Understanding Russia & Putin

[Lyubov]

This less about understanding Putin and is now 5 days old but it gives a decent rundown of the more micro logistics of the battle itself and why it’s been a disaster for Russia so far. Hope they do a new one soon. 

[hello1234]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't really see these psychologists as caring to understand the complexities of running a country like Russia, or the relativity of survival agendas. They are treating this issue like a psychological problem when really it is much more interesting and deeper than that. They are applying Western standards to the unique job of running a country like Russia.

So, no, I don't take Western psychologists on this issue seriously. I don't trust that they understand Putin's frame of mind correctly, or that they even care to understand him.

Understanding the leader of a country like Russia or China is an extremely nuanced matter which requires much deeper thinking than what psychologists are trained to do.

Please share which psychologists assessments you have watched to make such a statement? The ones that I saw are all pretty nuanced. Plus I watched russian psychologists do a review on him, not just western, even pre-invasion. 

Also, like I said, many “political analysts” lack a psychological background. This analysis requires a holistic approach. Having someone “autistic” analyzing this from a logical POV is not taking a “holistic” approach. 

Why do you dismiss and belittle psychology so much? Do you think that psychologists are inherently incapable of  understanding the political situation and of “deep thinking”? For example, what makes a film director like Oliver Stone more qualified than a psychologist?

Is it perhaps because a film director is more “flashy” and “charming”? His job is to make a product sell, to make it interesting to his audience - not necessarily to get to the truth.    

I also feel you’re underestimating what I, and others, are trying to argue here quite a bit and you seem to be very stubborn about your own POV. You presume a lot about the people here without trying to understand their POV. 

Do you think you yourself are autistic? Are you aware of your limitations or do you truly believe you’ve reached some unmatched levels of development?  

Do you know much about personality types? Do you see that you tend to lean more towards logical/factual aspects of the situation and undermine the emotional/psychological side of it? Do you understand that people who lean in a different direction, are not “unable to see outside one's own worldview” but rather see things that you don’t? Many people are trying to tell you “I see your point, but” - why don’t you see that, but instead presume they are ignorant?

Edited March 7, 2022 by hello1234

[tsuki]

42 minutes ago, hello1234 said:

Why do you dismiss and belittle psychology so much? Do you think that psychologists are inherently incapable of  understanding the political situation and of “deep thinking”?

Leo is notoriously biased against psychologists and psychotherapy. I never got a useful answer to this question that would stem from his direct experience with psychotherapy. I suspect that either he has never tried it, or got too scared of the results so he demonizes it now.

Edited March 7, 2022 by tsuki

[Guru Peter Jordanson]

Thank you Leo for using common sense.

[BlueOak]

6 hours ago, K Ghoul said:

Zelensky is a small guy who got played by big boys who used him in their interests. Politics is just business on a big scale, in order to play at that level one has to have a mentality suitable for that level. I noticed he’s no longer wearing a suit - playing a serious man doing serious politics with serious politicians in real life probably isn’t as fun as he thought it would be.

Missing the Ukrainian perspective completely, just like the title video of this thread that focuses on great powers. Then Demonizing the man like people are doing with Putin.

[Preety_India]

This explains a lot, a hell lot. 

 

[zurew]

1 hour ago, hello1234 said:

Why do you dismiss and belittle psychology so much? Do you think that psychologists are inherently incapable of  understanding the political situation and of “deep thinking”?

You and Leo come to this war issue from different angles and with a different kind of epistemological package. Its clear that this diasgreement won't be solved here, because its a fundamental disagreement about how to even start to understand this issue, or to what fundamental assumptions one can make to try to understand. We can switch it up, and sometimes use different kind of assumptions to operate from, and to come to our conclusions. We can just use your assumption (that psychologist can remotely accurately diagnose Putin), when we do that we can come to the same conclusions as you, but it will be just one explanation from the many. Now we can switch it up and we can operate on the assumption that he is not a psychopath or sociopath or a narcissist, and we can travel this road all the way down, lets see what conclusions we can derive from this.

[Michael569]

Damn! Listening to John talk was quite a reality buster. 

Shows you the immense value of being a history student. 

[BlueOak]

@Preety_India

*Missing the aggression of Authoritarian Regimes that causes the fear and the will or want to be aggressive.
*Missing the rising eastern powers changing the balance within Russia, Nato, America, Europe etc. The fear and reaction this causes.
*Missing the meddling of the east in west politics.
*Again Missing Ukraines perspective
*Missing the Eastern European History and Perspective, the historic Fear of Russia.
*Equating Nato with America and thinking there was unity there on these all operations. When at best there was tolerance.
*Missing Russia's internal moves to align its own politics more with China and the fear of a new Stalin.
*Missing the numerous historical proxy wars across the globe with Russia in them. People seem to think it was only NATO that was active in these civil wars.
*Crediting NATO with being able to control the people's minds in these countries, that they had no agency themselves in these conflicts.

