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Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

It's Russia we're talking about. In Russia, the default mode of answering any complaint is "it's your own fault, we're not responsible, go away". It's not only on the big political scene - it's everywhere, from a village grocery store to a national federation. If you admit any mistake and any responsibility for anything, you're an idiot and a "loch" (pronounced the same as Scottish lake, but means a person to be taken advantage of, one that is too stupid to take care of oneself and deserves to be cheated and mistreated). It's a culture-wide thing. And denying responsibility and lying is not considered really shameful in such situation - it's the expected behavior and getting away with it is a sign you are powerful and worthy of respect.

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The same culture exists in Poland. Drove on a normal road and an unsecured bar of metal fell on your car from a construction site? Should have watched where you were going. The default stance is always that if something happens to you it's your own fault, should have been more careful. I'd lean towards this being a common thing either in Slavic culture or at least in ex-communist countries for some reason.

I once had a guy scold me for having an umbrella in my hand while walking on the street in front of his business (a garage, really) because his German shepherd will attack me and it will be on me.

Incidentally, his appearance was in total sync with his character. This was about a decade ago here in Bulgaria. We have plenty of troglodytes like that around here

On the other end you have California where people will sue the state for thousands if they trip on the sidewalk, scraping their knee a bit. I suppose the USA and ex-USSR still remain polar opposites in some respects.

Citation needed on that one.

Not exactly the same but there's the legendary McDonald's lawsuit after some customer burned his finger after dropping his coffee.

You mean this case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...

Where a 79 year old woman suffered 3rd degree burns to her pelvic region after spilling coffee in her lap?

While I agree that McDonalds should have been found guilty in that case(they deliberately set their machines to produce much hotter coffee than is standard anywhere) I feel like this is a case that could have been only won in the US, because only US courts give any time to stuff like this. Maybe I'm wrong, but my feeling is that a case like this would have been thrown out long before being heard in any other country - she spilled her coffee, it's clearly her fault(would have been the resoning).

Yeah I think so. I think I misremembered the burned area due to some standup that made fun of this later.

Legendary in the sense that you got all the details wrong. If you're answering someone saying 'citation needed' the least you can do is look up what you want to reference first so you can actually share useful information instead of multiplying confusion. If you can't remember or don't have time to look something up, you can just not reply.

How else would I get to enjoy your magnificent replies then ?

Can't confirm as a Pole. Don't want to ask you to dox yourself through an argument, but I'd like to say that it's a lot better nowadays, with the only exception being the Catholic Church's wrongdoings in the countryside.

Maybe. Literally had a situation few weeks back when a waitress brought our meal to the table, dropped it all on the floor, and her first words within 5 seconds? "your child distracted me, what have you done" - a child that was strapped in a chair and commiting the grand crime of smiling at her. She calmed down shortly after and apologized, but her first instinct was to blame anyone but herself.

Like yeah, maybe it's getting better. But I keep running into these situations where if something goes wrong, you are always at fault by default. I don't mean to say anyone else's opinion about it is not valid though.

It's funny cause I've seen similar situation with people of wildly different social status. A big lawyer asking a court clerk for files. He grabbed them like a moron, folders all slipped and fell. We all saw it coming but assumed he wouldn't be so goofy. The young lady clerk still jumped to help him gather the files. His first word: You stacked them wrong you idiot. She smiled and he got away with being an impolite moron.

Now seeing a waitress act like this to a customer is even weirder :)

>It's Russia we're talking about. In Russia, the default mode of answering any complaint is "it's your own fault, we're not responsible, go away".

a related joke from USSR times. A foreigner from a civilized West country walking on a Moscow street falls into an open unmarked unattended trench. When people help him get out, he is furious - "How come the trench isn't fenced with say a rope with red markers?!" and gets response "Crossing the border coming into USSR you did see the red flags at the entry point, didn't you?"

That's what some people report from diplomatic ties with Russia. They explained the same thing about shame and power. Diplomacy and talk is weak, they only react to conflict and dominance based relationships.

