Author Archives: danijel

Strategic layout

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I’ve seen many commentaries of the war in Ukraine, and even the realistic ones keep talking about Russia changing strategy, making mistakes and so on. Basically, the Russians underestimated the level of opposition from the Ukrainians due to faulty intelligence; then they made a mistake trying to negotiate with the Ukrainian government and even showed a “good faith” move by removing their military from Kiev, not understanding that the Kiev government is basically a Washington sock puppet and peace is simply not an option, ever, because America wants this war as means of weakening both Russia and Europe. I could go on, but the general idea is that the Russians had to change strategy and adapt as they went along. Also, the general assumption is that Russia wanted to have a negotiated solution where they would have the Ukrainians cede Crimea and Donbass, and accept neutral status.

None of this really makes any sense, because I don’t see a process where Putin needed to learn about the situation by trial and error. If anything, there was a significant portion of the Russian people that were sympathetic to the West, and reluctant to accept Putin’s very clear and accurate picture of the geostrategic situation. The gradual and underwhelming nature of this war seems to serve the purpose of showing the Russian people what they are actually facing, and get them on the same page with Putin; not because he’s that much smarter, but because he simply knows more, due to the nature of his job.

So, basically, the reason why Putin couldn’t escalate war too steeply is because he had to give time to the West to show how much they really hate the Russians, and to introduce all kinds of sanctions that would actually cut the puppeteering threads used to control Russia and keep it subdued economically, mostly because the West simply forgot what mechanisms they had put in place and with what purpose, due to several generations of diversity hires being promoted through the ranks, and “boomers” and rational people in general being sidelined and/or retired. All Putin had to do is make a very small military incursion into Ukraine that was of very little consequence regarding the situation on the ground, and he got the West to overplay its hand to the point where Russia is now forced to develop its own resources and rely on its own strength, and the Americans can no longer just print money to bribe people in Russia to use American equipment instead of the perfectly good Russian equivalents – for instance, shelving perfectly good Russian passenger planes in order to buy Boeing and Airbus, or neglecting Russian semiconductor foundries for decades because the market is flooded by cheap imports. Russia is now forced to get out of its medically induced coma simply because the Americans sanctioned its oxygen, forcing them to use their own lungs to breathe. I think this would go down in history as the most ridiculous case of a self-inflicted wound of all times, because the West makes almost nothing other than “finances” and money printing, Russia makes almost everything other than the few connective items to bring it all together, and it has all the resources in the world; Russia has the nuclear technology, the hydrocarbon resources and technology, heavy industry, agriculture, hard science, sophisticated technology, and it has human resources, and what it doesn’t already have, it’s currently building. The worst problem is that everything was scaled down and stunted due to extreme import pressure and foreign-financed corruption (“buy American thingy instead of a perfectly good domestic one, and you’ll get a commission”), and there is not a clearly defined civilizational goal within Russia; basically, Russia doesn’t have a motivational idea of its own, after socialism was discarded, and if they don’t find it, I’m afraid they won’t have a future.

Also, they now have an unwinnable war at their hands, because let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they destroy/conquer Ukraine, kill all the NATO troops there, and secure the Western border. America can produce a new Ukraine quite easily – Poland, the Baltic states and so on, they proved very easy to indoctrinate into anti-Russian hatred and could be used as new proxy-battlegrounds. The only way Russia can actually win this is if the war lasts long enough that America is taken out economically, which is not a crazy idea at all, because I’ve seen America making desperately destructive moves that traded the future for present since 2008, and they are functioning on fumes and borrowed time for quite a while. The fact that America managed to spend a significant portion of their weapons and ammunitions stockpiles just by feeding Ukraine shows that their military industry is excellent for sucking the budget dry, but isn’t nearly as good at actually producing weapons in quantities one would need to fight a peer. The stories about Russia running out of weapons are an interesting case of projection. Also, one thing America is really scared of is sending their top weapons to the war, only for it to be revealed that they are not really anything special, and, if anything, that they are poorly designed, breakable, overhyped crap.

