While I am not much of a religious person, there is one particular argument for His existence that I find to be rather convincing*.
Those who wage war on God are unmade by God.
And their descendants, too.
The idea that He is humane, or fair to individuals, is a modern conceit. The Old Testament makes it clear on many occasions that the iniquities of the father are visited upon the children.
I am Yahweh your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
And we do indeed see an unmistakable pattern of God punishing those who would wage war against Him – through regicide, treason, Communist idolatry – in the 20th century.
Russians betrayed their fatherland and committed regicide in 1917-1918, and the abominations this spawned in Moscow and Berlin turned their children into mincemeat (it wiped out 40% of the 20-40 y/o male cohort: A literal sacrifice of firstborns). The bloodletting was especially concentrated in Nazi-occupied Russia and Belorussia, which constituted the core of Bolshevik support in the Civil War, while White-supporting Siberia got off lighter.
While the Russians did not create the Bolshevik regime, all too many of them sat quietly on the sidelines while demons in human form murdered the priests, looted the churches, and mocked Him with impunity. Their punishment was to be themselves murdered by the millions in terror-famines, purges, and the Gulag. The Old Bolshevik sadists were themselves liquidated in turn during the late 1930s. The Russian aristocracy, having betrayed its Sovereign, would be annihilated within their own country, their daughters taken by zealots from the shtetls; or slowly dissolve into nothingness in its exile abroad.
In relative power terms, the Russian Federation is but a pale shadow of the Soviet Union, which in turn was but a failed shadow to what the Russian Empire could have been – an economically developed superpower of 400 million Slavs at least equal to the United States, as opposed to playing a foil to it.
Appropriately, the Jews and Balts paid an extremely heavy price for their disproportionate contribution to the murder of God’s representative on Earth and their critical role in supporting the Bolshevik regime. The Latvians were the only peoples in the Russian Empire to free vote in their majority for the Bolsheviks, and would play a critical role in suppressing revolts against Bolshevik power in the first year of the Civil War. The Jews sided with the Bolsheviks soon after, and would account for 40% of the Soviet state’s domestic security organs from ~1920 to the late 1930s. Ashkenazi Jews, Latvians, and Estonians are unique in that there are fewer of them today than in 1918. East European Jewry in particular got annihilated root and stem.
The Germans played a critical role in both financing the Russian Revolution (though not without some help from two key intermediaries – appropriately, a Jew and an Estonian). Thus we might view Hitler as a “scourge of God”, sent to punish Jews and Russians for their manifold sins against God. Although Germany was not punished as hard – it lost half of Prussia, but far fewer people – its offenses had also been more limited. Indeed, one may even view Germany’s defeat by 1945 as an example of God’s mercy, because if the war had continued for much longer, the Germans may have eventually been subjected to atomic democide from the Americans.
Almost all of the countries that provided “international brigades” – from Hungarians to Chinese – to help the Red Army in the Russian Civil War would also turn Communist, most often through that same Red Army.
The Tsar went into World War I in support of a country that had sponsored a regicide. That country subsequently lost more people as a share of the population than any other combatant nation. It ended the 20th century as a broken remnant, torn apart by North Atlantic terrorists and shorn of many of its own core territories.
Fortunately, there have already been four generations, so there is reason to think that the curse may be played out.
In Russia, the churches are being rebuilt, and Russians are enjoying vastly better health and wealth than at any previous time in their history. Russian territories are coming back to Russia, instead of fragmenting further.
Just as Jehovah punished Jews for spreading Communist idolatry a century ago, so now He rewards them for Israel’s faith and conservative values. He has helped them triumph over the Arab military and demographic threat, and more recently, He even chose Trump as US President (“Queen Esther“), who would recognize the Golan as Israeli and its capital as Jerusalem.
Conversely, if the Sixth Proof is true, one wonders about the blood price that God will exact of modern Americans and West Europeans for their disbelief and harboring of heretical doctrines.
Personally, I have no idea if this is true. I don’t exclude the idea that the Architect programmed in some global karmic function into this simulation, and obviously, there is no reason its moral foundations have to correlate to those of Enlightenment progressivism as opposed to Old Testament collectivism. And obviously, while this theory explains many things, plenty of lacunae remain. For instance, I really don’t know what the Irish have done so wrong; to the contrary, they seem to have held the covenant with God better than most nations. Even so, they underwent centuries of foreign domination, a huge manmade famine, and massive emigration. Their population today is far smaller than it was in 1840.
Nonetheless, I do believe that the evidence here is sufficiently strong for it to be worthwhile – effectively altruistic – to criminalize atheism, and liberalism as the gateway drug to Communism. It is better that a few heretics vanish than that an entire planet falls to Chaos.
- I have long entertained these ideas, but credit should also go to commenter AP, who has written similar thoughts.
IF THERE IS GOD, YAHWEH IS NOT IT.
A lot of Christians and Judaists confuse Yahweh with God. Yahweh is not a real God (if there is God).
Read about Yahweh and see if he deserves to be called God, thus:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochictic, caprciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
“Whenever we read … the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible* is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.” – America’s founding father, Thomas Paine
*When he says the bible, Paine means the Torah, the OT.
“Jehovah, conned and bullied his way to the top of the godly heap. He then maintained his standing through threats and coercion – and when that didn’t work, he did what only a mentally deranged god would do: he just moved in and killed people.”–Paul Tice, in Jumpin Jehovah: Exposing the Atrocities of the Old Testament God.
A non-religious explanation of this, but inspired by traditional Catholic theology (which in turn owes much to the Greeks), is that societies which defy Logos necessarily experience decline, failure, and disaster.
I’m not a Papist of course but their concept of Logos is interesting: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09328a.htm
https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/logos
This of course has religious overtones, but put simply if your society is arrayed against the nature of reality itself you will pay the price.
And Western societies are clearly already paying the price. In my county the government cannot meet its budget owing to the costs of the drug epidemic for instance. The city is now to construct a new “sober living” center for vagabond teens whose parent(s) have been destroyed by drugs. It’s hoped this will reduce the cost of “out of home placements” (i.e. foster care).
The Christian take on this is that unlike animals, who cannot but obey their instincts, Man is endowed with reason and can tame his instincts. But if man fails to do so, he becomes a slave to his passions and they destroy him. Is it not clear that this is what is happening with the opiod crisis in the USA?
I’ve generally concluded, as it seems you and AP have, that leftism needs to be outlawed.
That raises the question though why they did it. Unless one thinks Russians are prone to disoloyalty by nature, the total collapse of support for Nicolas II within just a few days seems like a good argument that he was an incompetent loser who failed completely to inspire confidence even among the people who should have been his natural supporters.
Did he ever give any hint of having a programe beyond continuing to rule as God-appointed autocrat? How did he imagine that such an archaic concept of his personal rule could be reconciled to industrialization (clearly necessary to preserve the great power status or even independence of his realm) and the resulting growth of a capitalist bourgeoisie and industrial proletariat?
Obviously Bolshevism was a terrible disaster, but can one really absolve the tsarist system of all responsibility for it?
One cannot defy the Tao.
The Tsarists don’t look too bad with the benefit of hindsight. The basic deficiencies of late Tsarism appear to be:
• Insufficient development of police state apparatus and harsh punishment to crush revolutionary elements
• Strategically ambitious, expansionist foreign policy at a time when focus needed to be on internal reform
• Specific examples of the above would include the Russo-Japanese War, the French alliance, and the fatal relationship with Serbia–compare to the strategic caution of early Stalinism
• Personal weakness of Nicholas II, which in turn was a problem owing to the insufficient development of the Russian “deep state” which was factionally divided between the interior and finance ministries
Personal rule, or rather dictatorship, of a modern industrial state has clearly been demonstrated to be possible thanks to the communists and fascists. The “necessity” of parliament was an artifact of early modernity where central governments required the consent and cooperation of the rich in order to extract substantial tax revenue. Not an issue after the development of railways and telegraphs. The central government apparatus now has practically unlimited power if it so desires.
Absolutist monarchies have a weakness in that mediocrities and eve lunatics can ascend the throne, which is less likely with single-party dictatorships. Constitutional monarchy solves that problem, but introduces other problems.
The combination of eugenics with monarchism might be promising.
I really don’t know what the Irish have done so wrong…they underwent centuries of foreign domination, a huge manmade famine, and massive emigration.
Nope. Don’t listen to NRxers (ie. larping Catholic Ellis Island deracinates). They know as little about Ireland as they do about Puritanism.
Appropriately, the Jews and Balts paid an extremely heavy price for their disproportionate contribution to the murder of God’s representative on Earth and their critical role in supporting the Bolshevik regime
In one of his books (Rebuilding Russia, I think) Solzhenitsyn said something like that about Latvians, then pointed out that the Lithuanians should not be lumped in with them as they did nothing wrong. I’m not convinced Estonians did much wrong either. I get the Latvian (and Jewish) part though.
But the same trend was happening elsewhere in Europe – at least where it had not already happened. There is not a single real monarch left there, and a great many were dealt with at the end of the war – a problem which they did not necessarily cause.
King George was such a fake king by that time that he was afraid to take the Czar and his family in. He had to shake thousands of hands.
People of various classes had political ambitions. There were parliaments created. Eventually it led to male universal suffrage and then to an even fuller universalism that in many countries included women – all ambition and the struggle for resources. When women got it, it was disastrous.
One man can not govern a large country, but how can he keep power while he devolves it? When human nature is grasping? The Kaiser was already being ignored, before the war was even over because power had devolved to the generals. Many of them being less inclined to peace and having the ambition to annex territories. IIRC, he did not even really abdicate – they said that he did. (or he at least wanted to stay King of Prussia.)
Commies and fascists had mass parties which connected the centre with localities, organized supporters of the existing regime and gave them a stake in it.
I’m currently reading the first volume of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin biography…somewhat tedious, and maybe too negative about late tsarism (can’t judge it, maybe AK should do a review). But one criticism of Nicolas II and his circle seems quite relevant: according to Kotkin Nicolas didn’t even want his own supporters (the “Black hundreds”, with whose views AK seems to agree so much according to that quiz he once took) to organize in a mass movement, because that clashed with his essentially pre-modern view of his God-given rule. Kotkin implies this was part of the reason for the weakness of the Russian right.
Well, that was weird.
Technically speaking, not all hope is lost! All Russia needs to do is to encourage eugenic fertility among its breeders. That should eventually fix this problem.
BTW, do you think that a developed Russia would have been an attractive target for non-White immigrants like the US is in real life?
Technically speaking, a slight majority of Soviet Jews (if one uses 1938 borders rather than 1941 borders) actually survived WWII and the Holocaust. Polish Jewry, Czechoslovak Jewry, Hungarian Jewry (outside of Budapest), and Dutch Jewry all suffered worse in terms of percentage of total population lost during the Holocaust. What exactly did all of them do? (Some Hungarian Jews did participate in Bela Kun’s regime, but were those Jews primarily Budapest Jews or rural Hungarian Jews?)
Also, unfortunately, it would be unsurprising for Jews to side with the Bolsheviks due to the White Army’s anti-Semitism and also due to Tsarist Russia’s history of anti-Semitism. While the Jewish quotas could be excused as a form of affirmative action for non-Jews, the Pale of Settlement is much less excusable.
The health and wealth part is certainly true (just like it is for, say, China), but in terms of territorial acquisitions, Crimea and the Donbass won’t help Russia that much demographically. An extra five million people out of almost 150 million people is only something like 3% of the total population.
If God really wanted to show favoritism towards Israeli Jews, he’d get the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank to emigrate en masse. That’s probably what some–if not many–Israeli right-wingers secretly (or perhaps, in some cases, openly) want.
Good comparison can be made with Showa Japan, in which the personal rule of the Emperor (or, if you don’t accept the imperial rule thesis, the ruling clique) was strengthened through building mass movements.
Prewar Japan admittedly was not an absolute monarchy and was more similar to Imperial Germany (or perhaps the Kingdom of Prussia since it was not a federation and had a strong central government) than it was to Tsarist Russia.
BTW, my own current thoughts in regards to WWI is that Russia should have stayed out of this war since it had little of value to gain from this war. Galicia was full of Ukrainian nationalists even back then, Subcarpathian Ruthenia was dirt-poor, Posen and the Polish Corridor were full of rebellious Poles, East Prussia was full of Germans and Germanized Poles (Masurians), and Ottoman Armenia had some potential, but Tsarist Russia was unwilling to acquire it at a much cheaper price back in 1894-1896 during the Hamidian massacres.
God may already be enacting his revenge, if you believe that sort of thing. Western liberal TFRs are far below replacement level; they are literally dying off as we speak. Divine genocide? By the end of this century both they and most of their descendants will be gone from the gene pool. What was that about the iniquities of the father being visited upon the children? That’s happening already, in real time no less.
Well, how exactly is Xi Jinping reconciling all of these ideas in China nowadays?
One would think that large-scale Gentile-Jewish intermarriage would be a good thing since it might make Jews more concerned about the interests of Gentiles, no?
I think there is a subtle difference: Xi is the result of a power structure created by the CCP. He did not create the CCP – it created him. Though he may have honed it a little to his benefit. I think this could also be said of NK, even though it has a dynastic element.
Of course, the Czar had his own dynastic power structure, but it was an imperfect legacy. Perhaps too difficult to turn into something powerful like the communist party.
What are the real monarchies today? Saudi Arabia comes to mind, but I wonder if that has something to do with polygamy – the Saudis are definitely a larger group than the Romanovs. There are a lot of princes. Not sure if it helps that Arabs are dumb, but the oil certainly helps – is essential really. Of course Russia has oil, but not as much per capita.
The CCP is a mass party which mobilises a broad base. Quite different to a regime which aims to induce passivism in its people.
The Imperial House of Japan survived for so long because it generally did not have any real power.
As for Showa, I think the Japanese were culturally primed to accept his godhood (ex: no Christianity). Also, I think East Asians are more naturally ethnonationalist and less individualistic which helps a lot.
You are discussing good Ancient Greek (Stoical ideas).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
The current British system is generally the best, where the British royal family are without power, but still popular around the world (for example, their popularity in Russia and America). .
Of course, hereditary monarchy, where the monarch has power, is a disaster, as you introduce not just a hazardous roll of the dice with every new generation, but more like an inevitable decline (as well as the incentive for inbreeding, and being ruled by a foreign elite family – both of which was the situation with Nicholas II, where even the possible benefit of his being cousins with the Germans could not stop First World War).
The Queen seems to have perhaps above average intelligence, and definitely above average self discipline and physical health.
However, her son (Prince Charles), perhaps has an “IQ test score” of 95? And he also seems to have less discipline than average, more neuroticism than average, and to be less charming than average people..
Children of Prince Charles are a bit better – Prince William and Prince Harry. They both seem to have perhaps average intelligence (“IQ test score” of 100?). But at least they have above average charm and sociality.
I hope we are not responsible for the sins of our countrymen – or else we are all doomed.