How would an accident like that be handled elsewhere, say, the US, or Western Europe? Would the federation own up to it?

Western Europe: they would take responsibility.

US: they would take responsibility after the media outrage.

Japan: they would take responsibility, and the president of the federation would resign immediately.

It seems likely that it wouldn't happen in the first place, because people would be (rightfully, in this case) afraid of liability.

If it did happen, I expect they'd either issue a long, wordy but mostly empty statement that they're looking into it, possibly with an apology not accepting blame, trying to avoid attention at all costs. Saying something means the press has something to write, so aside from maybe a first vague statement like this, they'd probably stay silent.

In a clear case like this, they'd likely be torn apart afterwards though.

It used to be like this, in the 90s and 00s. Mainly it was a result of lower class guys getting rich after the events of 1991. It’s not like this anymore, at least not that common. Stop spreading lies, please. Saying that it’s a “culture-wide” is insulting.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32209674.

Come on, there is no way they are that cartoonish.

If you consider how Chernobyl was handled it doesn’t seem that far off?

Wrong country, wrong establishment.

Apparently a lot of you dont know the difference between USSR, Russia and Ukraine. Stay safe out there.

In fact, it's the same country and the same establishment. While Chernobyl is currently, as everybody knows, Ukrainian territory - at the time it was the territory of the USSR, and the dominating culture was Soviet - which despite being theoretically "internationalist" actually meant "Russian Imperial". People who made decisions there may have been born anywhere, but they all spoke Russian, and they all looked to Moscow for authority. And the establishment largely did not change in Russia since then - while some people went away, naturally or forcefully, and some new people came in, the new people now in Russia were largely parts of the same establishment as in the USSR - they just went up a number of rungs on the ladder when the top elites had to retire. The classic case is Putin - who is ex-KGB - but if you look at his team, you'll see most of them have roots in the old establishment or have been brought in by the people from the old establishment. In contrast to Ukraine, where old elites largely lost power (new ones are far from perfect either, but that's a topic for another day) and have been replaced, in Russia this replacement never really happened - and that may be a good key to why what is happening now is happening.

They're not. It's a massive country with many different races and cultures in it. Painting them all with one brush isn't very nice.

This is Moscow though. I think it’s fairly likely the culture in Moscow is fairly homogenous.

Is it? Is the culture of Paris fairly homogenous? New York? London? Berlin?

I would imagine the place has some shared cultural understandings, generally, but that a big city is going to be much more heterogenous. But maybe I'm thinking too micro scale.

You need to realize though the West has embraced multiculturalism, largely. Russia has not. It does not mean there are no diverse cultures in Russia - or even Moscow, but it does mean there is one dominant culture, and closer you get to the places where power is accessible, the more dominant and more exclusive it becomes. There are various cultures found in Moscow (and any big city in Russia), but there is also the Culture. In the West, a lot of effort is taken for the old Western culture not to be the culture of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, etc. Some endorse these efforts, some decry them, but it is obvious they happen. In Russia, nothing of the sort happens, on the contrary, if you want to be in power, you will abandon whatever culture you came from and embrace the culture of power. If you do not, you'll never get to wield any power.

What is the "culture of power", can you give some examples? And what are your pronouns?

> What is the "culture of power", can you give some examples?

I thought I did, in my comments uptopic. If you expect me to write a doctoral thesis on modern Russian culture, sorry, I am neither qualified nor it is the right place. While I have plenties of anecdotal data, and would be glad to share my experience to the extent I can, systematic treatment of a culture is not something one could do in a random comment on HN. I can name it, at best - Russian Imperial culture, and describe some of its qualities, but anything beyond that will have to wait for somebody who either has a PhD or wants to get one researching Russian culture.

> And what are your pronouns?

None of your business/None of your business.

If you're talking about your first comment in this chain(about people refusing to take responsibility), I don't see how that's related to multiculturalism. I've never been to Russia, and I don't even watch Russian media often, but from what I can see, they're trying to promote multiculturalism a lot.

It's not that I don't believe that Russia has a "culture of power" and that people at the top all share the same ideology, but this is happening everywhere.

