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Comments
So.
I've had this feeling this article is setting up a dichotomy between Russia on one side, and "the rest" on the other. It's not as clear-cut, feels like.
As for Russia and that whole Mongolo-Byzantine mess, it is a common interpretation, though. Russia is often presented as a separate kind of civilization, and lest somebody says THAAT'S RAAAYCEEST, there's plenty of actual genuine Russians who embrace this idea. (And I don't even mean the self-hating kind. Actually very much the opposite. Though to be honest, the self-hating kind may still do that for their own reasons.) "Common interpretation" isn't the same as "objectively true" - I mean, the notion that you value freedom and hate tyranny kind of goes outta the window when you flock to an authoritarian cleptocrat - but it's often brought up and even with the catch I'd wager there's still something to the idea. Like, Russians don't seem to be bothered their leaders are filthy rich, and here it's about the commonest line of attack against a politician.
Also when it comes to these parts of the world, it's good to remember "Slavic" shouldn't be the go-to term. Hungarians and Estonians are Finno-Ugric, the Romanians are Romance or whatever it's called, the Balts are their own thing, and there's a plenty of minor ethnicities around the area which may belong to any other group. Technically speaking, you could try to defend the notion on the basis of many non-Slavic ethnicities or languages having a significant Slavic influence, but I'd advise it only in a strictly academic environment, or if you want to start an ethnic flame war.
Another minor nitpick could be the use of Witcher, though it is excusable as an appeal to Western audience. In general I enjoyed the way the writer engaged the Western audience.
But yeah, unless some Czech or Serb or whoever materializes out of thin air and goes "no no no it's completely not that", I'd heartily recommend the article.
(If you were curious, the washing powder campaign refers only indirectly to history - the direct reference is to a historical novel through a pun on the word "prać".)
I was curious about the down-to-earth "guy you could have a beer with" leader thing and wondered if there was a map somewhere, I didn't find any but I learned the beer thing has a Wikipedia article (albeit short).
Ooooh yeah. We have here a national martyrdom culture. The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and about any other failed uprising are cherished like nothing else. ("Nothing else" includes a few actually successful uprisings, which are barely commemorated in comparison.)
At least, it used to be so. Over the last, say, decade, the dissident outliers have got their voices heard, and it's more of a debate than it used to be. There's been a bit of a backlash, even. In this light, the Czechs' less directly unruly attitude towards the Nazi occupation has been hailed as the prudent and pragmatic way.
We've had like an entire intellectual cottage industry of claiming Russia isn't really European/Slavic/white people/civilized, yeah. The greatest-of-the-greats in this regard is a guy who'd developed an entire theory of civilization so that he could claim Catholic Poles are the pinnacle of human civilization, while Russians and Germans are fake and gay. (For all my reservations, the dude deserves a wide recognition, even if only as a historical footnote.)
Concerning Russia, Poland, and treatment of minorities, I think they're actually doing it quite well. I mean, there's a lot of talk about how folks from Central Asia and/or Caucasus are treated by folks from Moscow (think Mexican menial laborers in the US), but the minorities in their own territories seem to do fine. At least, fine as long as we assume the outliers cancel each other out and do not count poverty as "not fine". The Buryats Putin is sending to die in Ukraine instead of ethnic Russians don't seem to think of themselves in the same way as African-Americans or Native Americans do. (I can be mistaken.)
Also, the Tatars are a small, quaint local community cherished for the sense of exoticity they bring, so they receive, like, the fondest reception an ethnic Pole can give to an ethnic minority. They might be a bit rosy an example.
Now, this... I've read that there are reports of Russian peasants addressing the Tzar himself quite directly - to be honest I don't remember what kind of occasion it was supposed to have been, that they were even able to - because they regarded him as a kind "father of the people". But this is, actually, yet another example of this "otherworldliness" of Russian rulers.