You get the idea, that's just off the top of my head. It such a biased take and i've seen it repeated so often that I am beginning to think people would just prefer the scapegoat. Sorry to come off frustrated here with you, I am not, I am frustrated with people's lack of will to look at a wider perspective.

Edited March 7, 2022 by BlueOak

[Andyforreal]

2 hours ago, hello1234 said:

Please share which psychologists assessments you have watched to make such a statement? The ones that I saw are all pretty nuanced. Plus I watched russian psychologists do a review on him, not just western, even pre-invasion. 

Also, like I said, many “political analysts” lack a psychological background. This analysis requires a holistic approach. Having someone “autistic” analyzing this from a logical POV is not taking a “holistic” approach. 

Why do you dismiss and belittle psychology so much? Do you think that psychologists are inherently incapable of  understanding the political situation and of “deep thinking”? For example, what makes a film director like Oliver Stone more qualified than a psychologist?

Is it perhaps because a film director is more “flashy” and “charming”? His job is to make a product sell, to make it interesting to his audience - not necessarily to get to the truth.    

I also feel you’re underestimating what I, and others, are trying to argue here quite a bit and you seem to be very stubborn about your own POV. You presume a lot about the people here without trying to understand their POV. 

Do you think you yourself are autistic? Are you aware of your limitations or do you truly believe you’ve reached some unmatched levels of development?  

Do you know much about personality types? Do you see that you tend to lean more towards logical/factual aspects of the situation and undermine the emotional/psychological side of it? Do you understand that people who lean in a different direction, are not “unable to see outside one's own worldview” but rather see things that you don’t? Many people are trying to tell you “I see your point, but” - why don’t you see that, but instead presume they are ignorant?

Psychiatrist will say whatever needs to be said about Putin, if someone's PhD gives the authority to manipulate your worldview then you're truly lost

But that doesn't mean I don't encourage people who need help to talk to a professional

 

 

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

@Preety_India

*Missing the aggression of Authoritarian Regimes that causes the fear and the will or want to be aggressive.
*Missing the rising eastern powers changing the balance within Russia, Nato, America, Europe etc. The fear and reaction this causes.
*Missing the meddling of the east in west politics.
*Again Missing Ukraines perspective
*Missing the Eastern European History and Perspective, the historic Fear of Russia.
*Equating Nato with America and thinking there was unity there on these all operations. When at best there was tolerance.
*Missing Russia's internal moves to align its own politics more with China and the fear of a new Stalin.
*Missing the numerous historical proxy wars across the globe with Russia in them. People seem to think it was only NATO that was active in these civil wars.
*Crediting NATO with being able to control these countries people's minds, that they had no agency themselves in these conflicts.

You get the idea, that's just off the top of my head. It such a biased take and i've seen it repeated so often that I am beginning to think people would just prefer the scapegoat. Sorry to come off frustrated here with you, I am not, I am frustrated with people's lack of will to look at a wider perspective.

Thank you. I'll try to review all these points again. 

 

[mmKay]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The entire series of interviews is 4hr+ long.

You have to buy it. The free clips don't do it justice. It's really insightful and REAL. No BS.

Oh wow I was amazed how could someone just hang out with the Vlad for a few youtube videos.

" Oscar®-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone was granted unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin during more than a dozen interviews over two years, with no topic off-limits. This remarkable four-part documentary series provides intimate insight into Putin's personal and professional lives, from his childhood under communism, to his rise to power, his relations with four U.S. presidents, and his surprising takes on U.S.-Russian relations today. Witness the most detailed portrait of Putin ever granted to a Western interviewer. "

Aparently if you live in the US you can watch it for free with an "amazon showtime trial account"  or in my case i just purchased it with an Audible token for 9.99€

What a fucking time to be a live wow.

[BlueOak]

@Preety_India

Sorry if I was harsh. Just emotion coming up. An opposite perspective might be:

*The self righteous attitude of western leaders that they know best.
*Belief that democracy was right for everyone.
*The ability to distance ourselves from others suffering, its over there on TV so it doesn't matter.
*An entire industry in America and other countries dedicated to causing as much war as possible for profit.
*People being excited about war, fixated on its 24 hour coverage. Media and films highlighting this
*The belief that we are safer if one country rules the world and we align with its values.
*WW2 causing such trauma that we wanted a single global power to save us from it happening again.
*People in Power using division as a way to make a name for themselves
*The cold war. The belief communism or socialism needs to be fought globally by force of arms, and by using anyone to do it.