The culture comment was an answer to the critique that you can not talk about culture in Russia because there are many cultures. There are, but one of them is dominant. They do not promote multiculturalism, at least not what is meant by that in the West. On the contrary, the staple of their official ideology is preserving Russia's uniqueness at all costs - even at the cost of rejecting humanist values that are considered "Western". Other cultures are allowed if they are subservient to the imperial culture - same story in every empire, really, take a book about any imperial culture, Russia's one would have similar traits, it's not unique in that regard. The main source of conflict now is that imperial culture needs much more of an empire than Russia currently is, thus obsession with territorial conquest, despite already having huge undeveloped and neglected territories.

This seems like the old lumpers vs splitters issue:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters

There's definitely something different in Berlin vs New York culture, and me, a person that sees commonalities everywhere, i.e. a lumper, definitely sees a common/dominant culture in each of these places.

On the other side you have splitters that always find a reason to differentiate more.

There's no right and wrong on this discussion, it's subjective in essence, you can always lump or split by your own rules. That is a classification problem.

Darwin talked about it at length, because he was annoyed by splitters denying any kind of classification, making it really hard to make a taxonomy.

If you split too much, every human is an individual, you can't say anything about anything anymore.

If you lump too much, all humans are the same, you can't say anything about anything either.

The sweet spot is somewhere in between, where you can speak about Moscow, vs Berlin, vs New York culture. Because there's definitely something different about these places. And neither say they're all the same, or that you have to look at each individual before making a judgment.

But most people can't agree where exactly this sweet spot is.

Well of course Chechen culture or Buryat culture or Tatar culture or Chukcha culture will be very different. But this is not the culture that dominates functionaries of federations in Moscow. "Imperial" Russian culture is. That's the one I am talking about. Of course on Russian territory there are many other cultures, but these are not ones I considered.

That jives with what I heard and the English translated Russian pop literature I have read.

Besides, caveat venditor is more of an American thing, with most of the world being caveat emptor.

Having said all of that, I don't think robotics and AI is the kind of thing we "move fast and break things".

I'm sure there are plenty who aren't, but these people in the Chess Federation certainly seem to be.

It's not cartoonish, it's the culture. Of course it's not homogenous - you can find a lot of people that go against the mainstream. In a hyper-macho culture you can find males who are shy and sensitive, in an introverted culture valuing privacy and closeness you can find people who are extroverted and exuberant, in a culture where accepting blame is not encouraged you can find a lot of people that will readily do that. When you describe the culture as if it were a single person, it will necessarily get a little cartoonish because we are reducing millions of people to one description. But I think this description matches the dominating culture quite well - though you of course always need to realize not everybody follows it to the same degree, and some people would eagerly defy it.

Dude, you are just projecting your spite. This would be laughable if I didn't know you were serious. So it's actually just scary how how you make things up.

>Dude, you are just projecting your spite. This would be laughable if I didn't know you were serious. So it's actually just scary how how you make things up.

I lived in Russia for the first 27 years of my life (but I've been out for 11 years). The claimed phenomena definitely existed and was widespread back then. I was an odd duck by being ready to openly accept my mistakes / misdoings, and I was not alone, but that was not common.

I dunno, I see it everywhere, really. Owning you mistakes seems to be a rare and cherished virtue everywhere.

Besides, my point is that such way of reasoning and inducting from a broken finger towards a whole culture is nothing more than spiteful supremacism.

I'm sorry to scare you, please drink a cup of warm tea and listen to some good music, it will relax you. I haven't made up a thing though, I've observed this culture personally for decades. I grew up in it. Not sure what you mean by "spite" - nor do I care that much - and of course, I could be mistaken, but these were my observations and my conclusions, nothing is made up.

Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It just makes everything worse.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I realize that's not easy on divisive, emotionally charged topics, but everyone commenting here is required to try.

That explains a Russian traveler I met at an airport once who asked me for bus fare to some tourist destination. I declined and the bus left without him. He and his girlfriend passed me later and he said "Thanks to you we can't go to (wherever).". I couldn't really understand how someone could be that entitled, but if it's more a blame-others-by-default attitude, it makes more sense.

