Main News
- Blog status: Main posts in the last couple of weeks:
- RationalWiki Hagiography
- Colonize Space… With Nukes
- IQ in Time and Space
- Russia Elections 2018: The Political Compass
- The Rybka Affair
- Large bunch of interesting books that have come out recently.
- Heiner Rindermann with a huge (592 pages) academic synthesis of research on IQ/GDPcc in Cognitive Capitalism. Unfortunately, as a textbook, it comes with a hefty price tag. I expect to get a review copy in the next few weeks, after which I’ll tell you if it’s worth ordering.
- Edward Dutton rehabilitating phrenology in How to Judge People by What They Look Like.
- Bryan Caplan, Robin Hanson’s fellow GMU economist, makes The Case against Education [LibGen]. I am a couple of chapters in and I have to say that it clearly elucidates with studies many things that I have long intuitively suspected. Greg Cochran has a good review (1, 2, 3).
- Steven Pinker argues the case for reason, science, humanism and progress in Enlightenment Now [Libgen]. If the reviews are anything to go by, it’s 3x as long as it should be as per Pinker’s trademark writing style.
- Hank Pellissier: Technoprogressive Declaration of the Transhuman Party
-
Massive 800 page report/60MB PDF on longevity research. Longevity Industry Reports – 2018 – Landscape Overview 2017. Volume I – The Science of Longevity Geroscience, Policy, and Economics [summary]
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Scott Alexander’s falsifiable predictions for 2018, and for 2018-2023. I suppose I should make a note to perhaps do a Stratfor-style 5 year forecast one of these days.
Russia
* Latest peacekeeping plan for LDNR from the Hudson Institute calls for 20,000 soldiers + 4,000 policemen in the region staffed mainly be UN troops from “neutral” countries such as Latin America, Sweden (!)/Finland/Austria, and Kazakhstan/Belarus, which would presumably be acceptable to both Russia and the Ukraine. They would confine the NAF’s troops and weapons to “secure bases, as a first step towards demobilization or retraining in non-military roles”; act as a tripwire against Russian and Ukrainian incursions; and organize elections prior to the area’s reintegration into the Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian Presidential candidate Yavlinsky – a native of Lvov, who until 2016 wanted to give away Crimea unconditionally, to say nothing of the LDNR – has said that he discussed the issue of Ukraine with Putin last November, including the possibility of him replacing Surkov as Russia’s main negotiator on the Ukraine Question. Conspiracy interpretation would be that he is the perfect man to actualize “Putinsliv,” allowing the Kremlin to wash their hands off handing Donbass over to the Ukraine while branding him as the traitor.
- Bloomberg: Russian Billionaires Are Building Megaschools to Rival Eton and Exeter. I suppose it’s good that the Hogwarts worship is subsiding.
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Chronicles of Article 282:
- This article from a whistleblower who left due to ethical reasons confirms the Center Against Extremism are working to fulfill quotas [in Russian].
- Recursive extremism: A student got 2.5 years in jail for extremism in his doctoral dissertation on extremism [in Russian].
- A couple of pro-Kremlin HSE economists wrote an entire book arguing that corruption is a good thing [in Russian].
* Russian SJWs. “Heard more disconcerting things today about SJWization of Russian society. Is becoming politically incorrect to use the word негр (Negro), as opposed to чернокожий (black-skinned) in Lukoil; amongst <25 year old Moscow university students, esp. Navalny supporters. I believe this because I was told similar things about RT around a year ago. Russia seems fated to continue importing the shittiest aspects of Western culture.”
@pachkacigaret joke:
Whataboutism 1.0: But you lynch Negroes!
Whataboutism 2.0: But you say “Negroes”!
- Yandex Taxi going into driverless cars:
World
- Judging from latest EIA statistics, USA likely to set an all time oil production record in 2017, barreling (heh) past the old peak in 1970 and solidifying its position as the world’s largest petroleum & other liquids producer.
It is now approaching something like 90% self-sufficiency, which is a pretty epochal event in geopolitical terms.
