How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[keas66]

23 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Let's grab a beer or six sometime and I think I can dissuade you from the idea that Q-Anon isn't culturally American. We'll start with Hofstadter, go to that whole Mikey and the pop rocks thing and end with modern evangelicalism. But way off topic so, until then...

I mean allowing "everyone" - including that 50% of the population on the left of the bell curve access to the internet - is I think the main cause of all this . Normally I could not care less if my idiot neighbor  believes in  some crazy idea about pizza parlors and pedophilia rings  - he is just my crazy neighbor .  The internet allows the village idiots access to a loud speaker to trumpet forth their idiocies  to the rest of their ilk .

[Battlefront.com]

25 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Let's grab a beer or six sometime and I think I can dissuade you from the idea that Q-Anon isn't culturally American. We'll start with Hofstadter, go to that whole Mikey and the pop rocks thing and end with modern evangelicalism. But way off topic so, until then...

You're proving my point, actually   The same biological defects that have people running around spouting Q-Anon theories are the same people that previously were talking about "black helicopters" and reeducation camps in Montana.  They also are the ones that fall for the doomsday cults and commit suicide with their track suits and sneakers on.

Crazies don't get their ideas in a vacuum, they get them from the societies around them.  They are not made by society, they make themselves from society.  Also, Q-Anon is a world wide phenomena.

Steve

 

[Kinophile]

32 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Let's grab a beer or six sometime and I think I can dissuade you from the idea that Q-Anon isn't culturally American. We'll start with Hofstadter, go to that whole Mikey and the pop rocks thing and end with modern evangelicalism. But way off topic so, until then...

I'll get the second round...

[DesertFox]

More good stuff:

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

26 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

Q-Anon is part of the same cultural tradition that led to the Salem witch hunts and the satanic panic, among other things.

Yup, though it was made worse by the prevailing culture for sure.  All cultures in all time periods have similar things to point to.  The common element is biology, not culture.

11 minutes ago, Gnaeus said:

Another example of why this is more than just another wargame site. I think the discussion of evolutionary psychology could hold its own in a forum devoted to the subject.

We do tend to stray a bit, don't we?    But it is tangentially related so it's OK for a while.  At least until the counter offensive starts, then we should be all about the war stuff!

9 minutes ago, keas66 said:

I mean allowing "everyone" - including that 50% of the population on the left of the bell curve access to the internet - is I think the main cause of all this . Normally I could not care less if my idiot neighbor  believes in  some crazy idea about pizza parlors and pedophilia rings  - he is just my crazy neighbor .  The internet allows the village idiots access to a loud speaker to trumpet forth their idiocies  to the rest of their ilk .

As noted above, this sort of "hysteria" has been around since the dawn of time.  Mass communication has allowed it to be done on a larger scale.  100s of years ago each community had to worry about their own nutjobs getting together to cause trouble, now the nutjobs can coordinate with each other across the world.  Aum Shinrikyo comes easily to mind.

Steve

[DesertFox]

And even more good stuff:

 

 

[Huba]

 

Edit: @DesertFox was 5 seconds faster.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Huba

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, Huba said:

A great scoop by Yahoo News. Can we get on with it already?

 

This report by the USAF is the result of the already released info about Ukrainian pilots (2 IIRC) being brought to Texas.  Obviously they used them as test cases and, surprise surprise, they blew everybody's minds

Steve

[billbindc]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

You're proving my point, actually   The same biological defects that have people running around spouting Q-Anon theories are the same people that previously were talking about "black helicopters" and reeducation camps in Montana.  They also are the ones that fall for the doomsday cults and commit suicide with their track suits and sneakers on.

Crazies don't get their ideas in a vacuum, they get them from the societies around them.  They are not made by society, they make themselves from society.  Also, Q-Anon is a world wide phenomena.

Steve

 

If the biological tic exists in a multitude of societies, it's not really a tic at all. It's just the human condition filtered through a particular culture.

