Mistic
Does it now?...
Yes. Your argument is about de-democratisation. I talk about democratic vs. authoritarian.
I argue it's better to be democratic than not. You argue that countries become less democratic. Those are different topics.
You mean their...
Quite the opposite, actually. They're more lenient because they're less stable, as it's not guaranteed you'll stay in the office after everything's over. Russia's status quo from a political standpoint is the strongest it has ever been.
All political opposition has been eradicated. Everybody's threatened to speak out because they now they'll just get jailed. There can be no mass protests because the current incumbent is simply too strong to oppose.
The countries that have been...
That's not me they're disagreeing with. Again, that's not my classification. All I argue is that "artificial democracies" are far worse. Russia is one, BTW. It likes to hold a facade of being a democracy, when in reality, it's a hybrid regime (namely, informational autocracy).
And it also...
So, you decided to ignore my question and be a douche about it... I'll take it as "I don't like it, so it's fascist" then.
Worse for whom?
Citizens, obviously. How is that even a question?
They only allow you to...
My point stands.
Being able to protest without getting immediately jailed or murdered is a massive blessing that is unachievable in autocracies. I've seen what protests look in USA, France, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. USA, France, Poland, and Germany are incomparably more lenient than Russia or Belarus. (Kazakhstan is somewhere in-between, it's on the path of democratisation, like Ukraine was, but cannot be yet considered one).
I grew up in a fascist state that was most definitely classified as "democratic"...
I'd like you to check whether or not what you're claiming is actually the case. Because even Israel, strictly speaking, isn't classified as democracy. It's a flawed democracy.
Besides. What do you consider "fascist"? Since this word often gets thrown around with no real meaning behind it.
Anyhow, I use what information I have. If you think you're smarter than literal doctors of polytology, then go ahead and publish your own research. I'm not the one you should be complaining about set classifications to. That's kind of pointless.
Besides, what's your point to begin with? That USA is not a democracy? If so, then go ahead and read what I wrote again. My main complaint was about Russia being called an Olygarchy and thus compared to the USA, when it is far worse in reality.
Go argue with the EIU about their metrics, lol.
Do you have any clue what living in an actually undemocratic country is like? That isn't to say you should tolerate the bs your own politicians put you through, quite the opposite, actually. The mere fact you're able to protest should not be taken for granted.
I have a good guess on how this would actually happen:
PM: We need this
Specialist: makes this (doesn't check results)
QC: Looks good (but doesn't actually check)
Some updates later may further break the functionality. And as long as numbers aren't blatantly wrong (think 0s everywhere, for example) and nobody checks thoroughly enough, the issue will remain.
I have unfortunate experience of being a part of such a story, haha. There are ways to counter it. Mainly, their project documentation either wasn't up to par or wasn't used as a reference during creation and tests. Either way, it's negligence.
I'm aware that that's been happening in US, yes. Although I don't actually know to what extent.
What I mean by "votes actually matter" (as I assume that's what you're responding to) is that election results aren't pre-determined (not on a federal level, at the very least). Basically, it's a night and day difference between US and Russia.
Technically speaking, they matter in Russia too, even though they don't affect the results. In short, it's all because of public opinions. It's better people be disillusioned elections were falcified than be ignorantly believe they weren't. Not to mention, it, at least till recently, was also possible for opposition to win on municipal or regional level.
As for the establishment narrative, people believing in it, and media control. First two aren't unique to US, happens pretty much everywhere. I can tell that media in US is mostly controlled by conservatives. In Russia, on the other hand, there is no space for opposition on TV, which is mostly watched by older people, which are the majority of voters. Ever since Putin's first became the president, he's been silently killing off all independent news media till there was nothing left. Now he's trying to do the same with internet media, although he's much more illiterate when it comes to the internet.
Believe it or not, would still take what US has over what we have any day.
Is it a bad system? Yes, I hate it as much as the next guy. Is Russia's situation better? Fuck no. It's like what you have in that picture on the right, but nobody actually voted for these people.
Over half of Trump's cabinet is from Florida
That's not the point
That's absolutely false
Explain how.
Gerrymandering is manipulation of electoral results using differently drawn district maps. Russia doesn't use districts to decide winners in each one. Instead, all of the votes are combined. Think of it as a one massive district. Whoever gets majority in that one district wins the elections. In this system votes are always proportionate to electorate, therefore gerrymandering cannot physically happen.
Instead, Russia's incumbent uses other ways of electoral fraud. Main ones I have already listed.
"Russia uses the same tricks to constrain participatory democracy as Florida or Texas."
Now imagine Texas is the entirety of US, where
- in some very specific cities you get over 100% participation rate where everybody votes for incumbent whereas the rest of them have like 30-40% with expected vote distribution to boot.
- Oh, and "electronic voting" (via the internet) where the incumbent always gets 90% of the votes with no way to verify the results.
- None of the participants are actually independent, and the ones that were are now either jailed or killed.
- And you have no way to protest the results, because
- it's against the law (despite the law contradicting constitution)
- the protest will get immediately shut down by the police
- every organizer will get jailed
And no, courts will not help. They will always side the government. No matter how ridiculous the accusations are.
That's Russia.
Edit: Forgot to mention that out electoral system is more straightforward, so it doesn't allow for gerrymandering. So it's not even distribution manipulation it's straight up the half of bulletins are fake.
Another suggestion for a "mystery type" visual novel:
Everlasting Summer
It has some heavy Soviet vibes as well, it's so good, very atmospheric.
Yeah, and that's why "you need Putin," "Putin is our only leader," "no Putin, no Russia."
Doesn't that seem convenient? But that's only a part of it.
Problem is (well, not really, but still), she already looked like a real person. Personally know people who look a lot like Ciri, it's not the most uncommon look in Slavic countries.
It may be just the trailer. In some scenes, she looks like herself from the 3rd game, just aged, but in most, she looks a bit... weird. It's really hard to tell what's going on because when you try to compare the models, they do match up.