#Russian elites

[siliconpalms]

From Soviet Assets to Global Elites

The Journey of Russian Wealth to London and Israel Have you ever wondered about the seismic shifts that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, especially the rise of Russian millionaires? It’s a story that intertwines historical drama with contemporary global movements – and leads straight to the heart of cities like London and Tel Aviv Israel. Let’s dive in! The Soviet Union’s Final…

[kogglyuffs]

they tryna flirt in their mother languages.......i think

[hadesoftheladies]

watching a gentleman in moscow and getting so angry at seeing five black men there because if you really wanted to be progressive you could have added indigenous russian groups like the tatars or buryats or SOMETHING like what is a west african man doing in the tundra that is russia you're gonna make me so ANGR--oh it's written by an american man, of fucking course it is

[tanadrin]

@sadoeconomist

Something politically aware people on every part of the political spectrum from the left to the right think is true and leaders of the Russian, Chinese, Israeli, etc. governments believe in enough to talk about publicly and make major geopolitical decisions based on maybe is not just a crazy fringe conspiracy theory, could be that there's some truth to the CIA, NED, etc. having more involvement in these events than the video author thinks I watched all this stuff happen in real time, and I read your notes, which went over how Russian hybrid warfare succeeded in Crimea in 2014. Every major power takes hybrid warfare seriously, what's objectively stupid is your mischaracterization of how it works. Trying to astroturf a revolution out of nowhere simply by paying random citizens en masse to overthrow the government would indeed be stupid but that's not what it is. Your notes seem to suggest that the video says US was paying little attention to eastern Europe until 2013 but Russia was frequently reacting to imaginary US provocations because they are stupid. It's like there's a giant America-shaped hole in the video's narrative. Ukraine was understood to be a NATO-Russia geopolitical battleground long before Euromaidan, it wasn't just Putin shadowboxing imaginary opponents out of pure stupidity that led to this.

You seem to be operating on the basic assumption that governments don't do stupid things for no reason, or fall prey to obviously inane conspiracy theories. That's simply not true; governments are led by human beings, human beings are subject to a common set of cognitive biases, and when you're an authoritarian right-winger (as the leaders of Russia, China, and Israel all are right now), an explanation for your apparent unpopularity that pins all the blame on the CIA instead of your shitty policies and your attempts to cling to power flatters those biases.

But we don't need to speculate about the propensity of governments to do stupid shit, because we have plenty of historical and contemporary examples of governments believing in nonsense: Havana Syndrome in the US, AIDS denialism in South Africa, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in Nazi Germany and Imperial Russia, etc., etc. And often these false beliefs lead to real strategic blunders: the Bay of Pigs, the Iraq War, World War II, etc. Sometimes world leaders are stupid! Like, leadership probably tends to select for some kinds of intelligence and ability--charisma, social intelligence, and so forth--but it doesn't automatically make you a geopolitical genius, or make you immune to believing false things about the world.

And the biggest problem with the conspiracy theory outlined here isn't just that we can trace its origin to a fringe American political cult, it's that it's not necessary to explain any development in politics since 1989. There is no problem in understanding the revolutions of '89 or 2000-2014 that CIA involvement is necessary to solve. Indeed, as the videos point out (if you would actually watch them), trying to use "the CIA did it" as an explanation adds considerable problems, bc color revolution theory doesn't work. It's based on misconceptions, misunderstanding of data, and a healthy dose of paranoia.

The only real problem is trying to explain Putin's behavior--and that doesn't require color revolution theory to be true, only that Putin believes it is true. And why he would believe something is true, when he has the supposedly vast power of the Russian state at his beck and call, is easy to explain: authoritarian dictators surrounded by yes men do not have accurate pictures of the world! From Idi Amin to Saddam Hussein to Vladimir Putin, there is a common pattern of authoritarian dictators losing touch with reality, getting really weird, and coming to believe all kinds of counterproductive stuff that flatters their egos. It would be an even bigger problem to try to explain why Putin was immune to that dynamic after 24 years in power.

"World leaders don't shadowbox opponents out of pure stupidity" is an assumption that seems wholly ungrounded to me. Why not? World leaders do foolish things all the time on large and small scales. World leaders make mistakes. World leaders can become paranoid and out of touch--and if they lead countries without functioning electoral democracies, they can stay in power regardless. World leaders are not a magic special class of human being. They're just people. And whether it's because they're your uncle who watches nothing but OANN and Fox, or they're the President of Russia and they have yes-men and the Global Research guys telling them only what they want to hear, they can end up making absolute nonsense a load-bearing part of their worldview.

[achillessulks]

I've read your 'guide' on how to read faster, but I have a few questions of my own, if you would have the time to answer, please! And thank you, in advance, should you do it.

