
Turkmenistan on the brink of collapse? - Tomte
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/10/asia/turkmenistan-caspian-sea-intl-hnk/index.html
======
xrd
It really feels like the modern world should be able to expose dictatorships
and their propaganda machines much easier than in the past. Is this an example
of that truth coming out and destroying a corrupt state, or just the loss of
oil revenues?

I always believed Tim O'Reilly's statements that sunlight is the best
disinfectant but it seems like the propaganda machines are faster than the
truth. Maybe "a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has its pants
on" is more "truthful."

My mom visited this place last year and she talked about the marble palaces.

~~~
pjc50
It went the other way: corrupt dictatorships started buying advertising,
politicians, and media in the West. To the point that half the population now
no longer know which way is up.

The Telegraph, who employ the Prime Minister, managed to get a push poll
claiming over 50% support for suspending democracy in the UK.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This doesn’t apply to the dictators of North Korea or Turkmenistan, who are
still doing their dictatoring the old fashioned way. Heck, the authoritarians
of China are still stuck using methods from the 1960s and aren’t expected to
modernize until after Xi.

~~~
jobigoud
I thought the social credit score thing coupled with facial recognition and
ubiquitous online monitoring was fairly modern.

~~~
yorwba
It's certainly intended to be modern, but the implementation is very different
from how people imagine it to be.

The "social credit system" is far from being automated; all current pilot
projects involve officials leaving remarks on someone's file. The only novelty
is that the file is digital and the remark may have a point value assigned.

Every time a new issue blows up on social media, the "ubiquitous online
monitoring" (read: thousands of people whose job it is to remove objectionable
content) takes days to clean up the outraged comments posted in a few hours.

Facial recognition is maybe the most futuristic, but unless they magically
achieve higher precision than anyone else, filtering the results is still
going to require lots of manual work. Otherwise they might accidentally offend
someone with connections:
[https://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/2174564/facial-...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/2174564/facial-
recognition-catches-chinas-air-con-queen-dong-mingzhu)

------
xeeeeeeeeeeenu
Note that the president is no longer hiding, just after the CNN's article was
published, he gave the opening speech at the caspian economic forum:
[https://www.rferl.org/a/gurbanguly-berdymukhammedov-
turkmeni...](https://www.rferl.org/a/gurbanguly-berdymukhammedov-
turkmenistan-/30105422.html)

~~~
tmtempaccount
Right. He did show up. But he wasn't healthy. It is told that his speech was
recorded.

Check this out:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerjiALcPq4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerjiALcPq4)

------
nnq
...some parts of the world desperately need the _modern equivalent of
"regional empires"_, it's clear that lots of small nation states have a
tendency to degenerate into these kinds of dystopias. Some Central Asian
Federation could sort out lots of issues and drastically increase the quality
of life and freedoms of such people.

The ironic things is that we seem to recognize it and try and do this _exactly
in the places where it 's not really needed:_ take the "European Federation"
ideal, it probably wouldn't be a net plus since almost all European nations
produce basically functional states and provide OK levels of individual
freedom. Otoh something like a Middle-Eastern Federation and a Central Asian
Federation could solve a ton issues and really be useful. A bunch of mega-
states would surely improve lives of people in most of Africa too.

Dunno why we're so taboo ridden and afraid to be open-minded when it comes to
geo-politics on a planetary scale, we're stuck with these two _horrible_ ideas
of (1) independent nation-states and (2) general-globalism, that are neither
any good, and we're totally afraid to think outside the box... _

~~~
zyngaro
There isn't a single definition of empire in the dictionary that looks like
something that would improve the situation of people living in those
countries. Indeed there is an empire in that area of the world. It's called
Russia. And speaking of empires, Russia isn't the only one. The U.S is an
empire. Try to ask south Americans about it. We still live in an age of
empires.

~~~
nnq
I'm usually Russia-phobic, but would you rather live in Turkmenistan,
Azerbaijan, Afghanistan etc., or in Russia? And mega-states like U.S. and
Canada and Australia clearly provide a decent standard of living and good wide
labour market to thrive on for the people living in them...

