I get that libertarians have been anti support of war and all but you either don’t at all understand their philosophy or are just making comments to spite them. None are suggesting that Ukraine doesn’t have the right to fight for their land and freedom. They just think the US is trying to use Ukraine as a proxy war to hurt Russia. Rather then doing everything in their power to bring peace to the area. They believe this not because Russia says it but also because multiple American military officials and senators have said this.
Careful, suggesting the Russian East should be independent is getting awfully close to Chinese propaganda territory. Sure independence in the Russian West is fair game, but Siberia and the Far East? Nǐ hǎo, shíguāng huài shíguāng
No this is propaganda, nato do have a head is the united state empire , it control all and all his territory only exist with the annexation of land by force , is an empire , México was invaded and lost land , also Hawái , the Philippine was invaded , Irak , your lie start with country existing in a vacuum , no United States only exist becouse it control land it got by force , genocide of natives , slavery , etc, nato is rule by America and the supreme generals are American . There is no rule of law, as law only exist to serve American power , America veto any resolution in the security council it like , has not a sign the convention of the sea or is part of treaty of Rome , it has use terrorist and dictators , don’t make me laugh , Barack drone program is estimated to murder over 100,000 civilians, where are Europeans sanction for their crimes , no where , is al a show , it has done all Rusia do , including annexation, invasion , violation of laws ,etc . Also any sanction or other country violate the un charter , only the security consul can do it all is a joke .
I will tell you what country really are , they are like franchise corporation of hell , yes the world is a fraud , there are other dimensions and one is hell . Human civilizations are cultivated to produce a resource , this is the human souls ,country are consecrated to hell , country are government and this are the tentacles of the secret society that rule them , states don’t serve people, people are use to serve the state , states are private corporation, they are satanic , if normal humans know politics is a fraud , that the spiritual planes are real they would vomit in terror , there is no good country all are demonic , the elite serve non human being , this are the gods of pagans religion , many were transform in to human saint by the church , myth etc . What I tell you is not that America is evil , but every single country is evil , atheism is a political tool to deceive , out world is a network of secret society working to serve hell , conflict are program to catalyze change , if you knew how real what I tell you is you would try to contact me .
As someone with some libertarian beliefs this video was spot on, there are many limitations with pure libertarianism that are simply ignored or denied and I find that weird, just like any ideology that doesn't accept change.
Very interesting video, as usual. One small critique: I found it more difficult in this video than previous ones to distinguish when the speaker was quoting someone rather than speaking for himself. Various cues like noticeably changing the speaker's cadence, putting quoted text on screen, inserting more "he wrote" and "he said" into the script, or literally having more speakers might help.
This is the level of the comment-section I expect at this channel, given the apparent intellectual capacity of the author of all these videos. Thank you, @marinredhelm, for keeping us all honest. It's easy to get carried away when everyone is singing in the same choir.
The arguments from russian propaganda that the US and the EU would "cancel" russias greates composers, philosophers, thinkers and so on, is just perplexing to the point of it being absolut nonesense. If a Tschaikowsky or Dostoevsky would be alive today, they'd be imprisoned by the current russian goverment 5 times over.
@@banger2998 Modern Russian propaganda is very deliberately inconsistent. They try to make you question logic itself. Gaslighting of the highest order.
Wasn’t Dostoevsky exiled to do hard labour in Siberia for 4-5 years and escaped a death sentence last second? He was cancelled by Russia even back than lol
Agreed with most of his analysis, but Snowden’s revelations are important in slowing momentum toward centralization of power, which is the thesis of Taleb’s essay. He’s literally only in Russia because he doesn’t want to go to jail for the rest of his life. It wasn’t part of his plan. It’s important to realize intelligent people are not omniscient and intelligent points of view can be largely right while containing errors/bad takes.
I hope Russia realizes no one in Europe wants to invade it. They have nukes, they are huge and unconquerable, the doctrine of securing strategic gaps in the west is outdated, this isn't the 1800s, we are peaceful (in Europe at least), territorial conquest is no longer a wish of the nations. If Russia acknowledges this, they can instead focus on internal developement, a country so huge, with so much arable land, water and natural resources can become incredible, but instead it remains a petrolstate run by organized crime. A rich and developed Russia doesn't have to be democratic or Western aligned, it can be an alternative to the West and attract its former sphere of influence by leading by example, by having something else other than bombs, corruption and blood to offer, But they don't, Russian gdp is smaller than Italy's, they don't have finances to help your country build infrastructure or invest in your economy to lift you up. They don't have technological edge, they sure used to up to the 80s, but top tier electronics, medicine and machinery are found elsewhere, even their military relies on western parts for optics and targeting systems that don't have a 20 years gap. Most importantly they treat "allies" like shit, Eastern Europe remembers the massacres in Prague and Budapest, the Holodomor, even now there's protests in deep Russia for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities in the army, which also represent most of the men drafted for the war, they are sending little actual Russians, instead treating their "fellow (second class) citizens" as cannon fodder. Remember that nato does not compel anyone to join, countries apply on their own and I don't blame eastern Europe for doing so, Russia pushed those countries right into nato by making them vassal states and having zero regard for their national integrity. You want eastern Europe back? Give them a reason to come back that isn't "otherwise I'll nuke you" or "because west is gay libtard lol". If Russia lost this insane obsessive "everyone wants to invade me" complex, they could become a valid alternative.
Nobody wants to invade America either but If Russia or China form a military alliance with Canada or Mexico than America won’t even wait a day to invade Canada and Mexico and topple their government. So use your brain if you have one in your head.
Thats why the justification for the invasion of ensuring national security is obviously cap. Their security is 100% guaranteed by their geography and nuclear arsenal already and the fact that their adversaries are democracies with people who dont want to blow up.
Eventually I think this will happen. It just takes time this whole NATO expansion has been a threat to Russia and prevents the self development of Russia. Once NATO ends it expansion and rolls back to the 1990 borders then I can the development of better infrastructure and tech. I can also see Russia gaining its sphere of influence back via trade.
Even if Russia didnt have nukes, still no one is interested in invading it. The Catherine border defense theory for Russia is pathetically archaic and has no place in the 21st century.
18:09 you mention Singapore, but Singapore is actually a really bad example. Singapore is not a functional democracy; Singapore has been a one party dictatorship since close to its founding, with a ruling party which games their system so other parties exist on paper but are prevented from coming to power in any substantive way. Singapore is possibly the only highly functional dictatorship in the world. If you look at how Singapore is run, it is *highly* centralized, and does not function as an anti-fragile decentralized system. It just happens to make mostly well informed and wise decisions. It is truly an outlier. Singapore is the Apple Computer of dictatorships. Apple is highly centralized and does not operate in the way more open platforms operate, but it keeps winning because it makes good decisions in spite of being highly centralized.
Yet it isn't really considered to be a dictatorship. It's officially classified as a "flawed democracy" and is on the lower end of that particular ranking. Dictatorship is more than just not being able to vote for different parties. It also includes universal values, civil liberties, and constitutional protections.
2 роки тому+15
Have international observers ever found fault with the conduct of Singapore's elections? Singapore is a city-state. It's no more centralised than other cities. Also look around, many cities around the world have had the same government for decades. Or look at Germany: the government of state of Bavaria has been dominated by a single party (CSU) since the founding of the Bonn Republic in the 1940s. Does that make Bavaria a dictatorship? (You are right, that Singapore has some weird election rules. First-past-the-post makes it hard for small parties to win seats. A proportional system like they have in eg Bavaria would make that easier. But many countries around the world like UK or US have first-past-the-past and are still democracies.) The rules in Singapore don't so much favour the PAP as they favour the incumbent. I am worried about what might happen if either the PAP slides further into incompetence, or a less competent party gets elected. Also, full disclosure: as far as I can tell the least competent policies that Singapore has are those where the PAP listens to the population instead of doing The Right Thing. Eg migration is not as free as economic orthodoxy would suggest. There's also other areas where policy is better than much of public opinion. (You see the latter in many countries around the globe.)
Singapore really is a bizarre case study. I think it really gets away with as much as it does b/c it's effectively a city-state that's maintained high, Western level standards of living. really impressive that it's pulled that off but a stupidly hard model to replicate anywhere else.
this is the western learned ignorance. dictatorships don't work for them. its not a system where you can easily manipulate system using financial means. dictatorships can be successful at least some version of semi dictatorships with some balances. most important is rule of law. we need more experimentation with governing and not to stick religiously to some ideas.
@@tylerbozinovski427 in Singapore can you get arrested or otherwise penalized for embarrassing the ruling party or leader, or otherwise saying things that those in power do not approve of?
To Snowden's defense, he didn't choose Russia - his passport was cancelled while he was on the flight from Hong Kong to Moscow. After landing, he couldn't continue his route to Ecuador because the passport was invalid. He had to live in the airport terminal for over a month, before getting an asylum in Russia. Disclaimer: I work for Google; this comment is my personal opinion.
A guy was arrested in Russia for "discrediting the Russian army" after he stood next to a monument with the book "War and Peace". This is how absurd Russia is.
i dont quite understand how whistleblowers are a bad thing according to taleb. could you eventually make a follow up discussion on that? how are we supposed to improve our systems if we cant know their problems?
I don't think that it was being a whistle blower that was the issue but the use of his name and likeness in such a way that promoted Russia. It was mainly the hypocrisy of reporting on a state for conducting unjust surveillance on its people in the name of freedom, then fleeing to a noted unfree dictatorial state. If he reported and fled to Switzerland or a neutral nation and became an advocate for freedom and not promoted any dictatorial state there would be no issue.
his issue is that, as he sees it, snowden and assange are not mere whistleblowers, but pro-russian agitators who use the info they leak to create specific outcomes. there's a case to be made that both of them have been somewhat selective in what they release, when, and to who, in such a way that it makes the west look bad while concealing things which would make russia look bad. assange in particular seems like he may have withheld leaks about russian sins while highlighting leaks about american ones, etc. - i am not stating anything decisively either way as i have not looked deeply into this, but that would be why.
I can understand the point about hypocrisy: shouting about the lack of transparency of the US government while sheltering in Russia, but yeah, it's overall a very strange point amidst the broader context of self-correction of systems. It's impossible to correct a problem you don't know about.
It isn’t that the whistleblowers are bad, it’s that they then seek friendship with those who go against even what they are saying, and keep quiet about that in order to keep that friendship. Take Snowden for example, since this is what was talked about in the video. He uncovered and showed the world how the US gov spies on everyone, and says how wrong they are in doing so. While at the same time, he got refuge in Russia, who is notorious for implementing such spying tactics on their own people, but says nothing against Russia since they protect him from the US. Thus, since he says nothing against Russia, and is friends with them, he either knowingly or not, helps Russian propaganda. Think of it as those people being hypocrites, where their morals only apply when it is in their own self interest.
As a Russian i do understand the benefits of decentralization, but the devision of the Russian Federation would bring a lot of new wars, and I can't stand such a scenario. The Russian Federation is a federation already, and it was way more decetralized just two decades ago. We just need to reform the institutions back
Yes. As a “russophile” at heart, it is a great pain for me to watch the state the russian culturosphere is. Had russia kept its trajectory of late 90s and early 00s, by now you guys would be an economic superpower with all the post-soviets dying to be in closer ties with Moscow.
I agree that the best solution for Russia would be a decentralized, democratic state within its internationally recognized borders. The main problem is the lack of democracy, e.g. balance of powers, checks and balances, independent courts, independent media, NGOs/civil society, and of course human rights and especially minority rights.
@@sinoroman The republics are largely powerless, except for Chechnya (which is basically a direct vassal of Putin). Over the past decade, their powers have been gradually stripped, all the way down to the title of the head of state (Only Tartarstan has stubbornly kept it's head as a "President")
A thought presented in this video that caught my attention: Russia's survival is based on the oppression of the individual. This does help to explain why Russia as a country, with it's size and all of it's natural resources, is still a third world economy trying to survive in the 21st century.
it's Monopolism - a societal system that benefits a few at the cost of the rest. The kicker? Every individual (by our very nature of being living things) is personally incentivized (survival of the fittest individual by any means available) for his own evolutionary advantage to achieve a monopoly for himself. Further - Monopolies rely on the force monopolies (government) rule enforcing mechanic to exist at all in an otherwise competitive landscape. Monopolies are a societal disease, just like cancer is a multicellular organism disease.
@@joansparky4439 There is a force within us that is selfish yes, but there is also another force that believes in a 'greater good' that puts the survival and wellbeing of the tribe or family over oneself.
@@gothicfan52 I know. I have that in me too. Otherwise I wouldn't comment here, but rather use this knowledge to get ahead of the pack (at the cost of everybody around me). My point is that different people have different amounts of good/bad in them (random mutation for the species to be able to adjust to changing environments). The ones who have no sense for the greater good (say for example Trump) is what we label narcissist, psychopath, sociopath.. ruthlessness, greediness are their features among others. The complete opposite are people who would give their life if they somehow can rescue a stranger for whatever reason (say for example Ghandi maybe?). Empathy, generousness, kindness are their features.. If you take those as the extremes.. then there is a full spectrum between them. Good so far? Human society contains the whole spectrum. For society to function there needs to be rules that need to be enforced, so that the 'bad' people (or just bad behavior) is being punished and suppressed (i.e. loses its evolutionary advantage). Due to specialization we become specialists and loose our universality.. in the wild we have to watch our back ourselves and our stuff and defend it against other universalists. All good there. It's just how nature, how life functions. But societies require specialists.. so there is work sharing. Ruthless, greedy behavior is bad for societies. It's unsustainable. This is why we got rules against such behavior and punish it. This is why societies have rule enforcing mechanisms/frameworks. And this is the point I'm trying to make - *those rule enforcing mechanisms can also enforce rules that benefit a few at the cost of the rest.* Now guess what ruthless, greedy individuals will do when they encounter such a rule.. or even work on establishing them? Ever heard of Adam Smith? This is what he wrote 250 years ago in his Wealth of Nations: _"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_ & _"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_ He limited it to business people, but in reality we all have it in us (some more, some less). This is why the left, why socialism ultimately is futile.. it's not recognizing the core issue. It's 'othering' the few who due to their genetic makeup are more bad than good, but they do not solve the problem. They don't recognize the problem. They recognize the symptom. You want to know how these things work today? I suggest 'The Myth of Capitalism' by Tepper and Hearn (2019). PS: sorry for the long reply.
Good Times, a bit of constructive criticism: I feel your videos do not indicate clearly enough when you're reading a quote and when you're speaking yourself. Could there be some indicator on-screen so I don't have to pay attention so intently when a quote starts and ends?
Russian here. Very painfull but important video/text for us to reflect on. In my opinion - I do not think that russian regions in Siberia or Far east will seced. Historicly they wanted more autonomy, yes, but there never was a serious pro-indepence movement. Plus the threat of China is near by. Muslim region in Caucuses can leave, and I think they will. Tatarstan, Bashikia, Saha - those national republics are inside of Russiam borders and up to 40% of populaton is russian, so any real secession will be painful. What we do need as air - real federalization including location of many state organizations. Like each region should have their own police, instead of repressive federal monster we have.
Аминь, брат, аминь. Сам пытаюсь местным эту мысль донести. Я бы ,правда, добавил, что даже не все регионы Кавказа хотят отделения- во время Чеченских Войн они не поддержали Чечню, ни Дагестан, ни Ингушетия. Не уверен даже, что самой Чечне будет полезна независимость-там нет природных ресурсов или промышленности, чтобы она сама себя поддерживала. Им выгоднее было бы остаться частью реформированной, настоящей Федерации. Но даже так, реально сепаратизм есть только в Чечне-нигде больше.
@@fatamorgana985 честно, ХЗ. Я механистически сужу. Русских в нац.республиках Кавказа мало, у них своя культура, язык, религия. По этим параметрам, они спокойно могут быть независимыми от РФ, как например Азербайджан, Армения, Грузия. Будут ли они богаче по отдельности, чем внутри РФ? Не могу знать. Но объективно современная Российская власть экономический рост этим республикам не обеспечивает...
Federal monster boo hoo cant you see this channel is lying you my guy. A centrlized police universal force is much better than a devided police, its much better at cooperation, in the us one police unit mighr not have jurisdiction over an area and even if he can vatch a criminal he will have to release him because its not in his jurisdiction which is dumb.
@@Silver_Prussian it is not dumb. US is what it is called - a UNION of STATES. Each State is self-govern and have all major insitutions, while Federal government is responsible all nation tasks, like defence and etc. Can you imagine Trump or Biden focusing their time on garbage dumpsters problem somewhere in Texas? No! It is a responsability of Taxes government. Meanwhile in Russia we couldn't solve Moscow Oblast garbage problem, until Putin was called in. President of a country! Solving garbage problem in specific region! What a shame and a joke. We need decentralization as air, so oblast governments, and local governemnt had power and resources to solve there issues without asking federal center. What you see as a weakness (like different jurisdiction in different US states) is in reality US's greatests strength. US is historically the most stable democracy there were.
@@chatnoir1224 comoarinh the use and russia is like comparing night and day and thw problem in moscow oblast may have been to the inability of the local government to resolve the problem and the president after all is in moscow moscow is the major city do ofcourse he himself will oversee some project that just how it is but if for examole vladivostok had a garbage problem putin wont go all the way to vladivostok to solve it himself he will ofcourse leave it to the local authorities. In every countey centralised or not there is local governmemt which takes its own decisions. However having diffrent laws for every different state especialy in russia would make thing just increadably complicated, but sure lets go with it lets say all of your 8 districts have autonomy lets not forget the republics in those districts. Here are the genral problems of a dezentealised system Typically, though, performance and accountability of sub-national or local governments are constrained by a number of factors: limited resources, weak institutional capacity, inadequate mechanisms of accounting and accountability, and limited availability of information. You will get problems like in the us where one state weed is ok in another one you get months in prison, different trafuc rules, different laws some of which are pretty stupid in wisconsin there is law that forbids horses from eating fire hydrents. wtf ? Or the stupid gun laws of california. Like what in texas i can wear a f*cking power armour from a fallout game but in california i cant wear even a kolibri pistol fron self protection ? Like i know that not everything should be directly answearing to the government. Sure you can give me germany for example but its not like they dont habe to deal with sh*t either nad lets not forget the issue of separatism there in the face of baveria or like in canada in the face of quabec.
