Random Rant Thread

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In many ways, it's absolutely idiotic that we are talking about the Russo-German relationship and gas and energy and all that. I will uber-generalize the shit violently here, so be ready: What lies underneath all this awfulness is Russia's enormous inferiority complex to Western Europe and deep-seated racism toward "the East".

I mean, any halfwit could see that as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia should go East. Screw "Europe"! All the burden of the empire was gone, so finally they could do whatever the fuck they wanted. The likes of Germany and France wanted nothing whatsoever from Russia, other than oil and gas and nickel. That would trap Russia in the futureless resource economy for decades, and what's there in the buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia? Yes, Central/Eastern Europe, occupied by the population most of whom hated Russians with a passion for very good historical reasons.

Let's not even mention their unhealthy British/English fanboyism. Uttely embarrassing.

On the other hand, there was bleak-looking yet untapped land with so much potential in the east, in Siberia, and Far East. There was China of course. There was South East Asia. And there was Korea, and I'm not talking about North Korea here. And Japan. Etc.

So much potential for trading, businesses, you-name-it. It's not like Asians had more positive views on Russia than Western Europeans, but that wouldn't matter. They wouldn't reject Russia the way Europe would. What the hell did Russia want from Europe anyway? Europe was busy. There was no room in Europe for Russia. Yet they burned and wasted so much resource in and for "the West".

Most of the elites in Russia are from either St.Petersburg or Moscow after all. They fancy themselves as "Europeans" and cannot shake that deep-seated conviction. They couldn't see their future in Vladivostok, whose population calls the Western half of Russia "the mainland". They talk about Novorossiya, but it sounds awfully like an old Russia struggling with their place in "Europe". I don't see anything truly "novo" there.

You rewind the tape, and see everything started going in a wrong direction even before Yeltsin's tanks fired at the (Russian) White House. Russia had a chance to go truly "novo", and blew it. And it's all too late now.

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Sure, I'm not an "expert" on Russia/former USSR, but well, let me put it this way: I know much more about Dagestan than I do about Portugal, and much more about Azerbaijan than I do about Norway. I'm just not like most of you.

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I've seen so many new pics of destroyed/captured Russian tanks and AFVs every morning since Day One that they must amount to literally hundreds now. I don't know how much Ukraine has lost as you rarely see the pics on that side, but given the volumes of the losses on the Russian side, that hardly matters now. Ukraine is the defender, and a big country with a big population, with a significant amount of material support from NATO to boot. They can absorb the loss - unlike Russia.

Russia is a big military power, but the loss of this magnitude totally cripples the entire military. I talked about the loss of elite soldiers, typically around Kyiv, but it might be even bigger than I thought.

At this point I'm not even sure if the Russian troops can stay intact in the Donbas especially if the material support from NATO continues.

Russia has had wars where they started absolutely horrendously, and still ended up on top. But it's getting increasingly harder to see that happen.

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Again, the CCP is not a clockwork machine that many in the West make them out to be.

They need much, much, much more supplies, rations and district-level micro-planning to pull off a total lockdown of this scale smoothly or even semi-smoothly in this day and age of Omicron, but the local district chiefs said everything was A-OK, and predictably everything went totally not A-OK soon enough. They are now frantically scheming to shift the responsibility onto one another. I mean, I don't know, but that's what I think. There's a pattern.

Many people in Shanghai are literally starving.

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I'd say it'd be more than 3%, and it's absurd to even talk about GDP here. This is not some financial instruments, but gas. Gas! It's rather important for a modern life. You can't just switch it off and get away with it without enormous consequences. It would have immediate, tangible effects on the life of the average German. 

This calculation is misguided. Of course a majority of Germans, in the current national mood, would be willing to endure it if the cost were that abstract. But it's not. That's why it's hard!

Bremmer is such a bluff artist. This guy doesn't actually know a thing. Everything is an abstraction for him, and that's exactly why he's the last "expert" on Russia that you should listen to.

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Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a "straight-shooting" Russian far-right politician who had a lasting influence on Russian politics, is dead. He preceded all of those "straight-talking" European far-right politicians - and Donald Trump, for that matter - that you know today. They are all Zhirinovsky clones, basically.

That piece of shit won't have to see what will happen to his beloved country, even though he paved the way for this nightmare. I hope his soul will rot in hell.

I mean, he died of *Covid*. Jesus fucking Christ.

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These morons have no idea how quickly and thoroughly the entire world flipped in 1945. All the inconvenient facts, including many atrocities, on the WWII winners' side were wiped off history overnight. It was so thorough that even the people who did live through the 1930s largely forgot how popular Hitler and Nazism were in both the US and UK pre-war. Right-leaning cool kids saw the future in the marriage of the state and capital under the sanctity of exclusive nationhood, that is, you know, Nazism. That was considered really "edgy" back in the days. You don't even have to mention the likes of Henry Ford and some British Royal Family members. Those people were just a tip of the iceberg.

