Communism followed by oligarchy:
These are obviously depressed areas. Interesting, however, the number of comments along the lines of ‘Same here!’ I have no idea how representative this is, though I’ve read that things are very bad in Russia these days. Sanctions are currently biting in making things even worse. Remember to be grateful for where you live and what you’ve inherited.
(My browser auto-translates to English with the Google Translate for Chrome plugin.)
If you have an interest, read through the comments on the video below (they should auto-translate). I have discovered there’s an entire subculture on YouTube of foreigners posting native language videos from the USA, describing what it’s like, how much things cost, and most importantly, how to get here. The comments are always fascinating. In Amy Chua’s famous words, ‘Yankee, go home! And take me with you!!’
https://youtu.be/jQj-5e-tkTo
Thanks for the images. What a mess, literally. I met and worked with a number of Russians, and only one that I can recall, had anything good to say about it. The rest really didn’t want to talk too much about it. One of the younger guys told me that as a kid, he and his friends daily routine was playing chicken with the local tram. His mother was terrified of him getting hurt, because if you got injured, you were screwed. “What about the healthcare?” I asked. He just shook his head and laughed. “Not like here” was the reply. (this was pre-ACA, of course)
Just wait until Hellary is President: she’ll probably launch a bloody war against them.
About ten years ago I worked with a beautiful and very sweet young engineer whose family had moved to the USA from India. Every year she and some family would return and I asked her one day if she had any desire to return there to live. She literally stepped back in shock. ‘Have you ever been to India?’ she asked. ‘No.’ I said, ‘But I’ve seen some photos.’ She spent a few minutes describing life in a developing country. ‘No way. No. Uh-uh. I’m staying here.’
I read a post by Richard Fernandez a few years ago along a similar line. He remarked that the thing the really astounds a person coming from a 3rd world country to a 1st world country isn’t the big obvious things like airports or NASA, it’s all the little things, the basics. That everywhere you go you can flip a switch a the light comes on. Electricity is always there, 24 hours a day, every day. Everywhere. That everywhere you go, the roads are paved and drivable. That you can turn on a tap anywhere and water comes out, always. And it’s clean. You can drink that water. That you can flick a switch and get heat, or cool air, or a fan. That everyone isn’t terrified of the police. That you can have a package left on your porch and it’s not stolen. That everything doesn’t have to be fenced in and the windows barred for protection. It’s coming from a society that’s broken and where many thing don’t work to one that functions and where things largely do.
His larger point was that fantasy-land politics and economics can, and eventually will, destroy all this. You can only overdraw the bank, undereducate the kids, and promote divise social policies for a limited time, because it eventually eats out the society from the inside. And when the collapse comes, it can happen all at once, like Russia in 1989.
I’m pretty sure one could make a similar article about places in America. As a sometime photographer I could make similar shots in some places around here. It’s pretty rare but I could make it look much worse than it is.
It’s true Russia is heavily sanctioned these days but that’s a part of America’s last gasp at hegemony.
One of my all time favorite posts from the original Diplomad was his story about explaining to one of his peripatetic children that it was third world country, not turd world country, and the child saying, “But that’s what they smell like.”
Pengun, not only are you a pathetic coward who turned tail and ran away when it was your turn to fight for freedom, you spend you’re whole life trying to justify your actions by distorting everything in the Western world to justify your decisions. You live in a bizzaro world constructed in your imagination.
One of the women who makes Russian language videos from the USA did one from Golden Corral buffet. Here are some comments:
Irina K. 2 years ago
Salads, yes! During this hundred likes.
Gerka 2 years ago
sorry in Russia there is no such)
TokioNata 2 years ago
Watch this video at night – is torture !!!))) This is some kind of a holiday belly for $ 8
Alena Smith 2 years ago
I want to go there!
ViktoriaJapan 2 years ago
Now I understand why America is obese! So much food! And so cheap !!! A person can not control myself! Except … 
Igor Potapenko 2 years ago
What are all good! We would have immediately rude and kicked for that shot (How do you want to you! May God to win this year’s green card!
azar rajabli. happy life channel 2 years ago
It would be good if these places would be with us.
