Why Bi-Ethnic States Never Work

Humans sometimes have phenomenal ability to keep doing the same thing over and over, even if it does not work. For example common people keep trying and trying the same dating methods that proven to not work. You can see that even among policy makers, who in theory supposed to know better. Yet despite being proven as unworkable over and over again, they keep trying the same solutions over and over again.

I am talking of course of trying to somehow reconcile two or several distinct people and somehow make them co-exist in the same common state. It never works. It did not work in Northern Ireland, in Lebanon, in Ethiopia, in Yugoslavia, in Bosnia and Kosovo after collapse of Yugoslavia, in Netherlands, in Belgium after Netherlands, in USSR, in pretty much all post-Soviet states and many more. Yet despite this consistent track record of failure, this same solution is offered to other people and places like Cyprus and Northern Sahara. Various UN mediators and members of global community keep offering various federal solutions that would get two sides with mutual hatred and irreconcilable differences to somehow work together, instead of doing the obvious and letting them split into two distinct states with reasonable border.

The only place where something like that ever worked is Switzerland. But Switzerland is but exception that only proves the rule. There are other things that do no work elsewhere, that somehow work in Switzerland only. Moreover if you actually look at Switzerland in detail, you will understand that it does not work even there. Sure Switzerland in multilingual but only on federal level. Most individual cantons are either monolingual or have a clearly dominant language. Thus there are no multilingual Swiss who live side by side no matter what their language is, instead there are clear internal borders that divide different languages from each other as well as different communities of the same language but other differences from each other. No one talks about acceptance there, instead they all know where each individual community begins and ends. An attempt to somehow erase these internal boundaries and make Switzerland into a unitary state was tried in early 19th century and was backed by Napoleon himself, but that collapsed within few years and federal divisions remain in place ever since.

Multiculturalism only works when either all people are migrants and no one has home advantage or when all minorities are no bigger than 5% and dispersed territorially so that they could not form ethnic enclaves with their own rules there or form a cohesive political party along ethnic or religious lines. That is how it is in most western states. 

One post-Soviet state, Lithuania also falls into this category. Low rate or ethnic Russians in Lithuania prevents the dynamic that dominates society in neighboring Latvia and Estonia where native Estonians and Latvians are pitted against Latvian and Estonian Russians who have their own identity, culture, ethnic parties and even flag. That illustrates that these conflicts have nothing to do with any particular ethnicity, culture, location or religion but entirely due to relative sizes of the ethnicities. 5% could never elect to parliament their own equivalent of Tatyana Zhdanoka, who believes all ethnic Latvians are Nazis, but something like 10% or above can. The larger their relative rate, the worse animosity between them and the natives will be.

However lets also answer the question why all sort of bi-ethnic or bi-national states always devolve into their own version of Northern Ireland problem. To be completely precise, one may call them a 'finite number national' as say Yugoslavia who suffered from similar dynamic had 6 official ethnicities or nationalities and few more unofficial, one of which was larger than certain official ones. but its too long of a term so I will use bi-national instead. The point is to distinguish it from a kind of close to infinite number of cultures multicultural state, typical for western democracies, where foreign cultures are so many and dispersed, they are normally not counted separately or amount to an ethnicity or religion based autonomy/ghetto with their own de-jure or de-facto rules or power base.

So why multicultural states work and bi-cultural do not. Simple answer is the size. In a multicultural state each ethnicity is too small and/or dispersed to pose any meaningful threat to the majority. Thus locals mostly treat minorities with either curiosity or indifference. They may enrich their experience with their culture, cuisine or knowledge, but they could not form a power block of their own to challenge existing power structures. Even if they want power, they have no choice but to join existing institutions, political parties and such, boosting them instead of creating their own separate power bases that rival the existing ones. There they will have to appeal to locals and their sentiments to get somewhere. Through that gradually these people assimilate and even if they retain some of their original culture or identity, for the most part they become part of their new/host society. Their children would be even more integrated then they are, even if they married someone from their culture. Their grandchildren even more so. Gradually the multicultural society seamlessly absorbs such members, making them part of social fabric and enriching it even.

Those dynamics change however if any particular minority reaches either a certain size, I will say it's about 10% or achieves high concentration in a certain part of the country. It does not matter when they all are different as they will have more differences with each other compared to the majority. That changes dynamic. Instead of assimilating and integrating, the minority instead forms its own minority community based on ethnicity, language, culture or religion. From there on such community focuses on preserving their differences and identity. It becomes its own power based, focused on both self-preservation as distinct entity as well as advancement of their power and influence in a broader society. 

The higher the number the worse the problem becomes. A 10% (of total population of a country) community will be able to preserve their distinct identity but will not be able to challenge the majority for control of society and will instead focus on growing their numbers and safeguarding their distinctiveness and power base. Meanwhile a 40% strong one might instead plot for a political takeover and then gradual replacement of the majority by their own members. A community might have a powerful foreign backer, like the state they originally came from or a foreign power, who seeks to undermine the state they are based in.

So, if you look closely at all the problem cases, they all have this close to even split in society. 60% Protestants and 40% Catholics in Northern Ireland. Same rate of Flemish and Walloons in Belgium or Latvians and Russians in Latvia. 50% of Russians in USSR or Serbs in Yugoslavia and the rest split between various minorities, some of which are rather large. 50% of Bosniaks in Bosnia. Less than 50% of any ethnicity in Ethiopia or Lebanon.