And south American w.r.t. the U.S.: I'm really not that knowledgeable about
geopolitics in this part of the world.

~~~
scardine
Well, regarding South America there is a generation that grew up reading "Open
Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" (even
the author Eduardo Galeano has criticized his own work).

Blaming all the region problems on the "imperialists" and stuff like that is a
line of thought still very alive and kicking around here - it is way easier to
blame some imaginary entity than taking responsibility for your present
situation. It is very inline with the current "outrage porn" culture.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-
Centuries/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-
Centuries/dp/0853459916)

~~~
zyngaro
That’s not my point. I am not blaming anything on imperialism (without
quotes). The world geopolitics are to these days structured and governed by
empires. We don’t have emperors but there are still empires. If you happen to
be a citizen of a country that is in the vicinity of a powerful and big state
(size matters a lot too) then you are out of luck. What I said regarding
Russia, America also applies to China, Europe (guess why the European Union
was created) and to lesser degree Turkey and Iran.

------
a2tech
I certainly hope not--personally my wife and I had an exchange student from
Turkmenistan stay with us for a year and she lives in the capital and could
easily be harmed by any sort of violent collapse. But even setting aside my
personal feelings, a collapse in Turkmenistan could cause further chaos in an
already chaotic region as hordes of poorly trained refuges poor into
surrounding countries that are already struggling with their own populace.

------
dmitrygr
He showed up for the opening of the Summit:
[https://www.dailysabah.com/energy/2019/08/12/first-
caspian-e...](https://www.dailysabah.com/energy/2019/08/12/first-caspian-
economic-forum-convenes-in-turkmenistan-leaders-discuss-energy-cooperation)

------
deftnerd
I know this might seem controversial, but I feel that dictatorships and
monarchies give the possibility of multi-decade or even multi-generation
projects that would otherwise be impossible.

Modern government gets replaced every few years, and each seems to suffer from
'not legislated here' behavior that makes them cancel slow-growth projects
created by their predecessors (especially in times of financial crisis)

There are huge downsides to monarchies and dictatorships, but that's one of
the few upsides that I haven't been able to see in Democratic systems.

With huge problems facing our civilization regarding our ecosystem and
climate, the solutions might require multi-generational solutions.

Also, does anyone else think that a democracy might not work on a multi-
generational interstellar ship?

~~~
Alinax
It gives the impression that it can build multi-decade or multi-generation
projects, but in reality it only works for vanity projects that are at the
epicenter of the leader (and key players) as long as it is perceived as
valuable to them.

It also tends to have a strong upstart, only to slow down and crawl to a point
lower than democracies when looking at it in the longer span of time.
Democracies and its derivatives tend to create a smaller varience between the
ups and downs when it stabilizes while dictatorships tend to oscilate (read
volatile) more, in part due to internal struggles.

------
hamilyon2
I cannot help but feel this piece is itself propaganda.

It is just too similar to what I see on TV and news on Russia every day: half-
truth, scary numbers, lack of context, and general "look how bad it is
abroad!" message.

Situation is order of magnitude more complex then it is presented.

------
agumonkey
Every month a country is said to be about to collapse.. yet none have done so.

Medias should resist the urge it seems.

~~~
codingdave
It depends on how you define "collapse". If you mean they turn into a
dystopian image of burned-out buildings, and a population looking like the Mad
Max movies, then no, there has been no collapse. (At least not on a national
level.) But if you define it via metrics related to the economy, employment,
healthcare, quality of life, etc... then you get a different story.

~~~
agumonkey
there was Greece, then spain, I think I've heard Ireland at some point in
time.. of course UK had its share of potential collapse recently

Venezuela is on the verge of collapse for a while now

now Turkmenistan

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
Venezuela effectively collapsed quite some time ago: well over half the
population has insufficient food and 4 million refugees have fled the country.

~~~
agumonkey
fair point, even though to me collapse would be way more than this situation,
but that's semantics

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
There was a recent article in Radio Free Europe claiming that almost 2 million
people (a third of the population) have fled Turkmenistan in recent years:

[https://www.rferl.org/a/escape-from-turkmenistan-
almost-2-mi...](https://www.rferl.org/a/escape-from-turkmenistan-
almost-2-million-have-fled-but-the-president-won-t-hear-of-it/29987972.html)

------
dekken_
John Oliver's serendipitous take
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E)

~~~
pilsetnieks
I mean this guy is NK's Kim level of crazy but you should see who he replaced:
the previous president-for-life Niyazov is known for:

\- renamed months and days of week to references to his own autobiography;

\- banished dogs from the capital;

\- banned lip syncing at concerts;

\- banned recorded music at any public event and on television;

\- built a palace of ice in the desert near the capital, so people could learn
to skate;

\- after quitting smoking himself, banned smoking and chewing tobacco for the
entire country;

\- outlawed opera, ballet, and circus because it's un-Turkmen-like;

\- banned long hair and beards for men;

\- banned makeup for news reporters;

\- discouraged gold teeth and suggested that people should chew on bones like
dogs to improve dental health;

\- changed Turkmen language to rename bread (as in actual bread) and the month
of April to Gurbansoltan, his mother's name.