- Sinotriumph Chronicles:
- NBF: If China is ahead deploying Railguns, electromag catapults and hypersonic weapons
- NBF: Is China Railgun a Sputnik moment for the USA?
- Bad news for Tropical Hyperborea: Longer winters are coming in reality and will partially blunt global warming for 50 years (due to possible solar minimum like in the Little Ice Age in next few decades)
Science & Culture
- Andres Gomez Emilsson: Every Qualia Computing Article Ever
-
Rabbit: The Bearer of “Trad” News
* Blind recruitment trial to boost gender equality making things worse, study reveals
* Student Who Tried To Connect IQs To Race Is Now Under Investigation
- School shooter Nikolas Cruz has an uncanny resemblance to Le 56% Face.
Powerful Takes
An unironically powerful take. It’s just missing the word Zionist somewhere.
Antifa being funny and original as always.
That sounds pretty extreme, what was it about? Aren’t there even exceptions for academic publications?
Wait, Russia has an ANTIFA chapter?
Why haven’t they just been merged into the larger Communist political movements and presumably marginalized there by saner heads?
The obsessive determination to impose control by taboo-ising words and behaviours has long been out of control in the US sphere. Epitomised just the other day by the hilarious story of a jewish professor who cancelled his hate speech course after being criticised for using taboo words in it:
As I noted the other day here, this story is hilarious for a number of reasons, but the way these people have been able to create taboos in order to exercise power is actually quite shocking. The sheer power and pervasiveness of the taboo is illustrated by the fact that the Guardian is too pathetic even to print the word (presumably “nigger”) that caused such conniptions.
[I’d give the professor credit for at least trying to argue his case rather than instantly apologising, but he’s most likely part of the problem as far as the rising tide of speechcrime and no platforming suppression of dissent is concerned, so most likely he was hoist on his own petard and fully deserves what he got. Never thought it would come back to bite someone so obviously on the side of the angels, eh, Rosen?]
The manufactured taboo about “blackface” is another example, which was just now highlighted in the media here, though how far they’ll be able to browbeat Chinese people into giving a damn remains to be seen:
Blackface in Chinese Lunar New Year sketch draws criticism
Anatoly, quoting your previous post:
The situation is really that dire, huh? You’ve written about that quite a few times, so it’s nothing new, but I’ve been wondering for a long time now that if things are really that bad, then how is Russia’s re-armament program going so well, all things considered? And they are also developing next-gen weapon systems like Armata, Su-57, S-500 and hypersonic missiles.
Some time ago you predicted that at this rate Russia won’t be able to keep up with the US and China in military technology past 2025. I didn’t believe it at all, until now (and I still don’t agree with your recent Syria article, for instance), however recent reports and “announcements” are not encouraging, to say the last. So you might’ve been onto something:
Because you seem to like blackpill timelines, here’s my “Russian military procurement 2018-30 blackpill timeline” lol. Trigger warning to Martyanov, and I obviously don’t want any of this to be true:
Originally it was 50-60 planes by 2020 and then 12 by 2020 and 60 by 2025, now not even that.
The reports that India is not happy for whatever reason are not only Western propaganda, and India will order a total of 0 planes. I thought that some orders were already certain, but apparently not
S-500 wont be ready anytime soon, the Western so-called experts are actually correct. I’m talking about mid-20s
Nothing massive, but additional delays with heavier drones as well
Recent estimates on Gorshkov production are accurate too… So 2 operational Gorshkovs by 2020, 4 by 2023 and 6 maybe by 2027,
Originally they were expecting 6 by 2020, and for some time it’s been 4, but there have been additional delays. The last 2 of those will be bigger, destroyers basically.
Those 6 by 2025/27 are going to be the only new major surface combatants after 1991/early 90s. (And indeed, even that might turn out to be too optimistic, no to mention that the standard Gorshkov is a light destroyer at best)
Small delays even with Yasens, new orders come in slow… Maybe 10 new SSNs by around 2030. They somehow need additional 10 quickly to replace the remaining older ones after that
Lider will remain a paper project past 2030. Something will be ready by the mid-30s
Delays with helicopter carriers, etc. Maybe 1 operational in 2030. Let’s not even talk about any bigger projects
So it’s possible that they are simply unable to produce next generation equipment in numbers. This would also finally explain why Russian military procurement was going surprisingly well, despite it being quite behind in many technological indicators, like top 500 supercomputers, industrial robots, patents, etc. There are major issues with Russian industry and technology, potentially. Things are suddenly starting to make sense, huh? Sad!
