https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/russian-tech-giant-yandex-says-might-default-a76752
Yandex are apparently banned from NYSE. There are countless other articles like this one on countless other sites, about countless other companies.
Beyond the stupidity of giving Russia nothing to lose, is ANYONE considering the fallout this, at all? Like how Trudeau inadvertently triggered a run on the banks when he froze truckers' assets, How do we think asian corporations are going to respond to the knowledge that, should their country sufficiently piss off the west's ruling corpocracy, they will get fucked over in ANY and ALL business they have with the west?
This is madness. There isn't a rational thought in anyone's head at this point. The west is destroying international faith in its economic infrastructure.
It's suicide.
It's very rational if you understand what exactly is going on, which is an old paradigm dying and new ones coming into conflict.
The old paradigm was US as the sole superpower, with America ruling the seas with it's navy and controlling the land with it's might. If you contest us, you get bombed to shit and we blow up your trade boats so you become a 3rd world shithole. But the America understands that it will not be a physical power for much longer. It kept the world under it's thumb and integrated in it's economic system via military power for 80 years, but it no longer has the interest or ability in trying to contest things physically anymore.
This is a result of western degeneracy in real terms. You mix the people so there is no national unity to support a war, you tar your patriots as traitors so nobody qualified signs up as soldiers, and you promote only the unqualified DEI applicants so you can't coordinate any serious conflict*. That's okay, because real physical reality does not matter. Only words and what you can convince people is true matters. This has been going on internally in all aspects of the US for decades, but now manifests externally in our ability to maintain an empire.
America has adjusted to this. Since it can not/will not employ warfare, it's new paradigm has to be coercing the world with the tools it has developed. It can control economics. It has gotten very good at crafting narratives and manufacturing public opinion. It can shame and remove enemies from the narratives. It can communicate to the enemy population directly. But all of this is relatively nascent; this is the first time ever deploying this kind of "force" on a national level. (It is also still a blunt instrument. It can only activate as a full blast shotgun; that's how you get dumb shit like Russian cats being banned.)
Russia has noticed our moving away from force and realized that if we're not willing to physically stop them, then they can use force. Their new paradigm is to go back to the old ways, where what matters is actually real: having troops and tanks and planes and bombs. By necessity if they win this, then what other nations have to follow this paradigm too because it doesn't matter what you say if you're dead.
This is very interesting, because it'll reveal the course of world politics for 40+ years. If Russia wins, we should see a number of balkanized conflicts around the globe and a return to countries focusing on actual metrics of success. If the west wins, then we'll likely see the globohomo ascendant and truly become a world government kept in line with soft power and propaganda until someone figures out a new paradigm.
But make no mistake that this is war, and the west doesn't care about Russia having nothing to lose because it is going scorched earth on them just like a real war.
* And on the flip side, the new paradigm is an advantage in that you can control it with just a handful of powerful... er... policymakers on your side to dictate what the government and media do. Militaries require lots of troops who are trained to fight and might fight you if you're trying to grind their peoples into the dust.
What you said in the middle about old and new paradigms reminds me of this lecture by John Mearsheimer. He predicted exactly what would happen and nobody listened.
Also if I can ridiculously simplify the contrast between the two sides, to me it feels like masculine vs. feminine culture.
A man will warn you when you're crossing the line, and if the threats don't work it's understood he will escalate to physical violence. The social hierarchy is determined by who gets their nose bloodied. Physical deterrence. When you make peace, the man will call off the conflict. This leads to the old American revolutionary doctrine of "Enemies in wartime, in peace friends."
A woman, on the other hand, will utterly destroy you. Any line of acceptable behavior that exists can be moved at any moment based on her feelings, and she isn't beholden to those rules of engagement. She'll insult, belittle, and shame you. She'll cry and deflect responsibility for anything she's done. If you try to talk about it she'll say you're making it about you. She'll gaslight you, while insulting and lying about you behind your back. She'll slowly poison you. If you notice what's going on and try to fight back she will scream abuse or use her social network of backstabbers to turn you into a pariah. Nobody will ever respect you again when she's done with you. You'll wish you were dead. Even when you admit you were wrong and accept her dominance, she'll NEVER let you forget it.
Or if you finally snap and slap some sense into the woman, HOW DARE YOU HIT A WOMAN! She never laid a finger on you! What kind of man are you? She's a helpless victim and you're an aggressor using physical violence. How primitive. Go straight to jail, do not collect $200.
Sorry I went MGTOW for a moment there. What were we talking about again? Oh, yeah fuck Putler!
That's not a bad analogy either. There's tons of different layers to the conflict from trade to diplomacy to legitimacy to identity etc.. Not all of it paints Russia in a good light, and like all things IRL there's tons of nuance.
Meanwhile the common understanding is that obviously Putin just woke up one morning and decided to be Hitler for no reason! /s
In a way I kind of envy the Ukranians. Their enemy is out in the open and they can engage them directly in the most sensible way possible. The rest of us on the other hand are stuck in some sort of psychological panopticon where there's no clear means of fighting off our enemies.
LOL.
Very insightful.