On the Russian side, I think there has been a huge revelation that changed their entire thinking: it turned out that the suicide drones, of both the Geran and Lancet kind, are incredibly effective. I think they are still trying to figure out what to do with this information, but it is definitely going to influence their actions in the future. Also, they are seriously annoyed by the fact that the Americans are very openly providing intelligence to the Ukrainians, from the space assets that are supposedly untouchable, and from the military bases such as Ramstein and others, also supposedly untouchable, in order to perform attacks of the kind Ukraine on their own would be perfectly incapable of. This means the Russians have to fight America dressed up as Ukraine, but they aren’t actually allowed to hit America proper, and have to pretend the golden rain is falling. As the Americans keep testing Russian defences in deep Russia proper, I think the Russian generals are running out of patience and are advising Putin to give Americans a lesson they will never forget, and if there’s a nuclear response, so be it, because fuck this shit already.

The expectation is that Russia will do a very powerful land offensive during this winter, and basically take Kiev and Odessa and possibly the entire Ukraine; I’m actually not sure it’s the right thing to do. It is militarily expensive, and it will achieve very little besides moving the front line away from the Russian borders, and even that isn’t going to do much, considering how the Americans can always finance and equip some terrorist within Russia to blow something up, and how they can trivially make Poland into a next Ukraine, thus forcing Russia to continue militarily crushing neighbouring countries and expending resources, while their true enemy is protected behind the ocean. No, that’s not going to achieve anything, other than forcing the Russian military to improve its tactics and weapons and bring them into the 21st century (remember those suicide drones?), and expend Western resources, because the West doesn’t have neither the energy, the raw materials nor the human resources to actually fight a proper war at such a scale. They can do posturing and terror attacks, but they would be annihilated in an all-out war with Russia, whether they know it or not. So, peace by Russia winning in Ukraine doesn’t seem like a realistic option; peace by Russia playing a resources game against the West is unlikely to be attained since the West will use the nuclear option in desperation, as they are defeated economically and militarily.

So, barring some unexpected event that will change the strategic scenery, this is going to get worse, and worse, and worse, and the feeling I had in the fall of 2019, that this is the peak of this civilization and it’s downhill from there, seems to have been on point.

It’s no wonder the Russians prefer to play this out as a slow grind, attracting the resources of the collective West into the meat grinder of Ukraine, that they seem to operate with their little finger; this is the move that reduces the risk of escalation, employs a near-minimum of their resources, keeps their economy at near-peak efficiency by not depleting it of manpower, is testing their tactical ideas and equipment in a real-life scenario, and is keeping the sanctions alive, which strengthens their economy and allows them to develop financial mechanisms that completely remove the West from the world trade, thus performing a truly fatal blow to America without firing a single nuke. Also, it allows them to be seen as reasonable and moderate by their non-Western partners, which makes them trustworthy.

What do they gain by conquering Ukraine in a huge offensive? Several things. They get to demonstrate strength, and discourage enemies; that’s not going to show in the Western media, of course. They get to move the line of contact with the enemy further to the West, and Dnieper river seems to be an ideal natural border; however, settling for Dnieper would introduce significant problems, such as giving up on Odessa and Kherson city, which is now Russian territory, and that would be a bad precedent. Also, breaking Ukraine in such a way would introduce significant problems to the NATO alliance, since Poland, Hungary and Romania have territorial claims to Western Ukraine, and that would mean all sorts of infighting, where the Russians could make popcorn and watch. Also, winning means a psychological conclusion of the war for the Russian people. Past that, I hardly see advantages, because any incursion further west from Dnieper gives them control of land with increasingly hostile population, which seemed to be the problem in Kherson city. Having control over land where people hate you is not a good thing. Creating a meat grinder and having all who hate you jump into it until they are all safely dead, all their support is exhausted, and a devastated Western Ukraine being a burden to your enemies, is highly preferable strategically. One also needs to keep in mind that irreversibly destroying the infrastructure in Western Ukraine and having the winter kill everybody there is a realistic and very price-effective course. Having in mind that the Russians must know all this, let’s see what they do next.