It's hard for Germans, Japanese etc. to talk about that since it would be immediately labeled as sour grapes at best, and dangerous nationalistic revisionism/Holocaust denial of a sort at worst. But you keep missing the force of history unless you understand the Great Flip of 1945.

"I did what I learned from British officers. I suppose I deserve this, but I believe you are British. Frankly I'm confused that you are the one prosecuting me." - a Japanese imperial officer at Tokyo Trial.

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The "Western" part of social media is full of blue and yellow and cheering on Ukrainian ambushers destroying Russian tanks, but I wouldn't delude myself even for a second to believe that Ukrainians will just forget how they were basically thrown under the bus by the irresponsible West too. They are not really thinking about that right now as Russia is their immediate concern obviously, but they won't forget.

And I do hope that the people going, "How is this possible? Why are they capable of doing this?", after seeing Ukrainians killed, Ukrainian houses looted, "Z" mark painted everywhere, etc., are simply feigning naivete so as to amplify the emotional support for Ukraine or something. But, nah, I know most of them aren't. They are genuinely shocked - shocked!- at what they saw.

Yeah do wonder "how it is possible", after every fucking war. Maybe all soldiers are degenerates liable to do those horrible things, so *they* should sign up instead. Let's see how they will behave after having a couple of their buddies ambushed and killed, without even knowing who did it.

They don't understand war, don't want to see how genuinely horrible it is no matter what, but most likely are the ones who casually vote for a war. They are very good at showing moral outrage and egging on, you know. And they will quickly forget about it as soon as it disappears from the front page.

Of course I'm bitter, but how wouldn't I be? Well, at least my Ukrainian friends are safe now.

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OK, I regret that I said, "They can absorb the loss", re: Ukraine in a previous rant. It's easy for me to say that, obviously. I didn't mean to egg on Ukraine, of course. I simply wanted to say that war is a lot harder for the invader to win.

I mean, I don't even want to talk about "win" and "loss" to be honest. Russia could "win" this militarily, but that would probably require the national mobilization and hence super escalation. Ukraine would become a wasteland, and in that case it's Russia that would have to pay for the rebuilding like I said. Russia would be already broke in that scenario.

And if Ukraine is to "win" it militarily, the country would still be a giant ruin anyway, both physically and economically. I mean, the Russians are dropping a huge number of bombs and missiles on Ukraine as we speak even though we don't get to see much footage/many pics of that. The country *is* being destroyed, losing tons of lives and resources every day. And unfortunately I pretty much doubt the West, including Japan and South Korea in this case, would do enough for the rebuilding of Ukraine. The country would be saddled with an irreparably pessimistic mood, cynicism and, you know, ubiquitous corruption again.

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You might need to switch to rice for a while.

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They keep mentioning WWII over and over and over and over and over and over and over again when they talk to Germans. Yes, they deserve that. The Holocaust - a systematic extermination of one group of people - won't ever fade away. The Japanese deserve it too given what they did in China.

But do they do that while understanding basic human psychology, around collective guilt? I don't think they do. They are simply using that as a moral threat, and Germans are always keenly aware of that.

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No matter what, you've already lost all of your credibility in critical thinking if you thought that the "Focused Protection" of the Great Barrington Declaration was a great idea, man.

It took me less than 10 seconds to realize it was a stupid fantasy based on certain political vibes more than anything else. You just have zero credibility, and I feel no need to listen to you at all. Good day.

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"OK, how would you do this, exactly?" is always a good question to ask about a proposal. A bad proposal, like the Great Barrington Declaration, always has a part that requires "Then a miracle occurs" in order to hold the whole thing together, a chink in the armor so to speak, a pretty glaring one usually.

Libertarianism is astrology for men, and anything that comes out of that ideological foundation tends to be an astrology too.

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In many sectors in many countries workers are quite regularly tested for Covid, and you can sort of extrapolate from the data how prevalent asymptomatic infections are, even age-adjusted.

Asymptomatic infection used to be underrated, but I think it's overestimated now (not by the experts, but by lay people). You wouldn't want to actually bet your house on "You say you've never had Covid, but I bet you actually have! You were just unaware!" It's true that many people are asymptomatic, or so lightly symptomatic that they didn't notice it, but a high percentage of people, even in countries like the US, probably truly have never had Covid yet.

It goes without saying that no Covid yet doesn't mean no SARS-CoV-2 viruses in your body ever. The fuckers need to actually super-multiply inside your body to cause Covid-19. They often fail.

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But dude, YOU created the glitch to begin with. When people on the left pointed that out, you kept refusing to fix it for three fucking years. Biden is trying to fix it now, long overdue entirely because of your refusal, and you say this now. GTFO, man.