stinkubus
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2016
- Messages
- 1,845
What is the life expectancy for someone who was born in Russia today?
DO NOT CONGRATULATE
- Thread starter Berzerker
- Start date
What is the life expectancy for someone who was born in Russia today?
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Like I said how is Trumps relationship with the EU, China, Mexico, SK, Canada.
Winning right ?
Plus its not like Trump attacks the Media all the time, (and the FBI, and minorities and etc etc)
Talk about making your bed.
A fairly basic statistical analysis shows that Putin received just under 10 million highly questionable votes. They seem to have come from outside Moscow, St. Petersburg, and nearby oblasts - mostly the republics and krais. "Churov's saw", in which there are highly unlikely bumps at 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 95% support, was present in this election as it is in every Russian election. Here's a source, one of several that relies on Sergei Shpilkin's analysis.
That said, there isn't any good reason for it - Putin would win handily with or without the extra votes. I'm guessing it has something to do with UR party officials from outlying areas wanting favors, or having internalized that this is what is expected of them whether or not Putin or UR actually want or expect it. It does help to boost the turnout figures, though.
FWIW, this was apparently the lowest number of anomalous Putin/UR votes since 2004.
For awhile, Prime Minister Trudeau had a reputation as the "Trump Whisperer." He could get along with Trump while profoundly disagreeing with him on nearly everything, and he and his wife managed not to laugh in Trump's face at the White House when he was rambling on about how many bombs the U.S. has.
Ivanka likes Trudeau as well, as evidenced by the photos of her making goo-goo eyes at him when he co-hosted a meeting to discuss opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
Unfortunately those photos unleashed a subsection of male posters on our news sites who are convinced that Ivanka would make a wonderful U.S. president. When I asked what they considered her qualifications to be, all they had to say was that "she's tall and beautiful."
In short, Trump's relationship with Canada has been weird. But now that NAFTA talks have been going on and Trump has been making up all kinds of BS about trade between our two countries, the relationship has taken a chillier turn.
As for Canada and Russia... Elections Canada is looking into increased security for next year. Thank goodness we don't use electronic voting machines.
Didn't see this one, thank's. I remember his previous analysis from parliamentary elections which showed that elections in Moscow/St.Petersburg are seemingly fair, while in places like Chechnya Putin and United Russia are getting unreasonably high amount of votes. That's probably indeed depends on local administration. What was surprising for me is that in some regions UR got anomalously low number of votes, though there were only a few such cases.
Yeah, if you look at the 2016 results on Wikipedia (link) and sort by either turnout or UR vote share, most of the republics and many other outlying areas saw extremely implausible results. Including the dubious votes, UR got 55% on a turnout of 47%, and yet Chechnya's results show 97% for UR on a 95% turnout, Dagestan has 89% UR with 88% turnout, Karachay-Circassia has 82% UR on 93% turnout, and so on. But then the Moscow and St. Petersburg results showed no sign of rigging: Moscow had 38% UR with 35% turnout, and St. Petersburg had 40% UR on just 33% turnout. I believe Shpilkin estimated that UR's total in 2016 was inflated by about 15 percentage points and the turnout was inflated by about 10.
It is strange that there were a few areas with anomalously low results this time, too. I remember reading that independent observers were better stationed this time around; they observed some of Chechnya's polls and found something like 37% turnout in the ones they observed, against 95-99% at stations they weren't observing. I wouldn't be surprised if the low results had to do with observer placement.
The main thing about this election is that while it was a bit cleaner, the strongest opposition candidates (Navalny in particular) were not allowed to run, so it was just the usual Communists, LDPR, and a scattering of other people who got less than 2% each. I don't see what Putin has to gain by suppressing Navalny's candidacy - he would still win while looking better about tolerating dissent.
Right, it looks like his analysis correct in both cases. I don't like the conclusions, but it seems there is statistical evidence I can't argue against.
Berzerker
Deity
I'm not familiar with their procedures, analysis of the paper trail from those specific boxes would show if they were illegitimate ballots
It's 72.5, catching up pretty quickly. Putin, among other things is being credited for this:
Spoiler :
And this:
Spoiler :
If we compare the number of political prisoners in USA and Russia according to human right watch organizations, in Russia this number is a little higher.
