Andrew_nenakhov

Why would Apple even create this thing? There are lots of similar apps out there.

apparently, the website in question is libgen.io (appears to have been taken down now), currently it has lots of mirrors like libgen.im , libgen.com.de, etc.

> but it must be said, as genius as Franklin was, sadly ..

Some people can't help themselves from bringing irrelevant facts to the conversation.

The real reason for dark ages was not the fall of the western roman empire, but the arabian conquests, which turned the international trade highway (the Mediterranean sea) into a highway by which pirates and slave traders had easy access to their prey.

All the best jokes are only part jokes.

> Why a randomized reservation order?

Lies, they just want to protect themselves from the German Tank Problem [0] type of analysis.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

Yeah right, that worked out for Iranians quite well all these times.

You see, the problem is that all exit points of our VPNs are in Europe. These too can be banned quite easily. Where to will we run next, given that this cancer tends to spread?

In Russia, they claimed that new measures to block websites are necessary to protect the children online. Of course, they immediately used these new capabilities to block opposition websites and sources critical of the government.

Now, seeing many European governments tirelessly push for these new measures to protect the children, I'm pretty sure that the children are finally going to be safe online.

ok, after playing this game, I started respecting shepherding dogs' skills even more.

Thank you for proving my point. Great example of double-think!

Yeah that Schrodinger Russia again: it is being stuck for years, unable to take some small village in Donetsk region, and simultaneously is a grave threat that looms over Europe, ready to quickly overrun their capital cities.

> Russia, the US, and China are essentially in a kind of military alliance, and that Ukraine is literally the only one openly opposing this alliance.

This is highly delusional. Don't you think that if the US and Russia were an alliance, the US would provide intelligence and communication to Russia, and not to Ukraine?

In reality, website who don't have any tracking cookies, still hang this banner just in case someone would start harrassing them.

This progressive movement is absolutely totalitarian.

As long as you adhere to all mainstream tenets, you're good and virtuous, like pre-2018 JK Rowling. Gay Dumbledore, yay!

But if the mainstream tenets change, and some previously loyal followers disagree with some of them, they should be ostracised, cancelled and vilified, like post-2019 JK Rowling.

The funny thing is that this is what real fascists and communists did to a T, yet, progressive people view themselves as anti-fascists.

Many, many commenters here are themselves bathed in a political media echo chamber, just a different one. Ironic, isn't it?

If you treat your political opponents as 'insane' instead of trying to understand what moves them, it says more about you than about people you consider insane.

There was a period when I was constantly showered with these ads whenever I visited YouTube. It quickly became clear that it was some kind of scam, but YouTube didn't do anything about it for years.

Ok now you're defending measures like forcing people to wear masks on a secluded beach and somehow you still call such measures reasonable. Yuck.

Right now the government in question is Australian, and I personally wouldn't trust the government which would force citizens to compulsory wear of masks outdoors and alone in cars.

> Not at the end. Also back then US had USAID

1960s and 1970s are the end to you, really? USAID, really? You have already proven that you have a very remote understanding of Russia/USSR, please stop trying to bring this point even further.

> I think you are not qualified to say that.

I actually am.

> Talk to more yakuts who live in the "center".

By pure chance, I do have such contacts, they laugh at this decolonization crap. Also by chance, I knew Russians who lived in Yakutia in 1990s, and they did tell me stories of discrimination from the locals. Same as stories of discrimination of Russians in Kazakhstan, Baltic republics, etc -- both in soviet and post-soviet times.

You repeat this mantra 'Control of information is a magical thing', but it doesn't become true just because you repeat it. USSR controlled the information far more tightly, yet, nobody believed the government and laughed at them -- I'm old enough to remember that. See, propaganda has a hard time competing with an empty fridge and empty stomach, and in the end, empty stomach prevails. People see quite clearly that living in Russia becomes harder every day, and of course they link it to the unchangeable leadership of the country. After 25 years, people are simply tired of Putin, so any claims that he has 80% approval rating are simply laughable.