[RandomCommenter]

Not to re-open a topic that had previously been discussed to death on here. But I thought this story was interesting and worth sharing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/us/politics/airman-jack-teixeira-classified-secrets.html

Air Force officials caught Airman Jack Teixeira taking notes and conducting deep-dive searches for classified material months before he was charged with leaking a vast trove of government secrets, but did not remove him from his job, according to a Justice Department filing on Wednesday.

On two occasions in September and October 2022, Airman Teixeira’s superiors in the Massachusetts Air National Guard admonished him after reports that he had taken “concerning actions” while handling classified information. Those included stuffing a note into his pocket after reviewing secret information inside his unit, according to a court filing ahead of a hearing before a federal magistrate judge in Worcester, Mass., on Friday to determine whether he should be released on bail.

 

[Centurian52]

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Have a "discussion" with someone who is a Q-Anon believer and tell me how the prevailing American cultural, governmental, and educational systems produced that sort of mindset.

At that point we're talking about biological differences between individuals, which I do not dispute. There clearly is biological variation between individual humans. It is well documented that a significant portion of the difference in intelligence between individuals is genetic (not 100% of the difference in intelligence, but a significant chunk). But we're talking about populations, not individuals. The full range of biological variation is present in all human populations. There is far more variation within a given human population than there is between any two human populations.

[Battlefront.com]

19 minutes ago, billbindc said:

If the biological tic exists in a multitude of societies, it's not really a tic at all. It's just the human condition filtered through a particular culture.

For sure.  But we got a bit off track with the extremes.  The point I raised is that there are all kinds of naturally occurring "flaws" in Human Beings and that the Russian state, as the Soviet state before it, has very deliberately sought to exploit for their own benefit.  Human conditioning which, over time, leaves a pretty hard mark on the gene pool.

12 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

At that point we're talking about biological differences between individuals, which I do not dispute. There clearly is biological variation between individual humans. It is well documented that a significant portion of the difference in intelligence between individuals is genetic (not 100% of the difference in intelligence, but a significant chunk). But we're talking about populations, not individuals.

Right, but as I said above "birds of a feather flock together".  People seek out those who are similar to them, so it is not surprising that people with a predilection for conspiracy theories find each other and establish a community based upon something that is fundamentally based on a psychological disorder.

Biology, therefore, is an underlying influence on mass movements and not as much the other way around.  Q-Anon could never convince me to be a member, but it could probably pretty easily convince someone who thinks their microwave oven is controlling their thoughts.

12 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

The full range of biological variation is present in all human populations. There is far more variation within a given human population than there is between any two human populations.

If all Human populations were exposed to the same forms of societal controls (i.e. government), then you'd be correct.  However, that's not the way the world works.  Russia, and the Soviet state before it, have deliberately tampered with the naturally occurring variants within society for the purposes of controlling their population.  Therefore, the Russian society has been socially engineered in a way that another society has not.

Steve

[Centurian52]

2 hours ago, RandomCommenter said:

Not to re-open a topic that had previously been discussed to death on here. But I thought this story was interesting and worth sharing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/us/politics/airman-jack-teixeira-classified-secrets.html

Air Force officials caught Airman Jack Teixeira taking notes and conducting deep-dive searches for classified material months before he was charged with leaking a vast trove of government secrets, but did not remove him from his job, according to a Justice Department filing on Wednesday.

On two occasions in September and October 2022, Airman Teixeira’s superiors in the Massachusetts Air National Guard admonished him after reports that he had taken “concerning actions” while handling classified information. Those included stuffing a note into his pocket after reviewing secret information inside his unit, according to a court filing ahead of a hearing before a federal magistrate judge in Worcester, Mass., on Friday to determine whether he should be released on bail.

 

Damn. This sort of thing is a real concern in the DoD. We all want to trust our colleagues. No one wants to think that someone you've worked with for a long time actually intends to do something nefarious, and certainly no one likes getting their friends in trouble. But we don't do annual insider threat training just for show. Whether you're uniformed (me 5 years ago), GS, or a contractor (me right now) you need to make sure the rules are being followed!

Edited May 18, 2023 by Centurian52

[Jiggathebauce]

36 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For sure.  But we got a bit off track with the extremes.  The point I raised is that there are all kinds of naturally occurring "flaws" in Human Beings and that the Russian state, as the Soviet state before it, has very deliberately sought to exploit for their own benefit.  Human conditioning which, over time, leaves a pretty hard mark on the gene pool.

