Too bad it'll never work out. The station deserves to be build for the sake of high energy beams randomly poking earth surface due to a software glitch.
Science isn't about improving human life - it's about "just looking at stuff, and figuring out how it works". Science is a goal, in and of itself. The bulk of the science does nothing to imrove human life, and that's ok.
Cetainly not "almost everyone". Russian authorities are really fighting piracy for the last couple of years. Of course a)it's done with their usual level of competence and eagerness b)it's most likely the result of some (cough cough MS?) companies figuring out "how thing work in post-soviet countries", not a genuine desire of Russian authorities to protect intellectual property.
"government" and "criminals" are definitely not the same thing. government is just the biggest player on that market (in fact, several players - government agencies commit crimes on their own, not conspiring but, in fact, competing with each other), but there are lot's of others who want their own slice of the pie
"We've got fivefold increase of health-related complaints since we installed that cellular antenna. That's pretty scary. What's gonna happen when we actually start to use it?"
Goverment takes a great care about those people. It took press under firm control, turning it into propaganda machine. After many years of brainwashing Russians believe that they live in a prosperous, powerful(second to US) country. What you fear Russia will do is already happened in people's minds. They've even seen it on TV!. Saying that Russia neads to make the world fear (and, consequently, respect) it is an anti-governmental propaganda, because in the virtual reality where Russians live Russia is already feared and respected. The Russian democracy was over in 1993, but noone noticed that because back then Russian government was loyal to US.
Nazi Germany started with building a world's best army. Then came Poland. You seems to be missing a crucial step. So you try to conquer the country, have a clash with it's military, crush them loosing some of your troops and than just sit there, letting them go and not seizing the territory. That's a brilliant tactics, speaks volumes of why you were occupied by SU.
That's not a correction 'cos I never said that the territory does not belong to Georgia. The Russian peacekeepers were on Georgian territory because of the treaty with Russian goverment. And?
Chechnya is a good example, I think. All the countries who had peacekeepers on Chechen territory declared war against Russia.
Google tells a different story.
Your trauma is not enough to make Russia a powerful country. And your misunderstanding of difference between Soviet Union (which was sort of like modern Iran) and current Russia (which is sort of like Byzantine Empire) is quite entertaining
I'm actually quite impressed with what your experience with Russians have done to you. You live in a virtual reality where Russia is on it's conquest to occupy half of the world. Russians live in virtual reality where Russia is a prospering country. Either way it's far from truth, but in any of this realities Russia is way more powerful than it truly is. The truth is that Russia is a decaying empire, with little control over its southern parts and economy sustained entirely due to oil/gas prices. The reason why Georgia lost the war to such a weak state is that they're failed state, rivaling Russia in incompetence. The reason why Georgia started that war is that it's leader was on the verge of being ousted by opposition, so he needed small war to boost patriotic feelings. South Ossetia will be a part of Georgia due to the fact that it's essentially inside Georgia. It'll take time, because Ossetians need to forget that Georgians repeatedly tried exterminate them. This war just moved the consolidation a few decades in the future (they boosted president's popularity at the expense of the country area).
Why Eurasia and not the whole world? Why Georgia - it gives zero control over Eurasia? Why Tbilisi is free? What kind of control it is? What's the point of making war if you keeps your hand clear - if you don't seize the countries how are you going to control Eurasia? What's the point in meddling with countries like Georgia if you don't have China, India, Pakistan and Europe under control? Do you realise that any of this countries can defeat Russia, i.e. Russia just can not control Eurasia? Back to retaliation: Russian troops were there for decade as peacekeepers because of the treaty with Georgia. So Georgia couldn't stand the number of peacekeepers and had to attack? What do you call a country that doesn't like the neigbouring troops so it decides to attack them (imagine that Russia would decide to attack Georgia out of dislike for the number of Georgian troops) Or Russian troops were attacked by impostors? I'm sure it was in the best interest of Georgian goverment to make the world know it right? And Georgian, of course, denied that they were in South Ossetia?