Such spit brings about the worst qualities and traits humans capable of. Tribalism, us vs them, pettiness, malice, cruelty and willingness to do the worst things imaginable. Both sides grow to see each other as existential threat and begin to focus on exterminating other ethnic groups instead of finding ways to live better together.

In bi-ethnic state politics devolve from based on socio-economic issues and policy debate into one based on ethnicity. At 10% rate politics not yet devolve into ethnic one, but a minority interest party may be present among the usual socio-economic ones. However at higher rate of minorities (around 20% to 30%), politics and political parties devolve to tribalism and people begin to vote for parties that represent their ethnicity and religion rather than economic interests. If you look at Northern Ireland, its impossible to distinguished various unionist parties based on their economic stances as this clearly takes back seat and essentially ignored over the overreaching issue of opposition to Catholics and preserving union with UK. In Bosnia or even Belgium its no different, parties do not have their ethnicities in their names but locals all know who represent which ethnicity.

This voting based on ethnicity compromises the very reason why democracy is such a workable system, that makes state responsive to its people. Ethnic parties are not created to represent needs and desires of the people, they are created as power vehicles for their ethnicities, to either gain or keep power in the hands of the ethnicity it represeents: keep us in charge and them out in plain terms. Such parties will not hesitate to make descisions that are detrimental to society as whole in order to shore up their grip on power. Over time this will make life miserable.

A society in such bi-ethno states are no better. Unlike outsiders who may say, why could not they all get along. Locals all know who is who and will almost certainly only cater to members of their own ethnicity while denying the same for other ethnicities. Even when in constitution and various laws discrimination is officially forbidden, the person in charge can still figure out how to deny something to an outsider, while lying about the real reasons for such denial. Petty spite, akin to a preverbal joke or person wishing to lose one leg so that his neighbor loses both, becomes a norm of life. Sometimes it comes to completely absurd situations where ethnically Serb acting mayor of Mostar deliberately sabotaged rubbish collection in the city for no other reason but to drawn local Croats and Bosniaks in rubbish, as they are by far outnumber Serbs in the city. It sound like a sick joke, but it actually happens in Mostar maybe even now. That makes even Northern Irish look sane in comparison.

However what drives this seamlessly insane behavior? Are they all stupid, these people in bi-ethnic states. Far from it. If it was an insanity it would not repeat itself over and over again under similar conditions all across the cultures, religions and continents.

The answer is survival instinct, a fundamental subconscious trait, present in human's psychology, that dates back to prehistoric times. Once the two ethnicities start to perceive each other as an existential threat, all gloves are off. They will stop at nothing to either completely destroy or neuter the other group. No amount of various peace agreements, power sharing deals or international monitoring could possibly stop the two groups from trying to completely obliterate their enemies. Both sides will go to the wits end to exploit and abuse the rules to damage the rival group as much as possible. If they can fight conventional war, they will. If they cannot they will still fight by other means, routinely misusing political and economic power to harm their enemies. 

That is why Northern Irish unionists refuse to participate in government. Because it would allow their catholic republican enemies to be a First Minister, so they would rather have no government than let their enemies be in charge. That is why different ethnic groups in Bosnia routinely misuse Dayton Agreement provisions to harm each other, rather than share power and govern together as was the intention of Great Powers who sponsored it. List goes on.

This applies not just to politicians, but to common people too. The moment they see you are from a rival community, they will refuse to help, or hire and so on. Among other things, Catholics in Northern Ireland complained Protestants simply refuse to hire them for any good jobs the moment they know applicant is a Catholic. It no different in Bosnia or elsewhere where one ethnic identity decides who is allowed an who is not. Prohibitions against discrimination will do nothing as those in charge will make up some legal reason to deny job or help to their enemies. As much as a outsider might fight it difficult to tell two rivals apart, locals always know who is who and will treat people based on ethnicity.

To top it all up, if sides fought an active conflict. Then animosity grows many fold. No matter who started it and who is at fault, both sides will only see or care for their own casualties and grievances and will never forgive the other side who did this. Active conflict leads towards both sides dehumanising their opponents as some kind of inhuman beings unworthy of existence. For example both Russians and Ukrainians are now calling each others Nazis. Ukrainians cheer at each Russian death. And many Russians on X openly deny Ukrainians even a personhood or a say over their country fate, a rhetoric even worse that what actual Nazi use to say about Jews. Restoring relationship from that point is impossible.

Because of the above, the only solution to bi-national states as well as various ethnic conflicts is their split up into two or more independent states. All attempts to somehow reconcile the two sides and make them somehow co-exist together is but a fools errand that always lead towards misery or even quiet but complete extermination of one side by another.

Thus global peace efforts should focus not on reuniting places like Cyprus or Western Sahara but on an orderly and organised split up between the sides and mutual recognition of new borders. When people cannot coexist each other, its pointless to try and make them. One should instead help them split up and begin living separately from each other.