While he does provide some interesting analysis and makes some good points, I am amused that Taleb as usual was unable to write an essay where he could not stop himself from 1) shilling his old book and 2) calling someone he disagrees with an idiot. Do bring in more commentators and essayists in the future though.
Absolutely. It is too dangerous, and actually, not really neccesary for reforms. Federalisation- true one, not Putin fake one's, yes. Not falling apart.
@@fatamorgana985 a balkanised russia would also not result in many wealthy westernised democratic nations, but in just more Chinese puppet states to exploit ans colonise like Central Asia. It doesn't make much sense for a country like yakutsk to be independent, they have a low population, are poor and are resource rich, perfect target for neo colonialism
@@asscheeks3212 I'm from one of those countries and it's true that some people think that, but if a neighboring giant country of 150 million people with nuclear weapons collapsed into some new Somalia or new Libya, I don't think the ensuing chaos and refugee wave would bring something good. It would be the same threat as Russia in its current form.
Russian here. We have a lot of talks about this topic in particular right now. The general perspective is that, for the longest time, the people and the state were largely separated. Even the people, that support the government, agree, that you can't generally rely on the government's apparatus for most things, and that it brings significantly more problems than benefits, which was obvious even after the Soviet union collapsed. Decentralization is 100% necessary, but whether or not it has to be accompanied by territories leaving the federation - is a big question. We'll have to wait and see. Peace to everyone, and, as they say nowadays - Svoboda Rossii, Slava Ukraini, Zhive Belarus
Thats interesting to hear that this topic is being discussed or considered by Russians. If the far east territories were no longer under at least some form of central control they would be pounced upon by China, negating any benefits of self rule in the first place.
"There is no centralization of power in the west" The american president is litterally called "the most powerful man in the world". The West is simply the american sphere as all western countries organize themselves in a manner that is similar to the united states. And throught NATO they have to align their foreign and defence policy with that of the US. The orientation of western countries is liberalism and america is seen as not only its birthplace but also its heart and center.
Yeah nah. You're confusing soft power with hard power, or leadership with autocracy. The POTUS is "the most powerful man in the world" because the US has a huge army, but even with said huge army, it can't force its allies to take actions they don't want (see Canada, France, Germany etc. refusing to join the 2003 invasion of Irak, or Trump failing to get some NATO allies to increase their military spending). Now imagine Siberia telling Putin the Ukraine invasion is stupid and wants no part of it. Also, the US can't really be described as the west's liberal heart and center, since at least the previous 6 years. The recent removal of protections for abortion rights kind of proves that. Not to mention that the EU went the complete opposite direction, declaring the access to abortion a human right. Tl;dr There is no equivalence between the west and russia when it comes to centralization of power.
Not a fan of Russia by any stretch, but this whole video seems a little contrived. I don't think any Russian would accept the balkanization of their country as a good thing
@@kubabadach8581 Russia lacks a civil society and its populace has minimal agency. Any collapse would involve local strongmen/governors of oblasts (i.e. Kadyrov esque figures) pulling away away from the Kremlin to safeguard their own interests and territories. Add 6K nuclear warheads and carbon reserves, which would naturally involve foreign elements/interference. It would be like China’s 1920s warlord period on a bigger scale with WMDs. I dislike the Russian system immensely but in no way would a balkanization of that country be peaceful or conducive towards global peace. This whole video is at best wishful and/or deluded thinking. Best bet is to wait for Putin to commit suicide with two bullets to back of the head and empower Navalny figures and the Russian opposition.
Let's not be hasty in hoping a bright future and look at history, a broken Russia often did not mean happy little liberal republics, but power vacuums in which warlords and tyrants rose to unify Russia.
10:50 "The Anglo-Phoenician world of mercantile cosmopolitanism" Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out that Europe's rebirth after the collapse of Rome, came through trade with Byzantium. Constantinople thrived after the fall of Rome. Byzantine trading outposts were established at Bari Amalfi and Venice. Maintaining the mechanisms of banking, insurance and bills of exchange Genoa and Pisa also developed along the same lines.
@@mavigogun Byzantium collapsed because they had a weak, chaotic autocratic administrative mechanism constantly killing its leaders, leading to careful, ineffective military action because every administration had to keep a weapon pointed at its courtiers and generals as much as they pointed one at the enemy of the state. The Catholic world could have come to Eastern defense and Byzantium would still have fallen.
This is due to Taleb being part of the pre-war Lebanese upper class and he has shown ample proclivity towards inserting "Phoenican", as in Levantine culture in anything he thinks of as good.
You need to screw your lens out of focus to see such a thing as 'anglo-phoenician merchantile cosmppolitanism'. Better focus on the details and particular men to see what it was.
I don't really understand how a country breaking up and then devolving into regional feuds and being influenced by external foreign influences is somehow better for the people? By your logic a country like Iraq would have been a success story, because you overthrew the dictator and people "have more freedom". People are too quick to put their own assumptions on geopolitics when they don't really understand what the consequences of their actions.
@@qefewfwdcwdc his argument was not federalism he literally stated a Siberian republic and a Krasnodar republic would be good things. he is not calling for a Federal Republic of Russia. he wants Russia as a entity gone. replaced with ethnic republics and a Revangist Muscovy that would bring about a new Russian Hitler.
12:21 Just because the West is already "transparent" and "decentralized" does not mean that it couldn't be even more so and that there aren't any flaws with the current system. Moscow offered Snowden asylum because by exposing the American government's violations of privacy, he discredited it to an extent, and any "attack" against it indirectly benefits Russia's image. But that's far from meaning that Snowden works for Moscow, he did what he had to do by exposing how the American govenrment, the supposed epitome of a democratic system, abuses its citizens' trust and spies on them. Point is, the West, while being better of a system than its Russian counterpart, has more than its fair share of flaws and refusing to acknowledge those by blindly believing that any criticism of it must be done by Russian sympathizers, you fall victim to the same propaganda most Russians have fallen victim to and end up going along with anything your govenrment says without ever questioning anything. I'm honestly disappointed you'd go to the extent of flat out calling libertarians "idiots" for being critical of a system, thought you better than this.
Yeah that whole section got rather rediculous and sounds far more like that view of a Russian propagandist (in outlook rather than alignment) rather than someone who likes the open western system.
"... disappointed you'd go to the extent of flat out calling libertarians "idiots"" The video explains Taleb's ideas. Should we assume, though, that you identify as a libertarian?
Lets be clear that this video is presenting not the channels views but rather highlighting someone else's opinion piece. Which is to say they likely agree with most of it, enough to highlight it, but not necessarily all of it.
The Kievan Rus was founded by the descendants of Rurik who invaded from modern day Novgorod making the Kievan Rus Russian and Ukrainian(although the Ukrainians did not exist until the mongol conquest split the Rus
@@Ragulenschaft what people mistakenly call Byzantium was in fact the eastern Roman Empire. They spoke Greek. It was proto modern Greece. It wasn’t until the disaster of 1453 that you could call it proto Turkey.
The complete collapse of Russia would be a crisis in its own. While I support Ukraine, I'm certain Russia deserves to be treated the same way Germany was after ww2, but not collapse entirely.
@@nikoladoctorov553 - not really. The Russian Federation includes 22 independent Republics- well, until recent “reforms” by Putin stripped away local powers, and imposed Russ chauvinism. The Empire is a relic of another era that has grown too weak from corruption to survive internal challenges. It “deserves” nothing more than than the mess it has made of itself- and the people of those Republics and Oblasts deserve better.
Yes. Speaking as a westerner, it is far more to our benefit that Russia keeps Siberia than that it fall into Beijing’s orbit. I disagree that Russia needs to be dismantled as a geographic territory - the state apparatus can be dismantled while keeping the borders intact. A more federal (that is to say, decentralised) federation could be maintained while overall unity is likewise kept. A change in the equation rather than it’s erasure. If the US benefits from its unity, why doesn’t Russia? Not because of its size, or even its disunity in overall world view, but because the nature of the state doesn’t allow for a suitable degree of autonomy right the way through. Its integrity as a territory, however, is exceedingly beneficial for all of its inhabitants. They have far more bargaining power as a single state than as fractious little republics who would be absorbed into their neighbours spheres of influence.
@@geno9788 so what, seriously what is so bad about that? Honestly I’d be pretty happy with an independent Siberia. China will become the place where the world is centred around in the next 10 years.
@@oo--7714 China in a repressive foreign power which is currently welding peoples doors shut and slaughtering Uighurs en masse. They are evil and we need to divide them up and ensure their perverse ideology dies with them.
@@oo--7714 You don't pay attention to the history of geopolitics much, huh? Nobody has fought China as much in the past 70 years than Russia. They have kept each other in check for almost a century. "What's so bad about that?". Well, it would destroy nearly a century's worth of checks and balances by destroying the power balance in the east. Siberia would change hands, Mongolia would no longer be protected, the Pacific would become another dual-naval arena rather than the trio that currently vies for it. How can you hear of the collapse of an entire balance that would subject many to uncertain geopolitical fates, and not see what is bad about that? Is it a lack of knowledge, or sympathy? Are you the kind of person that just enjoys seeing the world burn?
Russia used to be a patchwork of principalities before being ravaged by the Mongol invasions. Russia can exist as a vibrant and prosperous society even without the hegemony of Moscow.
In the old chronicles the names of the rulers of Kievan Rus "Vladimir" are written as "Volodimer" which is more akin to the Ukrainian name "Volodymyr" than to the Russian "Vladimir". The name Vladimir was borrowed in the northern part of Rus from the Bulgarians. The Old East Slavic language showed a greater resemblance to the Ukrainian language. Besides, Kievan Rus used a coat of arms similar to the coat of arms of Ukraine.
@@slonskipieron 1.Have you heard that languages can evolve and change? For example, the Old East Slavic language is very different from Ukrainian and Russian, since Ukrainian changed under the influence of the Polish language, and Russian under the influence of many reforms. 2. The modern coat of arms of Ukraine is a converted coat of arms of the Rurik dynasty, which was preserved in the flag of the first capital of Rus - the city of Staraya Ladoga 3. Kyiv was the third capital of Rus, after Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod. 4. Most of Rus is modern Russia.
Even taking that as true, he adds examples and analysis, generalizing from such a wide variety of domains that he creates a new synthesis. His starting point of financial derivatives are well outside anything you could call federalism. While it would be ridiculous to to call his examples of the body’s fragility-handling of small repeated stress vs large infrequent stress-derivative of federalism.
@@MrOlivm It's analgous to federalism because the key political advantages of federalism are anti-fragility, decentralization, and redundancy which can be abstracted to other realms such as economic and strategic stability as well.
Yeah, it's not exactly a new, groundbreaking view of things. The US has been using and refining a federal system for 240 years, basing the modern federal system off of medieval and classic civilizations. The federal system has roots as far back as the (extremely dysfunctional) Holy Roman Empire and even the Roman Empire's model of provincial governance. Decentralized, multi-ethnic societies are nothing new. Taleb basically just restated the reasons why the system is so successful and has stuck around. The Roman Empire was so dependent on internal trade lines that the loss of just a few provinces doomed the entire system. Rome itself was fed with grain from Egypt, olives for oil came from Iberia, wood from the Balkans and technology from Greece. The parallels between the modern global economic system and the Roman empire are pretty striking when it comes to supply chains. Near-industrial level of production, mining and farming too. the debasement of the Denarii is effectively modern Inflation and money printing. In so many ways, we're using a system that is roughly 2000 years old. Can we really call our modern system a 20th century creation (ie the Liberal Economic World Order) or is it just a revitalized version of an ancient system?
@@Lusa_Iceheart The economics are ancient, the importance placed on individual liberty is modern, though it predates the 20th, with it's philosophical basis originating in the Renaissance and popularized in the Enlightment - with the American and French revolutions being particularly prominent.
You go a bit too far with praising federalism. The German example is a good one. Germany is not only a Federation but also a unified state. The Netherlands is a decentralised unity state. These are points on a spectrum between central and federal. The key question is: for what type of decision is which option more useful?
Profound arguments you make, I have been keeping track of the political situation in Russia for a while (since ~2014), and your conclusions are pretty sensible. Keep up with a good work, my polish friend! 🇺🇦❤️🇵🇱
Snowden is good though, we need people like him and Assange if we don't want to slide into autocracy and authoritarianism. The idea that people shouldn't expose sketchy stuff done by western governments is dangerous because if we allow them to get away with stuff like that, eventually they won't be any better than autocracies.
I'm glad you touched on Germany, a nation that had to rebuild itself after not one, but two world wars and did so very, very quickly. This more recent occurrence, via it's economy rather than military power. As a result, Germany has become a powerhouse within the EU, to the extent that some are even afraid Germany may "federalize" the EU and become it's head of state, all without firing a shot this time around. 😆 In a sense, the major world powers sit at a boardgame and there are rules. Nations like the US and Germany understand these rules very well. China seems to understand them. Russia on the other hand, has demonstrated the opposite and has shown a regression to the point of breaking the rules and heaping consequences on itself, wondering why. They broke one of the most important unwritten rules: *don't directly attack a nation with a substantial voice.* Indeed, maybe they believed Ukraine didn't have such a voice but if so, they've severely miscalculated.
Right now Germany isn't representing the sentiments of the rest of the EU toward defense, so that is unlikely. If it was a simple as buying everyone off, I doubt they could afford that either. They got themselves out of debt by leveraging their position in the EU, and they don't want to go backward.
@@MrTaxiRob well the us has that option too but it appears it want to put itself very close to russian border hmm i wonder why ? Let me ask you since the people of this channel are hypocritical what if cuba decided to join the csto ? Yeah give yourself an answear to thsi questiin and you will get why the russians ae screaming about their own security.
If people want to protest against the war in Russia they can engage in passive resistance and still have a huge impact. If done at a low enough individual level it would be hard for the authorities to uncover. Let's start with the railroads: 1)They can stage silent strikes where workers don't show up for work or call in sick. If the workers rotate who will be sick it can be hard to detect. 2)They can also change bills of lading to misdirect shipments to the wrong area or they can ship it via a circuitous route which is inefficient. 3)They can sit on paperwork to slow shipments. 4)They can damage signaling and switching equipment. 5)They can delay safety inspections and refuse to let shipments move until they are complete. 6)They can manipulate shipping schedules and create traffic jams by scheduling multiple trains on the same piece of track at the same time. 7)They can delay the loading and offload of supplies. 8)They can schedule unnecessary repairs which delay shipments. 9)They can purposefully load the wrong supplies on the wrong trains. 10)They can under or overload trains. If overloaded the chance of accident and maintenance increases. If they intentionally underutilize shipments that can cause logistical problems too.
In the (justifiably) paranoid atmosphere of the increasingly totalitarian Russian Federation, such actions will be reported by some co-worker or other busybody who has bought into the Kremlin propaganda. Much like the teachers who have been turned in by grade school and high school students for even suggesting that the war might be wrong. Also, damaging signaling and switching equipment has the potential of causing injuries to civilian rail passengers, as well as hampering the war machine.
@Roger Pennel all this requires coordination, which is the Achilles heel of your plan + I was born in the GDR - you didn't know who worked for the government intelligence services and who didn't. Sometimes your family members were ratting you out to the authorities. Just look up that part of human history.
@@fordhouse8b - The majority of the Russian population is 35+ and aging while the number of men/women below that age are shrinking. If the Russians fully mobilize they will have to take men/women 35-50 which aren't prime candidates. If they take those experienced workers out of the workforce their logistics, infrastructure, and economy will die. However, if that population engages in passive resistance the state doesn't have the resources available to send them all to the GULAG without killing their economy and industry. So if the Russians can find the will they can stop the war and bring down the government.
@@rogerpennel1798 First, a small point, sabotaging railway switches is not passive resistance, it is active sabotage, with the clear potential for physically harming civilians. Second, this only works if more or less the entire population decides to do it en masse. In the pro-authoritarian and neo-Stalinist paranoid atmosphere of Russia, nobody fully trusts all their coworkers, or their entire circle of friends, and so they will be afraid to be the first one to stick their neck out and even broach the subject with them. And that is just the ones who actually oppose the war. Plenty of Russians are fully onboard with it. Also, if Putin and his cronies in the state security apparatus (not the oligarchs, who actually have very little political power) believe that the only way to stay in power is to take measures detrimental to the Russian economy, they will not hesitate to do so. The real obstacle to mobilizing is that a significant portion of reserve troops, and veterans (who already have some military training) are also a part of the security apparatus (police, FSB, other internal ‘security’ services), and that there simply is not enough effective military materiel to effectively equip an expanded military. They don’t even have enough modern military equipment to issue to their active military, let alone hastily assembled reserves and conscripts. If they haven’t properly maintained their active military vehicles, what are the chances that those thousands of tanks parked for years and decades in open fields across Siberia can be made operational before the war is already over? The Russian people will only rise up in opposition to the war if the feel that it becomes too costly, in terms of lives, to them. The oligarchs will only actively go against Putin if they sense a clear signal from state security organs that they are ready to move against Putin. I’m not holding my breath, but at the same time, if the war goes really sideways for Russia, I would not at all be shocked to wake up one day and hear that Putin has been deposed by some combination of the FSB and military elements. But its won't happen simply because the Russian people have some kind of moral objection to Putin's war against Ukraine, just like WWII did not end because the German people suddenly had second thoughts about Hitler and the Third Reich.
The front against Libertarians came a) out of nowhere b) does them unjustice and c) is a bold thing to do after minutes earlier claiming that Adam Smith is a pillar of the western civilisation.
Adam Smith was not a libertarian. Libertarians are usually followers of the Austrian school of economics, which opposes classical political economy and neo-classicism. Sometimes they aren't even that but just vulgar Randians.
You state that Germany became rich, an industrial powerhouse, by being forced to embrace federalist, but you don't seem to agree that Russia could do the same, but that it must collapse, that it must break up? I want rid of Putin, I would like Russia to become less centralised, to become more federal, to push power down to the more local level, even if that level is at state (oblast/republic) level. Whether that is even possible is debatable. I might agree that it would be in the benefit of the Russian people for it to split up, though again that is debatable, that those in power would never decentralise, but I think if the individual Oblasts and Republics seceeded from the Russian Federation I don't think it would be a benefit for most Russians. The DR Congo/Venezuela are rich in resources but the people of that country aren't rich, they are just controlled by outside parties whilst their resources are exported to the highest bidder making some people rich, but not many, exactly what happened in Russia after the fall of communism and the same would happen again if this was repeated today.
