Sponsored by Private Internet Access, Use the following link to access their promotional offer: www.piavpn.com/Perun This video completes the series that began with "How Corruption Destroys Armies" in May 2022. I hope it's a worthy end to the trilogy. All the caveats that applied to the other videos in this series apply to this one all the moreso. I wanted to thank everyone who has supported the channel and given me the confidence that look at topics beyond just equipment statistics and economic data. Most people will, in the course of their daily lives, have seen some of the harm that corruption, deception, or disruptive factionalism can cause, and my goal with this series was to demonstrate how these phenomena can weaken structures even as expansive and intimidating as the Russian armed forces. I'd also like to correct one error in the video. It's stated at one point that Denis Pushilin was allegedly involved in the MMM (described as ponzi /pyramid schemes) between '89-94 and '11-14. That is obviously an error and he was only (allegedly) involved in the latter iteration of MMM. He was still of school age during the first iteration. Thank you as always to those (especially in Russia) who offered thoughts and contributions while this video was being created, and I will see you all again in the new week.
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE 🇦🇺 hey Perun could you do a video on the Australian military please? Edit: so I found out why Perun can’t do that so I ask is there any other good TH-camrs who have covered the military thunda from down unda?
@@PerunAUhave you ever heard of the term “technocracy”? It’s an idea of government run by AI. Could an AI government be less susceptible to the usual corrupting influence of politics?
@@Somalia111 "Catering is the business of providing food services at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio." - wikipedia Basically its food services operated outside of a dedicated restaurant. Priggy ran restaurant services at venues where Putin was there
The Navy didn't even inform the Army about Midway until the following year. All throughout the Guadalcanal campaign the Army was convinced that the -dragons- 1st Air Fleet is coming, we promise, even as all four of its carriers were sitting at the bottom of the Pacific
Its far easier to believe many Japanese were so arrogant that American’s understanding of Japanese wasn’t good enough to break their codes. There were certainly field commanders who ordered code books buried not burnt on retreat so not to create signal fires, not realising the Allies used metal detection to clear former Japanese camps of unexploded ordinance and so found them easily.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 it’s not quite that bad. If Tojo wanted Yamamoto dead, some random junior officers would have gone rogue and assassinated him and then received a token prison sentence.
When I listen to this episode, I am constantly reminded of CGP Grey’s video “The Rules for Rulers.” Gaining power is the end game, and all else after that is focused on limiting the ability of people pushing you out of that power. And that goes for the leaders, and their subordinates as well.
I really hate that channel for multiple reasons (from the half baked PoliSci takes to the godawful automatic translation of the titles if you’ve got Google set to any other language than English), but as a high school history teacher I am glad he has got people more aware of some basic polisci and political topics and terminology.
@@luxborealis As someone who studies PolSci, can you elaborate on what exactly is "half-baked" about his takes? :) (I fear I may be missing the forest for the trees since I'm in the weeds, sort so speak, haha)
This honestly might be one of the reasons the old system of kings never dropped to the level of communism. Sure, there were bad kings, but you have to look hard for one that was so bad that it rivals the likes of Stalin or Mao. Maybe the king system was a (for it's time) much better overall structure.
@@carljohan9265 mhhh the kings just never had this much control and so many people under them like Mao or Stalin. They never had police forces or standing armies most of the time. However the peasants owned nothing and were taxed heavily. Kings were awful, however the peasants could barely write and therfore we have like no sources that don't come from the aristocracy themself or maybe some monks. Kings usually cared nothing for their people but used them as armies and for taxes. Ofcourse Stalin, Mao and Hitler are a special kind of evil but they are also the product of countries that formed.. giving rise to nationalism and shared doctrines that did not exist before. Society changed a lot. I am sure though that evil people have always existed and 98% of the population was dirt poor and suffered because the church told them that this was the way of the world and god wanted it that way. The church always played a huge part in oppressing the people. The church ist 100% as bad as Mao, Stalin and Hitler combined. But you read history from their perspective so that is why you think that Kings were a good system for their time. Church and Crown were the two pillars supporting eatch other to lead rich lives on cost of everybody else! It was goddamn terrible
Your conclusion is a veritable theory of autocratic armies that no PhD of sociology or military history would be ashamed of. I'm glad you're putting this on TH-cam, rather than into some scientific journal that less than 1000 people ever read.
....and your description of how division, corruption and lying all reinforce each other looks like a manifestation of what Eliezer Yudkowsky has described as Inadequate Equilibria.
@@boobah5643 Western civilization used to work like that from the collapse of Roman empire until late medieval period and the renaissance. It isn't a short time span.
While plowing his fields a Russian farmer upturned an ancient oil lamp. As he brushed off the soil a Genie emerged from the lamp. The Genie smiled as he told the farmer, "I will grant any wish you desire, but you must understand that whatever you ask for, I will grant doubly for your neighbor." The farmer thought about this proposal for a while, but with a grin he looked up to the Genie hovering above him and said, "My neighbor will get twice what I request, is that so?" "Yes!" the Genie emphatically replied, "Do you have a request?" The Russian farmer said, "Yes, I know what I want." The Genie pressed him, "So ask, what is it that you want?" Looking up at the Genie, the Russian farmer said, "Pluck out one of my eyes."
Or the (rather pan-Slavic) notion of true joy of accomplishment. It's not when you have a goat, your neighbor has a goat, and you save enough money to buy one more goat. It's when you have a goat, your neighbor has a goat, and then your neighbor's goat dies.
The vast majority of youtubers in this category don't provide their sources which leaves them totally unaccountable. I really appreciate that you are one of the precious few that do Perun. Edit: If you want an aneurysm, check out some of these replies.
Yeah. There’s plenty of misinformation on both sides but Perun is one of the few channels that gets to the nitty gritty of what needs to be said. He deserves far more subscribers.
Dude! It’s TH-cam not a university class. Some of us talk about our personal experiences and get told to provide sources as if the comment section of a TH-cam video had a bibliography space.
@@aguynamedscott11 Im confused as to what point you're trying to make here, Perun makes nuanced, detailed analyses and backs them up with respectable sources to open the discourse to critique and further discussion. That benefits everyone, his videos would be shit and worthless if he behaved the way you are talking about (exactly why there is so much worthless trash on YT)
I would never have imagined my 16yo son eagerly awaiting an hour long lecture on politics/economy/military history („MUM!! Perun‘s new video is online!!“). Causing me to watch it too asap because he will want to discuss it with me and I need to have my facts and arguments lined up… This time you touch upon my own expertise (economics degree) - how to make sure that the people in your organisation work towards its goals and not primarily their own. May I just say the lecture was brilliant!
I have seen this more with him. I got several young men that age hooked on Perun as well. It is deliverd with just the right amount of humor, depth on an extremely interesting topic. It is like learning about the inner workings of the third Reich but with a country that still exists. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how Perun can get anyone excited about hour long powerpoint presentations.
What I find so amazing about Perun: I happened to find a lot of people, that sounded really smart, until they started talking about something, that I myself have some clue of. So far under Perun's video I find a lot of comments, that claim: "Yeah, I do that stuff for a living, built up a long and successful career, and wished I could put that so succinctingly." or like in this video: "Yeah, been born there, been raised there, it was exactly as ****** as Perun makes it sound"
It really amazes me how the Russian military and political structure look like a feudal system. You have all the lords, dukes, and barons with their own retinue doing their own stuff, and then the king's army, which is just a bigger personal retinue to which all other lords vow to serve but still keep a degree of independence and remain in a constant political struggle.
Man, I saw this first-hand about how incentives can destroy an organization from inside. One of my previous jobs was working at an industrial facility and there was a requirement that you had to put in 24 safety reports annually or you were disqualified from the annual bonus. We ran a tight ship at that particular facility so actual safety issues were fairly rare. Because of this, people were reporting everything (coffee spills, tools put in the wrong locations, etc) along with actual safety issues if they came up to make sure we all qualified for the annual bonus. The QHSE guy at the facility at the time was an old hand and completely understood so he always approved any report that came through. This was fine until the old QHSE guy got promoted to another facility and the company brought on some hot-shot, know-it-all, fresh-out-of-the-classroom college kid with no real job or life experience to replace him. Literally day 1, the kid holds a meeting and announces that "garbage reports" would no longer be accepted. Now, if you wanted your annual bonus, you had to be reporting actual safety issues and he didn't care one bit if you got your annual bonus. So what happened? Well, wouldn't you know it, but suddenly a lot of safety issues started occurring at the facility. The reason for this was a lot of our experienced people started leaving for other facilities or quitting the company entirely and the company started bringing a lot of new, inexperienced people to take their place. Worse still, people started finding all kinds of new safety issues in areas that had never been a problem before. Why? Because they themselves were causing them. People started actively sabotaging the facility just to get their reports up. We went from being one of the safest facilities in the org to one of the worst within a few months. It was a miracle no one was actually hurt during this time. For some schadenfreude, upper management noticed the drop and immediately correlated it with the kid coming on board so they blamed him for all the safety failures at the facility and transferred him to some desk job somewhere where he couldn't do any more damage. So the lesson is you have to be really careful how you incentive your workforce: it may backfire spectacularly.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 I don't find that weird at all. It's how all large organisations work: the entrenched policy-makers at the top of the pile are there largely because they've mastered the skill of deflecting responsibility for the consequences of bad decisions they make onto those who are lower in the hierarchy. "Shit rolls downhill" neatly sums it up.
I love this comment... I hate the modern safety culture where I live in America.... We are now so "safe" we can't even do our jobs.... Many "safety people" have never gotten their hands dirty 1 day in their life and have no business setting foot in an industrial setting.....
As a management consultant, I'd just like to say, we'd hire you anytime perun. Your slide narratives are carefully crafted, precisely worded, and contain a good balance of information and analysis. Also, night mode. I'm not convinced we'd be willing to hire Utkin.
Training is learning the rules, experience is learning the exceptions, wisdom is learning the reasons...thank you @Perun for giving us wisdom in these "soft subject" topics.
"The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have." Laurence Gonzales "Deep Survival."
Born in the Warsaw pact and lived communism the first decade of my life, this type of Perun's videos has been my favorite. Lying, corruption, nepotism, is what creates fertile ground for autocracies. May humanity learn a lasting lesson from the entire "Sphere of Soviet Influence" as it used to be called. We must be ready to stand up and fight every time our spidy sense detects an effort to turn an organization into a rotten corrupt kleptocracy. Amazing job Perun. Bravo and thank you!
The USA is quickly emulating and copying the SOVIET system in Maoist model, so any which way the coin lands the New Soviet style governments of NATO will soon have less freedom than Russia or Hungary... It is very sad to have watched the USA and Russia of 1980 swap places by 2022.
