Russia visions

The problem with Russia is that it wants to be like China: A world power with an independent industry (energy, mining, aerospace, maybe pharmaceuticals). The US wants it to be like Brazil. A harmless 2nd tier state with an open market and maybe one or two industrial gems that Western majors can snap up. I have to say I’m with Russia on that one.

Putin rescued Russia from the pillage of the ’90s, when GDP fell from world 2nd to around 10th place, advanced industry was left to rot, and natural resources went to the mafia oligarchs. The US establishment were ecstatic about that development and the UK sheltered the oligarchs and made them legitimate. Apart from Trump, they’ve not modified this position.

Trump, whether for being an outsider and a petty crook or for other reasons, didn’t care and the problem disappeared. Now it’s back as if on cue, and the English-speaking press are putting out war stories the same clumsy way as they did with Iraq. It looks to me like this crisis is manufactured by our side.

I think Washington sees a proxy war in Europe as a low-cost flex because it’s not in their back yard. It is in ours. We saw the outcome of their efforts in Syria and the Maghreb, where millions of lives were ruined and Europe was left holding the bag. And Russians are Europeans like us. Instead of conflict we want to buy gas from them, rejoin our cultures, and integrate our economies.

The American fixation to decisively win, as opposed to just end, the Cold War is making this impossible. Whatever you think of Putin or challengers like Navalny, Russians are not going to accept a repeat of the Yeltsin years. Cornering Russia guarantees strongman rule for as long as that it the West’s obvious aim.

Happy New Year

2020 has been a pretty good year for me and those around me. A couple of people got COVID and recovered, and some others were stuck on their own for months, but nobody died and no-one had serious health issues of any kind. We had more family time than I thought we could handle, and even managed some holidays. Quality of life went sharply up. For the first time in my working life I can walk to the bakery or cook a nice meal at midday. I started to appreciate the city and the neighbourhood that I live in. Our son moved to the UK and got into uni, remarkably at 17 for his exceptional skills, which is the path he wanted to follow. We both got our right to stay in the UK post Brexit secured. Having him in the house motivates me to take care of myself and live better. Overall nothing terrible happened, anxieties and risks have been closed, and life plans have moved forward.

I’m not particularly afraid of COVID. I’m afraid of giving it to other people and I’m ordinarily afraid of boring diseases like stroke/heart/cancer especially during lockdown. I’m a lot more afraid that the loss of freedoms we consented to: electronic transactions, travel restrictions, contact tracing, etc. will be very hard to reclaim. My job in tech was less affected than most, but I did get in a bit of a rut for lack of travel. Turns out a big part of my work was to meet and bring together other teams, and with online meetings although we can work it feels like we’re using up relationships we already got. I miss Japan. 

2020 was politically divisive but relatively benign. It’s the last year of Trump. He was unpleasant, but did less damage than any other president since Jimmy Carter. Trump killed a senior Iranian officer by drone in 2020, setting a bad precedent, but that was it in terms of major hostilities throughout his four year term. No wars, no countries of muslim people invaded or destroyed. Persistent attempts by the Republican party to bypass democracy are more concerning. Over the summer we saw a wave of riots in the US for better or worse causes. It’s good that in 2020 America discovers racism, but exporting BLM as a global brand was a mistake. In the big picture, America’s performative outrage is irrelevant. The darkest news of 2020 was the implementation of Hong Kong’s security law, the ongoing strangling of Venezuela, and the passing of David Graeber. Treatment of refugees in Greece, on the EU’s orders, was not great either.

This year has to be the year of peak woke nonsense. The so-called left, rather than offering any positive vision, has been pointing the finger at people and calling them sinners. It’s become normal and even applauded to get people fired or expelled from uni because of what they think, your social media posts will be scanned and used against you, you can only have the approved opinion expressed using the correct new words, and any resistance is guilt by association. Black people are to be celebrated, but only as victims, and if they don’t want to play that part they’re accomplices. Scotland is proposing a Soviet bill where you can be prosecuted for comments made in private. The irony of using these fascist methods is lost on the left because they’re good people fighting for good causes, and those they hope to silence are bad “intolerant” people. The effect will be a society where people tow the party line but don’t share what they actually think. What they think will shift for the worse, and at some point the masks will fall off and we’ll be in a much worse place. I hope this trend peaks and reverses, as enough people call bluff and society comes to its senses.

