by wj
It’s an old military truism:
“Good generals study strategy,
Great generals study logistics”
Judging from the War in Ukraine, Russia has a seriously lack of great generals. Logistics have been chaotic — and that’s being generous. That’s before the Ukrainians started killing Russian generals in large numbers, and Putin started firing the ones who remained in equally large numbers.
No sign that the replacements are any better. Although, to be fair, it may just be that they have nothing to work with. It doesn’t matter if you have delivery systems in place if there is nothing to feed into them.
Now, things seem to be going from bad to worse. First, the Russians lost Lyman, a key rail hub for supporting their troops in Eastern Ukraine. Another challenge for logistics which were already a mess.
And yesterday, the bridge between Russia and the Crimea has been seriously damaged. This has been the major supply artery for Russian Troops in the South. Without it, their positions there are in trouble as well. Logistics, again.
In fact, the Russian’s ability to defend Crimea itself may be at risk. Helped not at all by calls from officials to Crimean residents to refrain from hording fuel, food, etc. Which will likely lead to more of them doing exactly that, since if there wasn’t a problem, why would authorities have immediately made such an announcement?
Open Thread
An update on the bridge damage:
In short, not a total shutdown, so the Russians can get carefully staged videos of traffic using the bridge. But a massive impact on military logistics usage.
An update on the bridge damage:
In short, not a total shutdown, so the Russians can get carefully staged videos of traffic using the bridge. But a massive impact on military logistics usage.
The stakes get higher and higher in Ukraine for Putin, with no off-ramp. It’s terrifying.
The stakes get higher and higher in Ukraine for Putin, with no off-ramp. It’s terrifying.
Putin’s offramp is to pack up and go home. Sure, he’d lose face. (But perhaps not too much. His fanboy TFG has shown that doing a 180 isn’t necessarily a problem.)
Putin’s position is based on an agreement with the Russian elites: they get to loot the country while he gets to run it. They don’t particularly care whether he loses face, so long as their looting goes on unimpeded. (That’s also why they seem very unlikely to countenance him going nuclear — a nuclear war would leave them with nothing to loot.)
That’s also why, IMHO, he has more reason to be terrified than we do. If he refuses to back down, those same elites may decide he’s indispensable. Let someone else rule while they loot; there’s no real shortage of eager candidates.
Putin’s offramp is to pack up and go home. Sure, he’d lose face. (But perhaps not too much. His fanboy TFG has shown that doing a 180 isn’t necessarily a problem.)
Putin’s position is based on an agreement with the Russian elites: they get to loot the country while he gets to run it. They don’t particularly care whether he loses face, so long as their looting goes on unimpeded. (That’s also why they seem very unlikely to countenance him going nuclear — a nuclear war would leave them with nothing to loot.)
That’s also why, IMHO, he has more reason to be terrified than we do. If he refuses to back down, those same elites may decide he’s indispensable. Let someone else rule while they loot; there’s no real shortage of eager candidates.
Putin’s offramp is to pack up and go home.
I meant a realistic offramp, wj. Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating, after the kind of propaganda he has disseminated (that the Ukrainian leadership are fascists, Nazis etc etc). The oligarchy (whom you call the elites), the military, and the intelligence services may indeed decide he is dispensable, but actually dispensing with him is clearly very difficult indeed. And anyway, a crazy Greater Russia nationalist taking over would be more rather than less likely to go nuclear. The situation is dangerous and unstable, and not just in a nuclear sense.
Putin’s offramp is to pack up and go home.
I meant a realistic offramp, wj. Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating, after the kind of propaganda he has disseminated (that the Ukrainian leadership are fascists, Nazis etc etc). The oligarchy (whom you call the elites), the military, and the intelligence services may indeed decide he is dispensable, but actually dispensing with him is clearly very difficult indeed. And anyway, a crazy Greater Russia nationalist taking over would be more rather than less likely to go nuclear. The situation is dangerous and unstable, and not just in a nuclear sense.
Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating
My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact. The state security apparatus is too strong. The riots over the mobilisation show that.
The elites (which, in my use, includes the military, and the intelligence services as well as the oligarchs) don’t much care if he backs down. What they care about is if he keeps going to the point where their gravy train is imperiled.
Getting rid of him will be tricky, because any large conspiracy runs the risk of someone deciding it is better to turn on the others. But that sort of hurdle has been overcome before on numerous occasions. And will be again, if enough of the elite decide the risk of doing nothing is too great. (Plus, nobody wants to be too late to the party if an overthrow comes down.)
Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating
My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact. The state security apparatus is too strong. The riots over the mobilisation show that.
The elites (which, in my use, includes the military, and the intelligence services as well as the oligarchs) don’t much care if he backs down. What they care about is if he keeps going to the point where their gravy train is imperiled.
Getting rid of him will be tricky, because any large conspiracy runs the risk of someone deciding it is better to turn on the others. But that sort of hurdle has been overcome before on numerous occasions. And will be again, if enough of the elite decide the risk of doing nothing is too great. (Plus, nobody wants to be too late to the party if an overthrow comes down.)
Back to the bridge, it was noted that British SAS had previously been training Ukraine forces and this attack has a lot of the hallmarks of the SAS, timing (Putin’s birthday), the symbolic significance and the skill involved. I seriously doubt it was a truck bomb, that is just what Russian sources are saying because they want to paint the Ukrainians as similar to jihad terrorists.
Back to the bridge, it was noted that British SAS had previously been training Ukraine forces and this attack has a lot of the hallmarks of the SAS, timing (Putin’s birthday), the symbolic significance and the skill involved. I seriously doubt it was a truck bomb, that is just what Russian sources are saying because they want to paint the Ukrainians as similar to jihad terrorists.
Putin’s off-ramp.
The notion that the rest of us have to “give” Putin an “off-ramp” suggests that any psychopathic genocidal bully who wants to throw a tantrum should be given presents to make him stop. As if that *would* make him stop, instead of encouraging him to move along to the next country he wants to reclaim for his fever dream of a Greater Russia.
Not directed at you, GftNC, I’m just tired of that phrase and that idea in general.
It reminds me of a famous bit from Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech:
(My bold.)
Putin’s off-ramp.
The notion that the rest of us have to “give” Putin an “off-ramp” suggests that any psychopathic genocidal bully who wants to throw a tantrum should be given presents to make him stop. As if that *would* make him stop, instead of encouraging him to move along to the next country he wants to reclaim for his fever dream of a Greater Russia.
Not directed at you, GftNC, I’m just tired of that phrase and that idea in general.
It reminds me of a famous bit from Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech:
(My bold.)
In the category: people whose name I’ve come across, but who only grabbed my attention once they died because of the media coverage:
Bruno Latour sadly died. He was a French anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher who is remarkable for his descriptions of how scientists actually reach their conclusions and had interesting things to say about how we should relate to scientific “facts” in the age of climate change and the denial thereof.
Obit:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/bruno-latour-french-philosopher-anthropologist-dies
A great in depth article from 2018:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html
In the category: people whose name I’ve come across, but who only grabbed my attention once they died because of the media coverage:
Bruno Latour sadly died. He was a French anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher who is remarkable for his descriptions of how scientists actually reach their conclusions and had interesting things to say about how we should relate to scientific “facts” in the age of climate change and the denial thereof.
Obit:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/bruno-latour-french-philosopher-anthropologist-dies
A great in depth article from 2018:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html
Janie, I do not think for a moment that we have to give Putin an offramp. For exactly the reasons you cite.
But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)
Janie, I do not think for a moment that we have to give Putin an offramp. For exactly the reasons you cite.
But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)
Janie, thanks for clarification. Like wj, I did not see an offramp as something we had to give Putin, but as the sort of thing that is always looked for in any hostage situation: a way out so the malefactor doesn’t see “death and glory” as the only solution. Sufficiently imaginative and clever diplomats, hostage negotiators etc may be able to formulate such a way out, but obviously the Ukrainians would have to be major principals in it, and it might not be available while Putin is still in power. This seems to me the only realistic approach to a situation where the advantage is so weirdly and disproportionately stacked. (p.s. I have loved that highwayman quote since I first saw it on ObWi, probably quoted by you.)
And wj, thanks for clarification on who you consider the elites. That makes sense.
Janie, thanks for clarification. Like wj, I did not see an offramp as something we had to give Putin, but as the sort of thing that is always looked for in any hostage situation: a way out so the malefactor doesn’t see “death and glory” as the only solution. Sufficiently imaginative and clever diplomats, hostage negotiators etc may be able to formulate such a way out, but obviously the Ukrainians would have to be major principals in it, and it might not be available while Putin is still in power. This seems to me the only realistic approach to a situation where the advantage is so weirdly and disproportionately stacked. (p.s. I have loved that highwayman quote since I first saw it on ObWi, probably quoted by you.)
And wj, thanks for clarification on who you consider the elites. That makes sense.
My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact.
Oh and wj, I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image: his humiliation if he had to climb down would probably be absolutely unthinkable to such a man.
My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact.
Oh and wj, I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image: his humiliation if he had to climb down would probably be absolutely unthinkable to such a man.
I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image
Hmmm. You may be right there. But I was thinking more of its relevance to him getting booted out of office.** The populace may get disgusted with him, but they aren’t in much of a position to do anything about him.
** The question that occurs is, will those removing him opt for “terminated with extreme prejudice”? I suppose that depends on how much of a future threat they consider him.
I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image
Hmmm. You may be right there. But I was thinking more of its relevance to him getting booted out of office.** The populace may get disgusted with him, but they aren’t in much of a position to do anything about him.
** The question that occurs is, will those removing him opt for “terminated with extreme prejudice”? I suppose that depends on how much of a future threat they consider him.
But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)
I’m more pessimistic about it than most of you. I think he sees two ways out — he gets Ukraine, or someone removes him from power. He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power — oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow. As to whether he eventually gets control of Ukraine, I have three questions that no one else seems to be asking. (1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine’s European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day? 200? 500?
But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)
I’m more pessimistic about it than most of you. I think he sees two ways out — he gets Ukraine, or someone removes him from power. He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power — oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow. As to whether he eventually gets control of Ukraine, I have three questions that no one else seems to be asking. (1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine’s European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day? 200? 500?
Michael Cain: I’m pretty pessimistic too, given that it looks obvious that he has to be removed (and yes, it would have to be with extreme prejudice) and yet almost impossible to achieve, since his “steps” are a) ruthless and b) very effective so far. At the moment, I cannot see him (and don’t want to see him) getting control of Ukraine, given the attitude of the Ukrainians and their international support, so in your equation that only leaves his removal. An awful lot of blood can flow, and missiles can fly, in the meantime. As I said upthread: terrifying.
Michael Cain: I’m pretty pessimistic too, given that it looks obvious that he has to be removed (and yes, it would have to be with extreme prejudice) and yet almost impossible to achieve, since his “steps” are a) ruthless and b) very effective so far. At the moment, I cannot see him (and don’t want to see him) getting control of Ukraine, given the attitude of the Ukrainians and their international support, so in your equation that only leaves his removal. An awful lot of blood can flow, and missiles can fly, in the meantime. As I said upthread: terrifying.
FWIW, I’m with Michael Cain in seeing this as a potential war of industrial/civilian attrition with Russia protected from blowback because nukes. How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.
Which is not to say that the situation is intractable and unavoidable. I think Putin’s position of power is more dynamic and unstable than it might appear from the outside, and I can see it crumbling more quickly than we anticipate under the right circumstances. He’s vulnerable to supply chain problems, and to mishandling the oligarch cabal he’s used to maintain power, and especially he’s vulnerable to a turn in his health.
I’m not generally a fan of the spook community, but these are times in which I am somewhat reassured to have them because we need the intel in order to be prepared for the potential for sudden volatility there.
FWIW, I’m with Michael Cain in seeing this as a potential war of industrial/civilian attrition with Russia protected from blowback because nukes. How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.
Which is not to say that the situation is intractable and unavoidable. I think Putin’s position of power is more dynamic and unstable than it might appear from the outside, and I can see it crumbling more quickly than we anticipate under the right circumstances. He’s vulnerable to supply chain problems, and to mishandling the oligarch cabal he’s used to maintain power, and especially he’s vulnerable to a turn in his health.
I’m not generally a fan of the spook community, but these are times in which I am somewhat reassured to have them because we need the intel in order to be prepared for the potential for sudden volatility there.
He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power — oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow.
He’s certainly trying to. But there’s a limit to how much of that he can do. At some point, the ones remaining can decide that he’s coming for them tegardless. And so their only hope, slim as it may seem, is to try to take him down first.
Also, he needs those people; at least some of them. One man simply cannot micromanage an entire country. Wipe out all the generals (or oligarchs), and you can promote the colonels. But then they become exactly the same threat. At some point, there’s nobody willing to take on the job of passing on the orders.
How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.
But North Korea built a system to do that with a) a country on the edge of collapse, with only the army even vaguely functional and no industry left (i.e. nothing to loot as an incentive), b) over the course of years, and c) with China guaranteeing its position. Putin has none of thosr luxuries.
He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power — oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow.
He’s certainly trying to. But there’s a limit to how much of that he can do. At some point, the ones remaining can decide that he’s coming for them tegardless. And so their only hope, slim as it may seem, is to try to take him down first.
Also, he needs those people; at least some of them. One man simply cannot micromanage an entire country. Wipe out all the generals (or oligarchs), and you can promote the colonels. But then they become exactly the same threat. At some point, there’s nobody willing to take on the job of passing on the orders.
How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.
But North Korea built a system to do that with a) a country on the edge of collapse, with only the army even vaguely functional and no industry left (i.e. nothing to loot as an incentive), b) over the course of years, and c) with China guaranteeing its position. Putin has none of thosr luxuries.
Hmm. Well, things are about to take a more terrifying turn with the appointment of Surovikin:
His appointment has delighted hardliners in Russia, many of whom had been openly scathing of Putin’s handling of the war. “Surovikin is the most competent commander in the Russian army,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group of pro-Kremlin mercenaries.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, said that the appointment of Surovikin meant that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was now in “reliable hands.”
Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/general-armageddon-kyiv-strikes-bear-hallmarks-of-russias-new-commander-3gdxbhbkb
It looks like the elimination of Putin needs to be joined by the elimination of this appalling man (see also his actions in Syria).
Hmm. Well, things are about to take a more terrifying turn with the appointment of Surovikin:
His appointment has delighted hardliners in Russia, many of whom had been openly scathing of Putin’s handling of the war. “Surovikin is the most competent commander in the Russian army,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group of pro-Kremlin mercenaries.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, said that the appointment of Surovikin meant that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was now in “reliable hands.”
Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/general-armageddon-kyiv-strikes-bear-hallmarks-of-russias-new-commander-3gdxbhbkb
It looks like the elimination of Putin needs to be joined by the elimination of this appalling man (see also his actions in Syria).
(1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine’s European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day?
1) Putin’s strike today was probably only a fraction of what he’s got available. But I’d guess a big fraction, say 1/3 to 1/5. The only reason to hold back would be to allow a repeat or two, lest everybody realize the larder is getting low. And if the supply was greater, he’d have been using them already at the rate he’s been expending artillery shells. Sure, he can build more. But how quickly? (Especially if he’s, however inadvertently, drafting the men who would do the building.)
2) I’d guess at least as far as Russia’s strike range. Can’t really object to shooting at the weapons that are shooting at you. Until now, that’s been artillery range. But with cruise missles, that range opens up. Which may be why Putin hasn’t used those missles earlier.
3) I’d expect they’d last as long as it takes. They’re fighting for their homes and their lives. And they’ve seen, in the areas they’ve recaptured, just what awaits them, whether military government or civilian, if Russia wins.
(1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine’s European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day?
1) Putin’s strike today was probably only a fraction of what he’s got available. But I’d guess a big fraction, say 1/3 to 1/5. The only reason to hold back would be to allow a repeat or two, lest everybody realize the larder is getting low. And if the supply was greater, he’d have been using them already at the rate he’s been expending artillery shells. Sure, he can build more. But how quickly? (Especially if he’s, however inadvertently, drafting the men who would do the building.)
2) I’d guess at least as far as Russia’s strike range. Can’t really object to shooting at the weapons that are shooting at you. Until now, that’s been artillery range. But with cruise missles, that range opens up. Which may be why Putin hasn’t used those missles earlier.
3) I’d expect they’d last as long as it takes. They’re fighting for their homes and their lives. And they’ve seen, in the areas they’ve recaptured, just what awaits them, whether military government or civilian, if Russia wins.
Putin has none of those luxuries
And also fewer of the liabilities. They are different states. I was not suggesting that we should view them through the same policy lens, just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.
Putin has none of those luxuries
And also fewer of the liabilities. They are different states. I was not suggesting that we should view them through the same policy lens, just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.
Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.
No question he’s an appalling person. But how much more can he do?
The logistics challenges cannot be magically waved away. The hammering of civilian targets is already happening. The quantity (and quality!) of troops available isn’t within his control — even if he strips the army, and security services personnel from every other position.
The problems from Russia’s side with this war haven’t been with the generals, they’ve been with the army itself. Both with its troops and their training and morale and with the general way it’s structured (totally top down, with initiative, i.e. flexibility, strongly discouraged). Those are fixable, but over a matter of years, not weeks or months.
Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.
No question he’s an appalling person. But how much more can he do?
The logistics challenges cannot be magically waved away. The hammering of civilian targets is already happening. The quantity (and quality!) of troops available isn’t within his control — even if he strips the army, and security services personnel from every other position.
The problems from Russia’s side with this war haven’t been with the generals, they’ve been with the army itself. Both with its troops and their training and morale and with the general way it’s structured (totally top down, with initiative, i.e. flexibility, strongly discouraged). Those are fixable, but over a matter of years, not weeks or months.
just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.
No argument there. On the other hand, Putin has far less control than Kim. That is, he’d have a much harder time getting those nuke fired off. Pretty much have to convince his subordinates that the threat was to the country, not just to the frontier. Not just to him — because however much he sees himself and Russia as coterminous.
just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.
No argument there. On the other hand, Putin has far less control than Kim. That is, he’d have a much harder time getting those nuke fired off. Pretty much have to convince his subordinates that the threat was to the country, not just to the frontier. Not just to him — because however much he sees himself and Russia as coterminous.
No question he’s an appalling person. But how much more can he do?
I imagine we shall shortly see. I only hope, and not for the first time, that your somewhat optimistic view (at least regarding the factors that limit him) is right.
No question he’s an appalling person. But how much more can he do?
I imagine we shall shortly see. I only hope, and not for the first time, that your somewhat optimistic view (at least regarding the factors that limit him) is right.
On an entirely different note, here’s a conservative (but not reactionary) view: Why Anthony Fauci is the greatest public servant I have known
I know a bunch of you have seriously low opinions of Michael Gerson. But can you fault him in the slightest here? I’m guessing not.
On an entirely different note, here’s a conservative (but not reactionary) view: Why Anthony Fauci is the greatest public servant I have known
I know a bunch of you have seriously low opinions of Michael Gerson. But can you fault him in the slightest here? I’m guessing not.
As an outsider, I dunno if Main Street Russia actually supports him or if it’s just lip service. I dunno if Putin is pushing because he’s pot-committed or if he actually thinks he can win (I suspect the former). Maybe it’s a smokescreen at this point and just cover to move his assets to wherever he wants to be richest-guy-on-the-planet-in-exile. Maybe his failing health has addled his brain.
I dunno.
But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait? Just a coupla years earlier you had changing leadership in Ukraine, the EU-UK divorce, and an obsequious and easily-manipulated twit in the White House who was deliberately undermining the NATO alliance. I mean, if you’re of the invasion persuasion, how the hell do you miss that giant green light?
As an outsider, I dunno if Main Street Russia actually supports him or if it’s just lip service. I dunno if Putin is pushing because he’s pot-committed or if he actually thinks he can win (I suspect the former). Maybe it’s a smokescreen at this point and just cover to move his assets to wherever he wants to be richest-guy-on-the-planet-in-exile. Maybe his failing health has addled his brain.