I'd argue it goes both ways. Autocracies are both born from and give rise to rampant lying, corruption, and nepotism. As he said in his lies destroy armies video, lying is a part of many human structures and societies, but it becomes a necessity in an autocracy.
An autocratic keptocracy can survive by bribing voters, e.g. pensioners and families with children. The people then think, "they steal but they share". Since seniors are increasing, that's a winning strategy, in Poland anyway.
As someone who has automated their job a few times, have a kill switch. I once automated a server switchover process with pre checks, back-up to create LKG, and then integrity checks during and after process... when upper management noticed it happening on a scheduled basis rather than an "as-needed" basis they asked and I showed them. 5 people were removed from the IT team for "redundancy". I just so happened to accept a position at a different company and the automation stopped. Those 5 people were brought back with backpay and raises. lesson: If you automate your job, DONT TELL ANYONE. Or, make it into a marketable product and sell it to the company. "Your time is worth cents, your expertise is worth dollars, your creations are worth fortunes."
I've automated a job at work, and I've told people about it because there's no way I can hide it, its too critical to the task given, plus it was a new task so it wasn't "automating a job that 5 people are working on and make them all redundant", more "automate this job that we'd need five people we don't have to do properly". But my secret technique is that the script I'm using to automate it is pretty finicky and fragile. Its still an enormous time saver, but it wouldn't take too many changes for it to break and become useless... and hey, I'm not hired on as a programmer, can't expect me to maintain that script like a software engineer would...
If it makes you feel any better, long term, that company has started/continued to fuck themselves. Everyone involved (and more) now knows they will be punished absolutely for either improving the company (automating) or failing to improve the company (someone else automating). So there’s either going to be a huge disincentive to be a better employee or a hyper competitive culture which breeds a lack of trust. Additionally, employees now know they need to start looking for a job that actually gives a shit about them. Good companies know good people are their #1 asset.
There's a story of a boss who improved the throughput of the vehicle assembly so they could put through 10X more vehicles. But nobody lost their job, because the workers trusted him implicitly, and knew he would do his best to look after them, whatever happened. It can happen.
As a Russian, I became 100% convinced in your expertise when you mentioned term ochkovtiratelstvo That is the highest level of understanding of the Russian culture by non-Russian This is rather obscure slang word. The literal translation of the word is "Rubbing into eyewear" The meaning of ochkovtiratelstvo is when someone is lying that everything is fine when in reality everything is bad. It is usually told in a business-related context. For example, when an employee is lying to the boss, or a seller is lying to the buyer.
its fking not......politics exists everywhere, politics destroys companies,politics destroys countries, just look at america and what is happening between the factions the past 20,30 years....what makes u think a military or a military during a war would be any different.....name a single war that has not been influenced by politics and internal turmoil, all the way back to caesar and the roman empire.....look at china when they were fighting the japanese during wwii..even in times of great crisis and peril, there are people fighting for their own ideals,their own agenda,their own.... ahahahahaha look at ukraine right now, even the allies are fighting over whether or not to send weapons for the purpose of fighting the war......
@@noobnoobyifyI only need the "Kremlin Garden Bunker Downfall paraody" left, man I hope it gets called up soon so I can get bingo and claim myself a russian carrier!
Yeah, being from Baltics and old enough, nothing new was said but it was interesting as always. I just hope that people from other parts of the world see where the soviet-russian system can bring a country and are not yearning for this- been seeing too many people on the West side who think that russian way is the correct way. Thank you, Perun!
Well I think too many people don't realize just how much effort the Russians are putting into propaganda, so they watch things online saying like "NATO bad", or "West bad", and don't think about where it might have come from.
@@johanj3674 Could not have been said any better - and it ilustrates the depth of the inevitable challenge before us perfectly ^^ ❤ The winning of this war is only a start - what comes after needs to be thought of. If not; post-1991 factional struggle/ combat situation in Russia is likely.
@@johanj3674 at least you swedes, yes, invaded us, but also brought prosperity and higher education to us, estonians. we're still considering swedish occupation as "golden age" compared to all the others - russians, germans, polish and danish :D
I really really like how you can just so seemingly effortless explain complex political things in a more 'mundane' way :) I'd love to have had you as my Politics/Economy Teacher :D
The key is realizing that it's not complex .... its actually childish .... its simple play ground mentality .... and perun is good at showing this simplicity
@@kennypridemore5466 It's not not that simple. Try taking an 9th month course on organisations and then look at organisational culture. For example, most of the disasters in the world are rooted in dysfunctional organisational cultures. Do not underestimate the power of Internal politics to destroy or subvert collective action and goals. And what you call childish behaviour is learned behaviour from childhood and throughout adulthood. It's part of socialisation, learning how to function in explicit and implicit hierarchies. Whether that tendency is innate, or learned to be in "monkey see, monkey do", it is part of being in a collective, from the families upwards. Politics is always about who gets what, and who gets to say who gets what. So it's human behaviour, and you see it everywhere. And sometimes life and death are determined by it. It's not simply childish. It's part of human existence, that the winners don't like talking about, and the losers have to endure.
You do have him as that. It's not the sort of teaching that gives you a degree at the end of it, but it's also not the sort that costs many tens of thousands of dollars, and four or five years of your life. The further I get past my university days, the more I come to appreciate that you can often learn things faster and more thoroughly in other contexts besides university - you're usually a lot more focused (because if you're not, then you're not learning it at all), and you frequently have more ability to apply your knowledge to real-world problems, and learn thereby.
@@Alsadius I would bet for us who have listened to all of Perun's videos that as smart as we think we are we have learned so much more and are so much more able to understand what's going on over there. Perun has earned our trust through all his hard work and if we can talk half as well as he teaches us then we can all get an A. I agree with all the above comments. Being brought up with a very narcissistic mother and watched the machinations played out as a bystander in my 59 years of life I can clearly see the effects and truth in this last Corruption lecture. Sometimes it is right to be slightly pessimistic and conspiratorial and not discount anything to see the truth. Any other view would be looking at fog.
Hey Perun, I just wanted to say: You mentioned in this video that Wagner Group could be a video all its own - Having been following this war but not really delved deep into this particular organization, I for one would absolutely watch a full video breakdown on Wagner. Thank you for reading.
Would be interesting. You might get some info from CIT reports on their actions in Syria, although those might be only in Russian. And I've yet to see any analysis of their involvement in Mali or Africa in general. Just some bits of info that theyd're active there.
The framing of Shoigu as a genius-level politician at 24:55 is so incredibly well-put. This is the sort of thing that wasn't ever taught in social studies but absolutely ought to be. Why do we have the institutions that we have and why is it important to maintain and reform them with zeal? This is why. Because otherwise perverse incentivization ruins your society.
_".. why is it important to maintain and reform them with zeal?"_ The ones getting to head them have no incentive to maintain / reform them, quite the opposite. Not to mention that plenty rules create powerful individuals in society at large who will do the same, from 250 years ago: _"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_ & _"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_ Adam Smith
I think there is something to letting institutions die a natural death and letting new ones emerge. What is important is what institutions do, not institutions themselves. Institutions probably wouldn't agree with this, particularly as they "mature."
@@alanshackelford6450 institutions only need to die when they cease to perform their function or become outdated. In the US, the reasons that our institutions are weakening is because of the perverse incentives that comes with the 2 party winner take all system. It's not a reason to throw out the IRS or the justice department.
@@seanthomas5303 It's interesting you went to the federal government. That's really not the direction I was taking it. I wouldn't give that idiot blond Oompa-Loompa's criticism's of the "deep state" the least bit of credence. The professionalism of the federal civil service has and continues to serve us well. I really was thinking in terms of American education, both higher and public primary/secondary education.
Indeed. As much as I hate him for what he has been doing, especially during this war, I think Shoigu is a likely candidate for president when Putin dies. Because Shoigu knows how to play the game.
When you mentioned how it can “never the the Czar’s fault,” it just made me think of Nicholas II. Part of the reason why he lost support and was overthrown was because, at least based on my small amount of research, a lot of times he went out of his way to make things his fault. I remember reading something about how when there was the stampede and a bunch of deaths during his coronation, his advisors told him to shift the blame to the military, but he instead chose to claim responsibility. Or he kept quiet, I can’t remember. And when the Russian army was doing poorly in WWI, he went to the front to help with command himself, which lead to the people blaming *him* for their failures, instead of some random general. Just an interesting thought.
I can believe this. I'll be a smartass and say that Perun made a mistake here by not mentioning the public directly. Only insinuated that other people than the boss will try to do the same. The same public which is often flawless and always a victim when we analyze political systems. But in my experience (and indeed, according to historical examples, e.g. people voting for Hitler, or still glorifying Stalin), in certain cases many people almost want these sort of leaders and systems. These need at least a superficial support, or at least a non-opposition from a large part of the country to function. They vote for them because populism 'works', in a similar sense he said this system works for individuals: the leader at least talks about glory, feeding emotions, and, contrary to expectation, sometimes does give out bread to feed the body of the supporters. Problem is, with that we live up our future for a sugar rush as Perun said. In my country this is currently happening, destroying the fledgling democratic foundations of the state. And furthermore, I long noticed what you described, in personal relationships. People often deflect not just because they're scared, spineless etc. but also because not everybody values a man who apologises. Even just admitting the other has some good points in a debate for example, is seen as 'giving up ground', losing, and therefore you, the loser, can lose status. This is a major component of shittalking neverending arguments online. I'll end with a quote from one of our writers: 'A tyrant is only possible where the masses are servant.'
He hasn't stayed quiet about deaths at coronation. He celebrated his coronation latter the same day at dancing, saying that although it's terrible tragedy, that shouldn't darken the celebrations. And that wasn't taken well by the people, who expected celebrations to be cancelled. And it was his fault.
*EDIT - Alix of Hesse was obviously German (Hessian) and not Austrian as I previously wrote* Your comment about Nicholas II going to the front and the effects of that is dead on. The only thing it accomplished was making him personally responsible for Russia’s war failures in the eyes of the people and army, while simultaneously leaving his German Princess wife and a certain, creepy, illiterate, rural monk, folk healer/spiritual advisor in charge of things back home. Russian history is fun…
Your story about the Soviets learning to pick on Luftwaffe units reminded me immediately of Otto Carius' story about a Luftwaffe unit showing up to the Eastern Front fully equipped with new uniforms, MG42s, and other weapons they had only heard stories about, but because of their inexperience, failed to post sentries or security, and were overrun by the Soviets, who then turned all those new weapons and uniforms on the Germans. The German troops in that sector (Army Group North if I recall correctly) learned to shoot anyone wearing a Luftwaffe uniform shortly after that, because only Russians were wearing Luftwaffe gear.