Yes, let's judge an entire culture by a random bus stop experience.

Replace "Russian" with "Black" and this would be considered a racist post.

So? This is a thread about culture and governments, not race. If you want to have the race argument go find another thread.

You could have used “cowboy culture” instead of “macho culture”, that way at least your over-the-top generalization would have been free of cultural appropriation.

I think this comment already has at least a half of the culture war bingo. If you add a couple of -isms and maybe a -phobia or two, you will have a definite winner.

That has to be sarcasm. Or trying to be funny, but not very well.

Not sarcasm, but it gets real tiring having to fight these xenophobic tropes coming from the West.

This videogame review from a YouTube channel called Warlockracy is actually also a really interesting perspective on at least some aspects of Russian subcultures and their prominence, I found it a surprisingly insightful social commentary wrapped up in an entertaining vid.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ_PiXLVaJ8 (~45mins)

The second video is more serious but also rather interesting (clips from it became very popular at the beginning of the Russian invasion into Ukraine). It is a lecture from a Finnish University Professor whom spent most of his career in Intelligence specializing in Russian relations and now teaches intelligence and security. He talks extensively about the corruption hierarchies in Russia as well as Putin and Propaganda, well worth a watch (and more recent videos have been released since found on the same channel).

2. https://youtu.be/kF9KretXqJw (~60mins)

Operating under the assumption that the video isn't misrepresenting the cultural aspects of Russia I think we would both be surprised at how "cartoonish" things can be.

Video #2 should be required watching for anyone joining the conversation about the Russia - Ukraine war. Martti J. Kari (the lecturer) spent his whole career in the Finnish military studying Russia.

The Russian mentality is _really_ hard to understand for a generic westerner. Russia has been lead by a conservative leader for 200-300 years. Lead by an autocratic leader (Tsar) for a good thousand years. The next Tsar will always be from the "Princes" - never a complete outsider.

Trying to change that mindset is as impossible as it would be for the USA to not have a two-party system. Their whole culture and bureaucracy is based on the fact that there is an "us" and a "them". Three or four parties will never happen in the USA.

There was almost nothing “conservative” about Leninism. The same goes for Stalinism. Your comment actually just made me want to but “The Atheist Manual” (or something similar, can’t remember the exact title) that was published in 1950s USSR and which I found in a Romanian translation in an antique bookshop that I usually frequent.

One has to distinguish between early revolutionaries - who had many weird ideas to overhaul everything, from the calendar to the family structure to the language to the alphabet to how the art is done (in that latter they actually produced some interesting results that didn't end up in blood, tears and mass murder, too bad it happened in many other areas). They definitely weren't conservative by any measure. But, once Bolsheviks took power and consolidated, their regime was as conservative as the Tsar's - including promoting the same conservative values the early revolutionaries raged against. People in power have much different interests than people trying to overthrow the power, you know - even if those happen to be the same people at different times. The time it happened has been somewhere contemporaneous with the power transition from Lenin (largely disabled and unable to control anything for the last year of his life, but being severely ill even before) to Stalin.

As I said, the Church had a very, very rough time throughout the existence of the USSR. There was a slight reprieve going into WW2 and during the war because Stalin wanted the most out of the USSR citizens, but otherwise religion, the conservative thing by definition, was a non-entity.

Also, women participating in the labor-force was encouraged throughout the regime’s existence, until the very end, there was no “Stepford Wives”-like tale East of the Wall. One of my aunts was an industrial crane operator in the ‘80s, I, as a kid, was finding that perfectly normal (I also grew up East of the Wall). Stay-at-home mothers, another traditional thing by definition, was seen as retrograde, “you had to have a job, hence a salary”, everything else was seen as laziness.

And I could continue with countless other examples similar to these.

Three or four parties could easily happen in the USA of they'd change their electoral system. FPTP system and lack of culturally divergent regions (like Scotland in the UK) is the reason there are no third / fourth powers. If, say, half of Congress were elected by party lists, there'd be a lot of political diversity fast.

