Russia killed its tech industry(technologyreview.com) |
Russia killed its tech industry(technologyreview.com) |
I grew up in the Cold War (my father was in the CIA). Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
Then, the Berlin Wall came down, and everything changed.
I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Music, technology, art, actors, dance, all kinds of stuff. I loved working with Russian engineers. They were some of the best techs I'd worked with. I have a lot of Russian music in my iTunes rotation. I've enjoyed a number of Russian shows, on Netflix. At one time, that would never have been the case.
It really seems as if the door has been slammed on that.
Russian culture in Russia might be done for though, at least for a while.
I feel like that needs to be qualified? Maybe ages 20-40 and of a certain social-economic class can leave fairly easily, but it’s gotta be much harder to leave if you’re too young, too old, too poor, have too few connections, or have aged parents, young children, etc.
It's so rare nowadays.
While i agree with technology, art (painters, literature), dance (ballet), i didn't think Russia brings much to the worlds of music.
Curious what is in you iTunes rotation?
Also, surprisingly, some really good flamenco guitar, and Arabic-inspired stuff.
Some might be from former Russian nations, but some is straight from St. Petersburg.
I’m not really in a position, at the moment, to find the various songs. I have a big library, and it takes a while to find stuff.
I have very eclectic tastes.
> Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
Russia and US stopped being political enemies.
> I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia.
Russia and US started being political enemies again.
> Russians are considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
It's not really clear but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.
Despite the gloomy predictions, Russia keeps doing fine on all dimensions.
War in Ukraine was not a good thing to happen, but Russia is not that badly managed, and the West is not that well managed.
I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now.
Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.
They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup.
The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still very different from a frontend developer working for Meta.
I could understand the point of them attacking your family but I haven't heard of any cases like this in Russia.
It has all the power and all the money.
You cant do any business with Russia without connections.
Did they? Or they received a ton of people who are working in US/other European countries companies and at best are spending their money there?
However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. But there is time limit for that. You will run out of people.
You can clearly see in the Netflix-movie that cosmonauts were living in a creepy military camp, while american astronauts drove home to their family after hard day of space flying.
However it's true that soviets failed "consumer IT".
Wasn't also Manhattan Project an example of this?
But, it’s also true that many of the articles seem to be written by interns, and so the site is of lower quality than might be expected from MIT.
The link that statement refers to doesn't mention that polls like that have huge percentage of people who refuse to answer. Given that expressing anti-war opinion is dangerous in Russia, most of non-supporters may simply stay unrecorded, giving incorrect share to the supporters. Supporters do not have such strong reason to refuse to answer.
> “I’m ready to come back to Russia, but under certain conditions,” she says. “I don’t want to live in a country where Putin is the president. I don’t want to live in a country that starts wars.”
Ba-dum-tss.
Among many, many things, why I think that there should be far fewer Russians in this world, I remember one situation, that I still vividly and unpleasantly see from time to time.
It was in the middle of the night during one of many air, rocket, and shelling attacks. There was a sound and a feeling of rocket strikes, then the air alert signal went off. And I had to run with the child in my arms to the basement of the neighbor's apartment building, hoping that we are lucky enough and fast enough to not get hit, and hoping that if there were a direct missile hit, there would be another exit in this basement. So we would not get trapped there under layers of concrete, as has happened to less fortunate people in my hometown.
Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admittedly any number here will be a rough estimate at best. Still better than nothing. Another point is that though some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs. Another important point left out by Masha is that the incentive program contains a guarantee that qualified (finished uni with appropriate specialisation and works in IT company) IT guys are exempted from the draft.
Secondly, Yandex. It is presented as if it was that democratic and freedom-driven company and national success but then the war started and it was forced to censor the content blah blah blah. This is a blatant lie. Yandex censored search and news results before. We have good reasons to believe that Yandex cooperates with FSB regarding user content (emails and yandex drive). Moreover, IT companies in Russia are not limited to Yandex and VK. There is Sber. It is a government-controlled bank that now is more than a bank. Sber has its own ecosystem (streaming, location, delivery services, marketplace, AI department, AI assistants etc). You ain't seen nothing yet! There is a cluster of big b2b companies that work on the domestic market and CIS. Thousands of people work there but most russians don't even know that they exist.