I have linked this before, which I consider beautiful from a purely theoretical-ideological aspect:
https://www.socialmatter.net/2018/11/23/the-political-legacy-of-konstantin-pobedonostsev/
However, modern states will atain advantages such that they will be able to dominate non-modern states, which makes reactionism (although not necessarily counter-revolution) a futile position.
This does not imply liberal modernity is the only path, contrary to self-interested ideologues, for there are many paths to modernity, but it does necessitate a certain transformation of life and governance.
That was Zen, this is Tao. God’s new Chosen People:
https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02887/china_2887244b.jpg
I think the Queen has genuine skill at making small talk- maybe it is just practice, but perhaps some of it she could pass on. However, I don’t really see the point.
They haven’t defended the British people – as if to underline the point, Harry has just miscegenated – though you may say he is not the main branch. Charles and Diana divorced. What is the point, if they are not even a good example of traditional values? (not that many were – but they don’t even keep up appearances). Just the tourist dollars?
What monarchies survive in Europe all seem pointless. The Romanovs would have been no different. Most likely they would have died in exile, if they had not been not murdered.
Reclaiming Constantinople was on the table. Russia as Middle East hegemon, Tsarist Zionism.
It is the UK and the US that gained a few trinkets, but in the grand scheme lost everything.
Endless Middle Eastern wars. Failure to complete the Cape-to-Cairo railway. Importation of Mexican labor, movement of blacks from the South to North. End of the gold standard.
Otoh, WW1 was the root cause of the anarcist violence that led to the 1924 Immigration Act in the US. Prior to the war the capitalists had succeeded in watering down any immigration legislation.
Morocco is not an oil state, but the monarch is an active head of state. Jordan operates in a similar fashion.
If there is a parliament, I would generally call the monarch symbolic. It can be a bit of a fuzzy line – they might merely be becoming symbolic. Or else they might be like Augustus. I think Queen Elizabeth II technically has some power, at least on paper, but once she tried to use it, it would be gone.
If the monarch has the de facto power to choose the head of government, rather than the PM being the leader of the largest party, I consider that more than symbolic.
The US President is both head of government and state, but the German President is only head of state and has a symbolic constitutional role.
While mostly symbolic, it has been alleged that the Dutch monarch conspired to block Geert Wilders from holding a Cabinet office. It’s a worthwhile speculation that the establishment in Europe may use the monarchy/non-executive president to execute a coup d’etat should a nationalist party win an election.
The famine obviously was not manmade, but the callous indifference of the British was.
The Belarussians did not do much wrong, but they suffered more than any group except the Jews.
From the original article:
It might be more accurate to say that those who wage war on Natural Law are unmade by Natural Law. Cf. Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings.
Those who do not wage war on Natural Law can be unmade by other factors – such as the misfortune of a more powerful, warlike neighbour (or, worse still, one to the East and another to the West). Obedience to God might save your soul, but it will not preserve your country.
……powerful take
Constantinople certainly wasn’t worth fighting a World War over, IMHO.
AK is onto something though he might be mistaken about God’s loyalties and priorities. But he is close. With few minor tweaks he can align himself with Christian Zionists who know the true TRUTH.
This American Christian Zionist (Can you imagine that crap like that is published in Jerusalem Post?) does not mention Russia in his litany of the anti-Jewish wrongdoers who met the retribution from God. Apparently even the moronic Christian Zionists know the talking points to not to bring up the Jewish role in Bolshevik revolution in bringing down Russia and that the USSR as the first anti-anti-Semitic state was a tool of YHWH in his divine plan to save the Jews and punish all the wrongdoers against the Jews.
I love the arrogance and cognitive dissonance here, it is simply awe-inspiring.
God is a superintelligent AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxYbA1pt8LA
The final problem with Tsarism was bad luck: bad luck that some jerkoff killed Stolypin.
Nicholas II didn’t want war, not in his heart, but he didn’t have the will to tell his Freemason * advisors to go to Hell. Stolypin said Russia needed peace. But he wasn’t there in 1914. Just that clown Sazonov. Nicholas II calls for a private meeting, just him and Sazonov. He was hoping he would be told to stick with peace. That’s what Stolypin had done in private. But this Freemason idiot basically says, “No, let’s go to war” and so Russia blows itself up.
The whole thing makes me so stinking angry I can barely breathe. Hundreds of millions dead, a whole continent ruined, because of a piece of scum like Sazonov.
It’s despairing to see a commentator whose analysis – whether one agrees with the views expressed or not – is usually top notch and worth pondering, veer off into fairy tales and mythology.
It seems arguing whether or not ‘“God” exists” seems to be an obsession with those brought up under Abrahamic religions whereas it seems to me as ridiculous as arguing whether Harry Potter is a real figure or not. I mean certainly a good chunk of the world is aware that there is such a person called Harry Potter who does exist at least in books and apparently endowed with powers outside what is physically knows possible and called “magic”. But did JK Rowling invent him out of her imagination or was it based on a real person and a real school and….let’s debate!
The fundamental problem with the whole “Does God Exist” question is that in order to answer this or any question, every term it in needs to be understood in the same way by every person hearing the question. And it’s fairly clear that even the question is not well understood.
For example if I ask “Does Dfhytz98 exist?”, the first question is: “What or who is Dfhytz98?” Without defining what “Dfhytz98” is, what its properties are, attempting to answer the question is futile.
What is “God”? What are the properties of this “God” thing? How do these properties differ from those ascribed to the various entities that the Greeks believed “existed”, or the Romans of yore, or the Hindus even today?
And what does “exist” mean? Harry Potter “exists” – at least in a literary universe (much as various superheroes “exist” in the Marvel or DC Universes). If we are talking about “existing” in our world, we are looking for testable hypotheses. A Higgs Boson “exists” in our universe in the sense that a set of testable properties were ascribed to a theoretical entity called the Higgs Boson and on performing these tests in our universe, an entity was discovered matching said properties and hence is labeled the Higgs Boson and is said to now “exist”.
So to “prove” an entity called “God” “exists”, one should a) define this entity or entities’ properties; b) show that they are testable; c) be able to test it and show the results fit the description of said entity.
(There is also a question of the properties being robust enough in a formal sense. For example if I claim “ Dfhytz98“ is an entity that is undefinable and then make some sort of clever circular argument that its undefinability defines it and thus makes it “exist” then that formal system is weak enough to be useless to apply any logic to. (An axiomatic system whereby an axiom is that both a proposition and its negation are true is a weak system because everything is true) )
Bad luck? Some jerkoff?
The anti-intellectual tendency of Christian Orthodoxy turned people into fatalists who were at mercy of “bad luck” and “some jerkoffs”.
Some jerkoff=a Jewish socialist revolutionist.
Yes. But I think that you’re taking Anatoly’s essay too literally. Note also how he accepts that his rhetorical proposition is not absent from serious lacunae.
I am of the theory that Jews wrote Egypt into their history to give themselves gravitas. Others have done it – like the medieval Irish. In the context of the modern use of “Judeo-Christian”, it seems quite plausible.
Only necessary because chickens are evil. Must say it is an odd analogy. I have heard God compared to a master who loves his dog. Not a tasty galliform.
BTW, I have never met a Christian Zionist. Many Jews seem to promote the idea that US policy on Israel comes from Christian Zionists and not Jews. I find the idea quite dubious.
Great post, AK. I have indeed drawn similar conclusions and made similar comments but you have fleshed them out better than I have done. You could add that within Germany the Catholic parts got off much more lightly than the Nazi-voting Protestant parts.
Note that Galicia got off the lightest of all the eastern Slavic lands. It avoided the worst of Stalinism in the 1930s, was treated relatively well by the Nazis, didn’t undergo much destruction during the war (Lviv and other cities were largely intact, and cleared of non-Ukrainians), ended up ethnically homogeneous with a fairly stable population. 🙂
Galicia was Hapsburg-loyal and not rabidly hostile toward the Tsar (during 1917-1920, Galician troops fighting in central and eastern Ukraine sometimes cut deals with Denikin and were generally horrified by the undisciplined looting that the Otamans’ troops engaged in).
The fabric softener bill for all your fedoras must be consderable.
Who is that guy?
Also, I forgot to mention that both Greek Jews and Yugoslav Jews likewise suffered extremely heavily during the Holocaust. Indeed, what was their sin? How exactly were they any more culpable than the Jews within the Soviet Union’s 1938 borders (a slight majority of whom survived the Holocaust)?
Agree. Useful idiots can be utilized in more ways than one. The sole existence of them in this case is a utility in itself. The interesting question is how the steady supply of useful idiots is manufactured.
I will expand on the idea that Russia could be equivalent to the US. Russia was never a top power (aside from the brief Soviet period, which owes a lot to outside factors & monstrous human sacrifice for the sake of ideology), and will never be one. Russians’ only advantages have been to be in a place not many people wanted and adopting their nature to that place. It was conquered by Turco-Mongols, and their rule was only broken by another Turco-Mongol named Timur centuries after, had it not been for that Russians might merge into Turks (more so than they already did, notice how many of them have Asiatic features) or would have a small state somewhere in the Western part of modern Russia. It was conquered by Napoleon and Napoleon was defeated by the winter. It was conquered by Germans, and Germans were defeated thanks to the American support and the winter (still with a huge cost to the Russian population). Its population is declining and it has no moral claim or alternative world view that it can offer to humanity, at least as of now. A scientific path for Russians would be to slowly reduce their holdings in Caucasia, and Asia beyond Ural mountains. Concentrate population in West Russia, and try to get a stronghold in the European part. This way their population density would make sense, the country would be easily manageable, and their life standard would drastically increase (this is unimaginable of course, they would be willing to sacrifice another 10 million for keeping land that is inhabited by non-Russians, which brings nothing to Russians).
Russians are used to be governed by despots and authoritarians. The problem is, by nature, authoritarians push away everyone else, and make everyone around them cautious. In reality, Russia is far less of a threat than it actually is, but the US finds it useful to have a Russian scare and Russian love for authoritarians plays into the US’s hand. Therefore, in a weird twist, Russia appears more prominent than it should be, again, this is purely against the interests’ of Russians. While they complain about NATO and the US all the time, they manage to make everyone around them friends with NATO and the US.
A nation that has aspirations of becoming a world power should have ideals to offer humanity. Russia doesn’t have that as well. The US has freedom & democracy (it wasted a lot of credibility while fighting Israel’s wars). China has common prosperity and cooperation. Above all globalists have environmentalism and multiculturalism. What does Russia have? In the past at least there was enough suffering in Russia that brought out some of the most mature literature ever written, but modernity destroyed that as well. Now, all Russia offers is missiles.
This idea is far from perfect, and on some level seems blasphemous. So not everyone suffered proportionately to their guilt, seemingly. Anti-Red Siberians got off lightly, but anti-Red monarchist Kuban Cossacks were starved to death on a massive scale. As were Orthodox, anti-Red Ukrainian peasants (the the latter were anti-monarch though). But who said people are capable of really knowing the full truth.
Galician Jews did welcome the Soviet army (understandably, because it meant safety from Nazis) and collaborated with its regime in 1939-1941. And historically some of them preyed on Christian peasants by running taverns and engaging in predatory money-lending. So there is something, not nothing, though it doesn’t seem to be an a scale that demands total annihilation. Perhaps its just a collective punishment.
The French population was also decimated in the decades after the Revolution and France has never recovered its former status, so that it another piece of evidence for your thesis.
On the other hand, England did pretty well after executing Charles I.
One could say Germany got off light because although the National socialists did many things they did not attempt to defame God and destroy churches and annihilate the presence of religion the way the communists in the USSR did. The crimes of the USSR were not only against man but against God in a direct manner, a manner more vicious then any we have seen, the murdering of priests, the destruction of churches and the denial of God went further then any other nation. Accordingly the blood toll was higher.
Regarding the modern day west, although one could say many in America embrace heretical doctrines and there is widespread degeneracy such as the transgender craze, there is no attempt to deny God or any attempt to assail the churches, and also a substantial part of the population is willing to resist, more then was the case in the USSR, so I expect the punishment in blood to be lighter, although Europe whose population is more heretical and more secular may face heavier punishment.
Sounds like you’re an ignostic.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ignosticism
As am I, so this essay of Karlin’s isn’t really connecting with me.
The people of isolated Bhutan are one of the happiest in the world. How would they fit into this Abrahamic religion-centred theory?
On the other hand, they’d fit fine into a theory which postulates that there are ideal ways for successful societies to behave, some of which have been encoded into myths and traditions, so those that start innovating must do it carefully lest they unwittingly break something.
Iyasu Tokugawa with exceptional cruelty exterminated Japanese Christians and provided Japan with 250 years of peaceful development (economic, cultural, etc.). And what is the “scientific” conclusion from these events? Do the gods hate Christians?
what are the first five?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) ?
what was England’s punishment for the Dissolution of the monasteries (“a looting operation” – EMJ) ?
The conclusion from Karlin’s thesis is that the Jewish God hates those slaves of his who dare rebel – which raizes the question of why one who is not already born into this slavery should wish to pledge loyalty to such a cruel and capricious god.
It’s nonsense. By the time of the war with Timur, the Horde had already suffered a crushing military defeat by the Moscow Prince (in 1380) and lost all real power over Russia.
This is bullshit. Napoleon was utterly defeated before the winter. Battle of Krasny took place November 15-18. Napoleon’s army has lost probably about 50 000 people (26 thousand of them prisoners). The Russian army has lost about 2 000 people. If this is not a defeat, then what is a defeat?
It’s nonsense. The battle of Moscow in 1941 was won with negligible American aid. As for the winter the winter greatly helped the Germans (probably saved them from a crushing defeat a La Stalingrad)
The battle of Stalingrad (which decided the outcome of the war on the Eastern front) took place with very little help from the Americans and without any influence of the “winter”
The Russian army had lost at least 40,000 men at Borodino alone. He was by no means utterly defeated by the time of the retreat from Moscow; he still had an army of hundreds of thousands and had won battles against the Russian army.
During the three-week march to Smolensk, however, the Grande Armée was devastated by a combination of factors: cold, starvation, demoralization, breakdown in troop discipline, a crippling loss of horses and essential supplies, attacks from the Russian army and constant harassment by its Cossack irregulars and partisans.[4]
The condition of the Grande Armée was further degraded by sub-zero temperatures in the first two weeks of November.[5]
If there was snow (” they looked like poppies on the snow-covered battlefield” said one Russian participants) and sub-zero temperatures, then it seems that it was winter.
The problem with all this that you can find many historical examples which can be interpreted to the contrary – Roman Empire abandoned old gods, embraced this particular new god and fell down spectacularly shortly (in historical terms) after, the most functioning leftovers in the end were eradicated completely too in 1453 by Muslims.
Ancient slavic tribes abandoned paganism, formed into new Christian state and also shortly after got bloody greetings from Mongols. Was it revenge of Perun? 🙂
Or is this revenge just for atheists but not for those who exchange one religion for another? 🙂
Work through your daddy issues, mate.
