The Mess

[Smitty-48]

Smitty's view is that Russia is essentially doomed to collapse....

Not Russia, just the Russian empire, there will still be a Russia, just as there is a Britain still, but the Russian imperial hegenomy is on a trajectory to entropic dissolution. Including the inherent capacity to maintain the military means of a superpower.

As the Russian capacity to maintain the military means of a superpower collapses, the delicate balance achieved in the Cold War, to wit, mutual vulnerability, will go with it, at which point, MAD is no longer in effect, the Americans will have primacy, and thus the established deterrence regime will be destabilized therein.

There was a danger zone in the Cold War, wherein the Soviets were attempting to establish mutual vulnerability by imposing it on the Americans, there will be another danger zone as Russia passes back down through that window.

If Russia was ruled by parliamentary supremacy, might not be a problem, but as Russia is ruled perpetually by a cabal of sloviks in the Kremlin, potentially, big problem.

[Hwen Hoshino]

Hysteria about a threatened enemy heading towards collapse with the capacity to light up the globe like a disco ball?

Point to a statement you felt was hysterical...

Haven't seen it.

Hysteria about it's mere existence and alliances in it's own sphere of influence.

Where is this hysteria you speak of? Not seeing it in this thread.

In the press and US government.

[Smitty-48]

Ok if you don't have time to read it, Seems to be an argument about showing your work at the moment. Smitty has tried to insist that gentlemen don't need to post lots of links to prove a point Hwen doesn't seem to like being told what he can't do. Smitty's mess Smitty's rules in my opinion, and I agree with him anyway.

You don't show your work in the Mess, because the Mess is not a place of work, the Mess is where you go to get away from work, if you want to work, go out onto the parade square and do some work, up here in the Mess, troops are entitled to kick back and relax, take a break from the work, and in fact, it is the only venue where they may do so. It's not my rules, that is simply what a Mess is for.

You don't bring the riles into the Mess to clean them, leave your rifles on the parade square, post a picket on them, and then you can go and relax in the Mess.

If you don't want a Mess, well then you can just dig trenches in the rain while the Sergeant-Major barks at you without respite, it's up to you. It's up to the members of the Mess, to maintain their own Mess, the Mess is not actually in the chain of command, nor the defence budget.

[TheReal_ND]

Barracks lawyering up in this thread.

[ssu]

1. Or something close to it.

2. What evidence do you have that investigative journalism is dead in Russia? They are an open society just like the US. You got proof that Russian politicians communicate differently?

Open society? More like open season at journalists. Only some Algeria during it's late Civil War or "Liberated Iraq" have been more lethal places for journalists as Post-Soviet Russia has been. The Russian solution is to have few minor "liberal" newspapers where some Anna Politovskaya could report the human rights abuses in Chechnya (before being herself murdered). Yet Television and MSM has tightly been kept under the rule of the Kremlin. Now there was a fight for this as some rich tried to use their wealth to get political power and use media, but these oligarchs ended up either in jail, or outside Russia, or then bowed to the siloviks.

3. So i bet stuff still gets out. What sensitive information is even there with which most Russians would not be fine with? Its not like they are an USA type empire.

Only a worse one. But yes, word does get out. You see in the US you can have you Ted Turners, Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdochs and they can try to influence things in Washington. But the US Presidents don't target them politically if they aren't supporters of the President and put them to jail, confiscate their wealth.

I could not give a flying fuck about whatever these mess rules are unless a mod writes it down. There are no issues around which the press has almost dictatorial rigidity for some weird reason?

Lol. Oh yes, when it's a moderator saying it, then Mr. Hoshino follows the rules. Or perhaps when it's even an administrator? Mr Hash?

I thought rules here in my view were more of a compliment: you don't have to put the quotes/links for verification because others assume you know what you are talking about, if you "open your mouth", write something.

Perhaps a thread like "The Court" would be there for people to understand the difference between "The Mess".

[Smitty-48]

Even if others assume that you don't know what you're talking about, one does not sit at the bar in the Mess, with confirmation biased cherry picked newspaper clippings in hand, going around demanding that people prove everything they say as they converse, and nor would that make any difference to the conversations of those, who simply did not bother to show up to the bar with same, although no doubt they would assume that you were retarded somehow.

[Montegriffo]

Is it ok to use an encyclopedia every now and then when someone is trying to tell you a lion is a breed of dog?

[Smitty-48]

Do as you please, you can bring anything up, but if you went to the Mess, and you were sitting at the bar, and some dishevelled lunatic kept coming up to you, waving a stack of frayed newspaper clippings in your face, interrupting the flow of conversation, shouting "prove it!-prove it!-prove it!" every two minutes, you'd assume what? Crazy person, no?

Would you play their silly game, or would you simply turn away, order another round, and carry on with your conversations?

[Montegriffo]

Fair enough, explain Lions are actually a type of pigeon and move on.

[ssu]

Even if others assume that you don't know what you're talking about, one does not sit at the bar in the Mess, with confirmation biased cherry picked newspaper clippings in hand, going around demanding that people prove everything they say as they converse, and nor would that make any difference to the conversations of those, who simply did not bother to show up to the bar with same, although no doubt they would assume that you were retarded somehow.

Anyway, in the former now deceased forum perhaps the idea that people had to "prove" their statements was exaggerated. Those links were more like "If your interested, well here you go, there's the paper". It's unlikely that you can "prove" anything to people in the net. Especially when they assume your from the "opposite side" in politics.

And naturally that referencing can be annoying. I Remember my father, who was a medical research professor (now retired), had a habit that if some of his workers came to ask a question about a problem they were having in the laboratory, he would literally give them books to read. Yep, the workers hated it. But hey, they didn't bother him anymore with stupid questions after a few times.