generations) the Antes (proto Slavs) lived under the Hunnic dominance. They were among the Hunnic Hirdes, along Turkic, Ugric, Eastern Germanic tribes. When the somewhat unified Hunnic empire got replaced by the competing Turks, the Slavs got influenced by the Turkic culture to some extent. By the sixth century, under the Avar dominance, the Slavs expanded and settled large territories in the former Roman and Byzantine realm. Under the Hunnic and Turkic influence the Slavs, peaceful and weak under the Goths, transformed into the “accursed ” warlike tribes described by the Byzantine historians, plundering Byzantine Empire and settling its territories.

    This doesn’t mean that some Balto-Slav did not move west along the Vandals, but the main Slav expansion happened under the influence and outright rule of the Steppe nomad dynasties.

  253. Me asking (wouldn’t have bothered without doing rudimentary research) is because I still haven’t decided to go into crypto just yet.

    As long as that remains the case, I’d strongly recommend exclusively DCA-style investment.

    Clearly you don’t think much of Litecoin?

    In the long-term, it’s a shitcoin that will continue to inexorably devalue against Bitcoin.

    In the short-term, I think it will continue to do well, as the Robinhood normies who aped into Doge lose interest in it and swing to the limited number of other coins available to them on that platform.

    https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1383102696157290500

  254. Gerard1234 says

    And if you actually spoke Ukrainian you would spell it as “peremoha” not “peremoga.” Is “peremoga” your alleged “Lviv dialect”, that you claim to speak because you lived there until you were 4 years old?

    HAHAHAHA!! The idea of you, f**ked in the head loser who has repeatedly been proven to not be able to speak “Ukrainian”, attempting to write on how to say “peremoga” – a word you have probably learned from myself or Mr Hack – is obscene in the extreme.

    Thats as dumb as saying Americans should write “antie”, where English write “anti” for the same word of “anti” you stupid prick. Or with the pronounciation of Porsche and several other things.

    In reality, an actual Ukrainian who can speak and write in English, irrelevant of how high deranged and svidomy, who actually spoke the language would not even think to correct him or think of having “exposed” AnonFromTN for writing peremoga. LOL. That’s how much of a fake, and disturbed idiot you are.

    For obvious reasons , перемога is used far more often by Russians, ironically taking the piss out of Ukraine, then it is by actual Banderatards. It’s as clear an example outside of southern Russians of a dialectic difference not a language “difference” as there is you stupid retard. And that’s before getting into the obvious logical flaw of applying the Kiev/Kyiv BS in this.

    BTW – any more fake photos from Budapest, where you cant even lie credibly?

    My apologies – such is your BS….was it Budapest in Mussouri?

  255. “Peremoga” and “zrada” are both traditional Russian words that that you would use in conversation around a classical Russian dinner of Russian borscht with Russian salo. 🙂

    Anyhow, on a less trollish note, AnonFromTN’s usage of peremoga doesn’t demonstrate anything. It is how it is used in Russian online discourse, and for that matter also how I transliterate it on this blog. While I don’t think the Russian normie knows “peremoga” or “zrada”, most politically-inclined Internet users do.

    There’s even quite a popular blog with that name: http://peremogi.livejournal.com/

  256. AltanBakshi says

    It’s extremely sad that because of godless Bolsheviks we have lost such men like AP and Mr. Hack, in a normal and healthy world they would be Russian imperialists like any other good God fearing East Slav, but because of murderers of Christ, they have lost their natural disposition and spirit. Also with AP there is the devilish popery playing it’s part. After all Pope acted against the Christ’s command by trying to gain worldly authority, which belongs to Caesar and state, not to Church. As Christ said:
    “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Matthew 22:21

    Roman bishop’s lust of earthly power is what created the schism and laid the ground for later heresies, that lust and and pride is the very root reason for all modern heresies.

    In matters of spirit AP’s and Mr Hack’s heart is in right place, but in matters of politics it’s abhorrent and blasphemous that they support such godless and anti-spiritual regime as that of the US of America. Once Americans were extreme heretics, now they are the very antithesis of true tradition and spirituality. Wake Up AP and Mr. Hack, the power you are rooting for is pure evil and worldly manifestation of the enemy of the soul!

    Ó κοσμος, ή σαρξ, και ό διαβολος is most close description of USA and her infernal might!

    Mr. Hack, if Karlin is right that only 1/3 of SR were on the side of Soviets, it means that October Revolution represented democratically about 35%~ of Russians, this it’s not so far from the 40% of Ukrainians ‘officially’ supporting the revolution of dignity(whoredom).

  257. Any idea why anybody in Salzburg would give the appellation “King of the Ruthenes” (and at the very beginning of his patrimony, at that) on a bronze plaque to a historical figure who lived in the 5th century? It does sound contrived and bizarre, especially since we know that the Rus didn’t appear alongside the Slavs until the late 8th early 9th centuries? I know that the Zakarpatyan Rusyns get a big kick out of bandying around his name when discussing their lineage and evolution and his name actually was mentioned when Hetman Khmelniysky was eulogized.

    BTW, the way that you describe the history of the Goths and the Huns and their incursions into a large swath of Europe is pretty much the way that I remember it told by the very excllent historian Otto J Maenchen-Helfenin within his wonderful account in “the World of the Huns”. I picked up a first edition of this book and read it about 20 years ago. The nice thing about getting older is that your personal library evolves with many good books. The bad thing is that you start to forget the content of each book. I guess that’s one of the reasons that they invented writing, so that you can go back and reread whatever you may have forgot. 🙂

    https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51+yWvmUVVL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

  258. Please, don’t try and sell me on the “greatness of bolshevism” for in the final analysis it was a stupid and evil system. If it were so good, why did it fall apart internally in 1991?

    Every system has its plusses and minuses. The US system has been good to me and America is a beautiful country. There are a lot of crazy things going on at this time (everywhere, not just in the US), hopefully it can change for the better in the future. If it all becomes too crazy, it’ll end and a new earth will be created out of the old, so don’t worry too much. I’m pretty sure that for you, a Buddhist, it’s nothing to worry about too.

  259. AnonfromTN says

    It is really funny what “Ukrainians” who never lived in Ukraine believe. In Ukrainian the word “victory” is “перемога”, not “перемоха”. Only someone who is a Ukrainian to the same extent that I am a Martian can assert that fricative “g” that the letter “г” stands for (a sound specific for Ukrainian, surzhik, and Southern Russian) should be transliterated as “h”, not “g”. I will remember this excellent test: it distinguishes real Ukrainians from fake ones without fail.

  260. Ah, you’re back with your high jinx and humor spiel. If your concert piano routine fizzles out, you should seriously consider doing stand up comedy. You’re a natural! 🙂

    You can’t really be this obnoxious, in real life? 🙂

    https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f5/3f/9d/f53f9dc304765e8747c405acb2702422–ww-posters-school-posters.jpg

    Gerard fighting for the Motherland!

  261. AnonfromTN says

    the speed of retreat was amazing

    Yea, in terms of the speed of running away from the enemy they can easily compete with Arab armies in 1968. They have a good chance of winning and being listed in Guinness book of records. That would be yet another “peremoga”, Ukie-stile.

  262. AltanBakshi says

    Please, don’t try and sell me on the “greatness of bolshevism” for in the final analysis it was a stupid and evil system. If it were so good, why did it fall apart internally in 1991?

    Now I’m utterly confused. I meant totally opposite what you think, I was mocking the godless Soviet system, not promoting it.

    The US system has been good to ME and America is a beautiful country.

    Ha, but has it been good to Christ and Holy Ghost? Or is the devil and slave to mortal pleasures speaking through you? Think Mr. Hack, think well and think carefully.

  263. Bashibuzuk says

    You are asking a very good question. The modern historical narrative about Slavs / Rus was only defined around the eighteen century. Before, other narratives prevailed, both in Slavdom/Rus lands and in Western Europe.

    An example being Saint Olga being described in contemporary Medieval chronicles as the “Queen of Rugians “, the Rugians or Rugii are nowadays thought as a Germanic tribe which inhabited the island of Rügen before the Wendish colonisation. The Wends supposedly arrived at Rügen after the Migration period and settled it. The Germanic Rugii themselves supposedly followed other Germanic tribes during their migration to the West and colonisation of the Latin Roman Empire. They ended up settling in Noricum in modern day Austria.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugii

    At first glance, it is obvious that Saint Olga had nothing to do with the Rügen. But we actually don’t know. Rügen was an important pagan religious center from times immemorial. It was possibly already an important holy site for Wends and their Germanic and Norse neighbors before the Migration period. I already wrote about that. What if the origins of Saint Olga were somewhat connected to the Wendish dynasty ruling there? And what if in fact the Ruyane (Wendish tribe living in the island in the Saint Olga times) were not Slavs, but a remnant of the same Rugians of the Migration period, but acculturated into Slavic ways and ruled by a mixed Norse / Balto-Slavic Varangian elite?

    https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B5

    Why do I mention Rügen again and connect it to Olga of Kiev? Simply to show that Medieval chronicles contain information that we cannot neither confirm, nor negate. We simply cannot know today.

    About Rugians again: Innocent Giesel, the Rector of the Mohyla Academy and the head of Kiev Peshherskaya Lavra, writes in his Synopsis of Rus history, the first book about the history of all Rus lands, that the Slav origins are to be found along the Danube and into Noricum. And that among the first Slavs were the Norici. But modern view is that the inhabitants of Noricum before the Rugian conquest were Romanized Celts (Vlakhs). The same Innocent Giesel writes that the Slav lost these territories and progressively moved to the North-East, towards the Baltic sea and the Ruthenian lands. Giiesel was himself a Prussian convert to Orthodox Christianity. He was born in former Balto-Slav lands, parts of which were still ruled by the House of Niklot, the germanized Wendish noble family that is today among the oldest in Europe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Mecklenburg

    But Noricum was where the Rugians supposedly ended up during the Migration period. And the Noricum Rugians were indeed the nominal subjects of the Odoacer and the Gothic elites in the former Latin Roman Empire. Perhaps the Ruyane/ Rugians/ Ruthenians/Rus were somewhat connected? Perhaps they have never been an Eastern Germanic tribe to begin with? Maybe they were a Balto-Slav tribe which joined its Germanic neighbors in their movement to the West? Just like some Wends possibly joined the Saxons during their conquest of England. These people lived side by side for centuries, they knew each other very well, fought each other, made peace, traded with each other and their elites intermarried. They had a similar religion.

    https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA_(%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D0%B0)

    (Notice that this region was among those settled by the Veneti, the supposedly Celtic tribe which controlled the amber trade from the Baltic to France. Veneti is suspiciously close to Wends / Weneds as the Germans named their Balto-Slavic neighbors).

    Who was Germanic, and who was Balto-Slav back then we cannot possibly know today. Too much information was lost. Too much history was recorded wrong, erased and manipulated for religious, nationalist and political motives. We must look after Archeology and Y haplogroups if we want to try to have a vision of this remote past.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague-Korchak_culture

    Here is the culture that was most probably Slavic in the 5th and 6th century AD.

    But even there Slavs coexisted with Vlakhs and Germans.

    https://indo-european.eu/2021/02/germanic-runes-in-the-prague-type-pottery-culture/

    So at the time of Odoacer, Slavs (or Rugii, or Rani or Ruthenians ?) lived in these regions and sometimes used Germanic runes to write. Which fits neatly with the Saint Cyril and Methodius witnessing that Slavs had a form of writing. But we have been taught that prior to the Glagolithic and Cyrillic our ancestors had no writing at all.

    Another example why the official history is not to be trusted.

    History is a well organized and thoroughly rationalized mythology.

  264. Ha, but has it been good to Christ and Holy Ghost? Or is the devil and slave to mortal pleasures speaking through you? Think Mr. Hack, think well and think carefully.

    A very good question that deserves to be answered. Unfortunately, I’m busy at the moment but will try to get back to you later today or perhaps by tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.

  265. “adopt obscurantist position” Listen Utu, don’t hide behind slogans. I read your analysis and responded that what you consider “negligible“, “slight” or a “flawed” study (Denmark), other more rational people see differently. AnonFromTn’s response was better than mine, and you didn’t address it. Your masks are useless in most situations, especially outside, and they shed fibers and restrict breathing. They are also a physical and mental torture with unknown consequences for the young and small children.

    You ignored my point: the impact on the young. Your flaccid response – something about your fading memories of the 60’s – was, to put it mildly, inadequate. Therefore I stand by my conclusion that you are willing to put your own generation’s comfort above the lives of young. I suggested either hypochondria or pure selfish evil by gerontocratic elderly. You have no response to that. You keep on hiding behind platitudes about “health” (a continuum by definition) and a selective usage of facts.

    I said repeatedly that for the old, fat and sick, isolating behind masks and vaccination makes sense. It makes no sense for people who are in no realistic danger and who need to live active lives. You are trying to enforce your own selfish preferences on the others by creating fear and panic. That is the definition of evil. Evil is always about controlling others – check out Bond flicks or Batman for cultural examples.

    Given your previous pro-Nazi statements here about Sudeten German murderers, I am not surprised. Next time, and it looks like there will next time, we should not go as easy on you. (Too bad we were so damn humane, but that’s why we always win.)

  266. and “Thanks”! It’s too bad that one can’t signify two good responses from the automatica menu. 🙂

  267. AltanBakshi says

    I hate it when people make too easily such far reaching and radical conclusions. It was perfectly normal in middle ages and in early modern era for kings to claim dubious titles. It was seen extremely prestigious if one could build a link with the people of ancient past. As example both kings of Denmark and Sweden claimed to be kings of the Goths, Sweden even had a minor diplomatic spat with Spain because of such claims, and funnily Swedish king not only claimed to be king of Goths, but also the king of Wends and Vandals!

    Though Swedes had a good case of being the king of the Goths, both Götaland and Gotland have an etymological connection with Goths, and those lands were probably their original homelands.

    Then there were numerous silly theories how that and this European nation was descended from such and such Biblical or Homeric figure. Only a simpleton would take most of those claims seriously.

  268. …Polls were conducted during Maidan and they don’t contradict election data. Numbers for Russia come from the 1917 elections.

    People supported Maidan for all kinds of reasons – not all wanted what has followed. I know two pro-Maidan people who left Ukraine who are now against it. There is nuance in snapshot numbers. If you asked me in January 2014 if I sympathised w Maidan (and I am only an observer) I would say “Yes”. In the elections after the choices have been restricted – you need to account for that. Plus, seemingly a lot of people voted twice for candidates who lied and deceivedin order to get elected – the infamous Zelenko “peace” candidacy, etc…

    In 1917, how do you assign the massive SR vote? The peasants? Who knows how many supported a violent revolution? If Bolshies got 25%, plus all the malcontents among the others, they had a de facto plurality – that’s why they won the civil war.

    1917 and Maidan were about equally popular and that was enough. If you want examples of similar massive support for demonstrations like on Maidan in the last few years: Catalonia, Hongkong, anti-war demos in London, last few years in US, etc…it happens all the time, there is no magic there. People can be deceived or suppressed.

  269. The Right SRs (2/3 of the Socialist-Revolutionaries) denounced the Bolshevik takeover as a coup and supported the Whites in the Civil War.

    In what world is it a mystery where to “assign” them?

  270. AltanBakshi says

    What about anarchists and greens? I’ve understood that in the beginning of civil war anarchists had quite good relations with Soviets. I’m not sure about greens, later of course greens were extremely hostile against reds. Then one should also not forget those former Czarist officers and soldiers who had become supportive of Bolsheviks after the October Revolution.

  271. Heard that if you are listening to ’80s pop or rock music on Youtube, it will start playing rap, just like it starts playing Jordan Peterson videos.

    Cannot confirm, if it is true or not.

  272. And how do you know that “2/3 of the Socialist-Revolutionaries” voters did the same?

    Revolutions and unrest are a messy affair. People vote, denounce, fight, change sides…they often don’t know from day to day where they stand. Half of Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg also denounced the Bolshie takeover…you are trying to retroactively assign clarity. There was no clarity.

    We know for sure that the Bolshies or Maidan had sufficient focused support to prevail, that’s all we know. How many precisely on each day? I will leave that to the autistic crowd and what-if history enthusiasts.

  273. Once, when I was a kid, we got this terrible snow storm and they cancelled school in advance of the storm, for two days. And it was very surprising to me because – even though snow days are usually made up – the culture of black slatism demands the presence of kids in schools and the counting of every minute, and usually these determinations were made at the last possible minute.

    Anyway, now, at least in some urban districts, they are cancelling school days in advance of the Chauvin verdict, anticipating riots. I’m not sure if it has ever been done before.

    But it is an interesting reflection how racial riots in the US seem to be a given now, treated like meteorological events. Maybe, the Weather Bureau should start predicting them. Or the calmer periods between them, when it would use seasonal clues to generate a rape/mugging index, to warn suburbanites commuting into the city of their danger.

