Thoughts on the State of Europe

[bobserb]

They have a lot of nuclear weapons but don't exactly have much thought, business or science leaders. Long term, their economy can't be all about gas and oil, since a lot of their customers are going to transition to renewable energy. They may even have a much more short term issue if gas and oil prices fall a lot. So, what's the plan? As long as the leaders are only in it for themselves and don't really care, there will be no plan.

There's no plan. The Russian culture is deeply fatalistic and eschatological (see the literature). There's literally no vision of any kind future in modern Russia, only clinging to epic historical times like the WW2 or the imperial period.

The negative selection in the government and the overall inertia are too strong to take a turn from the direction towards crisis.

< NO EMAIL >
You sound like Soros trained propagandist -activist.
They are brain washed or well paid to work against the best interest of their own countries.
They always show strong hatred towards the country they were born.

''Russian rocket engines are the best in the world!Watch this video to...''https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbfJbTycl6I

''Russian agriculture sector flourishes amid sanctions - Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/content/422a8252-244 ... 6?mhq5j=e5
Apr 18, 2017 - Russia last year became the world's biggest exporter of grains, at more than 34m tonnes. Total Russian grain production hit a record 119m ...''

'

[admin]

Admin, everyone is not at war with everyone - just like your ‘close encounters’ with terrorism on your trip, you are being overly dramatic. It’s quite hard to ‘keep up’ with the nonsensical rubbish you write.

Then take your trolling bullshit some where else.

[FrankPintor]

Time Out!!!

[eeuunikkeiexpat]

Point taken, unless if it is an Argie ref ...

[RuneTheChookcha]

LOVED Russia. Totally hope to go back and explore more.

Then, you have to do the "Trans Siberian Highway": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Highway

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The section between Chita and Khabarovsk, people say, about 20 years ago used to be kind of REAL Patagonia, where to call the road "dirt road" would be too kind..



In 1990's, as Wikipedia reads, it was "an extremely challenging undertaking among marsh, gravel, rock, mud, sand, washboard, potholes, stream fording and detours of the elusive highway with a noticeable absence of pavement ..."

But presently, they seem to have opened the "Amur Highway".. fully paved on 12 August 2015.. no more as funnny as it used to be.

[FrankPintor]

Point taken, unless if it is an Argie ref ...

Well it was a random image from American football which from a European perspective is like girls playing rugby oops maybe I should stop now

[Space Cat]

They always show strong hatred towards the country they were born.'

No hatred, it's heartbreaking. But whatever, arguing about the country you know only from the news is not my plans. Try to live there for a while first.

All the foreign Russophiles always enjoy lifestyles that average Russian sees only in the movies. Same goes for Cuba admirers or, hopefully, ex-Venezuela fans.

[admin]

They always show strong hatred towards the country they were born.'

No hatred, it's heartbreaking. But whatever, arguing about the country you know only from the news is not my plans. Try to live there for a while first.

All the foreign Russophiles always enjoy lifestyles that average Russian sees only in the movies. Same goes for Cuba admirers or, hopefully, ex-Venezuela fans.

Hey, I would not want to live in Russia or Cuba, but I like visiting both in a tourist sort of way. They are still interesting, as apposed to some place like France that is a really big yawn to me.

The other thing about such places, that still keeps them interesting, they can't completely hide what is really going on in the country. Your going to see some of it, simply because there is too much of it.

It is like central moscow, is turning in to some sort of super polished Disneyland of the mega rich and tourist. You get on a train or whatever, wonder outside the center slightly, and your going to see poverty. lot's of it. And Moscow is the rich city. The further you get from red square, the more obvious the poverty is in Russia. In fact, it is probably almost directly proportional to the distance from red square.

Now, Itialy, you can go to say central Rome, Florence, or Venice, and it is super polished and refined tourism trap. You got to make some sort of effort to go find the poverty in Italy (although, granted not very much). We were able to find it with a local train ticket one night in Naples. Different sort of poverty obviously, but it is there, as the train passed through the working class apartment blocks.

I honestly went on this trip however as tourist, with the full intention of hitting a bunch of the biggest European tourist traps, to sort of get them out of our system (by the way that took about two weeks, and we had our fill of standing in line to see another old building). Totally not backpacking, beyond haling my daypack around for an afternoon.

My wife and I did the whole live in Europe and live in China long ago, and even before that I had lost interest in anthropology as a sport. My interest in getting to know the natives on this trip, pretty much began and ended with what sort of wine they were growing out back in itialy, or what time of year is the best time to ski in Austria. Perhaps I still have some interest in the macro-geopolitics or economics, but my days of hanging around the camp fire to smoke a piece pipe are over. I just don't care anymore. People are people, for better or worse, pretty much everywhere on the planet.

[Space Cat]

It is like central moscow, is turning in to some sort of super polished Disneyland of the mega rich and tourist. You get on a train or whatever, wonder outside the center slightly, and your going to see poverty. lot's of it. And Moscow is the rich city. The further you get from red square, the more obvious the poverty is in Russia. In fact, it is probably almost directly proportional to the distance from red square.

You nailed it, Moscow is famous for draining resources out of the rest of the country since the Soviet times. Overall Russia is extremely centralized for its size.

