Responses to common Russophobe “Arguments”

Published on June 28, 2009 in Da Russophile. 26 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

At certain venues, “Russophiles” take a lot of flak for holding the beliefs and worldviews that they do. Many of their “arguments” can be predicted in advance based on prior experience. I’ve compiled a list of quick rebuttals to some common Russophobe accusations and insinuations so that we don’t have to waste our time formulating unique responses. It’s not quite as good as my idea for a machine that could automatically write refutations to standard Russophobic tripe, but it’s a start.

“Real Russia” Arguments

Have you ever lived in Russia? Clearly not, because you do not understand what real life is like there. As such, your opinions are ignorable.

Frankly, where I live and for what reasons is none of your business. In any case, I fail to see the necessity of living in a country to have a valid opinion on it, provided said opinion is founded on facts and logic. If anything, missing out on participation in a nation’s social and cultural life also implies bypassing its specific national passions and blinkers, enabling one to bring a more nuanced, dispassionate and comparative critique to the table.

But for the record, I have been to Russia numerous times and I’ve known and talked to many Russians. It is clear that many live hard lives, and that the prevalence of material poverty is much higher than in the developed world – but exactly where did I claim otherwise?

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Notes on “The Olduvai Theory” (R. Duncan)

Published on June 28, 2009 in Notes and Sublime Oblivion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Duncan, Richard – The Olduvai Theory Energy, Population, and Industrial Civilization (2006)
Category: collapse, dieoff, resource depletion; Rating: 2/5

This is a summary of a classic “doomer” theory amongst students of world energy and ecological trends, which predicts that the electric grids will go into permanent blackout soon after the peak of world oil production – which was almost certainly reached in 2008. However, unlike the case with the Limits to Growth theory, Duncan does not base his work within a rigorous theoretical framework and his arguments that the oil peak by itself will usher in an immediate collapse of industrial civilization are singularly unconvincing.

Olduvai Theory

Abstract: The Olduvai Theory states that the life expectancy of industrial civilization is approximately 100 years – that is, from 1930 to 2030 (as defined by energy production per capita e). There are four postulates to it:

1) The exponential growth of world energy production ended in 1970.
2) Average e will remain on a plateau from 1970 to 2008.
3) The rate of change of e will go steeply negative from 2008.
4) World population will decline to around 2bn souls by 2050.

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The Dilemmas of Global Dimming

Published on June 28, 2009 in Notes and Sublime Oblivion. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Not only is global warming a real and present threat that may yet in conjunction with impending energy shortages doom industrial civilization, it may have even been dangerously underestimated. What have you been smoking!?, you might say to me. Get off the doom train and enjoy the Sun. Unfortunately, we might not have much of the latter during the next decades – at least metaphorically speaking. To see why, I recommend you watch this video on global dimming or read its transcript. (And read this post, of course).

So here’s the plot-line. After 9/11, the US air fleet was grounded for three days in the name of national security. Though presumably a major inconvenience for travelers, it was a boon for climatologist David Travis who was studying the effects of contrails, or vapor trails, left behind by high-flying aircraft on the world’s climate.

He predicted that removing contrails would have a significant impact on global temperatures, but was shocked to discover that the daily temperature range – the difference between the hottest and coldest temperature measures in a day – shifted up by an unprecedented 1.1C during those three days!

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Notes on “The Last Generation” (F. Pearce)

Published on June 25, 2009 in Notes and Sublime Oblivion. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Pearce, Fred – The Last Generation: How Nature will take her Revenge for Climate Change (2006) PDF
Category: global warming; Rating: 5/5
Summary: Amazon reviews

Another excellent book on climate change that goes beyond the conservative conclusions of the IPCC reports, with the emphasis here being on change that happens with speed and violence after the crossing of certain tipping points, in contrast to the IPCC’s gradualist approach. Since Lynas covered most of the catastrophic climate change scenarios in his book Six Degrees (on which I made notes here), I will only be covering select chapters from this book – mostly those that add more detail to the most significant feedback trends, and original ones that dwell on unexplored territory like the influence of clouds and aerosol pollutants on warming and more exotic possibilities like a hydroxyl collapse. When reading this, it is a good idea to keep this useful conversion: 1 ppm by volume of atmosphere CO2 = 2.13 Gt C, in mind. To keep things in perspective, current anthropic emissions stand at 8bn tons of carbon a year; atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing by around 2ppm a year, the rest still being absorbed by the biosphere (though as we shall see this state of affairs may not last long).