  274. Bashibuzuk says

    I think you haven’t grasped the thrust of the argument here. I don’t write that Ruthenians, Rugians and Rossomans were the same population. I wrote that we have no truly reliable historical information about the barbarian populations of the Migration period with the notable exception of Jordanes Getica and a few Byzantine historical records. When we look at these records and earlier still, we find many movements of different people that are more or less assigned to different vague categories. When we analyze Archeology and ancient DNA we find that many of these categories were dubious at best.

    History is a narrative, not a hard science. It is a socially accepted, useful and rationalized mythology.

    Just take a look at the twentieth century, the different historical interpretations, outright re-writing and mythologization of relatively recent events. Imagine 1500 years ago.

    But if you prefer believing that I am a simpleton, so be it. I don’t really care about anyone’s appreciation. It took me some two dozen years of reading and thinking to get where I stand on historical metanarrative. Therefore, I don’t expect someone who doesn’t even take the time to read the links I provide to agree with me on anything.

    People need some certainty in our illusive world and crazy times, some find it in the past, others projet it towards the future. Few have it in the here and now.

  275. People supported Maidan for all kinds of reasons – not all wanted what has followed. I know two pro-Maidan people who left Ukraine who are now against it. There is nuance in snapshot numbers. If you asked me in January 2014 if I sympathised w Maidan (and I am only an observer) I would say “Yes”. In the elections after the choices have been restricted – you need to account for that

    I had mentioned the election data from 2012, when Yanukovich was in charge. If there was anything fishy about that, it would have been against the pro-Western parties.

    So both polling data during Maidan and elections before Maidan are consistent in pointing to widespread support for Maidan.

    In 1917, how do you assign the massive SR vote? The peasants? Who knows how many supported a violent revolution?

    To the SR party, not the Bolshevik Party. The same SR party that for the most part would fight against the Bolsheviks.

    If Bolshies got 25%, plus all the malcontents among the others, they had a de facto plurality – that’s why they won the civil war.

    The usual dishonesty or ignorance from you. They won the civil war not due to plurality of popular support but due to better organization, centralized command, out-of-the-box thinking with regards to ruthlessness and carnage, etc. It was a violent minority takeover, not a popular revolution. This is why it took about 4 years and cost so many lives.

    Maidan, in contrast, was a popular revolution in half the country (including the center and capital) that took hold quickly and fairly bloodlessly, with the loss of fringe territories where it was strongly opposed.

  276. You were caught lying (as usual) and now hide behind ambiguity. But you slip further:

    Half of Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg also denounced the Bolshie takeover

    If true, this would make the October Revolution even less of a popular revolt with mass support.

    We know for sure that the Bolshies or Maidan had sufficient focused support to prevail, that’s all we know

    A lie, because we know much more. We know that it took much time and corpses for Bolsheviks to impose their rule upon the unwilling country, whereas the Maidan revolution involved the new government establishing itself quickly and bloodlessly (despite having no army, and only a few thousand volunteers) over all the country except the Russian-inhabited fringes. To an honest person, this would indicate that Maidan was much more popular in Ukraine, than the Bolsheviks were in Russia. But you are not an honest person, Beckow.

  277. Putin does not accept that Ukraine exists as a state (he said this in 2014 at G7 before the war in Donbass started) so as far as current Russian leadership is concerned, natural borders to permanently shut the door on Nato are up for grabs. In a way they were not in 2014, the armed forces are now ready for a proper war in Ukraine, if he does not use it now the capability–and his will to use the capability–will be lost. I think this is a double bluff, Russia is leaving the artillery dispositions until last, because that will be the give-away. I feel history is repeating itself because the West is not paying attention, but Putin is serious. No one wants to fight Russia over a bit of Ukraine anyway. There will be a conventional attack with massive firepower that will drive along the coast to the Dniester and humiliate Ukraine. Putin needs to do it before he leaves office, no successor would have the decisiveness.

  278. AltanBakshi says

    But if you prefer believing that I am a simpleton, so be it.

    “Then there were numerous silly theories how that and this European nation was descended from such and such Biblical or Homeric figure. Only a simpleton would take most of those claims seriously.”

    Maybe I have not been clear enough, but then I’ve had more than couple glasses… Well, lately the nature has been so beautiful, I even saw an adder today during my walk through meadows and forest, or maybe it was just a grassnake? Did you know that ancient Balts and Finns revered snakes?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDaltys

    Sadly there is very little information about this eccentric tradition in English. Even in the 18th century Finns and Lithuanians had a close relationship with snakes. What a barbarian custom, resembles the Naga cults of Dravidas of Southern India.

    It seems to me that ancient Mother Earth(Gaia, Prithvi) centered fertility cults worshipped snakes, but archetypical Sky Father centered cults seemed to hate furiously snakes. Like Indra or Thor defeating the great serpent, or how Garudas(eagles) of Vedic and Buddhist mythology, often enjoy killing of snakes.

    Oh well in our harmonious Dharma both have their place. Snake hunting Garudas and mighty serpents and dragons.

    But still it’s exceedingly odd that old tales tell how Buddha entrusted Prajnaparamita teachings to king of Nagas, and after five centuries of Blessed One’s passing Nagarjuna retrieved those holy teachings from the land of Nagas.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Nagardjuna.jpg/768px-Nagardjuna.jpg

    Arya Nagarjuna’s statue in Elista, Kalmykia, Russia, he’s often depicted with snakes, like the Hellenic god of medicine, Asklepios.

  279. More drama as Czech officials said this evening that they intend to expel 18 Russian diplomats, with Prague alleging that "Russian intelligence officers" were involved in a munitions depot blast, near the border with Slovakia, back in 2014.https://t.co/zHVvZahGbG— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) April 17, 2021

    Czech police is looking for Petrov and Boshirov in connection with warehouse explosion back in 2014.

    It was likely masterminded by Nash Van Drake, Skripals’ cat. Which is why he had to be put down by MI6.

  280. Morton's toes says

    Leaving youtube toggled to autoplay is a user error. It is one of those errors where it is easy to learn by one happening to never make that one again. Unlike loaning your girlfriend money which guys seem to need to repeat 3 or 4 times before they learn to quit it.

  281. Bashibuzuk says

    Sadly there is very little information about this eccentric tradition in English. Even in the 18th century Finns and Lithuanians had a close relationship with snakes. What a barbarian custom, resembles the Naga cults of Dravidas of Southern India.

    When my grandmother was a young child, in a small village near Penza, they used to feed the grass snakes by leaving them some milk outside the house in the evening, having grass snakes around the house was seen as good fortune. She told me that a quite long grass snake used to come from a nearby pond and drink the milk while kids watched.

    Penza population was mixed: Mordvinian, Russian and Tatar villages often were located relatively close to each other. The village of my grandmother was Russian, but I have no idea what was her older brothers Y haplogroups. It is now impossible to know, they died in the second world war without leaving children.

    Also Bazhov had a fairy tale about the Great Serpent (Velikyi Poloz), some of the Bazhov’s Ural’skyie Skazy might have had Uralic roots.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Snake

    https://nukadeti.ru/content/images/static/tale400x400/1817_700.jpg

  282. AltanBakshi says

    Eh, Bolsheviks had quite a bit different situation at their hands, you know an ancient multi ethnic empire midst of the greatest war ever known to a man, thousands of kilometers of frontline going through whole Eastern Europe and over the Black sea to Turkey and Iran, a huge imperial army collapsing, three Great powers attacking and occupying vast swathes of most productive lands of Russia, if leaders of Maidan had even 10% of as bad situation militarily and politically as Bolsheviks had in the late 1917, there would be no Ukraine now.

  283. Looks like the Czechs were emboldened by the Poles’ deep lick. Russia needs to completely cut diplomatic relations with Czechia.

    Limitrophic chutzpah reaches new peaks everyday.

  284. sher singh says

    Fat Karlin, took months to listen to my diet advice why should this be any dif?

    https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/778320724842512395/833090777231523881/share1618694688108.jpg

    I’ll Great Bi-Furcate ur bund, fgt. 😀

  285. We know you are some kind of Balkanoid idiot, but the heavily outnumbered Ukrainian forces held on through several days of heavy shelling while surrounded on three sides. They probably should have withdrawn earlier. This was not like how an Arab army would behave.

    https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%BE%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5_%D0%94%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0

    The rebel assault managed to kill more Donbas civilians during the conquest of in Debaltsevo (about 500) than they killed Ukrainian soldiers (just under 300). Something for you, a Serb, to celebrate.

  286. Was this with the copper mountain? My kids loved those charming stories. We bought charming Malachite items quite cheaply when visiting the Urals almost 20 years ago.

  287. Bolsheviks bad situation was mostly driven by their lack of popularity.

  288. And of course this story is being curated by our favorite Habsburg DJ.

    Apparently there was another “Novichok” poisoning in Bulgaria in 2015. We know it’s Novichok because of course the victim did not die.

    Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert, said the Finnish lab results were inconclusive, but suggested that Gebrev was probably poisoned with a pesticide rather than a weapons-grade agent. “The toxicity of a pesticide compared to a nerve agent is minimal but still easily enough to cause death.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/18/i-almost-died-arms-dealers-poisoning-may-be-linked-to-skripals

    Novichok being your garden variety pesticide makes a lot if sense because nobody ever dies from it, just feels rather unpleasant. This also makes fabrications of “Putin is poisoning everyone!” very easy to conjure.

    Christo Grozev’s tilt is that Czechia warehouse was used to store Bulgarian weapons destined for Ukraine. Maybe. But the Atlantic Council says Bulgaria started weapons sales to Ukraine in 2015.

    https://globalsecurityreview.com/bulgarian-and-american-lethal-weapons-enter-ukraine/

    So blowing up a warehouse preemptively is very strange – you had no idea where those weapons were going in 2014, since they were only sold in 2015, if Ukraine is the buyer.

    However, in 2014, Timber Sycamore was going in full swing. US and Saudi were shipping tons of weapons from Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czechia etc) to Syrian jihadists. That timing makes a lot more sense.

    Christo Grozev is a fascinating person. 🙂

    https://wikitia.com/wiki/Christo_Grozev

    He is like a World War I Austro-Hungarian general raising Czechoslovak Legions to go into Russia. World War I never ended.

  289. I always imagine that, at any given moment, there is some unfortunate soul who has been tied up by burglars with 10 hours of Jordan Peterson automatically queued and playing.

    Another common prole mistake that really amazes me is when people get Microsoft Works instead of using LibreOffice. Or still use Google search, or don’t use Brave browser, which conveniently blocks the ads on youtube. This is not high-level stuff.

  290. As the water rises and reaches your neck, your hatred grows and grows. Take your pills buddy, or go for a walk, this can’t be good for you.

    St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee was evenly divided in October 2017 whether seizing power was the way to go. Lenin only prevailed by cajoling, threatening, etc… This is very well documented, read a book, maybe that would help. Whether the rank-and-file Bolshies were also divided we have no way of knowing precisely – given their leadership split, it is very likely. People are like that.

    Regarding Maidan: Ukraine’s premier province, Crimea, the jewell of the country, immediately and bloodlessly seceded. In the east a civil war started. Given that in 2014 people don’t starve, there is no massive discontent – life is good and people are well fed – that is pretty damning. In 1917 a massive war with tens of millions of casualties, hunger and poverty, generations of accumulated anger – are you seriously so dense that you don’t see that those are completely different situations?

    I suspect that partial autism is not your biggest issue.

  291. In Ukrainian the word “victory” is “перемога”, not “перемоха”.

    Yes. And the Ukrainian г becomes “h” in English, while x becomes “Kh.” As in Kharkiv. Not Harkiv.

    However you turned Ukrainian г into “g”, as if it was a Russian г.

    “G’ sound is rare in Ukrainian – it is the letter Ґ.

    Thanks for confirming that you are a deracinated Donbasser.

  292. There are deep divisions in Czechia about it: the oligarch prime minister Babis is trying to play both sides – elections are coming. Prague institutions-media are dominated by intellectual sell-outs earning their keep and many are also genuine haters – something in the water in Prague that makes the locals both uppity and servile at the same time. President Zeman is level-headed, but he is too old and isolated.

    Czechs don’t rock the boat. You ask for a favor, they will oblige. They even have a term for it “malo-cesi” – small-mindedness. On the bright side, they usually prefer to survive, so unlike the Poles I don’t see them joining this fight.

  293. I know. If he were a monolingual Russian speaker I wouldn’t have said anything. But he made a mistake a Ukrainian-speaker shouldn’t have made. What next, turning pyvo into pivo?

  294. “deracinated”

    Oh, the knives are out: race, blood. May I suggest that your sick quasi-Nazi-like fantasies are not the way to win an argument. We can almost measure the level of Ukie desperation by your over-the-top language.

    Basically you went for “deracinated” because Kiev was just abandoned. Nobody will fight for them and that is fatal in that neighbourhood. West is unwilling to die for you, and Russia doesn’t want to kill too many of you. Not yet.

    Where the hell do you think this is going? I told you for years to take the Minsk-autonomy deal – it was a gift. I suspect it is no longer on the table.

  295. Bashibuzuk says

    Nobody will fight for them and that is fatal in that neighbourhood.

    There were people willing to fight for Kosovo. Ukraine is more important. I wouldn’t write off a NATO involvement in the conflict. Perhaps Poles are (as usual) ready to fight the Moscovites in Ukraine. I think we waited enough for a WWW3, let’s just have it already. It would be classic if it involved Poland…

  296. Brás Cubas says

    Regarding Greenwald:

    (1) I don’t think Greenwald is getting “based” or anything like that. Karlin, as any other person in a situation of intellectual marginalization, grabs at any minimal straw of perceived sympathy or affinity to build hope. That is not bad in itself; it may be psychologically nurturing. Beware of future disappointments, though. Greenwald seems to be a very methodical thinker which abides religiously by his principles of freedom of expression and respect for adversaries. In this case, the persons he “engaged” with seem to be in the civilized side of the Right, so I don’t see a reason he should not be engaging with them in matters of shared interests.

    (2) Because he lives in Brazil, it is important to remind people that the Left in Brazil, and this includes both the party to which Greenwald’s “husband” belongs and the Intercept webzine which Greenwald headed until recently, have been very vocal in fighting against tougher laws against crime in Brazil; they are virtually identical in ideology to the “Defund the Police” crowd which is now plaguing the U.S.. I cheer every time one of these Leftists personally experience the results of the ideology that they themselves promote incessantly. Notice how Greenwald characterizes his assailants as “desperate”. This is a rhetorical device which aims to dismiss any notion that the kind of criminal act he has suffered is a routine occurrence in Brazil. Notice also how he implicitly blames the misery caused by the pandemic on the alleged “despair” of the perpetrators.

    (3) This has very little to do with the matters laid out above, and is probably of no importance, but it may be of interest to students of human behavior. Greenwald was once the publisher of a magazine of homosexual pornography. When he was asked in an interview what he had to say about his involvement in that kind of business, he replied that he didn’t have any problem with that because he never set out to be someone who caters to family values and that kind of thing (this is just from memory, possibly not his exact words). Now, in that article about the robbery and in previous occasions as well, his attitude is that of a stereotypical paterfamilias, displaying anguished emotions about his adoptive sons and so on.

  297. Bashibuzuk says

    The Czech displaying self-serving duplicity. How innovative and original (Sarc.).

  298. Zubrin estimates 20 refills necessary to get Starship to the Moon and back. (That’s with 100 tons of cargo.) Maybe, that’s a bit pessimistic but call it 15, and it still does seem a bit crazy.

    Also, there is the problem of not having a landing pad on the moon.

  299. Lol Ukraine weapons shipments. Sure sure.

    Meanwhile, the blame game has intensified. The Czech army rented the site to a private firm, Imex Group, in 2011. Finance Minister Andrej Babiš says this should have never happened. Speaking to Czech TV on Sunday, Mr Babiš suggested the company had had similar problems in the past.

    “The firm exported ammunitions to Bulgaria where it also exploded. The owner of the firm allegedly visited the site the night before the first blast.

    https://english.radio.cz/locals-arms-over-repeated-evacuations-near-munitions-depot-8275496

    Yeah, 2011 is so totally about Ukraine. Was Imex Group corporate motto “We came we saw he died” by any chance?

    So who is this Imex Group that sells guns in Europe and got a sudden inexplicable urge for extra rental space just as certain colonel was getting raped and murdered in Libya?

    http://www.imexgroup.cz/index.php/cs/

    This website looks totally legit and not shady at all. I so want to buy a rocket launcher from them. And yes, they are active, last corporate papers are as of September 2020.

    https://rejstrik-firem.kurzy.cz/25829050/imex-group-sro/

    Lol.

    This smells Timber Sycamore CIA cutout to run guns to Syria jihadists. Not even Ukrainians would deal in something this shady. And they were so incompetent blowing themselves up was routine.

    But sure, blame Petrov and Bashirov for CIA asset incompetence. It’s all the Skripal Cat plot I’m telling you.

  300. Such is life at the bottom of a gravity well. Throwing stuff up the well is hard. Throwing stuff down is easier. This will have military and social consequences for future space colonies.

  301. Gerard1234 says

    LOL- get caught further as a lying autistic POS…… so you continue the sociopathic BS, extracting falsely placed extreme pedanticism and reinforcing it with zero knowledge.