I dunno.
But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait? Just a coupla years earlier you had changing leadership in Ukraine, the EU-UK divorce, and an obsequious and easily-manipulated twit in the White House who was deliberately undermining the NATO alliance. I mean, if you’re of the invasion persuasion, how the hell do you miss that giant green light?
But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait?
My guess is that he thought (hoped?) TFG would win a second term. And trash NATO — one of Putin’s long-time goals. After that, Ukraine would have been the walk in the park that he envisioned this time.
But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait?
My guess is that he thought (hoped?) TFG would win a second term. And trash NATO — one of Putin’s long-time goals. After that, Ukraine would have been the walk in the park that he envisioned this time.
That’d be my guess as well. But then it becomes just as perplexing as to why he didn’t reconsider when it became clear that Biden – a staunch NATO proponent – was in. I’ll take as true that Putin has grave concerns over Ukraine allying itself with the West (and by his definition, becoming an extension of US hegemony). But now he faces the likelihood of Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland all in NATO. And he might even lose Sevastopol to boot. And a depleted military. And crushing economic sanctions.
That’s a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.
That’d be my guess as well. But then it becomes just as perplexing as to why he didn’t reconsider when it became clear that Biden – a staunch NATO proponent – was in. I’ll take as true that Putin has grave concerns over Ukraine allying itself with the West (and by his definition, becoming an extension of US hegemony). But now he faces the likelihood of Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland all in NATO. And he might even lose Sevastopol to boot. And a depleted military. And crushing economic sanctions.
That’s a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.
That’s a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.
And he is a shrewd strategist. When it comes to maneuvering thru a bureaucracy in order to seize power. But in dealing with the world outside Russia? Not so much.
Both being due to him knowing the Russian bureaucracy well, but little or nothing about the world outside. Or perhaps, little or nothing about the reality of the world outside. And his fantasy image about the world is pretty locked in.
That’s a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.
And he is a shrewd strategist. When it comes to maneuvering thru a bureaucracy in order to seize power. But in dealing with the world outside Russia? Not so much.
Both being due to him knowing the Russian bureaucracy well, but little or nothing about the world outside. Or perhaps, little or nothing about the reality of the world outside. And his fantasy image about the world is pretty locked in.
Another thought about Russia’s logistic challenges. This from Jeremy Fleming, head of the GCHQ, the UK intelligence, cyber and security agency:
Russia’s approach has been to abjure finesse in favor of simply throwing resources at their opponent until he is overwhelmed. Which doesn’t leave a whole lot of options when those resources (whether men, munitions, or both) run out first. We already knew Putin was running out of men, hence the mobilization/draft. But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he’s started using cruise missles — they may be what he has left.
Another thought about Russia’s logistic challenges. This from Jeremy Fleming, head of the GCHQ, the UK intelligence, cyber and security agency:
Russia’s approach has been to abjure finesse in favor of simply throwing resources at their opponent until he is overwhelmed. Which doesn’t leave a whole lot of options when those resources (whether men, munitions, or both) run out first. We already knew Putin was running out of men, hence the mobilization/draft. But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he’s started using cruise missles — they may be what he has left.
But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he’s started using cruise missles — they may be what he has left.
Range counts, too. The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia, then making use of their thousand-kilometer range to strike all over Ukraine.
Recent reports that German howitzers are wearing out and need major servicing. The Germans say they were never intended to fire 100 rounds per day for more than two months. There seems to be some sort of dust-up over where the repair work will be done. Poland was the initial choice, but the Poles refuse to allow the work unless they get access to the proprietary parts of the design.
But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he’s started using cruise missles — they may be what he has left.
Range counts, too. The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia, then making use of their thousand-kilometer range to strike all over Ukraine.
Recent reports that German howitzers are wearing out and need major servicing. The Germans say they were never intended to fire 100 rounds per day for more than two months. There seems to be some sort of dust-up over where the repair work will be done. Poland was the initial choice, but the Poles refuse to allow the work unless they get access to the proprietary parts of the design.
The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia
The planes may be more of a challenge. But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.
The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia
The planes may be more of a challenge. But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.
But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.
In areas close enough to where the Ukrainians still have access to the Black Sea coast. They’ve got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov. NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.
But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.
In areas close enough to where the Ukrainians still have access to the Black Sea coast. They’ve got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov. NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.
They’ve got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov.
Perhaps not from territory where they currently have secure control. But since they managed to attack the Kerch bridge,** it doesn’t seem impossible that they could get a missile launched close enough to hit a ship in the Sea of Azov.
** The latest info I’ve seen suggest it wasn’t a truck bomb, but something explodong from below.
They’ve got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov.
Perhaps not from territory where they currently have secure control. But since they managed to attack the Kerch bridge,** it doesn’t seem impossible that they could get a missile launched close enough to hit a ship in the Sea of Azov.
** The latest info I’ve seen suggest it wasn’t a truck bomb, but something explodong from below.
NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.
But it’s worth noting that NATO has them. I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy. That’s gotta be a deterrent for even a “tactical nuke” strike. And that’s a 40 year old platform.
NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.
But it’s worth noting that NATO has them. I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy. That’s gotta be a deterrent for even a “tactical nuke” strike. And that’s a 40 year old platform.
I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy.
The US isn’t signatory to the treaty that controls transit through Turkish waters between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, but has generally conformed to it. That limits passage of US warships to 10,000 tons, about a tenth the size of our current carriers. I believe the USS Truman is operating in the northern Aegean Sea, which puts southeast Russia at the outer limit of the Tomahawk range. Similarly-ranged cruise missiles that can be launched from B-52s exist, of course. The US operates B-52s in Europe on a regular basis.
I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy.
The US isn’t signatory to the treaty that controls transit through Turkish waters between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, but has generally conformed to it. That limits passage of US warships to 10,000 tons, about a tenth the size of our current carriers. I believe the USS Truman is operating in the northern Aegean Sea, which puts southeast Russia at the outer limit of the Tomahawk range. Similarly-ranged cruise missiles that can be launched from B-52s exist, of course. The US operates B-52s in Europe on a regular basis.
Above (way above), Michael Cain asks: “How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day?”
Well here (from the Washington Post) is something on the subject:
Above (way above), Michael Cain asks: “How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day?”
Well here (from the Washington Post) is something on the subject:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/08/how-russia-views-america/
I’ve been reading Martyanov’s blog and several other pro Russian ones since the war started. They don’t all agree with each other but I think they mostly agree on how they see the US and the West. They see us as an arrogant deluded empire on the verge of collapse. ( There is also a significant component of “ old man thinks culture going to hell in a hand basket” in Martyanov, but you can, I think, set that part aside and agree with some of the rest of what he says.)
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/08/how-russia-views-america/
I’ve been reading Martyanov’s blog and several other pro Russian ones since the war started. They don’t all agree with each other but I think they mostly agree on how they see the US and the West. They see us as an arrogant deluded empire on the verge of collapse. ( There is also a significant component of “ old man thinks culture going to hell in a hand basket” in Martyanov, but you can, I think, set that part aside and agree with some of the rest of what he says.)
I see some of what Martyanov means when he says that the Russians view the West, especially America, as being in a state of terminal, ever-accelerating decline. Looking at the MAGA types, in particular their numbers, it’s definitely a concern. We may manage to beat them back, but that’s far from a sure thing.
As for his suggestion that the US military is built to fight the last war, that’s a common characteristic of all militaries. But I’m not so sure it’s as bad as he thinks. He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren’t really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles. Just like SEAL teams are not intended to take and hold territory — they are very good at the mission that they’re intended for, but that isn’t it.
I see some of what Martyanov means when he says that the Russians view the West, especially America, as being in a state of terminal, ever-accelerating decline. Looking at the MAGA types, in particular their numbers, it’s definitely a concern. We may manage to beat them back, but that’s far from a sure thing.
As for his suggestion that the US military is built to fight the last war, that’s a common characteristic of all militaries. But I’m not so sure it’s as bad as he thinks. He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren’t really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles. Just like SEAL teams are not intended to take and hold territory — they are very good at the mission that they’re intended for, but that isn’t it.
He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren’t really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles…. they are very good at the mission that they’re intended for, but that isn’t it.
Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise. I dread Xi announcing that the rogue province’s ports and airports are closed to traffic other than with the mainland, that vessels/planes attempting to violate that will be fired on, then shooting down a plane and/or sinking an LNG tanker to prove his point. Just extending an invitation for the US to use a carrier strike group to try to force the ports open.
He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren’t really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles…. they are very good at the mission that they’re intended for, but that isn’t it.
Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise. I dread Xi announcing that the rogue province’s ports and airports are closed to traffic other than with the mainland, that vessels/planes attempting to violate that will be fired on, then shooting down a plane and/or sinking an LNG tanker to prove his point. Just extending an invitation for the US to use a carrier strike group to try to force the ports open.
Martyanov’s analysis of the military side of things is grounded in a very strange set of assumptions. He seems to be treating the Ukrainian military as a stand-in for the US military and arguing that since the current phase of the war has devolved into static lines and attrition, that the Russian artillery dominance shows their tactical superiority, and that the US wastes its military power on big, expensive hardware like carrier groups while Russia uses their budget to build artillery and missiles.
Never mind that Russia’s failure to take Ukraine in a timely manner mostly comes down to their having a lot of tanks and special forces, but not enough supplies or trucks to transport them and support their troops. If Ukraine is a war of artillery, it is so because the Russian army failed, and is now stuck in a bad tactical situation.
And no one should believe for a second that the Ukrainian army’s tactics reflect the military doctrine of a NATO war. Ukraine is very limited in what NATO is allowing them to have. Nothing about the current war in Ukraine reflects the US capabilities or its (former) views adopted in the Revolution in Military Affairs.
Military occupations are not particularly sustainable in our current world. The US learned that the hard way in the first decade of the 21st C. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia should have learned that, too, but its small successes in the Crimea and in Syria left it overconfident.
I think Martyanov is cherry picking his analysis much like a sports writer putting together a “Five Reasons Team X Will Dominate Team Y” article for fan morale.
There is some truth to his criticism of the US reliance on prestige weapons like the carrier group. There is reason to think that the future will belong to small, deadly drone forces. But Russia is probably even more deeply trapped in the world of prestige weaponry than is the US, and their failures in Ukraine show this in very stark detail.
Martyanov’s analysis of the military side of things is grounded in a very strange set of assumptions. He seems to be treating the Ukrainian military as a stand-in for the US military and arguing that since the current phase of the war has devolved into static lines and attrition, that the Russian artillery dominance shows their tactical superiority, and that the US wastes its military power on big, expensive hardware like carrier groups while Russia uses their budget to build artillery and missiles.
Never mind that Russia’s failure to take Ukraine in a timely manner mostly comes down to their having a lot of tanks and special forces, but not enough supplies or trucks to transport them and support their troops. If Ukraine is a war of artillery, it is so because the Russian army failed, and is now stuck in a bad tactical situation.
And no one should believe for a second that the Ukrainian army’s tactics reflect the military doctrine of a NATO war. Ukraine is very limited in what NATO is allowing them to have. Nothing about the current war in Ukraine reflects the US capabilities or its (former) views adopted in the Revolution in Military Affairs.
Military occupations are not particularly sustainable in our current world. The US learned that the hard way in the first decade of the 21st C. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia should have learned that, too, but its small successes in the Crimea and in Syria left it overconfident.
I think Martyanov is cherry picking his analysis much like a sports writer putting together a “Five Reasons Team X Will Dominate Team Y” article for fan morale.
There is some truth to his criticism of the US reliance on prestige weapons like the carrier group. There is reason to think that the future will belong to small, deadly drone forces. But Russia is probably even more deeply trapped in the world of prestige weaponry than is the US, and their failures in Ukraine show this in very stark detail.
Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise.
I rather expect that US carriers in the Taiwan strait are not there in the expectation that they, and their strike forces, can have a significant impact on the Chinese military, if it comes to that. Rather, they are more of a trip wire — take out a carrier group like that, and you might as well have launched your nukes right off.
Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise.
I rather expect that US carriers in the Taiwan strait are not there in the expectation that they, and their strike forces, can have a significant impact on the Chinese military, if it comes to that. Rather, they are more of a trip wire — take out a carrier group like that, and you might as well have launched your nukes right off.
RIP Robbie Coltrane. Best known internationally, I am sure, as Hagrid in Harry Potter, but a brilliant actor and dangerous presence in many things, particularly the terrific Cracker. For anybody who doesn’t know it, I recommend it highly.
RIP Robbie Coltrane. Best known internationally, I am sure, as Hagrid in Harry Potter, but a brilliant actor and dangerous presence in many things, particularly the terrific Cracker. For anybody who doesn’t know it, I recommend it highly.
The claim on the pro Russian side is that the Ukranian military is in the last few years trained to NATO standards and also that Russia has been fighting with a limited force (which may now change).
There is more to their version of the story regarding how the war has been going, but it is outside my ability to evaluate. I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.
The claim on the pro Russian side is that the Ukranian military is in the last few years trained to NATO standards and also that Russia has been fighting with a limited force (which may now change).
There is more to their version of the story regarding how the war has been going, but it is outside my ability to evaluate. I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.
I don’t mean to saddle you to defending Martyanov’s analysis, Donald, and I think there is value in understanding the Russian view of the war and of the US threat.
I’m just saying that Martyanov treating Ukraine as if it was equivalent to a NATO operation ignores the fact that NATO has been very careful not to give Ukraine much in the way of anything but short-range, defensive weapons. Russia’s capabilities are flattered in a way by Ukraine being limited so. An attack on an actual NATO member would not face such a limitation.
But by the same measure, I think that NATO would be hard pressed to try to push into Russia and occupy territory there for the same reasons that Russia is finding itself stymied in Ukraine.
IOW I think that the pro-Russian analysis wants to project Russia as a rival power to the US, but when you dig into what is actually being compared there, it’s more like Russia is saying that the US would have as hard a time defeating them as they are having defeating Ukraine.
As for the US being on the verge of collapse, I’m not far from that opinion myself, but I don’t think that the war in Ukraine is hastening that at the moment. Check with me again, though, if the White House flips again in 2024.
But if it does, that would not be a military defeat so much as a renunciation of the US’s treaty obligations.
I don’t mean to saddle you to defending Martyanov’s analysis, Donald, and I think there is value in understanding the Russian view of the war and of the US threat.
I’m just saying that Martyanov treating Ukraine as if it was equivalent to a NATO operation ignores the fact that NATO has been very careful not to give Ukraine much in the way of anything but short-range, defensive weapons. Russia’s capabilities are flattered in a way by Ukraine being limited so. An attack on an actual NATO member would not face such a limitation.
But by the same measure, I think that NATO would be hard pressed to try to push into Russia and occupy territory there for the same reasons that Russia is finding itself stymied in Ukraine.
IOW I think that the pro-Russian analysis wants to project Russia as a rival power to the US, but when you dig into what is actually being compared there, it’s more like Russia is saying that the US would have as hard a time defeating them as they are having defeating Ukraine.
As for the US being on the verge of collapse, I’m not far from that opinion myself, but I don’t think that the war in Ukraine is hastening that at the moment. Check with me again, though, if the White House flips again in 2024.
But if it does, that would not be a military defeat so much as a renunciation of the US’s treaty obligations.
I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.
One of the things I think is telling right now is that Ukraine is flying air missions, and there are videos of tanks on the move. If Russia’s about out of anti-air and anti-armor, and this is about to become a NATO-doctrine fast moving combined forces action on Ukraine’s part, it’s going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren’t going to matter.
I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.
One of the things I think is telling right now is that Ukraine is flying air missions, and there are videos of tanks on the move. If Russia’s about out of anti-air and anti-armor, and this is about to become a NATO-doctrine fast moving combined forces action on Ukraine’s part, it’s going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren’t going to matter.
it’s going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren’t going to matter.
Perhaps Putin and Xi can make a deal. Some of those excess Chinese men (thanks to the one child policy) for some of the excess Russian women (thanks to Putin getting so many of the men in this generation killed off). Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it’s a non-starter as official policy.
it’s going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren’t going to matter.
Perhaps Putin and Xi can make a deal. Some of those excess Chinese men (thanks to the one child policy) for some of the excess Russian women (thanks to Putin getting so many of the men in this generation killed off). Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it’s a non-starter as official policy.
OMG
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513
So, let me get this straight. Sen Johnson is saying that he finds being “against America” admirable…?!?!? No wonder he got booed.
OMG
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513
So, let me get this straight. Sen Johnson is saying that he finds being “against America” admirable…?!?!? No wonder he got booed.
@wj 9:08: My vague understanding is that Russia had a declining population problem even before Putin started this war. I have been assuming, though I haven’t seen anyone else say it in the articles I read or skim about the situation every day, that part of the point of taking busloads of Ukrainians, including children, from Ukraine to Russia is to help with that problem.
Maybe I’m too cynical, although it seems hard to imagine what that might mean in relation to what Russia is doing.
*****
As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.
@wj 9:08: My vague understanding is that Russia had a declining population problem even before Putin started this war. I have been assuming, though I haven’t seen anyone else say it in the articles I read or skim about the situation every day, that part of the point of taking busloads of Ukrainians, including children, from Ukraine to Russia is to help with that problem.
Maybe I’m too cynical, although it seems hard to imagine what that might mean in relation to what Russia is doing.
*****
As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.
Carrier task force’s vulnerability was demonstrated over 80 years ago at Midway. There’s a reason no other country invests in them, for defensive purposes.
Carrier task force’s vulnerability was demonstrated over 80 years ago at Midway. There’s a reason no other country invests in them, for defensive purposes.
As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.
Listening to the exchange (from LGM, hope this link works)
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580729957550272513%7Ctwgr%5E585ec84dbbe140f3d91292f99927eb66b816fdaa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2022%2F10%2Fthe-worst-person-in-the-senate
He’s even a bigger POS, he goes for the ‘I imagine your parents and teachers are really disappointed in you’. Yes, I’m sure all his flunkies were patting him on the back after the debate. ‘you really turned the tables on him boss!’ That he will still probably win just baffles me.
As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.
Listening to the exchange (from LGM, hope this link works)
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580729957550272513%7Ctwgr%5E585ec84dbbe140f3d91292f99927eb66b816fdaa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2022%2F10%2Fthe-worst-person-in-the-senate
He’s even a bigger POS, he goes for the ‘I imagine your parents and teachers are really disappointed in you’. Yes, I’m sure all his flunkies were patting him on the back after the debate. ‘you really turned the tables on him boss!’ That he will still probably win just baffles me.
Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it’s a non-starter as official policy.
Oh, if the young Chinese men are to be used just as cannon fodder (to spare Russian blood), Russians will not object. And the ‘race’ of women used for breeding (and of course as sex objects) is of far less concern for the men doing the f-ing and impregnating. If those Russian women were black (and this would show in the children born), that would be a different matter of course*. Many Russians already have a light East-Asian look to them (I guess the Mongols had something to do with that) and the black hair will be dominant anyway. So, there would imo be enough Chinese men willing to put up with a Russian wife, in particular if no pure Chinese women are available.
*From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times. Mixed Chinese-Africans are not even seen as human by some. Chinese business deals in Africa got threatened when it became known what the Chinese negotiators said about their African counterparts in private.
Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it’s a non-starter as official policy.
Oh, if the young Chinese men are to be used just as cannon fodder (to spare Russian blood), Russians will not object. And the ‘race’ of women used for breeding (and of course as sex objects) is of far less concern for the men doing the f-ing and impregnating. If those Russian women were black (and this would show in the children born), that would be a different matter of course*. Many Russians already have a light East-Asian look to them (I guess the Mongols had something to do with that) and the black hair will be dominant anyway. So, there would imo be enough Chinese men willing to put up with a Russian wife, in particular if no pure Chinese women are available.
*From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times. Mixed Chinese-Africans are not even seen as human by some. Chinese business deals in Africa got threatened when it became known what the Chinese negotiators said about their African counterparts in private.
From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.
Pretty much.
