Well, you gotta keep the Muscovites happy to keep them from googling what the conscripts are doing in Ukraine.
And you've gotta keep the dictator's ego inflated with something. Military victories aren't on the table, so that leaves grand infrastructure projects. Nothing too major, we're talking city-level upgrades here, war economy and all.
Finally, whatever funds the state has left need to keep flowing towards people who wield the power. Not everyone's wife owns an oil refinery, you know. Some people have to make do with construction kickbacks.
Kudos to Moscow's mayor for killing three birds with one drone.
. . .
In other news, what is this zero-information panegyric doing on HN?
For some reason before i read this, i was wondering if there was research on little ( height) dictators, if they were more agressive. Eg. Like little dogs that bite more.
This comment made me laugh, since well, I was talking about his body height.
There could be another problem concerning height too.
The construction of a big metro line takes like 10 or 20 years (from the article: 11 years + 1 for some reason). They didn't star digging it just to cover the war in Ukraine.
(Anyway, they will exploit is politically as much as possible, as any politician in the world that must cur ribbons would do.)
It's amazing how Russian missiles have been bombing Kiev for a year now and I still see these "but neither side is perfect" takes from Westerners. Can we just agree that invading countries is always bad (yes, when the US does it as well) and move on?
It’s not “always” bad. Some invasions are humanitarian, such as Vietnam invading Cambodia. Sure they could have let pol pot commit further genocide and let things take their natural course.
The world is ruled by realpolitik. It’s not back and white. Sometimes you make alliances with the bad guys and that sometimes turns out okay and other times it’s the predictable disaster.
I wish there were more stories about metro lines being completed "in record time" in the US. Or being completed at all. Can we still build anything besides more highways?
I'd much rather see taller buildings, wider streets with exclusive bus lanes, and wider sidewalks if I'm being honest. I live in one of the ten largest cities in the country and all we seem to do is turn parking into bike lanes that nobody uses because it's cheap and gets applause from the hip crowds. Meanwhile if you suggest expanding infrastructure everybody uses people throw a fit and say it can't be accommodated while ignoring that we could just get rid of height limits and build blocks taller instead of wider so that the cars and pedestrians could benefit.
I wonder where you live where the bike infrastructure goes unused and why? Is it because of the climate? I live in Berlin which isn't that mild (it's not in-land Canada/Russia but it's not coastal California either) and the new bike lanes they started expanding during covid have been met with a lot of praise & people seem to use them a lot.
Even a bike lane with a lot of traffic often seems empty because bikes use up so little space. So even if there are a lot of bikes, the car lanes will look much busier than the bike lane.
Two new sections were opened in the Moscow Metro in 1943! Just when the country was burning all its resources on total war. I don't really understand how it was even possible.
Not every war crime is a genocide. Discourse tends to be hyperbolic during wars, but that doesn't mean that we need to go and repeat those hyperboles on HN.
What Russia is doing in Ukraine is unacceptable, and you are absolutely justified to be horrified. But it is not what genocide looks like.
> How about about you come out from behind the throw away account, and own your position.
How about you refrain from ad-personam attacks. It's very hard not to read this comment as a threat, so I'll stop responding and leave that conversation.
It's a shame they have become demons. They can still turn back, though, just like Germany and Japan were able to do after WW2.
Leaving Ukraine can be announced immediately and easily executed in a few months, and then some sort of a healing process would certainly start.
There are a few reasons why this sentiment is not valid.
1) While Ukraine certainly has nazis, so does every country -- most significantly the aggressor, Russia. Therefore, to use nazis as the reason of the invasion is invalid.
2) Russia's propaganda greatly overstated the significance and impact of those nazis for political reasons, making the whole issue even more doubtful.
3) After Russia launched a war, the fact that Ukraine has nazis became even less significant, and the primary issue now is to get Russia out of Ukraine.
4) "This war is not what the media portrays" doesn't mean anything, because certainly some media (probably Russian) portray the viewpoint you presented.
Study Russian history and you will become depressed. There was never a middle class pushing for liberal ideas and democracy. It's always been authoritarianism and they like it that way.
Couple that with a real belief that Russia is owed an Empire and we need more than healing we need a transformation.
46 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadAnd you've gotta keep the dictator's ego inflated with something. Military victories aren't on the table, so that leaves grand infrastructure projects. Nothing too major, we're talking city-level upgrades here, war economy and all.
Finally, whatever funds the state has left need to keep flowing towards people who wield the power. Not everyone's wife owns an oil refinery, you know. Some people have to make do with construction kickbacks.
Kudos to Moscow's mayor for killing three birds with one drone.
. . .
In other news, what is this zero-information panegyric doing on HN?
For some reason before i read this, i was wondering if there was research on little ( height) dictators, if they were more agressive. Eg. Like little dogs that bite more.
This comment made me laugh, since well, I was talking about his body height.
There could be another problem concerning height too.
(Anyway, they will exploit is politically as much as possible, as any politician in the world that must cur ribbons would do.)
By taking the other side, that means you are pro-Nazi?
What is wrong with advocating for peace?
Advocating for peace while an invasion is ongoing = advocating for the invader.
The worst of it, Russians haven't just invaded and called it a day, they doing horrible things to Ukrainians on the occupied territories.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/kherson-tortur...
The world is ruled by realpolitik. It’s not back and white. Sometimes you make alliances with the bad guys and that sometimes turns out okay and other times it’s the predictable disaster.
I guess he's getting a bit paranoid.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Moscow_m...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshaya_Koltsevaya_line
Didn't know Moscow already had two rings!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033_(novel)
A remnant of the heyday when everyone celebrated world wide author self publishing, not that'd we'd be swamped from Markov chain garbage.
What has been pushed-back since the beginning of the project is the opening date of the intermediate tracks/stations.
Let's not demonize hitler and the nazis either /s
Not every war crime is a genocide. Discourse tends to be hyperbolic during wars, but that doesn't mean that we need to go and repeat those hyperboles on HN.
What Russia is doing in Ukraine is unacceptable, and you are absolutely justified to be horrified. But it is not what genocide looks like.
How about about you come out from behind the throw away account, and own your position.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukr...
[1]:https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/09/russia-committing-...
How about you refrain from ad-personam attacks. It's very hard not to read this comment as a threat, so I'll stop responding and leave that conversation.
1) While Ukraine certainly has nazis, so does every country -- most significantly the aggressor, Russia. Therefore, to use nazis as the reason of the invasion is invalid.
2) Russia's propaganda greatly overstated the significance and impact of those nazis for political reasons, making the whole issue even more doubtful.
3) After Russia launched a war, the fact that Ukraine has nazis became even less significant, and the primary issue now is to get Russia out of Ukraine.
4) "This war is not what the media portrays" doesn't mean anything, because certainly some media (probably Russian) portray the viewpoint you presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusich_Group
Couple that with a real belief that Russia is owed an Empire and we need more than healing we need a transformation.