Except that will never happen either, for the reasons you gave.

France had been ruled by kings, and before that, the Roman Empire for thousands of years, and then one day we had a revolution and became freedom-loving leftists. Same can happen in Russia -indeed, same DID happen in Russia, until the USSR turned into a totalitarian state under Stalin.

Also, the US can totally have a multi-party system if they reform their electoral system. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

But the ones who decide on reforming the system are the two parties - who don't want to dilute their power to other parties.

Thus: it'll never happen.

Once again, don't underestimate the American people. If they get mad enough, they'll storm the capital and demand electoral reform at gunpoint.

The French kings weren't keen on democracy, and the Russian Czars weren't keen on communism. Yet they still happened.

>I found it a surprisingly insightful social commentary

And how did you determine that it is insightful?

The video starts with the guy confidently saying that Alcatraz is a nickname of a Moscow prison (!!!), apparently having no clue that the Russian name of the game doesn't have anything to do with prisons and the name 'Planet Alcatraz' is given to the English edition of the game. If you have no idea what you talking about -- just make things up, right?

Should I find Manhunt or Postal to be a mirror of American culture? "Interesting perspective", "insightful social commentary"?

He said no such thing, he said that the planet was named "Матросская тишина" (seaman's silence) after this prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrosskaya_Tishina .

And you are aware that he's playing the russian version of the game, right? Translating some bits for the english audience. I'm sure he's perfectly aware what the name of the game is in russian (it's literally in the first shot of the video).

Seems like you watched 5min to just quickly find something to discredit and immediately dismiss it.

> Should I find Manhunt or Postal to be a mirror of American culture? "Interesting perspective", "insightful social commentary"?

Not a "mirror" of a culture, but if you were not already versed in American culture and watched an insightful review of those games pulling on various culture trends which make up those games, I see no reason why it couldn't be an "Interesting perspective" or "insightful social commentary".

You are right about the prison, I guess I missed both the word 'planet' and the prison name and filled in the blank, and made an unjust judgement of the author of the video.

'Seems like you watched 5min to just quickly find something to discredit and immediately dismiss it'

That's quite an uncharitable interpretation. You are right about one thing though -- I gave up quite early.

"I see no reason why it couldn't be an "Interesting perspective" or "insightful social commentary""

In the context of judging the American nation as a whole -- of course not.

Considering your lack of charitability you had for my initial comment why would the person you are replying to interpret you as anything other than nitpicky and asinine?

You have added nothing to the conversation.

Also in what way would this ever be at all related to the context of judging the American nation as anything? The article is about a robot is Moscow and the comment I replied to is discussing if Russian subcultures or culture can seem Cartoonish.

Quit inventing battles to lose.

"the comment I replied to is discussing if Russian subcultures or culture can seem Cartoonish."

Why did you inserted 'subcultures' here?

The smsm42 subverted the discussion of the robot fuckup with a russophobic comment specifically saying 'It's a culture-wide thing' and you were replying to the comment saying 'there is no way they are that cartoonish'.

Nowhere subcultures are mentioned except in your comment where you offered a game review as a source of information about Russian culture ('a really interesting perspective on *at least* some aspects of Russian subcultures and their prominence') and partial confirmation of the 'culture-wide thing' comment.

Another great "Gotcha!" from gdy.

You have made no points worth addressing and contributed nothing to the conversation.

My point is that you brought a cherry-picked subculture to the discussion of the 'culture-wide thing' and after that lied that the conversation was about 'Russian subcultures or culture'.

I don't think you can 'address' it in any way except for not doing such things in the future.

You lost any credibility the moment you went off in your original comment. You are in no position to make such assessments.

The video is good, on topic and highly relevant to this discussion.

>That's quite an uncharitable interpretation.

Agree, that was an uncharitable offhand sentence. I think it was prompted by your uncharitable criticism of the video -- immediately concluding that he's making shit up (rather that thinking it was a mistake or something else)

>In the context of judging the American nation as a whole -- of course not.