    It’s not “Ukrainian” Г and Russian Г you dumb prick…… its the same Г. As you know nothing and can shamelessly continue to BS for hours it should be pointed that the most similar to the English “h” phonetically is the “kh” sound you idiot. Try to get a Ukrainian to say “Adolph Hitler” in the way it is heard in English is only possible if you show him the kh/X, just as with Russian.
    Anon mentioning the word fricative should have ended the matter (as should the Г into “zh” for all motion nouns involving it in Russian…. just as in “Ukrainian” LOL) …. but we are dealing with a nut job here.

    Because some dickhead in Winnipeg has arbitrarily decided to make it Kharkov/iv in place of Harkov when giving some attempted English translation of ukrop place names….. is irrelevant when we are talking about phonetics on identical words.

    As I have said before, if you lost your anonymity on here, it’s certain human garbage as you would commit suicide

    You could have the Ukrop Foreign Minister commenting on here….. and even he would be disassociating himself from your fantasist, instantaneous BS on peremoga. An actual Banderetard,not fantasist pretending to be Polish on other forums would simply not choose that ridiculous argument.

  302. Involvement sure, but Nato will not fight. Look at what just happened: even the idea of an actual war led to collective-Biden’s series of random threats, withdrawals, denials, offers, a chaotic response whose only clear message was: “under no circumstances start a war in Donbass-Ukraine“.

    First of all, West doesn’t actually fight. They know how to bomb, arm local allies, and then swoop in establish occupation bases. (They only bombed in Kosovo.) That will not work in Ukraine, the other side – Russia, Donbass – is too strong, also has planes and missiles. They are also logistically right there.

    Biden blinked very fast, so no WWIII unless some set of unplanned events makes it happen inadvertently. My point is that doesn’t leave Kiev with any good options. They can’t win a war, there won’t be Western cavalry riding in, they blew the negotiations, and with time things will only get worse. I think that’s why the poor AP is so apoplectic – he senses the shift. By the way, the only thing keeping Ukraine from getting steamrolled is Russia’s obvious and understandable reluctance to kill Ukrainians.

    My summary is: West doesn’t want to die for Ukraine and Russia doesn’t really want to kill Ukrainians. An odd stalemate.

  303. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    As long as that remains the case, I’d strongly recommend exclusively DCA-style investment.

    Of course.

    Your spread recommendation seems good and I’m familiar with what DCA is.

    I’m just not really sure I have the discipline or can be bothered to specifically DCA over 24 months (I did some DCA with some stocks already, but only over an interval of several weeks/ a few months instead), although if it’s extremely important to do so over a 24 month timeline as you state, then I’ll definitely do it that way.

    Btw, can’t wait for your upcoming Crypto and Great Bifurcation articles 🙂

  304. TheTotallyAnonymous says

    Almost forgot to respond to this one.

    That’s basically the modern equivalent of showcasing the skulls of dead Armenians, although that would probably be a bit too much in this day and age.

    Anyway, Armenian soft-power is considerably superior to that of Azeris.

    The best Azeri war music i could find, but it’s clear Armenian music is way better.

    Unfortunately for Armenians though, soft power is one of the most useless things to have in the Caucuses.

  305. “deracinated”

    Oh, the knives are out: race, blood.

    LOL, you have no clue what that word means. You are like the idiot who thought that the word niggardly was an anti-black slur.

    https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/deracinated

    forced to leave your natural social, cultural or geographical environment

    The French past participle, déraciné, literally “uprooted,” was used in English from 1921 in a sense of “uprooted from one’s national or social environment.”

    Donbas population are a deracinated mix of former Russians and Ukrainians. That’s not even my observation:

    https://www.unz.com/isteve/im-shocked-shocked-to-hear/#comment-757678

    “Donetsk is completely Soviet – deracinated, crappy industries”

    May I suggest that your sick quasi-Nazi-like fantasies

    Projection. Your Slovak ancestors may have been Nazi lackeys (your country even paid to transport your poor Jews to German death camps) while your parents were lackeys of the Soviets. Whose lackey are you? I suspect some Indian Brahmin in the tech industry. It’s why you hate Indians so much.

    You are getting desperate for some reason, getting all worked up about a word that you don’t even understand, and projecting your desperation onto me. Why?

    I said before that I don’t think that Ukraine will start a war. I may still be wrong about that, but odds are improving that I was right all along.

    Where the hell do you think this is going? I told you for years to take the Minsk-autonomy deal – it was a gift.

    That was the worst of all possible things. Best is to let Donbas go. Conquering it would be much worse. But Donbas within Ukraine with the Minsk conditions would be even worse than losing a war to Russia and losing additional territory.

  306. For the benefit of people like gerard, who don’t speak Ukrainian or Russian properly.

    it’s not “Ukrainian” Г and Russian Г you dumb prick…… its the same Г.

    In Ukrainian Г is pronounced “h” and in Russian this letter is pronounced “g.” The Ukrainian letter “g” is Ґ (i.e., ҐAHOK – porch).

    the most similar to the English “h” phonetically is the “kh”

    Ukrainian already has an English “H” – Г. The Ukrainian and Russian letter “X” is pronounced like German or Polish “ch.”

    Because some dickhead in Winnipeg has arbitrarily decided to make it Kharkov/iv in place of Harkov

    Have you forgotten Russian? I will have to give you a lesson.

    Russian cities Хабаровск and Хвалынск are Khabarovsk and Khvalynsk in English. Did Ukrainians in Winnipeg do that also?

    Is this like when you didn’t know the Russian word for watch?

    BTW have you found the place in Budapest where I took my picture yet? Here is the photo again, that I took from the terrace of one of the Hiltons there:

    https://i.imgur.com/NZ2gck4.jpg

    I mentioned it in 2019 before my trip:

    https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-73/#comment-3147189

  307. You were caught lying and now you resort to cheap insults. But you are being a bit useful now:

    St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee was evenly divided in October 2017 whether seizing power was the way to go. Lenin only prevailed by cajoling, threatening, etc

    So likelihood that the Bolshevik uprising was as popular as Maidan recedes further.

    Ukraine’s premier province, Crimea, the jewell of the country, immediately and bloodlessly seceded. In the east a civil war started.

    You do good when you repeat me. Fringe areas on the outskirts, not populated by Ukrainians, seceded with Russian help (without Russian help even this would not have amounted to anything in Donbas and perhaps not even inn Crimea). That was the only real opposition to Maidan. Maidan took hold with little bloodshed everywhere else.

    Given that in 2014 people don’t starve, there is no massive discontent – life is good and people are well fed – that is pretty damning. In 1917 a massive war with tens of millions of casualties, hunger and poverty, generations of accumulated anger

    And despite all that, Russians were still willing to fight to prevent the Bolshevik takeover (Bolsheviks used Latvians, hostages and conscription).

    are you seriously so dense that you don’t see that those are completely different situations

    In your denseness, you don’t yet see that the differences support my point, not yours.

    Say hello to your Hindu boss for me, lackey 🙂

  308. Yellowface Anon says

    What if they join the EU-wide vaccine passport program?

  309. AltanBakshi says

    You have a smart mind, but then Slovaks have much of Rusyn/Russian ancestry. When Kali Yuga will end, and the great Satan is defeated(or it collapses like USSR), it’s imperative that all West Slavs will be Russified, after all Russia’s natural southwestern border lies on Tatra mountains and Carpats. When such a happy eon will be upon us, the Poles are then welcome to adapt or walk on foot to steppes of Karaganda, ha ha ha!

    O what possibilities the inevitable decay and fall of America brings to us, Russia must only bide it’s time, and constantly maintain and improve it’s strategic reserve of nuclear arms. I must say that Biden and Blinken have been even funnier than even Trump himself. It’s a farce! But dialectically speaking farcical and tragicomedical self destruction of America is much better than going out in a glorious fight, if American ideas and ethos are debased, there will be no glory in America’s legacy, and their sick liberal ideas will never be rekindled. That’s why (Xi-jinping) the collapse of America is not enough, for only an utter humiliation and debasement of American civilisation is the salvation of mankind! In a war against demons ruthlessness is compassion, we must think what is best for humanity in the longer run! And perhaps, perhaps my beloved Europe will be reborn, freed from the clutches of nihilism, maybe then Germans will find their pride, French their conviction, Swedes their sincerity, Spanish their faith, Italians their youth, well we all know what the Serbs will find.. they’ll find a good time to start a great party all over former Yugoslavia, a joyous and great party that Russia must earnestly join in a spirit of merry brotherhood! What’s the population density of Turkey, isn’t Eastern Anatolia quite empty, especially nowadays when all Ottomans are moving to Istanbul and Izmir?

    Oh almost forgot, Ukrainians will then find out that time heals all wounds!

    https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/38213/148611/main-image

  310. Yellowface Anon says

    It’s long past the time when the whole thing was about epidemiological science.

  311. AltanBakshi says

    In Ukrainian Г is pronounced “h” and in Russian this letter is pronounced “g.” The Ukrainian letter “g” is Ґ (i.e., ҐAHOK – porch).

    Often Southern Russians pronounce Г as “h,” just like Ukrainians.

  312. Yellowface Anon says

    Buddhist Kali Yuga isn’t the Christian Eschaton or even the Hindu Kali Yuga. After the end of Buddhist Kali Yuga this world will cease to exist, and the yearnings of a few Rakshasas (羅剎國 in some Qing historical sources!) will not matter.

    True liberation is beyond this world for real Buddhists.

  313. Jennifer Kollmer (Curtis Yarvin’s late wife) died earlier this month.

    https://graymirror.substack.com/p/jennifer-kollmer-1971-2021

  314. AltanBakshi says

    Buddhist Kali Yuga isn’t the Christian Eschaton or even the Hindu Kali Yuga. After the end of Buddhist Kali Yuga this world will cease to exist, and the yearnings of a few Rakshasas (羅剎國 in some Qing historical sources!) will not matter.

    There is no ending of world in Buddhism in same sense as in Christianity, there has been countless of worlds and there will be countless of worlds, it’s true that this world will one day collapse unto itself, and there will be a time of conception, but such end will come only after passing of hundreds or maybe millions of mahakalpas(great aeons). Kali Yuga is only one period of time in the human history, it’s more of a collective psychological phenomenon, than a physical one, like seasons of the year. In Mahayana Buddhism there is no annihilation you fool, only change.

    Then there are the Three Ages of Dharma, which are only partially related with the Yugas and Kalpas. The time when Buddha’s teachings are pure, the time when they are mixed, and the time when they are disappearing.

    True liberation is beyond this world for real Buddhists.

    True liberation is beyond this world for Theravada Buddhists. In Mahayana the highest goal is the state of fully awakened Buddha, Samyaksambodhi, which is different from Nirvana, and according to Mahayana fully awakened Buddhas will spent all eternity in Samsara for the welfare of all sentient beings.

    The Buddhist Kali Yuga is intimately connected with the Hindu Kali Yuga. But in this topic silence is gold.

    It seems to me that you don’t know anything about Buddhism, in Mahayana only way to Buddhahood is by striving to perfect all one’s personal attributes, Paramitas, one can’t perfect them anywhere else, except here in our human world, that’s one of the reasons why a birth in the world of gods is an obstacle if one strives to attain the Buddhahood.

    Annihilationism is seen universally in Buddhism as an extreme heresy that binds one’s mind into Samsara, a belief that phenomena just disappear when they die or decay. But then you may ask, what happens to our vices and negative attributes on the road of Buddhahood? Are they not annihilated and destroyed? Metaphorically yes, but technically speaking they are transformed, just like one can make antidotes out of poison, similarly evil things can be good in a moderation or if properly employed in a right context. As an example suffering is horrible, but because we men suffer, we try to find a solution, if we would be like gods in their heavens, we would have no need to improve ourselves. Or anger, anger is very dangerous, but if we direct our anger away from people and against our weaknesses, then even an anger can be beneficial. Ha ha, a good lesson for me!

  315. Bashibuzuk says

    War would be very useful for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Nobody wants a war, but (perhaps) it is inevitable. And what is the best place to fight, if not the proverbial “killing fields” of Eastern Europe?

    The usual suspects are ready and locked, the troops are moving, the war drums are beating. If this goes for long enough, someone will shot some Archiduke, or have some convenient border incident.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1939/08/17/archives/3-border-incidents-polish-soldier-is-killed-by-danzig-guardsmen.html

    When one has stolen, embezzled and corrupted beyond the point of all repair, the best thing to do is to burn the place down and rebuild everything anew. All parties involved are corrupt beyond repair, they have all stolen and embezzled in gargantuan proportions. The whole world economy looks increasingly like a giant scam. Time for a hard reset, the pandemic is just not enough to reform global capitalism.

    And Slavs like to fight anyway, it comes naturally to them. They have often killed each other instead of uniting against their common enemies. They have this habit of acting in self defeating ways. Therefore, let them die (again) for the better interest of more “civilized” people, both Western and Oriental. (Sarc)

  316. Bashibuzuk says
  317. AltanBakshi says

    How the hell you are agreeing with Yelloface Anon’s comment #330?

    One can use Kali Yuga poetically and metaphorically, just like one can speak of “dark ages.” Anyway, Kali Yuga isn’t even a major concept in Chinese Mahayana, and among Buddhists it’s mostly only important to those who practice some Tantric systems. Show me a Dharmic text where it’s shown that “world will cease to exist” after the Kali Yuga.

    Or do you think that liberation, which in Mahayana is same as Buddhahood, is not found from this world?

  318. AltanBakshi says

    You would be right, if we would live in a world without nuclear weapons, but thanks to the bomb, there are limits how far a crisis can escalate. So don’t be so pessimistic!

    Slavic disunity is on the level of Bantus and Arabs, but such is life among people of colour, tribalism and petty ethnic quarreling, maybe one day Slavs will learn to be like civilised folks.

  319. Correct. And they also pronounce “o” as it is written, like Ukrainians do, rather than like “ah.” But in standard Russian it is “g.”

    Ukrainian has both “h” and “kh.” It is the difference between Hlib (the princely saint) and khlib (bread).

    German also has both. Does Czech also? English only has “h” while Russian only has “kh.”

  320. China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms says

    You may like this essay on Roman history—by a vastly knowledgeable conservative libertarian philosopher. Unrelated to Slavs, but gives a in depth account of Odoacer’s role in the last days Western Roman Empire.

    Another problem is with the “Fall” itself. No German chieftain sacked Rome or killed an emperor in 476. Instead, an officer in the army, Odoacer, Ὀδόακρος, who did happen to be German, deposed the commander of the army

    As it happened, Odoacer decided not to bother with a titular western emperor. He sent the imperial regalia back to Constantinople and informed the emperor that he would be content with his Roman military title and recognition as a German king. 

    Why would someone who outranked everyone be content to “serve” some weak, pathetic puppet emperor? The answer is simple enough: They were Germans. They were not Roman citizens. They were resident aliens. They could have all kinds of Roman titles. They could aspire to be recognized as German kings federated with Rome, but they were simply not qualified to be emperors

    but the statement that Odoacer and the Ostrogoths invaded Italy in 476 is false on its face, and the impression that they also sacked Rome is a deception. Odoacer effected, not an invasion or a sack, but a coup, since he was in the Roman Army. And his actions were in Ravenna, not Rome.

    https://friesian.com/decdenc1.htm

    The primary thesis being there was no „Fall of Rome“, but a transition/decline of Western Empire while the Eastern Empire flourished and even made a brief comeback to the West under Justinian. And amongst western historians there is a heavy bias against the Eastern Empire even in the connotation of the term „Byzantine“

  321. And amongst western historians there is a heavy bias against the Eastern Empire even in the connotation of the term „Byzantine“

    At certain periods. Not at the moment, I would say the opposite is mostly the case.

  322. Bashibuzuk says

    Rome was really ransacked by Vandals though, but only after the Vandals, Alans, Suebi and probably other “tribals” among them (they all came from the area where later Wends would thrive), went to live in North Africa where their Aryan non-Trinitarian Christianism got re-inforced and radicalized by the Donatism of the Romanized Berbers. Interestingly, the prince of the Vandals, who was to be betrothed to Eusebia – daughter of Theodesius II, was named Huneric.

    Also it was Belisarius’ war in Italy and North Africa, coupled with the Plague of Justinian, that definitely weakened the Latin Roman Empire and opened the doors to the Saracen invasions, ending the Antique Culture in most of South-eastern Mediterranean, while the Lombard gangs roamed the impoverished and dilapidated Italy.

  323. Sorry for the delay in getting back, but I’v returned to working in an office environment and my Saturdays are much busier than before.

