Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

(Mar 22, 2022 01:22 AM)Kornee Wrote: [ -> ]

(Mar 21, 2022 11:14 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]Bits and pieces from the video below.....

....He said that he hoped that what he said today, would encourage people to look into it. I don’t say to anyone, believe me, trust me…heaven forbid, just look into it. That’s all I would say.

And that's all I'm asking of you, to do your own research and come to your own conclusions outside of mainstream media.

Breaking my holiday just to say - well said! But.... (my interpretation of emoticon - wearing earmuffs.)

Yeah, maybe I should have posted something about whether it’s safe to eat ground beef that’s turned gray or how an American Idol finalist’s daughter tries out 17 years later.

Can’t say that I didn’t try.

(Mar 22, 2022 01:34 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, maybe I should have posted something about whether it’s safe to eat ground beef that’s turned gray or how an American Idol finalist’s daughter tries out 17 years later.

Can’t say that I didn’t try. 

Yep. Go with the flow and there's no resistance to fight against.

If the flow happens to be heading for a waterfall with precipitous drop to rocks below, and that is pointed out, one is typically scolded with 'don't be silly, just enjoy the (last) ride'.

i'm not sure how credible this is, but it's huge if true.

Several different sources are reporting that the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, reported what they said was Russian Ministry of Defense information that since the Ukraine invasion on February 24, the Russian military has suffered 9,861 dead and 16,153 wounded. This is twice the number of casualties the US suffered in Iraq in the entire period 2003-2011.

Later in the day the report was deleted.

If the numbers are true, then Putin is going to be under increasing pressure.

https://twitter.com/OAJonsson/status/150...9920545800

Edit to add stuff

Wall Street Journal's chief foreign correspondent verifies that Pravda did in fact report the numbers. Unclear if they were hacked or whether somebody (who was taking a big risk) leaked the numbers to journalists (who were also taking big risks).

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1505972650786672648



And a few hours later, this

Enraged Americans stormed the Capitol over election results. Surely the Russians can storm the Kremlin and overthrow Putin's ass. Or maybe a military coup. That's how alot of dictators get ousted.

(Mar 22, 2022 05:47 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]Enraged Americans stormed the Capitol over election results. Surely the Russians can storm the Kremlin and overthrow Putin's ass. Or maybe a military coup. That's how alot of dictators get ousted.

The main problem is filling the void. I would guess that Russians aren't just fearful of how harsh retaliations might be if they decide to overturn Putin, it's also the problem of who Putin is replaced with. It's not as simple as having democratic elections over there, for years any opposition has been discredited or forced out through fear or even attack (Such as poisonings). Those attacks aren't necessarily coordinated by Putin but actually down to his zealot like fans or unscrupilous business partners that needed both him and his opposition to know that they only have one person planned for the job. (Consider that Putin doesn't have a second in command as such)

For Russia to gain democratic freedom it wouldn't be easy, all the current leadership would have to go and it's guaranteed if it got to that point they would be burning documents to hide their association so they could attempt to restart controlling the next version of a government all over again.

The problem is that the opposition leaders that could replace Putin keep getting killed by poisonous radiation. One popular one survived the poison but is now in prison. There will have to be an election and new candidates and all to get the people riled up. But that takes time. I don't know what else they could do to replace Putin. It's like the Russians all know what an asshole he is and resign themselves to it. Maybe they idealize him as a strong and ruthless leader who has no pity on anyone. But this war and the sanctions could change all that and expose him as a liar and an incompetent leader.

Just as there are those who react badly to un-American ideas there are probably as many (more?) in Russia who would react badly to anything un-Russion.

The only time the Russian Ruminantia had the resolve to overthrow a tyrant was when there was a replacement authoritarian regime offering to make everyone equally miserable. Long legacy hive cultures, short on assertive individuality, need a heavy-handed polity to tell them what to do -- they're lost without extensive micromanagement and harsh curbing of anti-bureaucratic behavior.
- - - - - -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Russia

EXCERPTS: [...] As a whole, serfdom both came and remained in Russia much later than in other European countries. Slavery remained a legally recognized institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great abolished slavery and converted the slaves into serfs. This was relevant more to household slaves because Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.

Formal conversion to serf status and the later ban on the sale of serfs without a land did not stop the trade in household slaves; this trade merely changed its name. The private owners of the serfs regarded the law as a mere formality. Instead of "sale of a peasant" the papers would advertise "servant for hire" or similar.

By the eighteenth century, the practice of selling serfs without land had become commonplace. Owners had absolute control over their serfs' lives, and could buy, sell and trade them at will, giving them as much power over serfs as Americans had over chattel slaves, though owners did not always choose to exercise their powers over serfs to the fullest extent.

The official estimate is that 10.5 million Russians were privately owned, 9.5 million were in state ownership and another 900,000 serfs were under the Tsar's patronage (udelnye krestiane) before the Great Emancipation of 1861.

One particular source of indignation in Europe was Kolokol published in London, England (1857–65) and Geneva (1865–67). It collected many cases of horrendous physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the serfs by the landowners.

[...] The Russian state also continued to support serfdom due to military conscription. The conscripted serfs dramatically increased the size of the Russian military during the war with Napoleon. With a larger military Russia achieved victory in the Napoleonic Wars and Russo-Persian Wars; this did not change the disparity between Russia and Western Europe, who were experiencing agricultural and industrial revolutions. Compared to Western Europe it was clear that Russia was at an economic disadvantage. European philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment criticized serfdom and compared it to medieval labor practices which were almost non-existent in the rest of continent.

Most Russian nobles were not interested in change toward western labor practices that Catherine the Great proposed. Instead they preferred to mortgage serfs for profit. Napoleon did not touch serfdom in Russia. What the reaction of the Russian peasantry would have been if he had lived up to the traditions of the French Revolution, bringing liberty to the serfs, is an intriguing question. In 1820, 20% of all serfs were mortgaged to state credit institutions by their owners. This was increased to 66% in 1859.

Bourgeois were allowed to own serfs 1721–62 and 1798–1816; this was to encourage industrialisation. In 1804, 48% of Russian factory workers were serfs, 52% in 1825. Landless serfs rose from 4.14% in 1835 to 6.79% in 1858. They received no land in the emancipation. Landlords deliberately increased the number of domestic serfs when they anticipated serfdom's demise. In 1798, Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs apart from land. In 1841, landless nobles were banned also.

Yata, yata, yata... Centuries long conditioned mindset. "Spank me, Master -- I crave being subdued. I'm helpless without institutional guidance from either classic sphincters or exploitive intelligentsia."

I don't know how reliable this is, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that according to unnamed US intellegence sources, "bickering" has broken out between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the FSB (foreign and domestic security agency) over who is responsible for the failure of Kyiv to be captured almost without bloodshed in two days as Putin was originally promised.

They say that this has led to placing Col.-Gen. Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB's Fifth Service (the FSB's foreign intelligence arm) under house arrest.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/reported-de...1647687601

(Mar 22, 2022 09:10 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know how reliable this is, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that according to unnamed US intellegence sources, "bickering" has broken out between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the FSB (foreign and domestic security agency) over who is responsible for the failure of Kyiv to be captured almost without bloodshed in two days as Putin was originally promised.

They say that this has led to placing Col.-Gen. Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB's Fifth Service (the FSB's foreign intelligence arm) under house arrest.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/reported-de...1647687601

If so, Putin is going to become prominent in the nocturnal emission dreams of every used car salesman and brazen land swindler across the globe. That's some highly coveted customer reality impairment going on there.