@@LancesArmorStriking Considering you and Germany carved Poland up and took all their territory I don't think you have the right to make any comment about the Poles right now, do you?!!! If I were you I'd just keep quiet!!!
@@mattpotter8725 Oh, I'm sorry, did that make you mad? Tough shit, I'll say whatever I want. And the _Poles,_ not the Russians, are the ones claiming to be Westernized and enlightened. So if they start suggesting the same thing Russia is trying, they are just hypocrites. Oh and the Polish government does have a plan to try and sow divisions within RF, so they're really already hypocrites. Weren't postwar borders supposed to be sacred??
Well Germany did sort of break up it lost all it's lands east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, was partitioned into two states with a divided capital, was forced to host foreign armies on it's soil and had to give up the Saar for about a decade.
@@LancesArmorStriking Not mad, and last time I looked Poland hadn't tried to invade a sovereign country, they've not shelled innocent civilians, not committed war crimes, and haven't annexed parts of another country by force. I might not particularly like the current Polish government but I'd take them 100 times over than Putin, and twice on Sundays!!!
It's nice and idealistic. But the reality of a Russian collapse would be much, much uglier. Moscow is unlikely to just stand by and let huge portions of their territory declare independence and leave, especially under Putin. This would lead to civil war and massive unrest in a nation of 150 million with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world. The bloodshed and violence would kill millions and inevitably ripple outwards and destabilize all of Russia's neighbors, effectively the entire Asian continent. Worse nations that depend on Russian grain and food exports would stop getting them entirely. The war in Ukraine has already had a destabilizing effect on dozens of countries because of this, a civil war in Russia would make the situation even worse. Even in a scenario where Moscow is paralyzed, the kleptocratic elite of Russia and the commanders of military units are unlikely to respect New sovereign borders. Far more likely is that they embark on their own imperialistic quest which results in the same civil war and strife. Then there is the issue of various warlords all winding up with potentially hundreds of nuclear weapons and zero federal oversight. The results of a nightmare scenario like that are terrible enough that it bears no further explanation. The break up of Russia might be a good thing, and might help the Russian people, but I see no realistic peaceful transition to a breakup.
Russia has to accept the concept of 'right to self determination' of the nations, and drop the false narrative of the 'expanding NATO'. People choose to go with the West(in Europe at least), and forced to go with Russia. No exception.
Last month, the Solomon islands decided to go with China and allow China to established bases in their land, but where threathened by US. The West does not equate with US foreign policy.
@@simongraham2516 china made a lot more enemies then the mere USA, there is Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan...etc... the list of enemies China made is endless and half of them aren't even allies with the USA, they just hate China period.
@@simongraham2516 chinafication of the pacific is not good. neither was japanification. (neither was germanification of europe, neither is russification of ukraine).
@@garygraham8373 I am 100% against Russifiation of Ukraine. Russia needs to withdraw immediately from all parts of Ukraine and let them choose. I can say that and at the say time that US foreigh policy is disgusting and needs to be thrown out of Europe as well.
Don't get me wrong. I do not support their invasion and (as a westerner) agree on most if not all of the things you say about the west. But I can't help by imagining a russian seeing this (maybe with vpn) as alternative media and basically saying to him the partition of your state is in your best interest. Last time it happened (Soviet Union) they had some terrible years
As a citizen of post Soviet republic can say you that your really right! West had a chance to show that the west system is better than soviet autocraty. But all those years during the 90's most of the people was in poverty. While the West prospered on the resources of the defeated Soviet Union. Ingeneers, medics, scintist! My family from capital of post Soviet country. There was geto around! Drug addicts and syringes in the hallways of many houses. When I was born, the family did not have money to buy baby food! My mother has 2 degrees. Grandfather is a former pilot and grandmother is an employee of the university. So, if someone want collapse, better start yourself.
@@YouTKir Poverty was common in 90s not only in former USSR but also in its previous sattelite states, and this was caused by bankrupt, not efficient socialist economy, broken supply chains and competitive goods of better quality from abroad. IT IS A MYTH that "strong tsar" and his mafia currently ruling Russia brought peace and prosperity, it is rather their luck due to growing economy all over the world, rising economic cycle, high raw material (oil, gas etc.) prices on the market and international investments. Note that Russia wastes its potential on narrow oligarch group who get profits in enormous scale and on military expenses. Few major cities exploit remaining regions and nations. This resembles a collonial system based on violence and terror.
It was for most states apart from Russia. The same thing would happen again if it separated again, with siberia being quite rich and the core being pretty poor.
@@salad7776 This. The "While the West prospered on the resources of the defeated Soviet Union" is largely a myth; Russia's own oligarchs gobbled up the resources of the post-Soviet Russia.
Gradually delegating some power (but not all of it) to the existing Oblast governments would (probably) have most of benefits and few of the drawbacks of dividing Russia into several fully independent nations.
As a Russian I can't agree to this video. Collapse of Putin's autocratic political system and federalization will be good for Russian, but collapse of the entire state will definitely not be. Suggested separation of Siberia republic will make its small population living like in OAE but fall majority of population in European part of the country into extreme poverty because current minimum standard living is supported by oil and gas revenues. Or separation of Kuban will cut off other regions from sea ports for example. Russian wide territory is an advantage and the problem is in the political system.
А жителей Сибири и Кубани кто-то спросил хотят ли они кормить остальных? Смотрите на регионы как на колонии конечно, "будут жить как в ОАЭ" - ух, как они посмели распоряжаться своими ресурсами самостоятельно?? Да и не стоит думать, что при "развале" все регионы вдруг разорвут отношения друг с другом, просто это будет происходить на равных условиях и скорее всего в условиях экономического и политического союза наподобие Евросоюза. Кубань не отрежет остальных от моря, также как и Германия не отрезает Чехию и Австрию от доступа к портам. И это уже будет равноценный союз, а не отношения метрополии с колониями, увы даже после смены режима власти в Москве будут все еще придерживаться колониальной политики, только полноценная деколонизация поможет справедливому и равноценному развитию всех 17 миллионов квадратных километров России. И это только экономические причины, а есть еще этнические: национальные меньшинства ущемляются, подавляется изучение языка, культуры, процветает расизм и ксенофобия. Зачем жить в одной стране с теми, кто не уважает твой язык и культуру, дискриминирует по внешности, акценту, религии?
@@nikolaia.9573 для этого достаточно федерализации, а не распада на отдельные государства с непредсказуемыми последствиями типо гражданских войн. А дальний восток станет просто колонией Китая, а не самостоятельным субъектом.
You talk a lot about federalism, only to advocate for a complete désintégration of the Russian state, surely your ideas would lead much more naturally to the concept of a more decentralized Russia than a collapsed one, wouldn't they? There is also the problem with nukes, when the soviet union collapsed, there was great instability, and would be much worse if Russia collapsed into several states It would definitely be then, a lot better to transform Russia into a Swiss style Confederation
I think the inevitable outcome of Russia is a system very similar to the US, where each Russian state has general autonomy with a central government setting foreign policy and general baselines of services offered by the government. I don't necessarily believe Russia will collapse and become 20 different countries though that is possible.
I can agree with this, but also disagree since there are many examples that support the argument for both sides , an example that is for, would be gadafi’s Lydia before the wars ( despite him being a military man and having many wars with his African neighbors) life in Lybia was stable especially with the oil industry being so huge before the civil wars. But an example that is against this would be Argentina: with its many autocrats the economy never got stable, in fact it always got worse because each of these autocrats never understood that Argentina was an export based economy and kept trying to promote domestic production and consumption. And they collapsed due to a failed military invasion (the Falkland war) which could be replicated in Russia. So in my opinion I think that a nation can be stable and prospectus with a autocrat, if he/she understands the country they are ruling. Because if they don’t the they will continue to introduce many reforms that won’t help simply due to their misunderstanding of their countries situation.
Your criticism of Edward Snowden is very weak. It seems like your point is that he can't criticize the US whilst living in Russia, because Russia is even more authoritarian. This take makes no sense since Snowden has no option to move anywhere else without being extradited, has no option to get a fair trial and has consistently been critical of modern Russia.
Can someone explain me what is "true" democracy? USA is "democratic" but there is almost no difference in politics between both parties. Bush invades Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama invades Syria. Middle East is in western sphere of influence, so USA will continue their invasions no matter what party is now in power. Is it democratic? Or LGBT rights make the real difference? If I am an american and I want to stop wars on this planet, what party should I vote? There is no such party because geostrategic interestests of a country are on higher level than political system. So Meirscheimer is right and Talib is propaganda.
I agree with the sentiment. However, I beg to differ. The cultural diversity, size and low population density as well as historical trend do not necessarily doom Russia to permanent imperialism. Canada and USA are good examples for it (Canada is more akin to Russia in all points except history). When we are talking about the current regime, yes, it will crumble one day as it is not sustainable but the state isn't inherently doomed to reproduce this types of regimes. Moreover, the collapse of the state can cause civil wars, extreme poverty and other types of disasters including the use of nuclear weapons which wouldn't benefit anyone.
Canada and the USA are both very decentralized compared to Russia, though probably less than they should be. A lot of the recent issues facing the US are very "central" in nature. I think he's saying Russia could thrive under such a system, but cannot transition to it without fracturing because of the current regime's stranglehold on power. This seems perhaps a bit reactionary with regard to the disappointment that the collapse of the USSR didn't bring about better change, but at the same time it seems evidently to be the case. I do agree that the prices will be painful, though I doubt they would nuke themselves in a civil war. The question is if the process is necessary. I.E. Is the alternative worse? Is the alternative WW3? Is it just to wallow in repression indefinately? Of course maybe I'm wrong since I'm one of those "idiot" libertarians, lol. I agree with literally everything the guy said there, but somehow I'm an idiot. I think he constructed his view of libertarians from the silly antics of the LP or reading reddit instead of reading actual libertarian thinkers. He seems to think we are ethnocentric anarchists.
Criticizing Snowden for operating from Russia when the only reason he is there is because the American government wants him dead or in prison is rather unfair, I think.
"Look at the west. Is there a center? No. If there were one, moreover, it would be in Kyiv today" Damn, I have not thought about it this way, but you hit the nail spot-on on the head. Really good point. I do disagree with a lot of your takes about Snowden etc however - state-based surveillance is not justifiable based on stability.
@@dasbubba841 none of those cities holds any influence. Washington DC is the poltical soul of the west while Los Angles is the cultural hub of the west and New York is the financial capital of the west. the United States of America is the heart and soul of the west without the U.S Pax Americana the west would cannabalize itself. whoever the U.S president does the rest of the world follows. its very laughable that London holds any cultural clout in America or Berlin. only Paris has romantic clout in the west. everyone in the west admires America while Americans look up to no one since they make the rules.
If it comes to this, I would urge geostrategists from creating the whole class of small landlocked states out of existing Russian regions. Being small and landlocked is a cruel fate to have in Eurasia. It would just humiliate people in those states further, incentivizing them to snap back into imperialism with obsession over strategic depth and relinquish authority to a figurative Tsar. Instead, I think it would be optimal to *group* the constituent regions into bigger federalized states according to their geography, economy, financial means, culture and geopolitical realities and prospects. For example, Siberia and the Far East both have underinvested economy, terrible and high maintenance infrastructure, incredibly low population density and they are exposed to China, also not quite small Kazakhstan and Mongolia. It would be effectively a suicide for constituent oblasts, krais and republics to become independent and then be eventually be preyed upon or at best wallow in isolation (for landlocked regions). Even national republics like Buryatia and Tuva would prefer a genuinely federalist deal with Russians rather than be absorbed into Mongolia. So Siberia and Far East respectively need to stay grouped as two *separate* entities that will be able to have more or less equal footing with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, ally with them against China if need be. Another example is in Russian South. Stavropol Krai would do anything to join Krasnodarsky Krai being surrounded by Muslim majority republics from the east and the south. The neighboring Republic of Kalmykia would also prefer a federalist deal with Russian majority regions than be left alone facing frankly unpredictable Muslim majority republics that may yet turn into warmongering caliphates in that scenario. I believe the *rough* outline of this Russian commonwealth’s borders can be found in the existing map of Federal districts of Russia here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_districts_of_Russia. Of course, it might be altered to balance the power between these new states and reflect compromises struck by political actors as the described scenario unfolds. If it comes to pass, the West shouldn’t sit dumbstruck or revel in vindication at the disintegration of Russia. No, post-WWII Germany was rebuilt and pacified by European Coal and Steel Community, ensuring Germans don’t go destitute and thus rogue again. Much in the similar vein, the new federal states should be supported financially and enticed by European integration and NATO accession, conditional on implementation of rule of law, transparent and democratic government, etc. Such projects will also be much easier if the West will have the new 7-10 federal states to deal with instead of the existing 85 vastly different and often purposely handicapped regions.
Libertarians are right to call themselves "Libertarians". What they desire most strongly is Liberty, but liberty from what? Liberty from reality. Liberty from causality. They are all basically subjectivists.
I love that you touched on Russia being stuck in another century in many ways. It's not even the 20th century, it's the 19th, maybe 18th century they're stuck in.
Transition to *democracy* is in the interest of Russians. The smoother the better. Handling the nuclear arsenal of a disintegrated Russia would be a nightmare even from the perspective of NATO. After what happened to Ukraine, none of the new countries would want to handover their nukes.
After the '90s, the Russians have a very flawed understanding of democracy/ (free) capitalism as "oligarchs/ criminals running free, unlimited in their skullduggery by anything". They had 10 years of experience of it, that they use as evidence of it being so. It will be a long & hard process towards it... It will (hopefully) need to be done, but I don't expect it to go this easily. It's likely a hybrid system would be better to start with (between the current system & a full liberal democracy, but I don't know what that would look like atm ^^ Maybe like Turkey? Who knows...
@@elektrotehnik94 well isn’t that what capitalism is? Oligarchs hold all the power and money and everyone else gets the scraps? That’s what most capitalists countries do anyways
@@elektrotehnik94 The process might be similar to what happened in Argentina in 1982. After loosing an unprovoked war for disputed territory, social contestation became unsustainable for the governing Junta; and a transition to democracy was the only way out. You could spot democratic gaps in any country in the world. But current-day Argentina is an advanced democracy, at least for South-American standards. So Russia might, in a near future, become and advanced democracy within Europe.
I remember in Soviet times, many Russians called their country “ a prison of nations” Russia, definetely, inherited this title. Fall of Russia will allows tens of nationatilities to learn their own language, show the world their culture, and find their identity as a free nation.
You are lying nobody has ever siad such a thing and those little nation already enjoy a great amoint of autonomy. Also for many many reason they will not be able to exist alone its just facts.
@@Silver_Prussian Google, man) Lenin said that Russia is a prison of nations. Any examples of "enjoy a great amount of autonomy?' Chechnya? With a bandit/terrorist as a republic leader?
@@dshrp4694 lenin was an idiot who worshiped another idiot with abeard who created a dumb economic and social theory wich to this day is criticised and not used, he killed a russian state with culture, spirituality and strenght that was hundred of years old.
Waaaaw, this is one of the strongest videos you guys made in a while. You guys put a lot of information and 'cultural/sociatal emotions' in a clear and understandable perspective. We are at one of the most interesting crossroads in recent history. Whatever happens, the global context is going to evolve and regional answers will follow soon having a direct impact on every human living wherever. This might actually be the catalyst we need to make great and strive change to the 'Western living standards'. I'm following all these developments with an eye of great interest, longing for the context you guys offer on events happening right now.
The lack of believe in personal responsibility, doesn't remove personal responsibility. I was living among Russians my entire life, I assure you, Putin is moderate.
II cannot see a break up of Russia being beneficial to anyone. Certainly not now, with a very powerful neighbour with imperial traits in its foreign policy or with all sorts of venture capital companies willing to set morals aside if they can make a quick buck. I think in the long run a gradual evolution towards a confederacy would be more desirable. Not in the least part because Russians have experienced more than enough misery the last 100+ years. Another one would be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back I'm afraid, resulting in even more fatalism (at least that's how some characterize Russian culture) rather than entrepreneurship. I really would love to see the Russians getting a break from the historical strokes of bad luck, corrupt and authoritarian leadership and myths about Russian exceptionalism. Like all of us, Russians need food and shelter, protection, education, health care and a leadership that authentically cares about people. Apart from that, I do also not believe it's in the interest of the West or any other conglomarate to see Russia break apart. Imagine what would extremes could arise in the power vacuum or how easily they could get their hands on the nuclear arsenal. Putin and his oligarchy has got to go, yes. And then the West should not fall into the pitfall of hybris and triumphism again and genuinely reach out to help. We should have three decades ago.
@@garygraham8373 That's partially true. Most western companies were there with lightning speed to deal with the corrupt guys who usurped whatever was left of Soviet infrastructure and resources to make a quick buck. Oh, and to sell McDonalds, Gucci and all those other western goodies to the fat kids of the soon-to-be oligarchs. On the other hand, western attempts to help Russia rebuild its infrastructure and democratize its institutions were frustrated by the maffiose oligarchy slowly taking over control. So it's a two edged sword really. However, Russia was soon all but forgotten, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Offers from Russia to support in Afghanistan were dismissed - allegedly in a condescending manner and according to some observers that's when revanchism got a hold. The more so, because the West has shown little scruples in dealing with China or Arabb states with - at the time - far worse human rights records. So yes, Russia - or its leaders - aren't entirely exonerated, but the western block is also far from a saintly bunch. I hope we'll do better this time around. If the opportunity arises that is... Fingers crossed!
@@Pincer88 Oligarhy was quite powerful in Russia in 90-x, but not as much as they wanted or as much as wanna be communists try to picture. After Putin became a president, he significaly cut off their power, by strengthening state institutions and helping state's companies. So, mantra about "bad oligarchs who is a source of all evil in Russia" was already dumb before Putin, and even dumber than dumb for last 15 years. Wake up, sheeps, you wanted to free poor Russia from oligarhy? Then say hello, to your savior, V. V. Putin, who did exactly that long time ago. I mean, c'mon, any western propagandist who have a little bit of imagination, already post all this shit about "thee different groops who is a base for a Putin's political power", long long time ago. And now we returned to that chidish primitivism of "there are no responcible in Russia, exept for oligarhs - and Putin is their boss"? How lame.