Speaking of VK and social networks. Telegram is an interesting thing. It is not a Russian startup and government tried to ban it earlier. As far as I know in USA and Europe it is mostly used by people with more radical views. But in Russia everyone (I mean everyone who try to be modern, since VK is not cool) uses it now. Goverment, opposition, radically pro-Russia guys and ordinary people. It is more than a messenger now and something like social network. Telegram is a gray zone in terms of banned content. Btw I have a strong opinion that Durov reached an agreement with the russian government.
While tech giant in Russia are undeniably influenced/controlled by/depend on the state and hence censor their content and spy on customers, there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry". I'm sad that this kind of sentiment towards russian industries and people (as if all the brights have left the country) is the default in western media. It should be especially pleasant to think that russians are brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. I mean we are from jungle, and you are enlightened intellectuals living in your beautiful garden.
But content like this lacks intellectual honesty moreso depth. It worsenes the chances to understand each other. I wish I read on that page about the ways how russian IT industry is not actually dead (because it's the truth). How people living in autocracy manage to do cool tech things. I wish there was an analysis of russian government attempts to control the IT industry and media that would take into account worldwide trends in goverment and big tech relations (and no, that's not "whataboutism"). Instead there was another RUSSIA BAD.
This article reads like US propaganda.
“Russia imposed increasingly restrictive laws, arresting social media users over posts, demanding access to user data, and introducing content filtering.”
The US performs similar actions. The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. Recent arrest of left wing US citizens for criticism of the Ukraine war and social media blocking criticism or demonetizing contributors for criticizing the US role in Ukraine war. An attempt to install a Czar of disinformation into the Department of Homeland Security was thankfully stymied mainly due to the character of the individual chosen. Many other examples abound in the US of attempts to control opinions and access to social networks.
They show no such thing if you actually read the content, of course the person hired by Elon (Matt Taibbi), who can't even criticise him for the most simplest and basic things is not going to write an article saying he is wrong.
You have to wonder what is in Taibbi's contract with Musk such that both parties are unwilling to make it public.
Further, Taibbi and Musk are currently feuding over Musk trying to strongarm Taibbi into using Twitter instead of Substack. Taibbi has openly criticized Musk for this and is no longer associated with new dumps from Twitter. Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him.
Indeed, the real number should be higher.
Russians and Belarusians made their mistakes back then. Now it's just a consequence of not fighting for their democracy strongly enough when it was still possible.
This is the thing that kills democracy - it is taken away from you very slowly, step by step, and at any given moment it looks like it's not a big deal. And then when it's a big deal - you realize it doesn't matter what people think. You can't change anything.
In my country (Poland) the fight is still going on, but I'm not optimistic.
On the contrary this war is Putin's multiyear bet on Russia's useful idiots in the West.
US Republicans overwhelmingly supported US military aid to Ukraine in the beginning of the war. However Tucker Carlson and other populists spend the next 12 months lowering that support to less than 40%.
The only reason Russia started this war is because they believed their useful idiots in the West will save them. They are yet to be proved wrong.
I'm confused. Hasn't the US and EU given incredible military aide to Ukraine?
So yes - it was a blunder.
And yes - they are counting on useful idiots in the west now, but that wasn't the plan, it's russians trying to save whatever they can after that initial blunder. You can know that by looking at how long it took for russian propaganda targeting the west to catch up after the start of the invasion in 2022. Usually they prepare the western audiences. This time they didn't bothered because it was supposed to be a quick thing and it was secret even for many russians in the government.
Also - useful idiots are in many countries, not just in USA. EU is hugely important in this war, especially Germany, and they were ruled by useful russian idiots for last 30 years. I'm not sure they stopped being them even now.