Yes, it will lead towards creation of new states and alter global maps, but its the only method that is both humane and ultimately workable. It will gradually lead towards more stability as new states will be much more safe and stable, because lack of any ethnic or religious split would eliminate most if not all grounds for civil and political strife, that might lead towards civil wars or events like Troubles in Northern Ireland.

All living cells multiply by dividing into two, this is a fundamental principle of life. By extension human societies grow and multiply by dividing into smaller groups and growing on their own. Trying to re-unite such societies would be going against natural order of things and nothing good will ever come from it.

Why Life in USSR was Not Good

Putin's regime like to propagate a narrative that 'wild 90s' were horrible times and that life was better before. While there indeed were certain problems during 90s and certain things were better during Soviet times that preceded them, fundamentally this narrative is incorrect. For majority of people, life in USSR was overall worse than during 90s. Ultimately people freely chose to keep 90s system over going back to how things were before. 

As much as communists like to claim 1996 elections were rigged, they were not. A bit more than 1/3 of all people voted for Zyuganov to return to how things were, but more than half voted against returning to past even if it meant keeping the 90s system. This was the ultimate verdict to Soviet past. No matter how much those voted for Zyuganov wanted to deny that, this is the truth.

I will agree that for those individuals, who voted for Zyuganov life did got worse and they had good reasons to want to go back. However those who voted for Yeltsin had equally good reasons to resist return to the past and their views should not be ignored or dismissed out of hand like current regime and their apologists like to do.

I already wrote an article detailing life during 90s where I admitted some flaws but also outlined what that era gave Russia and its people. Now I will cover the Soviet era that preceded it and outline problems that ultimately destroyed USSR.

In the past I did wrote a few articles outlining certain aspects of Soviet system. Not everything was bad and certain things were so good even reasonable people not emotionally attached to communist values might want them back. However on the summary Soviet times were bad. So bad people chose to end them when they god a chance and did not want to go back when given a second choice either.

The elephant in the room is of course consumer goods, or lack of them to be precise. Even before completely empty shelves of late 80s, choice in Soviet stores was scarce. Yes, defenders will claim that you could find things and that essentials were there, but that misses the point, or to be precise dismisses it.

Critics of 90s like to say that while during 90s goods were in stores, but people had no money to buy them, in 80s and 70s it was the other way around. People had money but there was nothing to buy, making whole money seem pointless.

Sure having essentials are good, but people want more than that, they want to thrive and have fun. If system does not provide them with that, they will not be happy. That will gradually sip away at the whole system.

Soviet consumer goods policy was deliberately astute, frugal at best, scarce at worst. Consumer goods spending was controlled by people with similar mindset to Puritans and monks. They believed that all sort of excesses is bad and provided public only with goods they deemed either healthy or necessary in amounts they deemed sufficient. Their rigorous crusade against anything wasteful and vain, that will make western recycling freaks look tame in comparison, severely limited goods available to public. 

Yes there were inefficiencies in the systems, mistakes as well as scalpels who too advantage of scarcity to make quick buck or to provide for themselves and their relatives and friends at expense of general public, but this problem would not have happened if there were enough goods to begin with.

Public on average found that woefully insufficient. Because of that black economy thrived. Smugglers, that in western world only deal in prohibited substances like narcotic drugs, provided Soviet public with all sort of goods, from t-shits and jeans to western movies and electronics. As absurd as it sound, prudes that ran Soviet consumer goods policy saw spending on even such simple things like print t-shits or soft drinks vain and wasteful. People who run consumer goods were more prude that most fundamentalist Christians in the West and they controlled what common people had legal access to.

That applied to entertainment too. Censors would only approve of movies and other media if they have a certain benign influence on public, either teach them something or promote Soviet way of life. They were so harsh that even an innocent purely entertaining movie with no political message will not see light of the day if it promotes vanity or does not instil communist work ethics. Lack of instilling Soviet values in some way was in itself seen as anti-Soviet or pro-Western. It's like saying that if does not promote Jesus then its Satanic and anti-Christian, but that was reality of Soviet entertainment. What could be shown in 'Christian manga' also could not be shown in communist movie and more. Here too smugglers filled the void with western media, that only served to endear public towards western way of life. Yes, there are a few Soviet era movies that public genuinely love but there were far too little of them. 

Consumer goods and entertainment were the ultimate foundation of Soviet collapse. Even Soviet own comedy show Yeralash made fun of it in the sketch where Western spy tries to escape from Soviet border guards and offers a Soviet kid a chewing gum in exchange for help. Kid refuses by saying that spy should have at least offered him western sneakers because he is not so cheap as to betray his country for mere chewing gum. 

As much as defenders of Soviet system would like to blame the kid, liberals and all other sellouts for lack of patriotism and western decadence as well as call for all of them to be send to Gulags, ultimately, it's not the "sellouts'" fault. If people will betray your country for a pair of sneakers, that is ultimately your system's fault. Blaming it on traitors' lack of morals, loyalty and patriotism is both wrong and foolish. It's your system that failed to provide these people with something that will give them stake in it so that they will have vested interests to protect it from foreign spies. There is nought to blame but the system. No matter how much you would lambast traitors from rostrums and beef up repression, people will still find ways to betray your system if it serves their self-interest. The more you repress them, the more satisfaction they will deliver from betraying your system. Some might even do it for free just out of spite for their treatment at the hands of the regime.