    America was at one time much more of a “Christian nation” than it is today. This is primarily due to its catching up to Europe that has been considered post Christian for a very long time. There was a time, not that long ago, when the simple sermons of the American evangelist Billy Graham were heard around the world, influencing even zombie like Orthodox priests and even bishops in Russia to rekindle their passion and commitment to serving Jesus Christ. Sadly, he’s no longer with us and nobody has been able to fill his energic shoes and pursue his zeal and commitment.

    https://youtu.be/-dR2GylEhwg

  324. Bashibuzuk says

    Everyone knows that strategic nuclear weapons will probably never be used, but tactical nuclear weapons might help desinfect the area between the Dnieper and the Oder. When the radiation fades, in a few generations time, the fertile soils there would come handy. Old Europe would put them to a good use once their pesky inhabitants are reduced to a fraction of their current numbers. They are already slowly dying off, but the process is perhaps better accelerated. (Sarc.)

  325. China Japan and Korea Bromance of Three Kingdoms says

    Ah but by the logic of PRC historical narrative, Mongol, Manchu and Han are all part of Zhonghua Minzu 中华民族, and thus Dzungar Wars should be defined as an internal conflict between Zhonghua nation family, just like Yuan-Song and Ming-Qing wars.

    But if you broaden the definition of genocide to include intra-Chinese sub-ethnics then there are quite a few more

    This was quite a baleful instance. The Qin-Zhou War during Warring States
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping#Aftermath

    Arab sources claim that non-Chinese victims, including Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, numbered in tens of thousands
    by Huang Chao, a failed examination candidate from a wealthy salt trading family.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_massacre

    According to an assessment by a modern historian, “the death toll is reputed to have been enormous, possibly one million out of a total provincial population of three million, before he was eventually killed by the Manchus.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Xianzhong#Devastation_of_Sichuan

    The lesser know Nanjing „Incident“. Hunan Army’ sacking of Taiping capital, resulting in alleged massacre of 2-300,000. Nanjing and Hunan dialects are mutually unintelligible
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Nanking

    By CCP commies
    Numbers of civilian deaths have been estimated at around 150,000
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Changchun

    I’m not persuaded by the thesis that Chinese are genetically less warlike than Indo-Euros, since this obvious isn’t true for
    1. Altaics, which make up a large genetic component in North and Central China

    1. Japanese, who are genetically not dissimilar to Chinese but rather dwell in a much rugged environment

    But rather that
    1. There are moderating influences that give preference for intellectual over martial pursuits. Confucianism literally means “School of Scholar” or “School of Thought”

    1. The violence/aggression tends to be self-contained within Sinitic world-civilization
  326. There’s a plan to built one new nuclear reactor in the Czech Republic. US is trying to get rid of Russian competition, that’s the most simple explanation for all this circus. It would not be for the first time.

    In 2009 Czech Republic started a tender for two new reactors. There were offers from Westinghouse, Rosatom and Areva. Areva ignored the fixed price requirement and was kicked out. Russian offer was better, but this went against the ingrained lackeyish attitude of our politicians, so the decision was being postponed for years and years. Eventually our PM expressed careful preference for Rosatom’s offer. US embassy immediately dug out some kompromat (PM was completely dominated by his mistress, she had connections with organized crime), the government fell and the new interim government was happy to cancel the tender.

    There is even older precedent, from the 1990’s. There were two new blocks being built. After Velvet revolution the contract to finish them was handed over to Westinghouse. It was pure political decision – USA good, Russia bad.
    It ended with multi-year delay, massive budget overrun, frequent technical problems and contract for shitty fuel rods. At the same time Slovakia, not having enough money to show the endless loyalty to the new masters, continued to build their reactors according to the old plans. These reactors were finished in time, within budget and didn’t suffer subsequent technical problems.

    Our ruling elites always put obedience to a foreign overlord of the day above interest of the nation. This is a genetic trait of Czech politics for the last 150 years. The Emperor, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and now Brussels and Washington…

  327. In reply to AltanBakshi, comment #279.

  328. AnonfromTN says

    “deracinated”
    Oh, the knives are out: race, blood.

    No surprises here: people with primeval tribal mentality use this language because that’s their way of thinking (always assuming that what happens in their central nervous system deserves the term “thinking”). Despite their claims, I wouldn’t honor them with the term “Nazi”: they are way below that level in every way that matters.

  329. AltanBakshi says

    Ah but by the logic of PRC historical narrative, Mongol, Manchu and Han are all part of Zhonghua Minzu 中华民族, and thus Dzungar Wars should be defined as an internal conflict between Zhonghua nation family, just like Yuan-Song and Ming-Qing wars.

    I very much respect CPC having a good unified (imperial) narrative for the plebs, but still at the same time allowing other narratives among the more knowledgeable folks, as long as they don’t make too much noise.

    But if you believe that Dzungar wars were an internal Chinese conflict, even in Zhonghua sense, then you are a fool. Oirat Mongol is not mutually intelligible with proper descendants of Classical Mongolian, which are spoken in Buryatia, R of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, it’s quite different, simply said it belongs to another branch of Mongolic languages. Then more importantly Dzungars had their own state which was in war with the Great Qing, and their homelands had never been under a direct rule of Chinese dynasties, even Yuan had no control over Dzungaria, for it was ruled by Chagatai Khanate.

    I’m not persuaded by the thesis that Chinese are genetically less warlike than Indo-Euros, since this obvious isn’t true for

    Well everything is conditional, I would not take such claims seriously.

    Once There was a time when Tibetans were cannibal barbarians of mountains, tattooed and dressed in animal skins, they were more barbarian than the nomads of the steppes, but they were transformed by the power of Buddha.

    Once there was a time when people of Pakhtunwa were peace loving Buddhists, now they are probably most violent folks in our world, the famed Buddhist land of Oddiyana, current valley of Swat, is now the heartland of tribal Jihadists. We men are very malleable, unlike dumb beasts.

    It was the karma of Dzungars to die, they were Buddhists, but they fell into heresy of sectarianism, in Tibet they were destroying Nyingma and Bön monasteries and temples, even killing their holy men. Sectarianism has no place in Mahayana.

  330. Morton's toes says

    What people do not appreciate about Graham was that in his hay day he was kind of like Elvis Presley with the difference that he did pushups and pullups and crunches, not psych meds. Ladies like my grandma palpated visibly when watching him on TV.

    https://static.billygraham.org/sites/billygrahamlibrary.org/uploads/prod/2020/10/63-6738_edit_web-scaled.jpg

    This guy seems to be the current version:

    Have you seen those photos of Joel Osteen in a bathing suit? He is morphing into one of those plastic surgical frozen faces but 20 years ago he was the one in that niche.

  331. AnonfromTN says

    I don’t recall addressing that comment to you. Or asking your advice, either.

  332. Based Russia. If this actually goes forward and doesn’t get shut down, I will take back everything bad I ever said about Rogozin (which is not much really but still). The man will deserve a medal.

    Роскосмос» планирует в этом году изучить вопрос изменения организма человека для полетов в дальний космос. Об этом агентству ТАСС рассказал исполнительный директор госкорпорации по перспективным программам и науке Александр Блошенко

    Roscosmos this year is planning to study alterations to human biology for the purpose of deep spaceflight.

    По его словам, будут открыты научно-исследовательские работы по трансформированию человека «на уровне генной инженерии и клеточных технологий», а также по медицинскому воздействию на отдельные органы.

    Research and development work will start concerning human transformation on the level of genetic engineering and cellular technology, as well as medical effects on individual organs.

    «Уже есть наработки по временному изменению свойств организмов грызунов: им вводят препарат, после чего у организма на какое-то время появляются “сверхспособности», — рассказал он.

    Preliminary work on temporary changes of organism properties already exists for rodents – they are given medication and for a time display super-abilities.

    https://m.lenta.ru/news/2021/04/18/supehero/amp/

    Virgin Indian designer babies vs Chad Deep Space Russians riding Cosmic Super-Rodents?

    This is important because humans as currently constructed are incapable of living in space for prolonged time. The solution is obvious – modify humans to better suit the environment, which is what nature constantly does, but people get queasy about it for some reason. I’m glad Roscosmos is picking up on that. Good for Russia and good on Rogozin.

  333. All of those companies except Rosatom were found to be running a cartel by the EU:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2007/01/24/eu-fines-siemens-for-power-gear-cartel.html

    I guess Russia is in the way of their price gouging.

  334. Bashibuzuk says

    Dmitry Orlov about the Russian/Ukrainian conundrum. In his usual intelligent and ironic style:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putins-ukrainian-judo

    It is behind a paywall on Club Orlov. ZH republished it on their own site.

  335. AltanBakshi says

    Well that time is behind now, and it’s not coming back. How long it will take for genuine Christians to understand that?

    Thanks for the video, I sometimes really enjoy watching Christian sermons and preaching. I don’t know much about Graham, but he seems to have been quite a charismatic and honest guy. There’s really something invigorating in Christianity.

    A funny fact about me is that, when I was a baby, I was, for cultural reasons, baptized in Lutheran church. My father has never been a believer, but in my Buddhist-Shamanist mother’s thinking it’s always good to have some extra spiritual protection, though it was my father who was the member of the church and not my mother. Not a long time ago almost all children were baptized into the Lutheran countries, though now it seems to been a different era.

    Here’s one extremely interesting article about Graham in NY Times.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/us/billy-graham-responds-to-lingering-anger-over-1972-remarks-on-jews.html

    No wonder why they hate Nixon so furiously…

  336. AltanBakshi says

    Why they would destroy the land of their plumbers and factory workers? German economy would collapse without Poland.

  337. I was quoted in your post. The cretinous misuse of the English language by you and Beckow applied to my words

  338. It’s hopeful nonsense and hopelessly stupid. The author still thinks it is 2014 in Ukraine:

    The Ukrainian military is much like everything else currently found in the Ukraine—the railway system, the power plants, the pipeline systems, the ports, the factories (the few that are left)—a patched-up hold-over from Soviet times. The troops are mostly unhappy, demoralized conscripts and reservists. Virtually all of the more capable young men have either left the country to work abroad or have bribed their way out of being drafted. The conscripts sit around getting drunk, doing drugs and periodically taking pot shots into and across the line of separation between Ukrainian-held and separatist-held territories….

    A lot of the Ukrainian artillery is worn out and, given that Ukrainian industry (what’s left of it) is no longer able to manufacture gun barrels, artillery shells or even mortar rounds,

    Back in 2018:

    https://defence-blog.com/news/army/ukraine-announces-mass-production-modern-artillery-ammunition.html

    Ukraine announces mass production of modern artillery ammunition

    ::::::::::::::::

    The author highlights his own ignorance by posting the ridiculous map also.

  339. Gerard1234 says

    Karlin- either you have standards on this blog or you don’t. If not, and you are motivated solely by this weirdo maggot compulsive liar fantasist generating comments – then you should just turn this blog into a series of beheading videos or fat people falling down stairs if you want cheap, easy viewership.

    Going back to this freak AP’s post, LMAO- If you get any “Ukrainian” to randomly say German Gref, Heinrikh Himmler or Adolph Hitler to an American, brit or german ( as in not in the context of a Sberbank or Nazism/WW2 conversation where they could make an educated guess) from reading the “Ukrainian” text of those names……… there would be a 100% chance that the American, Anglo or German would have zero idea WTF the ukrop was talking about you stupid imbecile.

    The only way they would know is if said it using “kh/x”. Because you are a weird messed up fantasist wacko who has never been to Ukraine, never ever spoken a word of russian or Ukrainian in conversation with anyone and, just as I say are a lying zero knowledge creep – you are deliberately falsely making this argument, exactly because you are completely ignorant on it. Any actual ukrop on here would have no problem with peremoga on here you dumb tramp!

    I think in all the other non-Russian world, Cyrillic languages they even specifically use the “kh/x” you retard for the Anglo” h” names/nouns.

    Russian cities Хабаровск are Khabarovsk in English. Did Ukrainians in Winnipeg do that also?

    Lol, like the sick f**k you are, even though it’s a certainty that you have fully read what I wrote you have deliberately pretended to not read what I write here:

    Is only possible if you show him the kh/x, just as with Russian.

    I was thinking more of the Kiev/Kyiv but the but Gorlovka/Horlovka type issues are just as suitable. I am not talking about Russians using “kh” you cretin….. I am talking of Banderetards in Winnipeg falsely trying to separate the 2 languages.

    As for the Budapest Hotel thing – Karlin, why can’t you just show some reason and ban this freak for 2 months? That photo is clearly not of or from any Hilton in Budapest.

  340. Any thoughts on the reappearance of Petrov of Boshirov?

    Three possibilites:

    • Another inane and unbelievable infodrop by the authors of “Novichok 9 from Outer Russia” at MI6, in other words “Attack on Radio Gleiwitz” tier 0-D chess. Because tomorrow there would have been discussions on Sputnik V imports, and later NPP refurbishment by Rosatom etc., which are now off I suppose.
    • Czechia and Russia have secretly agreed to believably put out an obvious clown story in order to tell Euro-NPCs that they should not believe everything that appears in the abysmal Euro-News, in other words at least 3D chess.
    • It’s all true and we are living in a simulation and Hillary is The Architect.
  341. I don’t have a subscription to the NY Times, so I’m unable to read what Billy Graham supposedly said about American Jews. If you have such access, and are up for it, please feel free to copy/paste the parts that you find interesting for all here to read.

    As far as being baptized within a Christian church, remember what I once wrote to Bashibuzuk who was also baptized. We Christians, at least those that are Orthodox, believe that there’s something truly mystical about the baptismal process. It’s as if the Holy Spirit plants a seed in your heart (soul/nous) that will heighten your sense of guilt whenever you sin, and will continue to pull you towards the Trinity for the rest of your life. For a Christian trying to walk closer with the Lord on his own path of Theosis its like having an internal GPS system pointed towards God. Being a spiritual person, it’s no wonder that you feel a special “invigoration” when listening to some Christian sermons.

  342. Thanks for the photos and information about Billy Graham. I didn’t know that he was so committed to physical exercise, but it’s not really a surprise. He really was a good looking man and seemed to embody the very best that WASP America had to offer the world. He certainly must have known that he exerted a great attraction for women, and was very careful never to be left alone in the company of any woman, except for his wife.

    I’m not really too crazy about the latest crop of Christian TV superstars. I wasn’t aware that there were any calendar shots of Joel Olsteen in a swimsuit. 🙂 His positive messages are good though, and are needed for many within our society that are just plain lost and depressed. The “prosperity message” though is way overblown IMHO. Can’t imagine Joel doing much with Job’s difficult plight? I could be wrong. People don’t want to hear about suffering and obedience. I guess Joel could point out “all’s well that ends well”. 🙂

  343. Ukrainians don’t hold grudges, so this may turn out easier than we think.
    We do have Rusins in the north-east, but I am a from the western part as my name says…

  344. From what I know of the US, even though Christianity is steadily diminishing there it is still more socially prominent than it is in the more secular European countries.

    I was thinking about this the other day, now that the lockdown is being lifted and some kind of normal social life has been re-emerging because shops and pubs and bars with outside areas are opening up again. 20-25 years ago it was still possible to talk about ‘Christian Britain’ without the idea seeming weird. As is the case with Lutheran countries, large numbers of people were still having their children baptised, going to church at Christmas etc.

    Social change and shifts in opinion in the intervening years (like the New Atheist trend, which seemed to sweep through people under 30 especially) made it clearer that Christianity would likely only survive as some kind of smaller minority community. For Catholics at least the way forward seemed to be some local version of Rod Dreher’s ‘Benedict Option’.

    Lately though, with the pandemic and outbreak of Woke (less of a thing than it seems to be in the US, but still obvious), a lot of people are now in the wtf? zone. It is like ‘Where did this come from?’ ‘What does it mean spiritually that it is being pushed and adopted in the way it is?’ Thinking about all the possible religious implications.

  345. – It’s all true and we are living in a simulation and Hillary is The Architect.

    Bingo.

    My take on it. Petrov and Boshirov are couriers (possibly intelligence related) and Bellingcat somehow obtained their itinerary and is now hounding them for propaganda purposes.

    On Czechia warehouse. That warehouse was storing weapons of Bulgarian arms dealer. Bellingcat says those weapons were supposed to go to Ukraine. But that warehouse blew up in October 2014 and the Atlantic Council (that pays Bellingcat) says Bulgaria started arms shipments to Ukraine in 2015. So how would people know to blow up that specific warehouse in 2014, if it wasn’t shipping anything to Ukraine yet? I mean maybe they saw preliminary contracts but seems like a stretch.

    Anyway, Bulgarian arms dealer claimed he was poisoned in 2015. He tested positive for organophosphate by Finnish lab. That’s your Novichok and Petrov/Boshirov connection. And of course he survived, that’s how we can be sure it was Novichok. Unfortunately, Western media forgot to bribe their chemical weapons expert, and he looked at Finnish lab results and said “that’s pesticide”. Oops. So much for the most lethal chemical weapon known to man. That’s bad for the narrative, but explains why Novichok never kills anyone – it’s a garden chemical from a shop. There goes “only Russia can make it” story.

    Back to the warehouse. It used to belong to Czech Army, but in 2011 it was rented to a very shady gun running firm called Imex Group. That timing is just perfect for Timber Sycamore startup. They were very sloppy and had a number of explosions.

    TLDR version:

    Western partners are trying to sabotage Rosatom nuclear reactor bid by blaming Russian intelligence couriers for weapons explosion caused by CIA asset incompetence while those assets were running guns to jihadists in Syria. I bet Hillary Clinton is in there somewhere.