> The only reason Russia started this war is because they believed their useful idiots in the West will save them
This is just wrong.
It's not even that complicated. His bet was that the West would respond the same as we did with Georgia, Chechenya, and the Donbas/Crimean invasion of 2014.
It was 'safe' to assume that the West would react the same with a complete invasion of Ukraine. Seems like not.
If Putin was smart, he would have gracefully pulled out of this. But seems like he much rather want to turn his country into a new North Korea.
Good luck...
I know entrepreneurs who sold companies to Yandex and VK (when it was MRG). It's a miserable outcome. You have only a few potential buyers in Russia, which means prices for startups are cheap. All then went to launch companies somewhere else so they might have a chance of a better exit.
For a Russian-based startup there are two ways to sell their "cool things" globally. Exit the country or be very diligent about hiding your roots. Still, people will find out sooner or later.
Yes, Russia will still have a few big tech companies, which are almost and government oligopoly already. Their employees shouldn't really expect too much competition for their talent (and corresponding salaries).
Even judging by the official numbers, 100k is a lot of professionals in a rapidly slowing down economy in the need of said professionals. Unofficial numbers range up to 1 mil total left with 500.000 of them being from tech sector. Possibly even worse than official numbers that are always a conviniently crafted lie, like it was in 2020 with covid death downscaled 2 times.
> She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia
But not participating in russian economy directly and in futurre possibly working on local tech sector projects and not russian ones. It is not a 1 year story, we are in a long haul
> some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs
That somehow disproves the point? That the tech sector lost its best heads so now they struggle to replace them with other professionals for high qualification jobs which juniors arent ready for? Besides its not just tech sector, the whole russian economy is shrinking rapidly. Even in non-technical positions there were changes with layoffs, lower pay, half-schedules and unpaid leaves [1]
> IT guys are exempted from the draft
The fact that it is even mentioned is . Yes, thats what people are running from for either reason (to not be killed, not kill or both). And tech sector is the closest to internationally viable opportunity so it had the most people leave
> Yandex censored search and news results before
True, since about 2011 as mentioned in the link but way noticeably since 2016. Yet while it was censoring results, it wasnt a blanked war time censorship on anything opposing the government. You could've searched for meduza and dozhd. Now you cant
> AI department, AI assistants
All scaled down because of the sanctions [2][3] and leaving professionals. They wont dissapear just because, but they also wont grow as much.
> Durov reached an agreement with the russian government
The agreement was that TG would stay in that gray zone indefinitely using alternative financing sources like crypto scams and later ads and subscribtion. Gray zone means nobody can censor it, neither russians, nor nato/otan. And this is preferable to russia than local-only service like vk (because of said radicals in other countries). Yes, some people will still access some anti-gvmt channels, but its a minority. Propaganda already changed the nation into 1/4 lunatics supporting the war and 2/4 "having no opinion"
> there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry"
That it drove away more professionals while disconnecting itself from global economy that helped prosper said tech sector in the first place? Sure, okay, mhm
> It worsenes the chances to understand each other
Guys, you dont understand, full controll over your population with military ideology and silencing any opposition is actually good. Look at all the achievements USSR has made while being same totalitarian regime. Just ignore the quality of life for majority of the time under communism, look, we have a first person in space. It costed us just most other economic sectors like computers, farming equipment, production machinery, car industry, trains industry, local municipalities growth in general and developing independent culture
[1] https://lenta.ru/news/2022/08/04/platformasravni/ [2] https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2022/09/02/9387... [3] https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/23/06/2022/62b473de9...
Canda:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invasion_of_Quebe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War_of_1812&usesk...
Mexico:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Mexic...
Totalitarian states relied on masses and didn't have to forcibly get people to participate in their marches.