Should China take opportunity for a "special operation" to "de-militarize" rightful lands adjacent to their own. And China then "liberate" oppressed Asians in russia.
Early in the US' history, in fact during its formation, there already was a Federalist faction led by Alexander Hamilton (whose on the $10 bill), but lost out to Thomas Jefferson's populism that had its advantages, but allowed for sectarianism and acquiesced to slavery and it took a Civil War to finally just wind up back at Federalism.
Hamilton's Federalism embraced the existing slave economy, else, no independence. Took decades for abolition to fester. Didn't see John Adam's jeopardize the country to emancipated did you?
Germany would be an economic power, as it has been for hundreds of years, regardless of whether it's federal or centralised. This 'federalism makes it stronger' narrative has always been ridiculous.
Nationalism doesnt requite any state. Nationalism is treating your nation like your extended family. Valuing every individual that isnt harming others.
The problem is, as with your wife, she thinks you are stealing from the family when you buy something for yourself with money you have earned or that you are unfaithful when you do something fun with the boys. Witches were burned by the people.
@@MrGunnar69 My wife loves me dearly and does not think I am stealing for the family when I buy something for myself. Nor does she think Im unfaithful when I play games with our friends. The reverse is also true ofcourse. Ive not seen any witch with my own eyes. Blissful ignorance you are dealing with, my land and that of my fmaily is heaven on earth.
The Russian forces in Ukraine have been mainly drawn from the Russian hinterland and disproportionately from ethnic minorities within their borders while excluding urban European Russians. They have been excluding troops from its urban centers to hide their losses from the public because trains full of caskets in Moscow and St. Petersburg would be bad PR for the regime. This policy was also used during the Soviet-Afghan War to lessen the impact of that war on the urbanized proletariat and by extension the government and party members. If Russia chooses to fully mobilize for war there's no reason to believe that the majority of those conscripted into service wouldn't also be ethnic minorities so they can protect their core of urban European Russians. If they draw conscripts from their hinterland it's unlikely these sparsely populated areas would be able to find the numbers necessary to organize anti-war protests. Putin knows that too many of his troops are surrendering so he's calculated that if he attacks civilians he will scare his troops into believing that the Ukrainians won't take prisoners. Russia is also sending mobile cremation units to Ukraine so they can hide their losses. Because sending home trainloads of caskets is bad PR for Putin. If Putin has the bodies cremated in the field he can skip registering the dead and list them as missing or captured instead. Since no family wants to believe their sons have been KIA Putin gets to conceal his losses and hold on to his justification for the war in the short term and potentially threaten the families of the dead with reprisal if he lists them as captured. This is why the State Department is warning about concentration camps, mobile cremation units, genocide, biological warfare, and chemical warfare. So there's currently an opportunity for the frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Republics to reignite with the Russian military tied down in Ukraine. So far the former Soviet Republics have been playing a waiting game and anxiously watching the war in Ukraine hoping to exploit a Russian defeat. However, if they wait too long they risk a full Russian mobilization and the Russian military being able to redeploy its forces from that front to reopen these frozen conflicts. They may not have as good an opportunity as they have now.
@@Peanutcat I know this is anecdotal, but honestly....the people I know in my life who got hit are much better off than the kids whose parents wouldn't dare. Western countries are full of egocentric, fragile people, and it's definitely part of the reason why lol
@@XOPOIIIO Yeah and some of those opinions are idiotic, outdated, and factually disproven. Corporal punishment is not in the interest of a child in the immediate or long term
You raise a lot of good points. This conversation needs to be extended. Russia is not a unique case, not deserving of special accommodation nor a different set of rules. Most russians fit easily into any of the western nations (as immigrants). Let's continue the analysis towards 'root causes' of the spasms of aggressive cruelty, which from time to time really screws things up in Russia.
One root cause is the huge amount of natural resources that it processes. It doesn’t need to change or modernize because it has what it needs by selling the natural resource.
Being nationalistic is not always a bad thing. It just means your nation shares a system of values. In America, it is not a religion, but a shared value of freedom, individual rights, and constitutional laws. I’m proud to be a nationalist in my America! In America, all are welcome and all are equal. Leftists have pushed an ideology of division, hatred, and virtue signaling. I strongly disagree with their view of the world.
I'm Mari, my people were conquered centuries ago by Russians. We have our own republic, tho it's nothing but oblast actually. This is pretty bright and optimistic scenario you presented but no one ever will be able to control that decentralisation process if it will start, we lack education, responsibility or simple civic solidarity. Russians don't think, russians always prepare for some shit, they don't want to make shit not happen, they want to panic, say everyone is corrupt and wait till someone will solve their problems, because everything is done in Moscow it doesn't matter what we think here, how to brake such sentiment? Dissolution of Russia will cause a looot of ethnic conflicts, no one will be able to control it, it will happen because system is too rotten and society is too ignorant and is in deep crisis, we don't trust each other
Excellent video Hubert. I swear you have come miles and miles since I subscribed. You should be very proud of yourself. Keep up the amazing work my friend 💜
As a resident of Russia, I will say that you are wrong. Citizens of Russia are very nationalistic, they call even barely assimilated cultures Russian and are moreover proud of it.
@@TrokgornyBall I'm a russian too, and i don't think that it is true. There are a lot of nationalists but they are not majority. They are more imperialist than nationalists. It's different.
@@TrokgornyBall Mans zelts ir mana tauta, Mans gods ir viņas gods. Kas postīdams viņu šausta, Uz pekli lai rauj to jods. My gold is my people, My honor her honor. Who piliging her ripps, To hell draged be by devils. This poem has become a proverb of my people, one all nationalist will stand by. A nationalist sees his nation like his extended family, he treats all who belong to it with kindness and care, he helps and advises them, heals and aids them like he would for good friends even if they are strangers. The health and happyness of his people is what he cares for, he would not see his peoples sweat and blood be shed unless there is very good reason. In foreign land or not among foreigners too he acts like a true nobleman, frendly and nice, polite and truthful, for his honor is his nations honor which he defends by showing how noble and good people like him are, but if some slander his nation he will ofcourse defend his nations honor by disprooving that. If in war he has found himself still he will treat all justly never with any cruelty. A nationalist sees it as his duty to beautify the world arround him, to make his language beautiful, to make himself look good, for humans are simple and beauty makes them happy and beauty also corelates to health. Above all else a nationalist just wants for himself and those of his nation to be free to peacefuly live a simple life with love, brotherhood and friendship while being in good health and good spirits, to dance and sing in joy in the fatherland. Russijans are largely not gentleman of the 19. century with the kinship of the bronze age, while being peaceful and innocent. They are largely ignorant and belive themselves to be better than others despite evidance saying otherwise, they want others to submit rather than all being treated with respect as equals. They are chavinist thugs, not noble nationalists.
@@fatamorgana985 в России много политических движений. Из-за их разнообразия теряешься кто есть кто. Полно всяких либералов, анархистов, коммунистов, анархистов, фанатиков и так далее. Но если смотреть на фактические взгляды граждан России, то можно заметить что русские принижают исторических соперников России возвышая русских как национальность будто какая-то данность. Нынешние русские считают себя более высшими чем остальными национальности и присваивают себе достижения других народов себе. К примеру по телевизору сказали что первые такни и ядерное оружие изобрели русские, что на самом деле неправда. Умалчивают о крупных поражениях России демонстрируя только успехи, а все предатели России сущие слабаки и всегда ожидали заслуженное наказание. Пропаганда превратила русских незаметно для них не просто в националистов, а уже нацистов. Благо пока это нацизм выражается только с философской точки зрения, а не с практической.
There is a clear emphasis in the video on the value of federalism. One of the first major countries to enshrine this concept was the United States. It was followed by other English speaking countries like Canada and Australia. The value of acceptance of others who are not exactly like yourself has immense value in creating an open liberal democracy. It has great benefits for business and life in general. Speaking as an American any system of centralized authoritarianism has never been conceived as a possibility for the country, except by the most extreme political " nuts.". Federalism has been the only conceivable option for the United States given it's scale geographically. The tragedy is that Russia has never had a true federal system. It is one in name only. I understand the weight of history in Russia against the creation of an open society, of the acceptance of others as equal before the law. The tyranny of the primacy of Moscow is an almost axiomatic mental construct which has dominated Russian life and literature. But things can change. The destruction of the Russian state would be a chaotic result which could be a disaster for the world with loose nukes. The creation of a true federation would be best. However, the internal resentments may make such an outcome a chimera, a wistful illusion. Probably the historical inertia is just too great for any more hopeful future. Instead, Russia will continue on it's path towards isolation, authoritarianism and dictatorship. Sad, sad that so many people in Russia live in such mental straightjackets and can not progress into a more enlightened future of acceptance of others who have different dreams and goals.
One of the reasons this system works so well is that bigger problems that effects the entire country can be kicked up and problems that effect regions, states or cities can be kicked down to people with better information to handle it. A New York businessman has no place telling an Arkansas farmer what to do and vice versa.
@@kazekamiha Precisely, practically no American, can conceive of their country under the sole authority of a single individual from any one region. The variety of the country is so diverse from some of the largest cities in the world to Southern swamps and bayous to evergreen forests of Seattle. Since America by necessity evolved having such diversity it has had a major influence in creating institutions like NATO which has such a diversity of different countries from France to Turkey. In essence NATO reflects the federal system of the United States. It would be difficult to conceive of it without that structure. It would not work if it was just dictated by America. Putin cannot understand that simple reality or appreciate human diversity( He cannot accept the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian). NATO is fundamentally an alien system for him and there lies part of the problem.
Great material! I agree with most of the assertions in this video. Thank you. still , 5:35 If Rus' was Kievan , than Muscovy was a part of proto-Ukraine, rather than Ukraine having been a part of proto- Muscovy .
thats just Ukrainian nationalist bullshit. why did it take until 2022 for Ukraine to realize its national identity? the Kievan Rus was a eastern slavic confederation. with Kiev as its capital. Ukraine and Russia emerged equally out of this confederation of tribes. Muscovy got to assert its national identity much earlier than Ukraine did since Lithuania and then Poland conquered it followed by Russia. Ukraine as an idea only came about in 1918 before there was no such thing as Ukraine. The idea that some how the Kievian Rus were Russian or Ukranian states is very stupid since no such identity ever existed. they were Eastern Slavs who spoke Old Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. the mongols invaded and isolated the territories where Muscovy became city state and then its own confederation. while Kiev never regained independence until 1991. BOTH RUSSIA BELARUS AND UKRAINE COME FROM THE KIEVIAN RUS. Ukrainian and Russian identities were formed much later.
@@covfefe1787 «Вечно пьяный, до оскотинения, завистлив, жаден, злобен, туп. Миф о русской бане мгновенно рассеивается после того как пройдёшь мимо типичного русского. Запах перегара и давно не стираных порток отвратителен сам по себе, но к нему примешивается ещё и запах кислой капусты и прокисших щей, до которых он, русский человек, большой охотник. Любимое занятие - лежание на печи и мечты о лучшей жизни. Эти мечты постоянно подогреваются правящей верхушкой. К наукам не склонен, по причине своего отупения в следствии неумеренного потребления браги. Брагу потребляет по причине того, что не может выгнать самогона. Не хватает терпения. Из разнообразия языков, на матушке Земля, в совершенстве владеет одним - матерным. Физически вроде и здоров, но в то же время страдает манией величия и шовинизма. Причисляет себя к третьему Риму, а являет собой вторую Содом и Гоморру. Агрессивен. Очень агрессивен. Что подтверждается его постоянным захватом чужих земель, при этом утверждается там как хозяин и всё вокруг считает своим. Описание портрета русского можно дополнять бесконечно, однако это будет не столько утомительно читателям сколь противно. Увы». Максим Горький, «Собирательный образ русского человека»
Well, Technically Russia it´s already a "federation" with "republics" inside, and they are also technically a "democracy". So all the paperwork has been done correctly. The problem is at the level of the political parties and the voters, and of course, corruption.
They are a federation in reality but the creator of the video just dismises that and propagades a destruction of a state that he has something personal against. He lies a lot in thsi video especialy about the republic, they enjoy a great amount of autonomy, they are fully allowed to practive their culture and religion and to speak their language. The author is so dumb he disregards the fact that the man in charge of he russian military the russia minister of deffence, sergei shoigyu is ethnicly tuvan.
@@Silver_Prussian Yes, as I said, Russia already works as the author wants. I think the problems of Russia are more political than institutional. Russia is already a "democracy" in paper, now they have to make it in reality: allowing small political parties to be independent, stop putting political opositors in jail, don´t threaten independent press, etcetera. Russia is like a Latin American country: "a free democratic, capitalist country" in paper, but an oligarchic, corrupt country in reality, and the war might worsen that. I feel bad for Russia, I think Putin committed a great mistake in February and dragged the country 30 years back in time.
@Cloud9the subjects of the federatuin have enough power and i already told you that russia is not like america and its subjects dont function like the state in the us and why should they ? They stil have mayors for every city and town they have councils and governers to de centralise more wpuod mean to disolve russia which is actualy the true intention behind all of this, to tear the country apart. Many tines histoey has showed one man can be better than many and the opposite it rrally depends on the nation itself which model it will follow. Take the countries in the middle east for example you kniw why democracy dosnt work there ? Because they are not like the nations in the west or america. You think you can just walk into these nations based on religious fundamentalist principles, drop a couple of bombs topple a dictator and start a democracy pfft please give a me break. It simular for russia and eastern europe those countries need a strong leadership because the people there need rules boundaries, protections, from foreign powers and from themselves.
If you’re looking for a better way to stay informed about current events around the world check out ground.news/goodtimesbadtimes
I get that libertarians have been anti support of war and all but you either don’t at all understand their philosophy or are just making comments to spite them. None are suggesting that Ukraine doesn’t have the right to fight for their land and freedom. They just think the US is trying to use Ukraine as a proxy war to hurt Russia. Rather then doing everything in their power to bring peace to the area. They believe this not because Russia says it but also because multiple American military officials and senators have said this.
Careful, suggesting the Russian East should be independent is getting awfully close to Chinese propaganda territory.
Sure independence in the Russian West is fair game, but Siberia and the Far East?
Nǐ hǎo, shíguāng huài shíguāng
No this is propaganda, nato do have a head is the united state empire , it control all and all his territory only exist with the annexation of land by force , is an empire , México was invaded and lost land , also Hawái , the Philippine was invaded , Irak , your lie start with country existing in a vacuum , no United States only exist becouse it control land it got by force , genocide of natives , slavery , etc, nato is rule by America and the supreme generals are American .
There is no rule of law, as law only exist to serve American power , America veto any resolution in the security council it like , has not a sign the convention of the sea or is part of treaty of Rome , it has use terrorist and dictators , don’t make me laugh , Barack drone program is estimated to murder over 100,000 civilians, where are Europeans sanction for their crimes , no where , is al a show , it has done all Rusia do , including annexation, invasion , violation of laws ,etc .
Also any sanction or other country violate the un charter , only the security consul can do it all is a joke .
I will tell you what country really are , they are like franchise corporation of hell , yes the world is a fraud , there are other dimensions and one is hell .
Human civilizations are cultivated to produce a resource , this is the human souls ,country are consecrated to hell , country are government and this are the tentacles of the secret society that rule them , states don’t serve people, people are use to serve the state , states are private corporation, they are satanic , if normal humans know politics is a fraud , that the spiritual planes are real they would vomit in terror , there is no good country all are demonic , the elite serve non human being , this are the gods of pagans religion , many were transform in to human saint by the church , myth etc .
What I tell you is not that America is evil , but every single country is evil , atheism is a political tool to deceive , out world is a network of secret society working to serve hell , conflict are program to catalyze change , if you knew how real what I tell you is you would try to contact me .
As someone with some libertarian beliefs this video was spot on, there are many limitations with pure libertarianism that are simply ignored or denied and I find that weird, just like any ideology that doesn't accept change.
Very interesting video, as usual. One small critique: I found it more difficult in this video than previous ones to distinguish when the speaker was quoting someone rather than speaking for himself. Various cues like noticeably changing the speaker's cadence, putting quoted text on screen, inserting more "he wrote" and "he said" into the script, or literally having more speakers might help.
Doesn't really matter cause this guy is just a globalist shill anyway
This is the level of the comment-section I expect at this channel, given the apparent intellectual capacity of the author of all these videos. Thank you, @marinredhelm, for keeping us all honest. It's easy to get carried away when everyone is singing in the same choir.
Also jumping from google to post ww2.. sorry not soorry, but wtf
you have to accept that english is not his first language but that being said i have no problem understanding him.
@@miketaylor5212 The point is not that he cannot be understood.
The arguments from russian propaganda that the US and the EU would "cancel" russias greates composers, philosophers, thinkers and so on, is just perplexing to the point of it being absolut nonesense. If a Tschaikowsky or Dostoevsky would be alive today, they'd be imprisoned by the current russian goverment 5 times over.
What they are saying is just so bizare i dont know what to say anymore. Completely lost touch with reality.
@@banger2998 Modern Russian propaganda is very deliberately inconsistent. They try to make you question logic itself. Gaslighting of the highest order.
It's just simple fearmongering.
Wasn’t Dostoevsky exiled to do hard labour in Siberia for 4-5 years and escaped a death sentence last second? He was cancelled by Russia even back than lol
Tchaikovsky was gay, and I'm sure that modern day Russia is absolutely a GREATER place to live for gay people than the USA or Western Europe, LOL.
After McDonald's pulled out of Russia, it's fate was sealed.
@@mikeleo17 62,000 employees will
@@mikeleo17 But what a life it is??? Sad life.
Nope 👎 Russia will prevail failure isn’t an option for Putin. Although no McDonald’s does kinda kill moral.
@@quinntinmann lol putin is dying
Agreed with most of his analysis, but Snowden’s revelations are important in slowing momentum toward centralization of power, which is the thesis of Taleb’s essay. He’s literally only in Russia because he doesn’t want to go to jail for the rest of his life. It wasn’t part of his plan. It’s important to realize intelligent people are not omniscient and intelligent points of view can be largely right while containing errors/bad takes.
This
OP was reaching when mentioning how Snowden is in Russia
Omnipotent? Surely you meant _omniscient_ there...