Olena Ukrajinka 2 years ago
Aaaaaa I want! Well it this diet! At least a week to you !!!
azar rajabli. happy life channel 2 years ago
It would be good if these places would be with us.
ady In Kedah 2 years ago
Well it’s crazy abundance and choice !!!!!!
Svetlana N 2 years ago – I almost choked with saliva.
♥♥♥ Verun4ik ♥♥♥ 2 years ago
The great thing in all of this-Vybor.Kak I see there is food for every taste, ie, not like that we have given, and then eat, but you can vegetarians and vegans, and meat eaters find that soul! And choose what he want, not what you are mixed and sold.
Elena Zhuk 2 years ago (edited)
Interestingly, in Ukraine ever appear such buffets …
Irina K. 2 years ago
Just horror)))) how can it have? )) Have the impression that the Americans want to destroy, their same nation. 
GAMES RUPLAY 2 years ago
That’s better than any Turkish paradise.
Visiting Ksenia 11 months ago
ayyayayayyy I just can not !!!!!!
Alex Shkurko 9 months ago
And for 5 bucks, and what would have more choice it?
Artyom Lukashevsky 2 years ago
Feast of the soul! :)
ulya asg 2 months ago
ðŸ˜ðŸ˜“😷😷😵
Polad Askerov 4 days ago
Why in my country there is no such?!?!? ))))
“Pengun, not only are you a pathetic coward who turned tail and ran away when it was your turn to fight for freedom, you spend you’re whole life trying to justify your actions by distorting everything in the Western world to justify your decisions.”
And you wonder why I come here. ;)
I have never ever turned tail and ran. I have regretted this on several occasions.
I really am not sure just what you mean by “when it was your turn”. I’ve been a hippie since I was about 18 and a Buddhist for over 50 years. That would be about 1966 or so.
As a hippie I made a point of calling everyone who had anything to say about my hair outside, for a more serious discussion. I did my level best to make fun of all the right wing assholes I could and no animals were ever harmed. Actually few humans were actually harmed, just defeated mostly.
I follow the path of the Buddha, the middle way, avoiding all extremes, well mostly anyway. I’m a mediocre Buddhist.
“One of the women who makes Russian language videos from the USA did one from Golden Corral buffet. Here are some comments:”
Completely baffled. You have point here? Perhaps you could explain it in English.
“I’m pretty sure one could make a similar article about places in America.”
Yes, Baltimore and Detroit. The area where I grew up in Chicago in the 1940s which is now a hellhole.
Do you know what they have in common ?
Democrats run them. All of them.
I talked to my sister today, who lives in Chicago, So far this year 800 gunshot wounds. Private ownership of guns is, of course, banned.
Los Angles is now moving toward them as it is about 30% illegals . And Democrats, of course.
Philadelphia ? Democrats.
It’s a long list.
Democrats run them. All of them.
No, don’t go there. Democrats also run San Francisco, Portland, Boston, Seattle. They run Vermont too.
Blacks run Detroit and Baltimore and they’re the source of the violence in Chicago. That’s what destroyed the cities. Not Democrats.
Well, Democrats are doing what they can to wreck Vermont. The New Hampshire people call it “The Peoples’ Republic of Vermont” and Vermont towns pay tuition to New Hampshire towns to send their kids to school in New Hampshire. Vermont had to change their sales tax law to allow Vermonters to buy cars in the state. They were all going to New Hampshire to buy cars. Walmart and Costco built huge stores on the Connecticut River just inside New Hampshire for Vermont shoppers. The town of West Lebanon would not even pay for the roads to the stores and made the stores pay for them.
San Francisco, I leave to your imagination about safety and living conditions. Kate Steinle cannot be reached for comment.
Seattle has huge employers like Microsoft and Boeing but may succeed in driving them away. Boeing has moved its headquarters to Chicago and much of its production to South Carolina.
He remarked that the thing the really astounds a person coming from a 3rd world country to a 1st world country isn’t the big obvious things like airports or NASA, it’s all the little things, the basics.