What does being pro- or anti-West has to do with the topic? There are many Russian expats in Germany who openly manifest their support for Putin's war on the streets of Berlin. You can be anti-Western and at the same time pragmatically leave Russia to avoid draft and being killed for basically no reason.
Why the super secret contract then?, why the unwillingness to criticise musk on some of the even simplest things?.
His debate with Mehdi Hasan was very telling.
Also about appointing first cosmonaut by looks is not something strange. After all strict selections there's almost no difference among final candidates in health condition, skills or cognitive abilities. They are all as healthy as human can be and quite smart and trained. So final pick by these criterias would be pretty random anyway (even now for modern candidates it still is). And given that sending first human in space was a big deal about political prestige it's no wonder that it was made by the looks of candidates.
Yes, there are some younger professionals who for some reason are OK with the war. Stopped talking to them completely.
Among my peers most left, even the ones that used to be relatively pro Puilo for whatever reasons.
How does your alumni status’ anecdotal evidence bring clarity on the matter of the predominant intellectual capacity of those who’re leaving Russia? Aren’t there any other MSU graduates who consider themselves as bright as your CS peers and yourself, and who are staying in? What’s the respective left/stayed ratio among them?
Russia 30 years ago was a failed and miserable state with corresponding words choice. In the modern Russia not many actual people watch TV.
I doubt that Latin American Old Believers produce, or even retain, much of these.
Russian language indeed borrowed a few words, but this is not a bad thing, it’s a common reflection of Zeitgeist that happened to the language before.
Where’s that clarity come from? The opposite could be argued as well: those who’ve left are seeking safety and safety isn’t associated with risk taking. There are fewer risks in leaving Russia than in staying in.
> breakthrough is much more likely to come out of the young risk taking ones now living in a functional country and not from the aging engineers living in a dictatorship and working at a bureaucratic rosatom making "up to $720 a month" (actual number, I looked up their open engineering vacancies).
Here, you did it again: “those who work at <this company> are less likely to make a breakthrough, because I don’t align with them, and therefore I assume that only aging engineers uncapable of breakthroughs would consider staying and working there. Look, even salaries prove that they are less likely to have it.”
If we want a quick win for Ukraine we should send weapons much quicker and without silly distinctions like (offensive vs defensive weapons in 2022 or like long vs short range missiles now).
It's like instead of curing people with antibiotics in 2 weeks you split the pills into 1/64th parts and cured them for 1 year. You're not really curing them - you're growing antibiotic-resistant bacteria at that point.
A quick win would mean Russia would hold on to a lot of military resources. By providing Ukraine just enough to deny Russia any wins, and Russia stupid enough to not pull out, they are basically draining Russia to death.
Right now Russia is sending T-54's to the battlefield. Their 'storm the front' tactics is killing their soldiers at a crazy rate.
Now this is the military standpoint, there is also a humanitarian side. Now on the humanitarian side, I agree a quick win would be better and save a lot of lives. I'm a proponent for NATO to control the skies, at least West from the Dnipro river.
But claiming it's a military failure on the Western side is just plain wrong. This right now is NATO's ideal military scenario.
On the other hand a decisive win for Ukraine followed by western-integration success story there - would directly contradict Putin's core internal justification for keeping his power (west is lying ,democracy is bullshit, ruskie people are different and if we try democracy it would just be 90s again). If Ukrainians have democracy and are more successful than Russians (and Russians would know - they have families and travel) - this whole system (not only Putin - but all his FSB friends, oligarchs, orthodox church, state media etc) - break down.
Remember that they are constantly telling their people that Ukraine doesn't exist, Ukrainians are just Russians brainwashed into believing "western lies". If these western lies WORK - it's the end of putin & company.
This is the most likely road to a democratic, constructive Russia. Such Russia would be a massive boon for EU and NATO, both Russia and its neighbors wouldn't need to waste billions of dollars on weapons. And of course it would be a massive improvement for Russians. Actual rule of law. Local self-government with reinvestment of oil money into infrastructure & education. The possibilities are endless. But it would require Russia to go through the imperial cycle to its conclusion - decisively losing a colonial war, realizing we're the bad guys, dealing with the history, etc. You need the defeat for that.