  346. Bashibuzuk says

    Orlov is cool and he has an excellent sense of humor.

  347. AltanBakshi says

    As far as being baptized within a Christian church, remember what I once wrote to Bashibuzuk who was also baptized.

    According to the Holy One and Apostolic Orthodox Church, the sacraments, like baptism, of the Lutheran church are invalid and lack divine grace, which is true from a traditional Christian viewpoint, for such heretical inventions as female priesthood and blessing of gay couples are directly against the Holy Tradition of Church.

    By the way do Orthodox priests ever have sermons? I have visited numerous times different Orthodox churches, but if there is some activity, it seems always to be a some kind of liturgical procession or highly ritualized act of worshipping. As you know I’ve never been a believer in God, though I’m highly sympathetic to Christianity, and through years of studying of Christian history and tradition in my free time, I have come to conclusion that Orthodox Church is the true Church of Lord Christ, or is part of it, with the Oriental Orthodox confession, still lack of preaching makes it quite foreign to me. In Lutheran church there is lots of singing of psalms together and priest always gives a sermon, which oddly is much, much more similar with a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, though we have rituals, we mostly chant holy texts together and then listen when some monk gives teachings to us on different topics of Buddhist philosophy and how those teachings can be employed in daily life. We do have highly specialized rituals, but those are left mostly for special occasions and days, studying and recitation is the meat and bones of our spirituality, meditation is more popular in the west, for some reason.

    Anyhow, I do not believe in God, but I do believe in some curious way in Christ, our world surely would be much more hellish without him. Well, Lutheran church may be heretic and I’m not Christian, but I’m still fond of old German Lutheran hymns.

    So tragic, I would gladly visit Lutheran churches, from time to time, and sit quietly and listen, but not anymore, not anymore when they have betrayed all their principles, and become a mockery of religion…

  348. AltanBakshi says

    From what I know of the US, even though Christianity is steadily diminishing there it is still more socially prominent than it is in the more secular European countries.

    It’s my theory that the American elites of the East Coast have not been true believers for generations, and that they just tactically used religion in a global struggle against Communism. After the fall of Communism they had no more need of Christianity as a societal glue, and the process of stripping religion out of public sphere was gradually started and green light was shown for various anti-religious propaganda outlets and intellectuals. After the ending of WW2 its clear that Roosevelt and other American leaders planned of one united world government, with USSR as a junior partner, but during 1945 and 1946 American leaders woke up to harsh reality and realized that USSR is not willing to become a junior partner in grand liberal project of Globalism and globalization. They had much more grander plans for UN and for global financial institutions, which were created in collaboration with the USSR, but Stalin had cheated American leadership and used their good will in ensuring that USSR could achieve a strategic parity and gain technological know how that was lacking in the USSR. If Stalin would had accepted the American master plan for one world government, and there would not had been Cold War, the American leadership would had become hostile against religion much sooner. If west would not had lost 40 years in a fight against Soviet Union, post-colonial countries wouldnt have had enough time in becoming truly independent, with their own strong national institutions. Without Stalin and USSR, we would probably now live in the society of Nietzsche’s letzte menschen. Nothing would have stopped their machinations, if not Stalin and his stubbornness and paranoia. Clearly there is no man fully evil!

  349. Rattus Norwegius says


    Behold the future is nigh!

  350. Bashibuzuk says

    Of course there are sermons in the Orthodox Church. But it amounts to just a relatively limited part of the Mass, while the Liturgy is quite long, often a couple of hours in duration. On Sunday you might go to the Service around 8:30 only to walk out of Church around 11:30. Often you could have a meal there with the faithful, which is the right way to proceed according to the Desert Fathers: pray together, work together and eat together. Also in the Orthodox tradition you could go and meet your Spiritual Guide (Духовник) and have a talk with him about the questions of Faith. Usually my Духовник was quite available to anyone who had something to discuss after the Liturgy and Confession.

    https://youtu.be/ZCkaIp70M9Y

  351. Bashibuzuk says

    Clearly there is no man fully evil!

    И Свет во тьме светит и тьма не объяла его.

    It is impossible to be entirely devoid of Buddha Nature. Even Angulimala ended-up being awakened. And Stalin’s mind-stream will also be awakened someday.

  352. AltanBakshi says

    Yes you are correct, but what I meant is a bit different, though connected with your words, I believe that through Stalin a compassion was projected upon humanity, yes he had a harsh exterior, he was a rude and brutal man, but without him, it’s very likely that those shadowy elites, which we call by many names on this site, would have had their dreams come to true, if not the Koba the bandit leading the USSR.

    Christians of the old, would have said in their humbleness, that God, and especially God’s wrath, which ultimately is love, was working through him. Though it hurts me how religion has decayed during these past centuries, we must be honest, and admit that when religion had a more prestigious position in the society, churches and temples were full of hypocrites, and that great many did not take the religion seriously in their innermost hearts, it had become just a dead ritual, which was followed for communal reasons, so that one would not look less pious or good than his neighbour, now when religion and religiosity is losing it’s external grandeur and power in society, we are getting rid of all those turncoats and cheats, they have now a better place among the “righteous” vanguard of the Globohomo. We people who are spiritual, should take this as a wonderful possibility to practice genuine spirituality among genuinely spiritual people.

    Ps. Maybe I misunderstood what Yellowface Anon meant by “not from this world.” Maybe he meant it in a Christian sense, that as Christianity does not believe that there is no salvation through worldly things, there is no liberation in Buddhism through “worldly” pleasures? That as long as a being continues to live in a worldly or samsaric way – in other words is being selfish, like almost all beings in Samsara, myself included – so long being will not be liberated? Well Yellowface Anon, if you meant liberation in such sense, then you are correct, but if you mean in a Platonic or Gnostic sense, that we believe that one should leave this reality to some another, a better place, then you are very wrong, at least according to Mahayana, who are the majority of Buddhists, but with the minority, who belong to Theravada school, it can be argued that it’s so, though in my opinion it would be a simplistic explanation of their doctrine. They do believe that when an enlightened being passes away, and leaves for final Nirvana or Parinirvana, his mindstream is completely severed from the Samsara, or this world, and what happens to such mind is wholly beyond all descriptions and concepts.

  353. AltanBakshi says
  354. Bashibuzuk says

    Some people in Russia see Stalin that way. One has to recall that he studied in an Orthodox Seminary and was overall way more conservative as a man comparatively to other “Old Bolsheviks “. Some fantasize about Stalin meeting Matryona of Moscow (a typical Orthodox! Блаженная – Fool for God) in 1941 and listening to her “prophecy” about the battle of Moscow. They imagine Stalin as a kind of Katechon against a greater iniquity that has since manifested into our world. They believe he was murdered by “Jewish doctors ” to bring ruin on the people of the world.

    https://theredowlethos.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/russian-orthodox-icon-of-stalin-with-scene-of-st-matrona.jpg

    All this has nothing to do with the official teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Something that is true, is that during the war Stalin used Orthodox Church and Russian patriotism to help defeat Nazism. But I don’t think he was some kind of crypto-Christian.

    About Enlightenment in Buddhist traditions, it is a complex topic. I have mentioned Lankavatara Sutra in my reply above. I have to reread it, cause I read it some 10 years ago and it is a convoluted text. But the understanding that I got from it back then was that the Absolute Reality is not only “beyond this world”, but it is wholly beyond our own capacity for describing or defining it in any meaningful manner. We can experience it and it is a transformative experience, but it is indeed “Away from it All”. In the early Ch’an scriptures of the Bodhidharma Anthology, it is also written that anything that can be expressed in words or discussed in any manner is similar to a dream. The Real starts where our mind abandons its discursive tactics. Perhaps some aspects of Ch’an are closer to the Theravada understanding than to the Tantric Buddhism.

  355. AltanBakshi says

    I do know that some people see Stalin in such way.

    About Enlightenment in Buddhist traditions, it is a complex topic. I have mentioned Lankavatara Sutra in my reply above. I have to reread it, cause I read it some 10 years ago and it is a convoluted text.

    I very much hope that it was not a translation made by D. T. Suzuki? As I have mentioned previously and multiple times, there is no true Dharma in Japan(mostly), they have fallen not just into the heresy of extreme sectarianism, but vast majority of their monks do not follow the Vinaya or Monastic Code anymore, and have not for centuries.

    But the understanding that I got from it back then was that the Absolute Reality is not only “beyond this world”, but it is wholly beyond our own capacity for describing or defining it in any meaningful manner. We can experience it and it is a transformative experience, but it is indeed “Away from it All”. In the early Ch’an scriptures of the Bodhidharma Anthology, it is also written that anything that can be expressed in words or discussed in any manner is similar to a dream. The Real starts where our mind abandons its discursive tactics.

    This is extremely complex topic, and it’s a great struggle for me to try to explain such things, especially when I’m not a follower of Chan or Yogacara, but in my opinion you are a little bit mistaken, and it maybe because of number of reasons, like having a bad translation, or not being rooted enough in Buddhist tradition and jumping right away in complex sutras like Lankavatara. Remember that all Buddha’s teachings are a harmonious whole, one should read many different Sutras and find how they each support each other, how they work in tandem.

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/twotruths-india/#YogUltTru

    Here the Yogacara view on ultimate is quite well explained, but in a complicated manner, so I’ll try to explain what’s my view on Yogacara ultimate truth, and I am possibly also mistaken. The mind which lives in an unenlightened state, projects into reality an illusionary subject-object distinction, this is how our mind works in Samsara, constantly sees us and them, in Yogacara analysis viewing world in such way is false, for in reality mind’s objects and subject are as much part of each other, and not separate in anyway, but when one frees oneself from such grasping, then ones dualistic mind is transformed into wisdom. The mental objects separate from one’s mind are not ultimately real as separate objects, but are as much part of oneself as anything else. In such way whole Samsaric existence is build on a great lie, or in great misunderstanding of the nature of phenomena, but when one frees oneself from such a conceptual way of viewing of the world, one will automatically act in wise and compassionate manner. For then there will be no desire for one’s own happiness, or fulfillment of one’s desires, for one does not see oneself as a separate being from the whole. This is the Ultimate Wisdom according the Noble school of Yogacara, one’s mind freed from grasping, will be transformed into wisdom, like a clear and pure mirror cleansed from all dirt(kleshas) it will reflect everything in whole universe, see all, hear all, sense all. Buddhas are omniscient after all.

    Yes this is complicated topic, and extreme carefulness is needed, therefore I should clarify, that the Ultimate Truth is beyond all, in one sense, but it is still grounded on conventional truth, and one can’t understand it without understanding the conventional truth or worldly truth, as Arya Nagarjuna said, they are connected and dependent, they do not exist independently. Oh how hard it’s to ponder upon these questions, how limited is my understanding. Oh well, I would still claim that in all Buddhist schools the truth is found through this world, by practice of good deeds, but where the road leads and where it will end, I can’t surely say.

    Though the subject-object distinction is our mind’s false projection into reality according to the Yogacara, the mind is not false, so when one’s mind freed from such falsehood, it will by itself transform into enlightened wisdom and activity. So mind, wisdom and Buddhahood are ultimately real. I should still clarify that mind is ultimately real in a mirror like way, not that we possess an eternal selfhood or have our own separate existence from the rest of the reality. But now I get IT! Yes when mind does not grasp conceptually and lacks of subject-object distinction, it is beyond our daily Samsaric existence and understanding, but it does not mean that this world will not exist or we go to some other reality or something, but that whole reality will be seen to us in a completely different light, and that we cant fathom such existence or such world in our current defiled and stained state.

    Perhaps some aspects of Ch’an are closer to the Theravada understanding than to the Tantric Buddhism.

    Well not according to the ancient Indian Mahayana authors, through centuries followers of Mahayana have felt solidarity with each other and written quite harsh stuff about Hinayana and Shravakas, which are somewhat derogatory names for the Theravada school and it’s followers. Btw there are quite big differences between the Tibetan schools, my schools differs greatly from the other schools.

    But remember that often Buddhist masters have gathered and later concluded that their differences are just based on small semantical differences, or that they use little bit different translations because of cultural or historical reasons. So maybe we both have just misunderstood each other, maybe I misunderstood Yellowface Anon’s intentions, though he was still wrong about Kali Yuga.

  356. AltanBakshi says

    Perhaps some aspects of Ch’an are closer to the Theravada understanding than to the Tantric Buddhism.

    And there is no such distinction between Tantra and Yogacara, many Chittamatrins use Tantric techniques. The distinction in Mahayana is between Sutrayana and Mantrayana, not between Yogacara and Tantra, both Madhyamikas and Chittamatrins have employed Tantra through history. Tantra is just one set of special techniques in Mahayana, not it’s own school of Buddhism, though some schools emphasize it quite heavily. Still for us it’s better to not dabble with such matters, except with few exceptions.

  357. Well, when we were 10 years old at school, we already know that the boy who throws water at the girl, can be because they actually like the girl, not because they dislike the girl.

    In terms of rich people which want to insulate money from potential expropriation in countries without the most secure property rights, there are multiple reasons why the countries across which you spread your investments and your family, need to be somewhat unfriendly to each other.

    When the countries are friendly to each other, then they sign information sharing agreements, tax sharing agreements, and even potential extradition treaties, between each other.

    Whereas today in Russia, there is no knowledge and information sharing, with many of the Western countries to which there is the highest amount of capital flight. Nobody would know how much money you move out, and where you stored it.

    If Altushkin (whose all family have UK citizenship) even could be prosecuted for some crime in Russia, they would never be extradited from the UK if they could say the prosecution was politically motivated. And vice-versa, if Altushkin was prosecuted in the UK, then he and his family can all rest safely in Russia. As for the financial diversification, nobody except from his accountants, will know eg. how much money he really moved out of Russia, to the extent he moved it across countries without information sharing agreements.

    For rich people to diversely protect their assets, one of the safest situation is probably to skip across multiple, not completely friendly or information sharing countries. So that e.g. Lavrov’s family get the money in Russia, while they have Israeli citizenship, but live in Monaco and London. This is like how people are using an internet connection through three proxy servers at the same time. Money becomes more difficult to trace as you skip it across each unrelated country.

  358. Bashibuzuk says

    The capital flight started during the late Perestroika. It was then not done through “individual” investors (there were none back then). Try looking into it, a few people who dug into this dirt in Russia died under suspicious circumstances.

    Just one example : Soviet golden reserves were a few thousand tones (Soviets were ranked 2nd adter South Africa among the gold producing countries). By the time of Yeltsin/Gaidar, only a few hundred tonnes were left. While Russian former KGB / Nomenklatura typea proceeded with the gold sell out, the international gold price dropped by half.

    Abother example : hard currency reserves of the CPSU, never to be found. They just vanished. The communist party supposedly had a few tens of billions in dollars for their activities abroad. It was spirited from Russia and washed through Bank of New York. The Jewish American banker who was involved into it was later killed.

    One has to understanding that the “кадры контреволюции” were prepared inside the Soviet system itself starting from late 60ies, early 70ies. These people had the contacts, the networks and they acted very efficiently.

    Did you know that Justin Trudeau’s brother Sasha Trudeau was named for Alexander Yakovlev, who happened to be a close friend of Pierre Elliott Trudeau ? Yakovlev did a training in Columbia University in the late 60ies.

    Read about Gorbachev’s visit to Canada in 1984, about the way Romanov was pushed aside and replaced with Gorbachev after the death of Andropov. Romanov was the heir apparent, not Gorbachev. Romanov was often seen as the informal leader of Русская Партия inside the CPSU.

    This is quite a rabbit hole once you start looking into it. Can be very depressing…

  359. The capital flight started during the late Perestroika. It was then not done through “individual” investors (there were none back then). Try looking into it, a few people who dug into this dirt in Russia died under suspicious circumstances.

    This seems like a topic which even in Western countries is somewhat out of bounds, or there is no encouragement about looking into it. I remember looking at some books about post-Soviet politics published in Britain in the mid-90s, and there was discussion of topics relating to the fate of state assets, the privatisations of lucrative industries and so on. Then it seems to go pretty quiet. This is a strange thing because when I was reading about it, and talking to my wife and her family about the period, I was thinking that it must be easily the biggest story of the 1990s, one of the biggest of the late 20th century.

  360. It’s my theory that the American elites of the East Coast have not been true believers for generations, and that they just tactically used religion in a global struggle against Communism. After the fall of Communism they had no more need of Christianity as a societal glue, and the process of stripping religion out of public sphere was gradually started and green light was shown for various anti-religious propaganda outlets and intellectuals.

    It’s possible, atheism was definitely spreading within British elites from the mid-late 19th century, and some of the top Americans were already unitarians and other very liberal/deistic forms of Christian. I’ve also thought that one motivation for official endorsement of Christianity in the post-war period was anti-Communism.