They can certainly churn out upgraded “Soviet” designs (which are often very good, but still), but when it comes to stuff like Su-57, Armata and potentially S-500, there are huge delays, nothing happens. The first Su-57 prototype flew back in 2010, so there could be a delay of 15 years before actual “mass” production. That’s bad, no excuses.
However, none of this are actually 100% confirmed. And some of them wouldn’t even be that bad. S-500, for example. It’s not even supposed to replace S-400, AFAIK, and the project seems to be very ambitious. Also, I’m of course intentionally focusing on negatives here, some things are going well: conventional submarines, Su-30/34/35, cruise missiles, Ratnik (supposedly), etc. and they’re going to achieve their “70% modern by 2020” target, more or less. But post-2020 some things are not looking great, at all.
And btw, this post is remarkably “open” and honest. I very rarely have nothing bad or negative to say about Russia. I want to believe.
That’s not how it works.
I’m really surprised how Americans in general don’t quite seem to get what Antifa is, how they operate, and that they’ve become in some ways violent enforcers of the establishment left (at least in parts of Europe, very much so in Germany; I’d suppose the situation in Russia is somewhat different again…does Antifa there maintain links to the Communist party or is it too old-fashioned for them?)…apparently the Charlottesville incident was the first time many Americans had even heard of Antifa. Count yourselves blessed if you don’t become more familiar with them.
My understanding from knowing some fringe liberal groups when I was younger was that they basically strange, almost cult-like organizations that live separate from normal society but which seem mysteriously well-funded. They were very gang-like in some ways, and definitely seemed to recruit from those who had fallen into the cracks of society and often mingled with drugs. The heady combination of young runaway girls, easy access to intoxicants, and thugs with criminal records provided with an ideology that they were oppressed and victimized by society is powerful.
The ones I knew weren’t violent(mostly female), yet nonetheless useful in the “protest on demand” method. Nonetheless I could easily see how they could be weaponized for more. In many ways, though, such people would seem repulsive to associate with so I imagine if they were merged into any more formal political movement, they would be marginalized.
I have also read about most of those delays.
It’d be nice to find out.
But why should one do so (unless one is forced by external authority), it can be quite useful after all if your political movement has some loosely affiliated thugs on its side (which you fund and support, but which aren’t a formal part of your party, so if they do something too extreme, there’s plausible deniability) who intimidate political opponents and enforce the bounds of “acceptable” discourse. Unless the state comes down on you for that or your political opponents retaliate in kind, what’s not to like?
I’d be interested though as well how strong Antifa groups are in Russia, and what’s the nature of their relationship with the Communists.
Hah. Reminds me of a song that I liked as a student when I used to go to the house of some neo-hippy rock-climber girls to bake brownies:
https://youtu.be/3FTz_xAh4gI
I know much less about Russian far left groups than about far right and far liberal ones, so FWIW:
The really far left-anarchic ones are strongly opposed to Putin and the KPRF – the leader of “Autonomous Action” Kirill Bashentsev supports Ukraine and had a weird alliance with the far right Ukrainian Misanthropic Division (Neo-Nazi football hooligans from Kharkov active in 2013-14, later largely merged into Azov). Funny horseshoe there.
http://s5.bloknot.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ana2.jpg
Pussy Riot started off as anarchist but they’ve been pretty thoroughly cooped by neoliberals.
There is also Sergey Udaltsov’s Left Front, which is hard left, anti-government, but also anti-Ukraine. I don’t think they identify as antifa.
Those ain’t your mommy’s brownies 😉
Nope. But I think the brownies would be the thing in that house that my mommy would have found least objectionable.
You seem to have some Canadian experience, so I presume you are no stranger to brownies.