If we keep Russia alive we're making this very hard. Much more likely it will become a big North Korea.
It's often claimed that US policy is to take advantage of the war to grind down Russian military capability, and that the USA will fight to the last Ukrainian.
I must say, I find the reluctance to supply missiles that could be used to hit targets inside Russia seems to support that view. I mean, it's not as if Russia is hitting targets inside Ukraine, is it? /s
It's completely normal in war to attempt to disrupt enemy operations by targeting logistics behind enemy lines; which in this case is the border between Ukraine and Russia. Western vetoes on that activity, supposedly with the aim of "not escalating", look very cynical.
That's Ukrainian territory by international law, a valid military target, and minimal civilian casualties.
The US should have given them examples for that single purpose long ago.
It's not like Ukraine and Russia aren't already shooting SRBMs at each other.
Will the West still be giving military aid to Ukraine in 2025?
Won't accept in the sense they will continue with some sanctions indefinitely (significantly watered down by multiple parties) or in the sense that they will significantly and rapidly expand their production of ammunition and armored vehicles in order to fully sustain the Ukrainian military? Because if Biden loses they will need to have the production running in less than two years and I'm not sure they are _really_ prepared to invest the necessary resources.
But the result is yet to be seen.
You mean America was doing the defending? That's hilarious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in...
And then there's the horror show of American intervention in South East Asia, and then there's the meddle, I mean Middle East.
Last I checked, Ukraine hadn't invaded its neighbors, gassed ethnic minorities, or taken freedom from its entire female population.
The US handled Afghanistan and Iraq poorly, and lied about reasons for going in, but there were actual underlying reasons.
Ukraine is only being invaded because Russia thinks it can.
Hell, Ukraine explicitly gave up its weapons of mass destruction... in exchange for security guarantees... from Russia.
The french has most of africa on lockdown in that regard
Lol.
> Our grandparents told us stories about the russian army that many found hard to believe. And here we are proven that they were right all along.
This is true for any military power, read stories about areas under occupation from "freedom loving" or "non-freedom loving" (?) military groups, and you'll find it is equally horrible no matter what country the groups are from.
- Haditha massacre
- Mahmudiyah rape and killings
- Abu Ghraib prison
- Enhanced interrogation techniques
- Sơn Thắng massacre
- Countless of others
All by US officials and/or military members.
I wish those atrocities were just "a centrury ago" but they're in fact pretty recent.
Wiki says his great grandfather was black. I am not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that Pushkin was black.
1/64th black…
Is this using the Elizabeth Warren native american logic ?
If you are trying to rebuild your high-tech industry, however, you require educated people.
And why would these go to Russia if they can go to Europe or the US? Immigrating to Russia with possibly be easier, but it’s still Russia…
If Russia makes it easier with visas and the salary is good enough, many Indians would happily move there.
I don't know how much reliance Russian forces in Crimea place on the bridge. It seems rather fragile to rely on that bridge to supply the entire peninsular. Crimea can be resupplied by sea; it has several ports, including a huge one at Sevastopol.
However Crimea lacks its own water supply; Crimean water supplies come by pipeline from the Dniepro. My guess is that Ukraine would love to control that pipeline.
Or if they deploy their fleet regularly outside of the harbor... well, we saw how that last went when atmospheric conditions aligned against them.
My understanding is that the Dniepro to Crimea water canal was one of the reasons for the invasion. After Ukraine cut off water supply after Russia invaded Crimea (you could see the canal dried up on Google Maps satellite), they were having to spend $$$ to ensure the peninsula had enough fresh water.
You can see where it sources from the river too: https://www.google.com/maps/place/46.7177240,33.4085303
Which should already be in Ukrainian artillery range from the opposite bank, but I imagine it's hard to stop a gravity fed canal from flowing with artillery...