Masculinity, toxic and otherwise

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I watched a short video clip where Jordan Peterson answers a young woman’s question about “toxic masculinity”, and it turned out that she couldn’t even define the thing, at least when asked about the differences compared to toxic humanity or toxic femininity. Dr. Peterson then proceeded to make a statement that would have one believe that “toxic masculinity” is just one of those liberal leftist phrases that are poorly defined and are in fact meant to target positive traits by being over-generalized, for instances purporting to target “toxic” masculinity, and in fact targetting masculinity as such.

Without necessarily disagreeing with his thinking in regard to this, I immediately thought that I actually do perceive toxic masculinity, and I think I could cite enough examples to be able to come up with a generalised enough definition. So, let me cite examples.

I’ve seen men starting to act like fools when they are around other men. Acting dumber and speaking in a more coarse and simplified language, typical of the lower social classes, usually in deeper voice, and talking in ways that accentuate the assumed consensus with other males. Also, talking about generically “masculine” topics, such as football or other generally popular sports, about cars, construction equipment and building houses, and consuming alcohol in amounts significantly greater than they would consume normally. Furthermore, displaying an aggressive, overtly-masculine stance, where you need to look tough and get into fights. Women are discussed with a dismissive, detached attitude, where the goal is to fuck them and increase the counter, and a wife’s place is in the kitchen, and so on; such an individual will treat even his wife worse when he’s around his male friends. Basically, the point of having sex with a woman is to increase your social standing among men, and the ideal wife is a combination of a cook, a house maid and a whore. Seeing your wife as a friend and a partner, and someone you talk to about sophisticated ideas, would be ridiculed in those circles. Trying to appear less intellectual, simpler and more “down to earth”, because that’s how men are supposed to be. Frowning upon any display of vulnerability and gentleness. Constantly poking other men and trying to establish hierarchies by either bullying someone, or sucking up to the perceived leader by going along with his nasty shit. Trying to think in wolf-pack hierarchies of either being an “alpha” or a “beta”, and a “true man should be an alpha”.

I think we have enough of a pattern here to attempt a definition; toxic masculinity is appropriation of patterns of behaviour that are perceived as stereotypically masculine to the point of caricature, in order for an inherently insecure individual to find acceptance and belonging in male company, even when those patterns of behaviour go against his personal choices manifested in his private life.

So, it is quite obvious that I find this pattern of behaviour objectionable, and let me tell you why. I find it objectionable because it reeks of weakness. It is all about making a show of strength because you are weak and you don’t have the courage to calmly stand behind your personal choices and defend them even if they go against what “everybody else” believes. It’s about being afraid of the consequences of not fitting into a group, so you make compromises that go against your personal beliefs and choices to the point where you feel humiliated and worthless afterwards. It’s about appearance over substance. Also, it’s a reduction to a pattern typical for men of lower social standing, and this is not something one should aspire to. If you think you have to reduce yourself in order to fit somewhere, you are probably trying to fit into a wrong group.

It seems we have a robust definition of toxic masculinity, but it is so obviously an aberration that we must also define healthy masculinity in order to get a clearer picture.