“In February 2020, a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don’t understand that what they’re being told to say is “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond.
But no-one ever answered the crucial questions: Why was this filmed? Where was it shot? Who made it?”
Racism for Sale – BBC Africa Eye documentary
From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.
Pretty much.
“In February 2020, a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don’t understand that what they’re being told to say is “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond.
But no-one ever answered the crucial questions: Why was this filmed? Where was it shot? Who made it?”
Racism for Sale – BBC Africa Eye documentary
lj — thanks for the twitter humor. 🙂
*****
My son spent five years in China and saw the racism against Black visitors in person. I don’t know if it’s quite right to liken it to Jim Crow, because Jim Crow was as much a system as an attitude, and that system isn’t in place anymore. But the attitude is still there, no matter how much people want to deny it.
For that matter — as a white (?) person in China I sometimes felt like a monkey in a zoo when we were outside Beijing, which was most of the time.
Seems like it would be useful to understand that bias is a human thing, not confined to Chinese people, white Americans, etc. Underestimators discriminate against overestimators and vice versa. The LA City Council gets rocked by a racism scandal involving the bad behavior of several Latino councillors.
As the Tralfamadorians say, so it goes.
lj — thanks for the twitter humor. 🙂
*****
My son spent five years in China and saw the racism against Black visitors in person. I don’t know if it’s quite right to liken it to Jim Crow, because Jim Crow was as much a system as an attitude, and that system isn’t in place anymore. But the attitude is still there, no matter how much people want to deny it.
For that matter — as a white (?) person in China I sometimes felt like a monkey in a zoo when we were outside Beijing, which was most of the time.
Seems like it would be useful to understand that bias is a human thing, not confined to Chinese people, white Americans, etc. Underestimators discriminate against overestimators and vice versa. The LA City Council gets rocked by a racism scandal involving the bad behavior of several Latino councillors.
As the Tralfamadorians say, so it goes.
I was referring to the attitude. To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.
I mentioned Jim Crow mainly because my impression is that people before the Civil War considered blacks ‘just’ as inferior while after the war and at the height of Jim Crow ‘mere’ feelings of superiority turned into active hatred (and that got deliberately encouraged by certain influential groups).
—
The former GDR had an inofficial program of instigating bad feelings and prejudices in the East German population against the Polish, pushing the image of Poles as lazy thieves, e.g. by way of very ugly jokes disseminated by the Ministry of State Security. Officially Poland was of course a ‘brotherland’ of fellow communists.
There also was a guest worker program bringing people form Vietnam into East Germany. Any contacts between those and the German population beyond communication strictly necessary for working (‘could you hand me the hammer, please.’) was strongly discouraged and getting caught in any private contacts (I am not talking about sex here, just private chatting) could lead to unpleasant consequences including the guest workers being sent back home immediately with a political black mark.
The Soviet and the East German government also worked hand in hand to block any contacts between the Soviet occupation troops (stationed in the GDR till early 1990). The troops were in essence taught that the German population was still all Nazis in disguise and the East German government feared that any friendly contacts could in case of an uprising against communist rule (like in 1953) discourage the Soviet soldiers from shooting at the German civilians.
All of this was duly noted by the population. The contrast between official and practical policy further widened the gap between the people and the government.
A fatal after-effect of that was that after reunification the deep resentment against the officialy left communist government led to a radical shift towards the far right (logic: The communists always told as that nazis were bad and since the communists are bad, nazis must be good since all the talk to the contrary was obviously lies given that the communist were notorious liars about everything). And with the neo-Nazis came the racist xenophobia that is now rampant.
Similar forces are at work in several other formerly communist countries. The utterly hypocritical ‘friendship of the peoples’ pushed by former communist regimes in many places led to a xenophobic backlash encourgaged by the right wing governments of to-day.
Btw, there is quite some shizophrenia in general German attitudes towards the 3 million ethnic Turks in Germany. The typical German has quite some negative prejudices towards them but even neo-nazis buy at the local Turkish greengrocer.
I was referring to the attitude. To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.
I mentioned Jim Crow mainly because my impression is that people before the Civil War considered blacks ‘just’ as inferior while after the war and at the height of Jim Crow ‘mere’ feelings of superiority turned into active hatred (and that got deliberately encouraged by certain influential groups).
—
The former GDR had an inofficial program of instigating bad feelings and prejudices in the East German population against the Polish, pushing the image of Poles as lazy thieves, e.g. by way of very ugly jokes disseminated by the Ministry of State Security. Officially Poland was of course a ‘brotherland’ of fellow communists.
There also was a guest worker program bringing people form Vietnam into East Germany. Any contacts between those and the German population beyond communication strictly necessary for working (‘could you hand me the hammer, please.’) was strongly discouraged and getting caught in any private contacts (I am not talking about sex here, just private chatting) could lead to unpleasant consequences including the guest workers being sent back home immediately with a political black mark.
The Soviet and the East German government also worked hand in hand to block any contacts between the Soviet occupation troops (stationed in the GDR till early 1990). The troops were in essence taught that the German population was still all Nazis in disguise and the East German government feared that any friendly contacts could in case of an uprising against communist rule (like in 1953) discourage the Soviet soldiers from shooting at the German civilians.
All of this was duly noted by the population. The contrast between official and practical policy further widened the gap between the people and the government.
A fatal after-effect of that was that after reunification the deep resentment against the officialy left communist government led to a radical shift towards the far right (logic: The communists always told as that nazis were bad and since the communists are bad, nazis must be good since all the talk to the contrary was obviously lies given that the communist were notorious liars about everything). And with the neo-Nazis came the racist xenophobia that is now rampant.
Similar forces are at work in several other formerly communist countries. The utterly hypocritical ‘friendship of the peoples’ pushed by former communist regimes in many places led to a xenophobic backlash encourgaged by the right wing governments of to-day.
Btw, there is quite some shizophrenia in general German attitudes towards the 3 million ethnic Turks in Germany. The typical German has quite some negative prejudices towards them but even neo-nazis buy at the local Turkish greengrocer.
To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.
Possibly because they aren’t needed.
If you aren’t Han Chinese, you are nothing, and everybody (which, obviously, means everybody who is Chinese) already feels that way. Anyone who doubts that, ask the Uyghurs or the Tibetans.
To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.
Possibly because they aren’t needed.
If you aren’t Han Chinese, you are nothing, and everybody (which, obviously, means everybody who is Chinese) already feels that way. Anyone who doubts that, ask the Uyghurs or the Tibetans.
Expats in China are treated differently. Backs are mistreated while whites often experience positive racism and are given white monkey jobs. Though lately, most expats still in China aren’t having an easy time of it.
Expats in China are treated differently. Backs are mistreated while whites often experience positive racism and are given white monkey jobs. Though lately, most expats still in China aren’t having an easy time of it.
Hartmut’s 1:05 reminds me of how often intergroup hatred is encouraged and leveraged by people with nefarious and selfish motives. This is true of early race relations in the US and I have read (though not from academic sources) that it’s also true of religion-based fault lines in Northern Ireland. And both situations were intertwined with class and economic patterns and motivations.
I can’t prove it and I’m not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.
Hartmut’s 1:05 reminds me of how often intergroup hatred is encouraged and leveraged by people with nefarious and selfish motives. This is true of early race relations in the US and I have read (though not from academic sources) that it’s also true of religion-based fault lines in Northern Ireland. And both situations were intertwined with class and economic patterns and motivations.
I can’t prove it and I’m not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.
I can’t prove it and I’m not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.
Being an old KGB guy, that kind of disinformation and manipulation is probably second nature to him. Especially in a situation where there is zero chance of reestablishing the Russian Empire via military triumph over NATO.
What’s sad, depressing even, is how very many “useful idiots” he has managed to find.
I can’t prove it and I’m not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.
Being an old KGB guy, that kind of disinformation and manipulation is probably second nature to him. Especially in a situation where there is zero chance of reestablishing the Russian Empire via military triumph over NATO.
What’s sad, depressing even, is how very many “useful idiots” he has managed to find.
wj: What’s sad, depressing even, is how very many “useful idiots” he has managed to find.
Also sad is that there are always “useful idiots.” Besides the early American and Northern Ireland examples, there’s also the example of the Nazi propaganda campaign in France in preparation for rounding up French Jews in the early forties. It doesn’t require social media, it only requires humans.
wj: What’s sad, depressing even, is how very many “useful idiots” he has managed to find.
Also sad is that there are always “useful idiots.” Besides the early American and Northern Ireland examples, there’s also the example of the Nazi propaganda campaign in France in preparation for rounding up French Jews in the early forties. It doesn’t require social media, it only requires humans.
Also sad is that there are always “useful idiots.”
It’s the sheer numbers that depress me.
Also sad is that there are always “useful idiots.”
It’s the sheer numbers that depress me.
And the apartheid regime purposely stoked tremendous hostilities between the Zulu and Xosa people as it began to look as if apartheid’s days were numbered. The motivation to foster prejudices against “the stranger within”, or between two groups you seek to dominate, there’s always somebody it suits. Divide and conquer: it’s probably as old as history.
And the apartheid regime purposely stoked tremendous hostilities between the Zulu and Xosa people as it began to look as if apartheid’s days were numbered. The motivation to foster prejudices against “the stranger within”, or between two groups you seek to dominate, there’s always somebody it suits. Divide and conquer: it’s probably as old as history.
From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.
A bit late to this, and while I don’t think the Chinese are a fount of enlightened opinion, I’d hesitate on putting it like this. Janie’s point about systemic vs. attitudinal is one reason. But even if you limit it to attitude, another reason I pause over the formulation is that you can read (after climbing over the language barrier) what they say and do, whereas the participants who lynched Emmitt Till or the others didn’t have Weibo accounts to broadcast their innermost thoughts.
But the other reason is that most Chinese have never actually met a live black person. However, they probably have seen black people thru the lens of Western news media and entertainment. So I’d suggest that the Chinese are in some ways mirrors of our own attitudes, magnified and reflected back to us.
I think it was Hilberg who noted that one of the first steps in the Holocaust was to dehumanize Jews so that it was easier to consider them as sub-human. I’m not suggesting that a constant diet of black gangbangers and drug users is a conscious decision, but it does open the door that many Chinese may be walking through.
From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.
A bit late to this, and while I don’t think the Chinese are a fount of enlightened opinion, I’d hesitate on putting it like this. Janie’s point about systemic vs. attitudinal is one reason. But even if you limit it to attitude, another reason I pause over the formulation is that you can read (after climbing over the language barrier) what they say and do, whereas the participants who lynched Emmitt Till or the others didn’t have Weibo accounts to broadcast their innermost thoughts.
But the other reason is that most Chinese have never actually met a live black person. However, they probably have seen black people thru the lens of Western news media and entertainment. So I’d suggest that the Chinese are in some ways mirrors of our own attitudes, magnified and reflected back to us.
I think it was Hilberg who noted that one of the first steps in the Holocaust was to dehumanize Jews so that it was easier to consider them as sub-human. I’m not suggesting that a constant diet of black gangbangers and drug users is a conscious decision, but it does open the door that many Chinese may be walking through.
Just to tag onto lj’s comments here, I’ve learned a lot about Chinese attitudes towards (American) blacks reading and discussing student album reviews in my writing classes. The biases I see there are not particularly any sort of racial animus so much as just having so very little experience with anything but the most mainstream representations of black lives either on the news or in hip hop, soul, and stuff like Black Panther and the Fast and Furious franchise.
And, truth be told, a lot of the fascination they have with African-American media forms (and their cooption of it through a K-Pop lens) comes from their own sense of being outsiders in white American cultural hegemony.
Which is not to say that my Chinese nationals have not internalized more than a few racist stereotypes about blacks, just that in my experience those prejudices are not nearly as deep or as difficult to address as the prejudices of those of us who grew up here in America. Their prejudices about blacks are just the exoticized version of their prejudices against any non-Chinese, much like the noir fascination with Asians works in the American imaginary.
Just to tag onto lj’s comments here, I’ve learned a lot about Chinese attitudes towards (American) blacks reading and discussing student album reviews in my writing classes. The biases I see there are not particularly any sort of racial animus so much as just having so very little experience with anything but the most mainstream representations of black lives either on the news or in hip hop, soul, and stuff like Black Panther and the Fast and Furious franchise.
And, truth be told, a lot of the fascination they have with African-American media forms (and their cooption of it through a K-Pop lens) comes from their own sense of being outsiders in white American cultural hegemony.
Which is not to say that my Chinese nationals have not internalized more than a few racist stereotypes about blacks, just that in my experience those prejudices are not nearly as deep or as difficult to address as the prejudices of those of us who grew up here in America. Their prejudices about blacks are just the exoticized version of their prejudices against any non-Chinese, much like the noir fascination with Asians works in the American imaginary.
I have to admit that I have no personal experience with Chinese racial attitudes.
As far as ‘having nerver met’ goes, in Germany (in particular East Germany) the greatest xenophobia (aimed e.g. at Blacks and Jews) can be found in regions where few if any of those groups are visible. Kindergarten kids already know that ‘you Jew’ is among the worst of insults without having any idea what a Jew is. Personal acquaintance is often the best antidote (if it’s not too late).
Btw, that’s something the nazis already knew. In his infamous Posen speeches Himmler lamented that proper hatred against Jews was difficult to instill into the average German: “And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this particular one is a splendid Jew.”
I have to admit that I have no personal experience with Chinese racial attitudes.
As far as ‘having nerver met’ goes, in Germany (in particular East Germany) the greatest xenophobia (aimed e.g. at Blacks and Jews) can be found in regions where few if any of those groups are visible. Kindergarten kids already know that ‘you Jew’ is among the worst of insults without having any idea what a Jew is. Personal acquaintance is often the best antidote (if it’s not too late).
Btw, that’s something the nazis already knew. In his infamous Posen speeches Himmler lamented that proper hatred against Jews was difficult to instill into the average German: “And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this particular one is a splendid Jew.”
That’s an interesting point. Is a person who says ‘[that group] are just animals’ more racist if they have met them or if they haven’t?
[ed, writing too fast!]
That’s an interesting point. Is a person who says ‘[that group] are just animals’ more racist if they have met them or if they haven’t?
[ed, writing too fast!]
‘[that group] are just animals’
Well *of course* they are!
Except for that one I know, who is a fungi.
‘[that group] are just animals’
Well *of course* they are!
Except for that one I know, who is a fungi.
…is a fungi.
A singular multitude? 😉
That must mean possessed.
…is a fungi.
A singular multitude? 😉
That must mean possessed.
I have nothing to add, except anecdata as someone who knew several HK Chinese very well indeed, more than fifty years ago and counting (i.e. before rap, gangstas etc). A very close Chinese friend admitted to me, with great embarrassment, when we were teenagers that Chinese thought Europeans smelled, and when we were discussing a mutual friend in the 2000s who was dating a rather famous black American performer who was almost universally considered by all English women I canvassed, including myself, as fantastically attractive and charismatic, she could not see it at all, and regarded the whole phenomenon as truly mysterious. She did not say it, but I would put money on the theory that she saw him as akin to an animal. And in our youth (and I had quite a job dissuading them) it was very common for Chinese girls to put “skin-lightening” creams on their faces, because colourism in general was rife.
As I say, anecdata from a statistically meaningless pool. But starting well pre-hip hop, gangstas etc.
I have nothing to add, except anecdata as someone who knew several HK Chinese very well indeed, more than fifty years ago and counting (i.e. before rap, gangstas etc). A very close Chinese friend admitted to me, with great embarrassment, when we were teenagers that Chinese thought Europeans smelled, and when we were discussing a mutual friend in the 2000s who was dating a rather famous black American performer who was almost universally considered by all English women I canvassed, including myself, as fantastically attractive and charismatic, she could not see it at all, and regarded the whole phenomenon as truly mysterious. She did not say it, but I would put money on the theory that she saw him as akin to an animal. And in our youth (and I had quite a job dissuading them) it was very common for Chinese girls to put “skin-lightening” creams on their faces, because colourism in general was rife.
As I say, anecdata from a statistically meaningless pool. But starting well pre-hip hop, gangstas etc.
It appears that all those Russian men fleeing the country are causing changes in Putin’s mobilization process.
Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine
When you are resorting to press gangs, especially indiscriminate press gangs, you know your in deep trouble.
And then there’s this:
Well, I suppose it amounts to an alternate path to leave the country, once the borders are closed.
It appears that all those Russian men fleeing the country are causing changes in Putin’s mobilization process.
Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine
When you are resorting to press gangs, especially indiscriminate press gangs, you know your in deep trouble.
And then there’s this:
Well, I suppose it amounts to an alternate path to leave the country, once the borders are closed.
The “smelly European” has some basis in fact. We exude some chemicals from milk and milk products we can metabolize (having the privilege of adult lactase production) but most Africans and a large percentage of East Asians can’t. Europeans seem to have lost the ability to smell those while East Asians have not. So to many of them we must indeed smell in an unpleasant way. If it is as bad as amines and short-chain fatty acids smell to us…
The “smelly European” has some basis in fact. We exude some chemicals from milk and milk products we can metabolize (having the privilege of adult lactase production) but most Africans and a large percentage of East Asians can’t. Europeans seem to have lost the ability to smell those while East Asians have not. So to many of them we must indeed smell in an unpleasant way. If it is as bad as amines and short-chain fatty acids smell to us…
Chinese thought Europeans smelled,
Europeans do tend to have more body odor than Asians.
Chinese thought Europeans smelled,
Europeans do tend to have more body odor than Asians.
Another possible factor (at least in one instance)
https://www.economist.com/moreover/1997/07/31/very-clean-people-the-japanese
“The Japanese are just as fastidious at home as at play. Cleanliness matters. Most have at least one bath a day; rare is the young woman who does not have at least two.”
Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.
More frequent bathing is likely to reduce how much you smell, too.
Another possible factor (at least in one instance)
https://www.economist.com/moreover/1997/07/31/very-clean-people-the-japanese
“The Japanese are just as fastidious at home as at play. Cleanliness matters. Most have at least one bath a day; rare is the young woman who does not have at least two.”
Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.
More frequent bathing is likely to reduce how much you smell, too.
This seems a fairly authoritative assessment of Putin’s situation, from The Times. I copy the whole thing because behind the paywall:
At home and on the battlefield, seven self-inflicted traps are snaring Putin
The president’s missile strikes were supposed to reassert his tough-guy persona but have exposed a string of weaknesses
Mark Galeotti
Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times
Following the dramatic attack on the Crimea Bridge last weekend, Vladimir Putin was eager to wrench back the initiative. Since Monday Russia has hammered Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with long-range missiles. However, behind the sound and fury, the new tactics have exposed how the president is caught in a series of traps of his own making, not just on the battlefield but also at home.
BATTLEFIELD TRAP
Eight days ago General Sergei Surovikin was named as the new overall field commander for Moscow’s “special military operation”. Apparently known to his peers as “General Armageddon” — although that nickname only conveniently emerged in the Russian tabloids on his appointment — he is a competent, ruthless figure who presided over devastating air attacks on cities in Syria.
There is little a new commander can do, though. The Ukrainians have the initiative. They will use the last few weeks before winter to maximise their gains, notably in the southern region of Kherson. Freshly mobilised Russian reservists are trickling to the front but they are often untrained and unmotivated. At best they can help hold the line, not launch new offensives.
The bombardment has little strategic value and is burning through Russia’s dwindling stocks of weapons, which are hard to replenish. The retired general and parliamentarian Andrei Gurulyov, no dove, used an interview in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda to hammer home the point: “don’t waste missiles.” It has been estimated that more than half of Russia’s arsenal is gone, including more than 80 per cent of the powerful Iskander systems. This has alarmed the high command, which wants to retain a strategic reserve for some future offensive or, more likely, in case of a new Ukrainian attack.
