Wikipedia heavily favors western news sources as “less biased” than non-western equivalents. Look at the text of the post you’re commenting in.

Me when the person I disagree with sources their claims: “uhhh gish gallop, strawman, et tu Brutus ad absurdiam, adhummer, slippery slope fallacy”

Russia’s scramble for Africa

Russia famously the only (and the biggest) participant in the scramble for Africa.

Western counties and Russia are equally likely to commit to ground invasions.

Looking at the list of countries the US has invaded compared to Russia? Yes. Looking at the list of countries European member states have invaded or helped to invade? Also correct.
Of course you were being sarcastic because you think invasions of countries with brown people don’t count.

Having to have a draft seems like it is an argument against a massive appetite for war, not for it.

That hasn’t always been the case. Americans were gungho about invading Afghanistan after 9/11. And Iraq had majority support in its opening months.

Iraq wasn’t just “the opening months” lmao. Whats up with this revisionist bullshit? The democrats ran their campaign in 2004 on “the war is good, we can do it better.”

Libya? Syria? Iran? None of these ever did. They provoked popular backlash the day the first shots were fired.

Yeah such popular backlash they reelected the guy who did it. You know what actually got backlash? Withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The Russian media having done a better job of manufacturing consent has nothing to do with their skull size. Again, this is the sort of thing Americans used to be good at. Now they blaze ahead without the pretext of public consent, because the US democratic system has become morbund.

Sure, but that’s not what you’ve been saying. I don’t know if the Russian mainstream media is better at manufacturing consent than the US or the rest of Europe, which you conveniently left out. Everyone in Europe is Gung-ho about Ukrainians fighting to the last man, despite the war being overwhelmingly in popular in Ukraine (they also have a draft, quite a brutal one at that, and a draft is a sign you cant get the needed troops). Listen to how you and most other users talk about Russia, like some alternative universe Mordor. People are frothing at the mouth at the thought of killing Russians. Whenever a civilian center is bombed in Russia then the main takeaway is joy and a “serves them right”-attitude. That’s what an appetite for war looks like. Yet you will read this and think “well that’s different, we’re at war with Russia and they’re so evil and they started it.” You will be blind to the fact that there is an immense appetite for war. Not to mention all the other ones people just don’t give a shit about.

Europe and the US is completely fine with interfering in African nations and pursuing brinksmanship with China.

And its not like the war in Russia didnt meet protests from day one. Weird thing to point out as a difference (especially with regards to Syria and Libya, which had people clamoring to invaded or “do more” than establish a no-fly zone".

Russian state actors do appear significantly more concerned with “winning hearts and minds” than their Western peers. They invest more in propaganda and social controls.

Completely vibes-based statement. Europe is under immense surveillance and many member states seek even more tools to do so. “They invest more in propaganda and social controls” is such a vague statement and one I cannot help but doubt after seeing your revisionist ideas about the development of wars and popular sentiment.
Many European nations crack down hard on anti-israel protests. You get arrested in Denmark for positive comments on facebook stories about Israel getting bombed. Had this happened in Russia you would use it to opine like some armchair ethnologist about Russians propensity for authoritarianism, but because it happens elsewhere it is ignored.

This is what I mean by calipers, othering and orientalism. What is occurring (and worrying) in Europe and the US is treated as an after-thought, while the very same things happening in Russia is an indictment of some central characteristic of the russian people. We create these massive stories, like you did here, often with revisionist history and vibes, in order to create a picture of an enemy that is easy to despise or pity, while we at the same time claim they’re the ones to be propagandised, and we are somehow just well-informed citizens. Even though we will make nonsense statements like “the invasion in Libya was opposed from the very start, while the Russians supported the invasion in Ukraine” or “the Russians have invested much more into social control” while the arrest of protesters is a regular occurrence in Europe and the US.

The Russian government and the US government are not mirrors of one another.

Not what I said, and youre correct, the Russian government is competent and less prone to creating a slave-labour force of prisoners.

I was pretty close to agreeing with you until we hit the final text

But it does help to answer the question “Why do Russians seem to have an appetite for endless war that Euros/Americans lack?”

Claiming europeans and americans do not have a massive appetite for war is just ridiculous. Thats why I talk about orientalism and calipers. Its pretty clear there’s a good amount of othering going on here, as well as just pure old-fashioned nationalism.

