Oh? Do you mean it's a mere coincidence everything the Russian government is doing follows, almost step-by-step, the recipe provided in "Foundations of Geopolitics"? My, how I love coincidences! One may even start believing there's a higher power directing destiny, be it a God or the Laws of History, so impressive those are!

Nods. It shows.

No, it doesn't. Please provide a quote, any quote, in which Marx says Communism emerges naturally. You won't be able to, as he never said that. He believed the collapse of Capitalism was inevitable due to what he believed were its internal contradictions. Capitalism collapsing does not entail Communism naturally emerges afterwards. For him, Communism must be actively constructed by the proletarian class. If they construct Communism, then the world arrives, so he believed, to a system without internal contradictions, thus reaching an end to the period of self-contradictory economic system replacing one another. If they fail at constructing Communism, then Capitalism still collapses, still gets replaced by something else, and this something else in turn goes on having its own internal contradictions that will eventually lead to its own collapse, etc.

To quote the man himself, here's him explaining this in that convoluted speech style of his. I emphasized the relevant sentences and words:

"Communism differs from all previous movements in that it (...) consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. (...) The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves. Thus the communists in practice treat the conditions created up to now by production and intercourse as inorganic conditions, without, however, imagining that it was the plan or the destiny of previous generations to give them material, and without believing that these conditions were inorganic for the individuals creating them.

(...) Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness (...) the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution (...) become fitted to found society anew."

Thanks for confirming my point, as your just restated what I had said: that the URSS had as its nominal goal to bring about Communism. You may continue to play with the words if you like, and I'll just keep poking fun at it when you do.

He never believed, much less predicted, any natural evolution of those traits. And it didn't happen naturally either, it was all deliberately made. There's no determinism in History, in any direction.

I guess you don't understand what "nominal" means, hence the confusion. See here for the full definition and examples. Also check the de jure vs de facto distinction. Afterwards, if you re-read my replies, my meaning will become clearer.

No, I said it was Socialist and Marxist, but not Communist, and that it had as its nominal goal bringing about Communism. The inheritance Socialism -> Marxism -> Leninism -> Stalinism isn't disputed by any scholar, at most they discuss how much Russian political traditions influenced the way the latter two' approached Marx's ideas (example), so I'm not sure what your point is. A contrarian position, maybe?

Therein lies the issue. I don't doubt your experience was between really bad and horrible, but you're doing a different comparison than the one I'm doing.

Your perspective is contrasting a) the Socialist system you lived through versus how b) democratic societies of the time were. This is a fair comparison, and it's undoubtful the first was, in comparison to the later, bad. Really, really bad.

What I'm arguing is different though. I'm doing a comparison between what your reality was (or, more precisely, what the URSS reality was) versus c) what it would have been had Tzarism continued, by extrapolating from the later based on how other feudal societies historically developed over similar timespans.

A third possible comparison is between what Russia became versus d) what it would have become had it gone through a Liberal revolution in 1917, rather than a Communist one, that is, a revolution that had embraced Classic Liberalism in economy, Representative Liberal Democracy in politics complete with multiple political parties, full freedom of the press, full free speech rights, full human rights with a comprehensive bill of rights, limits on central power with a fully enforced Constitution government branches couldn't ignore, pulverization of power via federalist mechanisms of governance, and so on, and so forth. It doesn't matter much if it'd have turned Republican or remained as a Constitutional Monarchy, as the long as the remaining of the list had been adopted and kept running.

