Having ASD and driving in Russia

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Not quite. If it were to happen today he could be diagnosed, have the diagnosis classified as a state secret and ignore how any laws might apply to him now because making the diagnosis a state secret would mean nothing has legally changed, the diagnosis wouldn't officially exist.

He's from a generation where diagnoses were far less common because mental and neurological issues were more likely to be treated as personal shortcomings that one just needed to apply more effort to overcome. He might not be the deranged dictator of Russia that we all know and loathe, but he might actually be a happier person if he grew up in different circumstances.

I think the bigger moral is that people who have enough power don't have to follow the same rules as everyone else, especially if their power comes from making and/or enforcing those rules.

That's unfortunately the General Rule of Unfairness.
Things like transparency and independent control are aimed at limiting it but, to different degrees, it exists in every system.

Why does every evil dictator have to have autism for?

Good point you see such narratives in Hollywood movies

The good guys are always good looking funny and socially gifted

The bad evil doers are always the opposite and sometimes “autistic like”.

You see this in US movies about ordinary Russians being depicted as these emotionless mechanical robots.

If you actually watch a Russian movie (with subtitles) you’ll find they are nothing like that and they have a very good sense of humor like Americans.

Sadly those in power need to keep these false narratives going to prolong the hate and misunderstanding

Hey, Chekov from Star Trek was quite friendly!
The Russian engineer in For All Mankind is also full of emotions.

The theory about Putin having autism is just that----a theory.

Most of the time, autism is precluded for Putin, actually.

What is there to admire in Putin?

Yes watched a documentary once about the original Star Trek series (60’s version)

The producer wanted to show a positive future world without discrimination.

Which is why he gave a black woman an important role as communications.

I believe this was before civil rights in US made this the norm.

It was more the norm in real life in the 1960s----than it was on TV.

Some weeks ago I saw a very interesting Russian sciencefiction movie: Гости из прошлого, Heroes from the past. A scientist from the State University of Moscow (Московский государственный университет) is trying to create a time machine, but something went wrong. Because of that he split Moscow in two parts. One is the old Moscow from the Soviet Union, the other part of Moscow is the Moscow as we know nowadays, so from the Russian Federation, and as I have seen (when I was in Moscow in February 2019 and January 2022, both dates with my girlfriend).

It is a totally different time traveling and science fiction movie than I the US movies I know, such as Star Trek. I didn't expect it to come from Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwMqjpCgg9M

It has some subtle humor. I am also trying to write screenplays and this does give me some inspirations.


Yes. It is mainly the aggressive West against Russia that is blamed. The West wants a New World Order, and uses Ukraine as a tool to it (the Netherlands and Belgium have been a part of a putch against the pro-Russian government in Ukraine). Gorbachev put an end to the communist regime of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin and Putin has prolonged the very welcome gorbachevism in Russia, and made it into a respectable country. I have been in Russia three times. It is not the country as it is depicted in the west.

Last edited by hmk66 on 02 Jul 2022, 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

I get very disappointed in the presidents from Western Europe, Canada and the United States. They work together to create a world that I do not want. I have read a lot about the corona virus and the military operation from Russia in Ukraine. I do not want the world, the New World Order, and it should be avoid at all costs. There should not be one world government with WHO as the ruler. Putin fights against it.

Secondly, since the unification of Germany in 1990, James Baker, the US Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time, promised to Mikhail Gorbachev that the NATO would not expand one inch to the east. That promise has been broken. In 1999 or 2000 Putin asked to be a member of NATO. The membership was refused, becase NATO needs Russia as a threat.

I am deeply, deeply disappointed about the conspiracy that the western governments are working on. They are destroying the world, starting with trying to destroy Russia.

It's also a matter of social norms. By the one culture's standards the other are emotionless robots; by the other culture's standards the other are grinning imbeciles.

Putin is not autistic. Don't believe that or anything else you see that makes him seem less than fully competent. Also don't believe that his initial assault on Ukraine was in any way a failure. I don't think NATO, Chinese, etc. intelligence agencies believe this either.

BTW I don't admire him or support him in the least. I am not trying to defend him, I am just trying to express my version of realism in this situation. The war in Ukraine is going to be longer and more discouraging than most Westerners seem to expect.

@OP have you ever before been F2F with this girlfriend IRL? Sorry if this was already answered and I missed it.

Are we supposed to believe the attempt to take Kyiv was merely a feint and ignore the amount of forces that were committed?

To claim that part of the action was not a failure is to ignore reality.

Exactly. Think of war as a chess game. Bluffing will only succeed if your opponent doesn't recognize it as a bluff. Of course Putin made this assault seem as realistic as possible. The only "tell" if there is one, was that it appeared incompetent in many ways. As for committing resources, it's my impression that he largely sent troops he considered expendable, in particular old alcoholic officers. Now consider the campaign in Donbas. It's going very well for him. Nobody comes right out and says he's winning but it looks that way to me. The only way he can "fail" is if he can get bogged down in the same way the Americans got bogged down in Iraq after "accomplishing" their initial mission to take control of Baghdad. However, the Americans had zero grass-roots support in Iraq whereas everybody knows Putin has substantial support in those parts of Ukraine, the news media just don't draw attention to it because it's discouraging for most Westerners.

Take-away point to ponder: you can't go wrong overestimating Putin's combination of ruthlessness and brilliance.

This is not just my theory. I have found support for it in opinion pieces written months ago, and I believe I posted a link to one such piece on WP at that time, although I don't have time to go searching for it now. But review my recent post history (I don't really post that often, it just seems that way to the people I piss off) and you may find it.

BTW I don't want Putin to succeed. Luckily, I believe the US intelligence community, and those of allied nations, have the ability to understand what's really happening. However, they rely heavily on secrecy which when dealing with Russia is exactly what you need. I live in the US, but in addition I live near the seat of power and have been around many people who work for our government, and I can assure you the degree of secrecy and the amount of resources devoted to intelligence is unimaginably huge. BTW I happen to think this intelligence community has usually succeeded, if you accept the premise that much of what that community has done was ruthless and in the interests of those in power here. The only time they failed was in the GW Bush era when Cheney tried to exploit the defense/intelligence establishment for personal monetary gain. BTW I also want to think the Chinese intelligence community is similarly competent but then they are acting in the interests of those in power there, and most likely don't have any sentimental commitment to the wellbeing of people in Eastern Europe.

If you think I say what I do out of a perverse need to be difficult, that's OK with me. It won't hurt my feelings.

I think that assuming Putin actually has more control of things unfolding than anyone else involved is foolish. He's not infallible, he makes mistakes and he's made several in regards to his invasion of Ukraine.

It's got nothing to do with how anyone feels or what anyone would prefer and entirely to do with what can be observed and what conclusions can be derived from that. One doesn't commit most of their forces to an objective as a feint, that's just simply not how a feint works.