Re: Three Body Problem

Cryptoengineer  <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 8/17/2024 5:51 AM, D wrote:

 
With this historical luggage I can never understand how people in europe
can insist on voting for socialists. Give them enough power and they
tend to repeat themselves. Just look at the socialist UK government now
cracking down on free speech. Very sad.

>
I concur. I'm half Estonian, and have met relatives who were exiled to
Siberia in the 1950s as 'rich peasants'. (They got back after about a
decade).
>
When I was there in 1985, I was followed as I walked around town, and
our hotel rooms were bugged.
>
Russia was like that under the Tsar.
Russia was like that under the Soviets, with wider reach.
Russia is still like that under Putin.

Yes.  This has nothing to do with socialism, this has to do with Russians
being Russians.  Before Russia was socialist, they were like that.  After
they turned into a monarchy after the death of Lenin, they were like that.
When the wall fell and they were forced to open to the outside world and
enact democratic reforms, they were like that.  As the reforms failed and
they were taken over by a small number of oligarchs trained in the Soviet
style, they were like that.

Russians don't expect their government to work for them, and they don't
expect to have any control over their government.  That government is
paranoid about invasion and wants control over as much area outside the
country as possible in order to provide a buffer from invasion.  It is
obsessed with self-preservation at the expense of its population.

Russia will Russia.
>
Moskovia delenda est.

Indeed.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."