Your system is as good as what people will betray it for, if they betray it for a chewing gum, then its weaker than chewing gum. Do not underestimate the power of a gum. It deserves its own meme.

That raises the question: could USSR have survived if it spends more on consumer goods. Surely CPSU could have cut on space program or military projects to find enough money to raise standards of living and essentially bribe people to stay on their side. They could even replace people in charge of consumer goods with someone more hedonistic, willing to splurge a lot more.

Both yes and no.

Yes, bribing people will keep them on your side. Spending more on consumer goods will keep people happier and they will be more reluctant to abandon the system in favour of something else. Yes, people choose Western model (capitalism) because it promised them more consumer goods.

Does it ultimately solve the problem, no. 

Why not? To answer that question, you have to look at reasons why USSR did not provide its people with enough consumer goods to begin with. 

To put it simply they saw no need. If you tell a Soviet apparatchik that lack of chewing gum will destroy USSR, they will laugh at your face. Consumer goods or citizen satisfaction was always treated as least important thing in undemocratic corridors of power. Top brass always thought of their lofty ambitions and ignored people and their needs. They always though, but what these people going to do about it. They always believed people have no choice or agency.

Until in 1991 people proved them that they do matter. Lack of chewing gum did destroy a nuclear armed superpower.

Modern commies are no better as they clearly have not learned from their past mistakes and still believe people will sacrifice for their goals and values. Their continued support for Cuba and Palestine is enough of a proof that they learned nothing and will repeat the same mistakes if ever in power again.

Can then a democracy fix socialism by providing political competition to the party of principles by offering a more hedonistic alternative to communist orthodoxy? A goulash socialism. In theory yes, real democracy can better represent actual needs and desires of population and keep society stable. In practice again no. The reason for that is the attitude, communists have towards society.

Fundamental reason why Soviet system was doomed from the start, lies on even more fundamental level. It comes to ultimate attitude; communists have towards people. Communists see people not as customers to please or partners to negotiate with, but as children they have to educate. They erroneously believe that people can simply be taught what is good and what is bad, what to do and what not to do and they will do as their 'teachers' taught them too. This is both patronising and insulting. 

Fundamentally this teacher student relationship does not work as a basis of government. People hate being treated like children, no matter how much communists hate this fact, it is the reason why fundamentally every communist regime is doomed to failure. One can run a cult this way because members are all fanatics like you are who believe in the same thing you do. However its impossible to run a country full of all sorts of people the same way. Society will push back and destroy your system every single time.

To run a country and be loved one must treat people as customers, esteemed guests, or at least theater audience. One most constantly please them to retain their favour. When Caesar talked about 'bread and circuses', he meant this simple fact. Capitalism wins over communism not because people love rich or support inequality, but because capitalists understand this simple truth, well not so simple it seems. Communism pays too much attention to weaknesses of capitalism and because of that completely fails to understand its strength.

If not pleased, then people has to be negotiated with, haggle if you like. Its like in CGPGrey Video, Rules for Rulers, you must keep key supporters happy and if not love you on election day, at least prefer you to the alternative. To get people on your side one must offer them something they would want in return for their support or work. Democracy is ultimately all about this very negotiating and higgling over all sorts of things. Political parties offer all sort of policies that benefit certain groups of people to get these people to vote for them. Prime ministers negotiate with MPs and ministers as well as with foreign powers and so on.

Here one should not see key supporters in a narrow sense. That is unless you run a two-roads dictatorship like Equatorial Guinea where only oil industry contributes to economy. In a complex modern society every member contributes something which makes every member a kay supporters. A Soviet joke illustrates it well. They pretend they pay us and we pretend we work. If you want your economy to actually perform you need these people to actually work, not just pretend they do. Thus you have to treat them as key supporters, negotiate with them and offer them something good enough for them to put real effort into what they do. Without their real effort and contribution your society will always turn into second Cuba or Venezuela and they simply will not put any real effort, unless they were sufficiently compensated, bribed if you like, for what they do.

Because of the above, people with teacher's mentality, who seek to educate masses, is in principle unsuitable to run a county. In fact, they are unsuitable to run anything outside of some hobby clubs. 

As in Rules for Rulers video, a ruler has to balance needs of his key supporters and negotiate with them to get things done. Thus a person suitable to be a ruler is a shrewd negotiator who can figure out just what they could offer to all sorts of people in their system to keep them on their side. And it has to be a good deal too, one can get away with a scam when all one need is someone's money, but if one wants to run a country one has to offer ending deals that will remain good even as times go because people will find a way to get off the train the moment they start to think the deal is no longer good.

Because of the above, Soviet System had no real chance of surviving. Through sheer luck CPSU managed to bribe society with promises of brighter future where everything will be free and in abundance. However it failed to deliver and people will not fall for the same trick twice. Fundamentally it was no better than religion with its promise of heaven in the afterlife. Despite mutual animosity, Christians and Communists are the same kind of fraudsters.

Thus in order for Socialism to work, Socialists have to address all of the above issues and afterwards win back people's trust that they will not screw it like they did last time. That is a tall order and it will not get any easier. Fundamentally they are better off abandoning their system and get behind UBI that actually has chance of winning. People may be simple but they are not stupid. They want free shit, not bullshit and communists are alas full of the latter and short on the former.