Could you elaborate where's the limit for Russian expansion (SU? Russian Empire? The Earh? Solar system?), if, as you think it has not been reached? And also about retaliation - what was it against?
It's like talking with someone who was asleep for the last 8 years. Popularity? Glorious empire? The goverment rating is high, the media is nothing but a propaganda machine and most Russians already believe that they're living in a glorious empire. The next elections where it matters are 3.5 years away. Speaking of retaliation, I'd like to hear someone demanding retaliation. Russian, Ossetian or Georgian for the matter.
What a mess. Nationalism is putting interests of your nation above interests of other nations. Nazism/fascism is an ideology of supremacy - your nation is inherently superior than other nations (for some, say, genetic reasons). Russia is basically protecting the very silly investment made in 1991 - the same way US protects it's not very reasonble investment by staying in Iraq. The rest is rethoric (in both cases). How exactly can you provoke Georgia given that South Ossetia is a tiny patch of land with just a handful of people surrounded by Georgia and Caucasus Mountains is beyond my comprehension.
WMD are a way to commit a suicide, not a way to conquer anyone. Military-wise Russia is very weak
You seems to confuse nazism and nationalism
The ideas about sacred mission etc are just wild. Russians are quite nationalistic, and saving someone else is left as an excersize for suckers who believe in lofty nonsense. It seems that your exposure to anything Russian is limited, to say the least.
If the beginning (the occupation of Czechoslovakia) is not important, than the analogy fails.
In the grand scheme of things US doesn't give much money to Russia. EU and China do. That's the trend, at least. The role of US is to boost fossil fuel prices, so that EU and China pay even more.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally, now I understand all those references to "good old times"
Perm is a decent place by Russian standards. At least it was :)
Too bad it'll never work out. The station deserves to be build for the sake of high energy beams randomly poking earth surface due to a software glitch.
There are police officers' day and physicians' day among official Russian holidays.
Science isn't about improving human life - it's about "just looking at stuff, and figuring out how it works". Science is a goal, in and of itself. The bulk of the science does nothing to imrove human life, and that's ok.
First learn to use Helium 3, than start mining it, not the other way around. Right now Helium 3 is absolutely useless.
send probes out.
was arguably the greatest science fiction writer would be more accurate, IMHO.
Times have changed.
Most likely the reasoning was "Hey, everyone seems to get money from MS, why not us?". The rest is a smokescreen.
Cetainly not "almost everyone". Russian authorities are really fighting piracy for the last couple of years. Of course a)it's done with their usual level of competence and eagerness b)it's most likely the result of some (cough cough MS?) companies figuring out "how thing work in post-soviet countries", not a genuine desire of Russian authorities to protect intellectual property.
How exactly would you do that?
"government" and "criminals" are definitely not the same thing. government is just the biggest player on that market (in fact, several players - government agencies commit crimes on their own, not conspiring but, in fact, competing with each other), but there are lot's of others who want their own slice of the pie
"We've got fivefold increase of health-related complaints since we installed that cellular antenna. That's pretty scary. What's gonna happen when we actually start to use it?"
That's exactly my point
Goverment takes a great care about those people. It took press under firm control, turning it into propaganda machine. After many years of brainwashing Russians believe that they live in a prosperous, powerful(second to US) country. What you fear Russia will do is already happened in people's minds. They've even seen it on TV!. Saying that Russia neads to make the world fear (and, consequently, respect) it is an anti-governmental propaganda, because in the virtual reality where Russians live Russia is already feared and respected. The Russian democracy was over in 1993, but noone noticed that because back then Russian government was loyal to US.
Nazi Germany started with building a world's best army. Then came Poland. You seems to be missing a crucial step.
So you try to conquer the country, have a clash with it's military, crush them loosing some of your troops and than just sit there, letting them go and not seizing the territory. That's a brilliant tactics, speaks volumes of why you were occupied by SU.