Right, but as I said above "birds of a feather flock together".  People seek out those who are similar to them, so it is not surprising that people with a predilection for conspiracy theories find each other and establish a community based upon something that is fundamentally based on a psychological disorder.

Biology, therefore, is an underlying influence on mass movements and not as much the other way around.  Q-Anon could never convince me to be a member, but it could probably pretty easily convince someone who thinks their microwave oven is controlling their thoughts.

If all Human populations were exposed to the same forms of societal controls (i.e. government), then you'd be correct.  However, that's not the way the world works.  Russia, and the Soviet state before it, have deliberately tampered with the naturally occurring variants within society for the purposes of controlling their population.  Therefore, the Russian society has been socially engineered in a way that another society has not.

 

To try to add some comparison variety, Steve do you have much familiarity with Adorno and Horkheimer, and their analysis of the 'culture industry ' within the United States, particularly via hollywood and advertising? Dream factories, and so on? To sum up, the us has been socially engineering it's population for a long time to think of themselves as individuals, but only within a very narrow band that conforms to certain expectations. It's worth a browse in my opinion, I've only seen a few videos on the subject and can't expand much yet on it.

https://youtu.be/Z6F7oIlA9TE

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Jiggathebauce
Added a video link

[kevinkin]

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Therefore, the Russian society has been socially engineered in a way that another society has not.

I guess you can't count North Korea since they are just beaten into submission in the most overt way. But how about China? Don't they have this thing called social credit system? Suppression comes is several forms and degrees. When the day come when I can't replace my natural gas stove tops with the same there will be hell to pay. 

[womble]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

For sure.  But we got a bit off track with the extremes.  The point I raised is that there are all kinds of naturally occurring "flaws" in Human Beings and that the Russian state, as the Soviet state before it, has very deliberately sought to exploit for their own benefit.  Human conditioning which, over time, leaves a pretty hard mark on the gene pool.

I think that's where the geneticists would disagree. The gene pool won't hardly have a ripple in it, given the timescales involved. All that conditioning leaves marks on psyches, not DNA, not in centuries.

The difference, if you like, between Russia and the "Liberal West" is that in Russia, the crazies are the only societal element left that's allowed to speak, whereas in the West, both parties still get to voice their opinions, and the difference between "then" and "now" is that the Internet gives the crazies' voice a volume, connectedness and cohesion [chortle] it could never hope to achieve when media had actual sane people watching over it.

And because in Russia, "the only way is crazy", even people who would otherwise dismiss the nonsense have to get on board, to get ahead, and any human has the capacity to rationalise their self-interest as moral, in order to live with themselves, while only some have the fortitude to refuse to deceive/delude themselves.

It's much more complex than that, obviously, since there are different classes of crazy, from the sociopath-manipulator, to the violence-obsessed bully (none of which are entirely genetically determined; it's all "predispositions", and the system taps into those), and they all play their role in the dysfunctional "family" that Vova wants to be Patriarch of.

If the cause for the "Russian mentality" were genetic, you'd have to characterise German mid-20th-Century Nazism as similarly genetic, because the societal acquiescence to the rise of National Socialism has broad parallels in post-Soviet Russian Nationalism. I don't think anyone here believes that the German genetic makeup predisposes them to Nazism, indeed the empirical evidence would indicate very much otherwise. So why assume the Russian mentality is any more based in DNA than Hitler's was?

I'm sure there are analogies between the action of human biological inheritance, and the development of theories of Society (pace Ser Dawkins), but we should not confuse one with the other in its expression in populations.

[A Canadian Cat]

2 hours ago, poesel said:

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 It is pretty clear biology is strong component within this group as there's little else to explain how someone, including those with higher educations and economic security, could vehemently seek to use any means necessary (including violence) to voluntarily establish an authoritarian system in order to have more "freedoms" and to save society from evolving naturally. 

Again, no. Why people drift into these or similar circles have social or cultural reasons. Biology plays no part in this.

