Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "PolyMatter" channel.

  1. >is an officially atheist state >wants to manipulate reincarnation Hmmm.jpg
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  2. It's called asshole design, or dark UI
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  3. According to senior aides, 2011 (Libya) was what changed him so fundamentally. At the start of his career (think 2001 speeach at the Bundestag) he genuinely wanted Russia to be folded into the Western system, as a key partner. What he got instead was a continuation of pushing for neoliberal policies by the West (which destroyed Russian society in the 1990s under Yeltsin), and rank hypocrisy in foreign policy. Other countries can't do anything without our okay, but Iraq needs to be invaded! That sort of thing. Libya was especially horrifying for him. It was in the process of developing nuclear arms, and the US didn't want that. They made an informal deal with Gaddafi that, if he suspended the program, the US would look the other way regarding his 'lack of ddmocracy', and ostensibly allow the country to continue under him. He disarmed in 2003. 8 years later, they funded rebel groups and had him killed in the streets. Putin reportedly watched that video on repeat over and over, obsessively. He saw himself in that video. A nuclear armed state being given non-binding agreements by the US, only to be backstabbed and exploited later. Case in point, look at Libya now. He definitely also saw it happen surrounding NATO expansion in the 1990s. So from that point on, his perceived role as leader of Russia was to chiefly to develop Russia, but to act as a counter to the West.
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  4. Everyone can be a trillionaire
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  5. It's very strange to me— John Stewart commented on the '24-hour news cycle' for years, and it always struck me as odd that, if channels were going to commit to having content all day, why not span the globe? There are only so many panels with celebrity guests and local news about animals you can fit into a segment.
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  6. It will only work if it is done with other changes. If Kazakhstan only wants to distance itself from Russia, then this might work. But if it looks to Turkey and says "they changed their alphabet, look at how successful they are now! We're going to do the same!" — it's not going to work. Turkey became successful because they modernized, not just because they changed their alphabet.
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  7. Looks like China is in need of some "freedom and democracy"
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  8. You do realize that Taiwan is the only real roadblock to oceanic trade though, right? That's why the media has suddenly started picking up State Department language- '1st island chain' to 'keep China boxed in'. It's all about controlling other countries, not freedom and democracy. If China takes Taiwan, it will be too late. Senkaku won't be enough to hold the Chinese Navy, and it will have unblockable access to the Pacific. There are no other staging grounds beyond Taiwan that the US can ally with or take over.
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  9. Judging by all the comments saying "bUt wHaT aBoUT tHe U.s.?!!", I'd say China's marketing/nation brand tactics are working better than we thought! Guys. Just because the U.S. does something, doesn't mean we should condone other countries doing it too. We should protest against American and Chinese (and any other) companies stealing our data. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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  10. @Axel Faure There was one, the Turkic script from the Orkhon valley in Mongolia. The problem is that script hasn't been used for hundreds of years and the languages have changed since then. Most Turkic languages have many vowels, which the Orkhon script can't accommodate. Ataturk changed Turkey to Latin for a simple reason: to become closer to the West- especially economically (although I don't know how that works, since Europeans still won't understand Turkish, or Kazakh lol).
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  11. ​ @Marco-ip5cw  Is that why they're slated to be approved in the EU next year by its regulators? If you can't outcompete then on quality, spread lies and hope people will buy your fire-catching, pedestrian-hitting Tesla instead
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  12.  @DeeSnow97  Not a fan of that new idea either, but to be fair, China is generally very safe. Women in particular can go out at night without fear of being harassed or mugged. Same with the other East Asian countries.
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  13. ​ @thebaker8637  Lol nah, pretty much all states besides the Baltics wanted to stay, per the 1989 referendum (during Glastnost, don't try and call it FaKe). And the Baltic states ironically have way worse demographics than Russia.
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  14. ​ @hamzamahmood9565  You have a shallow view of the history. Gorbachev was a committed Leninist— so much so that he saw what he was doing (Pereistroika, Glastnost) as a spiritual successor to Lenin's NEP. There were multiple attempts to prevent and even one to undo the dissolution. It wasn't a foregone conclusion by any means. In fact even the US preferred having Gorbachev to Yeltsin because the former was more predictable. The only reason the USSR dissolved (not collapsed, it was done on the USSR's own terms) was because Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and Shushkevich signed it out of existence.