I’m guessing you’re referring to the luftwaffe field divisions that were raised in order to create more troops out of luftwaffe personnel without aircraft. Sounds plausible.
Rewatching this after the Wagner mutiny, Perun's content is more relevant than ever and should be intro-class material for any national security courses for defense planners.
Thank you for featuring a screen from Yes, Minister. A bloody good show, one I've re-watched many a times and it never gets old. Also, a grand presentation as always!
Yes (Prime) Minister coverage of Russia, Europe and the press (media) remains 100% accurate today. Not bad for a TV documentary (sorry) comedy that was actually about current affairs of its day.
Incentives. Exactly. Finally someone recognizing how fundamental they are to literally every issue. Its such basic stuff, and yet somehow 99% of people think its a great idea for industry to self-regulate, or politicians and lobbyists to switch jobs between each other frequently, and the list goes on.
What a culture that rewards psychopathic behaviour isn't good I'm shocked 😜 Yeah it's bit worrying how much something like a simple HR policy can have on creating a corrupt system.
I live in Norway and the country is extremely socialist and feminist as well as a focus on equity, the result has been devastating as why should you work harder than the laziest worker as you are paid the exact same, not based on workload but hours. This goes for most workplaces. Not to mention quota hiring which is openly sexist and racist, some jobs won't even hire Norwegian men and state as much in the adverts, due to diversity quotas. Now I can see some workplaces that would benefit from diversity like social workers trauma centers and the like where there is a need for people of different backgrounds to better relate to those they work with. Issue is it is taken to the extreme and the result has been that since 90s until today infrastructure is going to shit, services becoming worse and worse, workload being done is lower and lower, the only thing keeping it afloat is the oil. What is the incentive to work hard and be honest if that holds you back or others are rewarded the same for no effort? I know the example is adjacent but I felt the need to give an example of a similar issue on a national level.
@@INSANESUICIDE presume you meant equality? Number of hours worked and quotas are equality of outcome not equality of opportunity. Basically you have problem with the type of equality being used it sounds like. Funny how even just a tiny mindset change in how you define equality can change outcomes.
@@murphy7801 No. He means Equity. Simply put, Equity is "everyone should be wealthy". Equality is "everyone should have the same opportunities to become wealthy" Equity is enforcing diversity quotas by hiring someone based on their gender, skin color, nationality and/or sexual orientation. Equality is hiring someone because they are most qualified for the job, regardless of any other factor. If you have a company that is majority black employees and you hire a white employee because he is white, then that is a diversity hire in order to pursue a policy of equity. Another hypothetical: you have a majority white company and you have a black man and a white woman in your hiring pool but you only have room for one new hire for a complex high-skill job. The white woman has a master's degree relevant to the job and years of prior experience. The black man has only an associates degree in an irrelevant field and no experience. So who do you hire? If you are for equality, you hire the white woman because she is most qualified for the job. You hire her because she has the best education and lots of experience that is relevant to the job you're hiring for, not because she is white. Equality in practice is color blind. You can mix up any of the ethnicities in the Equality example and it will work. You cannot do that with Equity. Equity in practice factors color and superficial features above all else. "Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." That is what equality is.
@@That0therAsian equity doesn't mean everyone should be wealthy. I don't what definition your using. Equality either is a when something is fair or about fairness, or when value of a property is in excess of claims. On fairness or something being equitable, this just saying a deal is reasonable for all involved. I don't know how you've twisted the English language to mean not this.
Shame that the same system of perverse political motivation is the sole reason for starting the war. If Russia was not an autocracy it would not feel threatened by independent democratic Ukraine. If Russia was not rotting under the weight of it's corruption it's neighbors would be less interested in completely cutting ties to it. If Putin was not in power for 22 years straight he might have been able to recognize difference between feverish geopolitical dreams and reality. At least he would not have acted this directly on them.
@@lcplapiata5501 Yes, only three 'gestures of good will' and air defenses on Moscow's rooftops, despite starting the war without announcement, using Belarus as a staging ground and negligence to civilian lives. That is definitely a VERY successful chain of military operations, no defeats suffered, only temporally setbacks.
@@L1vv4n like Afghanistan? Twenty years wasn't it? when did you realise you had lost? Or were you like the ghost of Kyiv an kept believing you're overlords you were fighting for democracy against the vile Afghanis with their terrorist mentality lol WB those evil Iraqis an their WEAPONS OF MASSIVE STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION, that you're overlords harped on about lol?
@@lcplapiata5501 That is so nice of you to just plainly ignore the topic and arguments. What USA failures in middle east have to do with Russia losing the war in Ukraine? Except that they clearly show that 1) it's almost impossible to win a war against population willing to fight. Ukrainians clearly showed that they don't want Russian soldiers boots on their ground. 2) It's impossible to maintain a stable puppet government without constant military presence, which makes initial Putin's goals in Ukraine unachievable.
I remember reading in the Art of War the following: "There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed." Russia could stand to learn from the latter-most mentioned...
*Perun;* could you create a playlist on your channel solely on the topic of Russian corruption and dysfunction? It would be handy to _recommend_ to non subscribers when discussing the topics.
@@badluck5647 Why it is Russian Playlist? As PerunAU stated, many time in videos, this effecting all nations and complex organizations. Russians just royally F-ed themself and just ongoing example very suitable for subjects he covering.
@@mindaugasstankus5943 Because corruption is such a fundamental part of Russian society that every video about the Russian military will have to address the corruption in one form or another.
It's always fascinating how much of this I nod along with, saying, "Yup, sounds right, that's familiar, sounds like Steve, saw that" with my experience as a software developer in the corporate world. The basic rules of incentives, relationships, loyalty, and mismanagement are all pretty universal. If we ever meet aliens with completely different brains I am sure some of this stuff will be instantly familiar to them. "Yeah, Klarnax of Mars wanted all the Flurbongs, and he was friends with Zorlon The Gelatinous, so..." And yet, people are always kind of surprised to see it. "What do you mean he was more interested in expanding his department so he was personally more important, rather than reducing costs to benefit the corporation as a whole but making himself less important by running a smaller department?! I'm shocked!"
_"The basic rules of incentives, relationships, loyalty, and mismanagement are all pretty universal."_ Scale it up to being at work on the highest levels of society and look at our globalized world and you might declare it one of the causes of the Fermi Paradox.
thats classic Klarnax, always looking our for number one, for sure not a team player. hearing Zorlon was involed shocks me though. Always thought he was a good bloke.
@@joansparky4439 It should be mentioned that the most likely solution for the Fermi Paradox is that: 1) Life isn't common. It may only pop up 1/1,000,000 times it has an opportunity 2) Then, life doesn't have many opportunities to become complicated 3) Complex life doesn't always give way to intelligent life 4) Intelligent life doesn't always give way to large-scale societies 5) If these large-scale societies do exist, it will be very rare, and since light travels relatively slowly compared to the size of the universe, we have a very small window to look through. Its like looking out the window at the ISS at an empty patch of the pacific ocean and declaring that there must be no life because you can't see it. No, you just don't have a view of the whole earth and that which you can see isn't in high enough resolution to let you see all the life that Is there. The thing is, if intelligent life can form societies, it comes off as very unlikely to me that they will destroy themselves in such a way that leads to extinction. Even nuclear war is just a setback of a few thousand years max, which is peanuts compared to the age of the universe. I just dont see these types of structures as being a good solution to the Fermi Paradox because you should come across a successful system relatively quickly. Even if it takes a dozen attempts, each setting you back 1,000 years, thats 12,000 years. Humans have existed for close to 200,000 years. 12,000 years is nothing.
@@Isometrix116 our societies are made up of individual life. Individual life (in nature, in wilderness) functions per survival of the fittest individual by any means available (even at the cost of the rest). Now, not all humans are like that (and not all to the same degree).. but just a few are enough to disturb things.. why? Because the remaining humans all came together in societies to have a higher comfort of existence, which is based on higher efficiency of acquisition of resources for survival, reproduction and fun having via division of labor / specialization. But this creates a problem - specialists are not as good as generalists in protecting their stuff and themselves, so they outsource this part to a central benevolent monopoly force (modern: government). This entity now is there to violently punish any individual opportunists among the specialists (or groups of them) and does this by enforcing common rules.. but who says that this entity can't also enforce a couple rules that benefit a few (selfish ruthless greedy) humans at the cost of the rest? No one. You can guess what will happen - regularly. Human history is mostly about exactly this conundrum of selfish individuals taking advantage of the societal rule enforcing entity for their own benefit at the expense of the rest until it breaks the societal efficiency and a new cycle starts. Problem? The more technologically advanced we become as a species, the more damage we are able to unleash on our habitat / ecosystem / planet. Just look at Putin or Kim. Narcissists who not just control a couple tribes or legions.. no, they control nukes these days. WMDs. You know what happens when a (global) society allows individuals to own and control WMDs? That society at some point will have a very very bad day, namely when the individual who controls the nukes wants to see the world burn for this or that reason. And nukes aren't the only thing we are coming up with.. what about some nasty viruses? Some strong AI? This kind of problem is a universal problem that will affect ANY life ANYWHERE in the universe that follows a similar approach to social organisms as we here on Earth did, by building it from individual living beings. It's like a multi-cellular organism and a few cells developing cancer.. in the end the whole isn't gonna make it. So whatever the chances are for intelligent life that is based on similar principles as us - this "individual vs. the whole" problem simply is universal and the bottlenecks that are obviously there will only become worse and more, as our technological capacity increases. We ain't seen nothing yet.
This presentation has aged incredibly well. Well done. Sergei is still standing and everyone else is now gone. The idiot taction is a master manipulator.
Love the sarcastic presentation of the domestic security force: "a moderat reported strength of merely" 340,000 personnel, 1,650 armoured vehicles and an artillery regiment.
Nothing screams "Of the people, by the people, for the people" like a domestic security force with a freaking artillery regiment. Being completely fine with the idea that, if push comes to shove, a civil uprising can always be quelled by letting 60 152mm howitzers splatter everyone involved.
@@LD-Orbs My reaction's actually the reverse ... that's absolutely not enough artillery to act as anything other than replacement infantry for an actual Army. It's a force optimised for fighting civilians, not being an army.
I recall watching a video discussing why Arab armies suck and there is many parallels here and in that video. This also explains to some extent why the modern Israeli state managed to survive the first 30 years of it’s existence despite being surrounded by enemies who wanted to destroy them and were sometimes better equipped. It’s always a pleasure to watch these PowerPoint presentations.