Hence, what I'm arguing, basically, is that, in terms of best to worst, we have this hierarchy:

i) Already established Western Liberal societies (case "b") would have remained better in comparison due to already existing, already working, and already having established self-reinforcing mechanisms, to continue doing what they were doing.

ii) A hypothetical Liberal Russia (case "d") would have been the best possible scenario had it happened. Liberal 1950s' Russia would still be behind older Liberal democracies, but way ahead of what Socialist Russia achieved, all without so many deaths and misery.

iii) Actual Socialist Russia (case "a") was bad, but better than a straight continuation of Tzarist Russia would have become.

iv) Lastly, a hypothetical Tzarist Russia that continued into the 1950s would have been the worst possible scenario. It'd have failed to industrialize and would have become a producer of grains and of raw minerals. A small industry would exist, but by and large it'd have turned into an importer of added-value goods, with little hope of turning out better due to an ever-widening gap between its low technological reality and the high technological one of Liberal countries.

Hence, as before, it isn't as much that we're disagreeing, but that we're focusing on different sides of the same issue.

True. Probably much longer, but the seeds already existed in the welfare system implemented by Bismarck in Germany in the second half of the 19th century.

Interestingly, Marx himself was intensely opposed to such welfare systems, and argued bitterly against reformist, anti-violent revolution group that departed the then workers' movement to eventually become Social-Democracy. His argument, in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", was that providing such welfare for workers would make proletarians comfortable enough in their lives that it'd defuse their revolutionary spirit, perpetuating Capitalism.

Most ignored this argument until the Russian Revolution happened. Then everyone went back, looked at it with much renewed interest, looked at what Bismarck had done, noticed how the later had shown increases in productivity, noticed how Germany hadn't gone through a Communist revolution despite everyone but the kitchen sink believing the first big one would happen there, put 2+2 together, and began implementing welfare programs all around, which really did dampen that revolutionary spirit and prevented Communist revolutions from popping up everywhere.

Too bad modern Neoliberals, Libertarians and US-style Conservatives seem to have forgotten the lessons of 100 years ago, and are doing all they can to break apart the welfare system. The growing inequality is reigniting that very revolutionary spirit, as wished by Marx. If this idiotic anti-welfare impetus isn't quelched ASAP, the next few decades will see Communism returning in force. After all, what will the dispossed have to lose by embracing it?

a) Agreed.

b) I mostly agree, but I think you exaggerate the lack of development for civil uses and the impact of imported technology (and of internally developed technology) on the lives of the population. Generally speaking, and this applies there as well as elsewhere, the existence of an industrial complex, with the linked need for urban living, with the mass migration of peasants from the fields to the cities to work in those factories, itself meant a huge improvement in the standard of living for those former peasants turned factory workers. The West did that process much better, over a longer timespan, and with a huge dose of freedom in the process. The URSS did that in the worst way possible, but also much more quickly.

c) I mostly agree, but I'd say Leninism isn't that much of a departing from what Marx wrote. Young Marx defended, in his 1848 articles, imposing a dictatorship of the proletariat and the use of terror techniques to bring down the bourgeoisie. Lenin added to that the idea of the vanguard leading that process, but the notion of forcing things with extreme violence was definitely part of Marx's original notions. Similarly, Stalin's idea of doing it via conquest isn't that dissimilar from original Marxist ideas, in that Engels, also in 1848, or maybe early 1849, stated that eliminating entire classes and even entire conservative populations would be a good step forward. Stalin embraced that genocidal concept and ran with it.

Both Lenin and Stalin put a lot of emphasis on things that in Marx's own works were relatively secondary, but that they were there, they were.

a) Your first point is dependent on semantics. I mean superpower in a narrow sense of a country that's powerful and can get its way beyond its geographical sphere of influence, as distinct from a regional power, which has similar power locally. If we add to the concept a delimitation of needing to hold that broad influence via soft power, then yes, the URSS wasn't a superpower. But those are two different definitions of the word.

b) This is another instance where we're using the same word with differing meanings. What I meant was access to technological developments. Russia advanced from a mostly agrarian society to a technological power in those 30 years. It took the US to get to the same level about 200 years. But yes, all you said also happened too.

c) Socialism isn't Communism. In Marxist jargon, Socialist policies are temporary measures that are to be dropped once Communism proper starts. The URSS never attempted to start Communism, it just kept circling around variations of Socialist policies. Failing for almost 4 generations to bring about Communism, despite layers upon layers of totalitarian policies designed, in theory at least, to bring it, is a pretty clear indication it cannot be done, which is the core critique one can develop against the worst of Marxist delusions.