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  15.  @nineten9011  Can't wear for anything intense though, they'd fall off. You gotta go for Jabra or Shure earbuds
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  16. @agapp11able That doesn't matter too much. First I think they won't have enough time to destroy all of their factories, and Taiwan is important more because of their location. The US wants to control China by keeping it locked in to the 1st island chain. If China takes Taiwan (and possibly Senkaku) then it will be on equal standing with the US, unblockable access to the World Ocean. Then the US will know what it is like to have to deal with the US: An aggressive power bent on controlling the world (which the US already does, now it might flip).
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  17.  @jonson856  Whom are you disagreeing with? Me or Putin? The primary reason I gave for the involvement in Ukraine is that he saw the writing on the wall with Libya. It was so similar to Russia especially in regards to its geopolitical status (on the backfoot after the collapse of the USSR). Putin can publicly give whatever reasons he wants, ultimately I think survival against being surrounded by US military assets is the greatest factor. Even Yeltsin, in his drunken stupor, managed to voice his disapproval at NATO expansion despite assurances that no infrastructure would go past Germany in return for allowing it to reunify (YES I know it was unofficial, the point is that the Americans understood why it was so important and intentionally made the promise to begin with. The Russians did not fabricate that phrase from thin air, it was on the agenda in high-level talks for months).
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  18.  @tsytryna4014  ...Except that half of the original territory of the Kievan Rus' has been in modern day Russia since 900. And if Ukraine really is Rus', why did they call themselves Ukrainians? I hear Ukrainians say that their culture is older, so they could have taken the name "Rus" first. Why didn't they?
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  19.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  1) Just because something is legal doesn't mean it should be done or was moral. Look at the shithole the West turned Libya into, look up interviews with Libyans, they didn't like Gaddafi perse but would gladly take him now over complete chaos. 2) Russia didn't veto it because Putin, at that point, was still hopeful for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Gaddafi could have been simply imprisoned, or reasoned with. He had shown willingness to do so before, it was the US who ramped up media campaigns accusing him of being... no worse than any Saudi royal. And then they covertly funded groups inside the country to kill him and ruin the lives of the civilians living in Libya. Literally my first comment dude— AFTER Libya and what happened to Gaddafi, is what changed Putin.
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  20.  @MasterGhostf  Qaddafi found out the hard way. Honestly I wonder what would happen if Russia started selling in Euros
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  21.  @tsytryna4014  Yes, you're right. In the Hypathian Codex, "ѡ нем же оукраина много постона". The document is referring to Pereyaslav Principality, which was a border with the Golden Horde. This term оукраина did not refer to a single, specific place, as it was also used to describe Kyiv's borderlands of Pskov and Ryazan. Not to mention, even though modern Ukrainian makes a separation between "окраина" and "украина", Proto-Slavic does not. *krajь only meant "edge" or "border", nothing else. You are free to research the etymology yourself; the definition of "edge" came first. Ukrainians re-interpreted it later, after their national identity formed. There is nothing wrong with this— Denmark also means borderland. Ethiopia means "burnt face", but do they complain about that? Rusyns and Ruthenians are interchangeable, but neither of those are Ukrainians. They took their name from Rus', but that name only applied to people living in the Carpathian Mountains. Their regional designation is Carpatho-Rusyns, after all. They are nowhere near Kyiv! I should know— I'm a Hutsul by blood. Yes, the Ukrainian language has been more conservative— what is your point? American English is closer to Old English than modern British English. Does that make the U.S. closer to English culture than... England? Russian went through 2 reforms, if you look at old texts it is identical to Ukrainian. There was no difference, only one piece of the Tsardom changed and broke away. I assume in the last part you're talking about the Grand Duchy of Moscow. It was called Russia starting with Ivan Grozny, not Peter I. You must be confusing the Tsardom of Russia with with Russian Empire.
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  22. ​ @Quypzhatyr  I would be extremely careful doing that. If you want to use a past legacy to claim more land, you give Russia a perfect excuse to do the same back to you— no amount of Western media coverage will be able to ignore Kazakhstan's neo-Khanate claims. And, since they have the bigger army, LOTS of combat experience in the steppe now, and simply more people, you would lose.
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  23. @wee wee Yeah, this was always my problem with it. I don't think the Cyrillic letters are perfect for Kazakh either, but Latin relies too heavily on adding little marks to non-European languages and that could actually make it harder to learn (more difficult to write and read— what if you accidently mark on your paper and it changes the meaning of your word?) Cyrillic also tends to demand cursive writing, because the letters can't be easily written normally (like Д or Ж), but with the Internet I don't think that matters much anymore. If I'm not mistaken, though, hasn't the government in Almaty already committed to moving away from Cyrillic?