@@nihluxler1890 I'm reasonably read up on the subject and I can't remember any mention of Israel being a strongman to anyone. The U.s only provided direct military aid once during the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and that was in response to the Soviets providing so many Anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Arabs that they were firing them like shotgun cartridges.
There's an old paper by an American Colonel that talks about why the Arab militaries had such an abysmal record against each other and against Israel. His assertion that an Egyptian colonel had about as much independent authority as an American sergeant first class was illuminating to me.
@@cracklingvoice Apparently the resounding success in the 6-Day War caused the Israelis to look down on the militaries of their Arab neighbors. The Yom Kippur War in 1973 changed that, and Israeli soldiers expressed respect for the enemy Syrian and Egyptian troops (the Syrians displayed tenacity and determination, advancing relentlessly despite suffering heavy casualties, and the Egyptians moved and advanced much faster than the Israelis predicted they would) Personally, I feel that the Yom Kippur War was madness on the part of the Arabs. Had they broken through the Israeli military and reached the major cities, the Israeli government would have authorised the use of nuclear weapons. What the hell were the Arab leaders thinking? What was their reasoning and rationale for launching the invasion? Maybe Simon Whistler made some videos about 1973. I should see if he did.
Dear Perun, Thank you again for a well researched and important piece. The most common complaint of Democracies is that they are slow, bureaucratic and inefficient, however they are developed this way by necessity, and nothing shows that necessity than the examples you have used in your series of videos. There is a saying that Democracy is the one of the worst forms of government there is, excepting ALL of the others. Separation of Religion and State, Checks and Balances, Public Disclosure, an Independent Judiciary, a Free Press, and non-political Government Positions is a recipe for endless meetings, numberless discussions, and the feeling of nothing ever getting done, BUT all of this prevents the emergence of specific individuals, political groups, or religions from gaining power and never releasing it.
True. And I think that dictatorships and authoritarian systems are equally as inefficient and buerocratic as democracies. In democracies, these processes are just more visible.
_"all of this prevents the emergence of specific individuals, political groups, or religions from gaining power and never releasing it."_ It does not prevent it, just slows it down to decades / centuries. At the core of our modern democracies is two flaws. 1) we elect representatives that then have some time to make "mistakes" that have real world consequences and the worst / best will even go unnoticed. 2) our societies harbor millennia old customs / mechanics that create powerful individuals / groups that no one notices as working that way. Both those flaws destroy our societies bit by bit.. it just takes time, longer than an individuals lifetime, which is why you don't notice.
For real tho. My grandfather was an officer in Indonesia's Suharto era military dictatorship. Back then if you wish to attain vital position in the military you have to kow tow to Golkar, Suharto's Party. That or you came from a well respected family who has too much of an influence for Suharto to just wipe off the floor. As a result many senior officers are elected based on their political allingment rather than merit. So when Indonesia invaded Timor Leste many of the Army Generals somehow got themselves surrounded and flanked by Timor militia despite the fact that Timor is a rather flat-hilly tiny island with little room for ambush. My grandfather and other junior officers ended up having to save their corrupt assess out of those ambushes.
@@jgw9990 it depends, Indonesia is not a truly unified country like say, Great Britain. Let me put it this way: Someone who lives in Maluku let's say, would have a very different experience than one living on the outskirts of Jakarta. The guy from Maluku would struggle to even find a used LED TV for fair price while the guy from Jakarta would be able to purchase an okay gaming PC (6th gen Intel, 8GB ram, etc) for a month's wage. With that being said the guy from Maluku doesn't have to deal with Jakarta's bullshit, India/China level of air polution. On regards of Ibu Kota Baru/ New Capital. It is ineveitable that the seat of power needs to be relocated out of Jakarta. Borneo is a strategic location, but there's definitely concerns about enviromental damage, etnic tension between Javanese migrants and locals, as well as fear of Chinese investors pulling out a Sri Lanka on us. I don't think we'll be as wealthy as '2nd rate' countries like Poland any time soon. But we're definitely better prepared in terms of long term development compared to Arab countries who dumped their money on mindless luxuries or insane, unpractical mega-projects.
@@platinumsun4632 This is a complicated situation for Indonesia. The government is officially secular, but the vast majority of voters are Muslim and still rural, so since Suharto's fall, Islamic parties have become popular in parliament. Society is less open than it used to be, but there isn't a secret police or dictator anymore. As for the future, it's actually quite a balance point at the moment with the huge controversy around the current proposed update of the legal code. It's well worth looking up more information about this for yourself, but it seems like a decisive moment for Indonesian politics.
I never expected the sentence "Once all of the senior leadership is made up of people who can sink mad 3-pointers from halfway" but I'm glad it's here with us.
Thank you for choosing the most popular Slavic ending /jk (American author: I will die for freedom! British author: I will die for honour! French author: I will die for love! Russian author: I will die.) And coincidentally, I used to have exactly the same profile pic by HR Giger about 15 years ago, funny how it turned up here.
These are always my favourite of the videos you do. Systematically analysing why Russia has performed the way it has in a way no other channel even has the capability to do. Keep up the good work!
Hmm, I fell asleep cos I had no sleep the night before, so I'm going to watch now although I was very worried from the beginning that perun was about to fix the russian army. I am 99.9999% sure that the head of rt has been watching this series and that is why she did that famous clip that jake played in which she said 'stop the lying'
The Russian media claims are reaching ludicrous NK levels. 52:28 "In response to the criminal strike of the Kyiv regime..." Yes, because a nation defending its own territory and population is clearly an illegal act according to international law....
OMG! The third in the fabled series! Corruption, Lies, Politics! - Theses are pure gold and advanced my understanding of Russia, it's culture and it's army by LEAPS AND BOUNDS! Other content also excellent, but these 3 in particular are MUST WATCH material!
Your corruption series should be required viewing for anyone self-aware enough, who not only wishes to understand human interaction, but also, and more importantly, to give incentive to confront our very own psychological cesspool. True progress begins with ourselves.
@@joansparky4439 But Perun suggests that one can structure how it operates so that it isn't necessarily destructive to the group and in fact may serve the ends of the group. Not an original argument there, it does echo the Federalist Papers in its own odd way. And if you look at smaller scale societies, they can ruthlessly suppress the kind of individualism that feeds selfishness. If you were expelled from a hunter-gatherer society for "selfishness", it was often effectively a death sentence.
@@alanshackelford6450 I discussed with someone just 24 hours ago UNDER THIS VIDEO who claimed that hunter gatherers where selfish/competitive and had no such social structure.. Anyhow.. _"Perun suggests that one can structure how it operates so that it isn't necessarily destructive to the group and in fact may serve the ends of the group."_ That principle is called free market (economics) and democracy (politics). It boils down to the rules that a group enforces for it's members is not benefiting ANY individual of that group at the cost of other members. Problem is in the detail - namely the entity that creates and enforces those rules for a LARGE group. This entity can also enforce rules that benefit a few at the cost of the rest, which is very easy as soon as the size of the group goes above 50. Not to mention that feedback loops get very complex very fast and cause and result of rules being enforced is not always obvious for the individual there (case in point - our fiat currency copied a flaw from metal currency that turns it into a monopoly as soon as GDP growth falls below the inflation rate). Or in other words, 250 years ago a scottish social philosopher already had a hunch how this worked (for the economic realm, mischief version): _"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_ & _"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_ Adam Smith Our problem in 50+ member societies is simply that individual selfishness runs counter to creating and enforcing common rules that do not benefit individuals at the cost of the rest. Representative democracy / constitutional republics per definition create powerful individuals from the get go who WILL abuse the system. We need another form of democracy I'm afraid.. some form of direct democracy where there are no positions of power.
@@alanshackelford6450 Hehe, I'm always following 'in dubio pro reo' and who knows.. occasionally even a blind chicken finds a grain. I also helps me sharpen my arguing skills. So I see it as training exercise.
That was interesting. Picking up on the quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” it would be great to hear your thoughts on how politics and corruption are evolving in Ukraine . It seems to me there is a realisation that international aid, the desire to win and grow closer ties to the West, has lead to an effort to develop a good model of democracy; a drive become honest and accountable as well as to stamp out corruption at every turn. What I wonder is has their culture changed for the better due to this war?
This is an interesting question. Because while Ukraine and Russia really are different places and peoples, they really do share much history and obviously both emerged from the same organization after the USSR was dissolved. The Union may have gone, but its structures and people remained and it takes time to change minds and methods developed over decades. But it always seemed to me, in my experience with Roscosmos and Ukrainian military/space and with joint ventures involving them all, that the Ukrainians were more interested in getting things right while the Russians valued getting things done. It felt like Ukraine was the source of expertise and Russia was the source of power. Ukraine as a place and people also felt more European to me and less instinctively antagonistic toward “the West.” So, I think Ukraine has always valued competence and quality a bit more than Russia and therefore has a bit more of a cultural value for getting things right. Corruption seems to value getting rich or gaining power and Russia seemed to run on “rules” that were often unsaid and were sometimes flexible and sometimes not. It felt like a place where you could get away with anything and at same time might get into huge trouble by accident by crossing the street wrong. Something that seemed to illustrate this difference was this, though it was in the 2000’s mind you: When flying from Moscow to Kiev, maybe 10 miles out from Moscow was all fields, little towns, enormous factories, etc., all connected by these crooked roads and nothing looked like it was planned well or maintained well and where anything was seemed sort of ad hoc. The pilot told us when we’d crossed the border and you could see the difference immediately. All of the pieces looked the same - the same little villages and cracked cement and factories - but the roads were now straight and connected at right angles. Everything was just better thought out and better executed and you could tell that the people there cared more about the place. If a Russian wanted to know if I thought George Bush was better than Putin, a Ukrainian would want to know if I thought their country was nice or their people beautiful. I think this conflict has served to shake a bunch of holdover people doing things in the old ways out in Ukraine. The people there want the sort of prosperity and lives like the ones they see in Berlin, Paris, or even Poland. They don’t want to go back to living like people do in Moscow, accepting great personal but little political freedom, everything built poorly because half the budget got pinched, and ultimately being a vassal state to Russia. Their cultural value for doing things right and making things well shares more in common with their neighbors to the West than their mean, bully cousins to the East. In short, I think this conflict is allowing Ukraine to become more like its true self rather than reordering values towards less corruption, if you see what I mean.
The question "has the culture changed" can ONLY be answered after that war. That is to say, they currently have an external reason to change. But once that pressure is gone, things usually tend to revert to their old customs. Now, this is a change that most people will support, so there's a better chance for it to stick, I'd wager. But that's still not a guarantee either...