Confidence. Competence. A man should be confident enough of himself to persist in his personal choices and behaviour regardless of the preferences and beliefs of a group. His confidence and composure will in fact make others want to follow and emulate him, rather than him having to conform to the beliefs and actions of others. If he doesn’t belong to some established social group or a pattern, he will shrug and leave, and it is very likely that a new group or a pattern will start to form around him, simply because he creates an aura of coherent stability around himself, and if this is based on competence, it has great persuasive power, because other competent people will always prefer the company based on competence and calm confidence, to some vacuous concept such as hanging out at a bar and talking about football and getting into fights when drunk. Such a man will see a woman as a valuable person and talk to her seriously and directly; if he thinks she is wrong, he will clearly state this and show her the errors in her thinking, instead of being either dismissive of her and acting as if trying to score points against her to impress other men, or being so entranced by her femaleness that he would swallow any kind of nonsense she spouts. His attitude towards a woman he likes is “I know the goal, and if you trust me, I will lead you there and take care of you”. He is confident enough to constantly learn, instead of trying to pretend to know it all; mistakes are immediately acknowledged and corrected. Weakness is not tolerated, but weakness is defined as insufficient moral and spiritual strength to adhere to the right goals, principles and ideas. If he needs to change the course, or persist on the current course, he will think about this from the position of higher values and higher good, make a choice and then implement it. He’s not scared of appearing indecisive, of changing course, or of persisting until death. He’s scared of not seeing what the right thing to do is, because that’s what a man is supposed to do – see what the right thing is, and then do it; also, cooperate with others who want to achieve worthy goals, and oppose those who are disruptive, who want to impose unworthy goals and ideas, and are of lowly character. Follow God and the right principles and ideas, and lead and protect your wife and children first, and, as an extension into a wider society, show such good example of virtue, proper spiritual orientation, kindness and strength, that others would want to follow your good example and cooperate with you in creating a wider society based on such virtuous principles. Be a barrier of force between good principles and good people who chose them, and predatory seducers and evil ones who want to lead them astray. Attempt to raise the level of every social interaction by demonstrating a good example of kind humour and intelligence. Ignore bad ideas and people of lowly character, and steer the direction of a conversation towards something of value. If your company shows resistance to goodness and virtue, leave. If you see something admirable, follow it.

So, there you go, it wasn’t that hard.

Corruption

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I was explaining to Biljana yesterday how Russia can create weapons that exceed American equivalents for a fraction of the cost, and I think you will find the explanation interesting. You see, it’s not that Russia doesn’t have problems. It has a problem with corruption, for instance, but the thing is, corruption is against the law in Russia. One can abuse his position of power in order to steal material and sell it on the black market or whatever, but he can be caught, and in that case he will end up in jail for a long time, and Russian jails are not the most pleasant places. The Russian system is designed to be very lean and effective – the weapons are designed to be cheap to purchase and to require very little maintenance. They also need to be durable. This is because it is understood that the purpose of weapons is to defend Russia and kill the enemies, at the least possible cost to the state, because every Rouble wasted is a Rouble not spent on something useful, such as infrastructure or education. Because the system is designed to be lean and effective, there are no legal ways for people in positions of power to dip their hands into the pork barrel, and if they do so, they have to do it illegally and risk jail.

In America, things are designed differently. The weapons manufacturers, big pharma and other industries finance the campaigns of politicians who pledge to serve them if elected to office. They hedge this by financing politicians from both parties, which guarantees that they will get what they want. The elected politician then works for them, and not for the nominal electorate, and his job is to push through legislation that favours his owners, including government purchases of extremely expensive equipment that includes all kinds of pork barrel dips by a huge chain of leeches that each need to “earn” a commission. Only the smallest fraction of the cost is the actual equipment, and it’s designed to require frequent and extremely costly maintenance in order to guarantee future pork barrel dips, and it’s also designed to fail early, and require replacement, also guaranteeing future pork barrel dips. Corruption in America is therefore designed into the system, and not only is it not against the law, it’s actually the entities that generate corruption that control the entity that makes the laws, basically creating a situation where normal states have corruption, and corruption has America.

Update

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I’m recovering from a bad case of flu (most likely of some covid variety); nothing terrible, but not great either. I’m still not able to perform physical activities anywhere near the level prior to the disease, because I’m running out of oxygen on physical exertion. It’s getting better, but I have to give it time.

I’ve been thinking about many different things during this period, so I’ll summarize.

