Comment by dagenleg
14 hours ago
You're claiming that everything is fine because Russians have procedures in place. Russians. You're appealing for calm based on the trust in Russian competence, after referencing Sverdlovsk incident. It's just too funny.
I am listening, please explain what else would show competence in the regard of biodefense, than that the people in charge of Russian biodefense can and will reliably identify and contain outbreaks of dangerous pathogens in time to prevent a national or even global outbreak reliably, since at least ’79?
If you want to go down the incompetence route with potential weapons of mass destruction, you could also ask why US Americans allow their army to have access to nuclear weapons.
There were multiple recorded incidents where American citizens almost got atomised on American soil (Broken Arrow operations). Not because of individual mistakes but institutional incompetence.
But you see no one fearmongering about that in public. Because they have proven they can lose a nuclear weapon and recover it, without harming the public.
Just like a single young Russian woman can fuck up and they contain the fuckup without harming the public.
There are about 1000 competent people in an army of the size of Russia, China or the US and that’s it.
It’s expected that most soldiers are incompetent, and just need to follow orders, and in ideal case be patriotic enough to believe they sacrifice themselves for the greater good if they get sent on a suicide mission. Russia is no different from any other army in that regard.
But I honestly consider the Russian forces tasked with biodefense and nuclear more competent than most of their other counterparts in other nations. They frequently train and you get hung by the neck if you leave a blast door open to let the pizza guy in.
In Wyoming you get promoted to three-star nuclear doofus in charge if you do that.
Feel free to read this if you want to know more about the people tasked with preventing nuclear incidents on American soil.
I would link the official page on the Air Force website (https://www.compliance.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-1312...), but the Trump administration is silently deleting all of these documents.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/963093/afd-131219-045...
Just one of the highlights.
[Maj Gen Carey] insists that we go to this place called La Cantina, I think it was... it was a Mexican place. And I was kind of surprised... I wouldn't pick a Mexican place to go to in Russia but all right, if that's where he wants to go, we'll go there.
So we show up and it turns out that I guess he somehow found out that this place had a band that plays and so he was really intent on singing with the band. He wanted to sing with the band. So we get in and it's extremely loud and the band is playing and he keeps asking the waitress and the bartender if he can sing with the band and they want nothing to do with this. And so he kept having our translator go up with him and ask them well can I sing with the band.
[Maj Gen Carey] said, "go ask them if I could play the guitar." I said okay, I, I asked one of the band members and the guy said, no, I mean, you know, I can't do that.
He goes if you really want to play this guitar go ahead and talk to the restaurant owner or the administrator or the manager, the restaurant manager and I didn't feel like doing that because I didn't want to go find the manager so I, told the General that basically, uh, you know, that he can't, he can't play the guitars and then he said, well try again, so I asked him to get up and we both stood next to this rock band and watched them up close.
I was hoping to keep his interest in doing so and, uh, he, um, and then I said, listen if you really want to play the guitar maybe if you ask him, you know, um, maybe they'd listen to you more than would to me. And I'm not sure if he asked him or not because I, I, you know, I, I sat back down at the table, but he stood there for a while in front of this band and then he came back to the table a little later also, he came back later and sat down also, and said well, no they won't let me play.
That shit is indeed funny.
There's no need to bring US nuclear forces into this discussion, we're talking about Russian authorities and their competence here.
Sure, it's possible that this one specific force is more professional than the rest, but the bar is low. Soviet Union is the state that gave us Chernobyl after all. For more recent evidence, do check out the recent Russian track record with space technologies - the 2018 ISS air leak incident is particularly telling. Or, you know, the whole war thing that's been going on.
Let me be clear, I 1000% agree that large parts of the Russian government and military are blatantly incompetent. We are on the same side of history, I make fun of the three-day special operation often, and I have nothing but respect for the fight the Ukrainian people put up against a superpower as the aggressor.
Unfortunately, that competence thing counts for everyone else as well. So if you talk about Russian incompetence, we also need to make sure that people understand that this is by design and applied to every military force in existence, and put it into proper context.
This is not about bashing militaries or being American or Russian or European or Chinese, it’s a good example to showcase how the world really works.
If any army becomes extremely competent in executing the best possible outcomes for the people of their country, what keeps them from taking over and getting rid of the layer of decision-making that is causing the most problems?
So the people making their livelyhood from mostly talking about problems and solving them for domestic intesterest groups that don’t necessarily have the best interest of the average citizen in mind make sure they can not be overthrown by their military.
That’s why you see Hegseth dumbing down the force at record speed and Russia is sending the kids of farmers into war and not those of the oligarchs or duma politicians. No matter the color of the pin they wear or what language they speak, it’s all the same filth.
Anyway, a competent military full of competent specialists taking over is what we call military dictatorship, and we tried it often enough collectively that we can confidently say, sometimes the way to get somewhere is just as important as getting there, so democracy and convincing a majority of citizens is better than simply suppressing them.
Because it allows us to think and collectively learn, whereas military decision-making is always a bit backwards and pushes for results at neck-breaking speed.
You cannot apply military optimisation to a healthy civil society. It’s incompatible. Military is a necessary evil, it’s not how the main branch of civil society should work.
If the leaders of the mightiest nations on the planet were competent, we would all live in peace and happily ever after, but conflict is in human nature and incompetence fuels conflict and puts a lot of money into the pockets of everyone who profits from conflict and putting the most incompetent people into the most powerful positions.
Glad we can agree that Russia sucks and hopefully on that almost none of the people in charge of our fate are competent in what they do and we are always an inch away from catastrophic global events.
And that’s why I am now baking some cinnamon buns. Good talk.