India was around long before North America and Australia were settled. There was nothing preventing them from becoming a 1st world society other than the people who lived there and their beliefs and behaviors.
Look at what happened in South Africa after Apartheid ended:
If a person, or a people, or a culture, has little future time orientation focus, then issues like maintenance and planning for the future are given low priority. There were never power shortages in South Africa when the white were in charge, but after Apartheid ended and blacks were pushed into top management positions, the quality of management deteriorated. The upper management has been a revolving door, those in charge more focused on enriching themselves than running the organization.
Same mentality in the city government of DC.
Who runs the DC Metro?
Well, Democrats are doing what they can to wreck Vermont.
I’m not championing Democrats. They are a graft machine, but it wasn’t Democrats who ruined Detroit and Baltimore and it’s not Democrats who are the root problem of Chicago’s murder spree and who turned parts of the city into a hellhole.
If you point to bad outcomes, then call a spade a spade, and attribute the cause of the bad outcomes to the appropriate party, high concentrations of blacks. If social scientists are now free enough to talk about the issue, then there’s no reason that the rest of us have to bite our tongue.
http://i.imgur.com/M6EfBoB.jpg
If load-shedding makes you a third world country, Britain and Germany next winter will probably receive that honour.
Thank you, greenies.
Omsk looked like I remember Romania in 98. Archangel is worse. And Romania is mostly better now, especially Transylvania. Moldavia and especially Moldova, not so much.
PenGun you would have to be selective to find similar scenes in America. The point is in Russia it’s fairly ubiquitous. I’m not sure how American hegemony has created this, either. I haven’t followed enough of the discussions here to get why Michael is so angry or whether you deserve it. But that first comment of yours seems like you are really reaching.
“those in charge more focused on enriching themselves than running the organization.”
You should read Theodore Dalrymple’s essay on Zimbabwe. It’s in back issues of City Journal.
Within a short time of the political handover in 1980, however, he returned to England””not because of any racial feeling or political antagonism but simply because the swift degeneration of standards in the hospital made the high-level practice of surgery impossible. The institution that had seemed to me on my arrival to be so solid and well founded fell apart in the historical twinkling of an eye.
In leaving Zimbabwe and returning to England, he accepted a much reduced standard of living, whatever the nominal value of his income. Talleyrand said that he who had not experienced the ancien régime (as an aristocrat, of course) knew nothing of the sweetness of life. The same might be said of him who had not experienced life as a colonial in Africa. I, whose salary was by other standards small, lived at a level that I have scarcely equaled since. It is true that Rhodesia lacked many consumer goods at that time, due to the economic sanctions imposed upon it: but what I learned from this lack is how little consumer goods add to the quality of life, at least in an equable climate such as Rhodesia’s. Life was no poorer for being lived without them.
The whole thing is well worth reading. American blacks are not African, of course, and I talk to African blacks, some of whom are students of mine. They cannot understand American blacks.
It is a tragedy and I was raised by a black women who was our nursemaid. She had no time for the young black men who lived in Hyde Park, just north of our home.
It’s just too long an explanation. Blacks have been degraded by 50 years of welfare and their culture destroyed.
My dental hygienist is a black Ethiopian who grew up in Israel and is Jewish. She is married to a white man, also Jewish. They visit Israel every year and she has 10 siblings scattered all over the world. They are all black Jews and are doing very well.
American blacks are not African, of course, and I talk to African blacks, some of whom are students of mine.
There’s a lot of nuance left unsaid in your comment. I wouldn’t be to sure of the “of course” disclaimer either. When an American goes to live in India, does that American take on the bathroom habits prevalent in much of India? No, he doesn’t. That’s an extreme example, but what I’m pointing to is that immigrants to America didn’t become American and entirely discard the customs of their homelands and the same applies to American blacks who are descended from slaves. Those slaves held onto customs and attitudes even when put into slavery in America. Even today we can look at African American culture and find parallels to customs, attitudes, behaviors, outcomes in Western and Central Africa. African Americans whose ancestors in America go back centuries still can find cultural linkage to African cultures and this is far more prevalent than German-Americans finding such linkages because black culture has isolated itself from mainstream white culture, so over the generations, the German-American loses more and more Germanness but the African-American is still steeped in black culture. There is no German-American accent which is detectable in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on generations but African-Americans still have a distinctive accent to their English.