It's not about safety, it's about agency. Because action > inaction. Staying put does not require anything, just making excuses why nothing can be done to either change things or move.
The ones that stayed and are trying to change things might be the brightest and bravest of all, but they are few and might not even survive that decision. Most other ones simply lack any agency and float down towards some not very bright future they have no control over, making excuses why nothing can be done and hoping to lay low and "авось пронесет". Those are less likely to accomplish much.
> It's not about safety, it's about agency. Because action > inaction. Staying put does not require anything, just making excuses why nothing can be done to either change things or move.
When a person has an option to leave but decides otherwise, they exercise their agency and the action is described as a conscious decision based on an act of volition. You are free to attribute it to - as you said - “making excuses” or “actually lacking agency”, but that would be the same biased simplification of reality that you’ve already done a few times in other comments.
"Biased simplification of reality" sounds like a description of essentially any opinion, we are all biased and reality is too complex to argue about without simplifications, so that's not a great argument. Anything outside of a few math formulas is a "biased simplification of reality".
I'm curious, what exactly are you arguing for? Do you really think that a loss of that million is insignificant and that the roskosmos/rosatom/rostech/etc will accomplish more than all the people that have left? If so, could you explain why you think that?
Emigration is the ultimate risk-taking.
I now have friends who have a position ready for them in the US, in business and academia, yet they were put on administrative check and have spent almost a year just waiting for their visa. They put most people with technical education on this check.
However, a weak Russia cannot keep regions that want to break away. Russia as we know it now is not going to exist anymore. Not because they would suddenly overthrow the current government (which they won't). But because plenty of 'friendly' neighbor states might cut connections, and controlled regions might see a brighter future on their own. They are not going to nuke them because of this.
Russia turning into a new North Korea is unfortunately almost a given right now, since the Russian public doesn't seem motivated to protest and demand another government.
If we speak about regions with russian majority then it's unlikely because despite Russia being very big russian ethnicity culturally is quite uniform. And as for other ethnicities then for most of them it's not economically or politically viable to separate: either their country will become enclaves surrounded by large mass of russian territory or will occupy territory with harsh environment where it would be hard even in the long run to establish sustainable modern economy without tight economical integration with russian territories.
So if we speak about regions with reasonable potential to break away then they are republics in Northern Caucasus and maybe Tyva. And that not very much.
Ukrainians have families in Russia and vice-versa. They travel, talk, watch the same videos, etc. Currently there's censorship, but it won't go on forever, it won't block everything. People knew they can't call it a war but it was a war. Propaganda can't lie about everything all of the time.
If Ukrainians have a successful democracy, if Russians migrate to work in Ukraine and not the other way around - that would be the ultimate blow to the core of the russian social contract.
Imagine if Mexico turned 100% communist and became obviously richer than USA in 5 years. So rich that Americans migrated there in millions. What would it do to Republicans in USA?
This is BTW the real reason Putin invaded Ukraine - because it started on this road. And that was the ultimate threat to Russian authocrats.
That's why Russia will try to prolong the war, freeze and unfreeze it, threat Ukraine to scare the foreign investors and EU countries, etc. This is why they target cities and infrastructure even more than the army. As long as people in Russia are wealthier than in Ukraine and Belarus - Putin's fine.
And lastly, don't forget about the only nuclear bombs that have been dropped have been dropped by the US military. That was indiscriminate killing at a scale never seen before, or since.
Look, Russia is horrible, the invasion is super fucked up, I wish they weren't do that and it'll take a long time before I'll ever forget about the horribleness that Russia put others through, as I've personally helped people being received from Ukraine into the country where I currently live. But that doesn't mean other military powers aren't as horrible as Russia, all of them are, it's their purpose so that's what they do.