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  24.  @Marco-ip5cw  Have you not seen the thousands of videos of Tesla batteries catching fire? Or of their AI freaking out and hitting pedestrians, or thinking that a solid white line is a bike? My point is that the problems with Chinese EVs aren't exclusive to China. The singular US EV has the same issue... it's just more expensive. And the US doesn't want to actually compete with BYD.
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  25. I doubt this would have dissuaded Russia from continuing. If the sanctions were actually fuller in scope in 2014, then Russia would have cut Europe off (Germany especially, if they switched on their commitment to keep Russia in contact with Europe) from natural gas. At the time, oil was selling for ~$100/barrel, and US LNG capabilities were not as developed. Russia might have gone into a recession, but it would drag Europe down with it, and Europe has much more to lose.
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  26.  @China_Secret_Police  I think he is referring to the fact that most international institutions today were founded by, or came to by led by, the US following the Bretton Woods system in the 1950s. The UN was preceded by the League of Nations, founded by the US. The IMF and World Bank are centered around the US and Europe (all following US foreign policy). The SWIFT system is being used as a threat against Russia- if it isn't controlled solely by US and Europe, then how is it being used as a threat by them alone? The world's institutions (which the rest of the world had to adopt, since the US came out of WWII unscathed) were made to benefit the US. Even free trade heavily favors the US, since (aside from China) most trade deficits are in its favor. More developed countries have advantage when negotiating trade deals, only possible through the US-guaranteed free trade system. The game is rigged.
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  27. @ER0G  The Turkish economy isn't dependent, but the Central Asian ones are. Specifically Kazakhstan, Russia is its second largest trading partner after China. And Turkey and Azerbaijan have experience fighting Kurds and Armenia. These are nothing like fighting Russia. Look at interviews of any Western mercenary or foreign legion fighter. The style and intensity of the conflict is different. As I said— only China matters here. Turkey won't make any difference, they are insignificant.
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  28.  @ari_jean  Yeah but have you ever tried to write in Polish? There's a reason most Europeans (who aren't Slavs) don't even want to try
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  29.  @snare5903  No, not really. Russia (Yeltsin, rather, through Clinton) received a $10B loan to re-elect Yeltsin in 1994. This was both extremely illegal, and plagued with voter fraud in Chechnya. So, not very democratic either. Much like every other 'international' institution, it was set up by the US in the 1950s and so it benefits from not needing to play by any of the rules it set for others. Saudi Arabia got an IMF loan, for god's sake
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  30.  @MaximGhost  If they were not democratic either way, might as well not give away resources to america, no?
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  31. @ER0G  But they have no experience, and their economies rely heavily on Russian energy anyway. Not to mention the gap in weaponry and industrial production. As we've seen in Ukraine, having lots of men doesn't matter if they don't know how to fight and there aren't enough weapons for them to use.
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  32. While this is true, Russia has a very high rate of home ownership (courtesy of housing being a right in the Soviet Constitution). It's mostly economic and cultural conditions that hinder them
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  33. The pot calling the kettle black. Poland is shrinking too.
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  34.  @kazaktranslator9850  That was my concern too. Kazakhstan might be better off economically independent from Russia, but becoming a vassal state to Europe/the U.S., or becoming radicalized due to Islamic extremism from the south, aren't good options either. Latin would make Western investment easier, but with no strong industry of its own, Kazakhstan firms could lose in competition to Western ones. Islamic is more traditional, but countries with Sharia tend not to do well economically or have a good quality of life for their citizens.. it's a difficult choice. One of three, none are perfect.
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  35. @ER0G I know, that's why I said "who said anything about two fronts?" maybe my second comment got deleted. The only country that really matters in the situation you just proposed is China. The rest of the Central Asian countries are too small to make a difference.
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  36.  @epicdjyoshi648  Yeah the letter combinations make it very intimidating. This is also part of why people are afraid to learn Russian, there are no "landmark" letters in the words. Without the letter i or t, the word ends up looking and being longer than it sounds like.
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  37. Mistakes were made on both sides? The relationship was much more one sided than that. After the US helped Yeltsin rig the 1996 elections, any semblance of independence that Russia may have had, vanished. It was manipulated throughout the 1990s to give up its natural resources for Western companies. Plain and simple. It happened to dozens of other countries and, to the US glee, Russia was next in line. If Putin is punished, Bush must necessarily also be punished. Otherwise it's not enforcing international law, it's a beat-down and reinforcing the US global power.
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  38.  @kak42  Yes and no. It is worth mentioning that most Russians own apartments, not houses. But a very high percentage (close to 90%) actually own them. Russians don't consider themselves a "homeowner" until the the lastortgage payment is paid off. Mercifully, in the 1990s the housing stock in the USSR was transferred to the inhabitants of that housing, and not sold off to Western companies. In sum: not "houses" but apartments, though the ownership is real. So it is based on both law and material standard.