On Slavic People

Recently I got thinking that there are few scientific misconceptions when it comes to Slavs. Countries like Russia like to falsify history and since they like to claim to be a leader of Slavs, they too mess with information regarding Slavic people to suit Kremlin agenda.

To begin with origins. Many claim that Slavs originated somewhere after collapse of Roman Empire and then rapidly spread across eastern Europe. I personally think its incorrect. Most likely Slavs were the indegious people of eastern Europe, much like Celts (Galls) were in western Europe.

The reason Slavs were not displaced to the same extend as Celts where is the fact that land in eastern Europe much less hospitable than that of western Europe so there was less desire by more advanced and powerful civilisations to claim these for themselves. Only Hungarians, that originated somewhere around Khanty-Mansiysk on the other side of Ural Mountains in modern Russia, took some of the better lands in the area, splitting Slavs into Western and Southern ones. The fact that Hungarians inhabit fertile plains around Danube while Slavs live in much less hospitable mountains both north and south of these areas clearly indicate that it were Hungarians who displaced Slavs, not the other way around. The fact that Czech and Slovak languages in certain regards closes to those of southern Slavs, rather than to Polish only further proves this point.

Speaking of languages, similarities between different Slavic languages make some people believe that Slavs originated much earlier that was likely the case. Slav languages are closer to each other than different Germanic languages like for example English and German or either of these two compared to Scandinavian languages. However, reasons for differences between English and German are due to the fact that English branched out of Lowland Germanic, spoken in coastal areas and Modern German originated from Middle German, spoken much further inland. English was further influenced by Celtic languages native to Britain as well as French, while German was not. If you compare Slavic languages to Romance languages that branched out after the fall of Roman Empire, then, with exception of French and Romanian, the other three Romance languages are actually mutually intelligible. A Spaniard would understand an Italian or Portuguese without much trouble. I had a friend from Peru who travelled around the continent and had little trouble understanding Portuguese when he visited Brazil. The same could not be said about Slavic speakers, who will have hard time understanding even their close neighbors, much less a more distant Slavic variant. That points towards much earlier origins of Slavic languages as well as much slower spread across the parts of Eastern Europe. 

It is also possible than Slavic and Germanic languages have common origins, but the link between two is lost due to the fact that both Eastern Germanic, like Gothic and Western Baltic, like Old Prussian, languages have gone extinct. If this theory is correct that it might be possible that both Germanic and Slavic languages originated from common proto-Baltic language that first split into different Baltic varieties between like old Prussian in the West, Latvian and Lithuanian in the east. Then these branches further evolved into Proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic that went on to spread further southwest and southeast respectively.

Finally on assimilation of Slavs. Slavs in general are more of people who adapt and imitate other cultures and traditions than the other way around. For example, Serbs adopted many of Byzantine symbols and titles, like double headed eagle and Tetragramic cross that Serbia still uses as its symbols. Even Russia still uses Byzantine double headed eagle. Complete assimilation into other cultures is also possible. For example, Romanians are likely Slavs who adopted a Romance language for themselves to be more like Romans who they admired. Germans did it too with Holy Roman Empire but not to the same extend. Assimilation of Slavs into Germans also happened, most of areas east of Elbe were once inhabitant by Slavs but are now German. Germans established marches in the area that gradually spread German way of life to local people, some of them are still around these days but they are tiny minority. This was not only done by German efforts alone. Local Slavic rulers, like those of Mecklenburg and Pomerania Germanised themselves and their people with no involvement of outsiders from western bank of Elbe. There was no evidence of any coercion to achieve these results. Most likely people willingly embraced German way of live, finding it superior to their own ways. Not dissimilar of how modern eastern Europeans embrace European Union and its reforms compare to old local ways of doing things. That particularly refuses Kremlin's narrative that Russians are some kind of non-European people who dislike European ways and prefer Mongolo-Asiatic dictatorship of Putin. The number of German cars, German music and culture that Russians consume, including those who propagate these anti-Western views paints a different picture. 

Generally, people are more inclined to emulate cultural practices if they find them useful, and Slavs are no exception. The anti-Western nativist narrative is mostly popular with Russian women and elderly, while men prefer alternatives to Slavic ways and often seek out these in other cultures. One problem with Slavic cultures is that it does not give men enough control over women so Slavic men often embrace cultures that give men more power in relationships.

These are my correction to current orthodoxy on Slavic people. Unlike other researchers, I am not paid by Kremlin to advance narrative that benefits Putin regime, so my views are more objective than theirs. Read and learn.

How Many There are Communists

In my article about Communist Values, I mentioned that Communist Values are disliked by majority and that Communists are clear minority despite their rather large numbers. Such statements are all and good, but what is the actual numbers. Just how many there are communists, rushing to feed Africans at expense of their own country's quality of life as well as how many there are those who think this is ridiculous and we should have kept the money. 

The answer is 25%.

How did I arrive to this conclusion? Simple: east Germany. At the end of its existence, east Germany held its only democratic election. Around half of all voters voted for CDU and their message for immediate unification with west Germany. That was all that mattered in the end. However, 25% voted for rebranded SED, promising to preserve socialism and further 25% voted for SDP and other smaller parties that campaigned on various other unrelated to unification issues. 