No, millions is not an exaggeration. It’s an understatement. The only thing we reproach the USA: that they didn’t intervene. They were no angels, but there is no comparison. They are not the same and any attempt to muddle the waters and make them all seem the same is a desperate strategy of a falling imperialist power to throw the blame around. But we are immune to this, we grew up with the KGB monitoring jokes and pillow talk. We know this dirty game and here in Eastern Europe your tricks don’t work anymore. We have eyes to see and we know who are the good guys making the unfortunate occasional mistake and who are the pure evil ones.
Prior to the war maybe slightly under 50% stayed. Now it is under 10%.
Just to clarify your point, are you suggesting that only 10% of MSU gradutes are staying in Russia after receiving their respective degrees, or are these the numbers among specific people with specific degrees you know personally?
However, the same trend was also quite visible on the university-wide alumni forum.
Of course if you could trace ancestry back far enough we are all black.
However it's a good argument for distinguishing between simplifications introduced by feelings and the ones introduced by omission while trying impartial judgement, as these simplification premises would have different value to your listeners.
> Do you really think that a loss of that million is insignificant and that the roskosmos/rosatom/rostech/etc will accomplish more than all the people that have left? If so, could you explain why you think that?
We must first establish and agree on the dimension by which you're willing to evaluate that significance. What would be a unit of measurement of the significance that you're mentioning in your comments?
It's not based on my feelings but on the personal experience and some research I did. All the smartest people I personally know and worked with have left the country. I also looked up the top 10 AI researchers at Yandex, and out of the ten I looked at only one was is still in Russia, that's a 90% loss for the top talent in the hottest industry at the (arguably) most innovative company in the country.
>We must first establish and agree on the dimension by which you're willing to evaluate that significance
Sure thing, let's take two, scientists and entrepreneurs as their accomplishments are the easiest to quantify. The unit of measurement would be the influential papers written for scientists (measured by the number of citations) and for the entrepreneurs the market cap of the companies they started, obviously both of those are not perfect metrics but they generally track with the value created.
Do you think the million people like the "MIPT, MSU and HSE graduates" that have left the country that the other guys are mentioning will do better on those dimensions versus the ones staying at rosatom/roskosmos/etc?
All of that is actually based on your feelings that (1) the people you know are smart enough to be qualified and counted among the brightest, (2) the AI software research and the researchers you personally know are more relevant to the points you make, than other research and the researchers you haven't met in other industries that Russia is excelling in.
> Sure thing, let's take two, scientists and entrepreneurs as their accomplishments are the easiest to quantify. The unit of measurement would be the influential papers written for scientists (measured by the number of citations) and for the entrepreneurs the market cap of the companies they started.
I disagree with the market cap metric because it's useless to compare without other constraints on the kind of businesses we're allowed to compare directly. For starters, a hypothetical company involved in the derivatives market may easily be evaluated higher than a profitable energy-producing company purely because of a higher speculative capacity of the former, since the markets allow for derivatives to exist as assets in the books. I disagree with that premise purely on a basis of the 2008 crisis that showed that those had never been assets manifested in reality.
I disagree with the influential papers' citation count too, because that measure would be subject to interpretation of influence. Are AI papers influential? Are all AI papers influential? You could get thousands of meaningless citations for a parroting AI architecture for every single meaningful citation of Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture. Which one of those would you value as more influential? I assume no one could seriously suggest that citations for AI software papers would have the same nominal value as citations of the fundamental proofs in mathematics or physics.
> Do you think the million people like the "MIPT, MSU and HSE graduates" that have left the country that the other guys are mentioning will do better on those dimensions versus the ones staying at rosatom/roskosmos/etc?
You are conflating two groups again: the million people left aren't all the kind of "MIPT, MSU and HSE graduates". Not all of them are the Techies in the first place. The right question to ask would be if I think that those who left have better chances to excel at science and business (regardless of their qualifications) than those who stayed. My answer to that question is no, I don't think so, because there's no hard evidence for that. There only is a hint that they might be better off financially if they dedicate their lives to making money in the industries that are known for generating loads of cash, like finance and tech. That's about it. Switch the roles and try comparing artists and less technical folks in their respective places at home and abroad, and the odds are suddenly opposite.