@@sinoroman Wait. Was he criticizing Snowden?
@@joboring8397 Yes, it was pretty direct as well, don't know how you missed it.
I hope Russia realizes no one in Europe wants to invade it. They have nukes, they are huge and unconquerable, the doctrine of securing strategic gaps in the west is outdated, this isn't the 1800s, we are peaceful (in Europe at least), territorial conquest is no longer a wish of the nations. If Russia acknowledges this, they can instead focus on internal developement, a country so huge, with so much arable land, water and natural resources can become incredible, but instead it remains a petrolstate run by organized crime.
A rich and developed Russia doesn't have to be democratic or Western aligned, it can be an alternative to the West and attract its former sphere of influence by leading by example, by having something else other than bombs, corruption and blood to offer,
But they don't, Russian gdp is smaller than Italy's, they don't have finances to help your country build infrastructure or invest in your economy to lift you up.
They don't have technological edge, they sure used to up to the 80s, but top tier electronics, medicine and machinery are found elsewhere, even their military relies on western parts for optics and targeting systems that don't have a 20 years gap.
Most importantly they treat "allies" like shit, Eastern Europe remembers the massacres in Prague and Budapest, the Holodomor, even now there's protests in deep Russia for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities in the army, which also represent most of the men drafted for the war, they are sending little actual Russians, instead treating their "fellow (second class) citizens" as cannon fodder.
Remember that nato does not compel anyone to join, countries apply on their own and I don't blame eastern Europe for doing so, Russia pushed those countries right into nato by making them vassal states and having zero regard for their national integrity.
You want eastern Europe back? Give them a reason to come back that isn't "otherwise I'll nuke you" or "because west is gay libtard lol".
If Russia lost this insane obsessive "everyone wants to invade me" complex, they could become a valid alternative.
Nobody wants to invade America either but If Russia or China form a military alliance with Canada or Mexico than America won’t even wait a day to invade Canada and Mexico and topple their government. So use your brain if you have one in your head.
Thats why the justification for the invasion of ensuring national security is obviously cap. Their security is 100% guaranteed by their geography and nuclear arsenal already and the fact that their adversaries are democracies with people who dont want to blow up.
Well said my friend, as a westerner I would welcome such healthy and peaceful competition, competition breeds innovation
Eventually I think this will happen. It just takes time this whole NATO expansion has been a threat to Russia and prevents the self development of Russia. Once NATO ends it expansion and rolls back to the 1990 borders then I can the development of better infrastructure and tech. I can also see Russia gaining its sphere of influence back via trade.
Even if Russia didnt have nukes, still no one is interested in invading it. The Catherine border defense theory for Russia is pathetically archaic and has no place in the 21st century.
18:09 you mention Singapore, but Singapore is actually a really bad example. Singapore is not a functional democracy; Singapore has been a one party dictatorship since close to its founding, with a ruling party which games their system so other parties exist on paper but are prevented from coming to power in any substantive way. Singapore is possibly the only highly functional dictatorship in the world. If you look at how Singapore is run, it is *highly* centralized, and does not function as an anti-fragile decentralized system. It just happens to make mostly well informed and wise decisions. It is truly an outlier. Singapore is the Apple Computer of dictatorships. Apple is highly centralized and does not operate in the way more open platforms operate, but it keeps winning because it makes good decisions in spite of being highly centralized.
Yet it isn't really considered to be a dictatorship. It's officially classified as a "flawed democracy" and is on the lower end of that particular ranking. Dictatorship is more than just not being able to vote for different parties. It also includes universal values, civil liberties, and constitutional protections.
Have international observers ever found fault with the conduct of Singapore's elections?
Singapore is a city-state. It's no more centralised than other cities. Also look around, many cities around the world have had the same government for decades.
Or look at Germany: the government of state of Bavaria has been dominated by a single party (CSU) since the founding of the Bonn Republic in the 1940s. Does that make Bavaria a dictatorship?
(You are right, that Singapore has some weird election rules. First-past-the-post makes it hard for small parties to win seats. A proportional system like they have in eg Bavaria would make that easier. But many countries around the world like UK or US have first-past-the-past and are still democracies.)
The rules in Singapore don't so much favour the PAP as they favour the incumbent. I am worried about what might happen if either the PAP slides further into incompetence, or a less competent party gets elected.
Also, full disclosure: as far as I can tell the least competent policies that Singapore has are those where the PAP listens to the population instead of doing The Right Thing. Eg migration is not as free as economic orthodoxy would suggest. There's also other areas where policy is better than much of public opinion. (You see the latter in many countries around the globe.)
Singapore really is a bizarre case study. I think it really gets away with as much as it does b/c it's effectively a city-state that's maintained high, Western level standards of living. really impressive that it's pulled that off but a stupidly hard model to replicate anywhere else.
this is the western learned ignorance. dictatorships don't work for them. its not a system where you can easily manipulate system using financial means. dictatorships can be successful at least some version of semi dictatorships with some balances. most important is rule of law. we need more experimentation with governing and not to stick religiously to some ideas.
@@tylerbozinovski427 in Singapore can you get arrested or otherwise penalized for embarrassing the ruling party or leader, or otherwise saying things that those in power do not approve of?
To Snowden's defense, he didn't choose Russia - his passport was cancelled while he was on the flight from Hong Kong to Moscow. After landing, he couldn't continue his route to Ecuador because the passport was invalid. He had to live in the airport terminal for over a month, before getting an asylum in Russia. Disclaimer: I work for Google; this comment is my personal opinion.
how is this an opinnion
What was the opinion?
Bots are evolving lmao
Yes, the comment was part of an essay he quoted.
I wonder why they gave asylum to someone working against the usa lol.
Russian history in a statement: "and then it got worse."
lol. So sad and true.
So Russia has permanent Murphey infestation "If it can go wrong, it will."
Can’t catch a break can they?
May this history end once and for all one day.
16:37 Ah yes, Russian cultural masterpieces- and who can forget Tolstoy's classic 'Special military operation and Peace'?
Heh. Well put. That really sums it up in one sentence.
A guy was arrested in Russia for "discrediting the Russian army" after he stood next to a monument with the book "War and Peace". This is how absurd Russia is.
We can accept legacy of Roman Empire without allowing Roman Empire returning to power.
i dont quite understand how whistleblowers are a bad thing according to taleb.
could you eventually make a follow up discussion on that?
how are we supposed to improve our systems if we cant know their problems?
I don't think that it was being a whistle blower that was the issue but the use of his name and likeness in such a way that promoted Russia. It was mainly the hypocrisy of reporting on a state for conducting unjust surveillance on its people in the name of freedom, then fleeing to a noted unfree dictatorial state.
If he reported and fled to Switzerland or a neutral nation and became an advocate for freedom and not promoted any dictatorial state there would be no issue.
his issue is that, as he sees it, snowden and assange are not mere whistleblowers, but pro-russian agitators who use the info they leak to create specific outcomes. there's a case to be made that both of them have been somewhat selective in what they release, when, and to who, in such a way that it makes the west look bad while concealing things which would make russia look bad. assange in particular seems like he may have withheld leaks about russian sins while highlighting leaks about american ones, etc. - i am not stating anything decisively either way as i have not looked deeply into this, but that would be why.
I can understand the point about hypocrisy: shouting about the lack of transparency of the US government while sheltering in Russia, but yeah, it's overall a very strange point amidst the broader context of self-correction of systems. It's impossible to correct a problem you don't know about.
It isn’t that the whistleblowers are bad, it’s that they then seek friendship with those who go against even what they are saying, and keep quiet about that in order to keep that friendship.
Take Snowden for example, since this is what was talked about in the video. He uncovered and showed the world how the US gov spies on everyone, and says how wrong they are in doing so. While at the same time, he got refuge in Russia, who is notorious for implementing such spying tactics on their own people, but says nothing against Russia since they protect him from the US. Thus, since he says nothing against Russia, and is friends with them, he either knowingly or not, helps Russian propaganda.
Think of it as those people being hypocrites, where their morals only apply when it is in their own self interest.
I don't believe he is saying that whistleblowers are bad, but that Snowden is a hypocrite.
As a Russian i do understand the benefits of decentralization, but the devision of the Russian Federation would bring a lot of new wars, and I can't stand such a scenario. The Russian Federation is a federation already, and it was way more decetralized just two decades ago. We just need to reform the institutions back
Yes. As a “russophile” at heart, it is a great pain for me to watch the state the russian culturosphere is. Had russia kept its trajectory of late 90s and early 00s, by now you guys would be an economic superpower with all the post-soviets dying to be in closer ties with Moscow.
I agree that the best solution for Russia would be a decentralized, democratic state within its internationally recognized borders. The main problem is the lack of democracy, e.g. balance of powers, checks and balances, independent courts, independent media, NGOs/civil society, and of course human rights and especially minority rights.
right, Russia has many republics within, each with different set of circumstances. Russia is doing ok
@@sinoroman more like keeping the peasants in line....
@@sinoroman The republics are largely powerless, except for Chechnya (which is basically a direct vassal of Putin). Over the past decade, their powers have been gradually stripped, all the way down to the title of the head of state (Only Tartarstan has stubbornly kept it's head as a "President")
A thought presented in this video that caught my attention: Russia's survival is based on the oppression of the individual.
This does help to explain why Russia as a country, with it's size and all of it's natural resources, is still a third world economy trying to survive in the 21st century.
it's Monopolism - a societal system that benefits a few at the cost of the rest.
The kicker? Every individual (by our very nature of being living things) is personally incentivized (survival of the fittest individual by any means available) for his own evolutionary advantage to achieve a monopoly for himself.
Further - Monopolies rely on the force monopolies (government) rule enforcing mechanic to exist at all in an otherwise competitive landscape.
Monopolies are a societal disease, just like cancer is a multicellular organism disease.
@@joansparky4439 There is a force within us that is selfish yes, but there is also another force that believes in a 'greater good' that puts the survival and wellbeing of the tribe or family over oneself.
@@gothicfan52
I know. I have that in me too. Otherwise I wouldn't comment here, but rather use this knowledge to get ahead of the pack (at the cost of everybody around me).
My point is that different people have different amounts of good/bad in them (random mutation for the species to be able to adjust to changing environments).
The ones who have no sense for the greater good (say for example Trump) is what we label narcissist, psychopath, sociopath.. ruthlessness, greediness are their features among others.
The complete opposite are people who would give their life if they somehow can rescue a stranger for whatever reason (say for example Ghandi maybe?). Empathy, generousness, kindness are their features..
If you take those as the extremes.. then there is a full spectrum between them.
Good so far?
Human society contains the whole spectrum.
For society to function there needs to be rules that need to be enforced, so that the 'bad' people (or just bad behavior) is being punished and suppressed (i.e. loses its evolutionary advantage). Due to specialization we become specialists and loose our universality.. in the wild we have to watch our back ourselves and our stuff and defend it against other universalists. All good there. It's just how nature, how life functions.
But societies require specialists.. so there is work sharing. Ruthless, greedy behavior is bad for societies. It's unsustainable.
This is why we got rules against such behavior and punish it. This is why societies have rule enforcing mechanisms/frameworks.
And this is the point I'm trying to make - *those rule enforcing mechanisms can also enforce rules that benefit a few at the cost of the rest.*
Now guess what ruthless, greedy individuals will do when they encounter such a rule.. or even work on establishing them?
Ever heard of Adam Smith?
This is what he wrote 250 years ago in his Wealth of Nations:
_"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_
&
_"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_
He limited it to business people, but in reality we all have it in us (some more, some less).
This is why the left, why socialism ultimately is futile.. it's not recognizing the core issue. It's 'othering' the few who due to their genetic makeup are more bad than good, but they do not solve the problem. They don't recognize the problem. They recognize the symptom.
You want to know how these things work today?
I suggest 'The Myth of Capitalism' by Tepper and Hearn (2019).
PS: sorry for the long reply.
Russia is not third world economy. It's not even in the top ten.
How does the heart of the former Soviet Union become a country that allied with neither the USA nor the Soviet Union?
Good Times, a bit of constructive criticism: I feel your videos do not indicate clearly enough when you're reading a quote and when you're speaking yourself. Could there be some indicator on-screen so I don't have to pay attention so intently when a quote starts and ends?
Russian here. Very painfull but important video/text for us to reflect on.
In my opinion - I do not think that russian regions in Siberia or Far east will seced. Historicly they wanted more autonomy, yes, but there never was a serious pro-indepence movement. Plus the threat of China is near by.
Muslim region in Caucuses can leave, and I think they will.
Tatarstan, Bashikia, Saha - those national republics are inside of Russiam borders and up to 40% of populaton is russian, so any real secession will be painful.
What we do need as air - real federalization including location of many state organizations. Like each region should have their own police, instead of repressive federal monster we have.
Аминь, брат, аминь. Сам пытаюсь местным эту мысль донести. Я бы ,правда, добавил, что даже не все регионы Кавказа хотят отделения- во время Чеченских Войн они не поддержали Чечню, ни Дагестан, ни Ингушетия. Не уверен даже, что самой Чечне будет полезна независимость-там нет природных ресурсов или промышленности, чтобы она сама себя поддерживала. Им выгоднее было бы остаться частью реформированной, настоящей Федерации. Но даже так, реально сепаратизм есть только в Чечне-нигде больше.
@@fatamorgana985 честно, ХЗ. Я механистически сужу. Русских в нац.республиках Кавказа мало, у них своя культура, язык, религия. По этим параметрам, они спокойно могут быть независимыми от РФ, как например Азербайджан, Армения, Грузия. Будут ли они богаче по отдельности, чем внутри РФ? Не могу знать. Но объективно современная Российская власть экономический рост этим республикам не обеспечивает...
Federal monster boo hoo cant you see this channel is lying you my guy. A centrlized police universal force is much better than a devided police, its much better at cooperation, in the us one police unit mighr not have jurisdiction over an area and even if he can vatch a criminal he will have to release him because its not in his jurisdiction which is dumb.
@@Silver_Prussian it is not dumb. US is what it is called - a UNION of STATES. Each State is self-govern and have all major insitutions, while Federal government is responsible all nation tasks, like defence and etc. Can you imagine Trump or Biden focusing their time on garbage dumpsters problem somewhere in Texas? No! It is a responsability of Taxes government. Meanwhile in Russia we couldn't solve Moscow Oblast garbage problem, until Putin was called in. President of a country! Solving garbage problem in specific region! What a shame and a joke. We need decentralization as air, so oblast governments, and local governemnt had power and resources to solve there issues without asking federal center.
What you see as a weakness (like different jurisdiction in different US states) is in reality US's greatests strength. US is historically the most stable democracy there were.
@@chatnoir1224 comoarinh the use and russia is like comparing night and day and thw problem in moscow oblast may have been to the inability of the local government to resolve the problem and the president after all is in moscow moscow is the major city do ofcourse he himself will oversee some project that just how it is but if for examole vladivostok had a garbage problem putin wont go all the way to vladivostok to solve it himself he will ofcourse leave it to the local authorities.
In every countey centralised or not there is local governmemt which takes its own decisions.
However having diffrent laws for every different state especialy in russia would make thing just increadably complicated, but sure lets go with it lets say all of your 8 districts have autonomy lets not forget the republics in those districts.
Here are the genral problems of a dezentealised system
Typically, though, performance and accountability of sub-national or local governments are constrained by a number of factors: limited resources, weak institutional capacity, inadequate mechanisms of accounting and accountability, and limited availability of information.
You will get problems like in the us where one state weed is ok in another one you get months in prison, different trafuc rules, different laws some of which are pretty stupid in wisconsin there is law that forbids horses from eating fire hydrents. wtf ? Or the stupid gun laws of california. Like what in texas i can wear a f*cking power armour from a fallout game but in california i cant wear even a kolibri pistol fron self protection ?
Like i know that not everything should be directly answearing to the government. Sure you can give me germany for example but its not like they dont habe to deal with sh*t either nad lets not forget the issue of separatism there in the face of baveria or like in canada in the face of quabec.
While he does provide some interesting analysis and makes some good points, I am amused that Taleb as usual was unable to write an essay where he could not stop himself from 1) shilling his old book and 2) calling someone he disagrees with an idiot.
Do bring in more commentators and essayists in the future though.
Hear hear!
the collapse of russia would be like the yugoslav civil war times 10 and gone nuclear
Absolutely. It is too dangerous, and actually, not really neccesary for reforms. Federalisation- true one, not Putin fake one's, yes. Not falling apart.
@@fatamorgana985 a balkanised russia would also not result in many wealthy westernised democratic nations, but in just more Chinese puppet states to exploit ans colonise like Central Asia. It doesn't make much sense for a country like yakutsk to be independent, they have a low population, are poor and are resource rich, perfect target for neo colonialism
Poland, Nordic Nations, Baltic nations, Czechs, Romania, Moldova, and Georgia: "if Russia is Erased, we be fine with this"
@@asscheeks3212 lmao those nations would be the most affected, imagine million of russian refugees crossing the borders
@@asscheeks3212 I'm from one of those countries and it's true that some people think that, but if a neighboring giant country of 150 million people with nuclear weapons collapsed into some new Somalia or new Libya, I don't think the ensuing chaos and refugee wave would bring something good. It would be the same threat as Russia in its current form.
Russian here. We have a lot of talks about this topic in particular right now. The general perspective is that, for the longest time, the people and the state were largely separated. Even the people, that support the government, agree, that you can't generally rely on the government's apparatus for most things, and that it brings significantly more problems than benefits, which was obvious even after the Soviet union collapsed. Decentralization is 100% necessary, but whether or not it has to be accompanied by territories leaving the federation - is a big question. We'll have to wait and see.
Peace to everyone, and, as they say nowadays - Svoboda Rossii, Slava Ukraini, Zhive Belarus
Thanks for your thoughtful consideration of this video. It’s good to hear authentic Russian voices (as opposed to bots).
Thats interesting to hear that this topic is being discussed or considered by Russians. If the far east territories were no longer under at least some form of central control they would be pounced upon by China, negating any benefits of self rule in the first place.
This was a surprisingly deeply informative take. Much appreciated
"There is no centralization of power in the west"
The american president is litterally called "the most powerful man in the world". The West is simply the american sphere as all western countries organize themselves in a manner that is similar to the united states. And throught NATO they have to align their foreign and defence policy with that of the US.