POLITICAL TRAP
It has also angered regional leaders in whose fiefdoms the missile factories are located. They have been lobbying to exempt their skilled workers from Putin’s indiscriminate mobilisation. The savage assault on Ukrainian cities was, as much as anything else, a sop to the hawks inside Russia, a reaffirmation of Putin’s tough guy persona. It was not just that extremists on social media had been calling for reprisals for the bridge attack, which has credibly been blamed on Ukraine. He was also responding to the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Having loudly supported the war, Kadyrov is now a vehement critic of Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and the rest of the high command, accusing them of incompetence and cronyism and even calling for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
This highlights the political trap in which Putin finds himself. Once he could position himself between the extreme hawks and the more moderate technocrats. Now he is having to please one group, then the other — satisfying neither.
SOCIAL CONTRACT TRAP
When Putin opted to annex portions of Ukraine last month — including territory his soldiers were not even occupying — and began a partial national mobilisation, he broke not one, but two social contracts linked to the invasion.
Ordinary Russians had in effect been promised that, as long as Putin had his war, he would ensure that they did not suffer much. That no longer holds true. Mobilisation means that every family has reason to fear and economic hardship is beginning to bite.
He had also struck a tacit deal with regional leaders and the heads of key institutions. If they kept their domains quiet and put on a show of military enthusiasm, they would not be forced to abandon the pretence that they were there to represent local interests rather than Moscow’s.
Now these leaders feel that the Kremlin is reneging on its promise. Mobilisation and tightening federal finances have changed this equation too. Regional bosses are being called on to do the central government’s dirty work by assuaging public concern, funding the reconstruction of conquered cities and recruiting new “volunteer battalions” for the front. And they are becoming a problem for the Kremlin.
DISENGAGEMENT TRAP
Every Russian leader worries about the regions: from Tsarist times to the present, the struggle to bring local leaders to heel has shaped the history of the largest nation on Earth. After Putin took over as president in 1999 the degree of central control that he reimposed on a chaotic state — through war and deft political manipulation — became one of the main pillars of his appeal. But now the Kremlin is having to squeeze more from regional and local leaders than they feel able to give, at just the moment that they feel emboldened to stand up to Moscow to protect their own interests.
Leaks from an internal report by the Investigatory Committee — sometimes considered Russia’s FBI — suggest a marked recent increase in embezzlement by regional elites. It complains that “at a time of national need, certain [officials] are concentrating on protecting their interests and establishing lateral alliances with business and criminal authorities in their regions.”
It brought to mind a scathing assessment I once heard from a former official from Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East: “The local leadership had to say they were fully behind the war, though they knew it was stupid and unwinnable. They did the least they could get away with, and instead focused on their own corrupt schemes.” This was in 1990, and he was talking about how regional Communist Party officials in the USSR responded to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.
T
There seems to be a striking similarity today: local officials despairing of what they feel is an out-of-touch Kremlin, paying lip service to the party line while keeping their heads down — or using the opportunity to embezzle what they can.
LEVERAGE TRAP
Those who are genuinely trying to lobby Moscow in the interests of their constituents are being listened to the least. Impoverished Dagestan has suffered disproportionately heavy losses in the war and its leader, Sergei Melikov, appealed in vain to the Kremlin for a respite from mobilisation. Others, like Khabarovsk’s governor Mikhail Degtyarev, have been able to get some men who should not have been mobilised released, but their efforts to get Putin to take a proper look at the process have been ignored.
As one Moscow-based political analyst put it, the Kremlin “doesn’t care about the cost to [regional leaders], it just wants them to do what they’re told”. At the same time, though, it needs them. This gives them leverage.
Alexander Dyumin, the governor of Tula, has been seeking a position in Moscow for a while. Having narrowly missed out on becoming the new emergencies minister in May, Putin’s former bodyguard is now making the case that, given how well he is keeping Tula’s arms factories running day and night, a defence ministry position might be a suitable reward.
Kadyrov, meanwhile, is engaged in his usual tactic to shore up the federal subsidies which account for more than 80 per cent of Chechnya’s budget. Time and again, when there is some risk to these funds, which perpetuate his rule and pay for vanity projects such as a huge mosque named after his father, he starts picking fights or threatening to resign. The Kremlin, dreading secessionist chaos without Kadyrov in charge and knowing it cannot afford a new civil war in the south, has backed down each time.
GANGSTERISM TRAP
Putin created a system which depended on dividing and ruling the elite. He encouraged infighting over status and money and made himself the sole arbiter of these disputes. Now that he is consumed by the war in Ukraine, these conflicts over shrinking resources are becoming more open.
The recent spate of mysterious “suicides” among prominent businessmen and officials, for example, seems to reflect a revival of murder as a business tactic, a feature of the pre-Putin “wild Nineties”.
Likewise, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the sanctioned businessman behind the notorious Wagner mercenary force, has long nursed grievances with Shoigu and the high command. He took advantage of Kadyrov’s criticisms to prosecute his own vendetta, saying: “Beautiful, Ramzan, keep it up. These punks should be shipped to the front barefoot with machineguns.”
Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph
Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph
Rustam Minnikhanov, the leader of Tatarstan, knows that many have demands on its oil assets, while the Kremlin carefully watches his region as an indicator of potential regional and ethnic tensions. As a result, he is taking almost comical pains to balance every interest, from Kadyrov to Shoigu. As a local political observer put it: “Minnikhanov doesn’t know where the knife might come from, so he’s trying to look every way, all the time.”
TRAPS INSIDE TRAPS
The regime is not under imminent threat. Regional and factional leaders are still largely vying for Putin’s favour or competing with each other. This is not yet open opposition, nor is there any credible prospect that the Russian Federation will fragment.
Rather, the emerging cracks in the system are both a symptom and a cause of stress. They reflect the way an authoritarian model depending on one man to control a fractious and self-interested elite suffers when he is absent, distracted or loses sight of the impact his actions have at home. His nuclear brinkmanship, for example, is meant to shake the morale of Ukraine and the West. What Putin fails to appreciate is that this is at least as terrifying to his own elites.
An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week
An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week
No wonder they are focusing on their own interests — even when it undermines the Kremlin’s efforts to maximise resources. According to the Investigatory Committee report, at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level. But they don’t know for sure, not least because regional officials are covering each other’s tracks.
Caught between appeasing the noisy hawks and reassuring the worried technocrats, listening to the professionals and posing as a strongman, Putin’s room for manoeuvre at home is increasingly as constrained as it is on the battlefield.
This seems a fairly authoritative assessment of Putin’s situation, from The Times. I copy the whole thing because behind the paywall:
At home and on the battlefield, seven self-inflicted traps are snaring Putin
The president’s missile strikes were supposed to reassert his tough-guy persona but have exposed a string of weaknesses
Mark Galeotti
Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times
Following the dramatic attack on the Crimea Bridge last weekend, Vladimir Putin was eager to wrench back the initiative. Since Monday Russia has hammered Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with long-range missiles. However, behind the sound and fury, the new tactics have exposed how the president is caught in a series of traps of his own making, not just on the battlefield but also at home.
BATTLEFIELD TRAP
Eight days ago General Sergei Surovikin was named as the new overall field commander for Moscow’s “special military operation”. Apparently known to his peers as “General Armageddon” — although that nickname only conveniently emerged in the Russian tabloids on his appointment — he is a competent, ruthless figure who presided over devastating air attacks on cities in Syria.
There is little a new commander can do, though. The Ukrainians have the initiative. They will use the last few weeks before winter to maximise their gains, notably in the southern region of Kherson. Freshly mobilised Russian reservists are trickling to the front but they are often untrained and unmotivated. At best they can help hold the line, not launch new offensives.
The bombardment has little strategic value and is burning through Russia’s dwindling stocks of weapons, which are hard to replenish. The retired general and parliamentarian Andrei Gurulyov, no dove, used an interview in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda to hammer home the point: “don’t waste missiles.” It has been estimated that more than half of Russia’s arsenal is gone, including more than 80 per cent of the powerful Iskander systems. This has alarmed the high command, which wants to retain a strategic reserve for some future offensive or, more likely, in case of a new Ukrainian attack.
POLITICAL TRAP
It has also angered regional leaders in whose fiefdoms the missile factories are located. They have been lobbying to exempt their skilled workers from Putin’s indiscriminate mobilisation. The savage assault on Ukrainian cities was, as much as anything else, a sop to the hawks inside Russia, a reaffirmation of Putin’s tough guy persona. It was not just that extremists on social media had been calling for reprisals for the bridge attack, which has credibly been blamed on Ukraine. He was also responding to the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Having loudly supported the war, Kadyrov is now a vehement critic of Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and the rest of the high command, accusing them of incompetence and cronyism and even calling for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
This highlights the political trap in which Putin finds himself. Once he could position himself between the extreme hawks and the more moderate technocrats. Now he is having to please one group, then the other — satisfying neither.
SOCIAL CONTRACT TRAP
When Putin opted to annex portions of Ukraine last month — including territory his soldiers were not even occupying — and began a partial national mobilisation, he broke not one, but two social contracts linked to the invasion.
Ordinary Russians had in effect been promised that, as long as Putin had his war, he would ensure that they did not suffer much. That no longer holds true. Mobilisation means that every family has reason to fear and economic hardship is beginning to bite.
He had also struck a tacit deal with regional leaders and the heads of key institutions. If they kept their domains quiet and put on a show of military enthusiasm, they would not be forced to abandon the pretence that they were there to represent local interests rather than Moscow’s.
Now these leaders feel that the Kremlin is reneging on its promise. Mobilisation and tightening federal finances have changed this equation too. Regional bosses are being called on to do the central government’s dirty work by assuaging public concern, funding the reconstruction of conquered cities and recruiting new “volunteer battalions” for the front. And they are becoming a problem for the Kremlin.
DISENGAGEMENT TRAP
Every Russian leader worries about the regions: from Tsarist times to the present, the struggle to bring local leaders to heel has shaped the history of the largest nation on Earth. After Putin took over as president in 1999 the degree of central control that he reimposed on a chaotic state — through war and deft political manipulation — became one of the main pillars of his appeal. But now the Kremlin is having to squeeze more from regional and local leaders than they feel able to give, at just the moment that they feel emboldened to stand up to Moscow to protect their own interests.
Leaks from an internal report by the Investigatory Committee — sometimes considered Russia’s FBI — suggest a marked recent increase in embezzlement by regional elites. It complains that “at a time of national need, certain [officials] are concentrating on protecting their interests and establishing lateral alliances with business and criminal authorities in their regions.”
It brought to mind a scathing assessment I once heard from a former official from Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East: “The local leadership had to say they were fully behind the war, though they knew it was stupid and unwinnable. They did the least they could get away with, and instead focused on their own corrupt schemes.” This was in 1990, and he was talking about how regional Communist Party officials in the USSR responded to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.
T
There seems to be a striking similarity today: local officials despairing of what they feel is an out-of-touch Kremlin, paying lip service to the party line while keeping their heads down — or using the opportunity to embezzle what they can.
LEVERAGE TRAP
Those who are genuinely trying to lobby Moscow in the interests of their constituents are being listened to the least. Impoverished Dagestan has suffered disproportionately heavy losses in the war and its leader, Sergei Melikov, appealed in vain to the Kremlin for a respite from mobilisation. Others, like Khabarovsk’s governor Mikhail Degtyarev, have been able to get some men who should not have been mobilised released, but their efforts to get Putin to take a proper look at the process have been ignored.
As one Moscow-based political analyst put it, the Kremlin “doesn’t care about the cost to [regional leaders], it just wants them to do what they’re told”. At the same time, though, it needs them. This gives them leverage.
Alexander Dyumin, the governor of Tula, has been seeking a position in Moscow for a while. Having narrowly missed out on becoming the new emergencies minister in May, Putin’s former bodyguard is now making the case that, given how well he is keeping Tula’s arms factories running day and night, a defence ministry position might be a suitable reward.
Kadyrov, meanwhile, is engaged in his usual tactic to shore up the federal subsidies which account for more than 80 per cent of Chechnya’s budget. Time and again, when there is some risk to these funds, which perpetuate his rule and pay for vanity projects such as a huge mosque named after his father, he starts picking fights or threatening to resign. The Kremlin, dreading secessionist chaos without Kadyrov in charge and knowing it cannot afford a new civil war in the south, has backed down each time.
GANGSTERISM TRAP
Putin created a system which depended on dividing and ruling the elite. He encouraged infighting over status and money and made himself the sole arbiter of these disputes. Now that he is consumed by the war in Ukraine, these conflicts over shrinking resources are becoming more open.
The recent spate of mysterious “suicides” among prominent businessmen and officials, for example, seems to reflect a revival of murder as a business tactic, a feature of the pre-Putin “wild Nineties”.
Likewise, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the sanctioned businessman behind the notorious Wagner mercenary force, has long nursed grievances with Shoigu and the high command. He took advantage of Kadyrov’s criticisms to prosecute his own vendetta, saying: “Beautiful, Ramzan, keep it up. These punks should be shipped to the front barefoot with machineguns.”
Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph
Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph
Rustam Minnikhanov, the leader of Tatarstan, knows that many have demands on its oil assets, while the Kremlin carefully watches his region as an indicator of potential regional and ethnic tensions. As a result, he is taking almost comical pains to balance every interest, from Kadyrov to Shoigu. As a local political observer put it: “Minnikhanov doesn’t know where the knife might come from, so he’s trying to look every way, all the time.”
TRAPS INSIDE TRAPS
The regime is not under imminent threat. Regional and factional leaders are still largely vying for Putin’s favour or competing with each other. This is not yet open opposition, nor is there any credible prospect that the Russian Federation will fragment.
Rather, the emerging cracks in the system are both a symptom and a cause of stress. They reflect the way an authoritarian model depending on one man to control a fractious and self-interested elite suffers when he is absent, distracted or loses sight of the impact his actions have at home. His nuclear brinkmanship, for example, is meant to shake the morale of Ukraine and the West. What Putin fails to appreciate is that this is at least as terrifying to his own elites.
An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week
An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week
No wonder they are focusing on their own interests — even when it undermines the Kremlin’s efforts to maximise resources. According to the Investigatory Committee report, at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level. But they don’t know for sure, not least because regional officials are covering each other’s tracks.
Caught between appeasing the noisy hawks and reassuring the worried technocrats, listening to the professionals and posing as a strongman, Putin’s room for manoeuvre at home is increasingly as constrained as it is on the battlefield.
at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level.
Yet another reason that the mobilization is looking more and more like yet another doomed initiative by a man visibly grasping at straws.
at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level.
Yet another reason that the mobilization is looking more and more like yet another doomed initiative by a man visibly grasping at straws.
It’s not just lactose metabolization and hygiene. Many Asians have fewer sweat glands than Europeans. And 98% of Europeans secrete a chemical in their armpits that odor-causing bacteria feed on. Most East Asians and almost all Koreans don’t.
It’s not just lactose metabolization and hygiene. Many Asians have fewer sweat glands than Europeans. And 98% of Europeans secrete a chemical in their armpits that odor-causing bacteria feed on. Most East Asians and almost all Koreans don’t.
Come midterms, and all-nighters, and coming to class without a shower, they all start to get a bit ripe regardless of heritage.
Come midterms, and all-nighters, and coming to class without a shower, they all start to get a bit ripe regardless of heritage.
@nous: It was decades ago, but I always found that I did much better on midterms and finals getting eight hours of sleep, and a shower and breakfast in the morning. By the time I was a junior, I started studying for those exams by reviewing the sorts of tests the professor wrote, and how she/he scored.
I don’t know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.
@nous: It was decades ago, but I always found that I did much better on midterms and finals getting eight hours of sleep, and a shower and breakfast in the morning. By the time I was a junior, I started studying for those exams by reviewing the sorts of tests the professor wrote, and how she/he scored.
I don’t know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.
Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.
Yeah, this is still a thing, when students do homestays, it’s always a delicate thing to ask them to take fewer showers/baths and to ask the homestay family that they may take more than usual.
Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.
Yeah, this is still a thing, when students do homestays, it’s always a delicate thing to ask them to take fewer showers/baths and to ask the homestay family that they may take more than usual.
I don’t know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.
I took the GRE in late 1971 and again in 1999 or 2000. Second time it was on a computer and your answer was your answer; you couldn’t go back and check your work. Also, it was an adaptive test. Apparently what they throw at you is (as?) determined by how well you were doing at each point.
I did about as well as I always had, which was pretty well: test-taking was always my best thing. 😉
Another ten years later I took the LSAT and realized that I could have drilled a lot more on the logic puzzle thingies. Didn’t end up going to law school in any case, thank all the deities.
I don’t know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.
I took the GRE in late 1971 and again in 1999 or 2000. Second time it was on a computer and your answer was your answer; you couldn’t go back and check your work. Also, it was an adaptive test. Apparently what they throw at you is (as?) determined by how well you were doing at each point.
I did about as well as I always had, which was pretty well: test-taking was always my best thing. 😉
Another ten years later I took the LSAT and realized that I could have drilled a lot more on the logic puzzle thingies. Didn’t end up going to law school in any case, thank all the deities.
(as?) should be (was?) — because I have no idea how they’re doing it now.
Interestingly, in 1971 the GRE, like the SAT, had math and verbal sections. When I took it later it also had a logic/analysis section — which I think (in retrospect) was much easier than the logic on the LSAT.
(as?) should be (was?) — because I have no idea how they’re doing it now.
Interestingly, in 1971 the GRE, like the SAT, had math and verbal sections. When I took it later it also had a logic/analysis section — which I think (in retrospect) was much easier than the logic on the LSAT.
The biggest change when I took it later in life was the addition of a writing section. Two essays, if I remember correctly. A short one arguing for something, and a longer one taking apart someone else’s argument. 15 and 45 minutes for the shorter and longer essay? Time enforced by the limited-function word processor they provided.
The biggest change when I took it later in life was the addition of a writing section. Two essays, if I remember correctly. A short one arguing for something, and a longer one taking apart someone else’s argument. 15 and 45 minutes for the shorter and longer essay? Time enforced by the limited-function word processor they provided.
Interesting. Mine didn’t have a writing section, although the LSAT did. I don’t remember exactly what year I took the 2nd GRE, but it was roughly late 1990s.
Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?
Interesting. Mine didn’t have a writing section, although the LSAT did. I don’t remember exactly what year I took the 2nd GRE, but it was roughly late 1990s.
Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?
Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?
They gave a numeric score from 0 to 6 by half points (ie, 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 … 5.5, 6). When I took the test I believe they were using all trained human readers to score it. According to their web site, they now guarantee that one person will read it, but much of the scoring is done by software.
Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?
They gave a numeric score from 0 to 6 by half points (ie, 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 … 5.5, 6). When I took the test I believe they were using all trained human readers to score it. According to their web site, they now guarantee that one person will read it, but much of the scoring is done by software.
but much of the scoring is done by software.
Oh boy………
but much of the scoring is done by software.
Oh boy………
I have not taken the GRE since 2003, but yes, they use an adaptive algorithm to present questions. It starts with a rangefinder somewhere in the middle and then adjusts upward or downward in difficulty based on that. In 2003 the main complaint was that if one missed the first question it took too many subsequent correct answers to make it back to the upper range, suppressing the possible final score.
My GRE was much like the SAT with a verbal and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section and a writing test.
I lucked out on the questions for the verbal and ended up one question off of a perfect score. Despite working as a DB analyst before my return to school, and using a lot of mathematical thinking in that analysis, I was out of practice with much of the math and performed decently, but well off the pace for grad school admission in a quant field – none of which mattered seeking entry into a humanities field.
I did not top out the writing exam. I write too slowly, and I attempted to create a thoughtful answer to the question rather than looking to carve out a well structured but largely formal response. I’ve literally graded thousands of essays like that for placement since then, and could probably crank out a vapid, high scoring result in my sleep these days.
Those writing placement exams are not particularly useful for anything except reducing professorly irritation. Every writing teacher I know works actively to break the habits that produce those canned responses. Those habits circumvent critical thinking and reader engagement.
I have not taken the GRE since 2003, but yes, they use an adaptive algorithm to present questions. It starts with a rangefinder somewhere in the middle and then adjusts upward or downward in difficulty based on that. In 2003 the main complaint was that if one missed the first question it took too many subsequent correct answers to make it back to the upper range, suppressing the possible final score.