Secondly, if we isolate cultural influences, we’re still dealing with genetic influences. This brings to mind Milton Friedman’s quip regarding the topic of there being no poverty in Sweden to which he commented that there was also no poverty amongst Swedes in Minnesota.
African-American culture is an amalgam of various tribal cultures, the slavery experience in America, an independent path which arose from being cut off from the home-countries/tribes, and American mainstream culture influencing African-American culture. It’s distinct, but by no means completely divorced from African cultures.
The people you talk to are quite likely a distinct sub-group. I doubt very much that the people you talk to believe in witch doctors, want to kill albinos, think that magic spirits are trying to steal the penises of men, etc. I’m not saying that these are mainstream beliefs, though some are pretty close, what I’m suggesting is that you’re probably dealing with people from the upper tiers of African societies. Back in the days of slavery we weren’t buying many kings from various tribes (unless they were prisoners of war.) I suspect that the people you’re dealing with are the products of the colonialization of many Africa societies, whose cultures were shaped by the colonial experiences, whose institutions were shaped by the same, and these people come from families who did reasonably well in their society. We have people like that in our own African-American community, intelligent folks, coming from multi-generational backgrounds of blacks who did well in society, who were educated, did well enough financially. Those Africans who can’t understand African-Americans I would guess are the elite or semi-elite looking at the entire African-American community rather than just their counterparts, the elite of African-Americans. I would bet that they are not befuddled by an African-American who is a physician, whose mother was a professor and father a judge, who grandparents were businessmen and politicians, etc. I would also bet that if an African-American from a “talented tenth” family of many generations went to live in the country of one of your African acquaintances that he would be just as mystified by the total culture he was exposed to rather than the subset of elite culture which formed his immediate environment.
Blacks have been degraded by 50 years of welfare and their culture destroyed.
I’m not going to argue against the proposition that welfare has negative consequences, but even absent the welfare influences, black social dysfunction has long history. There was out of wedlock birth at higher rates than white long before welfare came along, same with criminality, same with education, same with stupid decision making in various circumstances.
in hbd news
Henry Harpending, RIP
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/
A great man has passed. On a broader note, a number of such scientists are from older generations, they established their reputations when the Academy wasn’t so rigidly doctrinaire and as they leave us they are not being replaced by younger scholars.
“black culture has isolated itself from mainstream white culture,”
Not as much as you suggest. They began from a lower point but I grew up in the 40s and 50s and knew blacks in Chicago.
“you’re probably dealing with people from the upper tiers of African societies.”
Maybe but one of my students was Eritrean and her parents had gotten her out to South Africa and then to the Caribbean before Los Angeles. She lived with a grandmother and was so poor that she could not afford a laptop, which is the modern equivalent of a microscope. The students no longer use microscopes. I loaned her my set of physical exam tools.
In my group that year was a Los Angeles native black kid who got depressed and flunked out. I had three black kids in my small group that year. One was a kid from San Diego who played water polo in college, an obvious example of high status. The other two were the African girl and the LA kid who flunked out. The others tried to help him but he just couldn’t make it. I’ve seen the same thing with blacks from the Caribbean who have a slavery background in ancestors but who do not have the psychological pathology of American blacks.
The African kids I have talked recently are joining the US military and have plans to go to college on the GI Bill. Not many but I was impressed. Of course, they are smart enough to get here and have a plan.
When I was a kid in the 40s, we had several blacks who worked around the house. One guy washed the windows a couple of times a year. One woman did the ironing for a neighbor and I got to know her. Black society has been matriarchal for a long tome. I think it is in Africa. In the US, women had an easier time finding jobs. Still, I met men who were working and who were friendly.