~~~
mikekchar
Just because I'm in a playful mood, I've always wondered if Kim is actually
mentally unstable in the way many people suggest. Just reading through the
Wikipedia page, it seems that he grew up in Switzerland and loves basketball.
He was said to be shy and unassuming. His half brother was always supposed to
inherit the "throne" (probably there is a better word for it), but was caught
trying to go to Disneyland in Japan and lost favour. Kim Jong-un was then made
the hasty replacement.

According the the Wikipedia page, Kim Jong-un is on record as having
questioned the lavish lifestyle he had. His then-ousted brother was actually
downright rude suggesting that the Chairmanship should not be inherited but
rather democratically elected (this from a Japanese news report I heard -- I
can't really vouch for its veracity, but interesting if true).

I remember when Kim Jong-un came to power and there were reports that
hardliners in the party really hated him because they thought he was too soft.
When he took over, he _did_ do a lot of thing differently, like going to a pop
concert _with_ his then wife.

But then, suddenly: His wife is executed. His uncle's entire family line is
eradicated. His elder brother is assasinated. And we hear no more about Kim
Jong-un's "softer" approach to running the country. Any time I look at video
from about 2012 to 2016 he looks like a deer with its eyes caught in the
headlights. Lately it looks like he's got his feet under him and I figure it's
because he's learned how to play ball.

I don't know. Like I said, I'm really just being playful, but western
governments like their "Axis of Evil". You need the mad, evil villain to
justify whatever they decide must be done (Wikipedia page mentions an
attempted CIA led assassination...) What if it really was the case that Kim
Jong-un is as much a victim as everyone else. Forced to take power. Forced to
execute his wife, his uncle, his entire uncle's family and even his older
brother. The entire country really being run by a brutal bureaucracy that
doesn't care who they steamroll. That would be pretty craptastic.

~~~
kombucha11
Just so you know Ri Sol-ju is totally alive.

~~~
zemnl
Correct. And even his ex-girlfriend (the singer) turned out to be alive: there
were rumors about her execution but they were fake.

------
grecy
> _A <removed> nation ruled by an egomaniac. Is <it> on the brink of
> collapse?_

I feel like we could use that same headline on _a lot_ of countries right now,
including the so called best ones.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yes and no. Yes, it seems like a lot of countries are ruled by egomaniacs.
Maybe this was always true, and we're just more aware of it now due to better
media.

But no, that does not mean the countries are equivalently on the brink of
collapse. While you could reasonably ask if the US or UK are on the brink of
collapse, they aren't on the brink in anything like the way that Turkmenistan
is.

~~~
adventured
> While you could reasonably ask if the US or UK are on the brink of collapse

No, in fact you can't reasonably ask that. It's a very unreasonable premise in
both cases. It's hyperbolic.

There is zero risk of collapse right now in either the US or UK. Financially,
politically, socially, militarily: zero risk of collapse in either case.
Nations having problems doesn't constitute a risk of collapse.

To seriously discuss collapse in eg the US, a person has to take a problem
that isn't remotely collapse-threatening (eg student debt or partisan anger),
and amplify it artificially 10x-100x to mean the end of the world. The sort of
headlines & stories that a site like ZeroHedge specializes in 24/7 in the
financial sphere (the world is ending every day of the week there, the next
great recession has been about to start for a decade now). In general it
requires a very high level of avoiding using reason and logic to assess risk,
and falling back to emotional-based statements derived from what are actually
modest, controllable problems. The same is true in the context of the UK,
brexit or no brexit.

~~~
sb057
In the words of BJ Campbell[1] the US is currently undergoing increasing
partisanship[2], civil disorder[3], coup rhetoric[4], a widening wealth
gap[5], a further-entrenching oligarchy[6], dysfunctional governance[7], the
rise of Nazism[8] and Communism[9], violent street protests[10], people
marching and dressing like Blackshirts[11], attempts at large-scale political
assassination[12], and I'll add to that a widespread (~35% among both lay
people and experts) expectation of a looming civil war[13][14]. And it's true
people have been saying the sky that is the economy has been falling for a
decade now, but pretty much everyone is in agreement the status quo is
completely unsustainable.

