Based Russia, My Ass

26 Jul, 2022

Note: the bulk of this shit was written somewhere in February 2022. I was too lazy to add the opinion on that war, so I'm retaining most of the original concept intact.

While the American "enlightened people who do not trust the CNN" (turns out it's mostly conservatives) parrot the Russia Based narrative, here's a more realistic description of Russia - by someone who's far more acquainted with their culture and state-of-affairs than an ordinary "I'm not a media propaganda chugger" RT propaganda chugger.

1. Russia has a huge Soviet heritage

From daily interactions between people, to their attitude towards their life, work and country itself, to numerous streets still named after some communist douches, to the Mausoleum where Lenin himself still stays - more than 30 years after the Soviet Union supposedly fell.

And it wouldn't have been a big deal if now would be 1995 or so, because back then the country was still fucked up and it isn't like they could afford to think about getting rid of the Soviet bullshit, right? But this is February 2022, more than thirty years after USSR's fall. If you do not understand:

A dude who was born in 1995 is now either finishing his second special education, or already working somewhere possibly for several years already. That dude have never seen the USSR but, somehow it turns out that the spirit of USSR is still with him. He still respects the Soviet special days (May 1 and 9 as a good example), he still wants that "free" education and medical services and other stuff which hails from the Soviets, he still uses numerous phrases and words which only had a meaning in Soviet Union (yes, Ruskies still use the word "comrade" in their daily life, as a good example) and he still steals stuff from his workplace as if it's still the Soviet state factory even though it's not.

Many services in Russia have an awful quality; and despite that, Russian people usually do not complain about that. This one comes from the fact that Soviet services were largely state-sponsored and often "free". (Though Soviets had to wait a long time before they could receive their shitty product or service, because hey, there is a huge demand and little supply and the market was not there.) Now, Russia is supposedly a mixed-economy -nation, so shouldn't the public attitude to goods and services change?.. but it doesn't. The old Soviet-era "Consume what you're given" principle still stays with Russians, even though they can now complain about shitty products - and opt for different manufacturers and service providers, because now there is some limited market in Russia.

Despite many alternatives available, Russians still prefer a crappy quality of life - they aim for the cheapest life, even if its quality suffers greatly, even if it's reasonable to opt for a higher quality of life. Poor, bland food, cheap design/furniture and crappy cheap appliances are what most Russians prefer, despite there are better alternatives on the market. This behavior also hails from the Soviet Union; the good stuff often wasn't even there, and when it was it was excessively expensive so the Soviets were forced to live in crappy conditions to save more money. Now there is no such necessity, but many Russians still opt for shitty lives.

Russians also have little regard for privacy and private life, as well as private affairs. This also hails from Soviet era, where people were both too poor too afford significant individuality (and artifically condensed for its further elimination) and there was a "collective spirit" ideology which contradicted anything private. Even though now, Russia allows for a more atomized society, many people still prefer the collective mindset - a legacy of old Soviet culture.

Last but not least, the private property: not only it is de-facto largely absent in Russian law, it is also not respected by ordinary Russians. Right until cameras and secure locks became a common thing, small-scale theft was common in Russia. If you leave something that's yours unattended for a few seconds - expect this "something" to be stolen, even if that "something" is on "your" land, but is not behind a strong door with a secure lock. (Again, in Russia you mostly can't really own land either, but that's another topic.)

Summary: "Based" Russia has a culture of not-so-based USSR, and in fact, it's a very miserable place to live in. There's one thing that Russia also inherited from USSR and it's a huge desire to emigrate - though, unlike most cultural traits, it is based not on long-gone realities of a shitty country that is no more but on actual shittiness of the "based" Russia.

2. It's a crime-infested shithole

Russian law basically outlaws effective defense of own life and property; there is no such thing as concealed carry, and even if you manage to own a firearm (Which is extremely hard since civilian firearm ownership is basically banned in Russia) or just kill your assailant with something else, you're most likely going to jail for several years for "exceeding the limits of self-defence". And to "exceed" them, you simply need to injure your robber/rapist.

So, if you're a criminal, you can rob and beat and rape and kill at your leisure with little fear for your life, or even your freedom. The anti-gun often loves to say: "You don't need the guns, the police will protect you". Well, the Russian police's answer is: "Call us when they kill you".