Regarding your other point, no, 'Non-whites' are not really discriminated. In fact, Russians themselves are the most underrepresented ethnic group in all levels of power in Russia -- and it always has been that way. It was so in Russian Empire, in Soviet Union, and stays true in Putin's Russia as well. What you're referring to is the cargo-cult practice by some ppl who try to mimic modern Western political tactics. Many have noticed that claimed victimhood is beneficial in the modern-day West, so they try to emulate that by pretending to be a victim of some oppression -- that's where your stories originate from.

> Now imagine living not so close to "center" (the mostly white west of the country)

You seem to have a very limited understanding of Russia.

First, nobody in Russia ever thinks of its population in racial terms like 'white'. At most, there are ethnic terms like 'russians', 'caucasians' [0], 'tatars', 'yakuts', etc. -- there aren't even any genuine Asians here but the students from China.

And no, thanks to the soviets, the cultural influence between most of these ethnic groups is next to unexistent.

More, you say 'the white west' of the country, but this is again a misconception: the closer you get to the 'west' (or, more correctly, to the center, like Moscow and Saint Petersburg), the less 'russian' it is. The percent of ethnic russian population is far higher in eastern parts of the country and on the outskirts than in Moscow, where the percent of ethnical russians is the lowest.

> Remember that most most people in Russia support the government and do what they are told.

Yeah, Putin once again thanks you for your service. You have no idea what real Russia looks like, as I've proven above when I disproved your misconceptions, yet, you go out of your way and still spread Putin's narrative how popular he is.

In reality, Putin stays in power because he has an army of paid thugs who'll kill anyone who opposes him. If Putin would participate in any honest elections vs just about anyone who is not one of his cronies, he'd lose such elections in a landslide. That's why he will never do the Lukashenko's mistake of allowing even a simple housewife to run against him, which ran, and won, so Lukashenko had no blatantly falsify the election results and suppress the protests to stay in power. Genuinely popular leaders do not need such precautions. Putin knows he is deeply unpopular, Russians know he is deeply unpopular, and only unwitting Putin's henchmen from the West spread Putin's narrative that he is a very popular leader. Lol.

[0]: No, not 'caucasians' as americans understand the term, but people from actual Caucasus region, like Chechnya, Dagestan, Armenia, Georgia -- the actual Georgia, not the one which is next to South Carolina :-D

How many contractors do you think there are relative to the size of population, so that the previous poster was claiming that was flooded with wealth?? This is just plain nonsense. Mercenary payments have extremely limited impact on the overall 'lower class' wealth.

(And you somehow forget about the little insignificant downside of a mercenary career that you might be a bit dead or maimed, oops)

No, Chelyabinsk. You want a photo proof of me standing in the street?

This is absolutely delusional, but Putin thanks you for serving his cause.

Regarding your claim that Putin flooded the lower classes with money, this is simply false. What percent of the population do you think signed up for war? Do you really think that 0.5% (optimistic estimate) that did sign up had spread their wealth with anyone else?

Just last week I stayed in the hospital with 2 men, 72y.o and 64y.o. One has pension of 19k RUB, another one 23k RUB. That's fewer than $300. Showered with money, Yay!

You aren't from Russia, aren't you? Yes, anyone in Russia who still doesn't have VPN access IS a complete idiot. This is the reality on the ground that I observe every day. Nannies in kindergartens have them, teachers at school have them, salespersons in perfume store have them, all students have them, schoolchildren have them.

And it has nothing to do with the law — currently, using vpn isn't breaking any laws.

Lol, the dictator's approval rating is so high that he bans, forces to exile or kills any opposing candidate, never risking elections vs anyone not fully controlled by him.

Every time someone like Bukele flexes that his approval rating is higher than Putin's, I laugh -- the guy clearly doesn't understand that this isn't the flex he thinks it is.

Of course, it is true. If you are not a complete idiot, you won't be content with being blocked from the information you seek, so you'd find someone technical to help you out. I personally give access to my vpn server to ~100 users for free, and so far the access is stable enough. I have little doubts that in the future it'll be more difficult, but we'll see about that when we get there.

Everybody in Russia who is not a complete idiot already has a VPN that allows to circumvent censorship (for now).

Source: I'm in Russia now.

In the end it'll likely end with whitelists of allowed IP addresses, and that will indeed insure that nobody would be able to access banned resources.

Personally, I prefer film versions in every example listed.