History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


It's not every sport, where being in your 20s will give you an advantage

Not for diving, skiing, aerobics, figure skating, and dozens of others.

Maybe it gives an advantage in boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, basketball, soccer, and running.

I'm not sure when human males reach peak performance, to be honest. Based on myself, I would say probably 27-30. After that it's downhill.

But the distance between a 20 year old and a 30 year old I think is only truly apparent in combat sports. For avoidance of doubt, I mean that 30 year olds are generally stronger than 20 year olds in combat sports.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]

@pawian

I am lost for words. You are simply some kind of Mother Theresa.

If people like you were in power then, it would be Ukrainians apologizing to Poles now.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


No such thing existed in the Soviet Union. Not in East Germany. Or in Cuba.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


And in the shining city on a hill, they did not even know what doping was.

It's why, even in despotic Russia, I had to read about Sammy Sosa, Lance Armstrong, Tyson Gay and others.

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History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


Oh it tickles!

By the 80s, we were routinely smashing you.

What's more, even in 1992 and 1996 our already mixed teams were dominating.

You had to wait till the country fragmented into 15 pieces before you started winning again.

If you add Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan back into the Russian medal count (since it's mostly Russians anyway) - you'll see we are still quite a bit ahead of you.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Hello Pawian, it is your reflection speaking to you from the mirror.

Your entire argument re: the supposed "colonization" of Ukrainians is ahistorical dribble.

One thing Ironside always explains well, is the relative shades of historicity. You cannot analyze events in a vacuum. Context must always be taken into account.

I will also admit, I don't like your argument about Poles having to apologize, because it makes me feel you think we should apologize to the Ukrainians as well. For what?

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


God, why?

Let me rewrite my sentence:

"Even in Nazi Germany, German athletes shook hands with African athletes."

Better?

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


No.

The Americans f*cked our entire Olympics by not showing up. Everybody knows, that those two countries are always on top of the medal count. That's why, nobody takes the results of 1980 seriously, because Americans were not present.

Well, guess what. We can ruin your Olympics as well.

This was not about sportsmanship, but sabotaging a whole national event into which billions were invested.

I think we were reasonably upset, for them not showing up.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


Assh*le. The Americans did not come to Moscow in 1980. Apparently, because they were so upset we invaded Afghanistan.

That's why we did not go to LA in 1984.

You don't wanna see me, I don't wanna see you.


Where did I write Hitler? I meant the athletes.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


Oooh. Most interesting.

I will get this book.

I join Ironside and Kania, in asking you - why are you still so bad at history if you read so much?

I respect that you were consistent in condemning the Ukrainian invasion, and the bombing of Gaza equally. This was a little bit of a surprise. It tells me, that maybe you are not an empty demagogue.

However, I still disagree with 99% of the things you say.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]

@pawian

Sport is no place for such b*llshit.

Play chess. Win. Lose.

Even the Nazis shook hands with Africans at the Berlin Olympics.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


I'm sorry - I don't understand this plan. Russia should be very forgiving of Poland, while Poland meanwhile f*cks off to make friends with Serbs and Hungarians?

Heh?

Genealogy / Former Poland PM Donald Tusk - A Kashub or a German. [71]


I knew there was a reason I liked Tusk.


*nods*


May my tongue fall off if ever such a thing escapes my lips.

However, Brate, why do you not mention Russia?

Off-Topic / Serbia etc. thread 3 [437]

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History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]

@pawian

What would cause more respect is if he beat his opponent in a game of chess.

Life / Poland's birthrate on the decline [480]


In the popular film, Fight Club, there's a piece of dialogue:

"We are a generation of men raised by women, I'm wondering if another woman is really the thing we need..."

In this American movie, the words referred to the epidemic of divorces and single-motherhood in the States, and how it affected the guys.

Whenever I heard this phrase, I actually always thought about my grandparents generation. Who raised my father, who raised me. That was a true generation, raised by women, because most of the men were killed.

What a f*cked up generation, my grandparents generation was. Jesus Christ. The most complexed creatures on Earth.

Greatest Generation my ass.

History / Pol-Shorpy Photo Thread [950]


For many people, the 90s ended up being fatal to their health.

Here is, btw, a crazy statistic I can share for my year of birth - 1989.

According to a RosStat dataset I had analyzed at one point, as much as 10% of the guys born in my year are dead. This was before the war.

My generation, of all Soviet/Post Soviet generations, is absolutely the biggest losers and dumbasses.

Born on the fracture point of two epochs, too young to take advantage of the plunder, too scarred to integrate seamlessly into normal civilian life - a largely discarded demographic cohort.

I wonder if in Poland, the 1981-1989 crowd also ended up being losers (in a macro sense).