That's right, in Russia, the police barely does anything with actual violent criminals - they often perform some basic procedure to show that they care and then they close the case because they don't actually care. Some people even reported corpses lying in the cities in public places in the middle of the day and no one gave a shit about that. In other places, experiments were run in subway trains to see if anyone will care if a robber will steal people's possessions in a train full of passengers. When cops happened to be there they simply didn't care.

There's a whole subculture, simply called "gopniks", which is basically a bunch of criminals assaulting random people for fun. Yeah, this is a subculture, kind of like goths or libertarians or heavy metal lovers; and what's more, they're quite open about their deeds. Russian society tolerates them.

Even in the most gun-controlled, gangster-infested, Democrat cities of the United States of 'Murica you will not find anything like a culture of gang violence - you'll find numerous gangs, but not a freaking culture which doesn't even attempt to hide itself from sight.

3. Russia cannot prosper without lies and deception

One thing that stands true is that Russia has nothing to offer to impartial persons - including their own citizens.

"A good nation shows off its positive traits; a bad nation points out others' shortcomings". Russia is busy pointing out others' shortcomings because it has no benefits.

How do you convince someone that Russia is a nice place? Right, you bring up its positive traits and you compare them to the other countries, pointing out the strong traits of Russia and minimizing the significance of the negative ones. Sorta like this:

Doesn't sound very encouraging, though. That's why Russians, while trying to make their country look good, have given up on showing off its good traits (there are none) and decided to focus on other countries' weak points instead.

And the West is the main target of Russian smear campaign. Not because they have a long story of mutual enmity and rivalry, but simply because the West is so much better than Russia and always will be better.

When radio and television finally became a thing in Russian homes, the government first took a lot of effort to try to silence Western outlets - they didn't want the ordinary Russian to know that life can be better, and it doesn't take something extraordinary to be so. When it proved to be insufficent, they tried to use violence towards those who tried to peek outside the Iron Curtain. When this have proved insufficent, too, they went with glasnost and perestroyka because they finally understood that violence and oppression doesn't always work. Even with the docile Russians.

So then they started pointing out others' weaknesses, over-exaggerating them, and using them as propaganda against those who show sympathy for the West. It's a very frequently used logical fallacy, a demagogue's approach to attempt to weasel out of an itchy situation where you know you're a failure and you can't disprove it so you simply try to take the eyes of your audience off you so they'll at least not look at the ugly demagogue called Russia. "Don't look at me, because the 'Murica..."

Russia's tactic is not to make it look good, it's to make the others look bad - "hey, we suck, but at least the others suck too, so why don't you take your eyes off us for a moment?.." For the unwary, it's a sometimes-working method; for those who know the drill, however, it's a sure sign that this country sucks so much ass, it shouldn't be even thought of s anything but a terrible shithole which only exists to escape it ASAP.

4. Huge exodus mentality in Russia

Russians love their country soooo much, they seriously consider fleeing. On a daily basis.

Now, let's imagine a normal country. Some citizens want to leave, but in most cases changing your nationality is more costly than staying, so very few citizens actually flee or even think about it. Because their home country isn't THAT atrocious.

And then, let's imagine a crisis happens. The country becomes a more dangerous and less prosperous place to live in, so more citizens think of leaving, afraid for their future. As the war/crisis intensifies, the exodus becomes more widespread as citizens pack their shit and leave for a better place.

Now, let's take a look at the covid-struck West and Russia. The former declared a series of draconic lockdowns and other restrictions under the guise of "fighting the pandemic"; the latter didn't pay much attention to it. So you can say that the West just got themselves a huge socio-political crisis and Russia just kept being what it is.

And now, the most interesting part: even though the West had a crisis and Russia didn't, there was still a sizeable population willing to leave Russia. And move to a Western country.

Once again: Russia was doing its ordinary business while West suffered under a socio-political psyop coupled with multiple attacks on civil liberties from their governments. And Russians still preferred the West!

It is a better option that Russia - for many, many Russians - despite the West just got a psyop attack from WEf or whoever.

5. Russian Armed Forces

This one deserves a whole topic, but here, it'll still be covered more briefly.