That's off the top of my head for another non NATO perspective.

[Preety_India]

2 minutes ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is a reason, that ancient Greeks hated "tyrants" (people with absolute power), and were among the first ones to adopt first forms of democracy. It's the best thing we got. Dictatorship shouldn't even be thought of as an option, in my opinion.

Democracy is not perfect, sorry. 

Maybe we can have a combination of democratic and dictatorship. 

 

[zurew]

18 minutes ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Dictatorship shouldn't even be thought of as an option, in my opinion.

Yeah, its fair to say that democracy is higher, however, what would be interesting to think about , is that, how useful would democracy be,  back in the middle ages? I think it definitely requires a certain type of development first, to be able to even think about democracy.

Sometimes, when the political sphere is so polarized most people can't agree on basically anything, even on the facts, then the development is really hard to continue. Of course, that does not mean that dictatorship would be better, but from an dictator's pov, it is better because by excluding people decision making,because the country can develop easier on an economic level, especially when every issue is radically polarized (assuming that economic power is the most important for that dictator).

[Hello from Russia]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

he situation reminds of this scenario: guys at the corporate office have a culture of groping women's asses. They grope ass every week. The couple of women who work there keep telling them to stop, it's hurtful, but the guys think it's all just fun and games and that no one is getting hurt. So they keep groping ass for 10 years. Then some woman finally get fed up and tells them, "If you touch my ass one more time I'm going to fight back." But they laugh it off. Then one day they grab her ass  and shes stabs one of the guys in the dick with a letter opener. All the guys are shocked, surprised, and horrified. "OMG! How could this woman be such an insane psychopath! What's the big deal? All we were doing was just grabbing some ass. That isn't hurting anyone. Ass is great for grabbin'. That's what ass if for. Anyhow boys... let's get back to groping that ass. Let's grope some titties too. I hear a few boys in accounting want join in. What's the big deal? Every man has the right to freely choose to be part of our ass-grabbin club. Let's throw them a welcome party. And in the future if any woman complains about us, we'll have our boys in accounting cut her salary in half. That'll make her think twice."

Lmao

Edited March 7, 2022 by Hello from Russia

[Hello from Russia]

14 minutes ago, zurew said:

Yeah, its fair to say that democracy is higher, however, what would be interesting to think about , is that, how useful would democracy be,  back in the middle ages? I think it definitely requires a certain type of development first, to be able to even think about democracy.

Sometimes, when the political sphere is so polarized most people can't agree on basically anything, even on the facts, then the development is really hard to continue. Of course, that does not mean that dictatorship would be better, but from an dictator's pov, it is better because by excluding people decision making,because the country can develop easier on an economic level, especially when every issue is radically polarized (assuming that economic power is the most important for that dictator).

Democracy isn't higher/better if most people in society have no clue

[zurew]

@Knowledge Hoarder

2 minutes ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

Country will be able to make decisions faster, but at what cost? Most dictators are not experts in anything, other than how to keep holding on to their power. There's no guarantee, that if I was a dictator, I would listen to qualified people. Many catastrophic decisions can be made. It's a big hazard.

Yeah this is true for sure. Most of the catasthrophes are happenning, because the lense is too narrow and the governer wants to optimise for one or two characteristics and ignore all the other ones, not realising that it creates more chaos overall especially in the longterm. But one example could be, China. They are really good on an economic level, and i think arugments could be made that it is somewhat because there is no democracy there. But again i am not advocating either for any authorian governship, but it has value to see the differences and trying to puzzle things out.

[Blackhawk]

Here's some articles for you Putin lovers and Nato/west haters:

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/

 

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=natopress&utm_campaign=20210103_setting_the_record_straight&fbclid=IwAR0wZFph6STvseHx4Nc02-EmOxxgeKKa7FJxfgfp6id8lqZE0g7j4HAdud4#myths

Edited March 7, 2022 by Blackhawk

[K Ghoul]

29 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

Here's some articles for you Putin lovers and Nato/west haters:

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=natopress&utm_campaign=20210103_setting_the_record_straight&fbclid=IwAR0wZFph6STvseHx4Nc02-EmOxxgeKKa7FJxfgfp6id8lqZE0g7j4HAdud4#myths

Yep, journalists gotta thinks twice now when showing “destroyed by Russian troops” houses and schools without mentioning that Ukrainian army deliberately places themselves and hides in places of civilian residences and then cries that Russians are killing their people.