Yeah I wouldn't say it would be 100x more prosperous. Look at the 90s under US puppet Yeltsin. That was the time to show how good cooperation with the west will be but didn't happen. Russia was treated as any South American or African country was treated. I'm not from Russia but heaps of westerners (not only US) came to buy up businesses and spread Christianity. They literally did nothing in terms of investments and creating institutions except for capturing mining rights.
Although I would add that I personally think Russia has not really developed much in the last 10 years under him. He really needs to invest into changes.
This is a very inaccurate picture of that period. Yeltsin wasn’t anyone’s puppet for sure and Russia was not treated as a colony. All economic struggles of that period happened for several purely internal reasons: transition from planning to market economy cannot happen instantly - a lot of processes had to adapt and recalibrate; rule of law was not established, because the legal system and law enforcement had to be reformed and a lot of new laws had to be written (e.g. modern law on bankruptcy was enacted only in 2000s IIRC); dissolution of USSR broke a lot of economic ties. The West actually helped a lot in that period of time, offering credits, even sending humanitarian aid. Western investment from major consumer brands like Unilever, Coca-Cola or P&G brought management skills and standards of work, entrepreneurial culture was heavily influenced by America etc.
This might be a long shot argument but I think a big issue with what is now making societies bad for having large families is individualism.
People are so different and have a hard time agreeing on things they find it hard to get married. Then those who do find it hard to stay married. Those who marry and have kids have a hard time finding families to be friends with. The world is changing at such a rapid pace, If you have no shared values you will just have too large a range to find points of commonality.
Also in large cities the the density is a problem. Abundance of choice creates paralysis. Choice of partners and lifestyle. Creates more ways to cheat on your spouse without being caught. Life in general is more complex. I believe that there is a lag between rural people moving to cities and low birthrates. They may have more kids due to their families being large but their kids will most likely have less kids. Also large cities seem lonely because you become a replaceable part of it.
Sure I making child care more accessible is great and should be done but I don't think that's the one thing holding people back.
If anything, the correlation between low birth rates and Individalism (at least the way academics use it) goes the other way. Asian countries have some of the lowest birth rates of the developed world and are culturally the least individualistic. The United States is the most individualistic country in the world, and maintains one of the highest birthrate in the developing world.
Asian culture overall is very much in the opposite of individualistic and not only that but they do share "values", just that those values just like their societies expectations, traditions and norms very outdated and not design with necessarily good intentions in mind.
It's not that people in Asia don't want to get family and all that, it just simply coming down to:
1. The economy has not been adjusted with families in mind (we in the west have barely started).
2. Said traditional 'values' and norms were encouraged at a time when democracy nor universal human rights was a thing, which in the past did cost the country some social cohesion but it endured state stability, today however it just puts obstacles for people to try something new and different.
3. Because of 2 people find easier alternatives to family:
Want a patrner with no consequences?
Simply order a partner as a service.
Want to be sexually fulfilled?
Online porn or sex worker.
This is typical way of looking at social observations without knowing the social context in the first place. For these countries the most dominant reason is very simple: you need to go to big cities to get a job a and you need to have a home to get married and have a child, but the home pricing are so expensive most people can not afford it at least not until very late in their life.
Thinking “hard to agree on the value” is the most laughable reason that I ever heard and just how out of touch that some IT dudes can be. No offense but this is just how far you are from the reality.
Almost all problems in American cities are caused by lack of density, which causes overcrowding. If you have to drive everywhere or you have roommates dating isn’t as fun.
yeah I would say maybe the baltics had it good but the rest of former republics had a hard time. Armenia and Azerbaijan had a war, Tajikistan was engulfed in a civil war. Most countries didn't have any real gdp growth till mid 2000s.
Central Asia has the same oligarchy as you would picture in Russia and probably much worse. All dictators only changing after the previous dies.
I remember interviewing for shopping centre chain (mall). They had this in 2018 already. It had an accuracy of +/- 1m but they had ways to normalise it to the layout of the store. Didn't require them to even be on the network just have their wifi on.
They not only used it to price their storefronts but also they also could tell their renters which parts of the store had higher traffic. Meaning they would know what sells better, where people go from which section. It's literally web analytics but irl.
This specific tech - WLAN sensing - tracks the signal disruptions caused by the water in our bodies. This makes it quite different than all previous techs that require the target to have a broadcasting device or other ping-able tracker. Reportedly, even pets are easily identifiable.
There are apolitical people in every country, no? These people maximise their own benefit (aka capitalism) without caring about others (aka socialism?)
There are also patriotic people like those Ukranians you mentioned that stayed and are fighting. Unfortunately many of the patriotic Russians support the war and they don't care as much about quality of life.
What is happening is kind of like you living in a neighbourhood your whole life and then some thugs move in. Now all of a sudden you don't get mail because the post is scared of those thugs. You can fight the thugs or you can move to a neighbourhood where you can get your mail.
I always found it funny that USA has a sports league that rewards teams that perform poorly. Its almost like its socialism. While the socialist Europe has a system that allows for capitalist like competition.
The difference between china and US collecting data is one is evil one is not but in reality that kind of data collection is unethical no matter who is doing it.
Although I would add that I personally think Russia has not really developed much in the last 10 years under him. He really needs to invest into changes.