The orientation of western countries is liberalism and america is seen as not only its birthplace but also its heart and center.
@Miniature Jayhawk Last 6 months it was more obvious than ever! EU basically became a shoe scraper for USA...
Yeah nah. You're confusing soft power with hard power, or leadership with autocracy.
The POTUS is "the most powerful man in the world" because the US has a huge army, but even with said huge army, it can't force its allies to take actions they don't want (see Canada, France, Germany etc. refusing to join the 2003 invasion of Irak, or Trump failing to get some NATO allies to increase their military spending).
Now imagine Siberia telling Putin the Ukraine invasion is stupid and wants no part of it.
Also, the US can't really be described as the west's liberal heart and center, since at least the previous 6 years. The recent removal of protections for abortion rights kind of proves that.
Not to mention that the EU went the complete opposite direction, declaring the access to abortion a human right.
Tl;dr There is no equivalence between the west and russia when it comes to centralization of power.
Not a fan of Russia by any stretch, but this whole video seems a little contrived. I don't think any Russian would accept the balkanization of their country as a good thing
The Russian does not have to accept this, no one will ask him for his opinion, it can happen from the bottom up.
we won't. There is no internal conflict like it was in Yugoslavia. Demand for real federalization - YES. Balkanization - nope.
@@kubabadach8581 Russia lacks a civil society and its populace has minimal agency. Any collapse would involve local strongmen/governors of oblasts (i.e. Kadyrov esque figures) pulling away away from the Kremlin to safeguard their own interests and territories. Add 6K nuclear warheads and carbon reserves, which would naturally involve foreign elements/interference. It would be like China’s 1920s warlord period on a bigger scale with WMDs.
I dislike the Russian system immensely but in no way would a balkanization of that country be peaceful or conducive towards global peace. This whole video is at best wishful and/or deluded thinking. Best bet is to wait for Putin to commit suicide with two bullets to back of the head and empower Navalny figures and the Russian opposition.
@@kubabadach8581 it has a name! don't be shy
@@makcmakc4466 Revolution? so close to the Russians.
Let's not be hasty in hoping a bright future and look at history, a broken Russia often did not mean happy little liberal republics, but power vacuums in which warlords and tyrants rose to unify Russia.
10:50 "The Anglo-Phoenician world of mercantile cosmopolitanism"
Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out that Europe's rebirth after the collapse of Rome, came through trade with Byzantium.
Constantinople thrived after the fall of Rome.
Byzantine trading outposts were established at Bari Amalfi and Venice.
Maintaining the mechanisms of banking, insurance and bills of exchange
Genoa and Pisa also developed along the same lines.
…and Byzantium imploded when Rome refused to come to its defense.
@@mavigogun Byzantium collapsed because they had a weak, chaotic autocratic administrative mechanism constantly killing its leaders, leading to careful, ineffective military action because every administration had to keep a weapon pointed at its courtiers and generals as much as they pointed one at the enemy of the state.
The Catholic world could have come to Eastern defense and Byzantium would still have fallen.
This is due to Taleb being part of the pre-war Lebanese upper class and he has shown ample proclivity towards inserting "Phoenican", as in Levantine culture in anything he thinks of as good.
You need to screw your lens out of focus to see such a thing as 'anglo-phoenician merchantile cosmppolitanism'. Better focus on the details and particular men to see what it was.
Mono syphillus multi syphillus how about NO SYPHILLUS USE A CONDOM IT DONT GOTTA BURN WHEN U PEE
I don't really understand how a country breaking up and then devolving into regional feuds and being influenced by external foreign influences is somehow better for the people? By your logic a country like Iraq would have been a success story, because you overthrew the dictator and people "have more freedom". People are too quick to put their own assumptions on geopolitics when they don't really understand what the consequences of their actions.
federalism is not breaking up, SO THEY DONT DEVELOPE regional feuds in the first place. You got it all wrong
@@qefewfwdcwdc his argument was not federalism he literally stated a Siberian republic and a Krasnodar republic would be good things. he is not calling for a Federal Republic of Russia. he wants Russia as a entity gone. replaced with ethnic republics and a Revangist Muscovy that would bring about a new Russian Hitler.
12:21 Just because the West is already "transparent" and "decentralized" does not mean that it couldn't be even more so and that there aren't any flaws with the current system. Moscow offered Snowden asylum because by exposing the American government's violations of privacy, he discredited it to an extent, and any "attack" against it indirectly benefits Russia's image. But that's far from meaning that Snowden works for Moscow, he did what he had to do by exposing how the American govenrment, the supposed epitome of a democratic system, abuses its citizens' trust and spies on them. Point is, the West, while being better of a system than its Russian counterpart, has more than its fair share of flaws and refusing to acknowledge those by blindly believing that any criticism of it must be done by Russian sympathizers, you fall victim to the same propaganda most Russians have fallen victim to and end up going along with anything your govenrment says without ever questioning anything. I'm honestly disappointed you'd go to the extent of flat out calling libertarians "idiots" for being critical of a system, thought you better than this.
Yeah that whole section got rather rediculous and sounds far more like that view of a Russian propagandist (in outlook rather than alignment) rather than someone who likes the open western system.
İt's not surprising, every one have his flaws after all and this channel s flaw is this
@@ErichZornerzfun Exactly
"... disappointed you'd go to the extent of flat out calling libertarians "idiots"" The video explains Taleb's ideas. Should we assume, though, that you identify as a libertarian?
Lets be clear that this video is presenting not the channels views but rather highlighting someone else's opinion piece. Which is to say they likely agree with most of it, enough to highlight it, but not necessarily all of it.
5:35
If Rus' was _Kievan_ , than it's more like Russia was a part of proto-Ukraine, rather than Ukraine having been a part of proto-Russia.
It's called the Kievian Rus for a reason, not Moscowian Rus.
I agree.
The Kievan Rus was founded by the descendants of Rurik who invaded from modern day Novgorod making the Kievan Rus Russian and Ukrainian(although the Ukrainians did not exist until the mongol conquest split the Rus
Byzantine was proto-Turkey, rather than proto-Greece. Omg why you always have to write such a cringe...
@@Ragulenschaft what people mistakenly call Byzantium was in fact the eastern Roman Empire. They spoke Greek. It was proto modern Greece.
It wasn’t until the disaster of 1453 that you could call it proto Turkey.
@@TesterAnimal1 did you read the main comment by misha finadorin? I wrote such a meanless thing just as he did.
The complete collapse of Russia would be a crisis in its own. While I support Ukraine, I'm certain Russia deserves to be treated the same way Germany was after ww2, but not collapse entirely.
russia does not deserve to exist
Russia is very different compared to Germany, it definitely wouldn't work as well as you think it could.
@@PavltheRobot i feel you and the guy who made the video.. but only time will tell if that is the case...
So all ethnic Russians should be deported onto motherland?
@@nikoladoctorov553 - not really. The Russian Federation includes 22 independent Republics- well, until recent “reforms” by Putin stripped away local powers, and imposed Russ chauvinism. The Empire is a relic of another era that has grown too weak from corruption to survive internal challenges. It “deserves” nothing more than than the mess it has made of itself- and the people of those Republics and Oblasts deserve better.
The problem is, those "resource-rich" Siberian republics would probably immediately be locked into Beijing's sphere of influence...
Yes. Speaking as a westerner, it is far more to our benefit that Russia keeps Siberia than that it fall into Beijing’s orbit.
I disagree that Russia needs to be dismantled as a geographic territory - the state apparatus can be dismantled while keeping the borders intact. A more federal (that is to say, decentralised) federation could be maintained while overall unity is likewise kept. A change in the equation rather than it’s erasure. If the US benefits from its unity, why doesn’t Russia? Not because of its size, or even its disunity in overall world view, but because the nature of the state doesn’t allow for a suitable degree of autonomy right the way through. Its integrity as a territory, however, is exceedingly beneficial for all of its inhabitants. They have far more bargaining power as a single state than as fractious little republics
who would be absorbed into their neighbours spheres of influence.
None of this is simple & China is a whole another can of (imperialistic) worms ^^
@@geno9788 so what, seriously what is so bad about that?
Honestly I’d be pretty happy with an independent Siberia. China will become the place where the world is centred around in the next 10 years.
@@oo--7714 China in a repressive foreign power which is currently welding peoples doors shut and slaughtering Uighurs en masse. They are evil and we need to divide them up and ensure their perverse ideology dies with them.
@@oo--7714 You don't pay attention to the history of geopolitics much, huh? Nobody has fought China as much in the past 70 years than Russia. They have kept each other in check for almost a century. "What's so bad about that?". Well, it would destroy nearly a century's worth of checks and balances by destroying the power balance in the east. Siberia would change hands, Mongolia would no longer be protected, the Pacific would become another dual-naval arena rather than the trio that currently vies for it. How can you hear of the collapse of an entire balance that would subject many to uncertain geopolitical fates, and not see what is bad about that? Is it a lack of knowledge, or sympathy? Are you the kind of person that just enjoys seeing the world burn?
Russia used to be a patchwork of principalities before being ravaged by the Mongol invasions. Russia can exist as a vibrant and prosperous society even without the hegemony of Moscow.
Not Russia but Rus. The state od russia not exist before mongol inwasion.
In the old chronicles the names of the rulers of Kievan Rus "Vladimir" are written as "Volodimer" which is more akin to the Ukrainian name "Volodymyr" than to the Russian "Vladimir". The name Vladimir was borrowed in the northern part of Rus from the Bulgarians. The Old East Slavic language showed a greater resemblance to the Ukrainian language. Besides, Kievan Rus used a coat of arms similar to the coat of arms of Ukraine.
@@slonskipieron
1.Have you heard that languages can evolve and change? For example, the Old East Slavic language is very different from Ukrainian and Russian, since Ukrainian changed under the influence of the Polish language, and Russian under the influence of many reforms.
2. The modern coat of arms of Ukraine is a converted coat of arms of the Rurik dynasty, which was preserved in the flag of the first capital of Rus - the city of Staraya Ladoga
3. Kyiv was the third capital of Rus, after Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod.
4. Most of Rus is modern Russia.
While Taleb makes some good points, he's basically just rewording a well-worn argument for federalism and presenting it as his original theorem.
Even taking that as true, he adds examples and analysis, generalizing from such a wide variety of domains that he creates a new synthesis. His starting point of financial derivatives are well outside anything you could call federalism. While it would be ridiculous to to call his examples of the body’s fragility-handling of small repeated stress vs large infrequent stress-derivative of federalism.
@@MrOlivm It's analgous to federalism because the key political advantages of federalism are anti-fragility, decentralization, and redundancy which can be abstracted to other realms such as economic and strategic stability as well.
Yeah, it's not exactly a new, groundbreaking view of things. The US has been using and refining a federal system for 240 years, basing the modern federal system off of medieval and classic civilizations. The federal system has roots as far back as the (extremely dysfunctional) Holy Roman Empire and even the Roman Empire's model of provincial governance. Decentralized, multi-ethnic societies are nothing new. Taleb basically just restated the reasons why the system is so successful and has stuck around. The Roman Empire was so dependent on internal trade lines that the loss of just a few provinces doomed the entire system. Rome itself was fed with grain from Egypt, olives for oil came from Iberia, wood from the Balkans and technology from Greece. The parallels between the modern global economic system and the Roman empire are pretty striking when it comes to supply chains. Near-industrial level of production, mining and farming too. the debasement of the Denarii is effectively modern Inflation and money printing. In so many ways, we're using a system that is roughly 2000 years old. Can we really call our modern system a 20th century creation (ie the Liberal Economic World Order) or is it just a revitalized version of an ancient system?
@@Lusa_Iceheart The economics are ancient, the importance placed on individual liberty is modern, though it predates the 20th, with it's philosophical basis originating in the Renaissance and popularized in the Enlightment - with the American and French revolutions being particularly prominent.
@@Lusa_Iceheart rome survived on expansion not internal trade that's why when it couldn't expand it started collapsing
You go a bit too far with praising federalism. The German example is a good one. Germany is not only a Federation but also a unified state. The Netherlands is a decentralised unity state. These are points on a spectrum between central and federal. The key question is: for what type of decision is which option more useful?
Profound arguments you make, I have been keeping track of the political situation in Russia for a while (since ~2014), and your conclusions are pretty sensible.
Keep up with a good work, my polish friend! 🇺🇦❤️🇵🇱
How do i know thats true and if your really polish?
Thanks
Snowden is good though, we need people like him and Assange if we don't want to slide into autocracy and authoritarianism. The idea that people shouldn't expose sketchy stuff done by western governments is dangerous because if we allow them to get away with stuff like that, eventually they won't be any better than autocracies.
Yes, and I think it is a fundamental failure to understand the western values.
I'm glad you touched on Germany, a nation that had to rebuild itself after not one, but two world wars and did so very, very quickly. This more recent occurrence, via it's economy rather than military power. As a result, Germany has become a powerhouse within the EU, to the extent that some are even afraid Germany may "federalize" the EU and become it's head of state, all without firing a shot this time around. 😆
In a sense, the major world powers sit at a boardgame and there are rules. Nations like the US and Germany understand these rules very well. China seems to understand them. Russia on the other hand, has demonstrated the opposite and has shown a regression to the point of breaking the rules and heaping consequences on itself, wondering why. They broke one of the most important unwritten rules: *don't directly attack a nation with a substantial voice.* Indeed, maybe they believed Ukraine didn't have such a voice but if so, they've severely miscalculated.
Right now Germany isn't representing the sentiments of the rest of the EU toward defense, so that is unlikely. If it was a simple as buying everyone off, I doubt they could afford that either. They got themselves out of debt by leveraging their position in the EU, and they don't want to go backward.
I dont want to be ruled by Germany
Well when diplomacy broke and didnt seem to give any results the russians had no other option
@@Silver_Prussian they had the option to stay within their own borders and mind their own goddamned business, Ivan.
@@MrTaxiRob well the us has that option too but it appears it want to put itself very close to russian border hmm i wonder why ?
Let me ask you since the people of this channel are hypocritical what if cuba decided to join the csto ?
Yeah give yourself an answear to thsi questiin and you will get why the russians ae screaming about their own security.
Excellent video. The videos released by this channel never disappoint. This channel is outstanding!
Nationality is more defined and more fixed than any state.
If people want to protest against the war in Russia they can engage in passive resistance and still have a huge impact. If done at a low enough individual level it would be hard for the authorities to uncover. Let's start with the railroads: 1)They can stage silent strikes where workers don't show up for work or call in sick. If the workers rotate who will be sick it can be hard to detect. 2)They can also change bills of lading to misdirect shipments to the wrong area or they can ship it via a circuitous route which is inefficient. 3)They can sit on paperwork to slow shipments. 4)They can damage signaling and switching equipment. 5)They can delay safety inspections and refuse to let shipments move until they are complete. 6)They can manipulate shipping schedules and create traffic jams by scheduling multiple trains on the same piece of track at the same time. 7)They can delay the loading and offload of supplies. 8)They can schedule unnecessary repairs which delay shipments. 9)They can purposefully load the wrong supplies on the wrong trains. 10)They can under or overload trains. If overloaded the chance of accident and maintenance increases. If they intentionally underutilize shipments that can cause logistical problems too.
They can burn recruitment centers
In the (justifiably) paranoid atmosphere of the increasingly totalitarian Russian Federation, such actions will be reported by some co-worker or other busybody who has bought into the Kremlin propaganda. Much like the teachers who have been turned in by grade school and high school students for even suggesting that the war might be wrong. Also, damaging signaling and switching equipment has the potential of causing injuries to civilian rail passengers, as well as hampering the war machine.
@Roger Pennel
all this requires coordination, which is the Achilles heel of your plan
+ I was born in the GDR - you didn't know who worked for the government intelligence services and who didn't. Sometimes your family members were ratting you out to the authorities. Just look up that part of human history.
@@fordhouse8b - The majority of the Russian population is 35+ and aging while the number of men/women below that age are shrinking. If the Russians fully mobilize they will have to take men/women 35-50 which aren't prime candidates. If they take those experienced workers out of the workforce their logistics, infrastructure, and economy will die. However, if that population engages in passive resistance the state doesn't have the resources available to send them all to the GULAG without killing their economy and industry. So if the Russians can find the will they can stop the war and bring down the government.
@@rogerpennel1798 First, a small point, sabotaging railway switches is not passive resistance, it is active sabotage, with the clear potential for physically harming civilians. Second, this only works if more or less the entire population decides to do it en masse. In the pro-authoritarian and neo-Stalinist paranoid atmosphere of Russia, nobody fully trusts all their coworkers, or their entire circle of friends, and so they will be afraid to be the first one to stick their neck out and even broach the subject with them. And that is just the ones who actually oppose the war. Plenty of Russians are fully onboard with it. Also, if Putin and his cronies in the state security apparatus (not the oligarchs, who actually have very little political power) believe that the only way to stay in power is to take measures detrimental to the Russian economy, they will not hesitate to do so. The real obstacle to mobilizing is that a significant portion of reserve troops, and veterans (who already have some military training) are also a part of the security apparatus (police, FSB, other internal ‘security’ services), and that there simply is not enough effective military materiel to effectively equip an expanded military. They don’t even have enough modern military equipment to issue to their active military, let alone hastily assembled reserves and conscripts. If they haven’t properly maintained their active military vehicles, what are the chances that those thousands of tanks parked for years and decades in open fields across Siberia can be made operational before the war is already over? The Russian people will only rise up in opposition to the war if the feel that it becomes too costly, in terms of lives, to them. The oligarchs will only actively go against Putin if they sense a clear signal from state security organs that they are ready to move against Putin. I’m not holding my breath, but at the same time, if the war goes really sideways for Russia, I would not at all be shocked to wake up one day and hear that Putin has been deposed by some combination of the FSB and military elements. But its won't happen simply because the Russian people have some kind of moral objection to Putin's war against Ukraine, just like WWII did not end because the German people suddenly had second thoughts about Hitler and the Third Reich.
Really well-made video. The first time in a long time that I’ve been glued to the screen. Thanks for uploading!
The front against Libertarians came a) out of nowhere b) does them unjustice and c) is a bold thing to do after minutes earlier claiming that Adam Smith is a pillar of the western civilisation.