My GRE was much like the SAT with a verbal and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section and a writing test.
I lucked out on the questions for the verbal and ended up one question off of a perfect score. Despite working as a DB analyst before my return to school, and using a lot of mathematical thinking in that analysis, I was out of practice with much of the math and performed decently, but well off the pace for grad school admission in a quant field – none of which mattered seeking entry into a humanities field.
I did not top out the writing exam. I write too slowly, and I attempted to create a thoughtful answer to the question rather than looking to carve out a well structured but largely formal response. I’ve literally graded thousands of essays like that for placement since then, and could probably crank out a vapid, high scoring result in my sleep these days.
Those writing placement exams are not particularly useful for anything except reducing professorly irritation. Every writing teacher I know works actively to break the habits that produce those canned responses. Those habits circumvent critical thinking and reader engagement.
…and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section…
The quantitative parts of the GRE have always ticked me off. Both when I was young and more recently, you can get very high marks with no more than a mastery of pre-calculus material. Back in the day the math subject specific section actually picked up post-calculus. Comparing notes afterwards with other math majors, the star got 7 of the (then) 40 questions, I got 6, nobody else got more than 5, and there wasn’t a calculus question in there. How high you scored was very much influenced by what electives you had taken. The web site says that the current math subject test is 66 questions, half calculus and applications of calculus, so that’s presumably an improvement.
…and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section…
The quantitative parts of the GRE have always ticked me off. Both when I was young and more recently, you can get very high marks with no more than a mastery of pre-calculus material. Back in the day the math subject specific section actually picked up post-calculus. Comparing notes afterwards with other math majors, the star got 7 of the (then) 40 questions, I got 6, nobody else got more than 5, and there wasn’t a calculus question in there. How high you scored was very much influenced by what electives you had taken. The web site says that the current math subject test is 66 questions, half calculus and applications of calculus, so that’s presumably an improvement.
Only took GRE once, 1986, math, verbal, and a then-experimental analytical section. Hadn’t taken any math classes since two semesters of calculus freshman year (82-83). My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.
Only took GRE once, 1986, math, verbal, and a then-experimental analytical section. Hadn’t taken any math classes since two semesters of calculus freshman year (82-83). My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.
My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.
That was my impression in 1971, or at least that the GRE wasn’t any harder than the SAT. In fact, I walked out of the GRE testing room (which was on the MIT campus but was a test location for the whole Boston area) ahead of two young women who were musing about the fact that they always had trouble with questions about percents. 😉
As to Michael Cain’s 1:56: it’s an interesting question if you think about the difference between an aptitude test and a subject test. Which was supposed to be the distinction, IIUC, between the SAT and the SAT II aka the Subject Tests aka whatever they’re calling them now.
I don’t think you need calc questions to test math aptitude. On the other hand, at the GRE level, why bother with this kind of test in the first place? Get the person’s college records…..
PS: Google informs me that the College Board no longer even offers subject tests.
My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.
That was my impression in 1971, or at least that the GRE wasn’t any harder than the SAT. In fact, I walked out of the GRE testing room (which was on the MIT campus but was a test location for the whole Boston area) ahead of two young women who were musing about the fact that they always had trouble with questions about percents. 😉
As to Michael Cain’s 1:56: it’s an interesting question if you think about the difference between an aptitude test and a subject test. Which was supposed to be the distinction, IIUC, between the SAT and the SAT II aka the Subject Tests aka whatever they’re calling them now.
I don’t think you need calc questions to test math aptitude. On the other hand, at the GRE level, why bother with this kind of test in the first place? Get the person’s college records…..
PS: Google informs me that the College Board no longer even offers subject tests.
Bigger shock to many people – the University of California system no longer requires the aptitude tests at all.
Bigger shock to many people – the University of California system no longer requires the aptitude tests at all.
Bates has been a national leader in the test-optional movement for nearly four decades. In October 1984, the faculty voted to make standardized testing, such as the SAT and the ACT, optional for all students applying to Bates.
Bates College is half an hour from my house; one of my kids went there. My impression is that a lot of colleges have quit requiring the SAT in more recent years. But the entire UCal system — that’s a biggie.
I get the reasons for this, but it’s too bad in a way. The SAT was my ticket to a good college, coming as I did from a tiny Catholic high school in a small midwestern town, giving colleges (in 1967, mind you) no other very good way to get a handle on my abilities in comparison with someone from, let’s say, Stuyvesant or Bronx Science.
As far as I can tell, the SAT has been co-opted in much the same way as the federal student loan programs have been co-opted, so that they no longer serve their original purpose very well, if at all. When I was young it was a relatively even playing field; there weren’t expensive test prep outfits to help the kids who had the $/family resources get higher scores….
Bates has been a national leader in the test-optional movement for nearly four decades. In October 1984, the faculty voted to make standardized testing, such as the SAT and the ACT, optional for all students applying to Bates.
Bates College is half an hour from my house; one of my kids went there. My impression is that a lot of colleges have quit requiring the SAT in more recent years. But the entire UCal system — that’s a biggie.
I get the reasons for this, but it’s too bad in a way. The SAT was my ticket to a good college, coming as I did from a tiny Catholic high school in a small midwestern town, giving colleges (in 1967, mind you) no other very good way to get a handle on my abilities in comparison with someone from, let’s say, Stuyvesant or Bronx Science.
As far as I can tell, the SAT has been co-opted in much the same way as the federal student loan programs have been co-opted, so that they no longer serve their original purpose very well, if at all. When I was young it was a relatively even playing field; there weren’t expensive test prep outfits to help the kids who had the $/family resources get higher scores….
Should have made clear that the opening quote in my 4:03 was from the Bates website, not from someone here.
Should have made clear that the opening quote in my 4:03 was from the Bates website, not from someone here.
but much of the scoring is done by software.
Oh boy………
The opportunity for someone who can hack out the scoring software, and tell test takers how to ace the test accordingly, it truly amazing.
How long (if not already) until someone does that? It seems ever so much easier than artificially padding extracurricular activities for college admissions….
but much of the scoring is done by software.
Oh boy………
The opportunity for someone who can hack out the scoring software, and tell test takers how to ace the test accordingly, it truly amazing.
How long (if not already) until someone does that? It seems ever so much easier than artificially padding extracurricular activities for college admissions….
Just took a walk and also started wondering what the GRE is for in the first place. Colleges making use of a generalized way of comparing high school kids I can understand, but for grad school you’ve got people who have already been (presumably) almost all the way through college. Plus, applicants are applying to specific departments to continue (usually) their work in a specific, right? So general aptitude would seem pretty irrelevant compared to an applicant’s actual college work.
Was the GRE just the College Board trying to generate another cash flow? (What, me cynical?)
And yes, I suppose nothing is as clear-cut as I’m making it seem for the sake of argument, or musings.
Just took a walk and also started wondering what the GRE is for in the first place. Colleges making use of a generalized way of comparing high school kids I can understand, but for grad school you’ve got people who have already been (presumably) almost all the way through college. Plus, applicants are applying to specific departments to continue (usually) their work in a specific, right? So general aptitude would seem pretty irrelevant compared to an applicant’s actual college work.
Was the GRE just the College Board trying to generate another cash flow? (What, me cynical?)
And yes, I suppose nothing is as clear-cut as I’m making it seem for the sake of argument, or musings.
“specific” -> “specific field” — I really do need a proofreader, or some patience. Or fewer distractions.
“specific” -> “specific field” — I really do need a proofreader, or some patience. Or fewer distractions.
wj – no need to hack the scoring software, just look for some outline of the norming guidelines used by the humans scoring the samples and you have the template for a high scoring written response. When I was scoring these sorts of things for the UC system, I could score an essay in two minutes or less most of the time. The software is just applying those same standards through neural net training and flagging any borderline or anomalous samples for more human attention.
This is no more a vulnerability or exercise in formalism than what came before.
JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation. Otherwise the universities will try to game the system to get more of their graduates admitted to prestigious programs so that they can raise their placement rates, and thus their rankings, and their tuition.
The question is never whether or not to be cynical about testing, it’s a question of what to be cynical about.
wj – no need to hack the scoring software, just look for some outline of the norming guidelines used by the humans scoring the samples and you have the template for a high scoring written response. When I was scoring these sorts of things for the UC system, I could score an essay in two minutes or less most of the time. The software is just applying those same standards through neural net training and flagging any borderline or anomalous samples for more human attention.
This is no more a vulnerability or exercise in formalism than what came before.
JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation. Otherwise the universities will try to game the system to get more of their graduates admitted to prestigious programs so that they can raise their placement rates, and thus their rankings, and their tuition.
The question is never whether or not to be cynical about testing, it’s a question of what to be cynical about.
JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation.
So basically similar to the SAT in that respect.
JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation.
So basically similar to the SAT in that respect.
At least in STEM fields, graduate schools draw from a global pool.
At least in STEM fields, graduate schools draw from a global pool.
JanieM, I certainly had thoughts like what the hell was the GRE even for the first time I took it. I was applying to programs where I would do formal work on algorithms. (No, not the way people talk about Twitter’s “algorithms”.) Nothing on the GRE, including the math subject exam, measured any of the things that would be important. Could I construct original proofs? Was I competent to write code if that was the way the work went? There wasn’t a writing section at that time, so they weren’t even looking at whether I could string thoughts together coherently for a dissertation?
JanieM, I certainly had thoughts like what the hell was the GRE even for the first time I took it. I was applying to programs where I would do formal work on algorithms. (No, not the way people talk about Twitter’s “algorithms”.) Nothing on the GRE, including the math subject exam, measured any of the things that would be important. Could I construct original proofs? Was I competent to write code if that was the way the work went? There wasn’t a writing section at that time, so they weren’t even looking at whether I could string thoughts together coherently for a dissertation?
What nous said at 6:25. Yes, there are test prep companies that will drill you on style that the ETS software will rate favorably.
Long ago I worked with some researchers who were trying to build an essay reader for the Army. I never asked, but did wonder if the things hammered on by the technical journals I occasionally refereed for would be treated favorably or not by the software. Things like short sentences, no extraneous adverbs, no passive voice, etc.
What nous said at 6:25. Yes, there are test prep companies that will drill you on style that the ETS software will rate favorably.
Long ago I worked with some researchers who were trying to build an essay reader for the Army. I never asked, but did wonder if the things hammered on by the technical journals I occasionally refereed for would be treated favorably or not by the software. Things like short sentences, no extraneous adverbs, no passive voice, etc.
The problem with any “standardized test” is to a) be clear what it is you are actually trying to measure, and b) to make sure that what you actually are measuring (rarely the same thing) is really a valid proxy for what you were interested in.
Without correctly addressing that you end up with tests intended to measure intelligence which actually measure vocabulary. Great if you happened to grow up in a house full of books, where Scrabble was the evening entertainment of choice. Not so good if your home environment was less rich in words.
The problem with any “standardized test” is to a) be clear what it is you are actually trying to measure, and b) to make sure that what you actually are measuring (rarely the same thing) is really a valid proxy for what you were interested in.
Without correctly addressing that you end up with tests intended to measure intelligence which actually measure vocabulary. Great if you happened to grow up in a house full of books, where Scrabble was the evening entertainment of choice. Not so good if your home environment was less rich in words.
The problem with any test is that applicants can improve their performance with appropriate training, and some applicants will have access to better training than others.
The problem with any test is that applicants can improve their performance with appropriate training, and some applicants will have access to better training than others.
In particular training that has nothing to do with the specific topic. Test taking is a skill in itself.
In particular training that has nothing to do with the specific topic. Test taking is a skill in itself.
Whew, thank God I never had to take the GRE! My lack of mathematical ability (except the sort on normal IQ tests) would have doomed me. Also, because I was in a set which took Maths GCSE early, I never did any calculus at all. This is where I think the American system is far superior to ours, we specialise much too early (I didn’t have to do any maths or science after the age of fifteen and a half), and someone who is otherwise fairly educated can be (as I am, and as I am regularly reminded I am on ObWi) functionally innumerate.
Whew, thank God I never had to take the GRE! My lack of mathematical ability (except the sort on normal IQ tests) would have doomed me. Also, because I was in a set which took Maths GCSE early, I never did any calculus at all. This is where I think the American system is far superior to ours, we specialise much too early (I didn’t have to do any maths or science after the age of fifteen and a half), and someone who is otherwise fairly educated can be (as I am, and as I am regularly reminded I am on ObWi) functionally innumerate.
I never did any calculus at all.
Not all that much of a handicap. The kind of Mechanical Engineering I did (Fluid Mechanics) is all about differential equations. Specifically second order, non-linear, partial differential equations. (And I can still rattle that off! 🙂 Since leaving school, I have spent a career working in STEM fields, but I have had exactly zero occasions when calculus was useful, let alone necessary.
At most, it can be useful to be aware that velocity is the first derivative of distance with respect to time, and acceleration is the second. But actual calculation? Not so much. So, GftNC, I can assure you, you aren’t missing much.
I never did any calculus at all.
Not all that much of a handicap. The kind of Mechanical Engineering I did (Fluid Mechanics) is all about differential equations. Specifically second order, non-linear, partial differential equations. (And I can still rattle that off! 🙂 Since leaving school, I have spent a career working in STEM fields, but I have had exactly zero occasions when calculus was useful, let alone necessary.
At most, it can be useful to be aware that velocity is the first derivative of distance with respect to time, and acceleration is the second. But actual calculation? Not so much. So, GftNC, I can assure you, you aren’t missing much.
Just as an aside, my daughter participated in a study of the SAT administered digitally. (No test fee, refund of the previous fee if you took the SAT on paper recently, a $25 Amazon gift card, and the option not to publish the score if you didn’t do as well as you would have liked were the perks.)
What’s interesting to me is that she took the SAT on paper twice – once before the digital SAT and once after. On her second time taking it on paper, she scored 20 points higher than the first time on paper. Taking it digitally, she scored 100 points higher than the first time on paper.
Does this mean she is more suited for digital testing? Does this say anything about kids currently about her age? Was she simply unmotivated taking the SAT the third time? (Mind you, we didn’t receive her digital score until after she took the second on-paper SAT. After we did get her digital score, I told her she could stop taking the SAT.)
Or does this simply mean she had a good day when taking the digital SAT and nothing more about her or her peers?
Just as an aside, my daughter participated in a study of the SAT administered digitally. (No test fee, refund of the previous fee if you took the SAT on paper recently, a $25 Amazon gift card, and the option not to publish the score if you didn’t do as well as you would have liked were the perks.)
What’s interesting to me is that she took the SAT on paper twice – once before the digital SAT and once after. On her second time taking it on paper, she scored 20 points higher than the first time on paper. Taking it digitally, she scored 100 points higher than the first time on paper.
Does this mean she is more suited for digital testing? Does this say anything about kids currently about her age? Was she simply unmotivated taking the SAT the third time? (Mind you, we didn’t receive her digital score until after she took the second on-paper SAT. After we did get her digital score, I told her she could stop taking the SAT.)
Or does this simply mean she had a good day when taking the digital SAT and nothing more about her or her peers?
Also, too, these are rhetorical questions that I know there are no definitive answers to. I can muse, too, JanieM! ;^)
Also, too, these are rhetorical questions that I know there are no definitive answers to. I can muse, too, JanieM! ;^)
Whew, thank God I never had to take the GRE!… I never did any calculus at all.
What some of us — well, me at least — are complaining about is that for the base GRE, excluding subject tests, lack of calculus is not a handicap. If a student mastered the standard four-year Common Core high school math curriculum, they are prepared for the GRE quant section.
I suppose it’s at least arguable that the same applies to the verbal and writing sections — if someone has mastered the standard four-year Common Core English language arts and literacy curriculum, they’re prepared for those parts of the GRE. I don’t think about those as much as I do the math side of things.
Which is an argument for the side here that asks, “What’s the GRE testing that’s useful anyway?”
Whew, thank God I never had to take the GRE!… I never did any calculus at all.
What some of us — well, me at least — are complaining about is that for the base GRE, excluding subject tests, lack of calculus is not a handicap. If a student mastered the standard four-year Common Core high school math curriculum, they are prepared for the GRE quant section.
I suppose it’s at least arguable that the same applies to the verbal and writing sections — if someone has mastered the standard four-year Common Core English language arts and literacy curriculum, they’re prepared for those parts of the GRE. I don’t think about those as much as I do the math side of things.
Which is an argument for the side here that asks, “What’s the GRE testing that’s useful anyway?”
@wj:
I found real analysis — calculus where you prove everything — useful in understanding the theory for certain optimization algorithms that I used for real work. Understanding the theory is important in some cases because, as I used to say, “it tells you which things are likely to blow up in your face.”
For example, Microsoft Excel’s Solver is a generalized reduced gradient algorithm for nonlinear optimization. (When I was in graduate school long ago, I spent a semester being paid to work on a chunk of code that was eventually an ancestor of the original Solver.) GRG algorithms have known theoretical weaknesses under certain conditions. I once dug out my old test suite problems and fed Solver a couple of the ones that gave GRG fits. Solver ran but gave solutions that weren’t close to being right.
OTOH, I used a variety of discrete math techniques regularly for my entire technical career. Lots of people get through college and never realize that there’s huge parts of “math” that they’ve never seen.
@wj:
I found real analysis — calculus where you prove everything — useful in understanding the theory for certain optimization algorithms that I used for real work. Understanding the theory is important in some cases because, as I used to say, “it tells you which things are likely to blow up in your face.”
For example, Microsoft Excel’s Solver is a generalized reduced gradient algorithm for nonlinear optimization. (When I was in graduate school long ago, I spent a semester being paid to work on a chunk of code that was eventually an ancestor of the original Solver.) GRG algorithms have known theoretical weaknesses under certain conditions. I once dug out my old test suite problems and fed Solver a couple of the ones that gave GRG fits. Solver ran but gave solutions that weren’t close to being right.
OTOH, I used a variety of discrete math techniques regularly for my entire technical career. Lots of people get through college and never realize that there’s huge parts of “math” that they’ve never seen.
I found real analysis — calculus where you prove everything…
Well, except for the postulates! (There exists a number “1” such that…) Granted, there weren’t very many postulates.
I found real analysis — calculus where you prove everything…
Well, except for the postulates! (There exists a number “1” such that…) Granted, there weren’t very many postulates.
On her second time taking it on paper, she scored 20 points higher than the first time on paper. Taking it digitally, she scored 100 points higher than the first time on paper.
Paper tests have a set order of questions and ask more questions across the full range of the scoring from easiest to hardest. Test takers have a shot at answering them all.
Digital tests use cybernetic rangefinding to zero in on a projected score. The better you do early on, the higher the score starts and the longer it takes to drop back to the starting point in the middle. The reverse is also true. Bomb the first question and it will take a few more questions to get back to “even.”
Luck of the draw on the first few questions presented can earn you a substantially higher/lower score than you would have received on a paper test, depending on which end of the wheel of fortune you start out upon with the initial selection.
The test gamers recommend that if you start the test and bomb the first two questions, you should quit right there before they can score the test and reschedule for another time. This, of course, favors those with easy access to testing centers and open schedules.
On her second time taking it on paper, she scored 20 points higher than the first time on paper. Taking it digitally, she scored 100 points higher than the first time on paper.
Paper tests have a set order of questions and ask more questions across the full range of the scoring from easiest to hardest. Test takers have a shot at answering them all.
Digital tests use cybernetic rangefinding to zero in on a projected score. The better you do early on, the higher the score starts and the longer it takes to drop back to the starting point in the middle. The reverse is also true. Bomb the first question and it will take a few more questions to get back to “even.”
Luck of the draw on the first few questions presented can earn you a substantially higher/lower score than you would have received on a paper test, depending on which end of the wheel of fortune you start out upon with the initial selection.
The test gamers recommend that if you start the test and bomb the first two questions, you should quit right there before they can score the test and reschedule for another time. This, of course, favors those with easy access to testing centers and open schedules.
This, of course, favors those with easy access to testing centers and open schedules.
