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Cake day: May 19th, 2025

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  • “Tankie” means “person who, in a confrontation between citizens and tanks, roots for the tanks”. It’s more a reference to a person’s underlying authoritarianism rather than communism per se. The main reason it’s conflated with communism/marxism is because capitalism has, conceptually, staked a claim to the protectorship of individualism, which is assumed to be desirable. And because this claim is unchallenged, anything which stands against capitalism is assumed to therefore be inherently authoritarian. There is some merit to this claim and these assumptions, but to what extent, I couldn’t say. I’m not that smart.


  • I think the implication is actually that there’s a marked dropoff of eligible young Russian men. To preserve a generation, Russia might soon need to use more North Koreans on the Ukrainian front, but that comes with its own problems and risks.

    It’s weird that Putin’s avoiding peace negotiations, as he more than anyone needs to find a way to scale back the war effort before his hold on power begins to waver. I get that he needs to save face while doing so, but he’s not gonna get conditions more favorable than a Trump administration, so the clock is ticking.