My math was terrible
Is there any evidence that Pushkin identified as black, rather than being selected as the historical “black friend” to dismiss criticism of a modern state that is actively sponsoring global white supremacy?
He refers to himself as "a disfigured descendant of negroes".
"А я, повеса вечно праздный,
Потомок негров безобразный,
Взращённый в дикой простоте…"
Also, here's an interesting article about Pushkin with some African Americans claiming him to be one of their own, with examples from 1929 and 1983:
https://www.livelib.ru/articles/post/63022-kak-pushkin-stal-...
[0] https://ilibrary.ru/text/182/p.1/index.html
EDIT: There's also this article exploring his African heritage:
https://daily.jstor.org/how-alexander-pushkin-was-inspired-b...
IMHO, once military forces reach rough parity, civil wars should never be a justification for external involvement, because it always ends badly.
Internal problems need internal solutions.
If Russia and NATO had both stayed out of Ukraine, it would have been better for all Ukrainians. But we zoomed past the Rubicon on that when Crimea was invaded with actual Russian troops.
Nice try. How do these compare at all to the Ukraine Donbas conflict? During the span of 2014-2022, the war in Ukraine (pre Russian invasion) between Ukraine and Donbas region resulted in the following:
Ukraine troops 4,647 killed, 70 missing, 13,800–14,200 wounded
Donbas troops 6,517 killed, 15,800–16,200 wounded
3,404 Ukrainian civilians killed 14,200–14,400 Donbas killed 51,000–54,000 wounded overall
1.6 million Ukrainians internally displaced; over 1 million fled abroad
No you didn’t, since the allegation is directed at the post-Maidan Ukrainian government and there has been no time since that government existed that it has not been the target of intense Russian propaganda (and, also, war, the Russo-Ukrainian war having been launched by Russia as a direct and immediate response to the Maidan Revolution.)
As far as I know, Ukraine never had a military big enough to actually do any invasion of other countries, but if Ukraine was the size of the US with the military of the US, I wouldn't bet on them not being horrible when invading other countries.
Russia is systematically deporting Ukrainian children to Russia and integrating them into Russian families as a matter of state policy.
They're also indiscriminately bombing civilian targets weekly.
Even during the worst days of Fallujah, the US and UK didn't pull back and just arbitrarily pound the city to dust with standoff munitions out of spite.
Ukraine inherited a substantial amount of Soviet materiel after the collapse of the USSR, as well as the personnel trained in its use, however this quickly deteriorated as the support industrial base was in tatters (in Ukraine and Russia).
But in the early 90s they absolutely could have made a very credible invasion against most of their neighbors. [0,1]
Especially, say, the Cobasna ammunition depot in Moldova that's right on their border with up to 20,000 tons of Soviet munitions. [2]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunn%E2%80%93Lugar_Cooperati...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobasna_ammunition_depot
It didn’t stop them from taking part in the invasion of Iraq:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...
I can disagree and question everything all day too, but you gotta nut up or shut up, pick an objective metric and I'll take a bet on it. Gdp, citations, number of patents, number of users of the product, number of Nobel prizes, anything measurable that would work for you? Literally anything measurable not based on your feelings.
The Russian invasion began in 2014.
How do you think these 'separatists' got Russian anti air equipment and Russian MBT's?.
https://www.npr.org/2019/12/18/788874844/how-u-s-military-ai...
Im not sure what you think an invasion is, but wouldn't a foreign power, stationing their military in your country without your consent qualify?.
Where as when you invite another military to help you out its not really an invasion?.
it's been around 100 killed per year (both civilians and army) for 5 years before the current war - still 100 more than should be, of course, but it's less than the number of DAILY casualties since February 2022. Also, what you call a "Ukrainian Donbass conflict" is called a Russian military aggression, if you're not a pro-putin shill