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  39.  @nickmonks9563  Because being a part of the West and using its established mechanisms, so to speak, are very different things. Putin's initial thought was that the West would invest in Russia in a way that helped it onto its feet and start developing things natively, instead of constantly keeping it dependant on Western services and institutions. In the same way that Western companies allowed China to siphon know-how by legally requiring Chinese to be co-owners and on every project. This wasn't done out of goodwill, but because they didn't want to lose out on the Chinese market. So through decades of participating in that scheme, Chinese society made up for 400 years of industrialization and started to found its own companies. This was Russia's mistake. Believing that the same could be accomplished through political ties alone. For instance in 2008 the US government pressured Chrysler to stop the sale of Opel (a formerly German car company) to a joint Austrian-Russian venture, citing the conflict in Georgia. Nevermind the fact that no one stopped doing business with the US in 2003. Or the dogged opposition to Nord Stream I. It's just plain economic warfare, all the time. Neoliberal doctrine of diminishing foreign states' power so your companies can get more lucrative deals in that country.
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  40.  @joonas9976  I'm kind of copying another comment, but... $50M = Fiddy Mill?
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  41.  @aqimjulayhi8798  I don't think it matters that much. The beauty of the city is more important- who cares if the name is 'pure Kazakh', if it's still a bad city? Do you think Russians are concerned about St. Petersburg sounding German? Or Americans worried that Los Angeles is Spanish?
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  42. ​ @anotherelvis  Angry Swede?
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  43.  @vulc1  Too confusing, not enough vowels
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  44.  @qamar900  Doesn't the Quran mention Muhammad consummating his marriage with Aisha when she was 11?
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  45. @Abdul Rahman No, they're not. When the oil runs out, they go back to being deserts with primitive tribes Look at what Erdogan (who is an Islamist) did to the value of the Turkish lira, because he wanted an 'unorthodox' economic approach that went against Western economic ideas . It's cheaper now to wipe your ass with the lira than to buy toilet paper
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  46.  @noticedruid4985  Man, this sounds just like "but that wasn't REAL communism" lol. If you don't like China, you don't like capitalism. No rules are off the table, this is what capitalism leads to. Sorry
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  47.  naranhan2010  Yes, but that's only 192 years of the 630 year tradition. And the Qing Dynasty wasn't even led by Chinese, but Manchu. And even if we ignore that and say it is tradition for the Dalai Lama to be selected by the state, that doesn't mean it should happen, nor does it mean whomever the Chinese dynasty chose was legitimate. Each new Dalai Lama is an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion in the Mahayana Buddhist religion. It is a re-incarnated position, unaffected by the choices of any emperor or government.
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  48. Fuck oil companies.
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  49.  @sebastjansslavitis3898  Well, it's a broadly pro-Western channel, so it doesn't surprise me that he's given it a "Kremlin bad" slant. You could say that it is, but (as the video points out), even countries with a higher average quality of life are facing an identical problem. So (sadly) it's not as simple of a problem as "just make the government more like the US". I suspect it's just cultural, and an effect of the internet. Women (like... normal people) when given the seemingly consequence-free choice between raising a child and enjoying themselves, are going to pick the latter. The issue is that higher levels of development for women correlate strongly with decreasing birthrate (specifically women, no such correlation for men). So I'm not sure of a way to resolve the issue without redefining what life should be all about. Add to that the Internet (which I think creates a negative feedback loop), and you have a population convinced that it can't change its own trajectory. UK is getting poorer so that certainly won't help in the short-term.
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  50.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  US does anything bad "Russian talking points!!! Please don't pay attention to what he said!!" That account was given by defectors you dumbass. The official Russian narrative is much different— they see each event happening in isolation. At most they will reference the expansion of NATO. But nobody will make Putin seem obsessed or traumatized, that's a weak image. The fact that it gives justification to invading its neighbors doesn't automatically make it untrue, no matter how you feel about it. If Putin really was paranoid about being surrounded by US allies and indirectly forced into bad trade deals, destroying Russian industry and economy further, and history proves him right, what would you have done against a West that's hellbent on removing any independent statehood that challenges it? Oh and btw... that Georgian occupation.. came 2 weeks AFTER NATO announced that it would become a member. They started it. Georgia was nowhere close to even qualifying, yet they brazenly announced it and hoped Putin would do nothing like Yeltsin. They were sorely mistaken.
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