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Kamil Galeev

Oct 20

As a non-native speaker, I never had this organic understanding of English as natives do. Yeah, I studied it formally, but formal knowledge is incomplete. It was trial and error that allowed me to feel it better. Trying and erring I found my favourite English word:

"Problematic"

Why? You see, we are all humans. Intelligent beings capable of pattern recognition. And when you are talking, writing, etc. people absolutely will scan your speech for the familiar patterns. Then they are gonna make a judgement based on patterns they recognised. Keep that in mind

One pattern people will recognise is accent. Let's be honest, accent does have class connotations and some accents do not sound classy at all. In the UK it would be probably the Scottish accent that is associated with the working class, in the US probably the southern one

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Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Oct 20

Putin avoids assuming personal responsibility for unpopular decisions. So he delegates them to the governors, so that people blame them, not him. Lockdowns were super unpopular. So they were delegated to governors. Same with mass mobilization and other emergency measures

https://twitter.com/mcfaul/status/1582925660204388352

War is popular. Mass mobilisation, reduction of consumption etc. are not. Good Putin launched the war. Bad governor is forcing the disabled and fathers of 5 kids into the army. That’s exactly how people are thinking, I’m not joking. They don’t see any connection between these two

Sounds schizophrenic? No, it makes total sense. People love the war but as a show, not as a compulsory activity. Lying on sofa, drinking beer, watching out conquests on TV. Until September most Russians perceived it as a content to consume. Now they can’t anymore

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Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Oct 17

"We’ve already sanctioned/cutoff Russia in every possible way"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1581989915491172353

It's funny cuz the nuclear status of Russia is perceived as some immanent property of reality. Grass is green, water is blue, Russia is nuclear. In reality though maintenance of Russian nuclear arsenal would be impossible without the massive and constant assistance of the West

So yeah, if you guys keep supplying Russia with everything necessary to maintain its nuclear arsenal (both warheads & delivery systems) it may indeed nuke you one day. If you are so scared of the nuclear war, may be you just stop selling them everything necessary to start it?

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Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Oct 16

That's correct. Democracies seem to be weaker and autocracies stronger than reality. Censuring information works both ways: you look great but at the same time you limit/outlaw the feedback mechanisms. That's why autocracies are so seemingly powerful and so astonishingly fragile

https://twitter.com/Borderscrossed/status/1581688684323430400

The world is incomprehensible in all of its complexity, but you still can make real life decisions based on simple asymmetries. For example:

Countries like the US/UK can't collapse suddenly, despite all the alarmism

Countries like Russia/China can, and nobody will see it coming

One could even say that alarmism is a sign of strength rather than weakness. In the real world systems won't change or improve, unless they are scared. So while creating a permanently negative news feed, the alarmism nevertheless is a powerful (& necessary) tool of social change

Read 11 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Oct 12

At October 2, 1552 Kazan fall to Ivan the Terrible. The city was destroyed, its population massacred. Although guerrilla lasted for decades, systematic devastation of the country eventually broke the armed resistance. I believe the story of Kazan fall to be quite instructive

In 1549 Safa Giray Khan dies leaving his two year old son as an heir. His widow Suyun Bike becomes a regent. Ivan IV tried to use the moment. In 1549-1550 Russians besieged the city but were defeated

(You can find a contemporary Tatar account in Zafer name-i Vilayet-i Kazan)

1550-1551 expedition was more successful. Russian troops built a fortress Sviyazhsk* in about 30 km upstream from Kazan, blockading the main transport artery. That allowed to effectively cut the right ("hill") bank of Volga off the left ("meadow") one, cutting the country in two

Read 26 tweets

Kamil Galeev

@kamilkazani

Oct 9

@elonmusk style may look tricksterish. That's understandable. He is an innovator, ergo disruptor and disruption may be sometimes undistinguishable from tricksterism. Content-wise though the problem with Musk is that he's creating new stuff. That he is a non-violent entrepreneur🧵

@elonmusk Don't get me wrong. I think that innovators do not get nearly enough credit for what they doing. I even noticed a weird pattern: people tend to shittalk the most about that specific industry their city/state is especially dependent upon. Still, non-violent business has a problem

And the problem with the non-violent business is that it is non-violent. Which means it is *outsourcing* violence and thus security. Indeed, all of Elon Musk's proposals suddenly make sense if you assume they are written by a businessman who is outsourcing security of his empire

Read 28 tweets

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