Thank you for the honesty about VPNs, a lot of content creators exaggerate the benefits of security. Honestly you are quickly becoming one of my most favorite and respected channel.
He is more honest than most, but VPNs aren't necessary, to use public wi-fi. If the website you are going to is HTTPS, it's already encrypted, the only thing a bad actor/admin can see is the website. And you really should have HTTPS mode forced on, especially on your phone.
@@husenberg1 That won't get you around geographic content restrictions though. For that you also need TOR. Of course, for most things the increased latency added by VPNs or TOR isn't worth the bother.
@@thekinginyellow1744 yeah I said it's more honest than most ads for VPNs, but it's still wasn't 100% accurate. Maybe he sees this and can correct it in later sponsor segments.
@@thekinginyellow1744 And that fact actually lines up with what he said - Geographic limitations and protecting your surfing habits from your ISP or whatever public gateway you’re on (assuming they’re watching). All they’ll see is that traffic to the VPN provider.
His videos on Corruption, Lies, and Politics destroying Armies is fantastic. They should really be watched sequentially. Politics builds on the ideas of Lies and Lies builds on the ideas of Corruption.
One of the most bitter ironies is that had Russia not been so corrupt and autocratic, they might've been a much more powerful military force and a much stronger opponent. Except they would have had no reason to start any wars in the first place had their system encouraged normal partnership and cooperation, and had their politicians had at least a miniscule incentive to actually make their voters lifes better or at least not actively make them suffer for no reason.
This is a similar example when people say how Germany could of won Ww2 where you have to change them to the point where they are there no longer Nazis so they wouldn't have started the war in the first place hence the entire outcome is mute
@@adrianalexandrov7730 Yes they did putin saw a small country with 50% of the GDP of his own he could take over and start stealing everything like he has from his current country
Your comment especially at the end perpetuates this democratic peace theory which is a myth. Democracies have been going at war with eachother for centuries one example is american revolutionary war aginst britain, or indo-pakistan war both were democracies in 1948 , first negorno karabakh war etc
Seconding. Perun, your videos are a gift and I deeply enjoy them. I would love to see "softer" discussions as collaborations from you and some other creators, namely Kraut. I totally understand you're already working a ton on each video and that it might not be feasible to add another style of content to the mix. "Softer" in the sense that you can both opine more and have some (sensible, which few collaborators would effectively be) back and forth. Also I'm sure you could clown around more too, there are some facts about what's going on that are absolutely hilarious, given the "you can laugh or you can cry" side of things. Anyways, stay golden, keep your sanity by not overextending yourself, and I hope you are reaping the fruits of your labor sufficiently to maintain both :) All the best!
As a Brit (and a serving civil servant), I found myself chuckling at the Yes Minister background picture at the slide entitled ‘The Problem of Incentives’. That was just brilliant.
Yes Minister was hugely popular here in Australia too. Because we have a near identical political system to the UK, as well as a similar distrust of ministers, the show translated exceptionally well when shown to Australians.
@@SofieAndMe Here is a four hour powerpoint about why I feel you have perverse incentives to maintain a culture of lying in our relationship, which leads to a sustained culture of social imbalance in our intrapersonal interaction.
Videos like these remind me why societies that were managed with genuine competency and meritocracy are relatively few and far between (or only lasted for a short period of time). Whereas dysfunctional systems, where corruption and politics were the main reason things were done, are usually the rule rather than the exception.
One of the greatest ironies of this conflict is the terrible fate of the Russian speaking population of the Donbas, the very people that Russia has been claiming to protect. Instead they've been conscripted en masse and thrown to the wolves with pathetic levels of training and equipment. It's almost as if Putin wants to exterminate every military aged man in Donetsk and Luhansk.
I have literally watched this video 5 times. I don't know why. I'm not super political and until i found your channel have only been mildly interested in militaries. I love how objective and logical you are and i only wish more channels could learn from you. Not to mention something about your voice is so easy to listen to.
Same. Perun just has a way of really explaining things well with the necessary humour, nuance and detail, examples we understand and to correct misconceptions we might have had.
Funny thing is that your trilogy on Russia's dysfunctions also illustrates the very reasons why this war was needed in the first place. Put it simply, nobody in the region wants to have anything to do with Russia's political/cultural system (well, other than Belarus which serves as an example of what might happen to you if you become a Russian vassal). As a result Russia has little to no soft power over it's neighbours despite (or maybe because of) the shared history. If they want to rebuild their empire - and they clearly do - the only tools they have are bribery and physical force. Bribery alone won't do it in anything bigger than Chechnya so physical force it is.
Very well said, and awnsers the question of can Russia change itself? Sadly NO. They are well and truly trapped in a toxic culture. Reform seen as a defeat.
Just want to reiterate how much we appreciate your channel. The effort you put in is obvious. The case study between Telegram messages is an extra step not many people would take, and I appreciate that you did.
This is the kind of golden content that you tube was designed for... a masterclass for the interested masses.. I wonder if you could a series on how Ukraine was able to let go of their old soviet ways and what it took... the Ukraine army of 2014 is so different to the one of 2022 but the change happened so effectively in less than a decade... how?
The idea of "the boss is never at fault" is perfectly demonstrated in Germany's Nazi history. "Wenn das der Führer wüsste" was a common saying. It means "If the Fuhrer knew about this...", basically assuming that he cannot possibly know about it, since he would fix it. And Hitler, just like Putin, was fantastic at keeping his underlings constantly at odds with eachother. This is not just a Stalin thing. The entire "Führerstaat" or Fuhrer-State was built around this idea. Have things horribly hierarchical so people constantly compete over the Fuhrer's favor or the favor of whoever is next in line above them. There can never be a revolution against the top, because everybody wants to be the new guy themselves. This has been thoroughly researched in Germany and it's quite sad to witness the same exact thing play out yet again, when people should know better and be able to prevent such power structures from ever being created again. But I guess Russians probably didn't learn much about the failures and inner workings of Stalinism in school or simply didn't care, seeing how most of them are happily cheering on this war, no matter who's in charge, as long as Russia wins...
That was absolutely fascinating Perun. Very well researched and presented, well done! If I worked for any Western Ministry of Defence I would hire you as an analyst in a micro-second.
As someone who knows people who work in a management consultancy in the UK, I'm sure they're devastated that they're not equipped with Challenger 2, AS90 and M270 MLRS.
This trilogy has been fascinating to watch, much more in depth and thoughtful then any other coverage of the war I’ve come across in the last year. Amazing job!
Great videos! I think that if someone translates these three into Russian, a certain number of people will finally stop supporting this horror. And the stress in the word "Vranyo" is placed on the last syllable. The stress in Russian always falls on the letter Ё (Yo). And your pronunciation of the word "ochkovtiratelstvo" made my day))
That's not how war support works in Russia. People actively look for excuses not to accept the truth because they don't want to accept it. You can never run out of excuses if you are motivated enough. (Example: this video was fabricated by russophobes.) Belief that it's not you who was supporting the horror is a strong enough motivation.
@@v0id_mg According to Vlad Vexler, over 50 percent of the Russian population are completely passive and depoliticised, to a point where they would have supported any decision Putin made, be it to invade Ukraine or to donate billions of dollars to Kyiv. If you have not seen Vexler’s videos, I highly recommend them.
The more I learn about real world organisations and structures the more I think the crazy organisations in 40K that were created by GW to sell new models might be actually some of the more realistic part of the lore.
I'm not super familiar with WH40k lore but my impression has been that Empire/Human institutions have a lot this kind of detail but many aliens have much less. E.g. the Tau probably don't have these problems at all (which has some kind of in-story justification).
@@seneca983 The different casts are basically kept in line by pheromone mind control by the ethereals as well as mind control devices with some client races. They are far more subtle but yes, becouse they are more unified they are more streamlined.
Nah, Lazerpig is insufferable and I wouldn't wish him on Perun. The info might, I stress, might, be good but the presentation horrific. I suffered his gimmicks for two videos before I noped.
And then Tarkin learned it when the Death Star was destroyed due to the fact that using essentially Slave Labor to make your wunderwaffe probably wasn't the best idea.
Once again my carefully planned day is delayed by an hour of the most interesting analysis on TH-cam. Wife: "Perun posted!" Me: "The heater fix will have to wait, put on a coat."
On the topic of the Japanese inter service rivalry, to illustrate the absurdity of this split, during the American Air offensives the army argued that the bomber came from the sea making them a navy problem while the navy argued that the bombers were hitting land targets and were therefore an army problem. This resulted in america loosing about 600 Planes over Japan in three years to all causes (including weather and accidents) compared to the nearly 18000 Planes it lost in Europe.
It was a miracle that Doolittle's raid even can be planned had it not come from a directive from President Roosevelt. Flying Army Air Corp medium bombers that ditched everything that doesn't give them extra range, strap on extra fuel tank, and trying to take off (but not land) on carrier was stupendous on many level. No escort fighter, and very little military value was achieve (except it forced Japanese Navy to take defense of the home island a lot more seriously, thus tying down some of their ships).
@BigFire The raid was more important for American morale. I think it probably caused some Japanese concern that they failed to stop such a small air raid, in a way it foreshadows the massive air damage done later on.
@@dyingearth With respect: only someone who doesn't understand yanks & their morale, would think the Doolitlle raid was wastefull. Men don't live on bread alone; and courage & willingness to sacrfice it all for the collective victory, is highly contagious. ^^ ❤
How the IJN supplied the IJA on Guadalcanal borders on criminality. Just pushing the supplies overboard into the surf and making a run for it is just horrifying.
As a German M.A of History i really appreciate your comparison of nazi germany military feudalism to the actual russian situation. Especially your mention of the WWII Luftwaffe field divions are very useful to make the point of your video because in 1942 after heavy army loses in the Sowjetunion the OKW demanded the transfer of 250000 men from the Luftwaffes ground personal as replacements to the army. Göring refused this transfer and took the chance to grew up his sphere of power in raising Luftwaffe field divions as a separate ground force which were poorly trained and equiped for their task and took heavy loses. In September 1943 at long last the remnants of the divisions were transfered to the army when Görings politcal position was dwindeld by the course of the war. It would have been more efficient to do this two years earlier.