Of course they were. There was no concept of this moment being "intimate", to the point guests watching a couple have their first sexual intercourse was part of the wedding. And see also this reply of mine to another commenter.

This Reddit question has three answers with links and references. I'll copy and paste a 19th-century quote provided by the second answer. Reading and clicking the different links is very informative:

"Modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where, in one small chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and growing up girls --- two and sometimes three generations --- are herded promiscuously; where every operation of the toilette and of nature --- dressings, undressings, births, deaths --- is performed by each within the sight and hearing of all; where children of both sexes, to as high an age as 12 or 14, or even more, occupy the same bed; where the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into something below the level of the swine. It is a hideous picture: and the picture is drawn from life." (Rev. James Fraser, in a 1867 report "on the living conditions of agricultural women and children")

Well, Islamic societies were in many aspects ahead of European ones. It's remarkable to me that you mention the 14th century as the starting point for such records, which suggests to me they refer to the period after the Mongol conquests, which were quite thorough in destroying most of what existed before with few exceptions ("rivers running black with the ink of all the libraries destroyed" etc.), so my educated first guess, supposing your country was among the Mongol victims, is the reconstruction and moralizing that came about after that "end of the world" event saw some pretty extreme cultural changes compared to how things were done before.

What I described is common all around the world except there where it was made to change. So my default hypothesis is things weren't much different in your country before the "end times", and only came around after it, likely in answer to it ("God punished us for our sins, so we must become pure" and the like).

Nah, they were just normal. This is how humans function normally when they haven't been religiously indoctrinated into the belief sex is evil and corrupting. And even when they are finally convinced by incessant preaching that sex is evil and corrupting, cultures still change slowly, especially if people are left to their own devices. The way to accelerate that, which is what's been used most everywhere this change happened was via violence (morality policing), which does make people quickly change their behavior.

"So, how do I avoid answering the actual argument while feinting moral superiority? Hmm... ahh, I know!", and starts typing: "In case you hadn't noticed it's no longer..."

Until around the mid-18th century, when people in English-speaking countries became wealthy enough to afford living in houses with more than a single room and, by consequence, the very novel (at the time) concept of personal privacy came about, parents, grandparents, children and other family members all lived and slept within that one room.

In that one room the parents had sex. Right besides their old folk and the children. Sometimes the old folk had energy to have sex too. And yes, the children were frequently awake and watching. That includes all of you great-great-great-...-great-grandparents, and all their ancestors.

Besides that, almost all children worked in animal husbandry, helping quite directly several species of domesticated animals to mate, from goats and sheep to cattle and horses. What they saw when doing that was no different from what they saw their parents and grandparents doing at night.

That's how humanity lived for most of the last 12,000 years. And, somehow, those 600+ generations of children neither had any trouble "being ready" for any of that, nor came out of it mentally broken in any way whatsoever.

So, from where, exactly, came this weird myth so many conservatives hold that present-day children are in some way different from the children of old, and cannot deal with direct knowledge of sexual acts? What is the origin of this nonsense?

Depends on what you mean by fail.

Fail in the sense of being a superpower? It didn't fail in that. It was indeed a superpower, with an extensive sphere of influence and was feared and respected. So if your criteria of success is being a superpower, then indeed, there was work from within to break that status.

Fail in the sense of rising its population's standard of living all the way to that of first world countries? Well, for the first 30 years or so it didn't fail at all, quite the opposite, it was a remarkable success. It brought a population from feudalism all the way to quasi-first world status at a rate about 10 times faster than what happened in the West under Capitalism. But then it stagnated, its standard of living not falling, but also not improving, while the standard of living in the West kept improving. So in relative (not absolute) terms its comparative standard of living started falling, until it became clear it couldn't cross the gap without changing its economic system to a much faster one.

