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Comment by andrei_says_ | Hacker News Reader

Makes me wonder, what jokes is the CIA not declassifying?

Yes, this is a call for more Russian jokes.

Brezhnev wakes up and looks out at the rising sun. He says, "Good morning, Comrade Sun!" The sun replies, "Good morning, Comrade Brezhnev!"

At noon, Brezhnev stands on a balcony at the Kremlin and looks up. "Hello, Comrade Sun! It's a fine day!" The sun replies, "Hello, Comrade Brezhnev! Yes, it's a fine day!"

Just before sunset, Brezhnev looks out and says, "Good evening, Comrade Sun!" The sun replies, "Screw you! I'm in the West now!"

Nice :)

Remembered another I learned from a Russian.

A man and his wife live in Siberia. Every day she nags him about his drinking and his terrible friends and how he never helps her around the house. It always ends with her yelling at him to go out and bring in some wood for the stove.

One day after the usual fight, the man gets to the woodpile and just keeps walking.

Twenty years later, he returns. He walks into the kitchen, sees his wife, and says, "I'm home!"

"Where's the wood?" she yells.

If you've seen Russian wives you now this is not a joke (ducks).

Unless you refer to old(er) working class women with a hard life I don't see how any reasonable person can think that's even remotely a basis for a joke, given how much more beautiful Russian women look on average. Just walk around Russian cities. Having lived in the US for a decade and having been to Russia and Ukraine several times, sometimes for months living in a rented apartment, I know which country I'd choose if "women" were the decision-driving factor.

It always intrigues me how people manage to persuade themselves, or get the impression, that country X or city Y has more attractive women than anywhere else. I guess it's a 'Grass is always greener...' effect?

It's nontrivial to measure definitively, due not only to subjectivity but to various selection bias problems; but why do you think it could not be true?

People with a limited pool of ancestors are often very ugly. Especially noticeable in alpine valleys or remote island communities.

Same if inbreeding is practiced. So, the claim that for example, mid-easterners with their penchant for marrying cousins, or the Swiss with their insular village communities ..

Sounds like bias to me. We're genetically hard-wired to be attracted to those different to us.

For example, I don't think that (on average) the locals where I live are particularly beautiful in comparison to other countries, but a lot of foreigners seem to disagree with me.

>We're genetically hard-wired to be attracted to those different to us.

Source?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/may/24/genes-human-...

I'll look for better (primary) sources when I'm not on my phone if I remember. I vaguely remember seeing a bunch of stuff about how humans naturally gravitate towards genetic diversity, unless there's some roadblock preventing it. I don't have a source offhand though so until or unless I find one, remember to add your salt :)

That study was only about genes for immunity, not about genes in general.

Exactly. Humans breed for more diverse immunity to increase our chances of survival.

Is that the only factor that influences who we breed with? If so, why do humans display a strong preference for mating within their own ethnic group?

Might be something to do with higher competition. Some countries have lower male-to-female ratios.

Indeed. Russia has one of the lowest male-to-female ratios in the world: 0.86 males per each female. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio

I understand where that comes from: it's a stereotypical generalisation, but Russian middle-aged men drink themselves to death. Large areas of Russian countryside operate on granny energy only.

So, the "supply" of women exceeds "demand" in Russia.

What puzzles me more is how UAE, Qatar and Kuwait have such a high male-to-female ratios. Is it because of large populations of foreign workers that are predominantly male?

Pretty much, yeah. Less than 20% of the population of the UAE are citizens; there's a large majority of imported Indian, Filipino, etc labor.

Don't Finland share the same drinking culture and should thus have similar numbers?

Not quite. There is some culture of binge drinking and alcohol-related deaths, but drinking in Finland is more evenly distributed between men and women, and life expectancy of men is 15 years higher than Russia, on the average. (In women, the difference is just 6 years.)

What physical beauty has to do with it?

PC groupthink downvoted you, have a +1 from me.

You should check out California.

An East German version of this, with Erich Honecker in place of Brezhnev, is told by a young Stasi recruit in the 2006 film "Das Leben der Anderen". Spoiler alert: The attempt at humor proves severely career-limiting.

I thought it was the hang up and try again joke:

What's the difference between Honecker and a telephone? Nothing! Just hang up and try again!

(aufhängen, neuwählen means both "hang up and try again" and "hang him and vote again")

Three of my favorites. Found in this great Straight Dope thread on Russian / Soviet jokes:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-3611...

------

Stalin was having a cabinet meeting and he was going over the minutes when someone gave a loud sneeze.

Instantly, he looked, up, frowning, and said, very deeply, "WHO SNEEZED?"

No one would raise their hand. So Stalin motioned to the KGB officers and had all of the first row taken out and shot.

Again, Stalin looked up and said, "WHO SNEEZED?"

Again, no one answers, so, Stalin has the KGB take the second row out to be shot.

And then, Stalin looks up and says, "WHO SNEEZED?"

And again, no one answers, so the KGB takes the third row out and has them shot.

Now, Stalin's pissed. "WHO SNEEZED!"

By now, the sneezer is all sweating and nervous and leaps out of his seat yelling, "I sneezed, Comrade Stalin! I sneezed!"

And Stalin nods, and says, "God Bless You, now continue with meeting."

------

An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian were once discussing the meaning of true happiness.

The Englishman said, "True happiness, my friends, is rising early on a frosty fall morning, getting on top of a good horse, and galloping off behind the hounds in pursuit of the fox. A hard ride over fields and fences and rivulets until the fox is brought down. A ride back with the ears and the tail and then sitting before a roaring fire with a glass of good port. Ah, that is true happiness."

The Frenchman said, "That is not true happiness. That is merely animal pleasure. True happiness is meeting with the love of your life, having an excellent meal in a topnotch restaurant with champagne, and then retiring to a wonderful hotel room, where you can make frantic and impassioned love all night long. Ah, that is true happiness.

The Russian said, "That is not true happiness. That is merely a good time. True happiness comes when you are sitting in your apartment after a hard day at the factory, your little Ivan on your knee, and reading your copy of Pravda. There comes a knock at the door. Three men in ill-fitting brown suits come storming in and say 'Stepan Stepanovich,' and you say, 'He lives in the rooms upstairs.' Ah, that is true happiness!"

------

There was a long queue of people waiting for the butcher shop to open. A Russian official comes by and says, "Are there any Jews in this queue?" Some people reluctantly nodded their heads. The official says, "There is not enough meat. All Jews have to leave. There will be no meat for them today!" And all the Jews leave the queue. The official leaves.

Two hours pass, and the shop isn't open yet. The official returns and says, "Are there any who are not members of the Communist Party in this queue?" Some people nodded their heads. The official says, "There is not enough meat. All those who are not members of the Communist Party have to leave. There will be no meat for them today!" And all the non-Party members leave the queue. The official leaves.

Two more hours pass, and the shop still isn't open. The official returns and says, "Comrades, I'm sorry, but there will be no meat today." One of the people says, "I should have known. The Jews ALWAYS get the best deal!"

Might be an opportunity for you to file your first FOIA request!

Hope he has a fax machine

> what jokes is the CIA not declassifying?

Probably this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ienp4J3pW7U

Here's one. "A KGB general calls for urgent meeting, since there is proof that CIA top agent is sitting in the Central Committee of the Communist Party and there is important classified meeting going on there. But there is no clue who that might be. After short consideration, major Pronin is called into CCCP secret meeting. After a brief glance on participants, Proning says to general: "The guy in the second row, sixth chair is the one you are looking for". "How'd you know?" "I learned from Felix Dzerzhinsky himself that "Enemy is not sleeping"

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