What the fuck do you even mean? I’m not talking about some rosy future where no Putin can wage war. I’m talking about here and now where a war is currently going on.

Yeah, I haven’t seen war, unlike all of my grandparents whose lives were ruined by it. I’d like to keep it that way, that’s the whole fucking point.

I have been toying with the idea of buying some land to start a #homestead , or build a house, or something. But I’m having a lot of doubts lately.

I see how people fawn over Putin, not realizing fully what he is and what he actually represents. I see political in-fighting in America about amusingly minor issues in the grand scheme of things. I see a non-negligible part of Americans actively being against supporting the Ukrainian war effort that could stop Russia here and now. I see rest of the West finding their heating bills much more important than said support. I see truckers and farmers in Poland not seeing past their nose to what’s to come.

This area of freedom is precious and unprecedented. And it won’t last if we’re not in the mood to collectively pay for kit and munitions for people who are paying with their lives. And sure, if you’re on the other side of the pond, this might not touch you personally. I guess it’s fine to not care too much about other people’s freedom. But for me, all the #freedom that #bitcoin and #nostr provides will mean shit if my potential homestead gets bombed to phosphorus covered ashes in 4-8 years time.

So I guess I’ll just get some more of the orange coin and wait to see how things unfold. In case I happen to need to get property somewhere further away from that God damned metastasis of an empire.

Why am I not surprised.

So, basically joined Nostr because someone showed it to them, and only have it on that single app, but don't necessarily know how and why it works.

I think that's for people who might not have saved their nsec somewhere else.

That’s nostr:npub1f5pre6wl6ad87vr4hr5wppqq30sh58m4p33mthnjreh03qadcajs7gwt3z

I only see your notes from 7 days back. You can't really expect to have much traction in 7 days on Nostr. The community is not huge, there are no algorithms to surface you, everything is organic.

That being said, I think your account has a lot of potential! I'd suggest to not focus on Bitcoin as much. In my opinion the most interesting people here are the ones who don't talk only about Bitcoin or Nostr. Like @rev.hodl

Ignoring

Sort of. Except Russia is the empire. There are still many federation subjects with their own "titular" ethnicities. Bashkirs, Tatars, Karelians, and more. I think that's part of the problem that they can't figure out of they're running a nation state or an empire.

But yeah, Russia hasn't successfully run a democracy for a meaningful period of time. So they don't have the collective memory to fall back on how to run a democratic country. They then believe en-masse that it's not actually possible, and that it's a sham everywhere.

It really looked like there was a period after the Soviet Union where they really tried to run a "normal" country. Then that didn't work out, so they fell back to what they're used to - having a tsar. If you look at Russian history, that's a recurring pattern. They try to modernize and be like any other European country, then that doesn't work, then they become antagonistic to the West. Then they lag behind in development. Then someone figures to try and modernize and be "normal". Rinse and repeat. I hope they can somehow break out of that cycle eventually.

Well, yeah, but that's apparently not a realistic option.

Yeah, pretty much. We basically started the government, the military, the intelligence services from scratch right away. Whereas in Ukraine initially the same Soviet institutions persisted. Including the personnel.

But there are reasons for that. Our historical situation was markedly different. Latvia was a full fledged nation during the whole interwar period. One that was well developed industrially and socially. Think interwar Denmark or Finland. So from our perspective, and also according to internation law, we restarted that country, treating the Soviet Period as illegal occupation. As we didnt want a repeat of that situation we single mindedly took the geopolitical course "as far away from Russia as we can get".

For all the other ex-Soviet countries apart from the Baltics the situation was different in that for them the independence sort of 'happened'. E.g., they didnt spend late eighties trying to get out of it. So then the response was different too.

Latvia ia nowadays a boring western country - EU, euro, NATO, IKEA, rising housing costs, bitching about our democratically elected government, the works.

Belarus is run by a dictator whose wet dream is to run a combined Belarus-Russia country. Even huge mass action by the population three years ago after the last sham election didn't manage to depose him. During the protests getting anally raped using a police baton, or beaten to death in police custody was a very real threat.

I'm sure the people of Belarus will eventually achieve their freedom. And then they won't let another strongman anywhere near the government.

Yeah.. Somehow we really dislike the idea of Russia invading neighboring countries.

Here’s a rational argument against his position from someone living very near to Russia. You might even visit here if you choose to attend the next Nostr Unconference :)

What riles me up the most is his gripe about “NATO expanding and encroaching on Russian interests”. Here’s the thing. We worked very hard to get into NATO for more than a decade. Look up Vaira Vike Freiberga NATO speech. We wanted to get in because we never wanted the repeat of Russian occupation. We barely survived the last one as a nation.

He can’t wrap his mind around the idea that people might have a will of their own that they exercise through action.

From our point of view it was us who wanted out of the Soviet Union , we took action to achieve that (see Baltic Way, barricades). We wanted to get into EU and NATO. We took action and achieved that. It’s not Soviet Union breaking apart, and NATO expanding. We did it, even though nobody apart from us was very keen on either idea.

From this perspective, we understand Ukrainians. They wanted to rid themselves from corrupt pro-Moscow president who wanted to nix the EU association agreement. They took action, and achieved it.

To punish them, Russia annexed Crimea, and invaded the country. Then launched a full scale invasion 8 years later to destroy Ukrainians as people and as a nation.

He can’t stomach the fact that people can have a will that they express through action. He can’t stomach the fact that people would want the freedom to choose their own government.

One sided and incomplete. With incomplete being the more important thing.

You’re right, the Nazi collaboration is not a very meaningful fact in this context.

What are meaningful facts however are how Moscow was a backwater during most of the time he discussed, how Alexander Nevsky fought very hard to subjugate other parts of old Rus under Mongol rule, and how the realm governed from Moscow was called by many “Muscovy” well into the 18th century to discern it from the Western part of old Rus.

You could as easily interpret medieval Rus history in a way that shows how the country whose capital is Kiev is the direct descendant of Kievan Rus, and the country whose capital is Moscow has little to do with it, apart from being founded and run by people who betrayed old Rus.

You could also argue that Russians are not a real ethnicity, because the ancestors of modern day Russians are the Russified local tribes from around Moscow, as well as Mongols, Tatars, and everyone else at some point falling under Moscow’s dominion.

I wouldn’t interpret history that way myself though. Because it’d be as one sided as the bullshit Putin spouts.

Interpretation is everything though. Apart from that, he very conveniently forgets facts that don't fit his narrative. Such as Soviets collaborating with the Nazis on the attack on Poland.

It was a very weird pseudo-historical diatribe.

GM from the orhwr side of the globe! 😅

Sorry for being snarky. I hate the man vehemently. I live in a country that borders Russia and falls squarely within their imperialist ambitions. Were it not for us getting into NATO two decades ago, I might be in a trench right now. Or dead already. So that inevitably colors my attitude towards him.

I get your point, but how else to frame him really?

He is detached from reality, and he demonstrates it clearly in this interview too. If he wasn’t, he would’ve never started the full scale invasion. No rational actor would.

Which part did you like more, the part where he explains how Hitler was just compelled to start the war by attacking Poland, because Poland just wouldn't give Gdańsk away, or the part where he describes how Zelensky's father who was born in 1947 fought in WWII?

He's not a madman, but he is a KGB-man. Which means he has trained to lie and deceive professionally.

Anyone listening to what Putin has to say without keeping this in mind is doing themselves a huge disservice, and risks becoming a useful idiot.

Like Bush Jr. believing he was able to get a sense of Putin's soul.