Now, I can't say we don't suck up to ours, don't deify, or whatever. But as a concept, our perception of a ruler is decidedly earthly. Perhaps too earthly; in Poland, a politician is sleazy by definition. "It's a respectable family, there will be no politicians in it", as a dad of my schoolmate used to say. Although I have also been taught the kings of old had a sort of a special place. Revered, yes; respected, not necessarily. (And definitely not obeyed.)
Historian Norman Davies has a delicious little story about an old man who really tried to have a talk with him despite the lack of a common tongue. Finally, the man pointed to a certain famous Warsaw landmark and said, "Byzantium!". For him, it encapsulated everything that he wanted to say about Stalinist monumental architecture.
The original Panslavism fizzled out because of the lack of common interests between Slavic nations. Yugoslavia was about the most functional outcome, and we know how it went.
The Americans seem to love those who can project the image of "the average Joe" a bit more than we do. But there are details in the execution that I do not feel I can competently describe.
Propagandists of the Party love to present the opposition politicians as a bunch of louts and thugs, while projecting onto the Party thugs the image of sensible intellectuals and statesmen. Somehow, it seems to work. But again, everything will work when you're preaching to true believers.
There was a case of an opposition politician whose municipal election was almost derailed by the fact he was worldly and educated. At one point in the campaign, he recalled an exam he once had, in French, where the professor was a political figure of a previous generation. This was seen as bragging about his education, and also partly about his connections. To make matters weirder, his opponent in the elections tried to also present himself as educated and worldly, despite the fact he could have been a lot more convincing as the good ole' boy. (Perhaps he saw that segment of the electorate cornered already, so there was no point in catering to them. Or was a dumbass getting into a dick-waving contest against a guy whose dick's length was well-established. My money's on the dumbass, though I won't quite exclude the possibility of stone-cold cynicism on the part of his Party backers.)
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TL;DR Poles are mean little bastards with all the self-serving cynical cunning of a peasant but all the pompous sense of self-worth and delusions of grandeur of a nobleman.
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So, this post is long enough as it is, and I feel I'm letting go of whatever point I had at the beginning, so I'll hit the send button and see if there's anything to add here.
"The US Army is so weak and woke that it would never stand a chance against Russia or China!!! They'd be too busy asking for the soldier's genders!!!"
Me in 2020: *nodding furiously*
Me in 2023: "Wait, are we not going to address how often that was said and what went wrong with that analysis?"
Others have also mentioned that nobody is giving the media('s government sources) any credit for correctly predicting that Russia was about to start this war.
(I feel like I've either said this before or deleted the post before I posted it).
Yeah I'm not a fan of the interventionism but I understand why the US and it's allies would do it (from both a "humanitarian" and Machiavellian standpoint, I lean towards the latter obviously). Frankly I kind of believe that even without the massive interventionism, this thing would have gone pear-shaped after a while anyways.
My gosh, if Russia couldn't even handle annexing all of Milquetoast Neighbouring Corruptistan before global sanctions crippled it, then I can't believe it's a legit competent power anymore. Anybody railing on about a "Multipolar world" of competent US enemies is making stuff up, and actually now instead of making stuff up they just don't talk about it.
Now, Vladimir Putin is basically killing a whole bunch of people and destroying a country to save face and it's really, really dumb to be pro-Russia(n government). I mean you (I?) can rail about Ukraine "supporting Nazis" but by George did it sure work out well for them.
The guy behind the substack site Glenn posted is actually a well-known journalist, not a random no-name as I thought. It's quite interesting, really, now that I can compare and contrast my previous experiences with his writing to that, when I didn't know I'm actually commenting on An Important Person.
Pardon the Vox article, but this isn't about a typical hot-button culture war issue. Rather, it's an assessment of the challenges facing the power grid today and a proposal of a new and very different functional mode of a power grid. Basically, it's an idea for decentralizing the grid and having many different "power manager" nodes at different levels rather than one big power management system that load-balances everything. I found it an interesting read.