That's not a correction 'cos I never said that the territory does not belong to Georgia. The Russian peacekeepers were on Georgian territory because of the treaty with Russian goverment. And?
Chechnya is a good example, I think. All the countries who had peacekeepers on Chechen territory declared war against Russia.
Google tells a different story.
Your trauma is not enough to make Russia a powerful country. And your misunderstanding of difference between Soviet Union (which was sort of like modern Iran) and current Russia (which is sort of like Byzantine Empire) is quite entertaining
I'm actually quite impressed with what your experience with Russians have done to you. You live in a virtual reality where Russia is on it's conquest to occupy half of the world. Russians live in virtual reality where Russia is a prospering country. Either way it's far from truth, but in any of this realities Russia is way more powerful than it truly is. The truth is that Russia is a decaying empire, with little control over its southern parts and economy sustained entirely due to oil/gas prices. The reason why Georgia lost the war to such a weak state is that they're failed state, rivaling Russia in incompetence. The reason why Georgia started that war is that it's leader was on the verge of being ousted by opposition, so he needed small war to boost patriotic feelings. South Ossetia will be a part of Georgia due to the fact that it's essentially inside Georgia. It'll take time, because Ossetians need to forget that Georgians repeatedly tried exterminate them. This war just moved the consolidation a few decades in the future (they boosted president's popularity at the expense of the country area).
Why Eurasia and not the whole world? Why Georgia - it gives zero control over Eurasia? Why Tbilisi is free? What kind of control it is? What's the point of making war if you keeps your hand clear - if you don't seize the countries how are you going to control Eurasia? What's the point in meddling with countries like Georgia if you don't have China, India, Pakistan and Europe under control? Do you realise that any of this countries can defeat Russia, i.e. Russia just can not control Eurasia? Back to retaliation: Russian troops were there for decade as peacekeepers because of the treaty with Georgia. So Georgia couldn't stand the number of peacekeepers and had to attack? What do you call a country that doesn't like the neigbouring troops so it decides to attack them (imagine that Russia would decide to attack Georgia out of dislike for the number of Georgian troops) Or Russian troops were attacked by impostors? I'm sure it was in the best interest of Georgian goverment to make the world know it right? And Georgian, of course, denied that they were in South Ossetia?
Could you elaborate where's the limit for Russian expansion (SU? Russian Empire? The Earh? Solar system?), if, as you think it has not been reached? And also about retaliation - what was it against?
It's like talking with someone who was asleep for the last 8 years. Popularity? Glorious empire? The goverment rating is high, the media is nothing but a propaganda machine and most Russians already believe that they're living in a glorious empire. The next elections where it matters are 3.5 years away. Speaking of retaliation, I'd like to hear someone demanding retaliation. Russian, Ossetian or Georgian for the matter.
What a mess. Nationalism is putting interests of your nation above interests of other nations. Nazism/fascism is an ideology of supremacy - your nation is inherently superior than other nations (for some, say, genetic reasons). Russia is basically protecting the very silly investment made in 1991 - the same way US protects it's not very reasonble investment by staying in Iraq. The rest is rethoric (in both cases). How exactly can you provoke Georgia given that South Ossetia is a tiny patch of land with just a handful of people surrounded by Georgia and Caucasus Mountains is beyond my comprehension.
WMD are a way to commit a suicide, not a way to conquer anyone. Military-wise Russia is very weak
You seems to confuse nazism and nationalism
The ideas about sacred mission etc are just wild. Russians are quite nationalistic, and saving someone else is left as an excersize for suckers who believe in lofty nonsense. It seems that your exposure to anything Russian is limited, to say the least.
If the beginning (the occupation of Czechoslovakia) is not important, than the analogy fails.
In the grand scheme of things US doesn't give much money to Russia. EU and China do. That's the trend, at least. The role of US is to boost fossil fuel prices, so that EU and China pay even more.