I don't think video is there judge Russian culture as a whole -- and I don't think that's ever useful. It's there to entertain and present (and judge) various cultural _strands_ of it, which someone outside of Russia/Ex-soviet states may not be aware of.

In the context of this thread, grandparent (smsm42) does seem intent to reduce this particular cultural stand to being _the_ Russian culture and all dominating. I disagree with that, but neither this video nor context of the palmetieri2000 post (he wanted to illustrate that it _can_ be that comical) was about that.

'I think it was prompted by your uncharitable criticism'

Yep, it's only fair.

'nor context of the palmetieri2000 post (he wanted to illustrate that it _can_ be that comical) was about that'

What is 'it' in 'it _can_ be that comical'?

Here I disagree with you -- I interpret 'it can't be that cartoonish' as a reply to 'culture-wide thing' statement. A subculture can be arbitrarily weird, but when a sweeping statement is made about the whole nation it becomes cartoonish.

In this context bringing up a game review is as a valid point as bringing up Manhunt or Postal in a thread about American-wide culture.

"Operating under the assumption that the video isn't misrepresenting the cultural aspects of Russia"

And why do you operate under this assumption?

The guy keeps saying '[In Russia] conservatives have always had power.' Was Lenin a conservative? Very few countries undergone such radical changes as Russia.

The one thing he repeats even more is 'infallible Tsar'. Let me tell you a secret -- Putin have ruled for so long because life for ordinary Russians was getting better despite all his fuckups. Now this have changed and we have entered very 'interesting' times.

Feel free to read the responses others have given to my initial post, they cover your complaints quite handily.

> Was Lenin a conservative?

Lenin ruled for barely 4 years. Since November 1917 till late 1921, when he already had been gravely ill and was largely removed from all power and left as a figurehead. In 1923, he had his third stroke, and his days were numbered. So, compared to overall Russia's history, Lenin's four years have been but a brief episode. Stalin, who replaced him, was a conservative ruler (though of course not the kind of "conservative" that we have now in America, obviously), so were all up to maybe Gorbachev - who ruled for about 6 years overall. As you can see, not being a conservative leader in Russia means a rather short tenure, somehow.

> Now this have changed and we have entered very 'interesting' times.

If you think people in Russia will raise up and overthrow Putin because of the suffering he has inflicted on them due to his insane lust for conquest - don't hold you breath for it. He has much better chance do die as a Tsar (which is what most Russian Tsars did) than to be deposed. Russian people, as a mass, have absolutely zero inclination to overthrow Putin's regime.

Try and think of the many ways in which the USSR was different from the Russian empire and you will understand the scale of Lenin's and Stalin's radical changes.

Well, it is reflected in their position about Ukraine.

https://news.sky.com/story/russia-zorbing-accident-father-ki...

I think it's true that health and safety are treated very differently there.

The craziest part of the attached link is the quote "it's gone in the wrong direction again".

The KHL, Russia's top hockey league, is known for its cavalier treatment of injured--even dying--players:https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/paul-kariya...

As in illustration, I'll relay you an actual story that I read from one Russian blogger (who witnessed it himself and I trust him that he did):

The scene is a couchette car in an overnight train between two Russian cities (a very popular mode of transport in Russia). It's late at night, so most people are preparing to sleep or sleeping already, so it is pretty quiet. Except for the two slightly drunk guys in one end of the train, who are engaged in a lively conversation. After a while one woman next to them loses her patience and shouts "you two over there, would you shut up finally? People are trying to sleep here!". To which one of the guys answers, not missing a beat, with innocent indignation in his voice: "And why did you think it's us?!"

That's how this culture works.

That's nothing. I once read an actual story on a US aggregator site.

The scene is a guy whose knowledge of anything outside his country is lacking. A relatively common occurrence around where he's from.

After being bombarded with all kinds of propaganda for decades he'd easily believe almost anything on the topic. Especially after several months of extreme 24/7 antagonism due to a horrible war.

That's how culture works. Supposedly

Point contextually not clear. "Be careful of sources?" That would be as generic as Cato's "Oh, and should I remind you that we should destroy Carthage".