Love / Smitten and Wondering [81]


I really wonder, what was the evolutionary benefit of giving women such elephantine memory? Feel we coulda done better with it.

History / Poles should apologise to Ukrainians first [487]


How can one question an argument, when the definition for one of the main subjects is not correct?

What the hell is a Cossack?

In Russia we have many more "Cossacks" than they have in all of Ukraine and Poland combined. We had Don Cossacks, Kuban Cossacks, Terek Cossacks, Yaik Cossacks, and a dozen other flavors.

Today they enjoy dressing up like clowns, playing with sabers, and talking at length about defending "traditional values". Of course, I would prefer that they instead defend the "traditional value" of working for a living.

Open Wikipedia and see what a Cossack is. Where the word comes from. How they understood themselves. What results DNA tests have yielded in modern times.

You will see that a Cossack is an amorphous thing. Criminals, runaway serfs, Tatar outcasts, bankrupted nobles, and everyone in between.

Love / Smitten and Wondering [81]


Well that sounds nice.


I'm not married, but otherwise can probably imagine what you are thinking. As a guy, my advice in a spherical vacuum would be pretty simple and probably disgusting to the women here.

You're gonna think about her till the day you die, if you don't do something. However, you could also sleep with her once - and see if you feel any different. If you get that sudden "post f*ck" clarity of "Jesus Christ what was I thinking", then you'll save yourself a lifetime of second guessing yourself. On the other hand, if nothing changes, and those hugs still feel like the best hugs ever - you'll also know you gotta do something.

None of this is very fair towards the wife, of course. The most fair thing, would be to divorce her, and then go and try your fortunes out in the wild world. Something tells me you're not willing to take such an unhedged risk. Hedging the risk through exploiting wife's ignorance - well that's the oldest story in the book.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

@Alien

Well thanks, I guess I am still very much connected to my roots and my feet are firmly on the ground.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]

Well I am more Russian, than American - of course. But my time in America, has certainly made me different to most of compatriots.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]


Yeah I think so.

In America I'm Russian. In Russia, I'm American.

News / Grzegorz Braun extinguishes Hanukkah candles in Polish Parliament [459]


Neither is he a Tunisian, Algerian or Moroccan.

I think it's this confusion inside the cranium, and sense of being unneeded by absolutely everyone - that fuels a lot of the youth disenchantment.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


Man you are seriously delusional. Maybe even paranoid.

If we wanted to kill industrially, somehow I believe we would have figured it out.

You praising the Germans even in this instance for some greater efficiency is grotesque.

History / Why Poland achieved nothing at all? [69]


Hahaha.

In Russia, we say, that for a bad dancer the testicles get in the way.


Relax yourself.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


Ehh what?

From what I remember from school, the number was something like 1.5M from the 1930s thru 1953 when Stalin died, and they were shut down. This was in comparison to the approximately 20M people that went through the camps.

Of these 1.5M that died, most was through malnutrition and disease. This is a f*cking crime, and a horror, but if we are having a serious discussion it is not the same as extermination.

According to Wikipedia (English):

Archival researchers have found "no plan of destruction" of the gulag population and no statement of official intent to kill them, and prisoner releases vastly exceeded the number of deaths in the Gulag.

People died in the GULAG because they were prisons operated in a country where free people were dying on the outside from the same reasons. Use your brain genius.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


It's terrible, and I do not argue that it is not terrible.

However...

Remember, that for many of the Soviet officers participating in this crime, these were people that they had fought, and lost comrades to, not 19 years before. So now its 2023, then we are talking about 2004. Polish noble officers were not exactly popular with Stalin, who happened to be a front commander during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920.

These were not just Polish elites to be exterminated, these were personal enemies that had previously humiliated them.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]

@Torq

Well, I am sort of agreeing with you - that the evil impulse is absent in Russia. After all, we didn't gas all those Poles we sent to Siberia. Instead, we made them starve and freeze through characteristic mismanagement - and afterwards had the balls to ask them if they feel strong enough to go liberate their homeland.

What allowed us to do so, is that we did much worse things to our own people, and then also asked them to sacrifice. So, to us at least, it seemed normal.

It's just part of living in Russia. Up is down here. That's why I think it is not possible to compare Russian life to African colonies or Third Reich Generalgouvernement.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


Nah, we're just Russians. We bumble about, don't think, and terrible things happen.

Whether we are doing some nice version of empire, or some super brutalizing sort, it won't work because nothing works in Russia as intended.

My feeling is that we didn't so much colonize, as other people ended up being inside of our little circus.

It's hard to compare what we did to the organized and industrialized exploitation that other more civilized people's managed. We just kind of grew, like an amoeba on a lab plate.