I have never understood those stories about men (usually older men) going to the emergency room to get [whatever] removed from their behinds. Bonus points if it's WWII related and maybe still dangerous (like a super huge shell or a landmine).
I'm pretty sure the enmity towards gas stoves is about the use of natural gas.
I like gas stoves though, not enough to foam at the mouth over it but it turns out internet hullabaloos don't matter much.
Anyways, I've been thinking whether I should tell you our most recent scandal:
On the other hand, there are concerns, yes. Both with regards to their use of fossil fuels (and the various implications that entails, the most important of them being climate change) and with regards to their impact on indoor air quality (including both oxygen levels and particulates). These are the kinds of dull boring things that make people go "gas stoves have their uses, but...".
Which is true; they do have their uses and occasional advantages ("What if the power goes out?" for example), and the workflow for using gas stoves is definitely different from electric resistive stoves (or for that matter electric induction stoves) so anyone accustomed to the former will run into some bumpiness getting used to the latter. But, the same can be said about cooking over a fire pit, yet people have largely "moved on" from that for similarly practical reasons (air quality being one yet again lol, as well as safety).
Anyhow, I personally favor induction stoves. There's even less energy wasted -- which is better for not just the environment but also for saving money and also not having the wasted heat coming at me (and heating my home, considering I live in Florida) because I kinda need to be next to the stove when I use it (and I tend to live where I cook).
Bonus find: induction stoves can apparently work well with large-wok stir fry -- which is something that gas stoves do better than electric resistive stoves.
A few years ago I went to a conference where one of the highlights was a company apparently pioneering insect farming in that part of Poland, so I watch the unfolding events with a bit of an insider's amusement. (I didn't bring myself to try the cookie once I noticed the bug isn't ground into flour, but added in full to the dough, but others did and said it tasted good.)
I can't even with this sort of thing anymore. It turns out people who get into politics (and other sorts of people) can also be nonces and unless the person in question is explicitly being pro-nonce then there's no point in trying to say "[Party X] is the real paedos!"
Also to me this "[Party X] is the real [whatever it is this week]" thing was already super old by the time the Hunter Biden (China/Ukraine) v. Jared Kushner (Saudi Arabia) thing came up but that really sealed the deal for me.
First world v third world thing re:the frequency of power outages.
The thing is people around here eat bugs (my dad loves them) so this particular thing is weird for me. Also after reading Something New Under the Sun I'm like "Maybe we shouldn't make artificial meat" but I don't know if I hate the idea of artificial meat? I already like eating vegan meat occasionally.
Also I'm allergic to shrimp/most seafood.
But it's super unlikely that the secret cabal would manage to get rid of meat mainly because the NWO conspiracy is kind of one of the dumbest ones.
Yep, that's why I was curious. It does definitely sound like one of those international rightie outrage things (Confederate flags and Rhodesia pride worldwide), but then I knew folks elsewhere eat bugs and are all fine with it. (In your case, there's the bonus layer of whether these people would consider people around you, people.)
Now I'm curious how often do folks in the US get power shortages. We've had one of these once in a while in the countryside, but in the city? I don't really remember.
Then again, this hullabaloo is (was?) taking place in the US, of all places. Where electricity is more widely available than gas anyway; if anything, I'd say the people who get the choice to convert from electric stoves to gas stoves (i.e. not the people who just have gas stoves already because that's what their house came with, and/or otherwise don't have the means to change this) are more likely to view it as a lifestyle choice.
For outages, there's a variety of portable stoves on the market anyway.
Considering that I already eat...
* chicken nuggets and other minced fish/chicken products
* sausages
* imitation crab meat and other surimi and fish paste products
* meatballs
etc.
I'm already neck-deep in putting my faith in the food production industry (including any applicable government regulations).
>assuming we have gas lines at all
stop being so "well you could just go to Walmart" American
The thing about the Confederacy in general and specifically statues is like... yeah you probably shouldn't take the statues down, but probably not to valorize the people in them...? I guess every country has the right to historical revisionism when some guy did something dumb, but I don't like the "destroying history" part at all.