It’s no use to rail against your parents. They’re not perfect, but they spawned you. You weren’t found in a cabbage patch. Make peace and learn to deal with it.
Liberating the aristocracy while keeping peasants in bondage for a hundred years was a huge strategic mistake.
It should have been the other way around; that way there would have been a loyal cadre of high-ranking civil servants around the turn of the century.
I do not like to repeat other commenters, but this is indeed an extremely weird text (which I take as further indication of Ron Unz’s rather loose definition of “interesting, important, and controversial”). But I do want to ask Karlin whether he has read an article on this site called ‘The Holy Hook’, by Laurent Guyénot, and, if so, whether he (Karlin) would find appropriate to specify which God he (Karlin) is referring to?
On the other hand, the most Christian part of the empire survived the longest and the most pagan part, Britain, was the first to collapse. The Christian side won every civil war. The pagan emperor Julian was defeated catastrophically and his attempt to rebuild the Jewish temple was destroyed by God.
That article was painfully stupid and it is demeaning to AK’s intelligence to suggest that he read it.
and the French army also lost at least 40,000 men at Borodino alone.
Here are exactly known results of the battle of Borodino: the Russian army captured 1100 French (including one General), the French army captured 700-900 Russians (including one General). Russian army captured 13 French guns, French army captured 16 Russian guns.
So compare with the result of the battle of Krasny where the Russian army captured 26 000 prisoners and 228 of the French guns (with insignificant own losses)
He (Napoleon) was utterly defeated after Battle of Maloyaroslavets 24 October . After that, Napoleon’s army completely lost the opportunity to successfully fight against Russian troops, and became an easy victim for almost complete destruction.
After that, Napoleon’s army of hundreds of thousands completely lost the opportunity to successfully fight against Russian troops, and became an easy victim for almost complete destruction. Already at Vyazma (November 3), the battle of roughly equal forces of Russian and French troops turned into a massacre of the French. The weather at this time was unusually warm for this time of year.
For all war of 1812 Napoleon didn’t win (really) any battle. After leaving Moscow Napoleon’s army suffers continuous defeats (in most cases with losses 10-20 times more than the Russian troops)
During this period, temperatures were higher than usual at this time of year (and of course the cold affected the Russian army as well as the French). To say that Napoleon was defeated by the cold is the same as to say that the French fleet at Trafalgar was defeated by the wind and waves.
Napoleon was completely defeated before the snow and temperatures below zero. If in November and December 1812 was constantly the temperature is +20 then maybe the loss of the great army would not be so devastating (but it is also possible that the disaster of the French army would be even more devastating). However, there are no weather conditions that could save Napoleon from a crushing defeat in 1812
Ridiculously. Orthodox zealot repeats the most idiotic propaganda myths invented by the revolutionary “intelligentsia”.
A really interesting piece that highlights the musings of a mind that is maturing with age – you should also be commended for the honesty that you’ve put forth revealing some of your inner thoughts. My own personal beliefs were initially formed by two related currents:
1) a disbelief that anything as complex as man and the universe could have evolved strictly by materialistic means. A vacuum given enough time just could not have evolved into what we have today, especially including the spiritual realm, without the hand of an omniscient Creator.
2) the earth is so very fine tuned that its environment is a perfect place for mankind to exist. Just one small variation (the earth’s orbit, the moons position, the slant of the earth, the complex nature of oxygen and water, the magnetic field etc.) and we wouldn’t be here.
A few months back one of your readers (?) made the following citation that would undoubtedly help develop ones views on God and cosmology: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/
The bolshevik destruction of the Sukharev tower was pretty grotesque.
The Byzantines were destroyed after they fell to heresy, Papist and proto-Islamic ones. This historical case is at least very clear.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82_%D0%BE_%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8_%D0%B4%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0
1762
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8
1861
These are undeniable historical facts, not “myth”.
You’re free to interpret these facts as you see fit, but there’s no sense in trying to deny their existence.
Re: Those who wage war on God
Lest we excessively anthropomorphize God, let’s rephrase Anatoly’s
thesis by asking the following question, “Who strays furthest from the
will of God?” Here there is remarkable agreement in the world’s
spiritual traditions. For example, in Christianity there is no greater
sin than the sin of pride (or hubris, or ego as we would say today). In fact,
in moral theology pride is regarded as the father of all sins. Proverbs
16:13 states “Pride goeth before destruction.” In Ancient Greece hubris
was considered one of the greatest crimes. In Buddhism transcendence
of the ego is the key to enlightenment.
Why is obeying the voice of the ego contrary to the will of God? From the
spiritual point of view this is very simple. You cannot say you are superior
to another, and not an enemy make. Unity is our natural state (“Make me
one with everything” is the classic mantra), and our egos (as manifested
in pride) are a symbol of separation. In other words, bloated individual
or national egos go against the moral grain of the Universe which aims
toward unity at the spiritual level. Ideally, life lived in harmony with the
Universe (i.e., in accordance with the will of God) should be effortless.
“Consider the lilies of the field… they toil not” (Matthew 6:28).
Hence anything that may result in bloated egos, e.g., empires, very large
countries, great wealth (“easier for a camel to pass through the eye of
a needle”), etc, has a corrupting influence and goes against the moral
grain of the Universe (or, in theistic language, increases our distance
from God). We end up with Aristotelian (or Buddhist) precept: moderation
in all things. In application to countries this implies that “size is the
root of all evil,” to quote the Austrian economist Leopold Kohr.
Indeed, political scientists tell us that optimum governance is reached
when the population size is about 15 million people.
This is a nice feel-good saying, but it is harder to believe in when encountering wealthy mild-mannered bourgeois people and then contrasting it with impoverished people who have engage in vicious malthusian struggle.
Of course, it is culture-specific and need not necessarily be wrong, but I would avoid considering it axiomatic.
According to whom? How is governance defined? Why 17 million and not 20 million or 25 million?
And if a country needs economies of scale for a large project, say, a space programme? Then, we have established that there is a trade-off and 17 million may not be optimal.
Of course, those on the spiritual path realize that transcending one’s
ego is very difficult and even fraught with peril. In a remarkable book,
“The Wisdom of the Ego”(1995), the Harvard professor Vaillant points
out that we first need to develop mature ego defenses and coping
mechanisms (e.g., a certain amount of ego level success in life) before
attempting to transcend our egos. Adolescents and people in their 20s
are advised not to try to go beyond the ego. Attempting to become
egoless amounts to a hero’s journey, and can be accompanied by
extreme danger and even result in death.
For those who are dissatisfied with ordinary life, and want to explore
the life of the Spirit I recommend the works of Ken Wilber, America’s
most famous and most translated philosopher, starting perhaps with
his magnum opus, “Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality” (1995). If you’re not
willing to wade through 851 pages of text (although it reads fast and
200 pages are footnotes), then Michael Washburn’s “The Ego and the
Dynamic Ground” (originally published in 1988) might provide a good
introduction for you. The chapter dealing with “regression in the service
of transcendence” (incl. vivid descriptions of the Dark Night of the Spirit)
is alone worth the price of the book.
Nonbelievers are currently doing away with themselves, as far as fertility rates are concerned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYEyv5a_3LM
Mario Montano
https://vitrifyher.com/about-me/
Re: impoverished people
According to the Middle Path (or Moderation in All Things) poverty
is to be avoided as much as the pursuit of great wealth. I
personally believe that the middle class contains the greatest
percentage of virtuous people (unless their poverty is by
choice as it often happens among artists, writers, and, of
course, among the monastics). The upper class and the
underclass both tend to be corrupted by their extreme
deviation from the average. That’s why California’s gradual descent
into neo-feudalism (the hollowing out of the middle class) is so troubling
But all those children they don’t have will be compensated for by the secularised children of religious people – things do not exist in a vacuum.
And why do you give a link to this cesspool (Wikipedia)?
The events themselves of course I know.
But the first event ( 1762) was not (under any interpretation) the “liberation” of the aristocracy. The role of the second event (to put it mildly) is extremely exaggerated (the majority of peasants in Russia before 1861 were free peasants). To think of serfdom as the cause of the 1917 revolution is one of the most idiotic myths of leftist mythology
Byzantium “fell” into “Papist heresy” because “Papist heresy” was a desperate attempt to escape from imminent collapse. Byzantium was doomed to death long before the Union with Rome. This state (in all its Orthodoxy) turned out to be an unsuccessful historical freak, the whole history of which was a continuous decline.
An alternate explanation is that God has nothing to do with it and bad people are merely reaping what they sow. The kinds of people who do bad things often emerge from groups of people who do bad things or bad ideologies that promote bad things. It’s not surprising to me that eventually evil people would engender hatred and have it later come back to bite them as their enemies seek revenge upon them for their nefarious deeds. That process often plays out over decades or centuries, thus the “upon the father’s children” observation.
Further, overthrowing your leader in the face of an angry mob isn’t always wise. Bad leaders can still offer stability while the mob is potentially both dangerous and unpredictable; without central authority, diverse groups of people have the unfortunate habit of turning on each other; it also leaves your territory vulnerable to invasion or outside influence. In that light, it’s not surprising that such regicides often had negative consequences. The ancient world certainly knew this. That’s why incompetent kings often had smarter wives or courtiers ruling in their name rather than simply being deposed for a better ruler: stability counts for a lot.
Also, Europe being rather smallish and diverse – geographically, linguistically and culturally – probably contributed. It was easier to fight wars and to infect neighboring regions with radicalism in Medieval Europe than it was in East Asia. For the most part, Asia, being much larger, didn’t seem to have this sort of problem to this degree until the age of modern travel and telecommunications. Then we got the Japanese Empire, Mao, and the Korean War. It’s also not surprising to me that countries who promote national unity and group cohesion over greedy individualism and short-term hedonism might prosper (Russia opening churches again). Also, I like the Lagos explanation from above – explains the failure of the Soviet Union and the repeated recent failures of the United States, maybe also the collapse of the British and Roman Empires.
“a disbelief that anything as complex as man and the universe could have evolved strictly by materialistic means. A vacuum given enough time just could not have evolved into what we have today, especially including the spiritual realm, without the hand of an omniscient Creator.”
Despite what humans may think, there is indeed a possible proof or disproof for the existence of God: is it mathematically more likely for a Boltzmann brain* to emerge from the vacuum and then simply “imagine” the universe around us by means of a simple, underlying logic simpler than what we perceive the universe to be governed by currently (GR, QFT, the Standard Model) or for the same universe to appear out of nothing? I might lean toward the latter option if the universe’s fundamental laws weren’t so obviously fine tuned. Of course, a retort might be to invoke a multiverse … but is that really more likely than the God Boltzman brain? And would the rules of a “higher” universe that such a brain emerges from apply to our own? Maybe the speed of light is much faster or even infinite there and merely scaled down for our reality, meaning that current naturalist explanations of the universe’s emergence are wrong beyond our ability to perceive them?
We probably don’t have the scientific tools and mathematical/physical understanding to answer this question definitively at present, but it might be possible in the future if we devote our civilization’s resources to answering the matter. Too bad we’re now more concerned with trivial issues like pronouns.
*An artificial Boltzmann brain need not physically resemble our own to be intelligent (see octopus and corvidae intelligence and neuronal structure differences). Therefore, it might actually be more likely for a simpler, albeit much more powerful, structure under different physical laws to come into existence. Even if it did so for a fraction of a second, if the speed of light were much faster in that universe, then our own universe and all derivative universes could potentially be nearly eternal from our perspective.
Liberating the aristocracy while keeping peasants in bondage for a hundred years was a huge strategic mistake.
Quite right. Same thing happened in France. The French aristos rejected their responsibilities under the feudal system while trying to keep the privileges that had (at least partly) been justified by those responsibilities.
This could not and did not last.
Charles was executed by Puritans, not secularists. Does that mean favorites aren’t played when it comes to denominations?
Christendom came to dominate the non-Christian world.
The idea that evil begets evil is natural enough, and I think true at least on certain levels. (Slavery probably destroyed the US, as well as other countries in the Western Hemisphere, when they were in the making). But how do you judge it all in the long game?
There are some unknowns and some assumptions here, but if the freezer theory is correct, couldn’t this be wrong?
No they won’t. Even taking into account the boiling-off effect, religion still wins.
https://phys.org/news/2011-01-religiosity-gene-dominate-society.html
I was going to write a response, but then I realised that I would sound like AaronB and had to stop this line of inquiry.
I had assumed that Catholicism was true, but perhaps you are correct and Puritanism is the only logical conclusion. Or maybe God only opposes apostates rather than those who are merely overly zealous
It reached its apogee in c. 550, long after conversion to Christianity:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Justinian555AD.png
It then declined as a result of the Arab invasion in the 8th century, during the time of iconoclasm:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Byzantine_Empire_717_AD.png
but revived, with a second peak around 1025:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Byzantine_Empire_1025_AD.png
Many of the ones who murdered Charles I were punished:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regicide#The_regicide_of_Charles_I_of_England
The Declaration of Breda 11 years later paved the way for the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. At the restoration, thirty-one of the fifty-nine Commissioners who had signed the death warrant were living. A general pardon was given by Charles II and Parliament to his opponents, but the regicides were excluded. A number fled the country. Some, such as Daniel Blagrave, fled to continental Europe, while others like John Dixwell, Edward Whalley, and William Goffe fled to New Haven, Connecticut. Those who were still available were put on trial. Six regicides were found guilty and suffered the fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered: Thomas Harrison, John Jones, Adrian Scrope, John Carew, Thomas Scot, and Gregory Clement. The captain of the guard at the trial, Daniel Axtell who encouraged his men to barrack the King when he tried to speak in his own defence, an influential preacher Hugh Peters, and the leading prosecutor at the trial John Cook were executed in a similar manner. Colonel Francis Hacker who signed the order to the executioner of the king and commanded the guard around the scaffold and at the trial was hanged. Concern amongst the royal ministers over the negative impact on popular sentiment of these public tortures and executions led to jail sentences being substituted for the remaining regicides.
I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure [perception] bends towards [reality].
I always though Kurt Gödel’s argument for the existence of God to be quite clever….
Another argument for the existence of God:CLASSICAL MUSIC…
https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1117825631159558144?s=20
The idea that the Battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, or any other battle decided the outcome of the German-Soviet War is based on a naturalistic conception of seeing WW2 as natural process like the phases of the moon or the tide.
The Germans kept seeking a decisive battle while they held the strategic initiative over the USSR, but were denied from doing so owing to the iron will of the Soviet political leadership and the well-known tenacity of the Russian soldier.
The Soviets, for their part, sought decisive battles many times–even before they held the initiative as shown with the ’41-42 winter counteroffensive. No Soviet victory was ever decisive, because just as the Red Army before it the Wehrmacht never broke no matter how terrible its defeats. Even after the catastrophic Operation Bagration, known in German historiography as the Battle of the Collapse of Army Group Center, the immediate German response was to…counterattack. Even as late as March 1945 the German army, with their country overrun and ruined, was capable of offensive operations.