    A big problem for the Americans was the strength of socialism and socialist ideas in Europe in this period, Stalin was the main figure, but Communism also had a good level of support in a number of Western countries (France, Italy, Greece), and social democracy in most of the others. So there was still a serious challenge to American political/cultural hegemony. In general in the West there seems to be some sort of correlation between belief in traditional socialism and mass belief in Christianity. After 1945 there was a kind of optimism about them both, you can see this wave leading to things like the IInd Vatican Council and the modernising reforms in the Catholic Church at that time. Then into the 60s and 70s some sort of doubt and disillusion starts to set in, the rise of the New Left starts. Finally the advent of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 90s, marking the end of the old school left, is also closely followed by the end of Christian societies in the early 2000s.

  361. AltanBakshi says

    For clarification, when I wrote that you are a “little bit mistaken,” I meant only, “Absolute Reality is not only “beyond this world”,” -part.

    Because in my humble opinion it’s clear that according to the Mahayana “Two Truths” -doctrine, one can not fathom ultimate, without conventional. Sorry if I previously sounded like know-it-all, I can’t say anything about ultimate, which is non-composite and non-conditional, and far beyond my level of realization, but I believe that I can say in some specific cases what it is not. Ultimate is beyond our Samsaric existence, but it’s not like a different place, or beyond this world in Gnostic or Platonic sense. and that it’s extremely dangerous to start grasping or conceptualizing what it would be, for as we are Samsaric beings, we will only produce mind created fabrications about the “truth of the highest meaning.” But you probably know all of this.

    I really shouldn’t write anything about Buddhism, without some heavy introspection, meditation and self-reflection…

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/62/4b/f8624b4d01baca1f116198e1d2718e47.jpg

    White Tara, Protectress of Russia

  362. Bashibuzuk says

    I was thinking that it must be easily the biggest story of the 1990s, one of the biggest of the late 20th century.

    Certainly. And this is why all the parties involved are keeping it quiet.

    Basically, adter the Cuban missiles’ crisis and the Club of Rome document, a certain fraction of the Soviet Nomenklatura came to the conclusion that the competition between two global political models would lead not to the triumph of Communism, but to a nuclear war and/or an environmental disaster.

    They embraced the idea of convergence towards a One World system loosely modeled on a EU social democracy framework. If USSR could not prevail without turning the world into ashes, then why bother fighting?

    They started establishing channels of communication and common working groups. A notorious Think Tank working along these lines was the Vienna Institute of System Analysis, around half of the staff was Western and half was Soviet. Soviet academic personnel started also doing trainings in Western countries, including USA (Yakovlev was among the first).

    Economic and banking ties were strengthened. Soviets took a niche of gold, diamonds, gas and oil providers in the global economy. Under Thatcher and Reagan (in that order), the Anglosphere took control of this process, which was European (French, German, Italian and Scandinavian) oriented and controlled in its early stages. It was probably then that the whole thing became a giant scam under the influence of Financial International, Wall Street and Zionist networks of influence.

    Basically, instead of building the future together with the West, the corrupt Soviet elite faction accepted to destroy USSR, embezzle a part of its riches and transfer the rest to the Financial International. The Russian post-Soviet elites, which are 85% born out of KGB / Nomenklatura / Organized Crime swinging, would act as compradore proxy for the Fin Intern and the global TNC in FUSSR.

    But with the passing of decades, the Russian part of these “elites” accrued so much wealth that they started to feel and manifest desires for independence and subjectivity. They ask now to be treated as senior members of the globalized capitalist club.

    Hence the tensions of the last decade: the globalized West knows that these people are dangerous scum and doesn’t want to treat with them on equal terms. After all, one doesn’t eat at the same table as one’s dog. OTOH the Russian Noviopy “elites ” feel frustrated: they held their part of the deal and now expect some recognition.

    But “Rome does not pay traitors”…

  363. Bashibuzuk says

    I really shouldn’t write anything about Buddhism, without some heavy introspection, meditation and self-reflection…

    Same here. Adding noise doesn’t help to clearly hear and understand Silence. Agitation doesn’t lead to Peace. I should not discuss Dharma without weighing each and every sentence. I actually usually avoid writing anything about this topic.

    I do thank you for your input on these topics.

    We mainly agree, the difference comes from “important ” semantic details and possibly also from my poor English writing skills.

  364. Bashibuzuk says

    Today is the birthday of two Cosmist Communists, one of them was a typically destructive personality, the other was a constructive and positive force.

    It is a shame that the first one; Vladimir Ilyitch Ulyanov – Lenin is known worldwide, while the second one; Ivan Efremov is not known enough.

    Everything on this earth is pretty dull, especially in the near future. This coincides with the old Indian and Tibetan prophecies of higher and lower peaks. I have depicted them graphically in diagrams. Lowest peak in 1972 (this was depicted in 1969), rise after 1977, and huge dip with colossal wars between 1998 and 2005. – the time of the White Horseman from Maitreya. But I will not live to see this time, perhaps you will ?

    Efremov, writing in 1972 a short time before his death.

    Мир праху…

  365. AltanBakshi says

    Another very interesting Communist fellow was Chekist Gleb Bokiy.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleb_Bokii

    “Inspired by Theosophical lore and several visiting Mongol lamas, Bokii along with his writer friend Alexander Barchenko, embarked on a quest for Shambhala, in an attempt to merge Kalachakra-tantra and ideas of Communism in the 1920s. Among other things, in a secret laboratory affiliated with the secret police, Bokii and Barchenko experimented with Buddhist spiritual techniques to try to find a key for engineering perfect communist human beings.[1] They contemplated a special expedition to Inner Asia to retrieve the wisdom of Shambhala – the project fell through as a result of intrigues within the Soviet intelligence service, as well as rival efforts of the Soviet Foreign Commissariat that sent its own expedition to Tibet in 1924.”

    Bashi, could you tell me is the stuff written about him true? Especially what Wikipedia claims about him. Though it’s true that Soviet government was quite supportive of Roerich and his endeavours in Tibet, Mongolia and Altay, so in theory it’s possible.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Николай_К._Рерих_-_И_мы_открываем_врата_%281922%29.jpg

    https://uploads0.wikiart.org/images/nicholas-roerich/visitors-from-over-the-sea-1901.jpg

    Fellows like Roerich and Vahindra are those who took the first steps on the long road which will lead Russians back to their Aryan roots… West will fall under Mlecchas….

  366. AltanBakshi says

    on the long road which will lead Russians back to their Aryan roots…

    It’s the same road that you Bashibuzuk are walking now, we’ll surely meet in Shambhala!

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Монастырь_Хемис_в_Ладаке.jpg/1280px-Монастырь_Хемис_в_Ладаке.jpg

    A painting of Buddhist temple in Ladakh, by Russian 19th century painter, Vasily Vereshchagin

  367. Bashibuzuk says

    The painting by Vereshchagin is beautiful. I am sorry Altan!, but I don’t know much about Roerich Central Asian expedition, exept that Blumkin has joined them along the way and made them somehow think that he was a Buryat lama. This shows that Roerich and his circle were rather gullible. Theosophy was of course influent in pre-revolutiinary Russia, as was free masonry and spiritisme, quite a few revolutionaries dabbled into the occult. Perhaps Boky was one of these.

  368. late 60ies, early 70ies. These people had the contacts, the networks

    It’s in a self-interest retrospectively, to portray that what happened was more “chaos” and “accident”, than it might have been in reality, as this reduces the liability of those who have “accidentally woke up in the morning with millions of dollars in the bank account in Switzerland”.

    If you benefited a bit unfairly from a situation, then it is now preferable to view a series of historical events, as historical accidents, pictured like a bad dream, or when you waked up after drinking too much alcohol with no memory of the night before, but for which everyone now has to accept the results.

    quite a rabbit hole once you start looking into it. Can be very depressing…

    Even from experience the “lower middle class emigration”, you notice things seem to be “well designed”, in the sense of – it’s easy for wealthy people moving outside.

    For example, the fact the government doesn’t have information sharing with destination countries for capital flight, and also that nobody seems to care where you are.

    They don’t seem to know what country you are working in, or even if you have received citizenship in another country. And a low level of information about people exiting the country, is probably not accident, as it is the preferable situation for wealthy people.

    They only might understand you are not in the country if your parents didn’t write the census, and even in the census most everything is based on trust.

    I know a person who was already conscripted for a year in the Cyprus army, said they still collected summons letters for conscription even after they try to honestly explain to the conscription office that they cannot go to the army and that they already did a conscription in Cyprus. It’s not that just that they are not tracking you abroad, but they doesn’t even believe you if you honestly explained it to them.

    Can be very depressing…

    It’s nothing worse than the situation in many other countries, and even the common situation of the second world. If you talked to people from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, even Spain and Italy, it sounds like their politicians and rulers are not less selfish than in Russia. Rather, this is the universal situation of the ruling classes, in those countries where they have a strong control over the population.

    But Latin world is different in that the ruling class in Russia is still fronting a bit, and so is the lower classes trying to pretend they don’t get completely raped. Whereas the Latin people are more openly apathetic about the situation of being raped and would be shocked by anyone who thought their politicians cared for them, and their politicians are brazenly saying like “lol I hate poor people, I live on a yacht”.

  369. What happens with the movement of Soviet property into private wealth, who are then hedging much of the money outside Russia, might be quantitatively significant, but not necessarily qualitatively – in the sense that it is a pattern that happens in a lot of countries over the years, and is enough that national economies (e.g. Switzerland) have been oriented for generations to receive such money.

    If you watch what is happening now in Lebanon, they’ve had an even more elaborate kind of scam designed by their political elite, and they are “nostalgically” experiencing the 1990s there at this moment, while their upper class have in reality moved the billions of dollars that had nominally been the savings of the middle and lower classes, safely into their own foreign bank accounts.

  370. Bashibuzuk says

    Yes. But USSR was supposed to be an alternative to this whole globalized scamming system. This makes the fall of USSR different.

    Of course we can go the “Galkovskian” route and come to the conclusion that USSR itself was a monumental scam played upon the Russians and other people of the Russian Empire. And some do just that. Some go even further and define Russian Empire itself as a giant scam played by the Westernized (mainly German) elites on the Russian muzhik. Or the system imposed by the Varangian Rus upon their Slavic abd Ugric subjects as a scam. Or all of them together as a historical series of depredations upon the local populace by different elites that succeeded in that land for a thousand years already.

    But perhaps it is safe to conclude that in a sense the elites are always scamming their subjects. In a sense that the elites are always partially self-serving. Basically, the elites tend to be self-serving and selecting for this selfish attitude among their members. Just part of human nature perhaps.

  371. AltanBakshi says

    It took some time, and Varyags had a Balto-Slavic element, though not dominant in the beginning, but after few centuries they got completely Russified.

    Similarly Baltic German nobles were quite loyal to the empire and rapidly converting into Orthodoxy. Russia’s situation was not unique, almost everywhere in Europe there was a partially foreign aristocracy ruling over masses. In my opinion elites are good, no matter if local or foreign in origin, if they are willing to sacrifice their own welfare and lives of their sons for that which perceived as national interest. Russian Imperial elites were willing to make such sacrifices, therefore they were spiritually not foreign, but true kinsmen of Russian muzhiks. But it’s crystal clear that Usmanovs and Abramoviches of this world are not willing to give even the nail of their little finger for the common good.

  372. Bashibuzuk says

    But it’s crystal clear that Usmanovs and Abramoviches of this world are not willing to give even the nail of their little finger for the common good.

    Even the concept of common good can be twisted and misused against the populace. We saw it during the collectivisation in USSR, Great Leap Forward in China and unfortunately see it today in the West with the Wokeness, BLM and the coronavirus situation.

    Again, perhaps this is just an aspect of human nature.

  373. AltanBakshi says

    Theosophists often had good intentions, but were spiritually misguided, or should I say that, they were not right in many things, but the direction was right. Similarly Roerich in his youth made some missteps on his hard path towards the Kingdom of Shambhala. After all, for countless lives we have committed evil deeds and accrued bad karma, and ended up in a maze and jungle of wrong views, therefore it’s totally natural if we spend some part of our lives little lost, searching for sure passage out of the labyrinth of our delusions. Most important is that we are not stuck, but on the move, relatively speaking. Just as the stagnant water will get dirty, full of parasites and mosquitoes, but flowing water will be clear and full of fishes, drinkable and pure!

    What to me was more interesting, were wikipedia’s outlandish claims about Gleb Boky, can they really be true? That there was a group of Chekists studying Kalachakratantra, so that they could create a new human being? Exceedingly surprising, if true, I must say!

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Посмертные_памятники_в_Ладакхе.jpg

  374. AltanBakshi says

    Although it’s true that common good can be twisted, I thought that Wokeness and BLM are openly not pushing for common good, but supporting interests of some minorities that are harmful for the majority. Which is quite unexpected development, truly the West is going into a new post-Christian era. Anyhow, I deliberately mentioned the sacrificing of one’s welfare as a criteria, but I should have added that sacrificing when there is a war or crisis, because rare are those who make sacrifices when all is well. Both Czarist and Communists under Stalin, were quite ready to send their own sons to battlefront, or live more frugally during war, but people like Usmanov or Abramovich would just leave to some another country, with their family, and never look back, except in case of doing some profitable huckstering.

  375. Bashibuzuk says

    After all, for countless lives we have committed evil deeds and accrued bad karma, and ended up in a maze and jungle of wrong views, therefore it’s totally natural if we spend some part of our lives little lost, searching for sure passage out of the labyrinth of our delusions.

    I agree with that. I personally experience this is my present existence. Although it is often difficult and sometimes outright painful, I believe there is an ongoing change in the right direction. But it is hard to be constant. It sometimes makes me think of a drug addict trying to cut his dependence. At the pacr I am moving it will certainly take a very long time to get to the peaceful state I aspire to.

    What to me was more interesting, were wikipedia’s outlandish claims about Gleb Boky, can they really be true? That there was a group of Chekists studying Kalachakratantra, so that they could create a new human being? Exceedingly surprising, if true, I must say!

    Well, Wikipedia being what it is, I would take these clames with a healthy dose of scepticisme. Although it is true that both Bolshevik and Nazis had some occult influences. The interesting aspect of Bolshevik Cosmism was a kind of monism, where mater became somewhat “spiritual”. This was criticized by Lenin when he competed with Bogdanov – Malinovsky for the leadership of Bolshevik party. Nazis of course were deep into all kind of occult stuff.

  376. Bashibuzuk says

    I have read that Abramovich has done some good work when he was appointed as governor of Chukotka. Perhaps that was just PR though. Both Abramovich and Usmanov are of course rootless cosmopolites. Although given that I myself ended up living abroad and becoming somewhat cosmopolitan in the process, I hardly can blame them. I often regret not having stayed in Russia, but it’s impossible to move back in time and take another path. It is what it is, good or bad we live with the consequences.

  377. Although it’s true that common good can be twisted, I thought that Wokeness and BLM are openly not pushing for common good, but supporting interests of some minorities that are harmful for the majority. Which is quite unexpected development, truly the West is going into a new post-Christian era.

    An interesting aspect of Wokeness I have been noticing lately is the way it is being used to reintroduce ‘big ideas’ back into Anglo politics, some of the younger more committed activists are into the Kant> Hegel>Marx pipeline and reading into it in depth, which then comes out in their activism.

    Bashibuzuk mentioned that the fall of the USSR had special significance, which I think is true, the end of Socialism was followed by the end of any attempt to reboot social democracy in Western Europe in the late 90s, the serious decline in Christianity, and this left the elites with no real narrative to explain or defend the current political/financial order, it just hangs there, and this was covered up with some hedonism, cheap goods and high property prices, at least for a while. Younger people may now be looking to find some kind of narrative which puts at least some moral content and direction back into the political order.

    Whether it can really be found in Woke and a return to Marxism though is very doubtful.

  378. Abramovich has done some good

    They are at least such an informal part of the state capacity, or semi-official agents of state, who allow the government to control over large parts of the economy through knowing a couple dozen friends, and they are also sometimes operating as a informal power projection for the government that would not be able to enter some of these countries officially

    With Abramovich, you can see how semiofficial he is, even in terms proximity of land purchases to government buildings.

    In London, Kensington Palace Gardens is the street in which are Abramovich’s house, and co-incidentally this is the street of the Russian embassy.

    Meanwhile, if you look at Tel Aviv, Abramovich has purchased for $40 million this small street. Why?

    I was curious when I visited Tel Aviv, so I walked around there and got some photos.

    There’s no way that he will live there. (There is no security there and no building).

    https://i.imgur.com/6Qor8Fb.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/8NfF9Rt.jpeg

    But a possible explanation for his strange purchases, is that the street is co-incidentally behind the Russian embassy. It seems almost halfway like he is rather than buying the house, extending some of the embassy’s land. Although I would have no idea what reason that would be for.

    Abramovich and Usmanov are of course rootless cosmopolites. Although given that I myself ended up living

    Well, I assume you are not a billionaire, that controls larges sectors of formerly state economy.

    They are hedging a large part of Russia’s money outside Russia, which can partly seem like informal power projection of the state (i.e. Abramovich owns Chelsea FC, Usmanov owns Arsenal F.C., while the state of Abu Dhabi owns Manchester City), or less positively lpartly ike asset stripping (i.e. Lebanon), or insurance against domestic expropriation.

    abroad and becoming somewhat cosmopolitan in the process, I hardly can blame

    But they are not cosmopolitan in your sense, but only as a practical financial instrument.