[1] [http://freakoutery.com/2018/07/the-surprisingly-solid-
mathem...](http://freakoutery.com/2018/07/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-
case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper/)

[2] [http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/the-partisan-
divide-o...](http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/the-partisan-divide-on-
political-values-grows-even-wider/)

[3] [https://www.usnews.com/opinion/civil-
wars/articles/2017-02-1...](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/civil-
wars/articles/2017-02-16/americas-divisions-have-led-to-a-civic-war)

[4] [https://www.thenation.com/article/are-we-witnessing-a-
coup-o...](https://www.thenation.com/article/are-we-witnessing-a-coup-
operation-against-the-trump-white-house/)

[5] [http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/03/news/economy/wealth-gap-
amer...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/03/news/economy/wealth-gap-
america/index.html)

[6] [http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-
us...](http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-
oligarchy-2014-4)

[7] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/business/economy/trump-
el...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/business/economy/trump-election-
democracy.html)

[8] [http://www.dw.com/en/us-neo-nazi-groups-on-the-rise-under-
pr...](http://www.dw.com/en/us-neo-nazi-groups-on-the-rise-under-president-
donald-trump-report/a-42688331)

[9] [https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/communist-party-
members...](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/communist-party-membership-
numbers-climbing-in-the-trump-era/)

[10]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally)

[11] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/style/black-bloc-
fashion....](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/style/black-bloc-fashion.html)

[12]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHM73eJCa7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHM73eJCa7k)

[13]
[http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gene...](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2018/31_think_u_s_civil_war_likely_soon)

[14] [https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/07/will-we-have-a-2nd-
civi...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/07/will-we-have-a-2nd-civil-war-
you-tell-me/)

------
threesmegiste
West want a new country to destroy in the mask of freedom

------
heroHACK17
Wow, I guess John Oliver's world record-breaking marble cake really did end up
having an affect on things over there!

~~~
spookyuser
After the episode I was hoping there would be a Wikipedia list of large cakes
or something that would rightfully acknowledge their record, but it doesn't
seem there is :(

------
droithomme
Turkmenistan since independence has been a reclusive benevolent welfare state.
They have universal basic income there, one of a small number of countries and
states.

They are compared to North Korea but it's not a fair comparison since they
threaten no one and their people are not oppressed. They are restricted, and
strongly encouraged to pursue traditional tribal activities and eschew the
western world. But not oppressed, despite outside claims.

The capital city's architecture is among the most bizarre and fantastic in the
world and worth a visit if you can get in, which is very hard. You have to be
invited to visit. Some tourism agencies can arrange this but it's not for the
average traveler.

~~~
a2tech
Its far from a pleasant place. My wife and I had an exchange student from
there and while she was a firm believer in the system (you don't get to leave
the country without some serious trust from the authorities) but even she
could tell you that buying things from the government shops was fraught with
fraud, poor quality goods, and lines. Everyone shops at the non-government
bazaars and you can buy smuggled goods there for inflated prices--but the
goods are of a much higher quality than what you find in the government
stores. You can also buy US dollars in the bazaar, which is what everyone does
because the local currency (the manat) is essentially worthless and the value
fluctuates wildly.

A 'fun' story about our exchange student and goods--she would save her pocket
money (allowance, some small money she would make by doing errands for people)
all month so she could buy a kg of Turkish salt. See the Turkmen salt you
could buy in the store is made from the Caspian sea (distilling salt from the
water) and their filtration is crap. So the salt you buy is brownish in the
bag, and is filled with small rocks and other clumps of junk. So when you buy
a bag of Turkmen salt, you have to carefully clean it before use. Otherwise
you bite into your rice pilaf and break a tooth on a stone--which is what
happened to her mom. Thats what finally pushed her to take the small amount of
money she had and spend it on buying salt for her little family.

~~~
gingabriska
All the things you mentioned, any exchange student from India will also tell
you same and India is a democracy.

You can't hold USD in your account, government ration shops have corruption
issue. Quality is also questionable.

It just tells you one thing that the US seems far better from their
perspective.

------
phantom_oracle
I always reference [1] when I see sensationalist headlines that end in
questions.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