For 2021 I expect we’ll return to normal but with bumps. The vaccine will be rolled out over the next few months and we might have a “missing bullet holes” moment: Should we be giving it to older people who shelter or to young ones who spread the disease? But at some point everyone will get it and restrictions ought to lift. Will they? We may see governments try to keep surveillance, emergency powers, etc. citing some tragic “for the children” cause. This has to be resisted. In Scotland the government will harp on about another independence referendum. I think it’s a very bad idea and it’ll fail when life post Brexit continues as normal and people look at the costs of a split more soberly. At work I have a new role, which I wanted for some time. I’d like to see my colleagues, as well as travel but not at the pre-crisis level. If this year teaches us anything it should be to keep better work-life balance as well as be more sustainable. Possibly also not to bite off each other’s head too.

I know it’s expected to say how unbelievably terrible this year has been but, well, it hasn’t. It’s been an OK or even pretty good year for me and I just wanted to share this fact for perspective. Maybe I’m especially lucky, or just optimistic. I hope this year has been OK or pretty good for you too, and I wish you an even better 2021.

What did COVID-19 do for us?

I guess the media coverage of COVID-19 isn’t cheerful enough, so let’s look at all the good things that the pandemic is doing for us.

It’s an awesome wake-up call for global warming and the collective action we’ll be forced to take in a few years. Previously I thought we’re doomed, climate change is going to be as destructive and violent as it gets. Now I think maybe not. There’s enough signs of organized action, especially on the east side of the planet, that maybe we can get our act together and deal with disaster. Even Europe is getting its act together. America, well, we’ll get to that.

The virus shows clearly which governments are competent and which aren’t. In Asia, apart from initial denial in China, pretty good. Singapore and Hong Kong are impressive. Whether by authoritarianism or public consent their response is effective. Europe acted late but is shaping up. The UK, despite having the technical expertise is politically floundering. Europe’s response is all at the national level. The EU bureaucracy is structured in an inanely conservative way that prevents any meaningful action.

In America, to my astonishment, they have local government and it seems to be doing the right things. The federal government is spectacularly useless. Is that a surprise? Their job is to make war and to protect capitalism. Aircraft carriers and central banks don’t help here. America is ideologically opposed to caring for people as a whole, but locally there is support and governance. I hope people remember and appreciate which kinds of organization made a difference.

People are staying at home and the economy so far hasn’t collapsed. It will definitely gdown and large fractions of people will face hardship, but it’s holding up remarkably well. Partly this is goodwill. It’s understood that we’re dealing with an external shock and people aren’t accusing each other of being poor because they’re lazy. So far, a pretty good attitude. I’m positively surprised.

Some people haven’t adjusted or are already craving a return to normality. How will children do without school? – they say. We need lessons over the internet. Well, maybe, or we need to re-evaluate school. Do kids nowadays learn through textbooks? Do they need to spend their weekdays getting used to office life? There’s lots of adjusting and re-thinking to do. Some people are bad at grasping how something universal is going to affect them personally.

As we get used to working at home, we may gradually re-evaluate what jobs are valuable and need doing. Delivering food and fixing infrastructure, pretty important. Bureaucratic and marketing jobs, like mine, eh… Maybe because of need we’ll adjust to less paperwork or working fewer hours. Or for white collar jobs prioritise coders, designers, engineers, etc. to managers. Our economies are overweight with too many value extractors at the top. Maybe a destructive shock will rebalance them.

In all likelihood, the market economy will fail in some sectors and a wartime plan to provide resources will be needed. For example airlines are likely to fail and transport may have to be re-established. Healthcare in some places may need to be nationalized. I think for-profit services are a luxury for good times, and when a serious crisis comes they get replaced by a smaller, more efficient, planned system. After the crisis, that infrastructure creates space for the economy to prosper around it. We’ve seen that after WW2, and it was mainly cars and appliances then. This time it may be green investment.

Tourism and travel will be badly hit. Conferences are cancelled and frankly I don’t think they’ll be missed. I like travelling but I’d like it to be different after the crisis. Less hopping between cities for a weekend, more periods of living in a new place for weeks or months. More fractal, local networks. Entertainment too will be badly hit. I hope if anything the inability to go to concerts will make people appreciate artists and support them properly.