And the $ to pay another fee.
Seems like that luck of the draw thing is a pretty big flaw in the way the digital tests are set up. I wonder if admissions committees look at whether scores are from digital vs paper tests.
*****
My high school didn’t offer calculus, but that was a long time ago; a lot of schools didn’t in those days. It’s still barely straggling along as a much tinier Catholic high school, but I don’t know if they offer calculus even now. I would doubt it; it seems more likely that if they had a student who was good enough at math to care, they’d just send ’em to the local branch of Kent State for classes.
I loved math, but I barely struggled through calculus and differential equations to get passing grades. Calc was freshman year and the whole year was pass/fail. (We were the first class to have that system.) Diff eq. was during the strike term (the spring of the Kent State killings), and we were given the option of taking the final in the fall, which I did.
My problem was partly an unacknowledged, in fact undiagnosed, “in over my head” syndrome. (In over my head psychologically and culturally more than academically.) No one helped first-time-in-the-family-to-college kids in those days, much less when the college in question was MIT. And I was too arrogant (and underneath, intimidated) to have taken help if it had been offered. I have often thought that I might well have ended up a physicist after all if I had gone to a more “normal” college.
But I also had other things on my mind, like gradually realizing I was gay, coming to terms with the era I was living through, trying out various new things that hadn’t been on my radar in small-town Ohio, deciding I wasn’t Catholic anymore, etc. So in some ways it was a case of college being wasted on the young.
In the late seventies, while I was back in Boston finishing my dissertation, I worked in the sub-office of MIT admissions that administers the alumni interviewing program. (Alumni volunteers interview undergraduate applicants….) I had a front row view of how admissions is done there, and believe me, it is not simple-mindedly focused on test scores, or simple-minded in any way. Great care is taken with applications. Each one is read by at least two admissions and/or faculty readers, a third if the first two disagree more than usual about an applicant. The application includes student essays, teacher recs, the report of an alum or on-campus interviewer, etc.
There’s a numerical side too, but even the straight numbers are put in context: e.g. the admissions office knows a surprising amount about high schools across the US, and therefore what an applicant’s class rank might imply.
And all that happenes before the lengthy process of figuring out which of these kids to admit….
I don’t know if MIT still does it the way it did in the 1970s, or how other colleges do it. I just wanted to put the whole discussion of standardized tests into a wider context.
This, of course, favors those with easy access to testing centers and open schedules.
And the $ to pay another fee.
Seems like that luck of the draw thing is a pretty big flaw in the way the digital tests are set up. I wonder if admissions committees look at whether scores are from digital vs paper tests.
*****
My high school didn’t offer calculus, but that was a long time ago; a lot of schools didn’t in those days. It’s still barely straggling along as a much tinier Catholic high school, but I don’t know if they offer calculus even now. I would doubt it; it seems more likely that if they had a student who was good enough at math to care, they’d just send ’em to the local branch of Kent State for classes.
I loved math, but I barely struggled through calculus and differential equations to get passing grades. Calc was freshman year and the whole year was pass/fail. (We were the first class to have that system.) Diff eq. was during the strike term (the spring of the Kent State killings), and we were given the option of taking the final in the fall, which I did.
My problem was partly an unacknowledged, in fact undiagnosed, “in over my head” syndrome. (In over my head psychologically and culturally more than academically.) No one helped first-time-in-the-family-to-college kids in those days, much less when the college in question was MIT. And I was too arrogant (and underneath, intimidated) to have taken help if it had been offered. I have often thought that I might well have ended up a physicist after all if I had gone to a more “normal” college.
But I also had other things on my mind, like gradually realizing I was gay, coming to terms with the era I was living through, trying out various new things that hadn’t been on my radar in small-town Ohio, deciding I wasn’t Catholic anymore, etc. So in some ways it was a case of college being wasted on the young.
In the late seventies, while I was back in Boston finishing my dissertation, I worked in the sub-office of MIT admissions that administers the alumni interviewing program. (Alumni volunteers interview undergraduate applicants….) I had a front row view of how admissions is done there, and believe me, it is not simple-mindedly focused on test scores, or simple-minded in any way. Great care is taken with applications. Each one is read by at least two admissions and/or faculty readers, a third if the first two disagree more than usual about an applicant. The application includes student essays, teacher recs, the report of an alum or on-campus interviewer, etc.
There’s a numerical side too, but even the straight numbers are put in context: e.g. the admissions office knows a surprising amount about high schools across the US, and therefore what an applicant’s class rank might imply.
And all that happenes before the lengthy process of figuring out which of these kids to admit….
I don’t know if MIT still does it the way it did in the 1970s, or how other colleges do it. I just wanted to put the whole discussion of standardized tests into a wider context.
The most important thing to understand about the standardized tests is that they were never actually meant to identify the students who were best positioned to succeed at the institution admitting them. They existed from the start as a way to signal the “eliteness” and “selectiveness” of the institution. The college rankings piggy-backed on that for building the institutional brand.
Once they became a bragging too, they did act as a lever for getting a more diverse student body admissions, but those things were an unexpected by-product, not initial intent. The ivies were just as surprised as everyone else when people from outside the WASPy prep schools started outscoring the legacy kids. We have legacy admissions precisely as a way for those with privilege to do an end run around the tests. So it’s the exclusivity, not the predictive power, that institutions value.
As the conversation has shifted in recent years away from exclusivity towards degree completion as a measure of institutional effectiveness, the admissions tests (never a very good predictor of the latter) lost influence in favor of other measures that did correlate with successful completion of a degree.
Now universities try to attract a large core of those likely to complete a degree and then compete for as many other high-tuition/low need students as they can to maximize their budgets and subsidize the others.
Except for the Ivies, of course. They are living off of their endowments and competing for prestige as in the past.
The most important thing to understand about the standardized tests is that they were never actually meant to identify the students who were best positioned to succeed at the institution admitting them. They existed from the start as a way to signal the “eliteness” and “selectiveness” of the institution. The college rankings piggy-backed on that for building the institutional brand.
Once they became a bragging too, they did act as a lever for getting a more diverse student body admissions, but those things were an unexpected by-product, not initial intent. The ivies were just as surprised as everyone else when people from outside the WASPy prep schools started outscoring the legacy kids. We have legacy admissions precisely as a way for those with privilege to do an end run around the tests. So it’s the exclusivity, not the predictive power, that institutions value.
As the conversation has shifted in recent years away from exclusivity towards degree completion as a measure of institutional effectiveness, the admissions tests (never a very good predictor of the latter) lost influence in favor of other measures that did correlate with successful completion of a degree.
Now universities try to attract a large core of those likely to complete a degree and then compete for as many other high-tuition/low need students as they can to maximize their budgets and subsidize the others.
Except for the Ivies, of course. They are living off of their endowments and competing for prestige as in the past.
Digital tests use cybernetic rangefinding to zero in on a projected score.
I’m going to ask my daughter if she could only see the questions one at a time and couldn’t move to the next question before answering the one presented. I never really discussed those details with her. Just, “How’d it go? Did you like it better than on paper? Did you finish any faster?”
Digital tests use cybernetic rangefinding to zero in on a projected score.
I’m going to ask my daughter if she could only see the questions one at a time and couldn’t move to the next question before answering the one presented. I never really discussed those details with her. Just, “How’d it go? Did you like it better than on paper? Did you finish any faster?”
Maybe my grasp of the (English) terminology is faulty but how does none do differential equations (and nonlinear ones to boot) without calculus? Isn’t that a major subsection of calculus?
Maybe my grasp of the (English) terminology is faulty but how does none do differential equations (and nonlinear ones to boot) without calculus? Isn’t that a major subsection of calculus?
I loved math, but I barely struggled through calculus and differential equations to get passing grades.
The “traditional” math path of algebra, pre-calc, calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra is traditional because it is the math foundation for all of the traditional engineering disciplines. So long as public schools are feeding state universities, those classes are not going away.
That said, lots of non-STEM people would be better served by a largely different set of math classes.
I loved math, but I barely struggled through calculus and differential equations to get passing grades.
The “traditional” math path of algebra, pre-calc, calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra is traditional because it is the math foundation for all of the traditional engineering disciplines. So long as public schools are feeding state universities, those classes are not going away.
That said, lots of non-STEM people would be better served by a largely different set of math classes.
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
Maybe my grasp of the (English) terminology is faulty but how does none do differential equations (and nonlinear ones to boot) without calculus? Isn’t that a major subsection of calculus?
I think wj’s point was that he never used the calculus he learned, so not knowing it wasn’t that big of a handicap, even for someone who had to study it to be educated in his field.
I misread it that way at first, myself, so I see where your confusion is coming from.
Maybe my grasp of the (English) terminology is faulty but how does none do differential equations (and nonlinear ones to boot) without calculus? Isn’t that a major subsection of calculus?
I think wj’s point was that he never used the calculus he learned, so not knowing it wasn’t that big of a handicap, even for someone who had to study it to be educated in his field.
I misread it that way at first, myself, so I see where your confusion is coming from.
My high school did not have calculus, senior year math for the presumably college-bound were two one-semester each classes titled Analytic Geometry and Functions. So in theory I suppose it was possible for someone to bail after the first semester and take some other class to fill out the schedule (a number of the literature classes were single-semester), but as best I recall no one did; it was the same teacher and period for both.
When we got to the last two or three weeks of the year Mrs. Taylor changed gears and we got a crash introduction to calculus, which gave me a useful head start on first semester calculus when I started college in the fall.
That senior year with her was my third, Algebra II in 9th grade, Geometry in 10th; had a different teach for Trigonometry in 11th grade. As she had also taught my brothers 5 & 10 years before me, the first year in particular I would sometimes get the parental-style working through names to get to the last one. By senior year she had gotten past that.
My high school did not have calculus, senior year math for the presumably college-bound were two one-semester each classes titled Analytic Geometry and Functions. So in theory I suppose it was possible for someone to bail after the first semester and take some other class to fill out the schedule (a number of the literature classes were single-semester), but as best I recall no one did; it was the same teacher and period for both.
When we got to the last two or three weeks of the year Mrs. Taylor changed gears and we got a crash introduction to calculus, which gave me a useful head start on first semester calculus when I started college in the fall.
That senior year with her was my third, Algebra II in 9th grade, Geometry in 10th; had a different teach for Trigonometry in 11th grade. As she had also taught my brothers 5 & 10 years before me, the first year in particular I would sometimes get the parental-style working through names to get to the last one. By senior year she had gotten past that.
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
I’m always torn on this one, depending on details. For example, the program where I got my Masters in Public Policy (after I decided to do something entirely different) had a mandatory stats class. They waived me out of it — smart decision. Parts of the curriculum terrified me. On data fitting, they went as far as the mechanics for using Excel to do multivariate linear least squares. Then stopped. Not one word on the sorts of analysis that goes into deciding if it’s a good fit, a good model, or if the conditions where that’s even a good approach are satisfied.
I recall in the early days of the pandemic a national news organization had their own model for predicting case growth. Under pressure from someone, they admitted that they were fitting a cubic polynomial to the time series data, that their consultant had told them the underlying process had no relationship to a cubic, but “the R-squared was so much better.”
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
I’m always torn on this one, depending on details. For example, the program where I got my Masters in Public Policy (after I decided to do something entirely different) had a mandatory stats class. They waived me out of it — smart decision. Parts of the curriculum terrified me. On data fitting, they went as far as the mechanics for using Excel to do multivariate linear least squares. Then stopped. Not one word on the sorts of analysis that goes into deciding if it’s a good fit, a good model, or if the conditions where that’s even a good approach are satisfied.
I recall in the early days of the pandemic a national news organization had their own model for predicting case growth. Under pressure from someone, they admitted that they were fitting a cubic polynomial to the time series data, that their consultant had told them the underlying process had no relationship to a cubic, but “the R-squared was so much better.”
When we got to the last two or three weeks of the year Mrs. Taylor changed gears and we got a crash introduction to calculus, which gave me a useful head start on first semester calculus when I started college in the fall.
Anecdote. When I was a freshman in college I took honors calculus (three semesters of work done in two semesters). On the first day the professor asked how many students had taken a year of calculus in high school. A handful from big schools raised their hands. “Advance warning,” he told them. “The pace for this class is ‘bat out of hell.’ For the first six weeks you’re going to think it’s easy because you’ve seen the material. You’ll have arranged your out-of-class time with relatively little spent on calculus. Then we’ll go past what you know and two weeks later you’ll be three weeks behind.” He absolutely nailed it. About eight weeks in that group of students went from confident to absolutely panicked. (Those of us who were seeing it all for the first time were mildly panicked from the first week.)
In some ways it’s good for your first year in college to include a class where when some other event frees up a couple of hours, you think, “Oh, good. I can come closer to being caught up in calculus.”
When we got to the last two or three weeks of the year Mrs. Taylor changed gears and we got a crash introduction to calculus, which gave me a useful head start on first semester calculus when I started college in the fall.
Anecdote. When I was a freshman in college I took honors calculus (three semesters of work done in two semesters). On the first day the professor asked how many students had taken a year of calculus in high school. A handful from big schools raised their hands. “Advance warning,” he told them. “The pace for this class is ‘bat out of hell.’ For the first six weeks you’re going to think it’s easy because you’ve seen the material. You’ll have arranged your out-of-class time with relatively little spent on calculus. Then we’ll go past what you know and two weeks later you’ll be three weeks behind.” He absolutely nailed it. About eight weeks in that group of students went from confident to absolutely panicked. (Those of us who were seeing it all for the first time were mildly panicked from the first week.)
In some ways it’s good for your first year in college to include a class where when some other event frees up a couple of hours, you think, “Oh, good. I can come closer to being caught up in calculus.”
hsh, are you in the twilight time zone? or manipulating space-time?
all the new comments are being inserted before yours….
hsh, are you in the twilight time zone? or manipulating space-time?
all the new comments are being inserted before yours….
I’m puzzled by the notion that calculus is to be viewed as undiscovered mathematical country from whose bourn no traveller returns. That seems to me to be vaguely analogous to seeing the subjunctive mood as fatally difficult for anyone but an full-time grammarian.
I fully agree with that stats is something every thinking person should have some familiarity with. How else can one tell good evidence from bad?
I’m puzzled by the notion that calculus is to be viewed as undiscovered mathematical country from whose bourn no traveller returns. That seems to me to be vaguely analogous to seeing the subjunctive mood as fatally difficult for anyone but an full-time grammarian.
I fully agree with that stats is something every thinking person should have some familiarity with. How else can one tell good evidence from bad?
Two things to get out of the way first:
– I struggled in college (and to a lesser extent in hight school) with math.
– I’ve been told by a few professional mathematicians that I would be an excellent mathematician.
When I read conversations like the one here about mathematical education and people’s experience with it, I always end up thinking that what is being discussed is less about how math should be taught, and more about whether or not the individual in question felt empowered or discouraged by their math education.
I’m not interested in talking about which courses should be required and taught as general ed classes at varying levels of education. I’m of the opinion that Keith Devlin is correct that we are largely approaching the topic from the wrong direction in the first place.
Here is a bit from Devlin’s blog entry entitled “Against Answer Getting:” http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2014/11/against-answer-getting.html
The outdated mindset about the purpose of mathematics that many students bring with them when they transition from school to college is not the only problem many have to overcome. A parallel issue manifests itself when they start to learn about mathematical proofs (if they follow the mathematics path).
My MOOC students are currently right in the middle of that part of the course (proofs), and many are having a very hard time coming to understand what role proofs play and what (therefore) constitutes a good proof.
The dominant perception is that proofs are what mathematicians produce in order to determine mathematical truth. That, of course, is true (at least in an idealistic sense that guides mathematical progress), but as with arithmetic answer getting, it is only part of the story. And in terms of actual mathematical practice, a very small part of the story.
As with answer getting in K-12 math, achieving a logically correct proof is a binary target (right or wrong), which make both very easy to evaluate for correctness and assign a numerical grade. (Ka-ching!)
But let’s pause and ask ourselves how proofs work in practice. If you want to know if Fermat’s Last Theorem is true, you consult a reliable source. Today, any moderately knowledgeable mathematician will tell you the answer: “Yes.” Now you know.
But what if you want to know why it is true. That’s when you need to look at a proof.
In terms of mathematical practice, proofs are about understanding. They are communicative devices we construct to convince ourselves and to convince others.
I run into this time and again with my students from the quanty side of campus. Those who claim to be “math people, not writers” tend to love math because they find comfort in answer getting and panic in the face of ambiguity. The people I know who did end up getting advanced degrees in mathematics proper all loved their liberal arts and humanities classes and value math as a tool to use for better understanding the world when faced with ambiguity.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
Beware of starting to read Devlin’s Angle. I’ve lost a few days to starting at one end and just continuing to read…
Two things to get out of the way first:
– I struggled in college (and to a lesser extent in hight school) with math.
– I’ve been told by a few professional mathematicians that I would be an excellent mathematician.
When I read conversations like the one here about mathematical education and people’s experience with it, I always end up thinking that what is being discussed is less about how math should be taught, and more about whether or not the individual in question felt empowered or discouraged by their math education.
I’m not interested in talking about which courses should be required and taught as general ed classes at varying levels of education. I’m of the opinion that Keith Devlin is correct that we are largely approaching the topic from the wrong direction in the first place.
Here is a bit from Devlin’s blog entry entitled “Against Answer Getting:” http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2014/11/against-answer-getting.html
The outdated mindset about the purpose of mathematics that many students bring with them when they transition from school to college is not the only problem many have to overcome. A parallel issue manifests itself when they start to learn about mathematical proofs (if they follow the mathematics path).
My MOOC students are currently right in the middle of that part of the course (proofs), and many are having a very hard time coming to understand what role proofs play and what (therefore) constitutes a good proof.
The dominant perception is that proofs are what mathematicians produce in order to determine mathematical truth. That, of course, is true (at least in an idealistic sense that guides mathematical progress), but as with arithmetic answer getting, it is only part of the story. And in terms of actual mathematical practice, a very small part of the story.
As with answer getting in K-12 math, achieving a logically correct proof is a binary target (right or wrong), which make both very easy to evaluate for correctness and assign a numerical grade. (Ka-ching!)
But let’s pause and ask ourselves how proofs work in practice. If you want to know if Fermat’s Last Theorem is true, you consult a reliable source. Today, any moderately knowledgeable mathematician will tell you the answer: “Yes.” Now you know.
But what if you want to know why it is true. That’s when you need to look at a proof.
In terms of mathematical practice, proofs are about understanding. They are communicative devices we construct to convince ourselves and to convince others.
I run into this time and again with my students from the quanty side of campus. Those who claim to be “math people, not writers” tend to love math because they find comfort in answer getting and panic in the face of ambiguity. The people I know who did end up getting advanced degrees in mathematics proper all loved their liberal arts and humanities classes and value math as a tool to use for better understanding the world when faced with ambiguity.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
Beware of starting to read Devlin’s Angle. I’ve lost a few days to starting at one end and just continuing to read…
The other Devlin’s Angle post, “The Difference Between Teaching and Instruction,” that I use as a framing device for my teaching statement that gets submitted when I’m up for review:
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html
We need more math teachers and fewer math instructors.
Finland understands this, and that’s why they are the exemplar for good teaching practices in our current moment.
The other Devlin’s Angle post, “The Difference Between Teaching and Instruction,” that I use as a framing device for my teaching statement that gets submitted when I’m up for review:
http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html
We need more math teachers and fewer math instructors.
Finland understands this, and that’s why they are the exemplar for good teaching practices in our current moment.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
Absolutely agree from the direction of math as one of the classic liberal arts. Think like a mathematician; think like an historian; think like an ecologist. I understand that when one starts at law school, they tell you “We’re not teaching you law, we’re teaching you to think like a lawyer.”
Most “math” classes — in terms of student-hours — are actually aimed at applications. The bridge stands, or falls. The satellite reaches orbit, or crashes back through the atmosphere. The computer properly stores the data on the disk so it can be retrieved, or it doesn’t. The power grid is reliable, or not.