    Abramovich and Altushkin send the family outside the country, in the same way they send the money abroad – to increase your leverage domestically, and insure against expropriation by domestic rivals.

    Although in the next generation of the portfolio managers of formerly Soviet public property, will surely be fully escaping to whichever fictitious identities they desire. For example, from their lifestyle, some of Abramovich’s children already seem to choose to become pseudo Norman aristocrats, that live with horses in grassy English fields. https://www.instagram.com/sofiaabramovich97

  379. AnotherTitus says
  380. USSR was supposed to be an alternative to this whole globalized scam

    And so was the French Revolution.

    During the French Revolution, conservative observers from England and Ireland, was often a bit less optimistic than the revolutionaries in Paris, and they were wisely predicting that pushing over the anthill might not have the utopian end result that was hoped for.

    safe to conclude that in a sense the elites are always scamming their subjects. In a sense that the elites are always partially self-

    Well in Ancient Athens, only around 20% of the population were citizens, and up to half of the population were slaves.

    In Ancient Rome, a third of people in Italy were slaves, who had only a life expectancy of around 18 years.

    As late as middle 19th century, Turgenev can remember that his psychopathic grandmother had murdered a servant child by suffocating him with a cushion, without any legal consequence for this murder.

    So perhaps we should be optimistic that the situation of equality, or lack of it, in the 21st century, might seem to be still quite an improvement, at least relative to the low standards of many other historical ages.

    their members. Just part of human nature perhaps.

    Kant had famously said that man is made of damaged material, so that political philosophers should have lowered expectations about building some kinds of amazing sculpture from him.

    Generally, the political philosophies with the best (or least bad) results, are the boring ones which are based on “harm reduction”, rather than hoping for utopias.

    And the most politically boring countries, are probably the ones with less of the national equivalent of asset stripping.

    Today, money is moved outside Russia partly because the political system had been unstable, and property rights are not the most reliable for the wealthy classes. Money seems to be safer in Switzerland or England, partially for the reason that these places where there hasn’t been a revolution for centuries, and the property rights and laws can be more stable and predictable.

  381. Bashibuzuk says

    I actually kind of like Abramovich since I read his answer to a French journalist question about his alleged ties with Russian organized crime. Abramovich said : “You know what’s the difference between a rat and a hamster? The PR agency’s costs “. That was based.

  382. Yellowface Anon says

    Cultural Marxism is no longer “orthodoxically” Marxist in the sense of class struggle as the fundamental historical process and the state as the extension of economic power of the mode of production (that’s currently moving away from capitalism).

  383. Yellowface Anon says

    Are he studying or not? What is he studying?

  384. Yellowface Anon says

    (I’m a L2 English speaker whose native language is “traitorous” Chinese, and I was sleepy when I typed that, hence this simple mistake I plainly overlooked. My yellowface isn’t faked – I’m really looking at things with an autistic Asian perspective I usually keep from my other solidly svidomy and separatist social circles, so apologies for everything I get it wrong)

  385. Another surprising thing I have noticed in the past month of so is a couple of mentions of NRx in ‘mainstream’ Anglo contexts.

    Thinking about Wokeness it struck me yesterday what used to be written on the feldzeichen of the SS and SA: Deutschland Erwache. There is both a right wing and a left wing reading of Hegel after all.

  386. I’ve heard that the Cultural Marxists tend to reference the ‘Young Hegelian’ Marx, before his later years when he moved to this economics first analysis.

    I also feel that it is another sign of the times that I am even aware of this young Marx vs. old Marx debate.

  387. Bashibuzuk says

    His friends and him are mainly studying Dungeons and Drragons (I am kidding). Yes, he’s in school in a STEM oriented program. He is mainly interested in biology, probably because he likes our dogs and cat.

    What I am trying to convey through my half ironic reply, is that there is a feeling of an “Unbearable Lightness of Being” about him and his circle. They do not seem to take life as seriously as perhaps we did when me and my friends were his age, but at the same time they have no true frivolity about them either and sometimes they act in a more mature fashion than we did when young. They appear to me as “in between ” people, kind of like the generation of my parents in the USSR, the generation that let go of their whole social system and actually helped dismantle it all.

    The meme shitpoasting our kids do is perhaps a near exact equivalent of “kitchen jokes ” of the late Soviet era, a sign of profound disbelief in anything our system represents. That is why I think what we are seeing in the world today is perhaps just setting stage for an even more dramatic change some 20 years or so down the road.

  388. Bashibuzuk says

    There is indeed a kind of dialectics between the Wokeness and the Alt Right and / or NRx. But I believe it to be a half serious one, not like Communist vs Fascist in the 1930 ies. Perhaps it might become truly serious (and bloody) down the road when today’s kids grow up to form families and become parents themselves. Then they will have to live and act according to their ideals (if they have any left). Also see my reply to YFA above.

  389. AltanBakshi says

    But it is hard to be constant. It sometimes makes me think of a drug addict trying to cut his dependence. At the pacr I am moving it will certainly take a very long time to get to the peaceful state I aspire to.

    https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-buddhism/path-to-enlightenment/the-graded-path/introduction-to-the-graded-path/initial-level-motivation

    Maybe this will help? Do you actively practice? If so and there is no development, then the problem is in practice itself and not in a person, but if you don’t practice at all, then it’s no wonder if there is no fruit. How there can be any fruits, without good soil, seeds, water, care and sun? How a man can change, without any effort? No Protestant answers accepted

    Nazis of course were deep into all kind of occult stuff.

    That’s one of the coolest things about Nazis, even though Hitler believed such matters to be a waste of time, Himmler and Rosenberg possessed lot of knowledge about Occult Sciences.

  390. I’m not an “oligarch expert”, but it looks like obviously Abramovich’s strategy is to hide everything in openly visible places.

    He increases his leverage and safety, by increasing his own visibility. That’s why he bought Chelsea FC in 2003, so he can sit in the front of the stadium, in the centre of London, front of thousands of people.

    He starts this habit to sit in the stadium in Chelsea FC in summer 2003, during the negotiations of his sale of 50% of Rusal to Deripaska, which was towards the end of the “second aluminum war”.

    He also doesn’t try to obscure that he works like an informal part of state capacity. In Instagram of the family of politicians, they stereotypically are posting about watching Chelsea FC, as there are obviously free tickets available to them. This is also typical for managers of state owned corporations. For example, managers of military aircraft corporation, etc, are posting from Chelsea FC on Instagram.

    Stadium of Chelsea FC is like a free social club for a state connected elite, to visit when they are in London.

    • You also the see the open visibility in the art market, where Abramovich was happy to publicize in maximum level one of the political elites’ best mechanisms to wash money. His girlfriend throwing such kinds of “hide your money washing openly in the public square” events https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAyev_ep51c

    By comparison, other wealthy people, try to do more fronting, and like they are really interested in art and culture, which just co-incidentally has practical usage as a frictionless money flowing fund.
    https://www.delfinafoundation.com/in-residence/victoria-mikhelson/

  391. Not to criticize, but use of the conjunction “Cultural Marxism”, is a sign that the person who uses the phrase is not-educated in the topic, i.e. that they are not people who read books in the library about this topic, but whose knowledge must be from sources like Fox News.

    The conjunction has the same contradiction as saying “Platonic nominalism”, “Aristotelian universals”, or “Cartesian monism”.

    If you know the theories of the thinkers, then it looks more like some private joke, which is being used to troll people who don’t understand the theory.

    It sounds like a kind of Dada joke – “cultural Marxism, Humean rationalism, Spinozan empiricism – round triangle and square circle!”

    ‘Young Hegelian’ Marx, before his later years when he moved to this economics first analysis.

    I also feel that it is another sign of the times that I am even aware of this

    Well it would be wonderful if people were reading 19th century philosophy books (or in case of “Young Marx” – old essays of the middle-19th century). But it’s usually the quietest part of the bookshop, so I feel that not many people are really into reading it nowadays.

    I like these kind of books very much, but I have niche interests, and I feel like philosophy books are more of niche interest among the public than even topics like classical music, let alone e.g. old films.

  392. AltanBakshi says

    Maybe you are a bit too much of a pedant right now. There are quite many words that have their origins in misunderstandings, or are blatantly contradictory or false. Like Post-Modernism, how something can be after now, or after our present era? Maybe if we had a time machine and could travel to the future, and bring fashion trends of the future to our present era, then such fashion would literally be Post-Modern. Or let’s inspect the word Cretin, it’s nowadays a harsh and derogatory insult, but originally it meant someone who is a Christian or a common man, it would be like if the Russian word крестьянин would change to mean someone who is an idiot. Same thing with the word villain, which surprise surprise, was almost same in the meaning as the present day word villager.
    It seems to me that the Norman elites were quite elitist assholes.

    In India there are examples that are totally opposite, like the word Dasa, which meant servant, slave, non-Aryan, but later some holy men in some areas of India, started to call themselves Dasa or Dasyu, for they were the humble servants of Khrisna.

    Cultural Marxism is just a colloquial synonym for followers of the Frankfurt school, who were not Marxists, but vaguely leftists criticisers of Marxism(Leninism, Stalinism etc) and capitalism. In other words they were leftists who, after the happenings of 30s and WW2 had lost hope in the genuine workers revolution as a true source of societal transformation. After all common European men and workers had chosen in masses Hitler and Stalin, over the original anarchist and socialist principles. People too often forget how originally both Marxism and Anarchism had the same goal, a just society without state, and without those who take what belongs to the workers and farmers. In other words a world without lords and bosses.

  393. origins in misunderstandings, or are blatantly contradictory

    But that results in a change of meaning.

    Whereas here “cultural Marxism” indicates that the people don’t know the theory of the people to which they refer.

    So if you said “Nominalist Platonism”, it would be the best indication that the person doesn’t know Platonism, which is the situation here.

    The reason we read this will only be among people that do not study Marx.

    colloquial synonym

    But “colloquial”, in the sense that it will be used by Western people, who as a result of the Cold War, have been habituated to associate the word “Marx” with whatever brand of breakfast cereal they do not like.

    In order words, “colloquial” is meaning those people who have not interest or study of the actual topic.

    Actually reading on Wikipedia, it seems to been introduced in the 1980s by an American Alt-Right politician Lyndon LaRouche.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory

    Frankfurt school, who were not Marxists,

    Frankfurt school of sociology is described as “critical theory”, not “cultural Marxism”.

    Frankfurt School like Adorno were Marx influenced, to the extent were deprioritizing culture’s causal power, and emphasizing the importance of economic relations.

    For example, Adorno’s view of pop music, was that it was designed to distract people and disguise from them the alienation of capitalist labour relations. That is, his theory is Marxist influenced, to the extent that he was deprioritizing our culture as being an almost false consciousness, designed to distract people from the discordant economic reality.

    There is the sense that culture (Adorno calls it “Culture Industry”) is somewhat epiphenomenal and designed to mask us from our alienation under capitalism.

    In other words they were leftists who, after the happenings of 30s and WW2 had lost hope in the genuine workers

    They are also very inspired by their experience of German politics, fascism during the 1930s, and the rise of the consumer economy in post-war West Germany .

    I’m sure their writing would be interesting on all such topics. However, it’s also going to useless to read, for people who didn’t have a background of German philosophy and German romanticism.

    If you’re not a fan of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, et al, I doubt there is anything interesting there. These (e.g. Adorno) might be interesting to read, for people who know this multi-century German discussion. On the other hand, I assume that Adorno’s theories of music, would be useless for someone who wanted to understand the music itself.

  394. Bashibuzuk says

    Do you actively practice? If so and there is no development, then the problem is in practice itself and not in a person, but if you don’t practice at all, then it’s no wonder if there is no fruit.

    I practice and I see a change, it’s just slow and uneven because I am distracted by my family and professional life. I am a lay person, a father of four with two dogs and a cat, not some hermit monk. I cannot do hours of zazen every day.

    But thinking about it, perhaps caring for and carrying them all prepares me for my future Bodhisattva vows (just kidding).

    Thanks for the link Altan.

  395. Actually reading on Wikipedia, it seems to been introduced in the 1980s by an American Alt-Right politician Lyndon LaRouche.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory

    This Wikipedia article now has a certain amount of notoriety for the changes in content introduced into it in the last few years. Previously it used to have information about the thought of Antonio Gramsci and some other well known Cultural Marxists. The information is still there, you just need to follow the link at the beginning of the article to the page ‘Marxist Cultural Analysis’ where you find statements like this one:

    Since the 1930s, the tradition of Marxist cultural analysis has occasionally also been referred to as “cultural Marxism”, in reference to Marxist ideas about culture

    and

    While the term “cultural Marxism” has been used generally to discuss the application of Marxist ideas in the cultural field,[22][23]

    Notice the way in which the term ‘cultural Marxism’ is supposed to be different to the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ but the titles of the books in the footnotes, which are real examples of this kind of critical approach actually use ‘Cultural Marxism’ as well.

    Cultural Marxism used to be used in a more uncontroversial way to refer to theories like that of Gramsci, where cultural power and hegemony is in some way distinct from the economic base, and it is related to Critical Theory and the Frankfurt School. I was first exposed to it via the work of Richard Hoggart who wrote a kind of famous book called The Uses of Literacy about British working class culture, this has a kind of deep ethnographic study of a certain cultural milieu at a certain place and time, and is the one in which my mother grew up, so she really likes that book.

    But, gotta own the chuds.

    But “colloquial”, in the sense that it will be used by Western people, who as a result of the Cold War, have been habituated to associate the word “Marx” with whatever brand of breakfast cereal they do not like.

    In order words, “colloquial” is meaning those people who have not interest or study of the actual topic.

    The way things like BLM, Critical Race and Trans are currently burning through Anglo cultural life, it shouldn’t be surprising that people become interested in these things. And people are reading Marx as well as Hegel again, the same way others are reading De Maistre and Le Bon and studying Integralism.

    As far as Aristotle on universals goes, I thought he was a kind of moderate realist about them, where he believed they were instantiated in substances and in the intellects of those who grasp the essences of the substances they observe.

  396. I have thought about Marx’s famous line concerning Louis Napoleon ‘First time as tragedy, second time as farce’ in relation to this, young Western people nowadays are clearly much milder and more gentle than people of my grandparents and great grandparents generation, which would be that of the original Fascists and Communists.

    That significant change is coming seems possible, at the moment there is a feeling that some large historical arc is coming to an end, and as far as the elites go it looks like they have reached the conclusion that the fulfillment of this process is supposed to be a year zero type situation in which Black Liberationism, Post Colonialism and Fourth Wave feminism becoming the dominant culture paradigm in British society, replacing the ideological vacuum I mentioned earlier. This is a bizarre thing to think about really.

  397. It seems to me that the Norman elites were quite elitist assholes.

    No kidding.

    Cultural Marxism is just a colloquial synonym for followers of the Frankfurt school, who were not Marxists, but vaguely leftists criticisers of Marxism(Leninism, Stalinism etc) and capitalism. In other words they were leftists who, after the happenings of 30s and WW2 had lost hope in the genuine workers revolution as a true source of societal transformation. After all common European men and workers had chosen in masses Hitler and Stalin, over the original anarchist and socialist principles. People too often forget how originally both Marxism and Anarchism had the same goal, a just society without state, and without those who take what belongs to the workers and farmers. In other words a world without lords and bosses.

    Too add to this, there is also a genealogical point to the label “cultural Marxism.” The Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University was set up and staffed by Marxists and had a distinctly Marxist bent at its inception. Integrating Freud with Marx was one of the early goals of the Frankfurt School academics and Critical Theory’s origins can be traced to this project. More generally, Marxism was the dominant paradigm at one time among the left and it influenced a great many of the ideas later to come. Even though these ideas would later mutate in such a way as to be distinct from Marxism, if you look to their origin you will find Marxism looms large.

    While I think Dmitry’s sperging over the definition of “cultural Marxism” is a bit much, I have to admit I can’t be 100% unsympathetic. Applied to Adorno for example, the term “cultural Marxism” isn’t really a useful descriptor, and it’s going in the direction of labeling all left-wing critiques* of Capitalism or modernity as being Marxist. That’s not good.

    I also agree with what Coconuts said about Gramsci.

    *maybe not the environmentalist one, to the extent that really is a left-wing critique

  398. Cultural Marxists.

    Well the first thing is that it is discordant conjunction to any educated peoples’ eyes, which might appear plausible only in the mind of people who don’t know the main theory of the latter philosophy.

    And then historically we find that the conjunction was invented by an American cult leader (called “Lyndon LaRouche”) in the 1980s, which matches to our intuition, as such a self-contradiction would only be accepted in a society that has a certain depth of illiteracy that the propaganda in Cold War America had provided on Marx by the 1980s.

    Richard Hoggart who wrote a kind of famous book called The Uses of Literacy about British working class culture, this has a kind of deep ethnographic study of a certain cultural milieu at a certain place and time, and is the one in which my mother grew up, so she really likes that book.