You're probably aware of this, but in economics the technical term for the problem you're discussing is "public choice theory." It's essentially the idea that just as people act in their own perceived self-interest when buying, selling and working in the free market, they also do so in their professional roles. As one BBC journalist put it when reporting on the Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to public choice theorist James Buchanan, "Public choice embodies the homely but important truth that politicians are, after all, no less selfish than the rest of us." It's not that nobody ever does the right thing out of a sense of mission or principle or whatever, it's just that overwhelmingly their overriding priority is going to be to protecting and advancing their own self-interest. It's the sales VP you mentioned whose desire to advance the company's interests end where his own self-interest begins. It's the general who won't call BS on the procurement shadiness he sees because he knows he'd just be reassigned to (literal or figurative) Siberia and someone of more selective awareness would take his place. That's public choice theory, and once you understand and internalize it you start seeing it *everywhere* in your daily life. Speaking of Nobel-laureate economists, there's a great quote from Milton Friedman that in many ways sums up this entire video: “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
As Perun is an economist, I am sure you are right. However, as I read it, Perun tackled this issue from the corollary, as an end to his trilogy which was essentially based on "corruption". I doubt the average person is "corrupt", which is an extreme form of "self interest" or selfishness, as you describe. Nevertheless, Friedman nailed it in terms of what is necessary in many countries regarding what those in power can and, separately, will do, especially where political systems are weak for incumbent leaders. Such is the case in America today where Biden does not control the House, and Germany where coatition considerations can stymie good decisions.
Minor nitpicking point -- there is no Nobel Prize for Economics. The central bank of Sweden (Sverige Riksbank) chooses someone to be their award winner in the name of Alfred Nobel, not the Nobel Committee. The bank's choice are awarded at the same ceremony as Nobel Prize winners but Friedman, Krugman etc. are not actually Nobel laureates. The Nobel family object to this hijacking of their ancestor's name and reputation by the bank but they are not in charge of the Nobel Prize process or the awards ceremony.
The term "Basketball Based Selection System" is not one I expected to hear, yet I'm determined to work it into my daily conversations. Will report back
Excellent video. This idea of political leaders acting according to their own interests rather than the interests of the organization they lead is an important insight for understanding the world. The book The Dictator's Handbook goes in-depth on the topic, and CPG Grey made a great video summarizing this point called Rules for Rulers.
How large is your research staff? How many work hours does it require for your presentations? I always enjoy your presentations. Reminds me of sitting in a professor’s class in college. Thx for your work
He already said he did data analyze by trade. And his position does not allow him to talk about Aussie armed force. So I assume many of the topic is already filed in his computer, he just pull them out, dust them off, update with new figure, and maybe reassess the conclusion with the new figure, wrote the script, record the talking, phone his editor, and video happen. I expect around 1 months of lead time.
Perun, listening to your weekly update strangely makes me feel better about my grandparent who chose to stay in Ukraine. Thank you for providing such well written and researched content through this tough time
"If an organization is illegal, then you have the ability to just arrest all of its members and wind it up if it ever ceases to be useful to you." Of course, this might depend on the force that does the arrests having more armor and artillery than the army they're arresting.
A good example of how this can be done is Hitlers crushing of the SA. He used the SS to kill and arrest the SA leadership, thereby effectively beheading it. It wasn’t necessary to arrest every member,just to remove the leaders.
As crazy as this sounds, my new favourite Sunday morning ritual is a coffee and watching your new video releases first thing. Reminds me of being a kid again waiting for the new episode of your favourite show to air during Saturday morning cartoons.
I asked this before but in recent weeks it has become even more relevant. Your thoughts on what’s happening in western Balkans/ former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro & Serbia) would be welcomed, especially since its now has become very linked to the war in Ukraine.
There is also the politics of the West. I know it is a little stickier because the nations do not want to escalate more than necessary. But on the other hand, not taking decisive action early has created its own issues and has allowed the conflict to change as it goes on. Thank you for your insight and I appreciate the videos you produce.
No, thank you Perun for your work. This particular area is something I've studied deeply as part of my job, and it's something I try to share with students as a small contribution to learning from history in my own country. Seeing and hearing these phenomena and correlations presented like this to a large audience is nigh on therapeutic.
My respect for you grows with every episode. I will replay this briefing a couple of times to digest everything more thoroughly. Thank you for your work.
Hey perun! I was trying to find the UN report on the donbass casualties of the ukraine russia border conflictyou used in your recent Bakhmut episode, but even with the screen grab I couldnt find it on the UN website. I'd be very grateful if you could send a link, or details of where you found that report. I'd like to use it for my own purposes as online there are tankies that use the "from 2014 to 2021 X civilian have been killed" to hide the fact that the conflict was dying down before russias invasion.
they're still updating now - this is one of the Jan update www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/01/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-3-january-2023#:~:text=From%201%20to%2031%20December,is%20yet%20unknown)%3B%20and Pre-war version ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related%20civilian%20casualties%20as%20of%2031%20December%202021%20%28rev%2027%20January%202022%29%20corr%20EN_0.pdf
@@johanj3674 yup gotten into a discussion with them they always pretend that every single dead on both side military and civilian was exclusive donbass civilians
@@johanj3674 Oh I've got a cut and paste document I use, it's more for the bystanders anyhow, but I've blunted some tankies before. I do enjoy arguing with people on the internet, though its something I'm trying to do less of recently.
Sponsored by Private Internet Access, Use the following link to access their promotional offer: www.piavpn.com/Perun
This video completes the series that began with "How Corruption Destroys Armies" in May 2022. I hope it's a worthy end to the trilogy. All the caveats that applied to the other videos in this series apply to this one all the moreso.
I wanted to thank everyone who has supported the channel and given me the confidence that look at topics beyond just equipment statistics and economic data. Most people will, in the course of their daily lives, have seen some of the harm that corruption, deception, or disruptive factionalism can cause, and my goal with this series was to demonstrate how these phenomena can weaken structures even as expansive and intimidating as the Russian armed forces.
I'd also like to correct one error in the video. It's stated at one point that Denis Pushilin was allegedly involved in the MMM (described as ponzi /pyramid schemes) between '89-94 and '11-14. That is obviously an error and he was only (allegedly) involved in the latter iteration of MMM. He was still of school age during the first iteration.
Thank you as always to those (especially in Russia) who offered thoughts and contributions while this video was being created, and I will see you all again in the new week.
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE 🇦🇺 hey Perun could you do a video on the Australian military please?
Edit: so I found out why Perun can’t do that so I ask is there any other good TH-camrs who have covered the military thunda from down unda?
Hi Perun, got her just in time to watch you set up the projector.
@@Syndr1 I have fond memories of those bloody things
@@PerunAUhave you ever heard of the term “technocracy”? It’s an idea of government run by AI. Could an AI government be less susceptible to the usual corrupting influence of politics?
A good historical example is ww2 Japan where different branches almost ended up in open fighting, and were actively sabotaging and blocking each other
“One of the first civil wars started over catering contracts”
Well Perun wasn’t too far off the mark
What is Catering? Is it contracts.
@@Somalia111 "Catering is the business of providing food services at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio." - wikipedia
Basically its food services operated outside of a dedicated restaurant. Priggy ran restaurant services at venues where Putin was there
Man, I knew the Japanese inter-service rivalry was bad, but I didn’t know it was *_the army builds its own ships, including escort carriers_* bad.
Drachinifel has a great overview of the IJAs contribution to ship building. Some of their designs were amazing.
The Navy didn't even inform the Army about Midway until the following year. All throughout the Guadalcanal campaign the Army was convinced that the -dragons- 1st Air Fleet is coming, we promise, even as all four of its carriers were sitting at the bottom of the Pacific
It's "it's possible Tojo - who is an IJA officer - "accidentally" leaked Yamamoto's flight plan to the Americans" bad...
Its far easier to believe many Japanese were so arrogant that American’s understanding of Japanese wasn’t good enough to break their codes. There were certainly field commanders who ordered code books buried not burnt on retreat so not to create signal fires, not realising the Allies used metal detection to clear former Japanese camps of unexploded ordinance and so found them easily.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 it’s not quite that bad. If Tojo wanted Yamamoto dead, some random junior officers would have gone rogue and assassinated him and then received a token prison sentence.
When I listen to this episode, I am constantly reminded of CGP Grey’s video “The Rules for Rulers.” Gaining power is the end game, and all else after that is focused on limiting the ability of people pushing you out of that power. And that goes for the leaders, and their subordinates as well.
I was thinking the same. Those 2 vids give eachother more meaning.
I really hate that channel for multiple reasons (from the half baked PoliSci takes to the godawful automatic translation of the titles if you’ve got Google set to any other language than English), but as a high school history teacher I am glad he has got people more aware of some basic polisci and political topics and terminology.
@@luxborealis
As someone who studies PolSci, can you elaborate on what exactly is "half-baked" about his takes? :)
(I fear I may be missing the forest for the trees since I'm in the weeds, sort so speak, haha)
This honestly might be one of the reasons the old system of kings never dropped to the level of communism.
Sure, there were bad kings, but you have to look hard for one that was so bad that it rivals the likes of Stalin or Mao.
Maybe the king system was a (for it's time) much better overall structure.
@@carljohan9265 mhhh the kings just never had this much control and so many people under them like Mao or Stalin. They never had police forces or standing armies most of the time. However the peasants owned nothing and were taxed heavily. Kings were awful, however the peasants could barely write and therfore we have like no sources that don't come from the aristocracy themself or maybe some monks. Kings usually cared nothing for their people but used them as armies and for taxes. Ofcourse Stalin, Mao and Hitler are a special kind of evil but they are also the product of countries that formed.. giving rise to nationalism and shared doctrines that did not exist before. Society changed a lot. I am sure though that evil people have always existed and 98% of the population was dirt poor and suffered because the church told them that this was the way of the world and god wanted it that way. The church always played a huge part in oppressing the people. The church ist 100% as bad as Mao, Stalin and Hitler combined. But you read history from their perspective so that is why you think that Kings were a good system for their time. Church and Crown were the two pillars supporting eatch other to lead rich lives on cost of everybody else! It was goddamn terrible
Your conclusion is a veritable theory of autocratic armies that no PhD of sociology or military history would be ashamed of. I'm glad you're putting this on TH-cam, rather than into some scientific journal that less than 1000 people ever read.
....and your description of how division, corruption and lying all reinforce each other looks like a manifestation of what Eliezer Yudkowsky has described as Inadequate Equilibria.
@@7secularsermons Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Yudkowsky
See: The Spirit of the Laws.
@@kayallen7603 Amazing, thank you ❤ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Law
Yeah I'm pretty sure at this point you could just submit your TH-cam channel as your thesis and get handed a PhD at this point.
This video has actually helped me better understand medieval feudalism
Feudalism actually worked better.
@@herptek A little less obscured to the average observer, but better functioning? I'm not so sure about that.