American involvement in the war was critical for many reasons, and in fact it was critical strategically even before the war started. In a strategic sense it truly was decisive, which is not to deny the great Soviet victories on the Eastern Front.
Incidentally when asked by Soviet officers after the war had ended which battle was most decisive, Gert von Rundstedt responded, “The Battle of Britain.”
Jesus Christ!!!….MODAL COLLAPSE!!!….is MODAL COLLAPSE!!!! contagious? Is this how it will all end? A black hole of MODAL COLLAPSE!!!…WHO THE FUCK ORDERED THIS?
In the beginning……. SATAN created the FILTHY FUCKING COCKROACH for practice……
nanoseconds latter…..
Satan went on to create the FILTHY FUCKING HILLARY CLINTON……!!!!!
Near-Abroader detected.
German forces were completely unprepared for the winter weather though and didn’t have any suitable clothing (which they then tried to acquire by looting it from Soviet pows and civilians), as a consequence suffered non-trivial casualties from frostbite. Of course it would be misleading to claim that German forces were only defeated by the weather (in any case this was a serious failure of planning and logistics), but it seems at least questionable to me that the weather was positive for the Wehrmacht. It also made the retreat harder through loss of vehicles from the cold and consequently reduced mobility.
IIRC according to the plan operation in USSR should have been completed in 3 months so why bother with winter clothing? In other words it was not a bug but a feature 🙂
Is GOD homologically encrypted?
Another reason for not procuring winter clothing in advance was to avoid tipping off Soviet intelligence.
That said it was irresponsible not to start preparations for winter once German forces crossed the frontier.
Winter clothing was only planned for the 58 divisions that were supposed to remain as occupation forces in the Soviet Union after victory had been achieved in summer/fall 1941.
According to Goebbels, Alfred Jodl, when questioned about the lack of winter clothing, answered even in October 1941 (!): Im Winter? Da sitzen wir in warmen Quartieren von Leningrad und Moskau. Das lassen Sie nur unsere Sorge sein. (In winter? We’ll be in warm quarters in Leningrad and Moscow then. Don’t worry about it).
It was absolute hubris all around.
It seemed Germans were simply punch drunk from victory in France when planing to finish off USSR. Even Battle of Britain did not cool them off as that feeling once again was amplified by USSR struggles to achieve quick victory in Finland.
Also looks like the only thing Stalin could not believe was not a German attack on him in principle, but quick and rather late (almost July already!) summer campaign as it was planned. There were zero German preparations in 1941 for the such long meatgrinder total war (it was declared only after Stalingrad in 1943) such as it actually happened, so it was easy for Stalin to brush it off as nothing more than posturing.
This is false, but you know that, which makes it a lie. Just a few years later Golden Horde sacked Moscow, massacred its population and was on the path of recovery, they crushed Lithuanians and Poles, and made them tributary states as well. Doesn’t sound like a state that lost power to me. Then Timur came and broke Golden Horde for good. You have responses for other points already, but I will also add the fact that Crimea (a vassal state of Ottomans) was alone enough of a challenge for Russians for centuries, as late as 1650s Moscow was getting raided. But, the basic idea is that a country that gets invaded in regular intervals cannot claim to be a superpower. Superpowers do not get run over by their enemies the way Russians were run over on regular intervals. Russia, on average, throughout its history had been a mediocre power. It is essentially a landlocked country that is very exposed. People look at the world map and think Russia must be a great country, in reality, the majority of that land is not livable and empty and there aren’t enough Russians to keep population density favorably (and it’s going down).
I will reiterate, Russia, apart from brief USSR (which Russians hate) era, was never a superpower and will never be one. As for future, it cannot be a superpower because it lacks many conditions; it doesn’t have any ideals to offer, whether the ideal makes sense or not. America knows this, that’s why the focus is China. China does have some ideals/ideology that attracts foreign nations. I don’t see how Russia has any path or claim to becoming a superpower given its current conditions and future expectations.
Lol, I didn’t even know what that meant. No, not even close.
I don’t read NRx for my Ireland takes. Actually, I hardly read NRx at all.
There was no more need for millions of Irish to die in the 1840s than there was a need for millions of Russians and Ukrainians to die in the early 1930s. While the potato crop failed, the eastern estates owned by absentee English landlords continued sending grain and meat to Great Britain without interruption. The famine was made by the island’s political economy (English colonialism), not nature. When you ban the Turkish sultan from making a donation because it makes Queen Victoria’s symbolic contribution look paltry, it is a manmade famine.
There were plenty of German preparations for a long war, but unfortunately for the German Army the preparations focused on the global struggle against the Anglo-Americans.
Barbarossa was deliberately planned as a Blitzkrieg campaign indeed because they were punch drunk from the unexpected success against France.
It wasn’t English colonialism that caused the famine but rather the glorious defense of property rights and free markets.
The possibility of preventing Ireland from exporting food during the famine was discussed in the British parliament, but this was ruled out as an outrageous assault on private property rights.
Libertarianism’s finest hour.
This sort of thinking wasn’t unique to the Irish famine, incidentally. During the Crimean War the Royal Navy was harshly critiqued in Parliament for destroying private property in the Grand Duchy of Finland.
What AP said, plus I would point out that it’s hard to force a simulation to dole out proportionate karmic retribution in a fully equitable manner. Individuals must answer for their group, and groups must sometimes answer for their tribe. At a macro level, Eastern European Jewry was largely wiped out, while the far less radical Western Jewry flourished – which did lobby against the Tsar, but did not support the Bolsheviks – has done pretty well.
Not true.
The grain would have made little difference ven if retained.
Large amounts of grain were imported and of course the money from meat bought cheaper food imports from abroad
It was not even demanded at the time
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30006043?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Perhaps the Irish were being punished, following AK’s thesis, for their failed revolt against their monarch and collaboration with French apostates in 1798?
Compelling evidence that Anglicanism is true (as is the British empire as a whole)
Correct, plus what AP said.
East Asian societies never made any sort of “covenant” with God. Consequently, He saw no need to punish them for treason as such, but did favor his servants.
The question of why China wasn’t first to the Industrial Revolution is one of the primary questions of economic history. There are plenty of different explanations for it (I have attempted to answer it myself), but this answers it too.
Sure, consistency is hard in a simulation.
But Rome had problems before Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
“What did the Irish do?”
They helped destroy the emerging Christian Roman Empire, setting civilization back thousands of years: “Around 367, the Great Conspiracy saw the troops along Hadrian’s Wall mutiny, allowing the Picts to overrun the northern areas of Roman Britain (in some cases joining in), in concert with Irish and Saxon attacks on the coast. The Roman provinces seem to have been retaken by Theodosius the Elder the next year, but many Romano-Britons had already been killed or taken as slaves. In 407, Constantine III declared himself “emperor of the West” and withdrew his legions to Gaul.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Christianity
After abandoning paganism they became part of a significant world power (Rus state); the Mongol invasion occurred centuries after conversion to Christianity.
“Perhaps the Irish were being punished, following AK’s thesis, for their failed revolt against their monarch and collaboration with French apostates in 1798?”
I think it would have to be something much more severe than that to warrant a near-destruction of Ireland. Assuming you buy into this kind of stuff, which frankly strikes me as akin to Roman augury, then I’d favor Irish participation in driving the then Christianizing Roman Empire out of the British Isles. Frankly, the OT God does seem to have a cruel streak – and a sense of ironic timing. Just as Ireland was coming up, they got slapped down … just as their ancestors helped slap down Rome, setting a precedent that would eventually lead to it’s destruction.
Side Note: I wouldn’t be surprised in the future if an authoritarian China turned to Christianity in order to fix its birthrate problem. Of the two religions that seem to have solved, at least in part, the TFR issue, Islam and Christianity, I would prefer the latter for cultural and aesthetic reasons (the Chinese Communist Party would likely also favor that religion as it’s less of a divisive warrior religion and therefore, it’s less likely to threaten state stability and force China to ally with barbarians). If you buy into Karlin’s theory here, that scenario could spell trouble for the USA. God backing up China could make that country unstoppable – also, the perfect executioner for the decadent USA; possibly also a punisher for a future Israel if you believe Muslims have some connection to God, too, and Jews deserve to be punished for taking things too far on the Palestinians.
There were no superpowers prior to the Cold War but in the 19th century Russia was a Great Power. During World War I it defeated 2 other Great Powers (Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire, who had crushed the Brits at Gallipoli). At that time, Russia had not yet surpassed Germany but was probably at least the equal of either Britain or France, if not having had surpassed each of those individually. So it was likely the second strongest of the Great Powers. And it was improving.
Side Note: If you buy into this stuff, then that might imply American Jews are in for a comeuppance at some point as they’ve played a central role in de-Christianizing both the United States and Europe through their control of the media and the culture. Perhaps that might imply either economic ruin for the USA/EU or an anti-Semitic dictator or both.
I am not quite sure that fits with the success over many centuries of the Germanic kingdoms, even if most of them were destroyed in the end, starting with the Vandals who were the worst persecutors of Christians and ending with the Visigoths who were the most Catholic (eventually). The Franks however were not punished, although on the other hand they played a fairly minor role and converted to Catholicism, it was no less than that of the Irish.
During the German offensive near Moscow in 1941, the weather was cold (which cemented the road dirt), but there was no snow. It was the perfect conditions for an offensive. When the Soviet counteroffensive began, heavy snowfalls began. Soviet troops had to advance through the snow a meter thick. Because of the snow, most Soviet tanks could only attack on the roads (in the snow they bogged down). So Yes, the weather in the battle of Moscow was a positive factor for the Wehrmacht. With a high probability it was the weather that saved the Wehrmacht from a crushing defeat of the scale of Stalingrad. This is a well-known statement (attributed as far as I remember to Zhukov) that if General Zima had served in the red army, he should have been shot for treason.
German troops solved these difficulties by taking away warm clothes from the civilian population. Loss of German troops from the cold was negligible (and the red army had the same problems with the cold weather). So the cold as an important factor in the defeat of the German troops is a myth.
Of course the jews take no responsibility for Bolshevism.
“I am not quite sure that fits with the success over many centuries of the Germanic kingdoms”
Germany was slapped down in two world wars and never reached the full power she might have otherwise. Germany also never reached the cultural height she might have in a parallel universe. Germany is now the vassal of a former Christian nation that opposed Germany in those wars. I guess your interpretation of those events depends on whether or not you think God plays the long game and whether God likes irony/just deserts: Germanic tribes destroyed a great Christianizing empire, so God retaliates and snatches their great empire out from under them just before their triumph.
Ok, fair enough.
Maybe. Though they had been on a bad streak for centuries.
They did that (there was an order from Hitler about it who suggested “ruthless confiscation of winter clothing from Soviet pows and civilians”), but it wasn’t sufficient to solve the problem.
Some German units like the 45th infantry division reported 70% of their troops as being affected by wounds from frostbite, due to inadequate clothing, in December 1941 (source: Christian Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg. Front und militärisches Hinterland 1941/42, p.373/74). This was one factor (of course not the only one) to reduce combat effectiveness.
I was thinking of the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms, such a long-view as modern Germany did not occur to me.
Yes, and the Sultan accepted English demand and sent a lesser amount of gold than originally promised. However, Turks who have by then mastered how to find loopholes in anything under the tutelage of Greeks sent three ships of supplies secretly. It was a relief for the Irish, and to show their gratefulness they added crescent and star to their city flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drogheda_Flag.svg
British by then were familiar with population theories of Malthus. They knew what they were doing by allowing grain exports, as a result of famine the Irish population ratio is greatly reduced compared to English today. Had the same thing occurred in England itself, I doubt they would use the free market as an excuse.
“… wouldn’t be surprised if China turned to Christianity in order to fix its birthrate problem.”
In that case, it gets even worse for the USA. A China with a large Christian population would 1) demoralize American Christians making it more difficult for the US government to rally the population against China 2) unite China religiously with some powerful Asian nations, such as South Korea, which now has a substantial Christian population, turning former rivals into potential allies. As the poster above notes, China may soon overtake the USA in terms of having the world’s largest church-going population. Are those clouds on the horizon?
The best theological argument I’ve ever heard is this: “If there is no God, who is pulling the next Kleenex?”
China is already rapidly Christianizing. Interesting article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html
China may have more church-goers than the USA by 2030.
Yes, Russia was a great power at that time (not sure about rankings), like it is today. However, its influence and reach was/is limited both due to culture & geography. But let’s not forget the Ottoman Empire was about to collapse even before the war, even then Russia collapsed before the Ottomans, not sure how that makes Russia second great power. But, I am not sure that superpowers did not exist before WW2. I don’t think many would disagree that Romans were a superpower of their time. I guess it can depend on how you define it.
Quite the contrary, Christian Chinese would turn against their atheistic government once they have enough mass. Which is why PRC reacts the way it does. Worse yet, if the population is divided over faith (Atheist vs. Christian), the Chinese could turn against each other. If I was governing China, I would consider Christian missionaries as foreign agents.
If Christianity solved it, S. Korea would not have the lowest rate among all Asian nations. Christianity brings more trouble than issues it solves, the main problem being that Christians think they are connected to some God and therefore rightful in anything they do. While some morality would help Chinese, I am concerned with Asian manchild traits mixed with Christian nonsense could cause major disruptions and wars over there (just think Japanese interpretation of Western ideas and how it ended up).
There are many competing religions in China: local folk religion (similar to Roman) sometimes called Shenism, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Communism, Islam, Christianity. So, I don’t see your dire predictions ever coming true (to great disappointment of the Empire and its voracious parasites).
There are many stupid things here, but one particular point that people like you make that reliably cracks me up is how Russia’s low population density dooms it to break apart.
If Russia’s empty expanded doom it to fragmentation, I do wonder why it hasn’t happened to Canada yet. Or come to think of it, to Russia back in the 17th century, when it acquired most of its present landmass, but had less than a tenth of the population and without railways and electronic communications technologies to tie it together.
I mean I sympathize that you might well wish for Russia’s breakup and that it might even serve your own interests, but there’s clever ways and there’s dumb ways to go about it. Dumb ways = this. Clever ways = fostering local nationalisms. And you might even get paid for the latter!
In complete contrast to the attitudes of Republican Roman and Atheist/(secular) Jewish elites of Communist Russia or the modern United States……
Ottamans had been declining for centuries, but still destroyed the British at Gallipoli (300,000 Britsh and French casualties vs. 250,000 Ottoman casualties). They were probably the weakest of the Great Powers. Austria-Hungary may have been the second-weakest. Russia crushed them both at the same time, while holding off the Germans (who were mostly preoccupied with the French and English).
Yes, Romans and Mongols and their height could probably be considered superpowers (though their reach was not global). But there were none for centuries prior to the Cold War.