I admit that I get irritated from time to time when I read pieces in higher education publications where ethicists assert that technologists need to understand ethics, but that ethicists don’t need to understand technology at all.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
Absolutely agree from the direction of math as one of the classic liberal arts. Think like a mathematician; think like an historian; think like an ecologist. I understand that when one starts at law school, they tell you “We’re not teaching you law, we’re teaching you to think like a lawyer.”
Most “math” classes — in terms of student-hours — are actually aimed at applications. The bridge stands, or falls. The satellite reaches orbit, or crashes back through the atmosphere. The computer properly stores the data on the disk so it can be retrieved, or it doesn’t. The power grid is reliable, or not.
I admit that I get irritated from time to time when I read pieces in higher education publications where ethicists assert that technologists need to understand ethics, but that ethicists don’t need to understand technology at all.
The bridge stands, or falls.
Incontrovertible. 😉
In fact, it’s the example I have always used when I try to explain the difference in feel between alumni weekend at Yale in 1977 (where I worked as a student lackey, and where William F. Buckley’s class was having its 25th reunion) and alumni weekend at MIT a couple of weeks later.
As brutal as MIT can be for students, and as arrogant as people associated with it can be, the need for the bridge to stand up provides a sense of (literally and figuratively) grounding, which the William F. Buckleys of this world do not exhibit.
(I’m sure I’ve gone on this rant here before…)
The bridge stands, or falls.
Incontrovertible. 😉
In fact, it’s the example I have always used when I try to explain the difference in feel between alumni weekend at Yale in 1977 (where I worked as a student lackey, and where William F. Buckley’s class was having its 25th reunion) and alumni weekend at MIT a couple of weeks later.
As brutal as MIT can be for students, and as arrogant as people associated with it can be, the need for the bridge to stand up provides a sense of (literally and figuratively) grounding, which the William F. Buckleys of this world do not exhibit.
(I’m sure I’ve gone on this rant here before…)
Need I say that I was much happier, and fit in much better, at MIT than at Yale? Imagine if I hadn’t had enough sense of self-preservation not to go to Radcliffe. 😉
Need I say that I was much happier, and fit in much better, at MIT than at Yale? Imagine if I hadn’t had enough sense of self-preservation not to go to Radcliffe. 😉
Those who claim to be “math people, not writers” tend to love math because they find comfort in answer getting and panic in the face of ambiguity. The people I know who did end up getting advanced degrees in mathematics proper all loved their liberal arts and humanities classes and value math as a tool to use for better understanding the world when faced with ambiguity.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
I love answer-getting — and puzzles of all kinds.
This surely stems in part from the OCD-ish tendency that runs through most of us in my family. It *is* very comforting, and quite a rush, to get an answer or solve a puzzle — a great feeling of satisfaction. The obsessive side of it made me a decent programmer, as well as a debugger/enhancer of other people’s code. (Which no one else at my company liked to do.) (Y2K anyone?)
Algebra was much more fun for me than geometry in high school, because we didn’t have to do proofs in algebra — being intuitive about getting answers was much quicker and more fun than plodding through proofs. It was my semantics class when I dabbled in linguistics 15 years ago that finally made me appreciate how much fun working out a complex proof can be. (Is that thinking like a mathematician? or a logician?)
Those who claim to be “math people, not writers” tend to love math because they find comfort in answer getting and panic in the face of ambiguity. The people I know who did end up getting advanced degrees in mathematics proper all loved their liberal arts and humanities classes and value math as a tool to use for better understanding the world when faced with ambiguity.
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
I love answer-getting — and puzzles of all kinds.
This surely stems in part from the OCD-ish tendency that runs through most of us in my family. It *is* very comforting, and quite a rush, to get an answer or solve a puzzle — a great feeling of satisfaction. The obsessive side of it made me a decent programmer, as well as a debugger/enhancer of other people’s code. (Which no one else at my company liked to do.) (Y2K anyone?)
Algebra was much more fun for me than geometry in high school, because we didn’t have to do proofs in algebra — being intuitive about getting answers was much quicker and more fun than plodding through proofs. It was my semantics class when I dabbled in linguistics 15 years ago that finally made me appreciate how much fun working out a complex proof can be. (Is that thinking like a mathematician? or a logician?)
The last paragraph of the Devlin’s Angle blog post nous linked:
If those of us in the education business want to do the best we can to prepare our students for life in the 21st century, we need to recognize that in an era when technologies provide instant answers (facts), the one ability they will need above anything else is (creative, reflective) thinking.
And yes, despite my great love of algebra, I would happily rank a number of things are more crucially needed. Not just creative and reflective thinking, but conflict exploration, how to recognize bullshit, etc.
The last paragraph of the Devlin’s Angle blog post nous linked:
If those of us in the education business want to do the best we can to prepare our students for life in the 21st century, we need to recognize that in an era when technologies provide instant answers (facts), the one ability they will need above anything else is (creative, reflective) thinking.
And yes, despite my great love of algebra, I would happily rank a number of things are more crucially needed. Not just creative and reflective thinking, but conflict exploration, how to recognize bullshit, etc.
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
My digital SAT-taking daughter is taking AP stats as a HS senior. I’m not sure if it’s in lieu of calc (don’t recall if she took calc last year), but she’s taking stats regardless. And I agree fully that it’s a great subject to learn, even if you don’t formally apply it later on. Just being able to think in those terms well enough to call bullsh*t is useful.
@Michael Cain: Stats, for instance.
My digital SAT-taking daughter is taking AP stats as a HS senior. I’m not sure if it’s in lieu of calc (don’t recall if she took calc last year), but she’s taking stats regardless. And I agree fully that it’s a great subject to learn, even if you don’t formally apply it later on. Just being able to think in those terms well enough to call bullsh*t is useful.
testing
testing
Anecdote. (To go with Michael Cain’s above)
I took first year calculus as a Freshman, and did mediocre (at best). But then I took the first semester of second year calculus as a 6 week summer session; and the second semester as another 6 week summer session. When I got to grad school, my professors were positively horrified when I told them that “essentially, I never had differential equations.” To get thru my upper division courses, I had basically spent the first half of the term each time learning how to solve the particular differential equation involved — and still managed to do well in the classes. (They made me take another year of advanced calculus. Just to make themselves feel better, I think.)
Anecdote. (To go with Michael Cain’s above)
I took first year calculus as a Freshman, and did mediocre (at best). But then I took the first semester of second year calculus as a 6 week summer session; and the second semester as another 6 week summer session. When I got to grad school, my professors were positively horrified when I told them that “essentially, I never had differential equations.” To get thru my upper division courses, I had basically spent the first half of the term each time learning how to solve the particular differential equation involved — and still managed to do well in the classes. (They made me take another year of advanced calculus. Just to make themselves feel better, I think.)
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
I would generalize this to simply:
we’d be better off with more cross-training.
“Specialization is for insects.”
I think we’d be better off with more cross-training in math classes, less answer getting and more emphasis on learning to think like a mathematician.
I would generalize this to simply:
we’d be better off with more cross-training.
“Specialization is for insects.”
High school geometry was proof heavy. My older brother, who got an ME degree from Georgia Tech but chose not to seek employment in the Reagan era military industrial complex, spent some time as an adjunct instructor at Florida State, including logic courses in the Philosophy department.
High school geometry was proof heavy. My older brother, who got an ME degree from Georgia Tech but chose not to seek employment in the Reagan era military industrial complex, spent some time as an adjunct instructor at Florida State, including logic courses in the Philosophy department.
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
That was me in semantics class. I ended up having a blast. Who knew!
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
That was me in semantics class. I ended up having a blast. Who knew!
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
When I was an undergraduate long ago, math majors were not allowed to take the introductory logic course in the Philosophy Dept for credit towards any block requirements. I took ethics and metaphysics.
There were many students not expecting a Philosophy class to demand mathematical rigor.
When I was an undergraduate long ago, math majors were not allowed to take the introductory logic course in the Philosophy Dept for credit towards any block requirements. I took ethics and metaphysics.
When I was an undergraduate long ago, math majors were not allowed to take the introductory logic course in the Philosophy Dept for credit towards any block requirements.
Ha! I was just about to mention how I took Intro to Logic to satisfy a humanities/social science (yes, philosophy) elective requirement as an EE. Having already written code and done Boolean algebra, I was … well prepared.
It was interesting to me how almost everyone in that class appeared to fall into one of two groups – people for whom symbolic logic was obvious and people for whom it was utterly confounding. Very few people seemed to be in the middle.
When I was an undergraduate long ago, math majors were not allowed to take the introductory logic course in the Philosophy Dept for credit towards any block requirements.
Ha! I was just about to mention how I took Intro to Logic to satisfy a humanities/social science (yes, philosophy) elective requirement as an EE. Having already written code and done Boolean algebra, I was … well prepared.
It was interesting to me how almost everyone in that class appeared to fall into one of two groups – people for whom symbolic logic was obvious and people for whom it was utterly confounding. Very few people seemed to be in the middle.
I was definitely among the latter group, lol.
Unsurprisingly, I would question the value of formal logic for philosophers, unless you’re doing something pretty specialized and math/science related.
Much better to learn German (or French).
I was definitely among the latter group, lol.
Unsurprisingly, I would question the value of formal logic for philosophers, unless you’re doing something pretty specialized and math/science related.
Much better to learn German (or French).
Much better to learn German (or French).
The one thing I really regret about my college education was that my major allowed me to take German or Russian. In hindsight, four semesters of Spanish would have been enormously more useful in my career trajectory.
Much better to learn German (or French).
The one thing I really regret about my college education was that my major allowed me to take German or Russian. In hindsight, four semesters of Spanish would have been enormously more useful in my career trajectory.
The one thing I really regret about my college education was that my major allowed me to take German or Russian. In hindsight, four semesters of Spanish would have been enormously more useful in my career trajectory.
I’d say much the same, but about high school. There, I was counseled that German would be far more useful for a college major in the sciences or engineering. It wasn’t of any visible use. Spanish probably wouldn’t have been of use there either. But would definitely have been useful since.
In fact, enrolling in a Spanish language class is on my short-term ToDo list. Never to late to correct some mistakes.
The one thing I really regret about my college education was that my major allowed me to take German or Russian. In hindsight, four semesters of Spanish would have been enormously more useful in my career trajectory.
I’d say much the same, but about high school. There, I was counseled that German would be far more useful for a college major in the sciences or engineering. It wasn’t of any visible use. Spanish probably wouldn’t have been of use there either. But would definitely have been useful since.
In fact, enrolling in a Spanish language class is on my short-term ToDo list. Never to late to correct some mistakes.
All the Spanish you’ll ever need:
La comida en la cafeteria siempre es mala, y mi motocicleta es en mi abuela.
All the Spanish you’ll ever need:
La comida en la cafeteria siempre es mala, y mi motocicleta es en mi abuela.
A few decades ago German would have still been useful. These days most German scientists and engineers use English even inside Germany, in particular, if they are part of a research group or company with a non-negligible (> 0) number of non-Germans.
When I studied chemistry in the 90ies, English chemistry textbooks were also far cheaper (sometimes just 50% the price) even those that were translations from German.
Where German is still needed is, if older literature is needed since that often has no readily available translation. In those cases knowledge of Russian is also useful (as I found out when some key papers were in Russian which I do not speak [I can read the cyrillic alphabet though]).
Imo, these days Japanese would be more useful in some areas.
A few decades ago German would have still been useful. These days most German scientists and engineers use English even inside Germany, in particular, if they are part of a research group or company with a non-negligible (> 0) number of non-Germans.
When I studied chemistry in the 90ies, English chemistry textbooks were also far cheaper (sometimes just 50% the price) even those that were translations from German.
Where German is still needed is, if older literature is needed since that often has no readily available translation. In those cases knowledge of Russian is also useful (as I found out when some key papers were in Russian which I do not speak [I can read the cyrillic alphabet though]).
Imo, these days Japanese would be more useful in some areas.
hsh: I managed to make a rough guess on my own, but since I never took Spanish I thought I’d better check my work. Acc’ to google:
The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is in my grandmother.
Is this a perfect example of the vagaries of machine translation? Is the second clause a colloquial way of saying “my motorcycle is at my grandmother’s house”? Or … ???
🙂
hsh: I managed to make a rough guess on my own, but since I never took Spanish I thought I’d better check my work. Acc’ to google:
The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is in my grandmother.
Is this a perfect example of the vagaries of machine translation? Is the second clause a colloquial way of saying “my motorcycle is at my grandmother’s house”? Or … ???
🙂
Go learn your languages, people. There are plenty of languages available on Duolingo. I’m currently trying to become minimally functional in Swedish and reviewing my Spanish. Min fru is doing Swedish and French. No reason not to give it 20 minutes a day.
You could even get your übergeek on and learn Klingon or High Valyrian – or Esperanto if you were feeling nostalgia for classic science fiction.
You’ll have to find your own app for Sindarin.
Go learn your languages, people. There are plenty of languages available on Duolingo. I’m currently trying to become minimally functional in Swedish and reviewing my Spanish. Min fru is doing Swedish and French. No reason not to give it 20 minutes a day.
You could even get your übergeek on and learn Klingon or High Valyrian – or Esperanto if you were feeling nostalgia for classic science fiction.
You’ll have to find your own app for Sindarin.
A few decades ago German would have still been useful. These days most German scientists and engineers use English even inside Germany
One of the embarrassments of involvement in international organizations (or even just travelling) is that apparently everybody** speaks English. In addition to their native language, and quite possibly a couple more besides. Being a monolingual American….
I do make it a point, when travelling, to at least learn to say “Thank you” in the local language. Hopefully a couple more phrases, but that one for sure.
** Not just professionals, but everybody from taxi drives to waiters in the restaurants as well. And not just in countries where English is a required from primary school on.
A few decades ago German would have still been useful. These days most German scientists and engineers use English even inside Germany
One of the embarrassments of involvement in international organizations (or even just travelling) is that apparently everybody** speaks English. In addition to their native language, and quite possibly a couple more besides. Being a monolingual American….
I do make it a point, when travelling, to at least learn to say “Thank you” in the local language. Hopefully a couple more phrases, but that one for sure.
** Not just professionals, but everybody from taxi drives to waiters in the restaurants as well. And not just in countries where English is a required from primary school on.
There is, as I have said her before, a lot that native English speakers can do to communicate more effectively in English with international speakers. Learning a second language can help you to see and manage the constructions and idiomatic phrases that will cause confusion or otherwise work against clarity.
There is, as I have said her before, a lot that native English speakers can do to communicate more effectively in English with international speakers. Learning a second language can help you to see and manage the constructions and idiomatic phrases that will cause confusion or otherwise work against clarity.
The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is in my grandmother.
DeepL Translator translates it as: “The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is on my grandmother.” Still not what was intended I’m guessing.
DeepL often gives better translations than Google.
The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is in my grandmother.
DeepL Translator translates it as: “The food in the cafeteria is always bad, and my motorcycle is on my grandmother.” Still not what was intended I’m guessing.
DeepL often gives better translations than Google.
“En” is a bit ambiguous in the above construction. It could be either “in” or “on.” I’d probably use “sobre” instead if I wanted to make it clear that I meant “on.”
“En” is a bit ambiguous in the above construction. It could be either “in” or “on.” I’d probably use “sobre” instead if I wanted to make it clear that I meant “on.”
nous has inspired me. After hearing about it for ages, I have just gone on Duolingo and started to resurrect my rather embryonic (or at any rate long-dormant) Italian! This is a) just for the joy of it, b) because I love going to Italy on holiday, and c) because having studied French and Latin for years, Italian is the easiest possible language for me to learn at this advanced age.
nous has inspired me. After hearing about it for ages, I have just gone on Duolingo and started to resurrect my rather embryonic (or at any rate long-dormant) Italian! This is a) just for the joy of it, b) because I love going to Italy on holiday, and c) because having studied French and Latin for years, Italian is the easiest possible language for me to learn at this advanced age.
And by the way, for anyone watching and enjoying the slo-mo falling apart of the Tories, yet another rat (and a serious rat) leaves the sinking ship…
And by the way, for anyone watching and enjoying the slo-mo falling apart of the Tories, yet another rat (and a serious rat) leaves the sinking ship…
We’ve been dreaming about vacation possibilities and trying to decide between a few enticing European destinations. If it’s the Rhine, then I’ll do a French refresher on Duolingo and the wife will probably do the same for her German.
If it’s Iceland again…we’ll be in English the whole time.
We’ve been dreaming about vacation possibilities and trying to decide between a few enticing European destinations. If it’s the Rhine, then I’ll do a French refresher on Duolingo and the wife will probably do the same for her German.
If it’s Iceland again…we’ll be in English the whole time.
having studied French and Latin for years, Italian is the easiest possible language for me to learn at this advanced age.
Rather similar for me. Growing up in California, Spanish is all around. Example, anyone growing up in California will see “La Jolla”** and automatically say “La Hoya”. Some things are just natural for us that are, from what I’ve seen, pretty much inexplicable to some other Americans from outside the Southwest.
** A city just north of San Diego (another Spanish name 😉
having studied French and Latin for years, Italian is the easiest possible language for me to learn at this advanced age.
Rather similar for me. Growing up in California, Spanish is all around. Example, anyone growing up in California will see “La Jolla”** and automatically say “La Hoya”. Some things are just natural for us that are, from what I’ve seen, pretty much inexplicable to some other Americans from outside the Southwest.
** A city just north of San Diego (another Spanish name 😉
“In” is more nonsensical and thereby the preferred translation for “en.”
Je suis une pamplemousse!
“In” is more nonsensical and thereby the preferred translation for “en.”
Je suis une pamplemousse!
Embrace ambiguity, Pamplemousse.
Embrace ambiguity, Pamplemousse.
Google translator does a proper German translation of that Spanisch sentence.
If it’s Iceland again…we’ll be in English the whole time.
I tried learning Icelandic. It was not a very successful attempt. So, why did I try? Because the original Lazytown* was only available in Icelandic without subtitles. And what brought me to Lazytown? Cake Wrecks (this song to be precise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e10Zo-2KEIM )
*the two stage plays that later gave rise to the TV show.
For comparision: original play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OMx-cFmzuo
Same tune, same actor, different text and context more suitable for US kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngk3Urrpa8k
Google translator does a proper German translation of that Spanisch sentence.
If it’s Iceland again…we’ll be in English the whole time.
I tried learning Icelandic. It was not a very successful attempt. So, why did I try? Because the original Lazytown* was only available in Icelandic without subtitles. And what brought me to Lazytown? Cake Wrecks (this song to be precise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e10Zo-2KEIM )
*the two stage plays that later gave rise to the TV show.
For comparision: original play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OMx-cFmzuo
Same tune, same actor, different text and context more suitable for US kids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngk3Urrpa8k
Next time I go to Iceland I’ll try to learn some of the language. They’ve retained þ and ð, what could be more appealing.
Next time I go to Iceland I’ll try to learn some of the language. They’ve retained þ and ð, what could be more appealing.
We’ve been dreaming about vacation possibilities and trying to decide between a few enticing European destinations. If it’s the Rhine, then I’ll do a French refresher on Duolingo and the wife will probably do the same for her German.
I had enough French and German in high school and college to use them for the language requirements for my PhD. When I went to Brussels for a month for work in 2008, I brushed up a bit on French. It wasn’t enough to have real conversations with local people, but between French per se and the echoes amongst English, German, OE, and Dutch, I was able to read most of the signage and street names and have rudimentary conversations in stores and on the train. You’re making me think about getting out my Pimsleur CDs again! (Which I also used before a short trip to Quebec a few years ago.)
Relating to something wj said above, I spent a weekend in Amsterdam when I was over there, and unlike people in Brussels, pretty much everyone spoke flawless English. But store clerks would still give me a bright smile if I did something so elementary as say to thank you in Dutch.
We’ve been dreaming about vacation possibilities and trying to decide between a few enticing European destinations. If it’s the Rhine, then I’ll do a French refresher on Duolingo and the wife will probably do the same for her German.
