8 ms·

They are really going all in 100% North Korea.. Not going to end well

by boznz 5y ago

trevorboaconstr 5y ago
I suspect Russia will soon enough find itself closely intertwined with Chinese ecosystems and standards. I think Putin has envy for Xi’s autocratic-techno-state and wishes to emulate it. What better way than to become a part of it.
- rektide 5y ago
  Thankfully we're not seeing a total fuck-off-world axis forming here, a 100% antagonist alliance-versus-world relationship forming. China has recently refused to resupply parts for the Russian air transport systems[1] (so claims Russia). I don't think you are wrong at all. But I don't think this intertwining will be as mutually desired & reinforcing as Russia might perhaps have hoped. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-says-china-refuses-supply-aircraft-parts-after-sanctions-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-sa...
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  More broadly, I think what's happening vindicates China's strategy and will be a watershed moment. We're seeing that most key global infrastructures for telecoms, internet, finance, etc. and pretty much all global tech companies are controlled by the USA and that they will weaponise everything against you as they see fit. The logical conclusion is that, if you can, you should build your own alternatives, which is what China has been doing. Things are going to become more fragmented from now on.
  - signatoremo 5y ago
    China have done it because they have superpower ambition, and because they can. There are areas where they still haven’t been able to do the same such as jet engine. Also, not everyone can build their own. Most of the world will continue to use the current one. Some other like Russia will use China’s one. Do you think China will be less aggressive than the US in weaponizing everything against you as they see fit? Russia will be a lesser partner to China. The dream of Russia Empire glory will still be a dream only.
    - erichocean 5y ago
      > Russia will be a lesser partner to China. This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc. As an American, it's clear we're making increasingly poor and erratic decisions because we simply refuse to understand that there isn't one universal culture (Western) that everyone should have, and if they don't, they're evil. We've done a lot of feel-good things in response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine, but I don't think it works out well in the end. America is significantly weaker because of the actions we've already taken, and I'm confident we'll double down a few dozen more times before things stabilize again. BRICS countries can sense the opportunity Russia's isolation by the West has given them.
      - idiotsecant 5y ago
        > This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc. No, this is a human point of view. China has been consistently engaged in this exact practice since before the idea of 'China' even really existed. Strong groups will ultimately culturally / economically / militarily subsume weaker ones. It's how families grow into tribes grow into federations grow into city-states grow into nations grow into empires. China well and truly understands how this works. Pretending that everyone on the continent is actually Han Chinese is practically the state religion, for good reason - it helps to expand the in-group and galvanize the tribe against the out-group for the purpose of perpetuating the above cycle. It's fashionable to pretend that western imperialism is the only imperialism. It's only because the west is so good at cultural and economic imperialism (and rarely actual military imperialism) that people make this point. The west is generally successful at spreading it's values because people want to adopt those values. The same is not true of more autocratic systems.
        erichocean 5y ago
        China has 4 military bases outside China. The United States has 750 military bases outside the US. One is an empire, the other…isn't. P.s. Britain has 145 overseas military bases.
        5y ago
  - VincentEvans 5y ago
    The West is “weaponizing everything” as you put it against Russia “as they see fit” in response to the actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons. There is also another alternative you forgot to add to the list that Russia could consider - don’t invade neighboring countries, don’t murder people. It seems to work fine for, I don’t know, let’s say Iceland - much smaller, much weaker country. Wonder why is that?
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with. What's happening to Russia is because they are not the West and are acting against the West, not because "an actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons", which something the West and allies routinely do as well (and with no less horrible consequences to populations but without any sanctions).
      - VincentEvans 5y ago
        No, it’s happening exactly because it invaded and is killing people in Ukraine. Why invent an alternative and much more complicated reason? Russia was a mess, weak and poor for 20 of the last 30 years. All the West did during this time was invest and assist trying to integrate a former adversary into the world economy.
        forum_ghost 5y ago
      - zoomablemind 5y ago
        > ...This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with. Over 2mil refugee exodus from Ukraine in a mere 2week span is the flood of lives, not the emotional narrative. Any practical ideas to halting the still ongoing Russian effort to demolish Ukraine? Asking the Russian state to "just stop" does not seem to work for now.
    - 5y ago
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Sure, well do we need to do business with countries that don't respect international borders and regularly commit war crimes? You're blaming the USA and the west on the invasion of the Ukraine and Russia trying to genocide the Ukrainian people.
- polski-g 5y ago
  China will be collecting vassal states like I do in EU4. But eventually the vassal swarm will be powerful enough for a WC.
  - DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y ago
    what is EU4? what is WC?
    - fire 5y ago
      EU4: europa universalis 4 WC: win condition
      - polski-g 5y ago
        WC: is World Conquest
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y ago
  Yeah with Russia cut off from rest of world, it'll be cheaper for China to take Russian resources such as oil, nickel. Russia will rely on Chinese manufacturing and technology. On the finance side, Russia need China for gov't debt and corporate debt and payments system. All this allows China more power to control Russia (e.g., sanction Russia when they fall out of line).
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Russia is like 4% of China’s gdp. If they get enough sanctions soon enough they’ll not going to step into that shit.
TechBro8615 5y ago
It's not that extreme. They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. More likely, the SWIFT sanctions will prove a mistake for "the West," when it realizes the downstream effects of cutting off Russia from the dominant payment network of the global reserve currency. Russian banks have already started offering accounts in yuan. This will lead to further balkanization (unfortunate pun notwithstanding) of world reserve currencies, which means increased decentralization and a reduced dependency on the dollar. Eventually the world will naturally diversify their reserve holdings to the point that the dollar loses its power as leverage in diplomatic negotiations. At this point, there will be jockeying for position of a dominant currency, and it will be more than just fiat currency in the race. In the next 5 years, we will almost certainly see the emergence of a central bank digital currency. Within the next 10 years, it will be clear that paper USD will not be the dominant currency in 2040, and it will likely be obvious which currency will take its place. As far as the SSL certs go, all these arguments also apply to balkanization of internet infrastructure. In fact, they'll happen together, since the information networks banning Russians refuse to interface with their payment networks anyway. Is this actually the greatest opportunity for Russian entrepreneurs since the fall of the Soviet Union? Suddenly there is demand for an alternative to every Western online service. The products that were previously 80% as good as their Western counterparts now find themselves as the leading option in the local market. This same pattern happened in China when they introduced The Great Firewall — the censorship regime favored local providers, so they had a route to catch up with the Silicon Valley companies. Now look at the Chinese internet economy. Russia doesn't have nearly the population of China, nor the population growth that China did the past twenty years, but it's not unreasonable to expect significant growth in Russian internet sector over the next 5-10 years (after the dust settles on sanctions and the winners emerge).
- rosndo 5y ago
  > They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. So and so, my banks in BRICS countries are refusing to accept incoming transfers from Russian banks. At least in China, India and the UAE Russian money seems to be a no-go. Pretty sure other BRICS countries are only providing moral support at this point.
- Salgat 5y ago
supergirl 5y ago
the USSR didn't do too bad. NK just didn't start with much. Russia has a lot of tech. but look at NK: they have internet, developed nuclear weapons, trying to launch satellites, surviving covid (I assume), did not get invaded by US, still chugging along
- VincentEvans 5y ago
  Oh yeah, NK isn’t that bad. USSR didn’t do too badly… USSR in 90ies was equivalent technologically to the West in 60ies-70ies. I was born in USSR. And when I got to travel Europe in the 90ies - the difference was astounding. And one other thing… That was me comparing capital cities of USSRs western republics. If you take your average outskirt towns on the periphery away from Moscow influence and power - the difference was more like 30-40 years of development.
  - supergirl 5y ago
    considering USSR got the brunt of WW2, it's not that bad. peak of USSR was in the 60s anyway, so you should compare at that time. in the 90s, USSR didn't exist anymore
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > considering USSR got the brunt of WW2, Well, except for, you know... Germany.
    - VincentEvans 5y ago
      Ok, lets settle on it’s not “that” bad then. My wife who grew up poor hispanic in Brooklyn is humored that we didn’t have a washing machine in the 90ies while living in the capital, drying clothes on the balcony (or bathroom in the winter). She even had a Nintendo!
- clearcoat 5y ago
  North Korea started with the "better" part of Korea by most measures, having far more natural resources than the southern portion of the peninsula as well as more arable land. All things being equal, they "ought" to be the richer country.
nikolay 5y ago
pumpkinprog 5y ago
As it said in the article, the backstory of this move is that DigiCert revoked SSL certificates of some major Russian banks that come under the US sanctions, including their Central Bank (the Russian Fed). And all their sites, remote banking, 3-D secure pages went down for some time immediately. IMO it is a pretty understandable move for the Russians as a national security measure not to depend on some random American companies switching off Russian critical infrastructure.

They are really going all in 100% North Korea.. Not going to end well

by boznz 5y ago

They are really going all in 100% North Korea.. Not going to end well

I suspect Russia will soon enough find itself closely intertwined with Chinese ecosystems and standards. I think Putin has envy for Xi’s autocratic-techno-state and wishes to emulate it. What better way than to become a part of it.

rektide 5y ago
Thankfully we're not seeing a total fuck-off-world axis forming here, a 100% antagonist alliance-versus-world relationship forming. China has recently refused to resupply parts for the Russian air transport systems[1] (so claims Russia). I don't think you are wrong at all. But I don't think this intertwining will be as mutually desired & reinforcing as Russia might perhaps have hoped. [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-says-china-refuses-supply-aircraft-parts-after-sanctions-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-sa...
mytailorisrich 5y ago
More broadly, I think what's happening vindicates China's strategy and will be a watershed moment. We're seeing that most key global infrastructures for telecoms, internet, finance, etc. and pretty much all global tech companies are controlled by the USA and that they will weaponise everything against you as they see fit. The logical conclusion is that, if you can, you should build your own alternatives, which is what China has been doing. Things are going to become more fragmented from now on.
- signatoremo 5y ago
  China have done it because they have superpower ambition, and because they can. There are areas where they still haven’t been able to do the same such as jet engine. Also, not everyone can build their own. Most of the world will continue to use the current one. Some other like Russia will use China’s one. Do you think China will be less aggressive than the US in weaponizing everything against you as they see fit? Russia will be a lesser partner to China. The dream of Russia Empire glory will still be a dream only.
  - erichocean 5y ago
    > Russia will be a lesser partner to China. This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc. As an American, it's clear we're making increasingly poor and erratic decisions because we simply refuse to understand that there isn't one universal culture (Western) that everyone should have, and if they don't, they're evil. We've done a lot of feel-good things in response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine, but I don't think it works out well in the end. America is significantly weaker because of the actions we've already taken, and I'm confident we'll double down a few dozen more times before things stabilize again. BRICS countries can sense the opportunity Russia's isolation by the West has given them.
    - idiotsecant 5y ago
      > This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc. No, this is a human point of view. China has been consistently engaged in this exact practice since before the idea of 'China' even really existed. Strong groups will ultimately culturally / economically / militarily subsume weaker ones. It's how families grow into tribes grow into federations grow into city-states grow into nations grow into empires. China well and truly understands how this works. Pretending that everyone on the continent is actually Han Chinese is practically the state religion, for good reason - it helps to expand the in-group and galvanize the tribe against the out-group for the purpose of perpetuating the above cycle. It's fashionable to pretend that western imperialism is the only imperialism. It's only because the west is so good at cultural and economic imperialism (and rarely actual military imperialism) that people make this point. The west is generally successful at spreading it's values because people want to adopt those values. The same is not true of more autocratic systems.
      - erichocean 5y ago
        China has 4 military bases outside China. The United States has 750 military bases outside the US. One is an empire, the other…isn't. P.s. Britain has 145 overseas military bases.
      - 5y ago
- VincentEvans 5y ago
  The West is “weaponizing everything” as you put it against Russia “as they see fit” in response to the actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons. There is also another alternative you forgot to add to the list that Russia could consider - don’t invade neighboring countries, don’t murder people. It seems to work fine for, I don’t know, let’s say Iceland - much smaller, much weaker country. Wonder why is that?
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with. What's happening to Russia is because they are not the West and are acting against the West, not because "an actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons", which something the West and allies routinely do as well (and with no less horrible consequences to populations but without any sanctions).
    - VincentEvans 5y ago
      No, it’s happening exactly because it invaded and is killing people in Ukraine. Why invent an alternative and much more complicated reason? Russia was a mess, weak and poor for 20 of the last 30 years. All the West did during this time was invest and assist trying to integrate a former adversary into the world economy.
      - forum_ghost 5y ago
    - zoomablemind 5y ago
      > ...This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with. Over 2mil refugee exodus from Ukraine in a mere 2week span is the flood of lives, not the emotional narrative. Any practical ideas to halting the still ongoing Russian effort to demolish Ukraine? Asking the Russian state to "just stop" does not seem to work for now.
  - 5y ago
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Sure, well do we need to do business with countries that don't respect international borders and regularly commit war crimes? You're blaming the USA and the west on the invasion of the Ukraine and Russia trying to genocide the Ukrainian people.
polski-g 5y ago
China will be collecting vassal states like I do in EU4. But eventually the vassal swarm will be powerful enough for a WC.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y ago
  what is EU4? what is WC?
  - fire 5y ago
    EU4: europa universalis 4 WC: win condition
    - polski-g 5y ago
      WC: is World Conquest
DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y ago
Yeah with Russia cut off from rest of world, it'll be cheaper for China to take Russian resources such as oil, nickel. Russia will rely on Chinese manufacturing and technology. On the finance side, Russia need China for gov't debt and corporate debt and payments system. All this allows China more power to control Russia (e.g., sanction Russia when they fall out of line).
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Russia is like 4% of China’s gdp. If they get enough sanctions soon enough they’ll not going to step into that shit.

TechBro8615 5y ago

It's not that extreme. They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. More likely, the SWIFT sanctions will prove a mistake for "the West," when it realizes the downstream effects of cutting off Russia from the dominant payment network of the global reserve currency. Russian banks have already started offering accounts in yuan. This will lead to further balkanization (unfortunate pun notwithstanding) of world reserve currencies, which means increased decentralization and a reduced dependency on the dollar. Eventually the world will naturally diversify their reserve holdings to the point that the dollar loses its power as leverage in diplomatic negotiations. At this point, there will be jockeying for position of a dominant currency, and it will be more than just fiat currency in the race. In the next 5 years, we will almost certainly see the emergence of a central bank digital currency. Within the next 10 years, it will be clear that paper USD will not be the dominant currency in 2040, and it will likely be obvious which currency will take its place. As far as the SSL certs go, all these arguments also apply to balkanization of internet infrastructure. In fact, they'll happen together, since the information networks banning Russians refuse to interface with their payment networks anyway. Is this actually the greatest opportunity for Russian entrepreneurs since the fall of the Soviet Union? Suddenly there is demand for an alternative to every Western online service. The products that were previously 80% as good as their Western counterparts now find themselves as the leading option in the local market. This same pattern happened in China when they introduced The Great Firewall — the censorship regime favored local providers, so they had a route to catch up with the Silicon Valley companies. Now look at the Chinese internet economy. Russia doesn't have nearly the population of China, nor the population growth that China did the past twenty years, but it's not unreasonable to expect significant growth in Russian internet sector over the next 5-10 years (after the dust settles on sanctions and the winners emerge).

rosndo 5y ago
> They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side. So and so, my banks in BRICS countries are refusing to accept incoming transfers from Russian banks. At least in China, India and the UAE Russian money seems to be a no-go. Pretty sure other BRICS countries are only providing moral support at this point.
Salgat 5y ago

supergirl 5y ago

the USSR didn't do too bad. NK just didn't start with much. Russia has a lot of tech. but look at NK: they have internet, developed nuclear weapons, trying to launch satellites, surviving covid (I assume), did not get invaded by US, still chugging along

VincentEvans 5y ago
Oh yeah, NK isn’t that bad. USSR didn’t do too badly… USSR in 90ies was equivalent technologically to the West in 60ies-70ies. I was born in USSR. And when I got to travel Europe in the 90ies - the difference was astounding. And one other thing… That was me comparing capital cities of USSRs western republics. If you take your average outskirt towns on the periphery away from Moscow influence and power - the difference was more like 30-40 years of development.
- supergirl 5y ago
  considering USSR got the brunt of WW2, it's not that bad. peak of USSR was in the 60s anyway, so you should compare at that time. in the 90s, USSR didn't exist anymore
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > considering USSR got the brunt of WW2, Well, except for, you know... Germany.
  - VincentEvans 5y ago
    Ok, lets settle on it’s not “that” bad then. My wife who grew up poor hispanic in Brooklyn is humored that we didn’t have a washing machine in the 90ies while living in the capital, drying clothes on the balcony (or bathroom in the winter). She even had a Nintendo!
clearcoat 5y ago
North Korea started with the "better" part of Korea by most measures, having far more natural resources than the southern portion of the peninsula as well as more arable land. All things being equal, they "ought" to be the richer country.

nikolay 5y ago

pumpkinprog 5y ago

As it said in the article, the backstory of this move is that DigiCert revoked SSL certificates of some major Russian banks that come under the US sanctions, including their Central Bank (the Russian Fed). And all their sites, remote banking, 3-D secure pages went down for some time immediately. IMO it is a pretty understandable move for the Russians as a national security measure not to depend on some random American companies switching off Russian critical infrastructure.