Are you even literate? Read what I actually wrote.
The point is that liberation of the aristocracy in 1762 was a ticking time bomb that eventually created the social class that blew up the Russian Empire.
The aristocracy should never have been liberated.
The serfs mattered little, but pushing them into a monetary economy sooner rather than later would have been a good thing.
Really? Letting them desert from mandatory military service and live abroad sound like “liberation” to me.
Though you know what, scratch that. That doesn’t sound like “liberation”, it sounds like the creation of a parasitic rentier class, something much worse.
Could it be because Canada is still far smaller, isn’t surrounded by different nations and cultures, doesn’t have any enemies, far younger and isn’t landlocked in essence. Contrary to what you assume, easier communication and transportation will not mean Russia is more likely to hold on farther regions. Especially considering so few of minorities were urbanized.
Look Russia is like the dachshund of countries with head on the west and tail in the east, and everything else in between is useless back pain. How will you defend against China on the East? They already have aspirations for the East of Russia, if the US fails to contain China, how do you plan to deal with them while also trying to contain Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus and god knows what other places?
To be fair, one reason for this criticism was that much of the private property destroyed by the Royal Navy was the property of… the Royal Navy. Lots of tar and timber that that had already been sold to the British got stuck in Finnish harbors because of the naval blockade and when small harbor towns were raided by the British they ended up destroying a lot of shipments that they had already paid for.
Curiously, after the British had won this war, they agreed the pay large war reparations to compensate for the property that was destroyed. At that time the idea of war reparations was that the gracious victors would compensate for the damage that they caused to lessen future tensions (and it worked at least locally as it sparked a lot of pro-British sentiment in Finland that you can still see in street names, monuments etc). Of course that didn’t last and later “war reparations” have just been used to further punish losers, with disastrous consequences.
Khan Tokhtamysh, in the course of the raid captured Moscow in 1382, but retreated for fear of the troops of the Prince of Moscow. In 1383, on the initiative of the Horde, peace was signed – under the terms of the Treaty, the Moscow Prince restored the payment of tribute to the Horde, but the Horde recognized the Grand Duchy of Vladimir (i.e. most of Russia) as the hereditary possession of the Moscow princes. This actually meant the end of the Horde’s real rule over the Russian principalities.
In 1392 Moscow carried out the annexation of the huge Nizhny Novgorod Principality (an ally of Tokhtamysh in the campaign of 1382) and the Horde was forced to recognize this annexation.
Funny joke. Timur defeated the Golden Horde in 1394-95 . The Golden Horde crushed Lithuanians and Poles (as well as a detachment of Teutonic knights) in the Battle of the Vorskla River in 1399.
Dear friend, I will give you good advice – in the future, do not write on topics about which your knowledge is less than zero.
Estonia actually briefly formally joined the Russian Civil War on the White side…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yudenich#White_Army
…though only after a vague promise that the Whites would recognize Estonia as an independent country. The only fragment of the empire that was more pro-White-Russian was Finland for those months when it was actually ruled by general Mannerheim (who was willing to reject Finnish independence to join White Russia, though of course most of Finland disagreed so he was deposed).
Finns, Estonians and related peoples ended up treated as particularly suspicious peoples with supposed “bourgeois”, “right-wing” sympathies in the early Soviet Union and when Estonia was taken by the USSR in WWII they went heavily after White exiles, White sympathizers and people who had “collaborated” with the Whites in the Civil War. In the real world Russia implemented collective punishment on Estonians for working with Whites so God failed pretty hard there.
As for Latvians, we’ve discussed this many times and the anomalous support for Bolsheviks in Latvian elections was partly because of the lack of leftist parties running so that the Bolsheviks were the leftist option. It’s similar to Finland but in reverse: in elections just before and immediately after the February revolution, the Social Democrats were the only leftist party running in Finland and they scored over half of the vote (vastly more than half of the vote from ethnic Finns).
So technically the Bolshevik electoral support in Finland was 0 % but in practice it was much higher given that the Social Democrats eventually became the Reds who made a deal with Lenin’s government to start a coup which led to the Civil War in Finland, Social Democrat leaders became Red leaders and the later Finnish communist party founded in exile in the USSR was made up of former Social Democrats.
Any aspirations they may or may not harbor are meaningless in light of Russia’s nukes.
I will give that I misremembered Timur vs. battles against Lithuanians, but at the core what I say is right:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde#A_brief_reunion_(1381%E2%80%931419)
To sum up, Timur:
Meanwhile, Toktamis offered Lithuanians his suzerainty over Rus’ lands and in the end defeated by Timur’s commander who basically ruled Golden Horde. Still Rus was forced accept Khan’s supremacy. Clearly though, after the structural destruction Timur caused Golden Horde never recovered, and eventually disappeared. Had it not been for Timur, there might not never be a Russia as we know it today. Russians should be thankful to Turks for saving them from other Turks lol.
They also have nukes though.
Sure, but MAD means frozen borders and no invasions by either side.
Orthodox zealot repeats the most idiotic leftist myths. Ridiculously
http://literatura5.narod.ru/lotman_ludi_i_chiny.html
“В работах некоторых историков высказывалось утверждение, что в результате освобождения дворянства от обязательной службы произошел чуть ли не массовый отлив из нее дворян: «Дворянство, давно тяготившееся службой, всеми способами отлынивающее от нее, всячески добивалось освобождения от этой повинности». В Грамоте 21 апреля 1785 года они видят лишь «установление вольности на безделье»[34]. Такое объяснение представляется упрощенным. Тем более сомнительным кажется утверждение, что в результате Грамоты о вольности дворянства и якобы бегства дворян со службы правительство вынуждено было заполнять должности разночинцами, становившимися личными дворянами. Тезис этот базируется на смешении гражданской службы с военной. Никакого «бегства» с последней как массового явления обнаружить в документах эпохи невозможно. Более того, несмотря на то, что Россия в течение всего XVIII века вела активные военные действия (что, конечно, вызывало высокую убыль офицерских чинов, особенно обер- и штаб-офицеров), никакой нехватки офицерского состава как серьезной армейской проблемы не было. Мы знаем ряд случаев, когда желающие отправлялись в действующую армию сверхштатно, так как вакансии были заполнены. В обширном списке пушкинских знакомых, составленном Л. А. Черейским и дающем весьма представительную общественную выборку, среди родившихся в конце 1790-х годов мы не находим ни одного неслужащего и, следовательно, не имеющего чина дворянина. То же можно сказать и о другом представительном списке — «Алфавите декабристов», — составленном для Николая I перечне всех лиц, в какой-либо мере привлекавшихся к дознанию по делу декабристов или хотя бы упоминавшихся в показаниях. И там нет ни одного дворянина, который бы полностью реализовал свое право никогда не служить…..
Дворянство оставалось служилым сословием.“
It’s all just idle chatter. The actual power of the Horde over Russia sharply weakens after 1359 (a vivid example – in 1374 Novgorod pirates captured and looted the “capital” of the Golden Horde, the city of Sarai). In 1383, the Khan of the Golden Horde de jure recognizes the loss of rule over Russia (in exchange for continued payment of tribute). This situation persists until 1472 (when Ivan III ceases to recognize the Khan as his suzerain). Timur (who defeated the Horde in 1394-95) did not affect these events
Here are the data on the Wehrmacht losses killed on the Eastern front, given by Rudiger Overmans:
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/dr_guillotin/4193625/240664/240664_original.jpg
As you can see if cold is a factor, this is a negligibly small factor
I swear this nonsense never ends.
How many Boltzman Retards will appear before that Brain though?
Interesting, thanks.
It can be assumed that the “Covenant” in the case of Russia requires for the ruler to be hostile to the Orthodox Church. Those rulers who were hostile to the Church (Dmitry Donskoy, Ivan the terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great) achieved brilliant success. And those rulers who fell under the influence of the Orthodox Church (Alexander III, Nicholas II) led the country to a shameful collapse. Apparently the true gods (or God) is not satisfied when the government begins to serve the interests of alien (for Russia) religion.
Number of deaths is a bad indicator for the effects of winter weather though, you’d have to look at number of soldiers being incapacitated because of frostbite or sickness.
Cold also had other effects, e.g. during the retreat in winter 1941 many trucks, tanks etc. had to be left behind because the cold had led to increased fuel consumption and reduced supplies so much there wasn’t enough fuel left for the retreat anymore.
Anyway, my main point wasn’t that the German offensive failed only because of winter, that’s obviously false, the main cause was of course that the Red army was much more capable than expected and fought tenaciously. The lack of suitable winter clothing for the Wehrmacht is an example though of the hubristic nature of the entire Barbarossa campaign.
What evidence is there that China has aspirations for seizing Russian territory?
Great take. Nations who exceptionally suffered were punished by God for their sins.
Now look at the other side. Peoples and nations who were, in the last century, exceptionally rewarded, had to be, logically, exceptionally obedient and exceptionally pleasing God.
Who were they?
The best example is Saudi and other Gulf Arabs. They rejected all forms of godlessness and modernity, and kept their traditions and faith, and God rewarded them greatly, with oil wealth beyond measure.
It is proven: God exists, He is One, and Mohammed is his Prophet.
See you in mosque soon, Mr. Karlin!
It (Byzantium) declined as a result of the Arab invasion before iconoclasm. Emperors iconoclasts saved Byzantium (and possibly the whole of Europe) from the conquest by the Caliphate. Perhaps if the iconoclasts won the religious struggle, the Greeks would not have become slaves of the “Latins” and Turks ( result of “Orthodox” rule)
That’s kind of silly though, Italy was ruined by Justinian’s reconquest and most of it was lost only a few years after Justinian’s death to the Lombards. The conquests in Spain were also lost again after a few decades. In any case the empire was much diminished compared to pagan times.
I’m perplexed that people in the comments here are seriously discussing AK’s thought experiment, I had initially assumed it was some kind of joke.
A major problem in the winter of ’41 – ’42 beyond frostbite casualties (and poor morale) was that German machinery was generally not designed for polar conditions. German lubricants didn’t perform properly in such weather, engines had to be heated with improvised fires before they would start, gun sights didn’t match the ballistics of shots fired at low temperatures, and a thousand other little problems like that.
Other than the higher than expected capability of the Red Army one has to add the iron will of the Soviet political leadership and the much greater than expected military-industrial preparations of the Soviet economy. German army intelligence estimated the Red Army had around 150 divisions, which was not too far off the truth, but they also predicted that the USSR would only be able to raise an additional 50 divisions during the campaign. In fact something like 800 divisions were raised (which says a lot about the fighting quality of the German army).
As usual poor to nonexistent Axis coordination was a problem. The Germans were aware of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, which suited them just fine owing to Hitler’s hesitance for German victories to result in other powers gaining territory. But the Germans had no idea that the Siberian troops were transferred from the Manchurian frontier to Moscow. Surely Japan must’ve been aware of the departure of 18 divisions from the Soviet Far East? This sort of information might have proved quite useful, especially in November when army commanders were arguing for halting the offensive and taking up winter defensive positions.
You’d need more than Saudi Arabia to persuade me of Allah’s truth.
By and large, the Muslim world has been failing very hard; its all-time peak came during the Abbasid Caliphate, more than a millennium ago. Moreover, the harder that Muslim nations push Islamism, the more they tend to fail. This inverse correlations suggests that Islam is, in fact, a false and heretical doctrine.
The Sixth Proof would suggest that Saudi Arabia will have a hard landing sometime this century. That seems to be plausible: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/saudi-iphone-or-ikhwan/
Just Google it, there is ample evidence. They would be stupid if they had the intention and told it explicitly. This is Putin’s comment about the issue: “If we do not take practical steps to advance the Far East soon, after a few decades, the Russian population will be speaking Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.”
It may not be a major concern for the Chinese government as of now, but there is a minority with these ideas. What happens when there are more Chinese than Russians in the Far East? I am talking based on long term trends, and history, not today or five years later.
I don’t use Goolag, and telling people to use a criminal search engine is inherently lazy.
I’m not Russian, but I think Putin’s comment reflects longstanding Russian yellow peril fears (as opposed to reality) and the longstanding idea that Russia needs to “develop” its vast interior just because its there. Needless to say the Chinese of Heilongjiang Province are much keener to move to Beijing and Shanghai than they are to Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.
Meanwhile in reality Sino-Russian relations are the best they’ve ever been, and China’s military development is clearly aimed at the United States and its Pacific allies.
Why would any Chinese want to move to the Russian Far East? Love of horrific winters?
The long-term trend is continuing urbanization of China and population decline.
Lol, I think anon is teasing you bringing God into this stuff. But he does have a point, had alcohol was allowed in Islam, maybe tzar would choose Islam over Christianity. Instead, they chose booze & Christianity, as result alcoholism became a major crisis for Russians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia
That said, I think Saudi Arabia will crash. Their cocaine-addicted psychopath prince is just another sign of impending doom.
Military might and empire building is now your yardstick?
Therefore, British empire and American empire domination in last two centuries prove that God likes Protestantism – more precisely, milquetoast Anglicanism or “mainline” American churches.
Is it mere coincidence that fall of British empire follows the rise of atheism, and American empire began to crumble with rise of fundamentalism?
See you in St. Andrew’s church in Moscow, Mr. Karlin 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Andrew%27s_Anglican_Church,_Moscow
Then use your favorite search engine. I brought you the opinion of the Russian president himself and you still won’t accept that it might be the case. I think Putin is very smart and just sees ahead. It is another story if it would be better or worse for Russian people, I already said they would have a much better time if they stopped being an empire & focused on other things rather than trying to run an empire. Same for Americans.
People want to move to where there are more opportunities and freedom. Many Chinese want to get out of China, not only for these two reasons but also because of extreme competition (the last one applies to South Korea and Indians as well). Russian East is empty (and thus low competition), close, and Russia is far more free than Orwellian China. Being a white dude, you may not realize how jaded they are of competition, but it is true. They turn their society’s life experience into life long cram school and want to escape what they created in the end.
Not the East. And since the western barbarians became Christians it was not a loss for Christendom in the West. Rome had been declining prior to Christianity, Christianity elevated the barbarians who replaced it, eventually enabling them to become masters of the entire globe. And then they became secular and gave it all away, including their own homelands.
It’s largely correct though.
There’s no point, the lands are terrible, the population is decreasing and the southern lands are better claims for irredentist beliefs. China can’t even populate its own rural regions, as population concentration keeps increasing in the coastal urban areas, this hukou issues.
The Russian Far East isn’t a pleasant, prosperous, high-trust Anglo-American market society.
It is indeed empty for basic geographic reasons.
https://www.marxists.org/glossary/media/places/u/ussr/1982/land-use.jpg
Mostly non-agricultural land as you can see.
What exactly are Chinese going to do in the Russian Far East? Perhaps they can take over the KNAAPO factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and put together Sukhois for the RuAF?
There are valuable natural resources in the Russian Far East…which Russia happily sells to China.
