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[Helgoland]

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.
Hell, we can test that: Sergarr, what are your views on societal policy?

[Sergarr]

Only with the knowledge of "what will happen if we do things" tied in to the "do things" part can we (both separate people, groups, and society as a whole) start to meaningfully change things around without getting unavoidably fucked again by forgetting to account for something.

But people are stupid, and prone to mistakes, and in this sense politicians are people. I mean, most people seriously don't appreciate how things work in international politics, and when I say most I mean most humans, not most Americans or most Russians or whatever. All over the world, I see people suggest things that would get their countries screwed over by the international community all the time. Like for example: some people argue the best thing to do is to divide Iraq into homogeneous countries. This ignores the fact that there is an entire Iraqi conspiracy theory based around the West's supposed desire to do just that (Egypt has one too, for whatever fucking reason). An actual serious attempt to do that (or even serious discussion) would outrage people.

Rationality is a good thing to want. But to ask for it more permanently is to ask to be disappointed. People (and countries) can be doing the right thing and on the right path, but they are only right for as long as their path is right. All you can do is keep them on whatever happens to be the right path at the moment, and try to move them when it isn't anymore.

And this problem has the obvious answer - if prediction/decision making process hardware is failing to work properly, then we need to change it to something more stable and malleable. People already use special programs to predict and make decisions on the stock exchange markets, so it's not like it's anything radically new.

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.
Hell, we can test that: Sergarr, what are your views on societal policy?

I have enough knowledge on the subject to know that I don't have nearly enough knowledge about societal policy. But I believe that inequality in general is bad, since it causes conflicts between the poor and the rich, and corrupts the ones who wield the most power.

It's actually somewhat hilarious for me to see "conservative" and "right-wing" together since "conservatives" in Russia would most likely mean "communists", and those are not exactly pro-inequalty guys.

[mainiac]

No, that's not what I want. Blindly adopting a radical course of actions is what caused the 90s mess in the first place.

Well that and the vastly unrealistic expectations.

When you have industries that produce outputs with a lower market value then their inputs being propped up by the state sooner or later they need to be shut down.  This isn't some radical neoliberal notion; it's markets working in the public interest.  But Russians would rather live in a fantasy land where their late 80s industry wasn't full of deadwood that was holding the economy back.  No it's those perfidious outsiders who drove the economy into the ground.  God knows Russians have no history of economic mismanagement.

[Helgoland]

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.
Hell, we can test that: Sergarr, what are your views on societal policy?

I have enough knowledge on the subject to know that I don't have nearly enough knowledge about societal policy. But I believe that inequality in general is bad, since it causes conflicts between the poor and the rich, and corrupts the ones who wield the most power.

I meant more stuff like homosexuals' rights, women's rights, environmental regulations, what stuff schools should focus on, WWII remembrance - 'Our military is strong!' vs 'It was a brutal and horrible war!' -, how Russia should treat its imperialist and Communist past, etc etc.

[Sheb]

mainiac: You're ignoring the fact that the liberalisation of the Russian economy WAS a mess and made the transition more painful than it had to be.

[Sergarr]

No, that's not what I want. Blindly adopting a radical course of actions is what caused the 90s mess in the first place.

Well that and the vastly unrealistic expectations.

When you have industries that produce outputs with a lower market value then their inputs being propped up by the state sooner or later they need to be shut down.  This isn't some radical neoliberal notion; it's markets working in the public interest.  But Russians would rather live in a fantasy land where their late 80s industry wasn't full of deadwood that was holding the economy back.  No it's those perfidious outsiders who drove the economy into the ground.  God knows Russians have no history of economic mismanagement.

As far as I know most of arms producing industries have outputs with lower market value than their inputs. Yet I don't see people shutting all of them down. Non-monetary value is a thing, and even if you don't count it, a factory that produces something at a negative profit can compensated by the whole chain of production having profit in total.

Not that I'm saying that USSR economy was good.