I think you responded to the wrong comment?

Actually it is. Hating someone based on where they come from is the most basic type of racism there is.

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Its still 50/50 which of the two options it is. This response really did nothing to clear it up. Due to the lack of spelling errors, and the fact you completely failed to engage with my argue, I’m going to pick simple-minded. I even took the time to give you a neat little summation at the end, and you still fucked up.

Then again you continue to argue against statements I haven’t made, so thats a count for “can’t read.”

Maybe ask a trusted adult or a chatbot for help with parsing the text so you can actually respond to what I’m saying instead of whatever this is.

Are you simple-minded? Do you struggle to read? Which of these is the correct answer to the question of “how can you manage to think I said Russia does not interfere in elections?”

I think you are a run-of-the-mill western chauvinist, inundated by the racist propaganda that floats around on mainstream media. I think this because of your childish, simplistic reasoning for the actions of Russia and your sad attempt at a historical analysis with a conclusion so reductive it would make Franz Halder ask you to take the russians more seriously.

One could literally do the same spiel you did for every colonial power. Yet I somehow doubt that you’d make pseudo-intellectual musings about France based on the nations long and proud colonial history or its current-day imperial actions in Mali or control over the financial policy of a dozen foreign nations. For some reason I doubt that you’d reduce the United States bloody history in South America to “Trump bad” or “the American genetics are just made to be evil, just look at their history!”
Somehow I have a feeling you’d cry about nuance if one were to imply that all dastardly things done by the brits are due to their current leader or some inherent quality (and if you dont believe me, just look at their history! They love war! They even sent Boris Johnson to Ukraine to have him talk them out of a peace treaty!)
If these were the countries being discussed, then I have a feeling you wouldnt be so bold with generalising statements based on a lacking historical “analysis”.

The racism is not you pointing to something Russia did. The racism is you acting as if the thing happening is uniquely and inherently Russian

The point went right over your head

I generally react quite negatively to racism, and I’m happy to hear the instance I frequent has a reputation for doing the same. Cant imagine being proud about ignoring racism.

You would have supported the invasion of Iraq in the 00’s. Or operation Barbarossa if you lived back then. You see calling out racist drivel as somehow being supportive of a country. Not reducing complex geopolitics down to childish notions of “they’re just evil!” is somehow the same as driving a tank into Kiev. It is with the mentality you display that we saw people take up arms in WWI under the notion that they’d be home before Christmas - after all, it was just the dastardly hun that needed a darn good thrashing.

Jair Bolsonaro? The other guy who got installed with the backing of the US? You dont ever stop to consider that maybe there’s more going on than just “people being psychos”? You dont ever stop to wonder why these movements happen to have the resources, skills and manpower necessary to organise and mobilise right on cue to install some stooge picked out by the US state dept? You really just contend yourself with “because people are crazy”?

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Tragi-comic. Its english too.

I wish I lived in the world you insane right-wing freaks make up.

I generally don’t like destructive change like revolution but Russians will never recover, never. The culture is so far gone and so broken and so passive that the best thing that could happen to an average russian is complete dissolution of the entire Russian project into independent smaller states.

What a simplistic and reductive worldview. You would do well as an orientalist professor at Oxford in the 1800’s. You should look into phrenology.

All you’re saying here could be said about most nations, as I exemplified with Britain.

What’s with this weird orientalism going on? Talking about Russians like youre some 18th century phrenologist detailing how the Savage hun can withstand harsher climates than the genteel anglo-saxon.

They’re regularly having weeks as bad as 9/11 and they’re just not all that notable.

More than a 9/11 died from covid in the US every week and nobody gave a shit. There’s a shitton of carcrashes, and no one gives a shit. Britain is full of people starving and no one gives a shit. Long term COVID is crippling the population everywhere and no one gives a shit.
The US had a bunch of grunts perish in Operation Epstein Fury, and all it led to was some coverups and no one gives a shit.
This isn’t because the “mind of the mob” is cowed or bred or somehow different from the rest of us. Its because of material conditions. Russia has a lot of military casualties and soldiers on, not because “the Russian mind” or whatever other idealistic dumbassery people in this thread will pull out of their ass, but because of complex political, social, cultural and material structures.