The price of precious metals is showing interesting signs; of course it’s controlled, but since the price has been moving within a very narrow band, and the prices of other commodities have been showing signs of significant inflation, the result is that the precious metals have been “on sale” recently, with the result that the central banks, and possibly other large entities, have been buying up physical metal at those discounted prices, and the divergence between the paper market and the physical market is increasing. The controlled paper market is showing no interest in gold and silver, while the physical market is showing large demand by the big players. The expected result is that the big players will completely exhaust supply in the short term, and this is without the general population even registering what is going on.

The pictures from Ukraine are increasingly showing snow and frosted ground, but this varies regionally, and some places are still a muddy quagmire. One of the worst places is Kherson, apparently, which seems to be one of the reasons why the Russians abandoned it – it’s an indefensible mud pit. The other reason is something I can only guess, but it seems that a significant percentage of the population there, around 20% or so, are aggressively pro-Ukrainian, and this could be seen in the referendum results too, because the Ukrops didn’t go out to vote. It seems that the Russians concluded that they can’t defend Kherson city with that much of a fifth column behind their backs, and they withdrew most of the pro-Russian populace and left the others to experience the joy of what is Ukraine at the moment – meaning, no electricity, no water, no heating, but plenty of vicious hatred. They also recently banned the Orthodox Church, because it was deemed pro-Russian. Of course it’s pro-Russian; it’s the Church. You can’t but be pro-Russian in these circumstances, unless you hate God really badly.

The Russians are routinely running out of missiles every Monday. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, seem to be running out of men to throw into the meat grinder, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone. Ten killed Ukrainians for each killed Russian seems to be a price America and the EU are willing to pay. The EU is running out of resources, energy, and time, but don’t worry, if your high-tech job is terminated, you can always go to America, like people did after WW2. Also, since there no longer is any availability of Russian gas, the American freedom gas will now cost much more than it was advertised for prior to this entire artificial crisis, but that’s free market for you, and it’s the best thing, right? The fact that this entire thing benefits America greatly is of course accidental. Just kidding.

Another interesting thing is that nobody seems to be thinking about God. That is quite weird, because in the past, during the hard times of this kind people tried to invoke memories of transcendence, but now there’s nothing. Only low-energy symptoms like anger, rage, hatred, schadenfreude, desire to harm the physical bodies of others, thinking this is the worst one can do, and the end to all. The old maxim that there are no atheists in the trenches apparently needs to be corrected – there are now. I’ve seen many terrible things during my life, but this one is among the worst.

Godlessness is the greatest sin, both in the sense that all other sins derive therefrom, and by definition, where sin is the state of separation from God’s will and presence. It’s the state of spiritual emptiness, devoid of God’s energy that by its nature seeks more God, and wishes to praise Him. I think this is why “хамство”, which the Orthodox Church sees as the greatestt spiritual problem, crosses my mind recently as the closest description of what I seem to perceive – arrogance, rudeness and sarcastic glee with which evil people seem to be compelled to communicate, or they just can’t manage anything better. It is, of course, a symptom of life devoid of God’s light. When all you see is darkness, misery, weakness, evil, lies, blood and dirt, your mind and behavior reflect that, because that’s what they do – reflect that upon which they dwell. Lack of God is an emptiness that devours itself in darkness, and screams viciously at others, that they are worthless and it is so great and enlightened. I’ve seen much of this lately, and I instinctively turn my eyes from it in disgust. All of this experimentation along the thesis of how great things can be and how great souls can be if only they didn’t know about God and didn’t perceive Him in any way, produced a terrible, abominable disaster, of a very predictable kind. There is an alternative to God, and it looks like Ukraine. It’s also known as hell. Хамство, hatred, schadenfreude, vindictive and sarcastic glee, desire for murder, desire to reduce others to mere flesh and laugh insanely as it is all mixed with mud in death, that is the alternative to God. People are somehow convinced that “sin” is fun, that it’s about doing all the fun forbidden things that boring people and boring God don’t allow them to, but no – sin is Ukraine. Sin is an arrogant emptiness, where human flesh is interchangeable with money and mud, and everything is a hopeless, desperate darkness of spirit.