kravietz 🦇 on Nostr: So, what outcomes are possible? If the result is that Russian control will eventually ...

So, what outcomes are possible?

If the result is that Russian control will eventually spill over into Europe then from evolutionary point of view, their system will be ‘right’ and this European concept of the rule of law and human rights will prove to be an interesting but short lived mutation.

I don’t want to use the cheap example of lawmakers fiercely discussing well-being of cows while thousands of people inside EU are living in barn-like conditions and thousands of people outside of EU borders die of bombs… but I will actually use it. This kind of social alienation also is a kind of trait, for one because it increases the perception of inequality and destroys social cohesion, which gives birth to populist movements.

If, as a result of the new outbreak of Russian imperialism, Russia collapses, it means that their imperialism was a feature that impaired their ability for successful growth and was disadvantageous at this particular environmental context. That means our vision of civilisation has indeed proven right.

It is possible that Russia will survive in some badly bruised form and will have to reinvent itself, because it too is subject to all these evolutionary processes. Russian society may transform either into one focused more on its own well-being, that’s one way - or quite the opposite, one that is even more revanchist and aggressive.

And there is also the possibility that if not Russia, then there will be someone else testing our ideas for living. In biology, predators and parasites function as part of evolution and not apart from it.

Especially the role of the former is important, as they eliminate weak organisms. Nestor Makhno or Socialist-Revolutionaries in 1920’s Ukraine and Russia may have had great ideas on how to live, but they did not. They were almost literally eaten by a violent, determined and highly organised predator - the Bolsheviks.

In a social context, one thing that makes society “weak” is the loss of their internal cohesion and some kind of guiding idea that unites individuals and is what differentiates a society from a crowd of random individuals gathered in one place.

So, in summary, I don’t think Russia is in any degree “world’s cancer” understood as an extraordinary disruption of mechanisms of social evolution. Majority of what Russia did in 20th-21st century was due to the inability of its adversaries (or victims - call it what you want) to come up with a more effective strategy for survival and execute it.