25% wanted to keep 'socialism' in the country famous for its brutal oppression and poverty as well as infamous attempts to cross Berlin Wall into the west. One could dismiss this as inertia and assume such sentiment would gradually fade away after unification. It did not, in various surveys after the unification the same broad 25% voiced their nostalgia for DDR. That too often was explained by uneven economic development and backwardness of certain parts of former DDR. Almost 40 years on however ghost of DDR still persists.

At the same time there is a clear upper limit to how far this ghost of communism could really reach. A successor to DDR's SED, Linke never manage to win outright any of the 5 and a half landers, created out of former DDR. They governed in collation with SDP and Grune in Thuringia, but never had an outright majority, always having to rely on and compromise with other leftists to govern together. 

In other eastern lander unusually strong vote for Linke coincides with even stronger vote for CDU, conditioned by no other sentiment than to keep commies out. Communist vote is strong, but an anti-communist is even stronger. 

Modern threat from the east, AfD, too grew strong for a while until they reached this magical number of 25% and then stuck around it. Currently only a little bit above it, but that can be dismissed as protest vote extra or statistical error. Despite general disillusionment, various economic woes, lack of charisma or vision of current coalitional government, the disillusioned voters are unwilling to give AfD or Linke a chance. Both parties reached a ceiling they could not breach.

Moreover, successes of ostensively far-right AfD often coincide with fall of ostensively far-left Linke, for example in most recent Thuringian election where Left used to run a rather successful and popular government. Combined Linke, AfD and BDW vote in Thuringia is higher than national average but that is because those who prefer west left for western lander and only die-hard commies have left behind.

Overall political and voter attitude towards these parties only further highlights this glaring rift between them and the rest of political spectrum. People either support these parties with no reservation or downright refuse to even consider them. It's pretty clear it's not competition of ideas or different economic interests, but a stark difference in values.

Neither Linke, nor AfD ever managed to break cordon-sanitare and never would. Chances of both parties are limited by this magical 25% number.

Germany has ample of data one can analyse but the same fundamental pattern exists in other left-wing countries. Left have numbers, it's never a one man or small group dictatorship in a strict sense of the world. There are always crowds that support far-left regime, crowds that leadership can rely for support and recruit from. Left wing regimes are never starved of cadre and can mobilise crowds to back them up in face of pressure or accusation of being undemocratic.

On the other hand, no far-left systems had a functioning democracy or civil society. The reason is simple: actual majority is against the left and given a free vote they will always vote to abolish it. That is why no communist state ever has a functioning democracy. Majority is disenfranchised, sidelined and suppressed, while cadre of filtered left-wing zealots and apologists are the only demographic who are allowed to express their views and participate in political debate. Democracy for select quarter of society and tyranny for everyone else.

However, why 25%? The answer lies in Myer-Briggs Personality sorter. The Diplomats group makes approximately 25% of all personality types. Diplomats' views by far most coincide with that of leftists. A sort of global mission, altruism, willingness to sacrifice and such are all the things' Diplomats and commies have in common. These traits often viewed as good and benign, but they too can turn brutal and evil when government puts in terms of either sacrifice of be executed as enemy of the system. Both diplomats and communists see themselves as sort of educators of society, pushing it towards some moral high ground. Both have tendency to be activists and campaign for causes they support. Both have willingness to sacrifice or even die for things they believe in. The list goes on.

In view of the above, struggle for or against communism is not that of countries or systems or even ideas, but a struggle between different psychological mentalities. Between MBTI Diplomats and every other group to be precise. Communist dictatorship is when MBTI Diplomats seize all power and disenfranchised every other MBTI type. Communist parties are parties of MBTI Diplomats values that seek to disenfranchise every other MBTI type. And so on.

That explains why communism has plenty of sympathizers in every country of the world. Why this ideology never dies out completely despite failing so many times. That also explains why most people in communist system are discontent and want the regime to end. Why communism always fall when free elections are held.

To sum it up, communism is not an ideology or economic system, but merely a reflection of psychological profile of MBTI Diplomats. Communist movements and parties are nothing but vehicles of MBTI Diplomats attempt to impose their values on the rest of the society by force or trickery.

Communist Economics vs Communist Values

Around a year ago, I deconstructed Soviet planned economy system into individual components to better analyze what aspects of the system worked and what did not (separate article here). I concluded that a hybrid system using best parts of both market and planned economies is not only viable but desirable for our future.

Economic aspect of Socialism is well covered in the above-mentioned article. However, it falls short of addressing another glaring issue with this system, socialist values.

Economic aspect defines how money is made. Economic models can be discussed in terms of fairness, but they also can be discussed in terms of how efficient they are, how much money they can or cannot produce. One can compare economic models based on rational metrics to see which preforms better or worse.

On the other hand, values determine how money is spent. Who gets what, how much and why. While some may rationalise their values by listing various arguments why one is more deserving of money than the other, it all is fundamentally a rationalisation of either one's own self-interest or believes.