I had enough French and German in high school and college to use them for the language requirements for my PhD. When I went to Brussels for a month for work in 2008, I brushed up a bit on French. It wasn’t enough to have real conversations with local people, but between French per se and the echoes amongst English, German, OE, and Dutch, I was able to read most of the signage and street names and have rudimentary conversations in stores and on the train. You’re making me think about getting out my Pimsleur CDs again! (Which I also used before a short trip to Quebec a few years ago.)
Relating to something wj said above, I spent a weekend in Amsterdam when I was over there, and unlike people in Brussels, pretty much everyone spoke flawless English. But store clerks would still give me a bright smile if I did something so elementary as say to thank you in Dutch.
I had enough French and German in high school and college to use them for the language requirements for my PhD.
LOL!
The language requirement in grad school involved translating a (short) academic article — in German in my case. Open dictionary. And there was time to look up every word which was not a cognate, do a literal translation, and then redo it as a free translation. Somehow it seemed very “letter of the law” rather than “spirit of the law.”
I had enough French and German in high school and college to use them for the language requirements for my PhD.
LOL!
The language requirement in grad school involved translating a (short) academic article — in German in my case. Open dictionary. And there was time to look up every word which was not a cognate, do a literal translation, and then redo it as a free translation. Somehow it seemed very “letter of the law” rather than “spirit of the law.”
wj — yes. I was shocked at how easy they made it. Know some grammar, have a dictionary, voila!
I used a year’s class on Old English, centered around Beowulf in OE, as my 3rd language.
wj — yes. I was shocked at how easy they made it. Know some grammar, have a dictionary, voila!
I used a year’s class on Old English, centered around Beowulf in OE, as my 3rd language.
And….another one bites the dust! (Chief whip)
And….another one bites the dust! (Chief whip)
yet another rat (and a serious rat) leaves the sinking ship…
Looks (from afar) like death in slow motion.
I wonder, are there enough sycophants to make up a government? And can it get bad enough that the monarch decides to abandon precedent and ask someone (anyone!) else to form a government?
yet another rat (and a serious rat) leaves the sinking ship…
Looks (from afar) like death in slow motion.
I wonder, are there enough sycophants to make up a government? And can it get bad enough that the monarch decides to abandon precedent and ask someone (anyone!) else to form a government?
wj, in answer to your first question, it seems that she is now appointing Rishi Sunak supporters, so some MPs are saying that a Sunak cabinet is assembling around her, without Sunak.
In answer to your second question: no. The rules about when the monarch asks someone to form a government are pretty ironclad, and there is no chance that Charles (or anyone) will “abandon precedent”.
wj, in answer to your first question, it seems that she is now appointing Rishi Sunak supporters, so some MPs are saying that a Sunak cabinet is assembling around her, without Sunak.
In answer to your second question: no. The rules about when the monarch asks someone to form a government are pretty ironclad, and there is no chance that Charles (or anyone) will “abandon precedent”.
Absolute fncking scenes in Parliament.
We have the worst excuse for a government I’ve seen in my life.
This goes interview some way to summing it up.
https://twitter.com/DanJohnsonNews/status/1582808074875973633
Absolute fncking scenes in Parliament.
We have the worst excuse for a government I’ve seen in my life.
This goes interview some way to summing it up.
https://twitter.com/DanJohnsonNews/status/1582808074875973633
Nigel — it’s interesting to listen to that MP and compare it to the situation in the US. I’m not sure you could find an elected R of any status anywhere who would say things like that about Clickbait or the MAGA “movement” in general. On the one hand, I’m tempted to be envious that you might still have some sane conservatives. On the other, I want to slap him around and ask him whether he doesn’t think he bears some responsibility for the state of his party.
??
Nigel — it’s interesting to listen to that MP and compare it to the situation in the US. I’m not sure you could find an elected R of any status anywhere who would say things like that about Clickbait or the MAGA “movement” in general. On the one hand, I’m tempted to be envious that you might still have some sane conservatives. On the other, I want to slap him around and ask him whether he doesn’t think he bears some responsibility for the state of his party.
??
Yup, I watched Charles Walker on and off on various news programs throughout the early evening. For another sane conservative voice, this is Danny the Fink in this morning’s Times:
I don’t seem to be able to copy and paste without the weird format, so read to the end where his email address is printed. It’s not long.
There’s a good Tory case for raising taxes
A party whose core mission is to conserve has been hijacked by punk libertarians bent on disruption at any cost
Daniel Finkelstein
Tuesday October 18 2022, 5.00pm, The Times
At last, a real Tory budget. This was how sections of the press and right-wing commentators on social media greeted Kwasi Kwarteng’s measures. And even before the whole thing collapsed ignominiously, the reaction did make me wonder.
The headlines seemed to prompt a question: how did they know? How did they know the mini-budget was a real Tory one? I mean, if Kwarteng was doing something Tories rarely do, perhaps it was his budget that wasn’t really Tory, rather than the entire history of the Tory party.
The assertion that his measures were truly Tory seemed to suggest there is some sort of checklist of “real” Tory policies, a set of Tory commandments that almost nobody actually consults. Until the new prime minister found a copy. Under a desk, perhaps.
My point is not mere pedantry. Somehow or other, two profoundly wrong and destructive ideas seem to have taken hold on the right. The first is that tax cuts are always the appropriate Conservative response to any challenge. The second goes further: tax cuts are not only a good policy in all circumstances, they are the only thing that gives meaning to the Conservative Party.
This idea has no support either from common sense or from the history of the Conservative Party.
It is as well to start with this: a stable and prosperous society requires a welfare state and some strong, properly financed and collectively provided services. Yet these rest on the economic endeavours of individuals, the protection of property rights and the freedom to create and innovate. Making sure the space for such endeavour is large enough and not squeezed out by high taxes and overzealous regulation is an important task. And in modern times it has generally fallen to the Conservative Party to carry it out.
Yet there is a big jump from this position to a sort of punk libertarian Conservatism, which regards tax cuts as the only lever the party has to pull. And feels the party is lost when (as now) it isn’t possible to pull it.
There will be moments when the obligations of the state are greater than usual, making it temporarily necessary to raise more government revenue. A war, for instance. Or a deadly infectious disease. There will be other moments when state obligations remain unchanged but the economy is temporary smaller, raising the tax burden. In both cases, tax cuts are not sagacious.
It seems astonishing to have to explain this. Yet the recent mini-budget suggests it is necessary. Understandable Conservative discomfort at high taxes translated into a deeply imprudent proposal to borrow and hope (against all evidence) that the cuts would just pay for themselves. It was the abandonment of common sense.
Perhaps for this reason the Conservative Party has often in its history been a tax-raising party rather than a tax-cutting one. Tories introduced income tax and then reintroduced it. Michael Hicks Beach, chancellor to that most robust of Tories, the Marquess of Salisbury, introduced a range of taxes to pay for the war in South Africa. Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin both fought on platforms of increasing tariffs, a central Tory plank for more than two decades.
When Mrs Thatcher became prime minister her first act was to raise taxes, and the average tax burden over her premiership was higher than that during the tenure of Labour’s Jim Callaghan. The average tax burden under David Cameron was higher than under Gordon Brown (though the increase was smaller than the one between Thatcher and Callaghan).
Both Cameron and Thatcher were pursuing authentically Conservative policies. They were trying to restore the national finances. Raw figures about the tax burden are silent on these other objectives. As they are on the politics, with voter sentiment fluctuating between a desire for security (prompting more collective spending) and an instinct for liberty (allowing lower spending and tax).
Conservatives do want a freer economy and to encourage the independence of individuals. And they do have to be robust in resisting the pressing demands to spend ever more on collectively provided goods. At the margin such demands are plausible, but on average they can be ruinous. Yet such resistance cannot always mean cutting taxes. Nor is cutting taxes the only authentic Tory policy.
Authentic Conservatism involves so much more. Defending the union; protecting liberty and democracy at home and abroad, using force if necessary; slowing ill-considered change while welcoming gradual improvement; shaping national identity and a sense of shared history and culture; defending institutions and the constitution; respecting the limits of government; defending the importance of private property and the exchange economy; opposing nihilistic protest movements; standing firm against strikes that are mere assertions of vested interest; ensuring our children inherit a country we have conserved and improved. This is not an exhaustive list.
And it is obvious that some of these items might conflict with reducing taxes. It is surely the job of a Conservative government to ensure the legal system works, for instance, which might cost more than we are paying. And it is definitely Conservative to ensure we prosecute the war in Ukraine successfully, which will continue to be expensive. There are any number of other examples. If being Tory means cutting taxes, and Conservatism means nothing without it, why are almost all Conservatives in favour of a costly independent nuclear deterrent?
It is reasonable to be concerned at the drift upwards in taxation, some of it the result of Boris Johnson’s spending instincts. But if I was looking for where the Conservative Party has been inauthentic over the past five years or so, tax isn’t where I’d start.
Above all, the Conservative Party exists to protect the stability of the country. Despite a streak of pessimism about change, it has always thought Britain one of the best places on earth to live and its institutions a beacon to the world. It has made mistakes aplenty but its success lies in the way this country has gently changed over hundreds of years, becoming a modern nation without revolutions or civil wars.
Yet in the past few years the party has become a relentless critic of the country it once loved. It has seen its job as to disrupt rather than to conserve. Some of its leaders have become contemptuous of its rules and its rulers, and careless of its institutions. And it has made many people very uncomfortable. The vast number of voters telling pollsters they now won’t vote Conservative are quietly conservative. And they find the obsession with tax cuts at the expense of every conservative value utterly bewildering.
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk
Yup, I watched Charles Walker on and off on various news programs throughout the early evening. For another sane conservative voice, this is Danny the Fink in this morning’s Times:
I don’t seem to be able to copy and paste without the weird format, so read to the end where his email address is printed. It’s not long.
There’s a good Tory case for raising taxes
A party whose core mission is to conserve has been hijacked by punk libertarians bent on disruption at any cost
Daniel Finkelstein
Tuesday October 18 2022, 5.00pm, The Times
At last, a real Tory budget. This was how sections of the press and right-wing commentators on social media greeted Kwasi Kwarteng’s measures. And even before the whole thing collapsed ignominiously, the reaction did make me wonder.
The headlines seemed to prompt a question: how did they know? How did they know the mini-budget was a real Tory one? I mean, if Kwarteng was doing something Tories rarely do, perhaps it was his budget that wasn’t really Tory, rather than the entire history of the Tory party.
The assertion that his measures were truly Tory seemed to suggest there is some sort of checklist of “real” Tory policies, a set of Tory commandments that almost nobody actually consults. Until the new prime minister found a copy. Under a desk, perhaps.
My point is not mere pedantry. Somehow or other, two profoundly wrong and destructive ideas seem to have taken hold on the right. The first is that tax cuts are always the appropriate Conservative response to any challenge. The second goes further: tax cuts are not only a good policy in all circumstances, they are the only thing that gives meaning to the Conservative Party.
This idea has no support either from common sense or from the history of the Conservative Party.
It is as well to start with this: a stable and prosperous society requires a welfare state and some strong, properly financed and collectively provided services. Yet these rest on the economic endeavours of individuals, the protection of property rights and the freedom to create and innovate. Making sure the space for such endeavour is large enough and not squeezed out by high taxes and overzealous regulation is an important task. And in modern times it has generally fallen to the Conservative Party to carry it out.
Yet there is a big jump from this position to a sort of punk libertarian Conservatism, which regards tax cuts as the only lever the party has to pull. And feels the party is lost when (as now) it isn’t possible to pull it.
There will be moments when the obligations of the state are greater than usual, making it temporarily necessary to raise more government revenue. A war, for instance. Or a deadly infectious disease. There will be other moments when state obligations remain unchanged but the economy is temporary smaller, raising the tax burden. In both cases, tax cuts are not sagacious.
It seems astonishing to have to explain this. Yet the recent mini-budget suggests it is necessary. Understandable Conservative discomfort at high taxes translated into a deeply imprudent proposal to borrow and hope (against all evidence) that the cuts would just pay for themselves. It was the abandonment of common sense.
Perhaps for this reason the Conservative Party has often in its history been a tax-raising party rather than a tax-cutting one. Tories introduced income tax and then reintroduced it. Michael Hicks Beach, chancellor to that most robust of Tories, the Marquess of Salisbury, introduced a range of taxes to pay for the war in South Africa. Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin both fought on platforms of increasing tariffs, a central Tory plank for more than two decades.
When Mrs Thatcher became prime minister her first act was to raise taxes, and the average tax burden over her premiership was higher than that during the tenure of Labour’s Jim Callaghan. The average tax burden under David Cameron was higher than under Gordon Brown (though the increase was smaller than the one between Thatcher and Callaghan).
Both Cameron and Thatcher were pursuing authentically Conservative policies. They were trying to restore the national finances. Raw figures about the tax burden are silent on these other objectives. As they are on the politics, with voter sentiment fluctuating between a desire for security (prompting more collective spending) and an instinct for liberty (allowing lower spending and tax).
Conservatives do want a freer economy and to encourage the independence of individuals. And they do have to be robust in resisting the pressing demands to spend ever more on collectively provided goods. At the margin such demands are plausible, but on average they can be ruinous. Yet such resistance cannot always mean cutting taxes. Nor is cutting taxes the only authentic Tory policy.
Authentic Conservatism involves so much more. Defending the union; protecting liberty and democracy at home and abroad, using force if necessary; slowing ill-considered change while welcoming gradual improvement; shaping national identity and a sense of shared history and culture; defending institutions and the constitution; respecting the limits of government; defending the importance of private property and the exchange economy; opposing nihilistic protest movements; standing firm against strikes that are mere assertions of vested interest; ensuring our children inherit a country we have conserved and improved. This is not an exhaustive list.
And it is obvious that some of these items might conflict with reducing taxes. It is surely the job of a Conservative government to ensure the legal system works, for instance, which might cost more than we are paying. And it is definitely Conservative to ensure we prosecute the war in Ukraine successfully, which will continue to be expensive. There are any number of other examples. If being Tory means cutting taxes, and Conservatism means nothing without it, why are almost all Conservatives in favour of a costly independent nuclear deterrent?
It is reasonable to be concerned at the drift upwards in taxation, some of it the result of Boris Johnson’s spending instincts. But if I was looking for where the Conservative Party has been inauthentic over the past five years or so, tax isn’t where I’d start.
Above all, the Conservative Party exists to protect the stability of the country. Despite a streak of pessimism about change, it has always thought Britain one of the best places on earth to live and its institutions a beacon to the world. It has made mistakes aplenty but its success lies in the way this country has gently changed over hundreds of years, becoming a modern nation without revolutions or civil wars.
Yet in the past few years the party has become a relentless critic of the country it once loved. It has seen its job as to disrupt rather than to conserve. Some of its leaders have become contemptuous of its rules and its rulers, and careless of its institutions. And it has made many people very uncomfortable. The vast number of voters telling pollsters they now won’t vote Conservative are quietly conservative. And they find the obsession with tax cuts at the expense of every conservative value utterly bewildering.
daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk
A party whose core mission is to conserve has been hijacked by punk libertarians bent on disruption at any cost
We have seen the same phenomena here: libertarians claiming to be conservatives. Probably because it allows them to coopt support from people who would want no part of their program, but look no deeper than the label.
A party whose core mission is to conserve has been hijacked by punk libertarians bent on disruption at any cost
We have seen the same phenomena here: libertarians claiming to be conservatives. Probably because it allows them to coopt support from people who would want no part of their program, but look no deeper than the label.
After half a decade of Brexit, they all hate each other.
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1582803182270713856
MPs variously describing tonight’s voting process as “total carnage” and “utter madness”, with Cabinet minister Jacon Rees-Mogg reportedly shouting “it’s not a confidence vote” and Tory colleagues apparently telling him “fuck off”
After half a decade of Brexit, they all hate each other.
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1582803182270713856
MPs variously describing tonight’s voting process as “total carnage” and “utter madness”, with Cabinet minister Jacon Rees-Mogg reportedly shouting “it’s not a confidence vote” and Tory colleagues apparently telling him “fuck off”
After half a decade of Brexit, they all hate each other
No doubt it adds to their stress levels that they cannot admit (perhaps even to themselves) that Brexit was a terrible idea. And anyone with two brain cells to rub together should have been able to see it.
After half a decade of Brexit, they all hate each other
No doubt it adds to their stress levels that they cannot admit (perhaps even to themselves) that Brexit was a terrible idea. And anyone with two brain cells to rub together should have been able to see it.
New thread, as this one probably can’t contain a discussion of the omnishambles in the UK.
About learning languages, a favorite story about Dwight Bolinger, who was my idea of a linguist’s linguist. When he was taking his PhD exams, he had to demonstrate a reading proficiency in German. The examiner handed a book open to a passage that he wanted him to translate. Bolinger took a glance at the passage, and realized it was too hard for him, so he dropped the book and the examiner reopened the book to a different passage that he could handle.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/416417
New thread, as this one probably can’t contain a discussion of the omnishambles in the UK.
About learning languages, a favorite story about Dwight Bolinger, who was my idea of a linguist’s linguist. When he was taking his PhD exams, he had to demonstrate a reading proficiency in German. The examiner handed a book open to a passage that he wanted him to translate. Bolinger took a glance at the passage, and realized it was too hard for him, so he dropped the book and the examiner reopened the book to a different passage that he could handle.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/416417
I saw something today by some group that claims to map polling numbers to seats in Parliament that asserts if an election were held today, the Tories would win one seat, Labour would get an absolute majority, and the SNP would be the loyal opposition. The last one seems astounding to me — the second largest group of MPs would be advocating for “break the country up.”
I find the latter particularly fascinating since I argue that in 25-30 years, “break the country up” will be a mainstream idea in the US.
I saw something today by some group that claims to map polling numbers to seats in Parliament that asserts if an election were held today, the Tories would win one seat, Labour would get an absolute majority, and the SNP would be the loyal opposition. The last one seems astounding to me — the second largest group of MPs would be advocating for “break the country up.”
I find the latter particularly fascinating since I argue that in 25-30 years, “break the country up” will be a mainstream idea in the US.
I argue that in 25-30 years, “break the country up” will be a mainstream idea in the US.
The challenge will be to figure out how to draw the geographic lines between the parts. Unless you are willing to have a horde of (mostly, but not entirely, urban) islands dotting a lightly populated sea.
I argue that in 25-30 years, “break the country up” will be a mainstream idea in the US.
The challenge will be to figure out how to draw the geographic lines between the parts. Unless you are willing to have a horde of (mostly, but not entirely, urban) islands dotting a lightly populated sea.
The challenge will be to figure out how to draw the geographic lines between the parts. Unless you are willing to have a horde of (mostly, but not entirely, urban) islands dotting a lightly populated sea.
Well, if we are seeing a roll-up of the Enlightenment – which is what the hard right here and in Europe is advocating for, and the idea of the liberal nation state has lost its legitimacy, then we may be seeing new conditions under which the other two rival governing system from Renaissance Europe find a second chance.
What you describe there is basically the model of the Italian City States – weak territorial integrity, but dominant economies protected by professional military forces.
The other model would be the Hansa, which would have the big corporations taking the place of the big city governments as the governing body.
The more the rich and the paranoid right turn against federal oversight, the better the conditions become for these other two models to compete in the resulting vacuum.
The challenge will be to figure out how to draw the geographic lines between the parts. Unless you are willing to have a horde of (mostly, but not entirely, urban) islands dotting a lightly populated sea.
Well, if we are seeing a roll-up of the Enlightenment – which is what the hard right here and in Europe is advocating for, and the idea of the liberal nation state has lost its legitimacy, then we may be seeing new conditions under which the other two rival governing system from Renaissance Europe find a second chance.
What you describe there is basically the model of the Italian City States – weak territorial integrity, but dominant economies protected by professional military forces.
The other model would be the Hansa, which would have the big corporations taking the place of the big city governments as the governing body.
The more the rich and the paranoid right turn against federal oversight, the better the conditions become for these other two models to compete in the resulting vacuum.
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This is a test comment.