I repeat the disclaimer that since I am doing this mostly for myself as part of my research into my book on “future history”, I cannot guarantee this will be interesting.

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Manipulating Russia’s Manipulation of History

Published on June 23, 2009 in Da Russophile. 14 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

This is a summary of my views on the controversy surrounding the “Stalinist” Russian history textbooks, with the translation of the most offending chapter in question given here. This was originally published at Johnson’s Russia List.

Manipulating Russia’s Manipulation of History
Anatoly Karlin

Stalin was the “most successful Soviet leader”.

Thus proclaims Filippov’s controversial textbook A New History of Russia 1945-2006 – a symbol of the Putin-inspired drive to rehabilitate Stalinism and steep the next generation of Russian schoolchildren in the glories of sovereign democracy. Right?

Unfortunately, there’s just a few problems with this kitschy narrative of neo-Soviet historiographic revanchism, as a cursory scan of the textbook reveals.

This phrase (along with Stalin as “effective manager”) is typically quoted so out of context by liberal critics of the Kremlin as to make their Soviet-era ideological counterparts proud. The full quotation goes thus: “On THE ONE SIDE, [Stalin] IS REGARDED as the most successful Soviet leader”…ie, by the 47% of Russians with a positive view of Stalin. It is immediately preceded by the qualifier that views on Stalin’s historical role are contradictory – a point that is emphatically made at the very start of the chapter in question. Furthermore, the next (and last) paragraph concludes with a list of Stalin’s sins – “ruthless exploitation of the population”, “large scale repressions” and the destruction of “whole classes such as landed peasantry, the urban petit-bourgeoisie, the priesthood and the old intelligentsia”.

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The Approach of the New Persian Empire

Published on June 18, 2009 in Coffee House and Sublime Oblivion. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

With the recent election of the controversial (to put it mildly) Ahmadinejad to the Iranian Presidency, it is time to look at what this portends for the future of Iran and the Middle East region in general.

The first question we need to ask is whether Ahmadinejad’s victory was free and fair. Stratfor believes it may well have been, describing it as a “triumph of both democracy and repression“. According to this narrative, Western liberals misread sentiment in Iran, seeing it in Manichean terms of a struggle between iPod youth (anyone who blogs, tweets, etc) and corrupt Islamist crustaceans. Yet in reality, except for a few urbane Anglophone professionals, there is no Iranian audience for Western iCivilization. Ahmadinehad appeals to a solid bloc based on his platform stressing Islamic piety (a return to the glory days of the early Revolution), combating corruption (in which many of the “liberal” clerics, as typified by Rafsanjani – an ally of Mousavi, are believed to be implicated in), promoting rural development and curbing inequality, and a strident foreign policy aimed at establishing Iran as a regional and nuclear Great Power. US Iran expert Flynt Leverett in Spiegel argues that allegations of fraud are based on nothing more than an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking by the US.

That said, there’s some pretty damning evidence to the contrary. Juan Cole compiled six reasons in Stealing the Iranian Election, where there is now a heated ongoing discussion. For instance, his support in the Azeri provinces was inexplicably high, considering that Mousavi, an ethnic Azeri, was popular there; he also won over the cities, where he isn’t as popular (on the other hand, the regional election results do show that the race was much closer in the Azeri areas and Tehran; in the Persian provinces, Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory was as high as 3:1). Other irregularities from established form, such as a suspicious uniformity paving over traditional regional and ethnic fluctuations. (Muhammad Sahimi notes that the election data shows “a perfect linear relation between the votes received by the President and Mir Hossein Mousavi” over time, with the incumbent always leading by a 2:1 ratio, which he argues is highly unlikely due to the fragmented character of Iran’s ethnic composition; however, it should be noted that this approach is flawed since much the same argument could be made for Obama’s win). Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results, foregoing the customary 3-day waiting period. The counting happened very quickly and Ahmadinejad declared a 64% victory immediately after the polling closer, not far from his official 62.6%. Etc, etc… you get the idea.

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