I assume you mean me. But which country do you mean? I lived in several. I grew up in a culture I am describing. I still maintain contact with many people living there. I base my conclusions on my experiences and data I gathered for decades. You base your conclusions on ignorance and stereotypes - you have no other choice since you don't know me. But you try to mock me - unsuccessfully, of course, because you don't know anything - maybe you should spend a bit of time on gathering your own information instead.

Oh yes, one random thing I read on the internet one time - that's absolutely how it works!

As somebody who's spent time on trains there, Russians were nothing but gracious and hospitable.

> and I trust him that he did

Trust him more. This anecdote is as old as couchette cars.

It probably happened many times in the past too. This culture is not new.

Your assumption what this behaviour is exclusive for Russians is naive at best, but your relying on the anecdote (of a person you never ever met!) is borderline stupid.

Also take a dive into Reddit most popular subreddits[0] - you will find such behaviour en masse and I will wait here for your explanation how Soviets could instill this culture into Americans.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/

https://old.reddit.com/r/entitledparents/

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/

Those three would have more than enough examples of an entitled behaviour.

Allow me to suggest, in all seriousness, American government is not so different.

All governments do it to a certain degree. But usually when American government gets caught on it, it is considered an embarrassment, and people involved may have to apologize or, in very rare cases, even suffer some consequences. In Russia, it's how it is expected to work and there's no shame in it. It is very sad to observe that American government (and American politicians, and American press, and many other institutions) are sliding to that direction lately. Not there yet, but the vector definitely points to that direction.

It's the way how wild animals live. Strong eats weak. That's it.

The wilderness of Russia should be apparent to everyone nowadays.

Have you forgotten about a program called “the news” over the past six months?

There isn't. Either they didn't read the linked article, or they are projecting their own spite - I have no other explanation of how one could interpret really like that.

This is a fine exhibit in the museum of Russophobia.

You meant russorealism ;-)

I don't think so. We have our share of shitty people just like any other nations.

Misrepresenting them as something that is innate to Russia is just hate speech or propaganda.

Misrepresenting - sure. Accurately representing - well, I guess it still can be propaganda, but propagating the truth bears no shame.

It is interesting though how the defender of Russian culture chooses to wield a Western weapon of "hate speech" accusation. In Russia, "hate speech" would be something that the government does not approve of. Including telling the literal truth - such as calling the war the war - or even saying that patriotism is not kissing the ass of the President (a person got arrested for that, though I don't think they decided to prosecute - that'd be interesting to see them attempt to prove that patriotism actually is just that!)

"It is interesting "

What exactly is interesting? Hate speech is bad, unless it is directed at Russians and then it is not hate speech but 'accurate representation'?

'In Russia, "hate speech" would be something that the government does not approve of'

Not really. 'The motive of political hatred' can be added to the case as an aggravating circumstance, but the charge itself is 'discreditation of Russian army' or 'spreading misinformation'. Not that it makes much difference, since the war began life's got scary in Russia in this respect.

'even saying that patriotism is not kissing the ass of the President' 'a person got arrested for that'

Is this what you call 'propagating the truth'?

Yuriy Shevchuk said a lot of things during his concert but he was never arrested and the court dismissed charges of administrative misconduct for the lack of substance. The prosecutor is going to try again though, but I hope for a good ending -- Shevchuk has a lot of respect in Russian society.

The interesting part is a cynical attempt to use a Western culture war weapon in order to promote Russia, which rejects Western values and hates and wants to destroy both sides.

You are quite mistaken. The notion of hate speech is not unique for Western culture.

Article 282 in Russian Criminal Codex exists since Eltsin time (1996) and addresses incitement of hatred on racial, religious and ethnic grounds. It itself is based on similar article from Soviet times (1960).

In 2003 it was extended by Putin in include hate speech based on gender, language, origin and social stratum.

You can read the story here: https://tass.ru/info/5930296

> The notion of hate speech is not unique for Western culture.