Values of any kind are a touchy subject, when someone even suggests that everything you hold dear in you hears as universal principles that makes one human, is nothing more than utter nonsense, many would respond with violence. Nonetheless the issue of values has to be addressed if we are to really understand socialism and move forward towards a solution that actually works.

After all, as Gregor Strasser showed us, you can take socialist economic model and merge it with Nazi values. If it can be wedded to Nazi values, then it can also be merged with other value systems, conservative, liberal, social-democratic, hedonist, transhumanist, anything really. 

So, in this article I will look at communist values separate from their economic model and draw conclusion.

To put it mildly communist values are unpopular with majority of people. Yes, they have their supporters who stand by them against all odds. Sometimes such supporters form a closed echo chamber associations where everyone agrees with each other and further amplifies their erroneous perception that everyone in the entire world, with exception of billionaires, are in agreement with them in principle.

What inhabitants of these, sometimes rather large echo chambers fail to realise, that would outside these echo chambers is larger than the chamber itself and people out there do no share their values in the slightest. A common mistake all echo chambers make.

It's simple to test it. Take a simple question of say: "should we help a starving person by giving them free food?" Worded this way most will agree. However, this is not how reality works. To give a starving person food, one has to take it from somewhere. So, when you instead word it like: "should we all eat less and share with the starving, so they do not starve?" you are going to get very different answers. Sure, some will still be on board and say such sacrifice is a universal human duty, but most will be against it. It will soon devolve in accusation of classism, racism and more. All the things we so often see in online debates around various socialist topics.

As you can see socialist values are unpopular with public. It's not that people fear that billionaires will lose their money if socialist take over, what they fear is that socialist will take some of their food to feed never-ending starvation countries in Africa. Because of that no matter how much socialist will continue to bash billionaires and expose issues with capitalism, the public will not switch to their side for one simple reason. They do not want to eat less so that African kids do not die of hunger. 

Take Social Democrats, who abandoned socialist values and said they only care for wellbeing of members of their unions and working class in their country, not just everyone who starves. They by far more popular than communists who maintain hardline stance on both capitalism and values.

In view of the above, the biggest obstacle toward socialism are socialists themselves and their values that majority simply does not share. Because they do not share these values, they do not want to volunteer and sacrifice for the cause they could not care less.

One may even say that every communist system failed not because economic system in itself was inefficient but because government, guided by socialist values, spend money on things people did not care about and wasted it all. People embraced capitalism and democracy not because laisses-fare capitalism better than planned economy, but simply because a more liberal system allows them more disposable income to spend on whatever they please, not what government believes is important.

People are fundamentally selfish and no amount of 'education', brainwashing, shaming or even psychiatric treatment aimed at changing psychology will ever change that. Communism fails simply because communist values contradict this basic principle of human nature. It's a failure of values, not of economic model.

As Marx prophesized, future will be economically communist, but it will not be built around communist values. UBI models merge economic model of communism with liberal value system. This will be the future. Meanwhile cultural communists and their values will forever languish on the ash heap of history.

Nations and Cultures that Role Playing as Other Cultures

During Dark Ages when Goth conquered and controlled Rome, a Gothic king once remarked "a wealthy Goth plays Roman, a poor Roman plays Goth". The meaning was that both Romans and Goth found each other's cultures appealing and actively tried to live as members of another's culture. Of course, such pretences had certain differences with how people of their own culture acted, but the point remains. Certain foreign cultures do appeal to people, and they strive to emulate them in their behavior, sometimes becoming a sort of tribute culture.

However, I can tell you more. What if most cultures we currently have are but an emulation of some other culture by a certain group of people. Shocking, isn't it.

I arrived at this conclusion, when looking at French I noticed that they are basically Germans, pretending to be Romans. Franks (a Germanic tribe) conquered Roman Gallia and liked it so much, they decided to emulate Romans in every way, including language. French technically is a Romance language, like say Italian or Spanish, but it's not mutually intelligible with other Romance languages. Its fancy but weird and kind of out of place. This proves that it did not evolve organically but rather a product of Germanic speakers trying to speak Roman Latin. Overtime it evolved into a direction that is neither Roman nor Germanic, as its speakers kept inventing new things.

French are by far not the only ones like that. Everyone heard of North Macedonia's dubious claims on being descendants of Alexander the Great. As much as this claim is clearly made up, Macedonians themselves want to believe it's true, not because it's some tourist advantage but rather because they simply like Alexander the Great and ancient Macedonians and want to be like them.

Dig a little further and you can notice that say Bulgarians are Turks who role play as Slavs. Their language is of Slavic language group but has a few peculiarities that are of clearly Turkic origin, including unusual for Slavic languages grammar, surnames and more.

Bulgarian neighbor to the north, Romania are basically Slavs who role play as Romans. Once again, the same traces give it away. Romanian is in Romance language group but has certain Slavic peculiarities. Romania's location, surrounded mostly by Slavic people and languages, but on Ancient Roman border also suggest that Romanians were Slavs who simply adopted as much of Roman culture and language as they could.

So how many more nations are role playing as something else. By my estimation a clear majority. Only a few people like Finnis, Hungarians, Germans, Norwegians and Ukrainians are just their own people, doing their things, not caring for much. Most others are role playing larpers.

Prussians and Austrians are Slavs, role playing as Germans.