Does the Jewgod Jewhovah make your panties moist, Moshe?
This is even dumber than the idea of “they want oil.” At least that is something quantifiable.
Well, I guess everyone just wants me to post links so here it goes:
https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/4033
https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russian-far-east-turning-chinese
Antiochia (the place where the term “Christians” first arose and seat of a patriarch) was sacked by the Zoroastrian Persians in 538, with maybe hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants deported:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch#Theodosius_and_after
There was also a devastating plague affecting much of the empire in Justinian’s time.
It’s only correct if one engages in extremely selective historical cherry-picking.
I still hope AK was merely joking. Such bizarre theological speculations should have no place in the realm of politics and history.
Sure, but this detail is far less glaring than your wildly false claim that Byzantium kept continuously declining throughout its “whole history.”
Under previous emperors, Byzantium had survived while Persia had not. And they had stopped the Arabs before. Under iconaclasts Byzantium continued to survive, but it expanded significantly after they lost.
It was taken back and the Persians were eventually defeated.
AK’s post was comprehensive. One “cherry-picks” to find counterexamples (of which, admittedly, there are quite a few).
Why do you keep talking about simulations? I’ve seen Audacious Epigone latterly do the same thing, and also several commenters. This latest exercise in geek-chic is even more objectionable than is typical of that odious practice.
I would like to remind everybody that we are now less than 7 months away from the originally predicted date of Kurzweil’s vaunted singularity, and what has reality (contrasted with the hype) actually brought? A raft of bloated, money-losing tech unicorns kept alive by quantitative easing, a stagnation in IT development even extending to Moore’s law, and insipid demand for new products. It does not seem as if the futurists have a very good grasp of the future.
Facebook was the closest we’ll ever get to Kurzweil’s vision. It is a far cry away, and even that sun has already crossed the meridian.
There are almost 1.4 billion Chinese, not all of them are from Beijing or Shanghai, or with extra money to allow them to move to Vancouver. There is a reason why Xi’s first domestic goal is eradicating poverty, giving everyone enough food and clothing, which means there are still people who are struggling with basic necessities.
You do know that Byzantium was eventually completely exstinguished as a state?
One could come up with lots of other examples…North Africa was a centre of Christianity in late antiquity, totally gone today. The Visigothic kingdom had a strongly Christian imprint, with the famous church councils of Toledo working closely with the king and passing legislation even on many matters that would be considered secular today…yet the kingdom still succumbed easily to conquest, and much of Spain was dominated by Muslims for centuries.
And anyway, if AK now believes in divine punishment, maybe he should give up on his hopes for transhumanist projects…messing with creation like that could provoke God’s ire to an unprecedented degree after all.
How is moving to the Russian Far East supposed to alleviate anyone’s poverty?
“I would like to remind everybody that we are now less than 7 months away from the originally predicted date of Kurzweil’s vaunted singularity”
Kurzweil has been wrong on a lot of stuff, he just never admits it. IIRC, 2019 was supposed to be the year that we’d have to get serious about codifying nanotech rules because nanorobots would be all the rage by 2029. Obviously, that is wrong as originally conceived (relatively primitive gold nanoparticles don’t count) as tiny, complex robots with hands, legs and computer chips. We’re nowhere near that as scientists still debate whether it’s even feasible.
“Does the Jewgod Jewhovah make your panties moist, Moshe?”
This website attracts some of the internet’s biggest weirdos.
“How many Boltzman Retards will appear before that Brain though?”
The brain need not start off at maximum intelligence. As with the proposed singularity, it could rework itself to become more intelligent in a rather short period of time, maybe. But that does pose another interesting question. Say God were a Boltzmann brain. Would it be more likely that God is a swell guy or an immoral/amoral psychopath? Morality is something that has evolved in humans as a result of social selection pressures, but would any such selection pressure exist for that god? … and would you take the chance that God could be evil if you could chose to take that chance or would you just go with having no god exist at all and avoid the risk?
“If Christianity solved it, S. Korea would not have the lowest rate among all Asian nations.”
Well, within that cohort, I would expect highly religious types to have more offspring as is the case in Europe and the United States. So, long term they may be okay. Also, future automation technology will only require that a country have some minimum population size – likely far below current levels – anyway as probably 80% will end up out of work and useless anyway.
“I am concerned with Asian manchild traits mixed with Christian nonsense could cause major disruptions and wars over there…”
Well, if you believe in this Sixth Proof stuff, it’d make a lot of sense: God Christianizes China and sets her loose on a decadent West – “Onward Christian Wu-arriors!” Of course, I guess your perspective depends upon how much credence you give to the matter, LOL.
In fact, Anatoly’s new fascination with his own edgy religion fits nicely into #2 of Stuff White People Like.
“I was thinking of the Gothic and Vandal kingdoms, such a long-view as modern Germany did not occur to me.”
Well, if the universe were a simulation and God was the one in charge, it would make sense. Think about it, when you or your friends play Sim City or Sim Earth or any of those Civilization games, do you think of the individual NPCs in the program or do you consider nations and political entities to be whole organisms? God, as conceived of here, treats nations as people and people merely as small constituent parts to be ignored – like the cells in your hand. Thus, the immense ignored cruelty towards individuals (Riddle of Epicurus: Why does God ignore evil?) but also the immense payback God administers when His PEOPLE are attacked or sin themselves.
In such a simulation, human timescales mean nothing and a nearly omnipotent God could easily take the long-view — waiting for the perfect time to visit payback on a disrespectful people. This might also explain why God visits punishment on the children: God doesn’t view people as individuals but as constituent parts of a whole spread out over a geographic area and through a period of time … just like you would when playing Sim City. If such a thing were true, we might as a species – perhaps ironically – decide to build a Tower of Babel such that we could get God’s attention so He’d treat us as individuals and recognize our plights. Maybe we could set off a huge nuclear blast in space or something? But maybe God already hinted at us not to bother with that?
So if these masses of poor Chinese wanted to move to Russia for some reason instead of the Anglosphere in order to take advantage of Russia’s excellent economy, why wouldn’t they just move to Moscow instead of provincial backwaters?
I would LOL but that’s not really accurate.
There’s a big difference.
SWPLs are into nice, feelgood, wishy-washy religions such as Buddhism (or rather what they imagine Buddhism to be). Vanilla, and inoffensive.
This is more in the style of late night, semi-nihilistic “philosophizing” over copious cups of tea amongst the late Soviet era intelligentsia. Sure to “trigger,” if taken personally… as SWPLs are wont to do.
Didn’t Canada almost break apart back in 1995, though?
Also, Yes, a country that is (relatively) ethnically homogeneous is unlikely to break apart even if it has a low population density. I mean, Mongolia hasn’t broken apart and neither did Kazakhstan (yet, at least–and Kazakhstan isn’t even that ethnically homogeneous–though gradually becoming more so)!
As you said, though, what exactly were they supposed to do? I mean, even pro-German Jews were vehemently hated by the Nazis (for instance, this German guy could have been a staunch Nazi supporter, but the Nazis didn’t want him and mistreated him because he was Jewish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Rothfels ). This is why I would have also supported the Reds over the Nazis. As for collaboration, it’s certainly possible that some of this was due to genuine sympathies for the Communists–though some of it might have also been due to fear since Communists were extremely brutal towards people who didn’t walk the walk and talk the talk.
Weren’t Jews compelled to engage in moneylending because other professions weren’t open to them, though?
Also, what exactly is wrong with running taverns? I mean, people in the US get drunk all the time.
In addition, were the Jews within the Soviet Union’s 1938 borders not guilty of doing these things as well? Why was a slight majority of them spared?
So, what exactly was the collective punishment that Southern Whites in the US got for Jim Crow? Also, what exactly was the collective punishment that US Blacks got for committing a lot of crime?
For a similar reason as to why Chinese settled in the Western US instead of in the much more populous and industrialized Northern US in the 19th century, no?
I don’t know man, I am not the chaperone of masses of poor Chinese. Ask Putin.
Didn’t Communism have a lot of fanboys and fangirls among Western Jews as well, though? For instance, Rosa Luxembourg. Also, if you’re going to respond that she was born in the East, well, I’m presuming that the vast majority of Western Jews nowadays have their origins in the East. Indeed, this is the problem with your theory–Western Jews and Eastern Jews are in large part originally one people. Indeed, had the Eastern Jews who moved to the West stayed in the East as well, they would have probably likewise become supporters of Bolshevism.
I know that most Western Jews lean left (at least, that’s the case for US Jews, who are the overwhelming majority of the Western Jewish population) and that various left-wing causes were popular among Western Jews in the past and/or nowadays.
In regards to total (as opposed to per capita) industrialization in 1913, I believe that Russia was third behind Britain and Germany, respectively.
Yes it did, and in one of the most disgraceful chapters in all of American history the US President of the time actually personally intervened to lend his personal prestige in support of the Canadian Confederation!
Yes, you heard that right. President Clinton, presented with an opportunity to bloodlessly destroy the disgusting Canuckist entity, did precisely the opposite.
May he rot in hell.
BTW, lobbying against the Tsar in itself was not a bad thing. After all, Tsarist Russia did have the anti-Semitic Pale of Settlement–which can’t be excused like Jewish quotas can be excused as being a form of pro-non-Jewish affirmative action. In this regard, Tsarist Russia was probably even worse than the Jim Crow South was. After all, Blacks weren’t actually prevented from leaving the Jim Crow South for other parts of the US like Jews were in regards to leaving the Pale of Settlement for other parts of Russia.
Would any parts of Canada have actually joined the US had Quebec seceded, though? Indeed, would Canada want to have a lot more Blacks and Hispanics?
Are you sure that the Ottomans were weaker than A-H? After all, A-H needed Germany to bail it out while the Ottoman Empire appears to have largely been capable of defending itself.
Couldn’t the same be true for the 1943 Indian famine? Or was that more excusable because Europeans who were liberated from Nazi rule needed to be fed?
Technically speaking, if one actually believes in the threat of a “yellow peril,” then one would think that the Chinese are going to be much more cunning than that. Specifically, rather than risk nuclear war over this, they would make a deal with an economically squeezed Russia to allow them to annex a part of the Russian Far East in exchange for economic relief.
I strongly doubt that Russia would ever actually accept such a deal regardless of just how much it was economically squeezed, but that appears to be the most likely way for China to acquire any part of the Russian Far East.
Do you think that the Industrial Revolution would have been completely prevented if the Muslims would have managed to overrun and conquer most or all of Europe in the 7th or 8th century? I mean, one would think that Muslims would have brought their noxious traditions–such as first-cousin FBD marriage–to Europe and thus would have caused the European population to become significantly duller and more clannish–thus preventing the Industrial Revolution from ever occurring.
What are your thoughts on this?
https://www.ridl.io/en/should-russians-be-wary-of-chinese-bearing-gifts/
Simply looking at a map shows the trajectory of migration, and this is from 2005 at the latest, the trend will have accelerated in the decade and half since.
http://share.nanjing-school.com/dpgeography/files/2012/10/Rural-urban-migration-in-China-Economist-2lm953y.png
The problems of poverty in China are overwhelmingly a problem of geography, with most of the poverty concentrated in rural regions which have reduced access to infrastructure, including social ones such as education, and are often cold and arid regions. For such residents within who seek to better their lot, they move toward the urban areas to find factory work and for a long time, was the main reason for low cost Chinese labor.
There’s precious little reason for them to look to go to rural regions in a place where they don’t speak the language, where it is even more cold and arid.
For those seeking “liberty” and with a bit of money, the world is their oyster, so to speak and it is vastly more pleasant to move toward a Westernized country, Japan, or somewhere in Southeast Asia. Even if for some reason they were inclined toward Russia, it would be to Moscow where all of the money is.
Nonbelievers are currently doing away with themselves, as far as fertility rates are concerned.
But in the West most of the children of believers will be transformed into non-believers by the education system and by the media. Christians can have as many children as they like but what matters is how many are still going to be Christians by the time they reach adulthood. Christianity continues to decline in the West.
The “conservative Christians will out-breed liberal non-Christians” idea is one of the more enduring and silly of conservative delusions.
If I recall, the Chinese are afraid that there will be a mass exodus across the Yalu from NK, if the Kim regime collapses and that they will loose territory to Koreans.
Even assuming that a “religiosity” gene exists, that simply means you’ll have a lot of secularists who will pursue secularism with religious fervour (which is exactly what has happened in the West). The alternative to religion is not non-religion but secular religion. The end results will be worse.
It’s just more wishful thinking.
Agreed. The smart move for the Chinese would be to crush Christianity mercilessly.
Yes, IIRC, it was akin to “what if millions of brainwashed people suddenly need to move in” with the usual euphemism of “it would cause great social disharmony.”
So, Chinese are rushing to the east–especially to the southeast. Considering that Chinese are leaving the northeast, Russia shouldn’t have much to worry about.
Also, do you have any comparable maps for other countries?
Southeast Asia has a large Chinese diaspora but is also much duller than China and thus has less economic growth potential in the long(er)-run. What makes it so attractive to Chinese to settle in nowadays? (As opposed to having Chinese who lived there for generations decide to remain there.)
Its not that unpleasant if you’re okay with corruption and a reduced rule of law, as some people are. I’ll say its a combination of three factors below:
1) Less stressful, more pleasant environment. Its not a terrible place to retire and the low cost of living make it attractive to some.
2) Businessmen seeking to essentially outsource – as Chinese labor becomes more expensive, they seek to setup manufacturing outside of China. There were and remain challenges with low human capital.
3)Individuals seeking to avoid pollution, etc, similar to the above but individuals who prefer the Chinese social environment but not the climate; this could be seen as a kind of settlement. Forest City, which I think is blocked now, was essentially an effort at that. It would have been the creation of a heavily Chinese ethnic city inside of a SEA country boundaries from scratch.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-11-21/-100-billion-chinese-made-city-near-singapore-scares-the-hell-out-of-everybody
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/izRgGAzFK5iw/v0/1400x-1.jpg
Interesting speculations. I have a hunch that God likes to test Orthodox nations, or at least pious papist/Monophysite nations such as Ireland, Armenia, Egypt. This explains the horrible trials of the Greeks since 1071 and the Mongols and Islam. God runs this simulation as a boot camp to filter out non-hackers.
For me, one of the powerful proofs of Christianity is the role of the Jews in history. Are you seriously gonna tell me some guy pretends to be the Son of Man, fakes a resurrection, inspires his followers to go to Martyrdom spreading his message, which in turn displaces Roman religions? And then the tribe this guy came from, who demanded his death and rejected him, is violently fragmented and the warped by selective pressures into pound-for-pound the most powerful, subversive, gifted and hated race ever seen? And all because they refuse to accept the Son of Man? Naw, it’s too good a plot line. Christ is God and the important role of the Jews through Christian and post-Christian history proves it.
