Even at the most blood-thirsty periods USSR had programs for gifted youth, math clubs at school, and even dedicated highly selective schools. They also had cheap entertaining pop-sci books. The schools would fail the students who don't pass the tests.
However, the scientists and engineers had a rather low salary, often lower than blue-collar workers'.
Terminals don't take much effort to maintain compared to a browser. But most browsers rely on the ad revenue. The business models of the old Opera or Arc feel fresh.
I wish exploring the integrations were easier. The plugin details are behind the sign-up barrier. I'd like to see a short description and a screenshot.
> Western intelligence agencies have questioned whether such a plot could be the result of Russian spies carrying out a plan without the full authorization of the Kremlin, according to people familiar with the matter.
In an authoritarian society the incentive structure punishes taking initiative without approval. Kremlin recently jailed or killed even some pro-war nationalist journalists who appeared to act independently. I'm sure that Kremlin gave this a full authorization.
Most Russians hold racist views. It doesn't change if they are expats. As a result of the colonial conquests, Russia is a multiethnic state. But the minorities have never been fully accepted. The govt balances between suppressing the far right and managing it for its own purposes.
Very true when it comes to antisemitic views: only 1 in 10 Russians would be ok having a Jewish friend.
"In a Levada Center poll, for instance, 45 percent of Russians said they had a positive attitude toward Jews in 2021, up from 22 percent in 2010. Russians said Jews were the minority group they were most comfortable having close to them — but only 11 percent said they’re ready to have a Jewish friend, up from 3 percent in 2010."
Oh please, Levada? lol. I understand there's a big psyops push to dehumanize Russians right now, but they are people like the rest of us. Crazy, right?
Hitler and Pol Pot were also humans, yet they did very bad things to other fellow humans.
Nobody is denying that ru are humans, we are simply acknowledging that someone did very bad things against principles of humanity, did it deliberately, at scale, and over a very long time period.
Consider yourself lucky for being from a country that never bombed anyone. Mine killed about 4 million (mostly women and children) in the ME over the last 30 years, and are still at it by helping their friends pound Palestine into smithereens :(
its not only bombing, it is casual everyday racism towards others that is a problem.
same like zionist jews think of themselves as superior to palestinians, same russians think of themselves as superior to Ukrainians and other ex-soviet nations. BTW a lot of Israeli jews immigrated from Soviet Union and some could argue they could pick up this superiority complex from russians
I am aware that this is a bold claim and that it may be hard to believe. I also wish this weren't true. That's why I put a reference to support it. Check out the section on Public sentiments and politics. In particular, that 60% of population support the statement "Russia is for Russians" and what that phrase implies. If you are curious to learn more, check out studies and polls by any organization that you support - Amnesty International, Russian NGO's, universities, etc.
I'm from the US South and am well traveled in Europe and Russia, including minority Russian republics like Adygea. In my experience, Russians are way less racist than Americans and Western Europeans - I almost never heard a racist word from them (I understand the Russian language).
Also, feel free to hit that translate button on videos like these, especially the top voted ones. The comment from Russians are generally very positive (even heartwarming) towards foreigners who are adequate, learn the language and follow the local laws.
It's really not gross if you can accept that the author of such a statement would likely also believe racist is not a term that is used not as a binary (as in - you are either racist or not racist) but that racism is something we are almost all guilty of to some degree or another and not something that means you're going to hell or are a horrible person. In the same way that we are all at times capable of being selfish, or at times capable of being ignorant, or weak to temptation.
Saying they are racist in that light is more like saying that relative to the average, they are a bit more racist than the best of us.
The article studies properties of a nationalist group, which is in extreme minority, especially after 2010s, and doesn’t make claims that ‘most Russians are nationalists’.
You have to lurk really hard to find a nationalist there unless you count people love Dostoyevsky into this group. There are also a lot of glass ceilings in place for ethnical Russians, and distribution in elite universities, politics, and business don’t represent the country average, which suggests there’s an intentional ’reverse racism’ in place towards majority. Moreover, the word ‘Russian’ is banned in media and is replaced by ‘citizen of Russia’.
A ban like that sounds good. But what would replace those plastics? For the take-out food containers a common alternative is PFAS-treated paper. Is it much better for the health environment?
In Germany, I've seen a multi-use container system implemented by at least some delivery companies and restaurants.
But even just reducing the staggering amount of single-use plastics in regular restaurant/bar contexts in the US would be a start. The amount of restaurants serving plastic cups, paper plates, and plastic tableware is absurd, and I'm not talking about festivals, outdoor food trucks etc – regular sit-down places with proper plumbing and enough space for a dishwasher that really have no excuse whatsoever for generating that amount of waste.
> regular sit-down places with proper plumbing and enough space for a dishwasher that really have no excuse whatsoever for generating that amount of waste.