Czechs and Slovenes are Germans, role playing as Slavs.

Montenegrins are Italians role playing as Slavs.

Croatians are Slavs, role playing as Italians.

Serbs are Slavs, role playing as Byzantines, ironically located west of Romanians who role play as (western) Ancient Romans.

Greeks are bunch of random people, role playing as ancient Greeks.

Turks are actually former Byzantines, role playing as Turks after they stopped role playing as Iranians.

Azerbaijanis are Turks roleplaying as Iranians.

Turkmens are Iranians, roleplaying as Turks.

Albanians are Turks, role playing as Italians.

Latvians are Balts, roleplaying as Germans

Lithuanians are Balts, roleplaying as Romans.

Poles are Balts, roleplaying as Slavs.

Estonians are Finns, roleplaying as Scandinavians.

Swedes are Scandinavians, role playing as Finns.

Danes are Scandinavians, role playing as Germans who role play as Romans or role play as French for short.

Belarussians are Slavs who role play as Lithuanians.

Russians are mix of Scandinavians, Tatars and Mongols who role play as Slavs who role play as Germans.

English are Celts, who role play as Saxons who role play as French.

Irish are Scandinavians who role play as Celts.

Portuguese are Swabians who role play as Romans.

This list might produce a plenty of heated debate, insults and the like. That however is not my intention. I want to shed light on this phenomenon of people imitating other people due to their love of their culture. I hope this article will shed light on this phenomenon and produce a serious discussion on the matter. 

Why Honest Racism is Better than a Disguised One

On X there are lots of posts that try to sell racism disguises as either Christianity or some other nonsense. Not even Elon Musk is safe from it, as he regularly talks about suicidal compassion, which fundamentally boils down to abandoning apartheid and giving South Africa to ANC was a mistake. Its not too hard to understand why they do so. Racism is not something socially acceptable in modern society so disguising it into something that is socially acceptable like religion seems like a smart move.

Despite of the above, I would argue that fundamentally it's better to be honest and call spade a spade. If problem is black people and what they do, then say it straight, do not blame it on atheism or Islam or pretend it's about saving Christianity. 

To really solve the problem one should name its real source. Any euphemism distracts from the issue at hand. Take Musk's 'suicidal compassion' for example, it's a too broad of a term that can affect far too many people aside from the actual problem you are trying to address. For example, it will be compassionate to help homeless people, poor people or people who suffered from natural disasters like hurricanes. Anyone can become homeless or suffer from a hurricane, white, Asian, Latino, not just Black. When you say compassion is suicidal, does that mean these people should not be helped? Even if do not mean it this way, it can be interpreted this way. This puts these people at risk in danger of being abandoned under the doctrine on 'no compassion'. No one wants to be left behind. So, if your vague definition leaves the door open to anyone personally being abandoned, this person will not support your ideas. Suicidal compassion leaves the door open to just this problem as with definition this vague anyone can be abandoned at any time.

Christianity is even worse than that. It leads towards pointless debates with atheists about theology while the real problem is being ignored. Opposition to Islam is no better, sure Palestinians are Muslims but so are Emiratis. Saying all Muslims are bad means those who build Dubai are bad too. No one in their sane mind will ever agree with you on that, aside from barracks communists who like to replicate Pol Pot experience, hardly an ally a 'Christian' wants.

That is why the problem has to be named directly. Accusation of racism will come, but they do come already over Islamism. They would have to be braved, faced and argued back, not cowardly dodged by saying you are 'saving Christendom' or 'compassion is bad'. You have to stand and argue that certain socio-ethnic groups are detrimental to wellbeing of society and have to be delt with. 

Do not just call them 'black' either as that too is too generic and too many will fall under this definition for it to ever succeed. If anything, you have to narrow the problem down as much as possible. Doctor cannot help you if you cannot explain what exactly hurts, police cannot find a culprit if you can only describe them as 'someone', you have to get into specifics if you want to eighter of them to be able to do anything about your problem.

There are billion Muslims all over the world, but there are but a handful of Hamas members. If you narrow it down to Hamas members and sympathisers only, then you can get people on your side. There are even more people you can call black, but there are only handful of criminals among them, if you can narrow it down to just these, then you can actually solve the problem. For example, in South Africa's case, instead of arguing in favour or apartheid, argue that ANC is corrupt and should be removed from power due to corruption, not because they are black, that way even some black people will be on your side and anti-racist posse will not be able to do much. Something more specific can be done about African American problem, I am not American, so I do not know how specify them further.

Hitler too did not label all black people as subhuman. Nazi racial theory went with a fine comb, selecting but few targets where one could argue about actual issues with these particular groups of people. He managed to rally most of Europe and more to his cause with his clever approach. If he would not target Jews, he might have got away with it too. Nazi racial theory should be studied in details and ideas from it used to argue causes for or against any particular socio-economic group.

Finally political views can also be used to target people. Communists support a lot of policies that are reprehensible for majority of people. If you will manage to successfully decouple them from people who want to provide welfare for citizens, you can successfully rally people against the red menace too.

There is smart way to approach issues or problematic people and generalising them is not it. Instead, one must be as specific as possible. Only then you will be able to successfully argue about necessity to address the issue these groups cause.