I have previously recounted the story of hanging out in a black tavern in Chicago when I was 18. That was 1956. My pal had gotten to know the place working on a beer truck and they assumed we were over 21. Nobody ever asked us. We would spend every Friday night playing bumper pool for beers. We were the only whites in the place. We got to be very good at bumper pool and almost always won. Everybody was drinking and we would finally leave about 1 AM never having bought a beer. There were never any hostile comments or threats. We thought of them as buddies. I would not dream of doing that now.
The black IQ curve is shifted to the left 1 SD but is the same shape. There is still a right side tail of high IQ.
I think the pathology of black rule is similar in Africa but is more related to family (Did you read the Dalrymple piece?). In the US, it is corruption that is derived from Democrat politics and welfare. It has gotten steadily worse with time. In 1950, the black illegitimacy rate was where the white rate is now. Why has it gone up in whites ? Britain has social pathology very similar to the black culture here but it is in whites.
Culture matters. Genetics determines behavior of individuals but culture is important in groups. The Overton Window works in culture as well as politics.
Maybe but one of my students was Eritrean and her parents had gotten her out to South Africa and then to the Caribbean before Los Angeles.
An African of this class is likely befuddled by a ghetto mama and her antics. Do you think a ghetto mama has the money to send her kid to another country and then half way around the world to yet another country? The fact that this person’s family have the means to send them on these journeys suggests that the family is not typical in terms of means.
The African kids I have talked recently are joining the US military and have plans to go to college on the GI Bill. Not many but I was impressed. Of course, they are smart enough to get here and have a plan.
There are smart African-Americans kids too. That’s the proper control group. You’re on the observe end of selection bias. Ask those African students to compare the African-American community, as a whole, to the community as a whole, that they left behind, not their peers in their school or neighborhood, but the entire society.
Black society has been matriarchal for a long tome. I think it is in Africa.
Indeed. This is one aspect that I was referring to regarding culture transferring from Africa and then through generations of slavery here, then through Jim Crow, and up to the present day. There’s more. For instance, there is a greater representation of parallel sexual relationships seen in our African-America community and in many African cultures, which compounds the difficulties of controlling the spread of HIV.
The black IQ curve is shifted to the left 1 SD but is the same shape. There is still a right side tail of high IQ.
Of course. African-Americans have a mean IQ of 85. White mean is at 100. This means about 1 of 6 blacks is more intelligent than 1/2 of the white population. When we talk about the talented tenth we’re talking about a group with a floor at the 101-105 IQ level. A number of years back I ran the numbers: From a population of Non-Hispanic, Non-Jewish, white men (18-64), totaling 65,691,729, there were 4,430,515 with IQ between 116-120 compared to 127,522 black men from a population totaling 9,9858,844 (18-64) and there were 1,644,935 white men with an IQ between 125-130 compared to 24,455 black men.
My point is that your African friends need to compare Like to Like, elite from African society to elite from African-American society.
In 1950, the black illegitimacy rate was where the white rate is now. Why has it gone up in whites?
Ultimately, I think this boils down to an easy answer. We start with numerous explanations and strip them down and look for more fundamental causes, and then do the same thing for that new cause and find a more fundamental answer until we get to the core issue, which is this, if society feels the need to make excuses for the higher black illegitimacy rate then it gives social legitimacy to the behavior. You can’t, on the one hand, accept high black illegitimacy rates, and then on the other hand, condemn white women who have kids out of wedlock. In order to spare the black community from shaming behavior, we removed a social control tool from the white community. We saw kind of the same process work in the mortgage market, if regulations require lenders to accept blacks and Hispanics with lower credit scores, lower down payments, then you can’t maintain higher standards for whites, so in order to increase minority home ownership levels we lowered standards for lending and by doing so we also had to extend those lower standards to the entire society.
Stigma is a very powerful tool which can be used to shape behavior. The stigma of racism is still a powerful way to modify behavior, thoughts and speech. We’ve removed stigma in the area of pre-marital sex, living together, having kids outside of marriage, having kids without the father remaining in their life, so absent the stigma, and combined with welfare, we see changes in behavior. The reason we removed stigma is because whites were very sensitive to the charge of racism and it wouldn’t do to stigmatize black women for high illegitimacy rates. Little did people know that this would, ultimately, blow back on the white community.