They have an excuse; they don't want to pay someone to wash dishes.
This is why a ban is necessary. Businesses will always look for the cheapest way to operate.
Sadly it looks like DeliveryZero is still using plastic. :( I'd really love to see some companies using non-plastic takeout containers, especially for hot foods.
But even with cold foods, every study that has come out has shown microplastic shedding even from water bottles.
Ugh I've been to other countries that have such bougie takeout containers, the shit we have here in the US is insufferable by comparison.
It is funny, sometimes a new Chinese restaurant HQ'd in China will open up locally, and they'll start off using the same high quality takeout containers that are used in China, including such things as every order comes in an insulated bag (!!) but eventually they bow to economies of scale and adopt the same shit takeout containers everyone else uses in the US.
Bleck.
I always think of when I went to Beijing, ordered a fruit soda, and they took out a real glass bottle, filled it up, sealed it, and gave it to me! 100% premo feeling.
> you just take the containers back to a drop point.
If someone drives to drop off the container they have uses way more resources than they would just using a disposable. I suspect this idea is just greenwashing.
> thicker paperboard
Which again uses more resources, and emits more CO2, than plastic.
You're assuming I'm driving it back to the drop point as a dedicated trip. A: I typically keep the containers until I order next time, you have a month to drop them off. So just drop them off when you're picking up your food. B: The drop off point is a short walk away, so you could just, you know, walk.
I'm not worried about resources or emissions here, I'm more concerned about trash in the rivers/oceans, and microplastics. There are more metrics to account for than you are allowing for.
> I typically keep the containers until I order next time
Don't them smell? If you wash them by hand you end up using more resources than if you had disposable. If you put them in a dishwasher then, I guess that would work, but seems like a lot of effort for takeout.
> I'm more concerned about trash in the rivers/oceans, and microplastics
Are you dumping things in the street? I suspect you are not. River/Ocean trash is a huge problem, and is not being caused in the US or Canada.
> Don't them smell? If you wash them by hand you end up using more resources than if you had disposable.
No. There is absolutely no way that rinsing out a container uses more resources than creating and transporting new disposable containers.
> Are you dumping things in the street?
I personally am not. I see plenty of people who are. I see plenty of trash in my local rivers and streams, so I'm not sure what you're basing your statement on.
> There is absolutely no way that rinsing out a container uses more resources than creating and transporting new disposable containers.
that's what i thought, too, until i did the math, and it turns out that i was wrong. rinsing out a bottle with hot water uses several times more energy than manufacturing a brand new plastic bottle from petroleum and transporting it (they're generally transported as preforms until the bottling plant, which keeps the costs down). in most cases, though, rinsing it out with cold water does use less
the high bit here, though, is not that you should stop using hot water to wash your dishes, or using reusable dishes. it's that the resource usage of food packaging is an irrelevant distraction from the real environmental devastation that's going on all around you
(actually no, the high bit is that you should base your beliefs and actions on objectively verifiable information and rational analysis rather than superstition)
Of course transport 10 tons of paper product has zero energy consumption according to Law of Newtonian Physics. More weight, less energy. We successfully keep the ocean clean, but all turtles are dead by stopping ocean current with global warming.
Mumbai has this solved, with the Dabbawala and Tiffin system. Tiffins are standardized reusable metal containers used for food delivery in Mumbai. The food can be restaurant takeout, or it can be a home-cooked meal someone sends you. Dabbawalas are the vendors who deliver the food, and collect the used tiffins/dabbas.
Before we had PFAS paper there was wax coated paper. So long as you aren't using something like paraffin wax, it'll happily decompose with the rest of your trash.
The focus needs to be on containers that decompose in weeks/months/a year. Not thousands of years.
Let's remember that the historical name of the city is Königsberg. After the occupation the Soviets executed an ethnic purge of the locals and annexed the land.
So, do you support a wholesale reversal of WW2-related border changes? Because in that case, your country would have to surrender Lwów and Munkács.
(And Croatia would have to give up Rijeka to Italy. And the whole Alsace-Lorraine stuff would return. And I'm not even talking about Germans returning to Czechia or Romania.)
I don't know what the criteria were to avoid the purge but I know personally a Russian of German parents from Kaliningrad/Königsberg. A certain of ethnic Germans were allowed to stay.
In a sense they are, because whatever European territorial changes happened after WW2 were supposed to be the last ever and to stand for all eternity, as stated in the Helsinki Accord of 1975.
Of course, this agreement has since been violated, notably by Russia.
Nazis believed that they would make the whole world better. Both ideologies explicitly stated that the world is better without some groups of humans. And both USSR and Third Reich were murderous regimes with global ambitions and little regard for human life.
However, the scientists and engineers had a rather low salary, often lower than blue-collar workers'.
The equality of outcome can take many forms.
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