So sorry if you have answered any of these beforehand.

How many languages do you speak, exactly? I've seen you write in korean, english and french, but I assume there's at least another two? Also- do you have any tips on learning languages faster? I am currently learning french and russian, although they come a little easy to me since my mother tongue in romanian, and I live in a very russian-populated area.

And, what did you study in university, if you attended? I'm assuming something to do with classic literature and/or linguistics?

Thank you again if you've read all this :3 Have a good night, or day!!

Hi, I’d be glad to answer those questions!

How many languages do I speak, actually?

Well, I usually say I’m only functionally bilingual, because I’m only comfortable in French and English. And I’m better at reading and listening than I am speaking (as is the usual situation). I also know Arabic (Jordanian and MSA), on paper, but I’m very out of practice.

I can read and understand most Romance languages thanks to having studied Latin, but I’m best at Italian and Occitan. I know German and Russian pretty well, mostly due to having German- and Russian-speaking friends. I studied Korean for several years, but my knowledge of Chinese is entirely self-taught, and any understanding of Japanese I have is from knowing kanji (as hanzi) and knowing how translation works in general. I studied Ancient Greek for an embarrassingly long time. Technically my first word (‘more’) was in sign language!

Tips on learning languages faster:

This is an impossible question, really, because linguistic comprehension is so inevitably individual. Vocabulary flashcards might work for some people; for others (myself included) they’re useless. The uncomfortable truth about language acquisition is that there’s no ‘secret’ to it, no ‘cheat code’ or ‘one weird trick’ to make it quick and easy. It’s hard, grueling, thankless work. It’s also the best and coolest thing in the world, in my opinion, but it’s not something that can be ‘hacked.’ That said, here are some things that have helped me.

Study the linguistics and grammar of your target language’s family. Knowing how to construct a sentence will be much more useful than having a wide vocabulary; you can always talk around a specific word (‘you know, that thing that you use for doing this?’ etc.), but if you don’t know how to ask for clarification, you’re screwed.

Do as much total immersion as possible. Spending time around normal people who are normally speaking your TL will do more to improve your comprehension than almost anything. Make like a little baby who doesn’t know anything.

Read a dictionary in your TL. This will help flip the switch from mentally ‘translating’ (SL -> TL) everything to defining terms in the TL: e.g., instead of thinking of ‘cauchemar’ as ‘coșmar’ but in French, think of ‘cauchemar’ as ‘rêve pénible dont l’élément dominant est l’angoisse’ (for example).

Listen to music in your TL. Any media will be helpful (movies, TV, radio, podcasts, etc.), but music works the best. Listening to an album or podcast while you sleep is good, if you’re the kind of person who does that. (Personal anecdote: I remember one time when I had a dream entirely in Korean, including with words that I didn’t consciously know, and then when I woke up I just knew those words. Human consciousness is weird.)

Keep in mind that your brain can only absorb and process new information at a certain pace; trying to force it to go faster is only going to slow it down. If I could impart one single piece of advice on aspiring polyglots, it would be to spend as much time as possible immersing yourself in your target language, both listening and speaking.

In general, however, as I said, there isn’t really a way to ‘skip the queue’ when it comes to learning a language. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.

What I studied in university:

I studied a very generic ‘classics’ degree, but my specific area of expertise was ‘Euripidean and later interpretations of Homeric canon’ (to paraphrase a very elaborate dissertation title). Functionally this meant that I read a lot of Euripides and Homer and complained about how different scholars throughout history have misinterpreted their corpora. I also did a lot of courses on translation studies. Often it surprises people to learn that I never specifically studied literature or creative writing; I come by that naturally (reading ridiculous amounts of books whenever possible).

Hopefully this all has been at least somewhat helpful/informative, and as always let me know if you have any other questions!

[hollowsart]

-death grips an old fakemon gym leader of mine again-

..Do I redesign you. make you look like a matryoshka doll on top of being a baker.. make you thicker, but just as pretty.

[twilightpalms]

Wrestling twitter is drawing MJF in silly shirts today, I see

I’ll just drop this here

[clairenatural]

Please do tell

ok so baseline is that the wagner group is a private military group linked closely (until now) to the russian state/putin himself, which was widely understood (again, until now) to essentially just be an arm of the russian military deployed to deny state culpability in various military interventions. like Russia will be like "oh we're not involved in [insert country or conflict here]" but then Wagner pops up there and we're all like okay yeah sure lmao

they rose to prominence in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine but have since been used by Russia to expand Russian influence and military presence across the world. basically they provide various regimes with military support/join civil conflicts on the side Russia wants to win to overall promote Russian presence, sphere of influence, etc.