Culture is learned.

Biology only plays as much of a part as: that's how we are all made - we grow up one place in one culture we turn out a certain way. If we grew up in another culture we would be different. Yes, I know individual nature plays a factor in how an individual turns out but for a society level analysis that's not really relevant.

[sburke]

Been trying to catch up on this thread, but been too busy writing George Soros to have the space lasers repointed at Russia.  With all the water in CA I think they won't be able to create so many forest fires this year.  Hoping MTG will help introduce a bill for congress to include this in the next round of military support for Ukraine.

[Eddy]

Interesting, This fixation with Bakhmut is costing the Russian so much!

[MikeyD]

Genetic versus cultural. Lets remember PTSD. Extrinsic trauma (not caused by your own biology) produces actual physical changes to the brain. Its not genetics, its 'social', but the result is the brain being rewired to change your responses. One can only imagine how a culture of poverty, violence and endemic alcoholism has warped the mind of the average Russian. There was a recent K-pop song named 'Amygdala' about how an accumulation of traumatic incidents basically ruined the artist.

[A Canadian Cat]

34 minutes ago, womble said:

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Human conditioning which, over time, leaves a pretty hard mark on the gene pool.

I think that's where the geneticists would disagree. The gene pool won't hardly have a ripple in it, given the timescales involved. All that conditioning leaves marks on psyches, not DNA, not in centuries.

Yep, what @womble said. It's not a genetic difference that is causing that it the culture that people are exposed to. Sure variations on an individual level will dictate how that individual will react to the culture they are exposed to it still shapes them.

[dan/california]

42 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It is also science that biological (DNA) based variations exist from person to person.  "Traits" is another term for it.  The only aspect of this relevant to my point is psychological impacts of biology, so I'll focus on that and only that.

People are born with a predilection to be a certain way, which traditionally is mostly influenced by the genetics of the two parents.  See next point for the "but".  The most well known exhibition of this is inherent intelligence.  Some people are, biologically speaking, smarter than others, which means some are biologically speaking dumber than others.  Some are more paranoid than others.  Etc.

All else being equal, biologically speaking Russians as a group would be no different than any other large group of people.  However, there are Human imposed conditions which may make this less true than it should be.  For example, there is mountains of scientific evidence to show that alcoholism can have a huge impact on the development of an unborn fetus.  It is well documented that Russians have extreme and generational high rates of alcoholism, in part encouraged by the Soviet Union's policies for social control.

So, if we accept the science that alcoholism biologically impacts the fetus, let's take a peak at what those scientists say it can do:

"Each individual with FASD experiences a unique combination of day-to-day challenges that may include medical, behavioral, educational, and social problems. People with FASD may have difficulty in the following areas:⁷

• Learning and remembering

• Understanding and following directions

• Shifting attention

• Controlling emotions and impulsivity

• Communicating and socializing

• Performing daily life skills, including feeding, bathing, counting money, telling time, and minding personal safety"

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/fetal-alcohol-exposure

Do you see anything on this list that looks familiar to what I previously discussed?

In addition we have the growing science of the impact of various chemicals on biological development.  The science is very clear that the more polluted an environment is, the more impact there is on the Humans exposed to it.  Attention Deficit Disorder, for example, seems to have a strong link to environmental causes:

"Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder characterized by difficulties with attention, impulsivity, and/or overactivity, and associated with impaired social, academic, adaptive, and occupational functioning [1]. Although evidence indicates that ADHD is a highly familial disorder, environmental and other modifiable risk factors also have been implicated [2]. These include prenatal substance exposures, heavy metal and chemical exposures, nutritional factors, and lifestyle/psychosocial factors. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277258/

Thanks in large part to Soviet disregard for the health of its people, and Russia only making minor improvements, Russia is amongst the most polluted countries in the world.  Worse for Russia, the bulk of the population is concentrated in cities which were created and planned around toxic industries.  Which means the average Russian has more exposure to the worst sorts of things than people in countries with better industrial practices.

I could go on, but I think this is enough.