I think the pathology of black rule is similar in Africa but is more related to family (Did you read the Dalrymple piece?).
I’ve read the Dalrymple article many times over the years. His description of the Big Man Syndrome can be seen plainly in the lives of many rich black athletes.
In the US, it is corruption that is derived from Democrat politics and welfare.
It’s not so much Democratic politics and welfare, Sweden had higher levels of government involvement and social welfare transfer and didn’t have these problems. What Dalrymple described taking place in Africa was, in one form, a version of a cargo cult – if Africans simply received the educations of the Colonials then they too could build and run society like the Colonials, and instead this resulted:
This is using education for the purpose of wealth extraction rather than wealth creation.
Genetics determines behavior of individuals but culture is important in groups.
Culture is downstream from genetics. This means that genetics influences the culture of a group.
“I’m not sure how American hegemony has created this, either.”
The prime purpose of American foreign policy is retaining the preeminence you had since WW2. As that is it’s main purpose it has started a cold war with Russia to separate it from Europe. That was getting far to chummy and successful. It did this by engendering regime change in the Ukraine.
Michael is angry because I grew up on army bases yet have a deep dislike for much of modern culture and no wish to defend most of it. So I’m a coward somehow.
Micheal, my family has been killing people for the crown for over 600 years, that we know about. My hiatus may be not to your taste, but we done our bit. Music you might not like. Blind Idiot God appear rarely but we are always pleased when they do. :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRD1jhxdpBI
“I grew up on army bases yet have a deep dislike for much of modern culture and no wish to defend most of it”
We know. I suspect there are reasons you don’t wish to share.
My friends who are retired British Army medical people are very proud of their service and their ancestors who served the Empire.
I suspect you failed your father and family and this is your reaction.
“We know. I suspect there are reasons you don’t wish to share.”
Fascinating, perhaps you could share those, so I have some idea what you are talking about.
“I suspect you failed your father and family and this is your reaction.”
The other way round really, but not a problem for me anymore. I have children and a grandchild, I’m not sure how they could fail me. It might be something to do with your worldview, I dunno.
I do not see any third world poor people. I see pig people with solid houses, cars and lots of things to throw away.
If they cared, they could clean the garbage around their homes in an afternoon. Putin would not stop them, Western sanctions would not stop them, but they have other priorities.
Their home, their choice.
Micheal, my family has been killing people for the crown for over 600 years, that we know about. My hiatus may be not to your taste, but we done our bit.
Having read some of your other positions I’m going to guess that you’re also a big believer in “white privilege” and yet here you are exploiting the unearned privilege given to you by your ancestors.
‘I’m going to guess that you’re also a big believer in “white privilege”’
I’m not sure what you mean. As you have it in quotes, it may be something that means something to you, that I really don’t know about.
I don’t believe in any racial superiority. I am aware of many differences between races, but none of them make any one of them ‘superior’ to any other. As you might know I am a supporter of the ‘race of tan’ that will result when the entire world has mixed their gene pool, so ‘white privilege’ is not high on my agenda.
“I suspect you failed your father and family and this is your reaction.”
The other way round really, but not a problem for me anymore.
Yes, it is as I suspected. A child of military parents, or at least one, who resents the fact that he was not the center of attention.
You have a precedent. There was British colonel in India who became a Buddhist and spent the rest of his life as a priest in Burma. I’ve forgotten his name. Maybe you know it.
“Yes, it is as I suspected. A child of military parents, or at least one, who resents the fact that he was not the center of attention.”
Awesome. You really have a amazing insight. ;) I was the center of their attention. They sent me off to private school when I was eight. The same private school my grandfather and my father and uncles went to. The same private school they sent Prince Andrew to. A high class operation that produced leaders of the free world.
I learned my gang stuff very early on. I was the littlest guy in the school and was bullied. I got the three littlest guys together and we hunted down the bullies and punished them. I never looked back. I never followed their agenda and dissapointed them as much as I was able. I joined Satan’s Choice in 1967 and became a vice president.