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.
Hell, we can test that: Sergarr, what are your views on societal policy?

I have enough knowledge on the subject to know that I don't have nearly enough knowledge about societal policy. But I believe that inequality in general is bad, since it causes conflicts between the poor and the rich, and corrupts the ones who wield the most power.

I meant more stuff like homosexuals' rights, women's rights, environmental regulations, what stuff schools should focus on, WWII remembrance - 'Our military is strong!' vs 'It was a brutal and horrible war!' -, how Russia should treat its imperialist and Communist past, etc etc.

Well, rights are better than no rights, environmental regulations are a must if we want to continue to live in this world in 22nd century, schools should focus on giving people less "simple knowledge" and more "knowledge where to find knowledge", WWII was a great victory at a great cost and is something that should be avoided from happening ever again, the past should be treated as an indifferent teacher and a source for what to avoid in the future, etc etc.

[Antsan]

No, that's not what I want. Blindly adopting a radical course of actions is what caused the 90s mess in the first place.

Well that and the vastly unrealistic expectations.

When you have industries that produce outputs with a lower market value then their inputs being propped up by the state sooner or later they need to be shut down.  This isn't some radical neoliberal notion; it's markets working in the public interest.  But Russians would rather live in a fantasy land where their late 80s industry wasn't full of deadwood that was holding the economy back.  No it's those perfidious outsiders who drove the economy into the ground.  God knows Russians have no history of economic mismanagement.

After what I heard about how the industry of the GDR was treated I am not quite sure how... uhm... objective the assessment of the Russian industry as "rundown" actually is. The information about the industry of the GDR is filled to the brim with propaganda and wishful thinking (badly of others).
For instance there was one of the most modern sewing machine manufacturers in the GDR, which had been sold by the Treuhand for, well, a few dollars to shady entities, the financial situation of the GDR was only assessed after everything had been sold way below price, stuff like that. I certainly can imagine that the Russian economy was awful (especially with what some people told me about the quality of some of the articles and comics like these), but assuming that "perfidious outsiders" made it worse isn't really that far-fetched.

[mainiac]

mainiac: You're ignoring the fact that the liberalisation of the Russian economy WAS a mess and made the transition more painful than it had to be.

Perhaps... perhaps.  But I dont see how that challenges my point.

As far as I know most of arms producing industries have outputs with lower market value than their inputs.

Not really, the value the customers put on those weapons systems is high enough that they buy them.

[Helgoland]

-snip-

There's no doubt that the Treuhand did some shady stuff, but it also makes for an all-too-convenient scapegoat. We probably should get ourselves some original data on the GDR's industry to arrive at a somewhat objective evaluation of its fuckedness on the global market.

And in the GDR it wasn't 'perfidious outsiders', it was - due to the reunification! - perfidious insiders. There are no foreigners we can blame the Treuhand mess on. And the analogon in Russia - corrupt party officials and soon-to-be oligarchs - wasn't foreign either. Is there any evidence of foreign involvement in Russia's economic crash in the 1990s apart from Gorbachev's advisers?

[Owlbread]

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.

When I was talking about Sergarr being right wing/conservative I wasn't talking about nationalism. I was referring directly to his concerns about Russia being in a shitty state; his solution to the poor state of affairs faced by Russians is apparently that they need to stop being so dependent on the state/government and need to become more autonomous wealth creators. Those are inherently right wing concerns. His arguments are very similar to UK Tory ones; people got complacent and addicted to benefits under Labour, we need to cut state support and benefits in order to ensure people are more independent and can generate more wealth independently of the state. Based on other conversations had with Sergarr in the past it is clear that he also has very socially conservative views (to the point of being far-right in UK terms) on race/ethnicity, nationality and LGBT rights.

I would also greatly question any comparison between my own idea of nationalism and Sergarr's but that is for another debate.

It's actually somewhat hilarious for me to see "conservative" and "right-wing" together since "conservatives" in Russia would most likely mean "communists", and those are not exactly pro-inequalty guys.