Adam Smith was not a libertarian. Libertarians are usually followers of the Austrian school of economics, which opposes classical political economy and neo-classicism. Sometimes they aren't even that but just vulgar Randians.
Cope and seethe lolbert
Glad to see a new update.
You state that Germany became rich, an industrial powerhouse, by being forced to embrace federalist, but you don't seem to agree that Russia could do the same, but that it must collapse, that it must break up? I want rid of Putin, I would like Russia to become less centralised, to become more federal, to push power down to the more local level, even if that level is at state (oblast/republic) level.
Whether that is even possible is debatable. I might agree that it would be in the benefit of the Russian people for it to split up, though again that is debatable, that those in power would never decentralise, but I think if the individual Oblasts and Republics seceeded from the Russian Federation I don't think it would be a benefit for most Russians.
The DR Congo/Venezuela are rich in resources but the people of that country aren't rich, they are just controlled by outside parties whilst their resources are exported to the highest bidder making some people rich, but not many, exactly what happened in Russia after the fall of communism and the same would happen again if this was repeated today.
shh, let the Polish have their wet dream
@@LancesArmorStriking Considering you and Germany carved Poland up and took all their territory I don't think you have the right to make any comment about the Poles right now, do you?!!! If I were you I'd just keep quiet!!!
@@mattpotter8725
Oh, I'm sorry, did that make you mad?
Tough shit, I'll say whatever I want.
And the _Poles,_ not the Russians, are the ones claiming to be Westernized and enlightened.
So if they start suggesting the same thing Russia is trying, they are just hypocrites.
Oh and the Polish government does have a plan to try and sow divisions within RF, so they're really already hypocrites.
Weren't postwar borders supposed to be sacred??
Well Germany did sort of break up it lost all it's lands east of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, was partitioned into two states with a divided capital, was forced to host foreign armies on it's soil and had to give up the Saar for about a decade.
@@LancesArmorStriking Not mad, and last time I looked Poland hadn't tried to invade a sovereign country, they've not shelled innocent civilians, not committed war crimes, and haven't annexed parts of another country by force. I might not particularly like the current Polish government but I'd take them 100 times over than Putin, and twice on Sundays!!!
Russia: doesn't want more directions from where to neutralize rockets
West: Russia bad
@@---nu4ed ehm, yeah, existential threat to be exact
It's nice and idealistic. But the reality of a Russian collapse would be much, much uglier. Moscow is unlikely to just stand by and let huge portions of their territory declare independence and leave, especially under Putin. This would lead to civil war and massive unrest in a nation of 150 million with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world. The bloodshed and violence would kill millions and inevitably ripple outwards and destabilize all of Russia's neighbors, effectively the entire Asian continent. Worse nations that depend on Russian grain and food exports would stop getting them entirely. The war in Ukraine has already had a destabilizing effect on dozens of countries because of this, a civil war in Russia would make the situation even worse.
Even in a scenario where Moscow is paralyzed, the kleptocratic elite of Russia and the commanders of military units are unlikely to respect New sovereign borders. Far more likely is that they embark on their own imperialistic quest which results in the same civil war and strife.
Then there is the issue of various warlords all winding up with potentially hundreds of nuclear weapons and zero federal oversight. The results of a nightmare scenario like that are terrible enough that it bears no further explanation.
The break up of Russia might be a good thing, and might help the Russian people, but I see no realistic peaceful transition to a breakup.
Lack of accountability, strong regional viceroys, nukes, and an immense stockpile of Soviet weaponry is a terrible combination.
This is the best video you've made. Peak GTBT.
Russia has to accept the concept of 'right to self determination' of the nations, and drop the false narrative of the 'expanding NATO'. People choose to go with the West(in Europe at least), and forced to go with Russia. No exception.
Last month, the Solomon islands decided to go with China and allow China to established bases in their land, but where threathened by US.
The West does not equate with US foreign policy.
@@simongraham2516 and It shouldn't. As the video said, the west dies not and cannot, for its own good, have a center
@@simongraham2516 china made a lot more enemies then the mere USA, there is Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan...etc... the list of enemies China made is endless and half of them aren't even allies with the USA, they just hate China period.
@@simongraham2516 chinafication of the pacific is not good. neither was japanification. (neither was germanification of europe, neither is russification of ukraine).
@@garygraham8373 I am 100% against Russifiation of Ukraine. Russia needs to withdraw immediately from all parts of Ukraine and let them choose.
I can say that and at the say time that US foreigh policy is disgusting and needs to be thrown out of Europe as well.
Utterly brilliant. Bravo.
Don't get me wrong. I do not support their invasion and (as a westerner) agree on most if not all of the things you say about the west. But I can't help by imagining a russian seeing this (maybe with vpn) as alternative media and basically saying to him the partition of your state is in your best interest. Last time it happened (Soviet Union) they had some terrible years
As a citizen of post Soviet republic can say you that your really right! West had a chance to show that the west system is better than soviet autocraty. But all those years during the 90's most of the people was in poverty. While the West prospered on the resources of the defeated Soviet Union. Ingeneers, medics, scintist! My family from capital of post Soviet country. There was geto around! Drug addicts and syringes in the hallways of many houses. When I was born, the family did not have money to buy baby food! My mother has 2 degrees. Grandfather is a former pilot and grandmother is an employee of the university. So, if someone want collapse, better start yourself.
@@YouTKir Poverty was common in 90s not only in former USSR but also in its previous sattelite states, and this was caused by bankrupt, not efficient socialist economy, broken supply chains and competitive goods of better quality from abroad. IT IS A MYTH that "strong tsar" and his mafia currently ruling Russia brought peace and prosperity, it is rather their luck due to growing economy all over the world, rising economic cycle, high raw material (oil, gas etc.) prices on the market and international investments. Note that Russia wastes its potential on narrow oligarch group who get profits in enormous scale and on military expenses. Few major cities exploit remaining regions and nations. This resembles a collonial system based on violence and terror.
It was for most states apart from Russia. The same thing would happen again if it separated again, with siberia being quite rich and the core being pretty poor.
@@salad7776 This.
The "While the West prospered on the resources of the defeated Soviet Union" is largely a myth; Russia's own oligarchs gobbled up the resources of the post-Soviet Russia.
Gradually delegating some power (but not all of it) to the existing Oblast governments would (probably) have most of benefits and few of the drawbacks of dividing Russia into several fully independent nations.
Very profound and thoughtful analysis. Thanks
As a Russian I can't agree to this video. Collapse of Putin's autocratic political system and federalization will be good for Russian, but collapse of the entire state will definitely not be. Suggested separation of Siberia republic will make its small population living like in OAE but fall majority of population in European part of the country into extreme poverty because current minimum standard living is supported by oil and gas revenues. Or separation of Kuban will cut off other regions from sea ports for example. Russian wide territory is an advantage and the problem is in the political system.
А жителей Сибири и Кубани кто-то спросил хотят ли они кормить остальных? Смотрите на регионы как на колонии конечно, "будут жить как в ОАЭ" - ух, как они посмели распоряжаться своими ресурсами самостоятельно?? Да и не стоит думать, что при "развале" все регионы вдруг разорвут отношения друг с другом, просто это будет происходить на равных условиях и скорее всего в условиях экономического и политического союза наподобие Евросоюза. Кубань не отрежет остальных от моря, также как и Германия не отрезает Чехию и Австрию от доступа к портам. И это уже будет равноценный союз, а не отношения метрополии с колониями, увы даже после смены режима власти в Москве будут все еще придерживаться колониальной политики, только полноценная деколонизация поможет справедливому и равноценному развитию всех 17 миллионов квадратных километров России. И это только экономические причины, а есть еще этнические: национальные меньшинства ущемляются, подавляется изучение языка, культуры, процветает расизм и ксенофобия. Зачем жить в одной стране с теми, кто не уважает твой язык и культуру, дискриминирует по внешности, акценту, религии?
@@nikolaia.9573 для этого достаточно федерализации, а не распада на отдельные государства с непредсказуемыми последствиями типо гражданских войн. А дальний восток станет просто колонией Китая, а не самостоятельным субъектом.
A brilliant analysis as I’ve come to expect from this channel. Though I’ll not hold my breath waiting to see Russia break up. Nice work dude
You talk a lot about federalism, only to advocate for a complete désintégration of the Russian state, surely your ideas would lead much more naturally to the concept of a more decentralized Russia than a collapsed one, wouldn't they?
There is also the problem with nukes, when the soviet union collapsed, there was great instability, and would be much worse if Russia collapsed into several states
It would definitely be then, a lot better to transform Russia into a Swiss style Confederation
I think the inevitable outcome of Russia is a system very similar to the US, where each Russian state has general autonomy with a central government setting foreign policy and general baselines of services offered by the government. I don't necessarily believe Russia will collapse and become 20 different countries though that is possible.
I think federation with more autonomy is way to go. A complete désintégration of Russia, that's a nighmare!
MY answer is YES!
An autocratic republic could thrive if the autocrat focused on running the state rather than outward territorial expansion
like singapore
I can agree with this, but also disagree since there are many examples that support the argument for both sides , an example that is for, would be gadafi’s Lydia before the wars ( despite him being a military man and having many wars with his African neighbors) life in Lybia was stable especially with the oil industry being so huge before the civil wars.
But an example that is against this would be Argentina: with its many autocrats the economy never got stable, in fact it always got worse because each of these autocrats never understood that Argentina was an export based economy and kept trying to promote domestic production and consumption. And they collapsed due to a failed military invasion (the Falkland war) which could be replicated in Russia.
So in my opinion I think that a nation can be stable and prospectus with a autocrat, if he/she understands the country they are ruling. Because if they don’t the they will continue to introduce many reforms that won’t help simply due to their misunderstanding of their countries situation.
A la North Korea
Really thought-provoking and clearly explained and analyzed Thank you!
Your criticism of Edward Snowden is very weak. It seems like your point is that he can't criticize the US whilst living in Russia, because Russia is even more authoritarian. This take makes no sense since Snowden has no option to move anywhere else without being extradited, has no option to get a fair trial and has consistently been critical of modern Russia.
keep coping hard are we? 🤪
Can someone explain me what is "true" democracy? USA is "democratic" but there is almost no difference in politics between both parties. Bush invades Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama invades Syria. Middle East is in western sphere of influence, so USA will continue their invasions no matter what party is now in power. Is it democratic? Or LGBT rights make the real difference? If I am an american and I want to stop wars on this planet, what party should I vote? There is no such party because geostrategic interestests of a country are on higher level than political system. So Meirscheimer is right and Talib is propaganda.
This video is clearly propaganda.
I agree with the sentiment. However, I beg to differ. The cultural diversity, size and low population density as well as historical trend do not necessarily doom Russia to permanent imperialism. Canada and USA are good examples for it (Canada is more akin to Russia in all points except history). When we are talking about the current regime, yes, it will crumble one day as it is not sustainable but the state isn't inherently doomed to reproduce this types of regimes. Moreover, the collapse of the state can cause civil wars, extreme poverty and other types of disasters including the use of nuclear weapons which wouldn't benefit anyone.
Doesn't care about what will begin in ruZZia after collapse this barbarian ugly piece of 6hit.
Слава Україні! Смерть ВАМ клятим, ворогам!
USA is the most imperialistic country on this planet, what are you talking about?
Canada and the USA are both very decentralized compared to Russia, though probably less than they should be. A lot of the recent issues facing the US are very "central" in nature. I think he's saying Russia could thrive under such a system, but cannot transition to it without fracturing because of the current regime's stranglehold on power. This seems perhaps a bit reactionary with regard to the disappointment that the collapse of the USSR didn't bring about better change, but at the same time it seems evidently to be the case.
I do agree that the prices will be painful, though I doubt they would nuke themselves in a civil war. The question is if the process is necessary. I.E. Is the alternative worse? Is the alternative WW3? Is it just to wallow in repression indefinately?
Of course maybe I'm wrong since I'm one of those "idiot" libertarians, lol. I agree with literally everything the guy said there, but somehow I'm an idiot. I think he constructed his view of libertarians from the silly antics of the LP or reading reddit instead of reading actual libertarian thinkers. He seems to think we are ethnocentric anarchists.
Outstanding job with this channel, all video of extremely high quality!
Great material! I agree with most of the assertions in this video. Thank you 😌
Free Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and all the caucasus from Russian oppression!!
9:17 «look at the west, is there a center? No»
Hahahahh *U.S. laughed behind the curtains*
Very poor material with opinions rather than facts
Criticizing Snowden for operating from Russia when the only reason he is there is because the American government wants him dead or in prison is rather unfair, I think.
He is there because he is useful to the Russians.
"Look at the west. Is there a center? No. If there were one, moreover, it would be in Kyiv today"
Damn, I have not thought about it this way, but you hit the nail spot-on on the head.
Really good point.
I do disagree with a lot of your takes about Snowden etc however - state-based surveillance is not justifiable based on stability.
Washington is a center though. So, it's still semi-centralized.
@@the11382 But there is also London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo.
@@the11382 it is A centre, not THE centre. A big difference.
Russia without Moscow & Saint Petersburg is a Russia severely lacking leadership.
@@dasbubba841 none of those cities holds any influence. Washington DC is the poltical soul of the west while Los Angles is the cultural hub of the west and New York is the financial capital of the west. the United States of America is the heart and soul of the west without the U.S Pax Americana the west would cannabalize itself. whoever the U.S president does the rest of the world follows. its very laughable that London holds any cultural clout in America or Berlin. only Paris has romantic clout in the west. everyone in the west admires America while Americans look up to no one since they make the rules.
If it comes to this, I would urge geostrategists from creating the whole class of small landlocked states out of existing Russian regions. Being small and landlocked is a cruel fate to have in Eurasia. It would just humiliate people in those states further, incentivizing them to snap back into imperialism with obsession over strategic depth and relinquish authority to a figurative Tsar. Instead, I think it would be optimal to *group* the constituent regions into bigger federalized states according to their geography, economy, financial means, culture and geopolitical realities and prospects.
For example, Siberia and the Far East both have underinvested economy, terrible and high maintenance infrastructure, incredibly low population density and they are exposed to China, also not quite small Kazakhstan and Mongolia. It would be effectively a suicide for constituent oblasts, krais and republics to become independent and then be eventually be preyed upon or at best wallow in isolation (for landlocked regions). Even national republics like Buryatia and Tuva would prefer a genuinely federalist deal with Russians rather than be absorbed into Mongolia. So Siberia and Far East respectively need to stay grouped as two *separate* entities that will be able to have more or less equal footing with Kazakhstan and Mongolia, ally with them against China if need be.
Another example is in Russian South. Stavropol Krai would do anything to join Krasnodarsky Krai being surrounded by Muslim majority republics from the east and the south. The neighboring Republic of Kalmykia would also prefer a federalist deal with Russian majority regions than be left alone facing frankly unpredictable Muslim majority republics that may yet turn into warmongering caliphates in that scenario.
I believe the *rough* outline of this Russian commonwealth’s borders can be found in the existing map of Federal districts of Russia here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_districts_of_Russia. Of course, it might be altered to balance the power between these new states and reflect compromises struck by political actors as the described scenario unfolds.
If it comes to pass, the West shouldn’t sit dumbstruck or revel in vindication at the disintegration of Russia. No, post-WWII Germany was rebuilt and pacified by European Coal and Steel Community, ensuring Germans don’t go destitute and thus rogue again. Much in the similar vein, the new federal states should be supported financially and enticed by European integration and NATO accession, conditional on implementation of rule of law, transparent and democratic government, etc. Such projects will also be much easier if the West will have the new 7-10 federal states to deal with instead of the existing 85 vastly different and often purposely handicapped regions.
No it's not
Libertarians are right to call themselves "Libertarians". What they desire most strongly is Liberty, but liberty from what?
Liberty from reality. Liberty from causality. They are all basically subjectivists.
I love that you touched on Russia being stuck in another century in many ways. It's not even the 20th century, it's the 19th, maybe 18th century they're stuck in.
Definitely 18th, since Russia's size back then was more similar to today, and they were at war with their neighbours a lot more often.
Great video and amazing graphics!
Transition to *democracy* is in the interest of Russians. The smoother the better. Handling the nuclear arsenal of a disintegrated Russia would be a nightmare even from the perspective of NATO. After what happened to Ukraine, none of the new countries would want to handover their nukes.
After the '90s, the Russians have a very flawed understanding of democracy/ (free) capitalism as "oligarchs/ criminals running free, unlimited in their skullduggery by anything".
They had 10 years of experience of it, that they use as evidence of it being so.
It will be a long & hard process towards it... It will (hopefully) need to be done, but I don't expect it to go this easily.
It's likely a hybrid system would be better to start with (between the current system & a full liberal democracy, but I don't know what that would look like atm ^^
Maybe like Turkey? Who knows...
Democracy doesn’t work everywhere.
@@elektrotehnik94 well isn’t that what capitalism is? Oligarchs hold all the power and money and everyone else gets the scraps? That’s what most capitalists countries do anyways
@@elektrotehnik94 The process might be similar to what happened in Argentina in 1982. After loosing an unprovoked war for disputed territory, social contestation became unsustainable for the governing Junta; and a transition to democracy was the only way out. You could spot democratic gaps in any country in the world. But current-day Argentina is an advanced democracy, at least for South-American standards. So Russia might, in a near future, become and advanced democracy within Europe.
So there is still hope for Russians to be Russian in new Russia far from Russian ego
I remember in Soviet times, many Russians called their country “ a prison of nations”
Russia, definetely, inherited this title. Fall of Russia will allows tens of nationatilities to learn their own language, show the world their culture, and find their identity as a free nation.
You are lying nobody has ever siad such a thing and those little nation already enjoy a great amoint of autonomy. Also for many many reason they will not be able to exist alone its just facts.
@@Silver_Prussian Google, man) Lenin said that Russia is a prison of nations. Any examples of "enjoy a great amount of autonomy?' Chechnya? With a bandit/terrorist as a republic leader?
@@dshrp4694 lenin was an idiot who worshiped another idiot with abeard who created a dumb economic and social theory wich to this day is criticised and not used, he killed a russian state with culture, spirituality and strenght that was hundred of years old.
@@dshrp4694 chechnya was bandist and terrorist state befforw the russians retook it they had conections with al queda.
Change is hard because it is painful, but the lack of change leads to ruin.
Waaaaw, this is one of the strongest videos you guys made in a while. You guys put a lot of information and 'cultural/sociatal emotions' in a clear and understandable perspective.