If I were to be reincarnated as a leftist, I’d be down with Udaltsov.
Peace to all the niggaz goin’ out bustin’ shots.
It is important to add here that Antifa doesn’t just work for a single party, but for the entire system. In the wake of Charlottesville, almost every single GOP politician, journalist and powerbroker openly sided with Antifa. This was a typical response:
https://i.imgur.com/DYkjlaI.png
Most so-called ‘conservatives’ in the West are just neoliberals. On social policy, including multiculturalism, there is a complete consensus among all major parties. The only debate is the degree to which you should implement neoliberal economic policies, and that is where the fraudulent right-left axis is used.
Mike Enoch has pointed out that Antifa always go and disrupt against protests on immigration, even if that immigration is used by megacorporations to suppress wages for natives. The fact that this may hurt the native working-class is of no concern for these avowed “anti-capitalists”.
Ultimately, this is how the de facto neoliberal-leftist alliance works. Race/identity matters more for Antifa than their supposed communist ideals and they are willing to accept a neoliberal economic system in order to maintain open borders. Hence Enoch’s derisive comments about them as ‘shocktroops of the system’.
And is he wrong? Romney, Cruz (not to mention McCain et al) all sided with Antifa in the wake of Charlottesville. When the heat gets going, Antifa can count on mainstream “right-wing” support. It’s the same in Europe. That’s why they are useful and allowed (relative) autonomy.
No chance. Look around — SJW’s is a thing that only happens in (formerly) Protestant societies, especially Calvinist ones.
No, of course not. What is true is that Russia doesn’t participate in the economics of “innovation”, a.k.a. investor and taxpayer fraud.
I would also draw a comparison with the press. The state does not really need to enforce press laws in the West, because that is already done by social norms and backroom deals.
Look at the run-up to the Iraq war or even the Libyan invasion. It was near-impossible to find a strong dissenting opinion stream in the mainstream Western press aside from a few token one-offs.
The same was true in the push to intervene in Syria when those supposed “chemical attack videos” came out. Once again, the Western press was unified. Or take the “dead Arab on a beach” photo which was used in the autumn of 2015 to push refugee migration. Where were the dissenting voices?
When it really counts, the Western press is completely devoid of balance of opinion. What’s hilarious to me is the smug attitude that many shitlibs have re: Russia and similar countries. To be sure, Russia has problems with censorship but I fundamentally question how different the US press is to the Russian press on issues where you’re just supposed to agree(Intervention wherever ZOG deems fit, blind support for Israel, blind support for mass 3rd world migration etc).
The same type of outsourcing is done as in the case of Antifa. On paper, they have a free press but when it counts, there is none. Of course, the hysteria over Russia “hacking our election” is much of the same. This is also why I take a dim view of press freedom rankings or “democracy indexes”. It largely is just a reflection of Western oligarchical norms. The fact that a very small amount of companies own most of the media in all Western countries and that they just happen to align perfectly with the neo-Cohenist foreign policy objectives, the continued mass importation of 3rd worlders etc is just taken as natural. So a country like Sweden, where a media family like Bonnier(real name: Herschel) has a monopolistic concentration is going to get a huge score in the “press freedom index”. That their state media is pushing far-left social propaganda is also not a problem. But if a Polish state-owned media is controlled by (mild) civnats then “threats to political stability” suddenly emerge.
I just struggle how people cannot see the obvious hypocrisy and the lack of (real) difference between a country like Russia or Sweden in the media sector. The only real difference is the political positions. The Swedish state doesn’t need to control all the media because the media toes the line anyway. Muh freedom.
Or to paraphrase the late, great Lawrence Auster: Democrats want to drive the country off the cliff at 80 mph, Republicans want to drive the country off the cliff at 50 mph.
OT but perhaps interesting that the Maidan operation is seeing more sunlight. Not new on this site, but we are now seeing the MSM getting in on the act, with exposure through two prestigious sources (WSJ journalist writing in Times Literary Supplement) as detailed by Peter Hitchens in :
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/02/now-it-starts-to-come-out-kievs-2014-revolution-was-achieved-by-heavily-armed-thugs-many-of-them-neo.html
That’s a pretty disturbing picture.
Anyway, take care, I don’t know if Antifa in Russia is as violent as in some parts of Western Europe (in Germany it’s become normal for them to torch the or vandalize the homes of “racists” and “Nazis”, or just to beat them up), but since you’re known to them by name don’t take any unncessary risks…Unz review needs you!
Agree with this, except I want to make a small correction, the Democrats are driving at 80 mph and Republicans are doing 79.95 mph.
Hilariously written as anon’s comment was – it’s really only of exaggerating by a few millimeters when it comes to current state of public relations.
http://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/dmitry-take-russia.jpg
Kimppis – the defense industry in Russia is obviously still the second (or a joint second – maybe along with the UK and France) best one in the world.
Russia is punching above its weight, even relative to its huge population, in this area (e.g. even our next super-power China still has to import Russian fighter jet-engines, as it has not mastered the technology itself).
The problem is that still ‘world class’ high-level of military technology doesn’t carry over into development of other future industries.
I wrote the exact data a few weeks ago. But in 2015, venture capital funding in Russia of hi-tech startups was something like $400 million dollars (I can’t remember the exact figure). In the United States, in 2017, it was $84.2 billion.
Yes, still the second best (atleast lol), but China is closer than most people realize, IMO. Of course Russia will remain the third best for a long time to come, but my point was that Russia seems to have a lot problems getting their newest systems into production, and even more delays have been reported recently, nothing is 100% certain, though.
I’d imagine that must have to something do with the state of the Russian science and technology in general, which wasn’t this obvious before. Some stuff is really quite worrying: like the Su-57 program. As I already mentioned, the first prototype flew back in 2010, but it’s possible they’ll only have a few dozen planes by the mid-to-late 2020s, despite just testing a 5th engine on it (which was a major achievement, not denying that). That should not be acceptable, period.
China’s engine technology is IMO somewhat underrated by most people, they’ll probably catch with Russia in the next 5-10 years. Hundreds of modern Chinese Flanker variants actually use Chinese engines and they’ve also tested a domestic engine on a J-20 (however, that’s was not a 5th generation engine, but still), and so on.
Also by the same logic, shouldn’t the UK and France be quite a way behind both Russia and even China? They import even more from the US, they have many multinational projects, etc, in other words their MICs are not as large-scale. How about SK, Japan and Germany? IMO, looking at the scale, France and the UK are more comparable to those countries than the US, Russia and China.
Among the P5, it is America > China > Russia > France > Britain
Remember, the British relies on American aircrafts for their new aircraft carrier and American SLBM for their nuclear deterrence.
Perhaps – but the issue is a lack of expected carry over from the defense industry, into more economically important industries.
Regardless of some current delays, Russia has a ‘world class’ (at least joint second place) defense industry. But there is not indication of amount of carry-over from the military sector, into other future industries, to anything close to what would be expected from a country/economy on the cutting edge in the military technology field.
By what criteria? In terms of government expenditure, they are behind.
But in terms of their technological level in many areas and what they are able to produce – it’s clear that the UK and French defense industries group somewhere together with Russia (in a joint second place area).
Companies like BAE Systems, Dassault and Thales are equivalent as any in Russia.
And we can see that e.g. the UK is ahead in certain areas, as with Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, or the Type 45 destroyers.
With the disclaimer that this my amateur perspective, as someone who does not work in defense industry – we would group Russia and probably UK and France, all in a vague joint second place, when it comes to development of their defense industries.
The fact that British and French defense industries are partly integrating with US, does not mean they are less advanced for it.
Although self-sufficiency is a more important value in defense industries, than in other industries – there is not indication that this level of integration harms interests of countries which have been allied for 70+ years. It is rather a rational decision for them as they share technology and lower development costs.
British and French defense industries also supply the United States.
The STOVL technology in the F-35B was largely handled by BAE Systems. And of course Rolls-Royce was joint-partner in building the rival F136 engine for the F-35, before the contract was cancelled.