Of course not. But you are using it as a weapon agains Western culture, trying to trigger it into self-harm. Not because you care about Western values and not promoting hate, but because you see a vulnerability that you could exploit - tell somebody "it's hate speech" and they'd run in panic. Except the trick is now obvious, so it won't work.

> Article 282 in Russian Criminal Codex

Oh the lovely 282, how we all adore it. Of course totalitarian dictatorship that rules Russia now will suppress speech, and 282 is where it started (now there are more, of course, it never stops). Only then it was "extremist" speech. I don't need to read TASS (blergh! these guys actually kept SS in their name - all you need to know about them, really) to know about 282, thank you very much. But nobody here cares about 282. You can not deploy 282 here to suppress speech you don't like. So you call it "hate speech" instead, hoping to solicit culture war reaction that you know exists in the West and thus avoid discussing the real issues.

>But you are using it as a weapon agains Western culture, trying to trigger it into self-harm.

That's funny, so now calling out double standards is 'trying to trigger Western culture into self-harm'. Because noticing your own hypocrisy hurts so much, poor you.

> propaganda

Well you're right, Russia (especially under Putin) has spent a long time presenting itself as the bogeyman of Europe with rampant international threats and assassinations, and now you're surprised people are afraid? That was the whole intention and well congrats, it worked. You don't get to have it both ways so kindly piss off.

It seems you are saying 'it's your own fault, we're not responsible, go away' to me.

I kindly remind you that the comment I was replied to is saying: 'In Russia, the default mode of answering any complaint is "it's your own fault, we're not responsible, go away"'.

The irony.

The irony is that by not being able to take the exact same thing you're dishing out and defending, you're confirming the exact same stereotypes you doth protest too much about, methinks.

Are you as hateful and violent against gays as your government is?

Sorry, you statement is too vague and I don't understand which 'thing' you mean and where I am 'not able to take the same thing'.

I’m curious: You don’t think that being continuously exposed to government propaganda and threatened with jail/fines for dissenting opinions will increase the frequency of “shitty people”?

I don't see how the number of people 'denying responsibility and lying' depends on the exposure to government propaganda saying that Russia is doing good and justified thing right now.

If you believe you are right and what is contrary to this belief is only a fake, you don't need to lie and there is no responsibility for something you didn't do.

Then we fundamentally disagree in how human psychology works: I believe that if authorities (be they government officials, parents or others) habitually lie and cheat, then that behavior becomes socially sanctioned as a way to get ahead. Thus you end up with more “shitty people” (and a worse society)

No argument here, but my point is that if you believe lies and don't notice that you are being cheated, it doesn't corrupt you.

Again, I don’t think we are going to end up agreeing as I believe that a significant portion of the Russian people are aware, that they are being lied to, but are to scared to do anything about this.

Please also note, that I don’t believe this applied to all Russians. The few I’ve interacted with more closely have been nice (the opposite of “shitty”)

"a significant portion of the Russian people are aware, that they are being lied to, but are to scared to do anything about this"

Well, some of them must be trying to rationalize and normalize what's happening to reduce psychological suffering, but calling them bad on these grounds has a distinct feeling of blaming the victim.

And by the way, when you hear Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen say 'The United States will impose harsh consequences on countries that break the international economic order' and then ironically blaming Russia instead of her own country [0], do you feel how society becomes a little bit worse?

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/yellen-says-us-will-impose-...

Hmm, I fail to see how this is even remotely comparable to Russian propaganda/related to the topic at hand, but I’ll give you that the “West” has also behaved atrociously in the past. Though please be aware, that arguments like the one you are trying to make, has a distinct feeling of whataboutism.

"I fail to see how this is even remotely comparable to Russian propaganda/related to the topic at hand"

Ehh, perfectly/directly?

I gave you a fine example of "denying responsibility and lying" which should have corrupting influence on the recipients. I wonder if you notice this influence.

"whataboutism"

Any mention of this word has a distinct feeling of double standards.

I'd visit it. Do they accept donations?

You are living in it.

Always wanted to live in a museum! So much fun, never boring.

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