We are at one of the most interesting crossroads in recent history. Whatever happens, the global context is going to evolve and regional answers will follow soon having a direct impact on every human living wherever.
This might actually be the catalyst we need to make great and strive change to the 'Western living standards'.
I'm following all these developments with an eye of great interest, longing for the context you guys offer on events happening right now.
The lack of believe in personal responsibility, doesn't remove personal responsibility. I was living among Russians my entire life, I assure you, Putin is moderate.
II cannot see a break up of Russia being beneficial to anyone. Certainly not now, with a very powerful neighbour with imperial traits in its foreign policy or with all sorts of venture capital companies willing to set morals aside if they can make a quick buck. I think in the long run a gradual evolution towards a confederacy would be more desirable. Not in the least part because Russians have experienced more than enough misery the last 100+ years. Another one would be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back I'm afraid, resulting in even more fatalism (at least that's how some characterize Russian culture) rather than entrepreneurship.
I really would love to see the Russians getting a break from the historical strokes of bad luck, corrupt and authoritarian leadership and myths about Russian exceptionalism. Like all of us, Russians need food and shelter, protection, education, health care and a leadership that authentically cares about people.
Apart from that, I do also not believe it's in the interest of the West or any other conglomarate to see Russia break apart. Imagine what would extremes could arise in the power vacuum or how easily they could get their hands on the nuclear arsenal.
Putin and his oligarchy has got to go, yes. And then the West should not fall into the pitfall of hybris and triumphism again and genuinely reach out to help. We should have three decades ago.
the west tried three decades ago. putin wanted yachts and palaces for himself so he stopped all that.
@@garygraham8373 That's partially true. Most western companies were there with lightning speed to deal with the corrupt guys who usurped whatever was left of Soviet infrastructure and resources to make a quick buck. Oh, and to sell McDonalds, Gucci and all those other western goodies to the fat kids of the soon-to-be oligarchs.
On the other hand, western attempts to help Russia rebuild its infrastructure and democratize its institutions were frustrated by the maffiose oligarchy slowly taking over control.
So it's a two edged sword really.
However, Russia was soon all but forgotten, especially after the 9/11 attacks. Offers from Russia to support in Afghanistan were dismissed - allegedly in a condescending manner and according to some observers that's when revanchism got a hold. The more so, because the West has shown little scruples in dealing with China or Arabb states with - at the time - far worse human rights records.
So yes, Russia - or its leaders - aren't entirely exonerated, but the western block is also far from a saintly bunch.
I hope we'll do better this time around. If the opportunity arises that is... Fingers crossed!
"his oligarhy"? Thats rich.
@@lolnoobus If not he is calling the shots, then who is?
@@Pincer88 Oligarhy was quite powerful in Russia in 90-x, but not as much as they wanted or as much as wanna be communists try to picture. After Putin became a president, he significaly cut off their power, by strengthening state institutions and helping state's companies.
So, mantra about "bad oligarchs who is a source of all evil in Russia" was already dumb before Putin, and even dumber than dumb for last 15 years.
Wake up, sheeps, you wanted to free poor Russia from oligarhy? Then say hello, to your savior, V. V. Putin, who did exactly that long time ago.
I mean, c'mon, any western propagandist who have a little bit of imagination, already post all this shit about "thee different groops who is a base for a Putin's political power", long long time ago. And now we returned to that chidish primitivism of "there are no responcible in Russia, exept for oligarhs - and Putin is their boss"?
How lame.
Thanks for the video! :)
Should China take opportunity for a "special operation" to "de-militarize" rightful lands adjacent to their own. And China then "liberate" oppressed Asians in russia.
vladivlostok and most of siberia likely to be chinese within few years
@@garygraham8373 Vladivostok is ethnic russian NOT chinese.
@@MrDude826 i think there will be re-education camps to learn chinese ok
@@garygraham8373 🥴 Wouldn't doubt it.
Wonderful video, one of the best I`ve seen!
Early in the US' history, in fact during its formation, there already was a Federalist faction led by Alexander Hamilton (whose on the $10 bill), but lost out to Thomas Jefferson's populism that had its advantages, but allowed for sectarianism and acquiesced to slavery and it took a Civil War to finally just wind up back at Federalism.
Hamilton's Federalism embraced the existing slave economy, else, no independence. Took decades for abolition to fester.
Didn't see John Adam's jeopardize the country to emancipated did you?
Germany would be an economic power, as it has been for hundreds of years, regardless of whether it's federal or centralised. This 'federalism makes it stronger' narrative has always been ridiculous.
Nationalism doesnt requite any state. Nationalism is treating your nation like your extended family. Valuing every individual that isnt harming others.
The problem is, as with your wife, she thinks you are stealing from the family when you buy something for yourself with money you have earned or that you are unfaithful when you do something fun with the boys.
Witches were burned by the people.
@@MrGunnar69 My wife loves me dearly and does not think I am stealing for the family when I buy something for myself. Nor does she think Im unfaithful when I play games with our friends. The reverse is also true ofcourse.
Ive not seen any witch with my own eyes.
Blissful ignorance you are dealing with, my land and that of my fmaily is heaven on earth.
Great video!
The Russian forces in Ukraine have been mainly drawn from the Russian hinterland and disproportionately from ethnic minorities within their borders while excluding urban European Russians. They have been excluding troops from its urban centers to hide their losses from the public because trains full of caskets in Moscow and St. Petersburg would be bad PR for the regime. This policy was also used during the Soviet-Afghan War to lessen the impact of that war on the urbanized proletariat and by extension the government and party members. If Russia chooses to fully mobilize for war there's no reason to believe that the majority of those conscripted into service wouldn't also be ethnic minorities so they can protect their core of urban European Russians. If they draw conscripts from their hinterland it's unlikely these sparsely populated areas would be able to find the numbers necessary to organize anti-war protests. Putin knows that too many of his troops are surrendering so he's calculated that if he attacks civilians he will scare his troops into believing that the Ukrainians won't take prisoners. Russia is also sending mobile cremation units to Ukraine so they can hide their losses. Because sending home trainloads of caskets is bad PR for Putin. If Putin has the bodies cremated in the field he can skip registering the dead and list them as missing or captured instead. Since no family wants to believe their sons have been KIA Putin gets to conceal his losses and hold on to his justification for the war in the short term and potentially threaten the families of the dead with reprisal if he lists them as captured. This is why the State Department is warning about concentration camps, mobile cremation units, genocide, biological warfare, and chemical warfare. So there's currently an opportunity for the frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Republics to reignite with the Russian military tied down in Ukraine. So far the former Soviet Republics have been playing a waiting game and anxiously watching the war in Ukraine hoping to exploit a Russian defeat. However, if they wait too long they risk a full Russian mobilization and the Russian military being able to redeploy its forces from that front to reopen these frozen conflicts. They may not have as good an opportunity as they have now.
Fantastic arguments!
It is just like asking: "Is corporal punishment in the interest of a child?". Not in immediate.
What? No it's not
@@Peanutcat I know this is anecdotal, but honestly....the people I know in my life who got hit are much better off than the kids whose parents wouldn't dare. Western countries are full of egocentric, fragile people, and it's definitely part of the reason why lol
@@Peanutcat There are different opinions. Same is here.
@@XOPOIIIO Yeah and some of those opinions are idiotic, outdated, and factually disproven. Corporal punishment is not in the interest of a child in the immediate or long term
You raise a lot of good points. This conversation needs to be extended. Russia is not a unique case, not deserving of special accommodation nor a different set of rules. Most russians fit easily into any of the western nations (as immigrants). Let's continue the analysis towards 'root causes' of the spasms of aggressive cruelty, which from time to time really screws things up in Russia.
One root cause is the huge amount of natural resources that it processes. It doesn’t need to change or modernize because it has what it needs by selling the natural resource.
What an amazing video, i am in awe. Thank you for such an informative and well put together documentary.
Being nationalistic is not always a bad thing. It just means your nation shares a system of values. In America, it is not a religion, but a shared value of freedom, individual rights, and constitutional laws.
I’m proud to be a nationalist in my America! In America, all are welcome and all are equal.
Leftists have pushed an ideology of division, hatred, and virtue signaling. I strongly disagree with their view of the world.
I'm Mari, my people were conquered centuries ago by Russians. We have our own republic, tho it's nothing but oblast actually. This is pretty bright and optimistic scenario you presented but no one ever will be able to control that decentralisation process if it will start, we lack education, responsibility or simple civic solidarity. Russians don't think, russians always prepare for some shit, they don't want to make shit not happen, they want to panic, say everyone is corrupt and wait till someone will solve their problems, because everything is done in Moscow it doesn't matter what we think here, how to brake such sentiment? Dissolution of Russia will cause a looot of ethnic conflicts, no one will be able to control it, it will happen because system is too rotten and society is too ignorant and is in deep crisis, we don't trust each other
"We don't trust each other"... This is very bad for any organic, healthy, self-sufficient unity, in any civil society.
@@elektrotehnik94 Yes, this isn't only crisis of system, it's crisis in society as whole
Very interesting and your points were both well made and well presented.
Excellent video Hubert. I swear you have come miles and miles since I subscribed. You should be very proud of yourself. Keep up the amazing work my friend 💜
Quality indeed. AND DAMN THAT INTRO
Russija is not nationalistic. Its chovenistic, there is a large difference.
As a resident of Russia, I will say that you are wrong. Citizens of Russia are very nationalistic, they call even barely assimilated cultures Russian and are moreover proud of it.
@@TrokgornyBall I'm a russian too, and i don't think that it is true. There are a lot of nationalists but they are not majority. They are more imperialist than nationalists. It's different.
@@TrokgornyBall Mans zelts ir mana tauta, Mans gods ir viņas gods. Kas postīdams viņu šausta, Uz pekli lai rauj to jods.
My gold is my people, My honor her honor. Who piliging her ripps, To hell draged be by devils.
This poem has become a proverb of my people, one all nationalist will stand by. A nationalist sees his nation like his extended family, he treats all who belong to it with kindness and care, he helps and advises them, heals and aids them like he would for good friends even if they are strangers. The health and happyness of his people is what he cares for, he would not see his peoples sweat and blood be shed unless there is very good reason. In foreign land or not among foreigners too he acts like a true nobleman, frendly and nice, polite and truthful, for his honor is his nations honor which he defends by showing how noble and good people like him are, but if some slander his nation he will ofcourse defend his nations honor by disprooving that. If in war he has found himself still he will treat all justly never with any cruelty. A nationalist sees it as his duty to beautify the world arround him, to make his language beautiful, to make himself look good, for humans are simple and beauty makes them happy and beauty also corelates to health. Above all else a nationalist just wants for himself and those of his nation to be free to peacefuly live a simple life with love, brotherhood and friendship while being in good health and good spirits, to dance and sing in joy in the fatherland.
Russijans are largely not gentleman of the 19. century with the kinship of the bronze age, while being peaceful and innocent. They are largely ignorant and belive themselves to be better than others despite evidance saying otherwise, they want others to submit rather than all being treated with respect as equals. They are chavinist thugs, not noble nationalists.
@@fatamorgana985 в России много политических движений. Из-за их разнообразия теряешься кто есть кто. Полно всяких либералов, анархистов, коммунистов, анархистов, фанатиков и так далее. Но если смотреть на фактические взгляды граждан России, то можно заметить что русские принижают исторических соперников России возвышая русских как национальность будто какая-то данность. Нынешние русские считают себя более высшими чем остальными национальности и присваивают себе достижения других народов себе. К примеру по телевизору сказали что первые такни и ядерное оружие изобрели русские, что на самом деле неправда. Умалчивают о крупных поражениях России демонстрируя только успехи, а все предатели России сущие слабаки и всегда ожидали заслуженное наказание. Пропаганда превратила русских незаметно для них не просто в националистов, а уже нацистов. Благо пока это нацизм выражается только с философской точки зрения, а не с практической.
@@TrokgornyBall в околофашистов, да, есть такое.
Subscribed. Great video!
There is a clear emphasis in the video on the value of federalism. One of the first major countries to enshrine this concept was the United States. It was followed by other English speaking countries like Canada and Australia. The value of acceptance of others who are not exactly like yourself has immense value in creating an open liberal democracy. It has great benefits for business and life in general.
Speaking as an American any system of centralized authoritarianism has never been conceived as a possibility for the country, except by the most extreme political " nuts.". Federalism has been the only conceivable option for the United States given it's scale geographically. The tragedy is that Russia has never had a true federal system. It is one in name only.
I understand the weight of history in Russia against the creation of an open society, of the acceptance of others as equal before the law. The tyranny of the primacy of Moscow is an almost axiomatic mental construct which has dominated Russian life and literature. But things can change.
The destruction of the Russian state would be a chaotic result which could be a disaster for the world with loose nukes. The creation of a true federation would be best. However, the internal resentments may make such an outcome a chimera, a wistful illusion. Probably the historical inertia is just too great for any more hopeful future. Instead, Russia will continue on it's path towards isolation, authoritarianism and dictatorship. Sad, sad that so many people in Russia live in such mental straightjackets and can not progress into a more enlightened future of acceptance of others who have different dreams and goals.
where is pussy riot when they're needed
One of the reasons this system works so well is that bigger problems that effects the entire country can be kicked up and problems that effect regions, states or cities can be kicked down to people with better information to handle it. A New York businessman has no place telling an Arkansas farmer what to do and vice versa.
@@kazekamiha Precisely, practically no American, can conceive of their country under the sole authority of a single individual from any one region. The variety of the country is so diverse from some of the largest cities in the world to Southern swamps and bayous to evergreen forests of Seattle. Since America by necessity evolved having such diversity it has had a major influence in creating institutions like NATO which has such a diversity of different countries from France to Turkey. In essence NATO reflects the federal system of the United States. It would be difficult to conceive of it without that structure. It would not work if it was just dictated by America.
Putin cannot understand that simple reality or appreciate human diversity( He cannot accept the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian). NATO is fundamentally an alien system for him and there lies part of the problem.
Smart analysis. This is where UA-cam shines
Great material! I agree with most of the assertions in this video. Thank you. still , 5:35 If Rus' was Kievan , than Muscovy was a part of proto-Ukraine, rather than Ukraine having been a part of proto- Muscovy .
thats just Ukrainian nationalist bullshit. why did it take until 2022 for Ukraine to realize its national identity? the Kievan Rus was a eastern slavic confederation. with Kiev as its capital. Ukraine and Russia emerged equally out of this confederation of tribes. Muscovy got to assert its national identity much earlier than Ukraine did since Lithuania and then Poland conquered it followed by Russia. Ukraine as an idea only came about in 1918 before there was no such thing as Ukraine. The idea that some how the Kievian Rus were Russian or Ukranian states is very stupid since no such identity ever existed. they were Eastern Slavs who spoke Old Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. the mongols invaded and isolated the territories where Muscovy became city state and then its own confederation. while Kiev never regained independence until 1991. BOTH RUSSIA BELARUS AND UKRAINE COME FROM THE KIEVIAN RUS. Ukrainian and Russian identities were formed much later.
@@covfefe1787 «Вечно пьяный, до оскотинения, завистлив, жаден, злобен, туп. Миф о русской бане мгновенно рассеивается после того как пройдёшь мимо типичного русского. Запах перегара и давно не стираных порток отвратителен сам по себе, но к нему примешивается ещё и запах кислой капусты и прокисших щей, до которых он, русский человек, большой охотник. Любимое занятие - лежание на печи и мечты о лучшей жизни. Эти мечты постоянно подогреваются правящей верхушкой. К наукам не склонен, по причине своего отупения в следствии неумеренного потребления браги. Брагу потребляет по причине того, что не может выгнать самогона. Не хватает терпения. Из разнообразия языков, на матушке Земля, в совершенстве владеет одним - матерным. Физически вроде и здоров, но в то же время страдает манией величия и шовинизма. Причисляет себя к третьему Риму, а являет собой вторую Содом и Гоморру. Агрессивен. Очень агрессивен. Что подтверждается его постоянным захватом чужих земель, при этом утверждается там как хозяин и всё вокруг считает своим. Описание портрета русского можно дополнять бесконечно, однако это будет не столько утомительно читателям сколь противно. Увы».
Максим Горький, «Собирательный образ русского человека»
A fantastic video as usual!
Well, Technically Russia it´s already a "federation" with "republics" inside, and they are also technically a "democracy". So all the paperwork has been done correctly. The problem is at the level of the political parties and the voters, and of course, corruption.
They are a federation in reality but the creator of the video just dismises that and propagades a destruction of a state that he has something personal against. He lies a lot in thsi video especialy about the republic, they enjoy a great amount of autonomy, they are fully allowed to practive their culture and religion and to speak their language.
The author is so dumb he disregards the fact that the man in charge of he russian military the russia minister of deffence, sergei shoigyu is ethnicly tuvan.
@@Silver_Prussian Yes, as I said, Russia already works as the author wants. I think the problems of Russia are more political than institutional. Russia is already a "democracy" in paper, now they have to make it in reality: allowing small political parties to be independent, stop putting political opositors in jail, don´t threaten independent press, etcetera. Russia is like a Latin American country: "a free democratic, capitalist country" in paper, but an oligarchic, corrupt country in reality, and the war might worsen that. I feel bad for Russia, I think Putin committed a great mistake in February and dragged the country 30 years back in time.
@@Silver_Prussian
Putin destroyed federalization.
On paper it is, in reality it is not.
@@HFddHFddHFdd it is a federation in reality just because you are as bias and foolish as the authour of this video to not see it its not my fault.
@Cloud9the subjects of the federatuin have enough power and i already told you that russia is not like america and its subjects dont function like the state in the us and why should they ?
They stil have mayors for every city and town they have councils and governers to de centralise more wpuod mean to disolve russia which is actualy the true intention behind all of this, to tear the country apart.
Many tines histoey has showed one man can be better than many and the opposite it rrally depends on the nation itself which model it will follow.
Take the countries in the middle east for example you kniw why democracy dosnt work there ? Because they are not like the nations in the west or america.
You think you can just walk into these nations based on religious fundamentalist principles, drop a couple of bombs topple a dictator and start a democracy pfft please give a me break.
It simular for russia and eastern europe those countries need a strong leadership because the people there need rules boundaries, protections, from foreign powers and from themselves.