One advantage of being an American Nationalist is that however stupid your people may be, mainstream conservatives are even stupider. I’m not sure this is true in Russia.
From what I know – this student posted on social networks extremist materials to see the reaction of the public, and use the results in his thesis.
I know little about this trial (apparently the court was idiotic, although probably in full compliance with the law. The student clearly an idiot). However, the principle is just. Suppose that I (when writing scientific works on jihadism) will begin placing calls in social networks to organize terrorist attacks in the subway in the name of ISIS. Suppose I have a purely scientific goa l- to determine how many fanatics I can convince to sacrifice their lives. What should be the reaction of the police?
I would like to read about the Russians indicted for interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Apparently they kept interfering retroactively until May 2017.
The important questions:
1) who are they?
2) how plausible are the charges?
3) would Greasy bang them?
Especially #3 is very important to know.
Some gays are trying to expand the taboo to the “f-word”. https://twitter.com/deangelis28/status/963871255005941760
lol, that does sound pretty stupid, very poor judgement on the student’s part. Still seems like a rather draconian punishment though. Thanks for the answer!
Alexander Mercouris had a pretty persuasive explanation about the Su-57 delays: http://russiafeed.com/russias-fifth-generation-su-57-flies-new-engine/
I think the problem with your argument is that it would work with any other taboo. “I’m literally shaking” is not an argument and, as you write, it should be handled by the individual and his psychiatrist, whether he’s “literally shaking” after hearing the word “nigger,” or the word “faggot,” or any other word. But since the argument didn’t work in the case of the “n-word,” I highly doubt it will work with the “f-word” either. (By the way, I thought the “f-word” normally means “fuck.”)
Let’s hope it’s true.
An empire will exploit the nationalism, nascent or deep-rooted, of a certain people against a rival empire or great power. It’s like, even as globalists denounce the ethno-nationalism of Poland and Hungary, they gleefully support the ethno-nationalism of Ukrainians(even among Neo-Nazis) as an effective weapon against Russia. But at the same time, globalists seek to weaken nationalism among Ukrainians in relation to the West. Similarly, the Japanese imperialists encouraged Manchurian separatism & nationalism against the Chinese, Russians, and Europeans, but they also weakened it in relation to Japanese interests. ‘Emperor’ Puyi was used as a puppet-patriot. THE LAST EMPEROR is a fascinating film.
Su-57
Russia is over the developmental hump. New engine is developed and the issue over the internal weapons bay has been resolved. It’s still not as stealthy as Western equivalents but stealth may not be all that’s its cracked up to be as missile accuracy and tracking improves.
Next gen armour
Likewise, the Amarta platform is on the cusp of standard production.
Navy
The Navy is the main source of your blackpilling. Fuggedaboutdit. There’ll be nothing equivalent to the Soviet Navy flying a Russian flag for decades. Huge capability was lost when the Soviet Union fell, including technical capital and infrastructure in the Ukraine. For a whole decade, Russian shipbuilding was in a steep decline. The other branches managed to ‘hibernate’ and preserve human and technological capital far more successfully.
However, Russia’s revolutionary approach of incorporating advanced weapon on small platforms combined with slow but steady production of world class submarines is more than sufficient for a potent green water navy. The Black Sea Fleet, which is mainly responsible for the Syria operation, now fields three new frigates (almost large enough to be considered destroyers in the West), new corvettes, and new diesel electric subs. New landing ships will join soon too. The maritime approaches will be effectively protected, but you’re not going to see a Russian carrier group parading around the world like the US (or China in the next few years).
Russia is primarily a land power anyway.
I think the development issues will work themselves out once the Russian defence sector has got the brand new platforms sorted out. They’ll have re-learned how to initiate projects. The major problem is cost. Upgraded Soviet equipment will have to fill the gaps as the new systems trickle in. It might take a decade or so to accumulate 200 odd Su-57s.
Yes, that certainly explains it to some extent. But it was known for a long time that the engine won’t be ready before atleast 2022-23, but now it seems there have been some additional delays. Because IMO it still doesn’t explain why they are possibly unable to get the first squadron (with the initial engines) by the end 2020, but instead only by 2022-23, and, most worryingly, why the production is going to remain slow even after that (so a few dozen planes by 2025-27).