    I don’t know this writer. But yes there are definitely a lot of interesting writers in the 20th century, which were influenced with “Marxian” concepts. Marxism provided some of the more fertile and “ready-made” research projects.

    With Marxism, you have a ready-made system, with its underlying building blocks (like “modes of production”) and its surface level data (“false consciousness”).

    In framework for these emerging university departments like sociology, which needs to “analyze” something from surface components, to a “materialist underlying reality” – as you would in natural science in the 19th century.

    • Historical and cultural analysis writers have a danger of becoming lost in too many incoherent details, and Marxism was useful to provided structure for their writing in the 20th century.

    BLM, Critical Race and Trans are currently burning through Anglo cultural life, it shouldn’t be surprising that people become interested

    The influence on these contemporary bourgeois ideologies (that seem to me suspiciously memed to popularity in the last decade), has been more postcolonial writers of the 20th century. That is to say, it has more French than German influence.

    For example, if you look at the Marxist view of the holocaust, or topics of racism and slavery.
    In Marxism, slavery is the common form of expropriation of surplus labour, in the agricultural, pre-capital economy. Its survival in the 19th century was an anachronism of older economic systems, but the exploitation of labour (expropriation of surplus labour) continues in simply more disguised forms in the modern wage-earning economy.

    The holocaust was a reaction of German bourgeois capitalism, which was able to re-direct class consciousness, to expropriation of Jews in particular, as opposed to the owners of the means of production in general. (“Fascism is Marxism for stupid people”).

    Marx himself has viewed Jews as being representatives of bourgeois exploitation, who need to be abolished. So the re-direction of class consciousness, by non-Jewish capitalists, to the expropriation of only Jews – might not be surprising for Marx.

    With “Marxian influenced” writers like Adorno, the holocaust is the true face of technocracy, standardization, and capitalist alienation, which was somehow already inherent in Enlightenment’s worship of rationality.

    It’s why there is a lot of focus on the industrial and factory aspect of fascism. Adorno believed that it is an illustrative example of the alienated, industrial reality, born of belief in worship of reason. ​


    Obviously, these ideas seem interesting, and we would understand 21st century better if we had time to read such things.

    But it’s not that constitutive of what average young people are believing today, when they complain about “cultural appropriation”, etc. Rather, they seem to have believed theories which are similar to “postcolonialism theory”.

    In standard narrative of postcolonialism, the racial categories are created by Europeans, as motive for, and systems of ruling, in the colonized non-European world.

    This results in theories of racial hierarchy, and the holocaust is understood, as the internalization of colonial ideologies. In this view, the German colonization of Nambia, was the preparation of the holocaust, when the colonial ideology was directed inwards onto Germany itself.

    That is not to say there is no lack of mutual indirect influences between postcolonialism and Marxism. Sartre is an example of someone who tries to reconcile postcolonialism and Marxism. I’m not expert, but what Sartre’s attempt to reconcile the Marxism and postcolonialism seems a little incoherent. (Postcolonialism requires Sartre’s theory of human freedom, which was almost impossible for him to reconcile to Marxism).

    Aristotle on universals goes, I thought he was a kind of moderate realist about them, where he believed they were instantiated in substances

    And Marx could be a moderate realist about culture, but the main teaching of his theory is relegate the causal importance that culture to a level below what it was believed to have by almost all previous writers. Culture becomes interesting in terms of being a kind of surface phenomenon – like a secondary property, as opposed to primary property.

  399. Obviously “critical theory” people is very significantly influenced by Marxism. My point is just that it is “critical theory”, not “cultural Marxism”, and the latter term is the illiterate conjunction.

    These writers like Adorno have been Marxist to the extent they might have relegated the causal (but not diagnostic) importance of culture – that is the main Marxist influence: culture is epistemically important as a symptom we use to discover a disease, but the culture is the surface phenomenon, not disease itself which exists much deeper.

  400. The university youth’s racial ideology in England, has a lot of influence of American translations of French postcolonial theory.

    France and the UK have a very similar postcolonial history since the 1950s, but in France it was very self-critical in the 1950s-1960s (with writers like Fanon and Sartre arguing that white rulers should be killed by their colonial subjects) and during its Algerian War, while in the UK there seems to have been a more moderate view of postcolonial situation, until the American translations of postcolonial writers arrive in the 1970s.

    • “Metoo”, movement, is something like an attempt to re-introduce polite dating manners of Jane Austen novels. “Metoo movement” also matches to West European attitude to personal space.

    Some of the “safe space”, is like an extreme version of upper class English politeness. (Similarly worries about misgendering people and microaggression).

    For example, clapping is viewed in Oxford, as the violation of peoples’ safe space and as a form of discrimination against people with hearing disability. (Schopenhauer would really support on a ban on clapping). This is like a radicalization of politeness.

  401. Bashibuzuk says

    as far as the elites go it looks like they have reached the conclusion that the fulfillment of this process is supposed to be a year zero type situation in which Black Liberationism, Post Colonialism and Fourth Wave feminism becoming the dominant culture paradigm in British society

    Although British elites certainly play an important role in the whole Westerstroika, I do not think that this trend is typically British or centered on the UK. It is concerning the whole of the Globalized West and given its importance in the World affairs, it is a truly global phenomenon.

    As I commented above, my personal view of all the elites, from all historical periods and all geographic zones is that they have always been and always will be at least partially self-serving. They might sacrifice some of their advantage to attain some common goal with other foreign elites, or with othet social classes, but they will not self destruct just make others more comfortable. Rather they would orient the “common good” presentation to suit their goals.

    I believe that this is what is happening nowadays. The whole parading and agitating of different transhumanist Great Reset/Build Back Better memes and all this Me Too Trans Black Live Matters craze, are to be seen as twisting the narrative of social, environmental and technological changes to deflect the masses from the real problems of Globalized West decline and transformation into something entirely different from what was declared in the last 2 – 3 generations.

    My opinion is they don’t really believe in any of this BS and use it to distract people from what is really going on. Just like late Soviet Nomenklatura did not believe into the Perestroika slogans of Гласность, Ускорение or “giving all power back to the Soviets “. While they spouted all thos nonsense during half a dozen years, exactly the opposite of what their propaganda bragged about happened.

    In short this is all a distraction to keep the Western middle class off target in the current historical period, while the elites are proceeding with the planned and programmed abolishing of this middle class rights.

  402. elites, from all historical periods and all geographic

    From the beginning of agricultural civilization – one group of people is always enslaving another for their labour.

    But we at least had thousands of years in hunter-gatherer times… without slavery.

    Globalized West decline and transformation

    Although this sense of decline is not specific to the West,. I think it’s more “alienation” than decline, and it will difficult for any nationality today to avoid it (for example, Chinese popular music is even more alienated than the Western one, just as their furniture and their urban planning).

    On this topic, Adorno was on point, that our alienation located all around us. For example, furniture from Ikea is often beautiful, but its production is based in pure deception (particles densely bound in formaldehyde to emulate wood), and a million other people have already bought every design you have. That is, every piece of furniture we have, reminds us of our lack of uniqueness and replaceability, and the capitalism of Ikea and Apple has perfected mass culture to an extent that communism could never dream of.

    In terms of pop music, we have especially since the 1980s, the experience of industrial machine noise, where human meaning of lyrics is often disconnected from harmony. (I wrote about this on Katy Perry https://www.unz.com/akarlin/california-isnt-the-sjwtopia-of-right-wing-fantasies/#comment-3981774)

    agitating of different transhumanist Great Reset/Build Back Better memes and all this Me Too Trans Black Live Matters craze

    Lol yes the adoption of these kind of movements by certain multinational corporations, was genius, if not very subtle.

    I feel like BLM is justified, as the level of police violence in America is far too high for a developed country – USA is the world’s leading chekistan.

    But as the meme someone posted above. In 2012, leftist protesters was doing “Occupy Wall Street” By 2016, they were redirected to supporting Nike corporation, and protesting something about Trump’s tax return.

    The legitimate protest against chekistan, could be appropriated for marketing. Meanwhile, Nike share price increased almost 600% since “Occupy Wall Street”.
    https://i.imgur.com/NPZ2iNv.jpg

  403. Bashibuzuk says

    But we at least had thousands of years in hunter-gatherer times… without slavery.

    In Marxist terms it was primitive Communism. BTW regarding Altan’s comment about Anarchism and early Communism being initially similar in ideological scope, There are different strains of Anarchism. One of them is particularly relevant for the topic at hand:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_(anarchism)

  404. Well the first thing is that it is discordant conjunction to any educated peoples’ eyes, which might appear plausible only in the mind of people who don’t know the main theory of the latter philosophy.

    And then historically we find that the conjunction was invented by an American cult leader (called “Lyndon LaRouche”) in the 1980s, which matches to our intuition, as such a self-contradiction would only be accepted in a society that has a certain depth of illiteracy that the propaganda in Cold War America had provided on Marx by the 1980s

    That the term was invented by Lyndon LaRouche is not true though, the Wikipedia article even says as much. It was used by Gramscian theorists to describe their own work and would be picked up by right wing critics from there. It is not a bad label for the Gramscian orientation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci

    Lately it has been applied generally to different kinds of Western Neo-Marxists, not just by the alt-right, but as a short hand way of differentiating them from Leninists, Classical Marxists and so on. And it does not seem necessarily bad for that either, because the greater Neo-Marxist emphasis on culture is one of the main things that differentiates it from other types of Marxism.

    Neo-Marxism and the New Left is also where the debate about the difference between the ‘Young Marx’ and the ‘Later Marx’ developed:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Marx

    Also general background on Western Marxist variants:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Marxism

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Marxism

    I don’t have a strong enough investment in these ideas to defend the Marxist credentials of some of the thinkers discussed in those linked, but in my judgement there is enough here to defend the Cultural Marxism term as something not just arising from either alt-right conspiracy theories or ignorance.

    The influence on these contemporary bourgeois ideologies (that seem to me suspiciously memed to popularity in the last decade), has been more postcolonial writers of the 20th century. That is to say, it has more French than German influence.

    It has a lot of French influence, but aside from the structuralist and post-modern elements, another significant influence on post-colonial thought was Marxism, sometimes the traditional economic version, more often the Western Marxist tradition. You can see this in the way major figures in Post-Colonial studies like Gayatri Spivak describe themselves ‘feminist Marxist deconstructionists’ and so on. It is difficult to see where post-colonial theory would be without the Master-Slave relationship, alienation and false consciousness for example.

    Whether these ideas make a coherent whole or how they stand in relation to other forms of Marxism are questions.

  405. Although British elites certainly play an important role in the whole Westerstroika, I do not think that this trend is typically British or centered on the UK.

    It appears to be emanating from the US mainly at the moment. Britain is the case I am directly familiar with at the moment, each country seems to have local variations and differences in emphasis. (In minor Western countries like Portugal it hardly seems an issue, just looking at the political speeches around the anniversary of the 25th April revolution today it is all about the typical themes of corruption and squandering of public resources, traditional topics.)

    The British elites are usually quite good at seeing how things are going and adapting to make themselves the natural leaders of the trend, in such a way that they may have to do some reshuffling or some cosmetic changes but will mostly hang onto their positions. As I have said before I think they will find it quite easy to make themselves even more visibly ethnically diverse and global, as things move in this direction.

    Things like BLM may well be indicative of decline, specifically demographic decline of the majority white populations, and a fading of their vitality. For the elites it probably isn’t worth trying to intervene and do anything at the moment to try and reverse the trends that have led to this, so it is better and easier to ride the wave and derive whatever benefits they can from it.

    The results are strange as I noted, and generate alienation. Culturally this seems particularly evident. I have read about the situation of literature and culture in the Baltic states in the 1970s and 80s, where official cultural life had become a kind of ideological simulacre, something like that may be developing.

  406. Bashibuzuk says

    official cultural life had become a kind of ideological simulacre

    Indeed culture, but also politics and economy have a strong feeling of simulacre about them. Hardly anything feels honestly serious nowadays.

  407. AltanBakshi says

    For example, Adorno’s view of pop music, was that it was designed to distract people and disguise from them the alienation of capitalist labour relations. That is, his theory is Marxist influenced, to the extent that he was deprioritizing our culture as being an almost false consciousness, designed to distract people from the discordant economic reality.

    There is the sense that culture (Adorno calls it “Culture Industry”) is somewhat epiphenomenal and designed to mask us from our alienation under capitalism.

    Oh, how strange that Medieval people escaped their daily life with drinking and listening singing of bards, a clear symptom of alienation, originating from feudal labour relations. How Adorno can be such an autist idiot, trying to forget the mundane life, through tales and music, even for a moment, is universal for all men throughout the history. Like all old tales about Herakles, Indra or Thor etc, etc, absolutely no man lived like before mentioned gods, nor experienced such adventures. Were those stories and songs of their deeds designed by priestly caste to distract people from, the alienation of slave labour relations? Ha ha, what an imbecile!

    If you’re not a fan of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, et al, I doubt there is anything interesting there. These (e.g. Adorno) might be interesting to read, for people who know this multi-century German discussion. .

    I’m not their fan, though I feel sympathy for Schopenhauer, sad that he lived a bit too early, but one can’t understand modernity without them, and some of them are quite entertaining, like Nietzsche. Sadly I have never read any books by Kant, who is the most important of those mentioned by you, shame on me…

  408. Marxist tradition post-colonial

    Sure, there is constant influence on French philosophy, by German philosophy (although not the other way round), and then of French philosophy on American philosophy. For example, American postcolonialist Edward Said book “Orientalism”, is based on Foucault’s theory of power. And Foucault uses a pseudo-Marxist concept similar to false consciousness, although without the idea of a progression between historical stages according to modes of production.

    But on the other hand, the currently fashionable (although its popularity feels like it has been astroturfed) non-binary gender theory is in the framework of Early Sartre that “existence precedes essence”, and this is a view which completely contradicts historical materialism, and which Sartre cannot reconcile to Marxism. So strands of the French philosophy that influence our current views, are (despite later wishes of some of their creators) violently contradicting the Marxist framework.

    By the way, if you ignore his idiotic political views, Sartre is a really interesting writer. I only have a superficial knowledge of his writing, from a couple of afternoons of reading his books. But from what I read of his writing, it seems like he is very underrated nowadays.

  409. Schopenhauer, sad that he lived a bit too early

    Schopenhauer had significant influence on 20th century culture, through Freud – whose theories are contain most of the views of Schopenhauer, although using his own original “methods” (like medical terminology, and focus on dreams and mythology, and literary identity as a Viennese Sherlock Holmes).

    Freud’s “theory of libido” has removed some of the more sinister gnostic speculations from the Schopenhauer’s “theory of will”, and Freud adds usually reverses the teachings consistent with a Jewish grandfather.

    So Schopenhauer concludes from his “theory of the will”, that we should deny sex, and live monastically. While Freud says, we need to accept “reality principle”, and have children within a bourgeois marriage.

    The final answer of Freud for his patients, is that women need to marry and have children, and that men need to get marriage, copy their fathers, and start a professional job.

    Reading Freud after Schopenhauer, is quite a bizarre experience ,as he uses the same viewpoint, to teach a reversal of what Schopenhauer would advise to us. (Although Freud still writes with a pessimistic way).

    mundane life, through tales and music, even for a moment, is universal for all men throughout the history.

    Adorno likes old folk music of previous epochs. but his hatred is against the commodified music industry, not folk music. .e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-njxKF8CkoU.

    I’m not very knowledgeable about Adorno’s theories, but I would agree that popular music is an increasingly strange product.

    For example, the Justin Bieber album which had emerged about 5 years ago, and which we couldn’t hearing in all shops at that time.

    The music often completely contradicting the meaning of the lyrics, which we can look at this harmonically. (as I have with Katy Perry)

    But the production was perfectly representative of the consumer surfaces of the products which are sold in the shops, where it is played. That is, the meaning of the song is clear when you don’t translate the lyrics in your mind – it is simply like industrial noise whose real message is about representing processes like those involved in building iPhones.

  410. But nowadays, we can also access far more culture (including the greatest cultural works of history) than ever before, and only the most genius works of mankind are enough to expend all your cultural consumption if you wanted.

    So isn’t that the moral message of being born in this epoch? That we live in the time, when the quality of culture, is now an individual responsibility.

    If your soul was degraded by what they show in Netflix, then all Ozu’s films have been restored in the last decade, and you just need to apply some small extra effort and expense to watch Ozu instead of Netflix.

    Similarly, if you didn’t enjoy the latest Turkish telenovela – there is more time for reading Sophocles and Shakespeare.

    It’s all dependent on our willpower now. It is a kind of strange time to exist as even in the cultural sense we are more fortunate in terms of cultural consumption opportunities than we were 10 years ago (when things like 4k restorations of old films didn’t exist) – yet we are probably becoming less and less enough willpower to discipline our consumption than in previous decades.

  411. Bashibuzuk says

    yet we are probably becoming less and less enough willpower to discipline our consumption than in previous decades.

    Did you read this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Circle_of_Paradise

    Which brings :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality