>You must never have lived through governmental collapse. I have (1990s Ukraine emerging from the ruins of the USSR). >The children and the women will be sell

>You must never have lived through governmental collapse. I have (1990s Ukraine emerging from the ruins of the USSR). >The children and the women will be selling ass for basic necessities, raped by both neighbors and invaders, and killed for no reason at all. Not Or. And. Yeah, on that... Nope. Dunno where you fantasized that from. Prostitution for basic necessities existed, as it does in the US today (and everywhere else: poverty is the #1 reason for it). Gangs did form. They didn't quite "seize everything they can". Protection racket was common, and preferred for the same reason that taxing a market economy is usually more profitable than a planned one. "Invaders" weren't a thing. Mass rapes weren't a thing. People who "bulked up" and joined gangs, in their masses, weren't the winners. Berezovsky, one of the most infamous Russian oligarchs, came from an academic background, with multiple publications in applied mathematics. (Berezovsky number is a fun alternative to the Erdos number; mine is four [1]) Khodorkovsky was a chemical engineer by education who bootstrapped his business career by importing and selling computing equipment for a science education center he opened during perestroika. He used the funds to open a bank. Gusinsky, Russia's media magnate, dropped out of engineering studies to major in theater. His diploma work was on Moliere's "Tartuffe". Another theater major, Vladislav Surkov, went on to become Putin's chief propagandist and is primarily responsible for shaping the post-truth world we live in today. Turning to Ukraine: Kolomoyskiy, one of the most infamous Ukrainian oligarchs, was a metallurgical engineer. Pinchuk, another oligarch, got a doctorate from the same university. Poroshenko, an oligarch and a former president, got a degree in international relations and started a legal advisory firm for international trade before the USSR collapsed. His school buddy Saakashvili became the president of Georgia. I can go on and on. A few thugs did make it big (e.g. Akhmetov); they were exception rather than the norm. As the USSR collapsed, the people with enough smarts to be able to "seize everything" were either politicians or nerds. Your strongman fantasy has no basis in reality. "Nature" valued people with PhDs, it turns out. [1] https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/freetools/collab-dist?source=890547&target=220635 https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/freetools/collab-dist?...