So the first prototype in 2010 -> the original plan was to get 60 by 2020 (albeit with the current engines) > but in the end it takes 15 years to start “mass production”. Not encouraging, there’s no way around it.
But I repeat: that is obviously not 100% confirmed.
its make its initial test flights which means the basic design is operational
http://tass.com/defense/979265
The Western press was in shill mode Russia would never get the engine up and running anytime soon, but then suddenly it all came together.
Weapons are being sorted too:
http://tass.com/defense/986607
As I said above, it seems Russia’s main problem is not so much R&D but Rubles and a sub-standard capacity for mass production of non-Soviet era platforms.
While I agree that the delays of this type aren’t great in principle, I don’t think that it makes any real difference. Current Russian gen 4++ airplanes can handle anything they are likely to encounter. Keep in mind that what matters is not just performance comparison feature-for-feature, but also a matter of doctrine.
AFAIK, Russian military doctrine states that the primary area of operations is up to 1,000km beyond national borders (near abroad). If your goal is not to penetrate enemy airspace half way around the globe, why do you need stealth? You don’t need stealth to fly in your own airspace, but your enemy might.
Which brings us to the second point: stealth is a scam, as explained in this 10 min video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw (most relevant points are after the 6 min mark). This video is about Canada buying F35, but it mentions that every “stealth” aircraft in service today would be visible with 1940s radar technology (long-wave radar). Stealth only makes sense if it makes it invisible to your adversary, based on the capabilities that they have. However if it’s invisible to you but visible to your adversaries, what’s the point?
Yes, the number of prototypes is a good point, as well as the new engines that were just tested. The most recent prototypes also look much better than the first ones (obviously), so it seems that there shouldn’t be massive problems with the program.
Russia’s military budget is also big in ruble terms and I don’t think it was considerably cut, so IMO it’s a mix of R&D issues + some problems with mass production.
And having a blue-water navy is certainly much less important for Russia than it’s for the US and China, but some of those delays have been really severe… Just baaad.
Also, I’m not so sure that Su-57 is less stealthy than its competitors. I don’t think that’s based on any facts. Atleast it should be stealthy enough, so that it doesn’t really matter, diminishing returns and all that, other factors will be decisive.
I see a bit of a problem with Austrian peacekeepers:
You see, their coat of arms:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Coat_of_arms_of_Austria.svg/720px-Coat_of_arms_of_Austria.svg.png
Would break a bunch of Maidan-svidomite decommunisation laws.
I am kind of waiting for some savy Sovok in Donbass to paint a big ass mural of the Austrian Coat of arms with “Austria, please take back Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv” below, after all, Donbass would massively benefit from Lvivs male population disappearing into the Austrian service sector.
That’s a revealing tweet:
Strongly supports the argument that these declarations of outrage (in this particular case at least) are actually bullying attempts to exert power over others.
Is that exchange what it appears to be – someone trying to persuade your employer to sack you for the opinions you express? (I’m not a twitter user so I only see the bit at the link you gave).
Presumably Pinsen was just using the phrase semi-ironically, quoting the original tweet. I assume few people here would actually fear using taboo terms such as nigger and faggot on Unz when it is appropriate to do so.
By the way, I don’t know if you’ve seen this latest from the Guardian today, but I found it interesting:
Homophobic video warns Russians of dangers of not voting
The “gay on a homestay” (not sure what the original Russian would have been – I’ll leave that for a native speaker or someone who has seen the video) seems quite an amusing and presumably effective skit based upon the reasonable fear of pollution with western homo-promotion, but where did the idea of raising the conscription age come from? Presumably that (and the restricted toilet time idea) are just random examples of crazy policies that future governments could bring in.
I am a stranger to all but sin. 🙂
This video (idiotic, low production value) is a good illustration of the human capital crisis afflicting conservatism almost everywhere.
