Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

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.

>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.

>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.

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.

"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.