Also Islam is highly dysgenic which is a whole other story…
Every time they fought (admittedly, the last time they did so openly was in 1791) the Austrians won. And the Ottomans were stronger then.
Ottomans were defeated in a bunch of minor Balkan wars, eventually driven out of most of the Balkans. In the 1870s Austrians expanded into the Balkans and occupied Bosnia whose forces had been supported by the Ottomans. If not for the Russians, Austria would have crushed Serbia. So in that region, Ottomans were retreating while Austria was advancing, suggesting Austria was stronger.
A-H was bailed out after losing to Russia. Ottomans defeated the British at Gallipoli but were losing to the Russians (something like 10% of Anatolia was taken):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Western_Armenia_September_1917.png
Not at the moment. I could find some if you wanted, but which countries and for what purpose?
Speaking of which, nobody has argued why God sanctioned the Armenian genocide, an giant hole in this “proof” if there ever was one. Any takers?
Armenian genocide encouraged Hitler that it was possible to commit genocide and largely get away with it. So it was necessary as a precondition for the Holocaust, which, as AK has conclusively proven above, was merely divine punishment for the prominent role of Jews in Bolshevism.
If you’re bothered about the timeline: God in his omniscience already foresaw in 1915 that Russians would betray His representative on earth two years later, so he set in train the events necessary for His vengeance.
He also foresaw the rise of the Kardashians and decided to preemptively punish Armenians for that grave offense against His divine majesty.
See, it all makes sense, if one thinks about it.
The Amish double their numbers every twenty-two years.
True, but they are pacifists, which may only work in a white country. Plus they are technophobes, when to triumph, you really need an ideology that wields technology to maximize population growth.
I wonder how much of their wealth comes from crazy hippies who go for organics. Their economic base might be dying off.
“The “conservative Christians will out-breed liberal non-Christians” idea is one of the more enduring and silly of conservative delusions.”
It’s not. We already see this is true in differential birthrate stats: non-Christian Leftists have an astonishingly low TFR, maybe 1.2 when interracial offspring are included. Religious propensity is heritable, so even if some progeny are no longer Christian by adulthood 1) there will be many who are and those types will become increasingly immune through several generations to the education system’s efforts to erase their identity – highly religious people are nearly intractable in their beliefs 2) even those who are not religious anymore may still have a personality type which leads to having more children; under different circumstances in the future, that share of the population might see an increase in birthrate. Humanity has not reached a dead end but a bottleneck.
Anatoly, you spend too much time with your new weirdoLARPonationalist clique.
Assuming those traditions took hold.
The one relatively prominent example we have of a decidedly European people – the Finno-Ugro-Slavic metis who were the Tatars – turning to Islam did not have a negative impact on their cognitive abilities.
I certainly don’t think it would have been prevented because the secular millennial trend has always been towards technological growth and an eventual industrial revolution. Of course, had Islam slowed down Europe for a 2-3 centuries, then China may have got there first (I estimate both Qing China and Tokugawa Japan was 2-3 centuries away from industrial revolution c.1750).
Indeed, what makes Lo’s drivel all the more ridiculous is that the size of the Chinese business diaspora in Moscow is completely ecliped not just by Euro-Americans, but by the big European nations individually.
Anti-Russian religious fervor in Europe regardless, the cultural gap between Russia and China is far bigger than between Russian and Europe.
Off the top of my head, I can even name one Indian in the “prominent expat” community. Not a single Chinese.
Incidentally, this happens to be bad, because it hampers Putin’s project to rebalance towards Asia.
The Amish clearly don’t have a world-beating system given their rejections of violence and high technology (they do use some technology in varying degrees depending on the sect).
But they have found a successful formula for maintaining social cohesion and growing their numbers swiftly within the modern day United States.
Beyond success in farming, they also do a lot of high-end woodworking and furniture manufacturing. Their economic base is thriving, though for them to become a majority of the US population (projected in two centuries) they would obviously need to move beyond agriculture and wood.
Mormons are another group worth looking at. They embrace technology, commerce, politics, deep state service, and more. Yet they also maintain social cohesion and conservatism. That said the Mormons do cuck when the tide seems overwhelming, and their fertility is no longer as impressive as it once was.
God works in mysterious ways.
Tatars (Volga Tatars?) are not Finno-Ugro-Slavic metis. Modern Tatars are agnostics (or atheists) with a European culture whose ancestors were Muslims (about as modern Russians are agnostics or atheists whose ancestors were Orthodox). This example has zero value.
In addition, there is an example of Muslims of the Caucasus who are also “Europeans” genetically, but in terms of culture are very far from Europe..
We agree again! I do wonder how people can regard one of the few true thousand-year long empires as a failure or a “historical freak”.
Cold?
Chinese ingenuity found a way how to deal with cold.
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1096221209010683904
They… are… coming.
God foresaw that The Forty Days of Musa Dagh would be a great novel, which is a great silver lining for such a minor incident.
I admit I know little about Armenians, so please correct me if I am wrong. But did they not serve the Ottomans fairly loyally (as financiers for the leaders, for example) before being betrayed and slaughtered? It looks like some Armenians played a critical role in the Ottomans’ military machine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadian_family
The Dadian family was an Ottoman Armenian family that was famous for their industrial activities within the Ottoman Empire. Besides being prominent factory owners (the family had a monopoly on the empire’s gunpowder industry for more than a century), members of the family also served as political advisers. The Dadians were also well acquainted with Ottoman banking
btw, what did Ukrainian peasants do to deserve the famine of the early 1930s? They must have offended God in some pretty terrible way to bring that upon themselves.
Well, my own peasant relatives from central Ukraine were bystanders who deserted the disintegrating Russian army, came home, and later refused to fight against the Bolsheviks (didn’t fight for them either of course). Some of them later starved to death.
Didn’t deserve it but it matches this idea…
You seem to to have been particularly triggered by this idea.
Goddamn furries.
It just amazes me that educated and generally non-stupid people can seriously entertain the idea that even genocides of entire peoples or other mass crimes could be due to some divine and fundamentally just plan.
It’s one thing to argue that God allows human evil due to freedom of will. But that God actively wanted, even caused (!) the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust or the starvation death of your Ukrainian relatives and other similar mass crimes, and that this is all evidence of some fundamental cosmic justice? I find that rather perverse tbh, it makes me wonder, how anybody could still consider such a God to be a fundamentally benevolent father instead of a capricious tyrant.
Lol I assume this was satirical discussion and people were showing their irony skills. If it’s serious, it is far too stupid for a person like me to respond to.
But since this is the intern, as often I lower myself by 50 points of IQ to enter the conversation. Ukraine, for example, is poorest country in Europe, while Germany has one of the highest standards of living in the world. Ukrainian women currently flood into German brothels, where they lie under old German men.
This has some kind of relation to history and karma? In which case, Germans must be angels and Ukrainians must be devils to create this fate (Germans today live far better in every sense than most of the world, so we can infer they must have been a very kind nationality historically).
The “theory of karma” requires something like reincarnation and application to the individual (the latter exists in nature), for it to have any sense.
Things like nationalities are arbitrary fictions (nations have no existence in the real world – they are just an idea in our minds which we use as convenient way to organize people in some historical eras) .
There are not any correlations between fate of nations and the moral status of people who “were categorized” (by our minds) by this concept of nations. Aside from lack of correlations (i.e. good fortune of Germans, and bad fortune of e.g. Filipinos), there is of course no causal relation between the two. And aside from lack of causal relation, the connection is also conceptually incoherent (nations are categorizing different, morally unrelated people arbitrarily both in any time slice, and across different times).
So
1. no correlation .
2. no causal relation that could be inferred even if there was a correlation (i.e. if not 1)
3. no conceptual relation even if not 1 and not 2
It is an instinctual primitive materialistic religion (like Aztecs or Minoans), where tribes do various kinds of rituals and hope they will have good harvest, or that it will rain enough to grow crops, or they won’t have plague.
It was common for simple tribes in the ancient world to think like this, and some of it was present even in Classical Athens. For example, in the plague of Athens, the simple and unphilosophical people thought it was punishing them for “angering the gods”, although more intelligent and educated men like Thucydides could see there was a natural disease, with no relation to morality (although, obviously, they could see this without understanding its causes).
In the Old Testament of the Bible, a similar kind of refinement of understanding is also occurring (intelligent writers of the Bible were starting to open more interesting discussions, and by the time of the Book of Job, they had exceeded completely a idea of primitive materialistic rewards and refer to the individual soul).
In Ancient India, where the level of understanding was much higher, our primitive instinct for “Just World Hypothesis”, of course was systematized in more coherent ways into theories of karma.
The Old Testament God is not fundamentally benevolent – he is merciful, but also just.
A God that is merely benevolent would be neuter.
Are you aware that you are repeating Ivan Karamazov’s argument now?
Prayer has been shown to be effective in curing disease (even others remote prayers). Science has not been able to come up with an explanation.
Which could be a problem for them in the long run. They’ve been tolerated because there aren’t many of them and tourists like them. But what if they start expanding? Start wanting lebensraum?
Ger,mans were good historically. They just lapsed for a decade or so in the mid 20th century. The regions most responsible for this lapse have been erased from the Earth:
Nazi share of vote:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/NSDAP_Wahl_1933.svg/1280px-NSDAP_Wahl_1933.svg.png
Recently the rest of Germany has become secular and sinful. It is being replaced, accordingly.
So you want to tell me that I’ll end up as an insane nihilist, if I question that various historical cases of mass murder were actually ordained by God, as just punishment for offenses against His majesty?
imo you’re conflating different issues here. There’s the fundamental question of theodicy (“Why does God allow evil to happen? Why does He allow the suffering of innocent people?”). It has many possible answers. “If someone suffers, it must be well-deserved, if not for personal sins, then as punishment for the collective he belongs to” is one of the dumber answers imo.
Because of God’s evil counterpart. I thought that was the central plank of manichaean belief systems?
Not erased. Just Polonized (or is it re-Polonized?) and Russified.
Is it karma that Germany–a country that killed most of the high-IQ Semites in Europe–is having its population replaced in part by low-IQ Semites?
Did the Volga Tatars also embrace cousin marriage en masse, though?
Also, are the Crimean Tatars as bright as their Volga counterparts?
Somewhat off-topic, but how much larger do you think that the Chinese and Indian (and Asian in general) communities in Russia would have been right now had Russia somehow avoided Bolshevism in 1917 and become a developed country by the end of the 20th century?
Using this bizarre logic, West Germans were punished for being turned into vassals of Jewish power and East Germans were rewarded (or at least not punished) for their heroic stance against Jewish Imperialism.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/east-germanys-undeclared-war-against-israel/
Following this to its logical conclusion, Germans are being punished not for their genocide of Jews, but rather because they failed to finish the job.
This is one of the reasons Jews shouldn’t go around invoking divine favour to justify their actions.
You’ve described the approach of secular modern Germans and the collective consequences of that approach.
I don’t think anyone proposes that the punishment the individual suffers was deserved. Christ suffered for humanity’s sins, he didn’t “deserve” it. Sometimes, some people suffer for the sins of their community, this doesn’t mean that those suffering individuals deserved it. The Tsar and his family being slaughtered may have been the result of his going to war against another monarchy in support of an evil regicidal regime does not mean that his martyred wife and children (or even he himself) deserved their brutal fate. But they have been sanctified for their sacrifice, this world is only a small part of our existence and God is merciful.
messing with creation like that could provoke God’s ire to an unprecedented degree after all.
Maybe God is punishing the US because of people like AK. We might get confirmation when we see what God does with Russia now that he’s there instead of in the US.
For what it’s worth, Turkish nationalists and Armenian genocide apologists generally disagree that the Armenians were loyal citizens of the Ottoman Empire. They tend to argue that Armenians were traitors who rebelled during wartime and that the genocide was a response to this. And although there were quislings among Armenians (an inevitability given the centuries long Ottoman rule), and resistance over the centuries was not constant, Armenians in general were hardly eager servants, and increasingly pushed for freedom throughout the 19th century. In some ways, those who profited economically during the Turkish rule were resisting in their own way, in that they concentrated power and wealth in their own community, and in doing so, helped it survive. Turks in the 19th century were extremely hostile to the Armenians’ entrepreneurial success, and saw it as coming at the expense of the Turkish people.
In my view, the cleansing of Armenians from their homeland, and the failure to establish an Armenian state on all of historical Armenia, was primarily due to the Bolshevik revolution, given that the Turkish republican government directly benefited from the support of the new revolutionary government in Moscow.
They might be right, and I am no expert. My dilettante’s impression is that the Armenians there were a but like Jews in Germany. To a certain extent they may have been scapegoated and their disloyalty may have been exaggerated. There weren’t a lot of anti-Ottoman uprisings among Armenians, as there were among the peoples in the Balkans, despite rival powers/potential allies (Russia and Persia) being close by, and it seems other Christians didn’t become as powerful as did the Armenians. \
Agree – this was yet another evil (albeit an indirect one) caused by Bolshevism.
Disloyalty of German Jews was perhaps exaggerated by Nazis, but was pretty bad.
Have a look at a list of names of the leaders of the German Revolution and the Bavarian Soviet Republic for instance.
And bear in mind that German Jews weren’t even 1% of the German population.
That said one can also point to patriotic German Jews like Walther Rathenau (assassinated by the far right for foreign policy realism) and conversos like Fritz Haber (inventor of poison gas).
I was born in relatively lucky situation, in a pleasant historical era, with a healthy body and quite normal family.
Therefore, – in your view – this is because my ancestors must have belonged to a nationality group which made political decisions that you think were morally good?
What determines which souls are born to nationalities which had politically good behaved ancestors, and which souls are born to nationalities which will soon be punished? Because which souls are in which nationalities determines who is being rewarded and punished across generations.
In this case your theory requires two assumptions:
It also has some unusual implications – because you assume same souls would reincarnated in the same nationalities, then it’s also morally logical to punish people for their ancestors.
That, or you were fortunate enough to be born into a community of people like that. Judgement works in broad brushstrokes for peoples, innocents suffer if surrounded by the guilty, guilty ones prosper if surrounded by the innocent in this world. So some good people who didn’t deserve to suffer end up suffering for the sins of their neighbors and ancestors, as Christ suffered. Fortunately our time here is brief, and rewards (and punishments) will come individually.
Belief in reincarnation is completely unnecessary (and indeed, this is a false belief).
It’s not up to us to punish anyone. But history seems to show that peoples who turn from God or who fight against Him get punished. It’s a fairly well-established pattern, as Karlin detailed.
One of my grandparents lost a lot of family during the Holodomor. They were decent, hardworking, religious people. My grandparent mused that perhaps they were being punished, because after deserting the Russian army they came home and had kids, complacently doing nothing more than complaining as Bolsheviks invaded and took over the country, slaughtered monks and priests, etc. Contrast this to Galicia, where people took to arms and fought tooth and nail against the Bolsheviks and ended up being spared the brunt of Stalinism.