From whatever input those familiar with Russian Army provided to me, it is clear that it isn't really an army - but instead, it's a slave training center. Through subjecting conscripts to daily violence, deprivation of basic necessities such as food and sleep, and disrupting one's cognition with psychological torture and carefully-crafted daily schedule, they strive to destroy personalities of Russian men and turn them into slaves incapable of any individual action.

First of all, the actual military training is reported to be subpar at best. Making Russian Army not quite an army.

Second, conscripts are frequently drafted for slave labor. From washing toilets and taking care of the senior staff's equipment, to building houses and repairing equipment for high-ranking military officials, and sometimes risking their lives at some officer's private request.

Third, a conscript's rights are basically non-existent, as they are not only not enforced in Russian army, but attempts to defend a conscript's rights are most likely to result in harsh penalties for the said conscript. The penalty might entail collective hazing, increased demands from the senior officers towards said conscript, hybrid physical-psychological torture aimed to both lower a conscript's performance and harm their personality further, and, of course, attempts to trick the conscript into low performance which would lead to "legal" repercussions.

Fourth, the elaborate system of peer pressure or "dedovschina" - an informal and officially not acknowledged hierarchy which de-facto functions in Russian Army and acts as a helper mechanism to further obliterate conscrpts' will. The system is built around the time spent by the conscripts in the army; the more time a conscript spends serving, the higher they are recognized in this hierarchy.

Promotion grants conscripts higher authority towards their peers and, in some cases, even senior officers; though this practice is officially illegal, a high degree of isolation of Russian conscripts from the outside world ensures that the system can function with little to no intervention from the state. Short of escaping the army (which is considered a crime) the conscript basically has no means of contacting the outside world; any attempts to formally appeal to authorities are suppressed by the staff.

That being said, Russia basically has legalized slavery. The very fact that Russia still has forced conscription indicates that its citizens are merely slaves. If a citizen's autonomy can be taken away and they can be forced to serve in any way - be it forced labor, military service, participation in propaganda, or barring access to other countries' public resources, be it goods, information, residence, or anything the other country is willing to provide to foreigners - this is slavery.

6. Futile attempts to "replace" imported goods with Russian crap

Overall, the quality of Russian goods available for internal market is subpar at best. And they aren't often at their best.

The optimal solution would be finally admitting that Russia can't provide goods of decent quality because their culture and economic system prevent healthy competition and any development at all, and instead be a raw materials exporter because these are made either by Universe or Mother Earth, not some alcoholics. Yet, Russian enterprises still struggle to achieve what their call "national independence" - an attempt to trick Russian population into using predominantly Russian goods, despite the market forces effectively drawing customer attention away from that crap.

Of course, national sovereignty itself isn't really a bad thing, and actually, it is often beneficial - to preserve a nation's self-sustainablity is to preserve a nation's ability to live comfortably even in case where all the diplomacy and trade with the outside is severed. Russia, however, can't understand exactly what brings about such sovereignty and self-sustained life.

First, it is achieved by producing high-quality goods and services, to reduce the demand of the population for imported goods. If your goods are of high quality, then they will effectively compete with alternatives, reducing the demand for them; this automatically leads to population preferring domestic goods over foreign ones in most cases.

However, Russia can't grasp this. Instead, they're trying the good ol' nationalist propaganda and hoping this will work on ideological fanatics, because the rest simply doesn't care about this. Russian advertisement is basically this: "Buy our stuff not because it's high-quality, but because it's made in your Fatherland! If you love Fatherland, then support it!" Well, and what if a lot of Russians hate their shithole Fatherland?..

This shows just how much Russians care about their customers. Even if there are superior alternatives in the market, they just don't care about producing better goods. Actually, not that. They're so determined to force their fellow Russians to consume crap, they go to great length just to ensure the product is crap and that Russians in their majority are buying the crap.

7. Hatred towards their fellow Russian

Southern Americans treat foreigners far better than Russians treat Russians.

Most of the interactions between Russians who do not know each other is violent or at least dissympathetic. Initial attitude towards each other is most often either hostile or spiteful, and in many cases, relationships are established through intimidation, violence, or psychological domination.

Most of the long-term relationships of Russians are based on at least a fair degree of domination or mutual enmity; even close neighbors and members of community hate each other to a degree. The rare exceptions are usually those who do not have that Russian mindset, are poorly adapting to life in Russia even though they're born there, and they have a strong desire - backed by at least significant effort - to leave that shithole country forever.

