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many years ago nick land wrote a post on hyperstation criticising mark Fisher, now well known and much remarked on, called "transcendental miserablism". thing that always struck me was that you could make the exact same arg about the new right as the contemporary left - absolutely defeated in...

exactly, so demonisation of russia, viewing russia as fundamentally different in terms of its behaviour, is not tenable. we're not so different, sadly

none of this implies that the actions of the us or russia or whoever are justified or legitimate, btw, it's simply a question of whether they are in some sense equivalent, or whether they require a different analytical mode.

ultimately, it seems that the us and its allies have behaved in a similar way to russia within living memory. so whatever frame you have, if it applies to one then its not unreasonable to think that it can apply to the other

is this what droid actually thinks? I'm not sure this is really a question I can answer.

I agree with the general point, at least. realism leaves out or abstracts away important details about the context of any particular clash. realism should be viewed as an analytical starting point, not an ultimate explanation.

he was always on the side of the angels

sounds like classic thomas nagel

a major front in the conflict, perhaps the major front, is the "chip war": In many ways, the October 7 policy was narrowly targeted.... However, the implementation approach and underlying logic of the new regulations marked a major reversal of 25 years of U.S. trade and technology policy toward...

adam tooze made the interesting point in one of his recent podcasts that one distinguishing factor between the cold wars is that in the old cold war, questions of economic growth and openness were unproblematic bc they all impacted the us and its allies positively and the ussr and its allies...

someone on twitter described this new paradigm as "national security kenynesianism", which I think is pretty accurate. ultimately the us seems to be positioning itself for a new cold war of sorts with china, motivated presumably by the perceived fragility of democracy in the us (shadow of trump...

this is a well developed conspiracy / theory about the "censorship industrial complex": https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation

rational in the sense that you dont need an entirely new category or frame of reference to understand them. its falls under the heading of powerful states doing what they often do, rather than being an eruption of something belonging to our primitive past

I'm blaming that on my phone

the question is whether Russia is a rational actor

everything doesn't have to line up exactly

sure, but I don't think that detracts from my main point, which is that Russia can be understood in a similar way to the us

I think droid is on point here, the idea of a "rules-based," order is totally false and that's evident and inarguable

so, another words, if russia respected these norms, then you would view its invasion of Ukraine in a similar manor?

and btw, I dont disagree necessarily that russian politics is different or even unique, but there are clearly many similarities. let's not fall into the trap of demonising russia