@@boobah5643 Western civilization used to work like that from the collapse of Roman empire until late medieval period and the renaissance. It isn't a short time span.
@@herptek From what I've read the roman empire itself functioned exactly like that as well...
@Geopolitiikka ja sota It worked so well they had to hire foreigners to make up the emperor's personal guard, since they couldn't trust each other.
While plowing his fields a Russian farmer upturned an ancient oil lamp. As he brushed off the soil a Genie emerged from the lamp. The Genie smiled as he told the farmer, "I will grant any wish you desire, but you must understand that whatever you ask for, I will grant doubly for your neighbor." The farmer thought about this proposal for a while, but with a grin he looked up to the Genie hovering above him and said, "My neighbor will get twice what I request, is that so?" "Yes!" the Genie emphatically replied, "Do you have a request?" The Russian farmer said, "Yes, I know what I want." The Genie pressed him, "So ask, what is it that you want?" Looking up at the Genie, the Russian farmer said, "Pluck out one of my eyes."
Noice.
I heard a version where the request is "then beat me half to death, please".
Or the (rather pan-Slavic) notion of true joy of accomplishment. It's not when you have a goat, your neighbor has a goat, and you save enough money to buy one more goat. It's when you have a goat, your neighbor has a goat, and then your neighbor's goat dies.
@@vojtechhoracek7704 we say the same in my country, and we aren't even slavs xD
In another version thw vishes were
1. 1 000 000
2. bigger dick
3. loss one testicle
The vast majority of youtubers in this category don't provide their sources which leaves them totally unaccountable. I really appreciate that you are one of the precious few that do Perun.
Edit: If you want an aneurysm, check out some of these replies.
Yeah. There’s plenty of misinformation on both sides but Perun is one of the few channels that gets to the nitty gritty of what needs to be said. He deserves far more subscribers.
this guys is on another level. He is on that top 0.001% of YT. 99% of YT is garbage anyway
Dude! It’s TH-cam not a university class. Some of us talk about our personal experiences and get told to provide sources as if the comment section of a TH-cam video had a bibliography space.
Yes, and then there‘s this work and people like @theoneandonlysoupemporium who just do things right.
Or @coffeezilla who tears up crypto..
@@aguynamedscott11 Im confused as to what point you're trying to make here, Perun makes nuanced, detailed analyses and backs them up with respectable sources to open the discourse to critique and further discussion. That benefits everyone, his videos would be shit and worthless if he behaved the way you are talking about (exactly why there is so much worthless trash on YT)
I would never have imagined my 16yo son eagerly awaiting an hour long lecture on politics/economy/military history („MUM!! Perun‘s new video is online!!“). Causing me to watch it too asap because he will want to discuss it with me and I need to have my facts and arguments lined up…
This time you touch upon my own expertise (economics degree) - how to make sure that the people in your organisation work towards its goals and not primarily their own. May I just say the lecture was brilliant!
I have seen this more with him. I got several young men that age hooked on Perun as well. It is deliverd with just the right amount of humor, depth on an extremely interesting topic. It is like learning about the inner workings of the third Reich but with a country that still exists. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how Perun can get anyone excited about hour long powerpoint presentations.
Yep this Aussie bloke is fair dinkum and unique.
What I find so amazing about Perun: I happened to find a lot of people, that sounded really smart, until they started talking about something, that I myself have some clue of.
So far under Perun's video I find a lot of comments, that claim: "Yeah, I do that stuff for a living, built up a long and successful career, and wished I could put that so succinctingly." or like in this video: "Yeah, been born there, been raised there, it was exactly as ****** as Perun makes it sound"
I should get my mom to watch some of these :)
@@stefanb6539 Fluent bugger, ain't he? I score a person on their ability to speak withOUT Ooh'ing, arring, and ummmmming.
It really amazes me how the Russian military and political structure look like a feudal system. You have all the lords, dukes, and barons with their own retinue doing their own stuff, and then the king's army, which is just a bigger personal retinue to which all other lords vow to serve but still keep a degree of independence and remain in a constant political struggle.
Russia never moved past feudalism.
Also, the constant political backstabbing and assassinations. LOTS of political backstabbing and assassinations...
It the result of a society that doesn’t run on laws and trust. Nazi leadership was the same way.
And knife in the back became a nearby 3 story window
Damn, so Russia has finally advanced to European feudalism?
Man, I saw this first-hand about how incentives can destroy an organization from inside. One of my previous jobs was working at an industrial facility and there was a requirement that you had to put in 24 safety reports annually or you were disqualified from the annual bonus. We ran a tight ship at that particular facility so actual safety issues were fairly rare. Because of this, people were reporting everything (coffee spills, tools put in the wrong locations, etc) along with actual safety issues if they came up to make sure we all qualified for the annual bonus. The QHSE guy at the facility at the time was an old hand and completely understood so he always approved any report that came through.
This was fine until the old QHSE guy got promoted to another facility and the company brought on some hot-shot, know-it-all, fresh-out-of-the-classroom college kid with no real job or life experience to replace him. Literally day 1, the kid holds a meeting and announces that "garbage reports" would no longer be accepted. Now, if you wanted your annual bonus, you had to be reporting actual safety issues and he didn't care one bit if you got your annual bonus.
So what happened? Well, wouldn't you know it, but suddenly a lot of safety issues started occurring at the facility. The reason for this was a lot of our experienced people started leaving for other facilities or quitting the company entirely and the company started bringing a lot of new, inexperienced people to take their place. Worse still, people started finding all kinds of new safety issues in areas that had never been a problem before. Why? Because they themselves were causing them. People started actively sabotaging the facility just to get their reports up. We went from being one of the safest facilities in the org to one of the worst within a few months. It was a miracle no one was actually hurt during this time. For some schadenfreude, upper management noticed the drop and immediately correlated it with the kid coming on board so they blamed him for all the safety failures at the facility and transferred him to some desk job somewhere where he couldn't do any more damage. So the lesson is you have to be really careful how you incentive your workforce: it may backfire spectacularly.
I find it weird the kid (arrogant as he is) got the short end of the stick for enforcing a terrible company policy...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 The Peter principle
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 I don't find that weird at all. It's how all large organisations work: the entrenched policy-makers at the top of the pile are there largely because they've mastered the skill of deflecting responsibility for the consequences of bad decisions they make onto those who are lower in the hierarchy. "Shit rolls downhill" neatly sums it up.
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Classic scapegoat.
I love this comment... I hate the modern safety culture where I live in America.... We are now so "safe" we can't even do our jobs.... Many "safety people" have never gotten their hands dirty 1 day in their life and have no business setting foot in an industrial setting.....
Thank you for the corruption trilogy!
Just the right thing to listen to while preparing for a legal exam....I'm not procrastinating
I wonder what the fourth topic will be.
Didn't Peru say in this video that it's the last of the series?
@@johanneslinnemann6660 Yes, he did
@@johanneslinnemann6660 No, he sad there are four apocalyptic horseman in the russian army.
Corruption, lies, politics and one is yet to come.
Hell of a series honestly, I understand corruption better than I ever expected too
As a management consultant, I'd just like to say, we'd hire you anytime perun. Your slide narratives are carefully crafted, precisely worded, and contain a good balance of information and analysis. Also, night mode.
I'm not convinced we'd be willing to hire Utkin.
Training is learning the rules, experience is learning the exceptions, wisdom is learning the reasons...thank you @Perun for giving us wisdom in these "soft subject" topics.
"The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have." Laurence Gonzales "Deep Survival."
Born in the Warsaw pact and lived communism the first decade of my life, this type of Perun's videos has been my favorite. Lying, corruption, nepotism, is what creates fertile ground for autocracies. May humanity learn a lasting lesson from the entire "Sphere of Soviet Influence" as it used to be called. We must be ready to stand up and fight every time our spidy sense detects an effort to turn an organization into a rotten corrupt kleptocracy. Amazing job Perun. Bravo and thank you!
The USA is quickly emulating and copying the SOVIET system in Maoist model, so any which way the coin lands the New Soviet style governments of NATO will soon have less freedom than Russia or Hungary... It is very sad to have watched the USA and Russia of 1980 swap places by 2022.
I'd argue it goes both ways. Autocracies are both born from and give rise to rampant lying, corruption, and nepotism. As he said in his lies destroy armies video, lying is a part of many human structures and societies, but it becomes a necessity in an autocracy.
An autocratic keptocracy can survive by bribing voters, e.g. pensioners and families with children. The people then think, "they steal but they share". Since seniors are increasing, that's a winning strategy, in Poland anyway.
Yes and banderite ideology.
My spidy sense tingles every time I arrive at work...
As someone who has automated their job a few times, have a kill switch. I once automated a server switchover process with pre checks, back-up to create LKG, and then integrity checks during and after process... when upper management noticed it happening on a scheduled basis rather than an "as-needed" basis they asked and I showed them. 5 people were removed from the IT team for "redundancy". I just so happened to accept a position at a different company and the automation stopped. Those 5 people were brought back with backpay and raises.
lesson: If you automate your job, DONT TELL ANYONE. Or, make it into a marketable product and sell it to the company. "Your time is worth cents, your expertise is worth dollars, your creations are worth fortunes."
I've automated a job at work, and I've told people about it because there's no way I can hide it, its too critical to the task given, plus it was a new task so it wasn't "automating a job that 5 people are working on and make them all redundant", more "automate this job that we'd need five people we don't have to do properly".
But my secret technique is that the script I'm using to automate it is pretty finicky and fragile. Its still an enormous time saver, but it wouldn't take too many changes for it to break and become useless... and hey, I'm not hired on as a programmer, can't expect me to maintain that script like a software engineer would...
If it makes you feel any better, long term, that company has started/continued to fuck themselves. Everyone involved (and more) now knows they will be punished absolutely for either improving the company (automating) or failing to improve the company (someone else automating). So there’s either going to be a huge disincentive to be a better employee or a hyper competitive culture which breeds a lack of trust. Additionally, employees now know they need to start looking for a job that actually gives a shit about them.
Good companies know good people are their #1 asset.
There's a story of a boss who improved the throughput of the vehicle assembly so they could put through 10X more vehicles. But nobody lost their job, because the workers trusted him implicitly, and knew he would do his best to look after them, whatever happened. It can happen.
Oh no, you beat me to it. I was thinking of mentioning that video, too. XD
As a Russian, I became 100% convinced in your expertise when you mentioned term ochkovtiratelstvo
That is the highest level of understanding of the Russian culture by non-Russian
This is rather obscure slang word. The literal translation of the word is "Rubbing into eyewear"
The meaning of ochkovtiratelstvo is when someone is lying that everything is fine when in reality everything is bad.