What this coup means for Ukraine and the current war we have yet to see, wagner is NOT like. good. like they're a private miltary they're fascist and have killed many many civilians and committed many human rights abuses. so wagner taking control would not be good at all. but my understanding is that there's a very high chance this insurrection (not really a coup as they aren't technically state military) will fail, and if/when it does, that could be good news for Ukraine as they've been fighting as a major part of Russian forces in Ukraine and if they pull out it would destabilize Russia's attack. And it looks like Wagner is currently pulling out of Ukraine to head towards Moscow - and they're so closely linked to Russia's official forces that some people think other Russian military forces might just kinda follow them in confusion and/or just have nobody to command them without Wagner being there

(edit to clarify that I'm not saying here that I want Putin to remain in power, rather that we shouldn't be cheering for Wagner as any sort of "good guys." I do think any sort of destabilization of Putin is a good thing and that's exactly what's happening)

However I'm also concerned about what's gonna happen in the rest of the world - Wagner has been increasing their presence across Africa recently (since ~2017) which has widely been understood as a part of Russian foreign policy to increase their footprint/influence in the region (aka exploit the countries they operate in for natural resources), and they've also been known to operate in Syria and Venezuea. So if Wagner/Prigozhin (the leader) have broken from the Putin regime, will they still be carrying out Russian interests abroad? Whose Russian interests? will they just carry on as a mercenary group to hire unattached to a political regime? What damage will it have to Russia (or at least Putin's Russia)'s global influence if a major arm of their foreign policy/diplomacy strategy has broken from the government? etc etc

[jokeshappinesemotion]

I have an EX Boyfriend who always complained we were not having enough sex .(!) Like it's food and he is at the verge of malnutrition.

I'm like ???twice every day ain't enough??? ...Can't go on having sex 13 hours straight literally I had to stop him before the 14th hour I was so exhausted I'm like ; let's rest.. he then says . We don't have enough sex and that he is being deprived of the very thing that belongs to him and he don't know if he can still be with me acting like this...gave me a talk of how intimacy is important in a relationship...bla bla blah.. I'm like this is no intimacy..

It was vandalism of the pussy. I had to run no wonder he is an EX. Jesus. Son of virgin Mary help me

I was like WTF. that's enough I'm never having sex with you again ,

Because clearly You are The most Unappreciative human of a dick. Jack ....head out of my vagina. And not to head in again.

Women lets speak out vandalism itself is a crime .. I mean what about vandalism of pussy .. Stop this masking of abuse in the name of love .. tell them to fuck love ..

[elegomez]

sometimes writing erotica is great and sexy, sometimes it's a twenty minute discussion as to whether this character would use the word "asshole", "ass", "anus", or "rectum"

[titanorosa]

Went to the Atlanta Major

I cosplayed as Kapkan on Friday and Saturday

(photos taken by Pubs https://instagram.com/publs_?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==)

[taiwantalk]

I’ll take battle tested ukrainian units over russian elite forces anytime in ukraine’s own backyards. not even americans would drop in elite special forces to reinforce broken frontline defensives without knowing how to extract them or to reinforce them with a bigger force shortly.

that’s nearly an one way ticket for russian elite forces. oh well, putin must think it’s better to have them killed in action than they turn mutiny later inside russia.

[clouds-of-wings]

It takes a certain kind of man with a certain reputation To alleviate the cash from a whole entire nation Take my loose change and build my own space station (Just because you can, man) Ain't no refutin' or disputin' – I'm a modern Rasputin Subcontract disputes to some brutes in Louboutin Act highfalutin' while my boys put the boots in (They do the can-can)

[in-sightjournal]

Ask A Genius 1093: Kursk Oblast Incursion

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your assessment of the Kursk Oblast incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russian Federation territory? Rick Rosner: It appears that they have seized approximately 400 square miles of Russian land, which is relatively minor given the vast expanse of Russia, the largest country in the world. The territories captured hold no significant strategic value. However, the…

[russia-libertaire]

From social alienation to social purpose

"Many members of Russia's emerging educated elite found themselves alienated from the tsarist state as well as separated from most of Russian society by their education and their disdain for traditional values and relationships. [...] By formulating programs for social development which enabled them to play an integral part in overcoming Russia's poverty, oppressiveness, and backwardness, the intelligentsia provided itself with a social role that seemed to reintegrate it into society as spokesman, conscience, or guide. [...] Personal interest, social idealism, intellect, and cultural experience thus combined to produce in the intelligentsia a fervid, often self-sacrificing, and potentially authoritarian commitment to social transformation in accordance with an idea frequently carried to its logical extreme."

Michael Katz and William Wagner's introduction to What Is to Be Done?, by Nikolai Chernyshevsky