271–280 of 285 posts
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Romania voted out their authoritarian ruler with a firing squad back in the mid to late 80s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
It could be said that Europe collectively voted out communism at the end of the 80's.
You can vote yourself into authoritarianism, but you cannot vote yourself out. And when that authoritarian you love so much makes a major blunder, invading Europe for example, he takes everyone with him, and that's by design.
Usually you can't realistically vote the dictator out long before they invade somebody. For example Łukaszenko in Belarus made it impossible to vote him out in 90s already. Putin in early 00s. Russians and Belarusians made their mistakes back then. Now it's just a consequence of not fighting for their democracy strongly enough when it was still possible. This is the thing that kills democracy - it is taken away from…
There never was any real high tech industry. Everything good was done in gulags which my Russian schoolbook called "Nauki Gorods" ie science towns. Everything else was substandard garbage. However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. But there is time limit for that. You will run out of people.
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I don't like to speak for others, but the educated Russians I'm in touch with are universally against this invasion.
Does that include those in Moscow and St Petersburg? On what grounds are they opposed?
Yes, there are some younger professionals who for some reason are OK with the war. Stopped talking to them completely.
The elephant in the room is how many of those Russian programmers who run away from Russia are FSB / GRU assets. Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.
They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup.
The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still very different from a frontend developer working for Meta.
I could understand the point of them attacking your family but I haven't heard of any cases like this in Russia.
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Your view on the content of the Twitter files is false. There were clear communications demonstrated by the investigation including the hiring of an FBI lawyer as a top legal employee of Twitter. Further, Taibbi and Musk are currently feuding over Musk trying to strongarm Taibbi into using Twitter instead of Substack. Taibbi has openly criticized Musk for this and is no longer associated with new dumps from Twitter.…
> Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him. Why the super secret contract then?, why the unwillingness to criticise musk on some of the even simplest things?. His debate with Mehdi Hasan was very telling.
As a russian dev who actually stayed in Russia I find it both hilarious and sad that this horrible piece of propaganda found a way to MIT Tech Review. Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admitt…
I know entrepreneurs who sold companies to Yandex and VK (when it was MRG). It's a miserable outcome. You have only a few potential buyers in Russia, which means prices for startups are cheap. All then went to launch companies somewhere else so they might have a chance of a better exit.
For a Russian-based startup there are two ways to sell their "cool things" globally. Exit the country or be very diligent about hiding your roots. Still, people will find out sooner or later.
Yes, Russia will still have a few big tech companies, which are almost and government oligopoly already. Their employees shouldn't really expect too much competition for their talent (and corresponding salaries).
As a russian dev who actually stayed in Russia I find it both hilarious and sad that this horrible piece of propaganda found a way to MIT Tech Review. Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admitt…
Of course Russia killed its industry. No reasonable person will launch a startup in Russia. It was hard even before, but at least you had the hope of attracting capital from global VCs, expanding internationally. Now it's gone. I know entrepreneurs who sold companies to Yandex and VK (when it was MRG). It's a miserable outcome. You have only a few potential buyers in Russia, which means prices for startups are cheap.…
The elephant in the room is how many of those Russian programmers who run away from Russia are FSB / GRU assets. Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.
What's the incentive for a person in tech to be a FSB asset? FSB has no money. They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup. The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still ve…
It has all the power and all the money.
You cant do any business with Russia without connections.