But I agree, countries like that are great for tourism and you can find a lot of really distinct parts of the culture. Unfortunately, these cultures have been and continue to be shaped by a huge amount of suffering. So when people praise the Russian regime based on what they see on the media surface – I need a considerable effort to not get mad.

[Britkid]

The further you get from red square, the more obvious the poverty is in Russia. In fact, it is probably almost directly proportional to the distance from red square.

Which sounds disturbingly like North Korea.

[Britkid]

Let's see how the Western press will deal with the Russia world cup. Will they run programmes about all the real issues, or just go along with the show? Chilean TV I think will almost certainly fail on this topic, US/UK media will wait and see. My theory is that you send in a bunch of people undercover to get footage and do reporting (on political freedoms, freedom of the press, gay rights etc) sometime in the next 6-9 months. By the time the world cup starts, they are all safely gone. Then you show the matches but during the match trail a programme coming up immediately after the match on the same channel and people can watch it if they want.

Space Cat, I want to know please what you think about this.

1. Putin has now reached the point where there's no point trying to defend himself anymore. There is so much going on..dubious poisonings, apartment blocks conspiracy, wars, political opponents disappear, US election interference, liberal media stopped, you reach a point where it's too much. In any one case, you can make a case that "oh that poisoning might have been a rogue lone agent" or "that war might actually have been justifiable" but there's no way it's ALL defensible. And Putin knows that Russian intellectuals, foreign Russia watchers, foreign governments, media etc etc know this and know he is a bad person doing bad things. They know he knows they know, etc. He can't expicitly admit it publically, that would change the dynamic, but there's also no real sense in trying to put up genuine, heartfelt denials. When a Western journalist says to Putin some accusation and he dodges or denies it, what he is really saying is half hearted. He knows they know he probably did it. I mean the recent arrest of the opposition leader was for protesting in a public place. They didn't even bother to make up some corruption allegation this time. They virtually could have said: "arrested because we don't allow opposition" and it would have barely been different. Something tells me Putin will never be arrested for arranging a political speech in a place without a license! I mean, it is absurd to even suggest that this could happen.

Putin's claims of moral legitamacy are for the mass populist voter market alone. Do you agree?

2. Do you think Putin has to cling on to power indefinately for his own survival (e.g. he may himself be prosecuted/arrested for various things if he leaves power and there ia a transition towards liberal, democratic forces some years later). Or do you think he would able to relinquish the Presidency and step out of mainstream politicals quite safely, not just immediately, but in the long run?

[Space Cat]

Space Cat, I want to know please what you think about this.

1. Putin has now reached the point where there's no point trying to defend himself anymore. There is so much going on..dubious poisonings, apartment blocks conspiracy, wars, political opponents disappear, US election interference, liberal media stopped, you reach a point where it's too much. In any one case, you can make a case that "oh that poisoning might have been a rogue lone agent" or "that war might actually have been justifiable" but there's no way it's ALL defensible. And Putin knows that Russian intellectuals, foreign Russia watchers, foreign governments, media etc etc know this and know he is a bad person doing bad things. They know he knows they know, etc. He can't expicitly admit it publically, that would change the dynamic, but there's also no real sense in trying to put up genuine, heartfelt denials. When a Western journalist says to Putin some accusation and he dodges or denies it, what he is really saying is half hearted. He knows they know he probably did it. I mean the recent arrest of the opposition leader was for protesting in a public place. They didn't even bother to make up some corruption allegation this time. They virtually could have said: "arrested because we don't allow opposition" and it would have barely been different. Something tells me Putin will never be arrested for arranging a political speech in a place without a license! I mean, it is absurd to even suggest that this could happen.

Putin's claims of moral legitamacy are for the mass populist voter market alone. Do you agree?

2. Do you think Putin has to cling on to power indefinately for his own survival (e.g. he may himself be prosecuted/arrested for various things if he leaves power and there ia a transition towards liberal, democratic forces some years later). Or do you think he would able to relinquish the Presidency and step out of mainstream politicals quite safely, not just immediately, but in the long run?

1. If you mean the public support, yes he has a nice support, something between 50 and 80% depending on the topic. But both Russian media and dot-ru part of the Internet belong to the government or their loyal oligarchs (all the disloyal ones were jailed or exiled a long time ago). So many people live in the bubble of propaganda, similar to the Soviet times.

I doubt anybody in the government thinks "oh, I'm a bad guy". They're not some genius Bond villains who brainwash a whole nation while laughing demonically. They eat their own propaganda like an ouroboros and believe in all the bullshit – both materialistic ("Western powers are dangerous, we need to disrupt them for safety and balance") and occult ("Russians are a god-chosen nation and Russia has a sacred mission in this world"). If you listen closely to what top Russian officials say for the local press, there're many purely schizophrenic ideas floating around.

2. It's not just Putin, KGB/FSB has been consolidating the power since 1991. They destroyed or bent to submission every institution or powerful person in the country. The revolution in Ukraine was possible because they had (and have) multiple factions of oligarchs fighting each other. But there is nobody left in Russia to threat or prosecute the current government. The opposition is truly insignificant. Maybe it will grow along with growing poverty but nowadays it's a deadlock.