Yes, it's all about perspective. But if you look at Russia's Communists today they're basically like Guardian GI: right wing nationalist authoritarian/statists with a fondness for Soviet-era nostalgia. That's pretty much it, the actual link with what Karl Marx believed in is very tenuous at best. I think if I call any Russian right-wing or conservative they may need to think back to pre-USSR.

[Owlbread]

Aren't conservatives defined as being the opposite to a certain party?

Conservatives want to keep things the way they are, or harken back to the old orders of things. They tend to be opposed to reform. It is possible however to be pro-economic reform and socially conservative at the same time; you may want healthcare to be nationalised and education to be free, but women shouldn't have the vote or homosexuality should be illegal etc.

[Sergarr]

As far as I know most of arms producing industries have outputs with lower market value than their inputs.

Not really, the value the customers put on those weapons systems is high enough that they buy them.

Most of the times the "customer" is the army of the state that has those arms producing industries, and it usually doesn't have a choice which weapon system to buy, if it can buy one of their own.

And army is a good example of an industry that works at a highly negative profit and is "propped up" by a state. Yet wise people still maintain armies, despite the fact that they cost a lot of money and don't really bring any. What they do is protect your other profit-making organizations from changing hands. So they potentially save you a lot of money. But they don't really bring you any, and that's why saying that any industry that works at a negative profit (having it's outputs be of lower market value than inputs) will be shut down is not quite right.

I... don't think so, Owl. As far as I can tell he's about as nationalist as you, with the key difference that his nation is already established but currently in a shitty state.

When I was talking about Sergarr being right wing/conservative I wasn't talking about nationalism. I was referring directly to his concerns about Russia being in a shitty state; his solution to the poor state of affairs faced by Russians is apparently that they need to stop being so dependent on the state/government and need to become more autonomous wealth creators. Those are inherently right wing concerns. His arguments are very similar to UK Tory ones; people got complacent and addicted to benefits under Labour, we need to cut state support and benefits in order to ensure people are more independent and can generate more wealth independently of the state. Based on other conversations had with Sergarr in the past it is clear that he also has very socially conservative views (to the point of being far-right in UK terms) on race/ethnicity, nationality and LGBT rights.

I would also greatly question any comparison between my own idea of nationalism and Sergarr's but that is for another debate.

What. When did I say that "we need to cut state support and benefits"? I don't remember saying that at all.

You have seriously misunderstood what I meant, apparently, because I'm completely against doing that. That way lies the libertarian hell of stupidity, and libertarian ideas are completely against everything I believe.

[wobbly]

As far as I know most of arms producing industries have outputs with lower market value than their inputs.

Not really, the value the customers put on those weapons systems is high enough that they buy them.

Most of the times the "customer" is the army of the state that has those arms producing industries, and it usually doesn't have a choice which weapon system to buy, if it can buy one of their own.

And army is a good example of an industry that works at a highly negative profit and is "propped up" by a state. Yet wise people still maintain armies, despite the fact that they cost a lot of money and don't really bring any. What they do is protect your other profit-making organizations from changing hands. So they potentially save you a lot of money. But they don't really bring you any, and that's why saying that any industry that works at a negative profit (having it's outputs be of lower market value than inputs) will be shut down is not quite right.

Last I checked the arms industry is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Saying it runs at a loss for the state is like saying the automobile industry runs at a loss for the car owner.

[mainiac]

and that's why saying that any industry that works at a negative profit (having it's outputs be of lower market value than inputs) will be shut down is not quite right.

...except that's not what I'm saying.  Well part of that is not what I'm saying.  Negative profit and outputs lower then market value of inputs are two different things.  The latter is a subset of the former.  And arms industries are examples of neither.

[Sergarr]

What about things that don't even have a market value, but that are still produced, with gigantic industrial chains devoted to making them, like nuclear weapons? Are they also doomed to be shut down?