Fail in the sense of not bringing up Communism? Definitely. Socialism was supposed to be a temporary situation while the population went through disalienation and became ready to self-govern in a fully autonomic manner, the State reduced to a small administrative and logistics body, while proletarian assemblies decided public affairs. In that it failed utterly and completely, to the point of forcibly sabotaging and destroying every attempt, internal and external, at enacting Communism.

IMHO, since the last of these was the nominally important to the regime, it's quite accurate to call the Soviet Union a complete failure. And modern Russia isn't even on the same ballpark, as it seems its elites are more focused on reconstructing Tzarism under some kind of pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo than in doing something useful for itself and/or the world at large.

I guess you have high IQ, as well as a good balance of the hormones that regulate willpower (high levels of dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and leptin, and low levels of cortisol and ghrelin), all the while living in a time period and geographic location in which this combination of factors makes it easy to find good, high status, well-paying jobs.

Confusing one's genetic luck with merit is something people who got lucky in the genetic lottery tend to do quite regularly, as attributing one's success almost exclusively to luck is hard on the ego. So much so, in fact, that when confronted with this basic fact most of them lucky ones promptly start rationalizing (and oh, how easy it is for high IQ people to rationalize!) and grasping at the tiny non-genetically determined straws of their biographies, to then justify their luck exclusively on these.

And presto, ego preserved.

China may be the place where all of that continues. Unfortunately. The fact they're an almost-totalitarian dictatorship and their tyrants have a focus on hard, real technological growth, coupled with what you wrote, has a high likelihood of causing them to get the lead. Not because China, can all other things being equal, do it faster than the US, for freedom to innovate almost always beats top-down impositions. But because the US, as a whole, has decided to make things unequal in the worst possible way -- for themselves, at least.

PR. Hamas deliberately organizes things so that children die when Israel attacks. Since the world learned, from Judaism via Christianity, that children shouldn't be killed, it takes issue with those who're actively killing the children. The aspect of those children being put in place to be killed by Hamas has no bearing in this, because Israel is in the unenviable position of being able to opt not to shoot / explode / starve the children Judaism taught the world it's wrong to shoot / bomb / starve.

Yes, this is a Catch-22. Either Israel fully avoids shooting, bombing, and starving those children, giving Hamas a strong strategic advantage it'd need to overcome in some other way (that doesn't involve shooting, bombing and starving children), or Israel embraces the shooting, bombing and starvation of children to uproot Hamas, thus becoming monsters before the very world their great-great-great-...-great-grand-forefathers taught "do NOT kill children".

There are echoes of that. Until the 1930s Christian antisemites regularly accused Jewish people, falsely, of murdering children, which all by itself had led to several Pogroms. Hamas is obviously taping on that. The problem is, nowadays there are photos of the murdered children, whereas back then there were, quite literally, no murdered children at all.

Hence, while the analogy is there, and parallels can be traced, the core difference is that in the 1930s the accusations were false, while in 2020s they aren't. Yes, again, this is deliberately being engineered by Hamas. But there's no sidestepping the fact the world is intensely horrified by the photos of dead children. And the longer this continues, the worse Israel's international image will become.

So, PR-wise, the best approach would be to, you know, stop killing the children. Not reducing the rate of children killed per month of whatever, that doesn't work in a world where the video of one children who dies will be repeatedly shown all around over and over and over. A total, full stop. That's what it'd take, at the bare minimum.

That's basically it. Not a sudden global pandemic of antisemitism, which isn't really happening, no. Dead children. No more, no less.

Almost certainly not. It's likely open-source distributed training using people's spare computing in a manner similar to BOINC (if not within it) will pop-up for free-model enthusiasts to continue developing such models.