 

You have heard of the English term of "birds of a feather flock together"?  People naturally seek out those who are similar.  Biological differences, such as intelligence and mental illnesses, influence those natural tendencies.  Look on the Internet and you'll find loads of gathering spots where it is apparent that the participants all suffer from some sort of mental illness.  You can also find spots where super intelligent people group together.  Engineers and artists each have biological factors in their career choices, so there is that as well.

Sure, but I'm not talking about DNA.  I'm talking about cultural conditioning with some degree of biological self selection.  100s of years is more than what is necessary for that.  A couple of generations was all it took.  Perhaps not by pure chance, it was Russian scientists who discovered and documented this before it became widely studied.  Here is a pretty nice presentation of this from Harvard University:

https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2019/foxy-behavior-russian-fox-farm-uncovered-basis-canine-domestication/

 

To conclude... Russia has a long standing tradition of extreme social engineering.  It has deliberately discouraged individual thought and encouraged obedience to the State.  While they can not deliberately change the basic biology of a person living within Russia, they can over time have an impact on the gene pool within Russia's borders.  Those that are the most motivated leave, those who are the most compliant remain and the underlying biological component of such behaviors is therefore influenced by "unnatural selection" as it were.

On top of this there are Human caused environmental factors which can influence the biologically component of psychological and intellectual development on the populace.  Russia, unfortunately, has several "risk factors" which are documented to be much higher in its population than those in the West.  These factors are amplified by learned behaviors and norms of a culture formed from the artificial influences of the State.

I'm not saying Russians can never be better citizens of the world than they are if they remain in Russia, I'm just saying there are some pretty well documented reasons as to why they are currently not.  Which is why Russia's problems won't go away with Putin dying.  Generations of hard work are necessary to undo all the damage that has been done to the Russian people.

Steve

The selective pressure against free thinking liberalism in Russia has been extremely high 98% of the last thousand years. The degree it is out and genetic selection is probably unknowable, but either way that degree of pressure will get you less of it.  Putin allowing hundreds of thousands to leave the country to avoid the draft has also had political positives as well as massive economic negatives. The people who would have most vigorously opposed the regime left instead. There is a strong parallel with the survival of the Cuban government. The people who would have REALLY fought took the out to Miami.

[Kinophile]

Ohhhh for the days of Tank Ist Tot debates. 

*peers into the immediate future*

Think I'll give the next two pages a miss...

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The point I raised is that there are all kinds of naturally occurring "flaws" in Human Beings and that the Russian state, as the Soviet state before it, has very deliberately sought to exploit for their own benefit. 

Yes, definitely.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Human conditioning which, over time, leaves a pretty hard mark on the gene pool.

No, didn't happen. Too large a gene pool inside Russia to really breed something out. Too much influx from 'non-Russian' genes through wars and trade etc... And not enough time.

IIRC the last time Homo sapiens had a real gene selection was when we were down to 10,000 individuals some tens (100s?) of thousands years ago. That was the time we nearly got extinct.
Now we are just too many for any mayor changes to happen.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia, and the Soviet state before it, have deliberately tampered with the naturally occurring variants within society for the purposes of controlling their population.  Therefore, the Russian society has been socially engineered in a way that another society has not.

Communism has tried to create the 'new human'. With education & gulags. Neither of which worked, else we had a working communist state.
The humans are still the same, which is why communism has unfortunately failed.

Steve, I'm not going to continue to argue that here. Others have already said all I may have come up with. I'm not an evolutionary biologist, and there are much better sources about this topic than which I can provide.
Your arguments are sound with regard to cultural or sociological reasons. But extending that to biology is just plain wrong.

 

[Centurian52]

7 minutes ago, poesel said:

IIRC the last time Homo sapiens had a real gene selection was when we were down to 10,000 individuals some tens (100s?) of thousands years ago. That was the time we nearly got extinct.

About 80 thousand years ago.

Some unknown event (the Toba volcano eruption happened around the right time, and has been proposed as a likely cause) whittled the human population down to an absurdly small number (10,000ish sounds about right), resulting in a massive genetic bottleneck that has left its mark on the human gene pool to this very day. We are one of the least genetically diverse species on the planet. This is part of why we are so susceptible to plagues.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Centurian52