Russians prefer to resolve internal conflicts with violence, even when alternative methods are available; even though the entire human race is highly aggressive, Russians manage to stand off as an exceptional example of violent, non-negotiating entities.

Though murder is somewhat rare, things like assault, rape, theft, and even torture to some degree are common in Russia. One can say they're part of an ordinary Russian's life.

With all that said, if they actually manage to get close relationships, these are rather stable - though, in case of conflict, violence is still often preferred. And even close friends and relatives often use coercion, subjugation, and outright violence towards each other on daily basis.

8. Authoritarian and oppressive government

Last but not least, Russian government is one of the least effective ones in the world.

It's worth noting that authoritarianism itself isn't a problem; there are various forms of it. For example, Japan and Russia, as well as China, are all authoritarian countries - but the latter two, unlike the former, manage to make it a problem, resulting in greatly decreased internal stability and prosperity. This one isn't about China, though, so let's focus on Russia more.

There is what I call "healthy" and "unhealthy" authoritarianism. Most people actually prefer some sort of a mix between freedom and authority; the latter is often seen as a tool for maintaining security, national stability, traditional-moral-religious framework, and, o f course, making daily interactions between various persons from various places with various worldviews possible. Japan is a country that is reportedly close to that "healthy authoritarianism"; most residents view the government and authority in general as rather beneficial for the society and individuals within it rather than oppressive, gaining not resentment and opposition but support from its people.

This isn't the case with Russia. There, authority is not a tool for national stability, security and prosperity - it is a tool for oppressing people.

Some of the sure signs of unhealthy authoritarianism are repression of freedom of expression, excessive violence towards citizens from law enforcement, excessive regulations which serve not the will of the people or functionality of the society, but the continuation of the regime. Increased intervention into one's personal life is also a sure sign of failing authoritarianism, as well as weak personal rights and/or frequent violation of them by own government agencies.

Of course, even tyrants do not openly violate their citizens just because they want to. They are busy inventing various excuses; in most cases, they hide behind the guise of fighting crime or terrorism, helping children, protecting national heritage, or fighting some sort of crisis. These claims make atrocities look legit - long as there is no visible alternative that is less harmful and long as no questions regarding the ratio of usefulness and harm done by those authoritarian measures; in other words, when the atrocities seem to be the only way to fight off the Problem, and when no one thinks whether these atrocities are worse than the Problem itself.

That is why they silence dissent and practice violence towards their citizens; it is an attempt to prevent them from discovering that their authoritarianism is actually a threat, and their regime is ineffective.

Conclusion

Russia isn't based - unless you mean based on violence and oppression.

In fact, it is a dying country. It has no means to sustain itself in log-term, no desire to rectify itself, and no means to turn itself into anything that is at least a decent country. Civil unrest is rising, productivity is falling, and its citizens of worth are emigrating increasingly.

Its culture is widely hated by own citizens and is easily replaced with Western analog; fierce attempts to safeguard its heritage are met with active resistance from its own citizens.

It is also highly likely that Russia wll attempt an aggressive conquest of some weaker neighbor nations, such as Ukraine or Belarus, only to exhaust even more of its wealth in the war - and ending up being unable to control both its original and newly-conquered territories, leading to a crisis and eventual fall of the Russia Federation for good.

It is also very likely that Russia will become increasingly fascist and militant - which will inevitably draw even more civil unrest and cause more destabilization, making Russia kill itself with its own aggression. Eventually even the most devoted supporters of Russia will collapse, and this will be the end of this decadent empire.

In modern world, aggressive expansion is not only unnecessary, but also harmful for every country; nevertheless, the dying countries are expected to do exactly that, in a futile effort to gain more influence and resources to attempt to maintain themselves for some time. What they do not know is that they also generate a lot of destruction and dissympathy in the process, as well as the need to maintain control over the new territories; this all puts a lot o strain on an already weak country, causing its accelerated collapse.

Even if this won't happen, Russian citizens in general have way too little trust in their own government, culture, and, above all, Russian people. The country will keep slowly decaying until it reaches a point where only radical reforms will help - but these, of course, will be the death of Russia we know.