Disloyalty of German Jews was perhaps exaggerated by Nazis, but was pretty bad.
Have a look at a list of names of the leaders of the German Revolution and the Bavarian Soviet Republic for instance.
Is this the same reasoning that came up with the premise that runaway slaves were being “disloyal”?
Body, family and society that I “woke up in” (let’s say at earliest conscious memory around age 2), was beyond my control, and not something about which I have any moral responsibility, unless you hypothesize some previous life or karma which determined why my soul was born in a healthy body which didn’t e.g. die of cancer as a child.
There is no judgement if the punishment is determined not by you, but by some other people who are arbitrarily your neighbour. This would just be moral arbitrariness.
A lot of the world works like this (for example, if my neighbours are noisy, then I am punished by their noise), but this has no relation to morality.
To the extent that you surrounded by badly behaved people, then you are actually more morally good, compared to a person who is surrounded by good behaved people.
People copy those near them. So a person with badly behaved neighbours, is displaying a higher level of virtue when he behaves differently, than a person with good neighbours.
The punishment would have to occur in the same generation in which the crime occurs.
With each generation, there are born new souls, which have no responsibility or even relation to the behaviour of souls of a different historical era.
Conceptually you can only use concept of “justice” if you introduce some assumption about re-incarnation of souls within same community.
If you present the same theory without assuming re-incarnation, it’s not justice, but a situation of moral arbitrariness.
That’s a possible scenario (moral arbitrariness), but it would undermine the motivation to believe the theory about “moral” punishment and reward of nations.
Jesus was killed as a result of the fact he consciously chose to teach his own religious interpretations, create his own group of followers, and he was an adult and could probably predict the consequences in the quite brutal place he was born in. He made a choice and his free-will was part of the causal process which resulted in his execution.
This is not analogous to the idea of innocent people being punished for unrelated crimes things which were done by others, and which they have no control about. In this case, the moral situation is no different than if you were executed for some crime which was done by O.J. Simpson.
Well, Ukraine has more than double church attendance than Russia (so Ukrainians are much more religious, even if the overall numbers are still very low). However, Ukrainians on average live worse. So where is the punishment in this scenario?
America is very religious and very successful, but it’s more or less the opposite of the general trend in the world (generally the countries which are most religious, have the worst lives).
They weren’t being morally punished – if as you say “they were decent”. You cannot be morally punished, unless you can specify your crime, and you are guilty of it.
The only way your theory can make sense is if you imagine they were re-incarnated souls, who had done some crimes in their past life, or accumulated some kind of negative karma.
Unless you assume the re-incarnation of their souls, what your example shows is the moral arbitrariness of history.
When you are born (and every minute of our life), you are exposed to a lot of randomness and luck.
Psychologically, people find this randomness and vulnerability unpleasant, so they try to create a sense of control by attributing what happens to people to “moral patterns” (or other superstitions). Some behaviours can increase or reduce your probability of a bad fate (i.e. not smoking reduces your risk of oncological problems), but this is morally neutral, and can be determined only by very careful (i.e. scientific) observation of reality.
What’s with the quote marks?
The Bible talks about the duty of slaves to be loyal to their masters.
Ephesians 6:5
Colossians 3:22
1st Timothy 6:1
And what does that have to do with the role of the Jews in the German Revolution in any case?
Karlin should be utterly ashamed of this silly garbage
Poland may not have waged war on God, but this nasty state did use his name in vain and has paid the ultimate price for it you dimwit – even excluding jewish deaths in WW2 they had a very high population loss. How do you explain that? Anyway wouldn’t victory against the Nazis have been impossible if the Church and God weren’t ( temporarily ) rehabilitated- does this count as Salvation in your view? Then there is Armenia and numerous others to think about
“Regicide” – LOL…what about about fratricide, suicide, pesticide, Rawhide, Hide and Seek?
Like an idiot, all you are doing is using this braindead , melodramatic individual word of “Regicide” from the dumb freak troll AP ( may be your own sockpuppet that freak) and prescribing a million things to it, pointlessly.
Why was Alexander 2nd killed? – there was strong retribution for his murder and he was a good religious man doing great things for Russia – where does your nonsensical theory go from there?
Famines also predated the USSR you dummy…..and the first one in USSR time is not even blamed on Communism in any way.
I didn’t mention “moral responsibility.” I was clear is saying that in many cases individuals who didn’t deserve it suffer because of those who did.
Why, necessarily? An anti-Nazi along with his Nazi neighbors gets killed when pro-Nazi East Prussia has its German population erased. A child is starved to death because its parents sat idly by as Bolshevik monsters took over the country. In both cases, the person suffering due to the crimes of his community didn’t deserve it. Fortunately, the good, innocent person who suffers undeservedly in this life is rewarded in the afterlife.
In the overall big picture there isn’t much of a difference. Not being able to afford an iphone or having to drive a worse car or not having expensive shoes isn’t much of a punishment. But those Ukrainians who were loyal to the monarch, and who fought hard against Bolsheviks (Galicians) avoided mass starvation and death, those who didn’t suffered immensely. That’s a real difference. Not like having to buy Turkish shoes, rather than Italian or English ones.
The one part of Ukraine that is genuinely suffering is the Donbas. It is probably the worst-suffering of all Eastern Slavic lands. It also happens to be the most unrepentantly Sovok area in the entire ex-USSR.
Only if measured by material goods pr services (some “happiness” lists use measures such as healthcare access to determine the happiest country). Polls that simply ask about the feeling of happiness show that the happiest people are in religious Latin America:
https://www.livescience.com/59633-2017-report-on-world-happiness.html
Latin America and South America have many of the world’s happiest countries, partly because “the cultural tendency in the region to focus on life’s positives,” according to the Gallup report. Here are the world’s happiest nations, with their positive experience index scores:
Paraguay, 84
Costa Rica, 83
Panama, 82
Philippines, 82
Uzbekistan, 82
Ecuador, 81
Guatemala, 81
Mexico, 81
Norway, 81
Chile, 80
Colombia, 80
General formula for happiness is Christianity (not just “religion” – Muslim countries other than outlier Uzbekistan aren’t too happy) – with no war or starvation.
What’s with the quote marks?
Those were meant to indicate that we are not in agreement as to what comprises disloyalty.
The Bible talks about the duty of slaves to be loyal to their masters.
God changes his mind, has second thoughts, issues updates, etc. See 1 A.D. for a really big one.
And what does that have to do with the role of the Jews in the German Revolution in any case?
After emancipation many of the Jews, especially the educated ones, thought that they would be fully assimilated into European societies and be allowed full participation in the cultural, economic and political spheres on equal footing and that they would not have to account for their “Jewishness” (poor naïve suckers). They fully participated in the revolutionary and radical movements like socialism and communism without any thought that they would be held responsible for their political activities because they were Jews. They foolishly believed that they would be held to the same political standards as non-Jews.
Any oppressed group such as: slaves, serfs, sharecroppers, proletariat, colonial subjects, working class whites, and fat tattooed lesbians have an inalienable right to rebel and become free men. They also have the right to form alliances and “choose” their leadership. The working class was in rebellion and many chose the socialists, which included many Jews in leadership positions. The working class has the right to choose communists as their exploiters; just like they have the right to instead choose the tinkle-down capitalists.
What you call disloyalty in slaves and working people (including Jews) is instead exercising an inalienable right to be an equal participant in the society.
And what does that [disloyalty of slaves] have to do with the role of the Jews in the German Revolution in any case?
Same-same.
1 Corinthians 3:17. As had happened to the original Bolsheviks so it shall occur to the chinese communist party.
Well, considering what happened last time…
A German Jew was the man in charge of the German war economy during WW1 and went onto become the foreign minister in the Weimar Republic.
He described himself as a “German of Jewish origin”.
It would appear that he felt himself to be fully assimilated, and he certainly participated fully in the cultural, economic, and political spheres.
If other groups were as wildly disproportionately involved in revolutionary socialism I’m sure they would be held to account. Anatoly Karlin for instance routinely complains of Latvians.
Why?
Jews weren’t oppressed, let alone enslaved, in Wilhelmine Germany.
The fact that so many of them became radical agitators regardless is a good reason for antisemitism.
If other groups were as wildly disproportionately involved in revolutionary socialism I’m sure they would be held to account. Anatoly Karlin for instance routinely complains of Latvians.
It is okay with me if you want to hold the Jewish Bolsheviks accountable for what they did, but not “the Jews.” Jews were over-represented in the socialist and communist groups but only a small % of Jews were radicals.
Why?
Feels good?
Each person in a political entity has a natural right to participate on an equal basis in the political process.
Jews weren’t oppressed, let alone enslaved, in Wilhelmine Germany.
No, I didn’t mean that. The workers had the right to choose the socialists as their leaders and the Jews had the same right to choose their ideology just like other non-Jews.
The fact that so many of them became radical agitators regardless is a good reason for antisemitism.
Apparently the ideals of socialism held special appeal for more Jews than the average bear. I don’t know why it appeals to some people and not others. It appealed(s) to me. It might be some sort of birth defect.
Then what you describe just arbitrariness (not relation to morality or religion).
If O.J. Simpson kills his wife, and then a few decades later, you get cancer.
In this case, there is no moral connection between events. One person does something and is not punished, and decades later, something bad happens to different person who has the same passport.
.
People who are punished, have to be those who did the crime, for it to have any relation to God, morality, or justice.
If you are just talking about unrelated events, happening to different people, then there is no justice or punishment to be observed.
For the consequences of something like Nazis crimes, to have any relation to God or justice, then it would have to occur to the same generation (i.e. to the souls who have been involved in the original crime, not to some random unrelated souls who were just born in the same geographical area – Germany – in some different era, like the 2000s).
You infer this because in the real world there is no justice outside the civil and criminal justice system. Life is random – you might be a nice person, and you might die tomorrow in a plane crash. Another person might be a bad person, and they might win millions of dollars in the lottery.
As a result, you (speaking generally – people with a need for this) project an afterlife which you hope will “correct” the moral arbitrariness of reality in this life.
Therefore, the incoherence of trying to combine a religious perspective, with the idea of earthly rewards and punishments (which are added in this case to people with no relation to those who did the actions allegedly causing rewards and punishments).
The belief that everything is “corrected” in the afterlife is projected because we observe there are not earthly rewards and punishments. So,why would you then propose that there are earthly rewards and punishments, which contradicts the concept of the afterlife rewards and punishments?
Poverty in a country like Ukraine, is destroying and narrowing lives of millions of people. (It’s an advantage only insofar as it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than the rich men to enter heaven).
Now in Russia, where rate of church attendance if half, the overall situation is much better in many indices.
Here is just an example of 1. – that there is no correlation.
I wouldn’t rely on a list of countries, which includes countries like Mexico, Philippines and Colombia, which have a lot of problems and incredibly high crime rates (although surely light-hearted national personalities).
As for religion, it is is believed religiousness correlates with happiness on an individual level. This is a psychological issue though and it’s not necessarily causal relation (I would expect that more spiritual people will be happier) .
It’s not supported by every survey though
http://www.journalofhappiness.net/frontend/articles/pdf/v04i01/10.pdf
If this was a one off event, sure. When it’s a pattern across time and space, then collective responsibility is entirely reasonable as is active ethnic defense by non-Jews against Jewish organizing.
Not unique to THE JEWS either.
For instance we now have abundant data that THE BLACKS are bad news wherever they live. Therefore it’s entirely sensible to employ discriminatory policies against them. The same also applies to the gypsies.
Why?
It appeals to three types of people:
1 – The inferior
2 – Sociopathic status maximizers (h/t Spandrell) seeking to mobilize group one in order to gain power
3 – The excessively naive, empathetic, foggy-headed, etc.
All three are birth defects, though partly curable especially in the cases of one and three.
It is not arbitrary because the suffering of the good person is linked to the misdeeds of his neighbor.
As we have seen, when nations have acted against God they have brought calamities upon themselves. That decent individuals within those nations also suffer as “collateral damage” is not arbitrary.
So for example if a couple take their children on a shooting spree and their innocent children as killed in crossfire, the deaths of the innocent are not arbitrary. Many innocent people suffered because Russia acted against God.
Nobody claims that the suffering of the innocent is a “punishment” for a sin they made. It is rather, a consequence of sins of their nation.
I don’t “infer” this, God has told us this.
Again, I project nothing – God has told us this.
While Moscow is a 1st world country there is not a huge difference between, say, Zhytomir and some place like Saratov in terms of daily living. Yes, people in the latter have nicer cars and can afford i-phones and better Western-standard clothes or shoes, but from the standpoint of Americans (or from the other end, sub-Saharan Africans) they don’t look terribly different. It’s silly to compare such differences to real ones, like the difference between the fate of Russia and central/eastern Ukraine that allowed fell to Bolshevism in 1920, and western Ukraine that did not.
Christians can be happy even under conditions of high crime.
Study has small N. OHQ is a more realistic measure than the other one.
If this was a one off event, sure.
I am not aware of any situation that mirrors the socialist and communist political activity in Europe and Russia that had major participation by Jews.
Well, there was that early 1st century A. D. thing.
Therefore it’s entirely sensible to employ discriminatory policies against them. The same also applies to the gypsies.
I don’t believe that would be right in regards to any citizen. Non-citizens would be a different question.
Why?
It is really a value judgement. In times past arguments could be made that representative democracy with universal suffrage had many benefits that facilitated the maintenance of a complex political entity. I’m not sure that I want to try and advance those in view of our current political difficulties.
It appeals to three types of people:
Well, if those are my only choices, I choose #3.
I find it odd that about the only political question upon which we agree is that Trumpism is a good thing.
Jehovah is just a Jewish fiction but god/life/being/nature, that is distinct. That syrupy notion we have of god is basically a creation, imo, of universalist, near eastern, mystical religions. There is something about “Abrahamic” cities(yes modern “Islamic” and “Christian” cities are the cultural and intellectual heirs of those first Near Eastern proto-cities) that either produces very intelligent individuals but also some of the most retarded and/or opportunistic pieces of shit. I can imagine a caste of ancient near eastern priests inventing these new “other-worldly” concepts about Being, in order to better control and manipulate the mass of idiotic farmers and city-dwellers. Screw that, I’d rather believe in the free Indo-European sky father, Dyeus Pater. Unfortunately the originally tribal, “shamanistic”, Dyeus Pater has also been monopolized by a tiny religious caste. Its unfortunate because these religious intellectuals, just like their secular liberal or secular marxist heirs, have also distorted our perception of reality, of Being, of god.
Anyway you are right, there are grave consequences for going against social mores, BUT mores of the tribe not of some religious intellectual caste. The gravest sin, imo, is completely forgetting ones origins. Yes cultures have to adapt no doubt but that does not mean to forget the ancestors. In this sense most of us “Indo-European speakers” are guilty since only now are we starting to learn about our real, at least paternal, origins. Hell all humans are guilty of forgetting their roots, since we have forgotten that humans originated in East Africa.