As I said, there’s a lot of adjustment to do. Coronavirus is a terrible thing, but the actions that we’re taking, or that most of the world is taking, are for the better. The spirit of cooperation is holding up, resilience is suddenly valued, greed is shown to be ineffective. People will have to re-evaluate what’s important in life and what is frivolous. I hope that we emerge from the crisis a little better as individual people, and a lot better as a human collective.

Politics recap January 2020

Julian Assange is in prison in the UK being tried for extradition to the US on espionage charges. Sweden has dropped its case. But you’re not going to defend Assange, are you, because you learned that “Assange is a rapist”. And who would defend one of them against the all-seeing and benevolent forces of the state? If you think this way, dare I suggest that you’ve been had.

Brexit is happening at the end of this month and nothing will change. No truck queues down south, no shortage of medicines, no mass exodus of business. If Boris Johnson had any sense he would at that point declare victory and extend or go slow with the transition period for as long as possible. It seems the Tories want to press ahead, and I can only assume it’s because some part of British business values deregulation more than the single market. Either way, Brexit is a slow-burn, unwise choice, inconvenient to people like me. It’s not and was never going to be a disaster.

Scottish independence is back in the news, but I don’t think it’s happening. As said Brexit will pass uneventfully and the opportunity to use it politically likewise. I don’t think a referendum would turn out very different than last time, given the uncertainty of exiting both the EU and the UK, having to re-enter the EU and adopting the Euro. I could be persuaded to vote for it but only for cynical immigration reasons. I’d vote for it with my heart if Scotland were to abolish the monarchy and become like Ireland with blue post boxes.

Trump, despite being a pig of a man, has turned out a pretty good president. Being an outsider he recognizes that the time of America offering “protection” around the world, in both senses, is over. Since the 50s the dogma was that spreading capitalism would benefit the US foremost as well as lifting all boats. Now that’s no longer the case and the US needs to adjust to being one of several developed powers, as well as get out of the protection business. For all the alarm in the press, Trump is making the post-superpower transition as peacefully as anyone could have hoped. War in Iran, which many in Washington are thirsty for, keeps failing to materialise. It’s hard to get full facts about Syria, but it’s possible Trump may have killed fewer people than any president since Carter and, although I don’t like him, utilitarian arguments count.

In all likelihood, Trump will get re-elected. Especially if Sanders and Warren fight each other while the press and the middle-class do all they can to nominate a centrist. I think US society is rapidly approaching the point of being beyond repair, and it’s because the so-called progressive elite refuses to check its privilege and accept socialist policies. Beyond repair means the role of the state disintegrates, beyond security, and the US becomes a libertarian -topia. What kind depends on your point of view.

Climate may have been saved in 2019, mainly thanks to Greta Thundberg. We should build the young woman a statue. For the first time there’s wide realization that something has to change, even in the US, and people are vaguely aware that might mean changing their personal habits. Eating less meat and driving less, for example. Maybe accepting the the Earth has seasons and not trying to negate them with air conditioning. Technological change is happening everywhere except the US, where they’re waiting for the prophet Elon Musk. Saving the climate means Bangladesh will be uninhabitable due to floods, and the Arabian peninsula due to heat, but hey we get to survive as a species.

I don’t know much about China, but I’m a more hopeful observer than most. I see them as a threat economically, because they don’t play by the rules and I don’t see them as an evil empire politically. Comparison with the Soviet Union is inept. The Chinese regime, as far as I can tell, prioritises material welfare above all else and that goal is the source of its authoritarianism. I wouldn’t like to live in China, but I think it’s much more benign than a regime based around a strongman or an ideology. The more Chinese society feels economically secure, the more freedom is likely to emerge.

Europe I think is poorly and is unlikely to get a reprieve until 2021 when Merkel, Europe’s most destructive leader since WW2, leaves office. West Europeans need to reflect on the relatively undramatic departure of Britain, discontent and inequality within the block, as well as repairing its relationship with Russia. If the Germans are willing to compromise, Europe could move forward to a federal structure with shared debt, banking, tax and welfare arrangements across the continent. But if the new chancellor continues to block these reforms it’ll be endless crisis management and containment as it is now.

As for me, I intend to get my stupendously named permit “Indefinite Leave to Remain” and figure out what hoops we need to jump through to let my son migrate to Scotland. I think in the long run that means citizenship, and if that could come somehow without a queen I’d have done it already.