I’ll take your word for it on the poor quality, as I haven’t seen it myself. But is it actually meaningfully conservative? It sounds more like a government information “boost voter participation” type product from the description, though the article says the government election committee has denied involvement. I mean, two of the themes described (conscription age and toilet time) hardly seem to be conservative anti-liberal themes, although the gay homestay one could easily be interpreted that way.
From my perspective it’s nice to at least hear of some healthy scepticism about homosexuality, given how flooded we are with homo propaganda most of the time.
A great absurd-humor clip. It mocks politics in General, not any political movement.
Here you can see (mainly it should be clear without translation but you can enable subtitles)
The level of lies in propaganda
http://www.france24.com/en/20180219-anti-gay-vote-putin-video-goes-viral-russia
“A homophobic video urging Russians to re-elect President Vladimir Putin has gone viral less than a month before the country’s election.
The video, which appeared on social media on Friday, tell’s voters that if Putin’s rivals win they will take Russia into a “nightmare” future in which they are forced to co-habit with gay men.”
That is a humorous video where there is no mention about Putin at all (either direct or indirect), has become a “Vlideo urging Russians to re-elect President Vladimir Putin”. And the parody of the methods of political manipulation is portrayed as real intimidation.
Thanks for both of those. Looks perfectly decent quality for a public information video to me – about what I’d expect from the government here, and reasonably funny for the genre.
Disappointingly it’s not even particularly “homophobic”. Clearly the Guardian was using the term in the same way it generally uses such terms, to mean insufficiently worshipful towards the special people concerned.
Unusually the Guardian didn’t go full on anti-Putin propagandist as France24 did.
No stories about the Russian interference indictments? Who are these guys, how stupid are the charges, would Greasy bang them?
As far as I can tell, it’s not “from the government “. Comedian Sergei Burunov makes parody clips on different themes. In this case, he made a parody of the election campaign.
And now a humorous parody clip, seriously discussed at https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7yrfk6/a_homophobic_video_urging_russians_to_reelect/ as a propaganda “video urging Russians to re-elect President Vladimir Putin”. Really evil irony, that the victims of brainwashing , self-righteous discuss how “brainwashed” Russians are.
english translation of clip:
Wife: I set the alarm for 9
Husband: Good job. Now turn the alarm off – tomorrow is Sunday.
Wife: But there is a lot to do tomorrow, and we have to make it to the polls [for the elections].
Husband: [dismissive] getting ready to go to the polls… Candidates tomorrow are going to weep big crocodile tears, [imitating crying] “Oh no, Lucy didn’t come to the polls and vote, how will we understand who the President is without her vote?” Turn off the alarm clock – now. We’re sleeping in tomorrow.
[Husband wakes up and hears knocking on the door]
Voice from outside the shot: Comrade, open the door
Husband: Who the hell is that?
Army Officer: We’re here to draft you into to the army.
Husband: What army? I’m 52.
Army Officer: Perfect. They raised the draft age to 60.
Husband: Who raised it?
Army Officer: What do you mean who? The president. After all, you did vote for him.
Husband: I didn’t vote for anyone. Bye!
Child: Dad, give me 4 million. I need it for school for security fees.
Husband: Hold on, son, let me ask mom. [to himself] What’s up with his uniform? It looks stupid. [to wife in kitchen] Lucy – hold on… what the hell is this dick?
Stereotypical Gay Man: For your information, I’m a gay in temporary housing
Husband: What?
Wife: What’s wrong? The law is that every family has to foster a gay man who has had their partner leave. He has another week here. If he doesn’t find another partner during that time, then you’ll have to be with him.
Gay Man: The law is the law.
Gay Man [distant]: Listen, I think we have to have a very serious discussion.
[Distant voices from wife, son, and army officer]
Announcement: Attention – bathroom visitation is limited to a set duration of time
Husband: [wakes up] What kind of bullshit was that dream? Lucy listen –
Gay Man: Don’t worry, I’ll calm you down
[Husband wakes up again, pulls the covers off of wife]
Wife: Dear god, what’s wrong with you?
Husband: What do you mean “what”?? Come on – wake up and let’s go to the polls, or it’ll be too late. Come on, Lucy, come on!