Also, I generally believe that it's bad to forget important historical events, even if they leave massive scars.
Gosh, is this still a thing? I thought it was a meme that died.
Oh yeah the RW crowd went wild once sharing this article (something something soy is evil), apparently forgetting that human beings are like, not random fish.
They wasted time doing that instead of making the obvious "Is this how we'll get new and improved anime traps?" joke.
Well I think bugs are fine to eat but I'd 100% never do it. It's really just a mental thing, which is what I guess the "Bugs are cool" people are trying to deal with, which is why they get so much pushback from people not understanding nudging who think it's some form of mind-control instead.
Like, I'd maybe eat this.
Well, naw, I'd definitely do it given the chance.
Well, the chips, not the cookies with what look like cricket pieces in them.
I guess my thing is political concerns aside I'm generally high in openness compared to other people (a lot of people at my workplace still balk at the coof vaccine for non-NWO reasons but I kind of want to get a fourth booster maybe sometime).
The thing with the statues of various CSA leaders is that, in many cases, they weren't even erected shortly after the war ended or anything like that, but rather they were put up several decades later, as intimidation tactics.
I fully agree that the Civil War and its participants are important historical elements and records from them should be preserved and safeguarded for posterity to understand what happened. Nothing should be erased from the record, especially not just because those people did bad things. But it doesn't make sense to glorify them either.
It's also particularly ironic when the USA's armed forces have things (e.g. entire bases) named after CSA leaders (i.e., literally traitors). They're finally getting around to renaming some of that stuff.
As for historical revisionism, it usually seems to happen a different way -- leadership did something bad, pretend leadership didn't do that bad thing in order to honor said leadership -- rather than leadership did something bad, pretend that particular leadership doesn't actually exist in order to get over it or something.
Heh. I never got around to ask, but one of these days, I'll grab the opportunity and inquire if places where soy was a traditional diet staple are any gayer than others.
There's some irony in naming attack helicopters after Native American tribes, too.
The gayest country in Asia is like, Thailand, as far as I can tell. Japan has a weird history with male homosexuality, and everybody knows the official Chinese position.
Speaking of, Thailand seems to have a natural affinity to making really gay media, which then became popular in Japan and has forced Japanese TV producers to create their own somewhat major industry of casting extremely popular idol boys (for example, members of EXILE TRIBE) in BL.
Anyways I have no idea where people eat soy aside from that it's Big in China and Japan.
I said earlier that it "just seems grammatically weird to me", which isn't quite accurate since it's grammatically sound, but just that it doesn't seem to form a proper sense of meaning.
I get the idea of "privilege", in the sense of someone happening to have and be able to benefit from more resources (including but not limited to higher social standing) than someone else. But, what does it mean to "check"?
I figured it can mean to "re-examine" (as in "double-check your gear"), or perhaps to "restrain" (as in "to keep someone in check"). But, as a practical matter, what does it mean? Like, if someone said that to me, what should I do? Stop saying things?
If the idea is to say "hey, you're speaking from a position of privilege and you should be more considerate of others in what you say", that I get, but "check your privilege" doesn't actually seem to mean that. If I wanted to communicate that meaning, I'd say something like "other people aren't as lucky as you are; you should think about that". Y'know, directly addressing the problem.
I came here to say;
Remember how Donald Trump said he was going to get arrested this week and then, despite a bunch of online influencer's attempts to stop people doing something dumb, he insisted people go out and protest despite that being how he got a whole bunch of people arrested last year?
Usually politicians (well, Western ones anyways) at least pretend to care about their supporters but I guess not him!
I feel weird because whilst I was never like, the biggest Trump fan, I definitely remember supporting him when things got weird and were trending to "this is wrong/bad".
*
It doesn't, it means "shut up you're messing with my narrative/'truth'."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/24/florida-principal-michelangelo-david-parents/