"Memorial" estimates number of people incarcerated in Russia by politically motivated charges as 117, in USA it's believed to be 50-100.
It's vague analysis, since different organizations may use different definitions and standards, but I believe it gives impression of the state of affairs in Russia.
Last edited:
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Still pretty low though. And not wonder it is catching up, coming from the post soviet third world Russia was in the 90s. Not much to being credited for, frankly.
stinkubus
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2016
- Messages
- 1,845
It's 72.5, catching up pretty quickly. Putin, among other things is being credited for this:
Spoiler :
And this:
Spoiler :
So Russians are free to die approximately 7 years earlier, on average, than Americans, and they also enjoy a per capita GDP which is less than one fifth of America's. The idea that Russians are just as free when they die nearly a decade sooner and the average person is resigned to living in abject poverty is a joke.
The difference is 6 years, about as much as the difference between Japan and USA.
Russia is medium-high income country, the difference in GDP per capita is about two times, not 5. Not sure where did you get this "abject poverty" thing.
What all of this has to do with political freedoms anyway?
If you are talking about poverty, nominal GDP doesn't say much, because it doesn't take internal prices into account.
For example, how much do you pay for Internet access? I have 100Mb/s unlimited plan for ~8$ a month. In Canada it was about an order of magnitude more expensive.
Price for all utilities, heating, electricity, water, etc. is less than 100$ a month.
Can you give example of freedom you have and I don't?
Last edited:
I'll go ahead and try to answer for him.
One freedom that is lacking in Russia is the ability to deal with government bureaucrats and police without having to bribe them. A friend of mine who studied abroad in Moscow in 2009 reported that he was one of only two people in his 4-month program who never had to bribe the police at any point. American police can certainly be brutal, particularly if you're poor and/or a minority, but it's very rare for them to harass people for bribes.
There's not much of a sense of paranoia of serious consequences in the US if you openly oppose the government. My impression is that people who write seriously critical blog posts and the like against the government are fairly concerned that they will be the victims of selective enforcement of very broadly written laws, or that they will be blacklisted and have trouble seeking employment, especially in the public sector. Also, the occasional murders of opposition leaders like Nemtsov seems to cause dissidents to be afraid that the same thing will happen to them, even though most are not high-profile enough for there to be a serious risk. Whether Putin is behind the killings or not, they seem to have a chilling effect on free speech.
Flawed as the US system is, enough elections are genuinely competitive that it is common for the politicians in power to be defeated and replaced with a new set of politicians who have very different policies. Despite the dominance of the two parties, they hold primary elections that allow for a fair amount of pluralism within parties, as was on display in the 2016 elections. Russia, on the other hand, is a dominant-party system where nobody expects Putin or United Russia to have any serious competition. I'm not sure what would happen if his approval rating fell to 40%, but the amount of ballot stuffing is high enough that Putin or UR would still probably win even against a strong opponent. So, the freedom to elect our politicians in fair elections is much stronger here, even if it's nowhere near perfect.
The thing about modern authoritarian regimes is that they're generally tolerable and don't feel particularly oppressive provided you don't step outside the lines of acceptable discourse. North Korea is pretty much the only state left where even minor complaints or jokes might doom you to a labor camp. But at the same time, enough social control is exerted to make it practically impossible to peacefully change the regime. Putin's a master of moderate 21st century authoritarianism, where there's a "soft dictatorship" that cannot be removed, but which does genuinely care about public opinion and tolerates mild dissent more than, say, the USSR post-Stalin (to say nothing of how bad it was under Stalin).
You made a few good points and there are lots of differences between life in USA and Russia, which may by itself require a lengthy discussion.
My point was more simple - many people seem to think that in modern Russia if you dare to say a word against Putin, you'll be immediately sent shoveling snow in Siberia.
That wasn't the case even in late USSR.
For ordinary person, if you have a decent job you can have pretty much everything Western people enjoy. You can buy the same stuff, go for vacation abroad, have access to uncensored information, get good healthcare, etc.
Similar threads