It is usually told in a business-related context. For example, when an employee is lying to the boss, or a seller is lying to the buyer.
its fking not......politics exists everywhere, politics destroys companies,politics destroys countries, just look at america and what is happening between the factions the past 20,30 years....what makes u think a military or a military during a war would be any different.....name a single war that has not been influenced by politics and internal turmoil, all the way back to caesar and the roman empire.....look at china when they were fighting the japanese during wwii..even in times of great crisis and peril, there are people fighting for their own ideals,their own agenda,their own....
ahahahahaha look at ukraine right now, even the allies are fighting over whether or not to send weapons for the purpose of fighting the war......
As a fellow Russian, I couldn't agree more.
wait, there ought to be more- krysha, rekiet, diedowschyzna ?
@@Warszawski_ModernizmThe first 2 are just good old organized crime, it works the same everywhere.
@@Warszawski_Modernizm wtf does it mean ? ( non Russian speaker lol)
Sir, you are a prophet. What a $#!+show it has become, with Wagner's consultants now openly auditing the military command structure.
It is time to scratch off "Russian Civil War" off your Ukrainian War bingo card
@@noobnoobyifyI only need the "Kremlin Garden Bunker Downfall paraody" left, man I hope it gets called up soon so I can get bingo and claim myself a russian carrier!
@@ElenraiTheir carrier? Be careful what you wsh for...
Yeah, being from Baltics and old enough, nothing new was said but it was interesting as always. I just hope that people from other parts of the world see where the soviet-russian system can bring a country and are not yearning for this- been seeing too many people on the West side who think that russian way is the correct way. Thank you, Perun!
As a russian, I hope that Ukraine will finish all the moscovian imperial projects once and for all.
As a Swede, this all sounded like something European kingdoms did. In the 1600s. Not us now, in 2022.
Well I think too many people don't realize just how much effort the Russians are putting into propaganda, so they watch things online saying like "NATO bad", or "West bad", and don't think about where it might have come from.
@@johanj3674 Could not have been said any better - and it ilustrates the depth of the inevitable challenge before us perfectly ^^ ❤
The winning of this war is only a start - what comes after needs to be thought of.
If not; post-1991 factional struggle/ combat situation in Russia is likely.
@@johanj3674 at least you swedes, yes, invaded us, but also brought prosperity and higher education to us, estonians. we're still considering swedish occupation as "golden age" compared to all the others - russians, germans, polish and danish :D
I really really like how you can just so seemingly effortless explain complex political things in a more 'mundane' way :)
I'd love to have had you as my Politics/Economy Teacher :D
The key is realizing that it's not complex .... its actually childish .... its simple play ground mentality .... and perun is good at showing this simplicity
@@kennypridemore5466 It's not not that simple. Try taking an 9th month course on organisations and then look at organisational culture. For example, most of the disasters in the world are rooted in dysfunctional organisational cultures. Do not underestimate the power of Internal politics to destroy or subvert collective action and goals. And what you call childish behaviour is learned behaviour from childhood and throughout adulthood. It's part of socialisation, learning how to function in explicit and implicit hierarchies. Whether that tendency is innate, or learned to be in "monkey see, monkey do", it is part of being in a collective, from the families upwards. Politics is always about who gets what, and who gets to say who gets what. So it's human behaviour, and you see it everywhere. And sometimes life and death are determined by it. It's not simply childish. It's part of human existence, that the winners don't like talking about, and the losers have to endure.
You do have him as that. It's not the sort of teaching that gives you a degree at the end of it, but it's also not the sort that costs many tens of thousands of dollars, and four or five years of your life.
The further I get past my university days, the more I come to appreciate that you can often learn things faster and more thoroughly in other contexts besides university - you're usually a lot more focused (because if you're not, then you're not learning it at all), and you frequently have more ability to apply your knowledge to real-world problems, and learn thereby.
@@Alsadius I would bet for us who have listened to all of Perun's videos that as smart as we think we are we have learned so much more and are so much more able to understand what's going on over there. Perun has earned our trust through all his hard work and if we can talk half as well as he teaches us then we can all get an A. I agree with all the above comments. Being brought up with a very narcissistic mother and watched the machinations played out as a bystander in my 59 years of life I can clearly see the effects and truth in this last Corruption lecture. Sometimes it is right to be slightly pessimistic and conspiratorial and not discount anything to see the truth. Any other view would be looking at fog.
You, along with many of the rest of us. Perun is brilliant.
Hey Perun, I just wanted to say: You mentioned in this video that Wagner Group could be a video all its own - Having been following this war but not really delved deep into this particular organization, I for one would absolutely watch a full video breakdown on Wagner. Thank you for reading.
Agreed.
Would be interesting.
You might get some info from CIT reports on their actions in Syria, although those might be only in Russian.
And I've yet to see any analysis of their involvement in Mali or Africa in general. Just some bits of info that theyd're active there.
Well Shoigu finally outplayed Wagner so it will an interesting presentation.
He heard you 🤣
Watch the 20 days in Mariupol documentary.
The framing of Shoigu as a genius-level politician at 24:55 is so incredibly well-put. This is the sort of thing that wasn't ever taught in social studies but absolutely ought to be.
Why do we have the institutions that we have and why is it important to maintain and reform them with zeal? This is why. Because otherwise perverse incentivization ruins your society.
_".. why is it important to maintain and reform them with zeal?"_
The ones getting to head them have no incentive to maintain / reform them, quite the opposite.
Not to mention that plenty rules create powerful individuals in society at large who will do the same, from 250 years ago:
_"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_
&
_"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_ Adam Smith
I think there is something to letting institutions die a natural death and letting new ones emerge. What is important is what institutions do, not institutions themselves. Institutions probably wouldn't agree with this, particularly as they "mature."
@@alanshackelford6450 institutions only need to die when they cease to perform their function or become outdated. In the US, the reasons that our institutions are weakening is because of the perverse incentives that comes with the 2 party winner take all system. It's not a reason to throw out the IRS or the justice department.
@@seanthomas5303 It's interesting you went to the federal government. That's really not the direction I was taking it. I wouldn't give that idiot blond Oompa-Loompa's criticism's of the "deep state" the least bit of credence. The professionalism of the federal civil service has and continues to serve us well. I really was thinking in terms of American education, both higher and public primary/secondary education.
Indeed. As much as I hate him for what he has been doing, especially during this war, I think Shoigu is a likely candidate for president when Putin dies. Because Shoigu knows how to play the game.
When you mentioned how it can “never the the Czar’s fault,” it just made me think of Nicholas II. Part of the reason why he lost support and was overthrown was because, at least based on my small amount of research, a lot of times he went out of his way to make things his fault. I remember reading something about how when there was the stampede and a bunch of deaths during his coronation, his advisors told him to shift the blame to the military, but he instead chose to claim responsibility. Or he kept quiet, I can’t remember. And when the Russian army was doing poorly in WWI, he went to the front to help with command himself, which lead to the people blaming *him* for their failures, instead of some random general. Just an interesting thought.
I can believe this. I'll be a smartass and say that Perun made a mistake here by not mentioning the public directly. Only insinuated that other people than the boss will try to do the same. The same public which is often flawless and always a victim when we analyze political systems. But in my experience (and indeed, according to historical examples, e.g. people voting for Hitler, or still glorifying Stalin), in certain cases many people almost want these sort of leaders and systems. These need at least a superficial support, or at least a non-opposition from a large part of the country to function. They vote for them because populism 'works', in a similar sense he said this system works for individuals: the leader at least talks about glory, feeding emotions, and, contrary to expectation, sometimes does give out bread to feed the body of the supporters. Problem is, with that we live up our future for a sugar rush as Perun said. In my country this is currently happening, destroying the fledgling democratic foundations of the state. And furthermore, I long noticed what you described, in personal relationships. People often deflect not just because they're scared, spineless etc. but also because not everybody values a man who apologises. Even just admitting the other has some good points in a debate for example, is seen as 'giving up ground', losing, and therefore you, the loser, can lose status. This is a major component of shittalking neverending arguments online.
I'll end with a quote from one of our writers: 'A tyrant is only possible where the masses are servant.'
He hasn't stayed quiet about deaths at coronation.
He celebrated his coronation latter the same day at dancing, saying that although it's terrible tragedy, that shouldn't darken the celebrations.
And that wasn't taken well by the people, who expected celebrations to be cancelled.
And it was his fault.
*EDIT - Alix of Hesse was obviously German (Hessian) and not Austrian as I previously wrote*
Your comment about Nicholas II going to the front and the effects of that is dead on. The only thing it accomplished was making him personally responsible for Russia’s war failures in the eyes of the people and army, while simultaneously leaving his German Princess wife and a certain, creepy, illiterate, rural monk, folk healer/spiritual advisor in charge of things back home. Russian history is fun…
@@sztallone415 what county are you from if I may ask? Hungary?
No good deed goes unpunished
It is said "every country has a mafia."
In Russia, the mafia has a country.
😂😂😂😂
Too true! And it fails constantly.
"...but this is Slavic history, so happy endings are banned."
That got a hearty laugh out of me.
Your story about the Soviets learning to pick on Luftwaffe units reminded me immediately of Otto Carius' story about a Luftwaffe unit showing up to the Eastern Front fully equipped with new uniforms, MG42s, and other weapons they had only heard stories about, but because of their inexperience, failed to post sentries or security, and were overrun by the Soviets, who then turned all those new weapons and uniforms on the Germans. The German troops in that sector (Army Group North if I recall correctly) learned to shoot anyone wearing a Luftwaffe uniform shortly after that, because only Russians were wearing Luftwaffe gear.
The arming of Luftwaffe units like the Heer was Goering's way of keeping up in the struggle between Hitler's senior minions, rats fighting in a sack.
I’m guessing you’re referring to the luftwaffe field divisions that were raised in order to create more troops out of luftwaffe personnel without aircraft. Sounds plausible.
Rewatching this after the Wagner mutiny, Perun's content is more relevant than ever and should be intro-class material for any national security courses for defense planners.
Wagner took his suggestion and came with a plan for a reorganization
Thank you for featuring a screen from Yes, Minister. A bloody good show, one I've re-watched many a times and it never gets old. Also, a grand presentation as always!
On of the best Show about politics there is
What's scary is so much of it still applies. Always worth a watch.
@Lorna Morgan A Russian Sir Humphrey's musings on this War would be the most popular show on Earth right now.
@@ryanward10 it has to be written by Armando Ianucci.
So which actors get to play who. 😆 🤣
Yes (Prime) Minister coverage of Russia, Europe and the press (media) remains 100% accurate today. Not bad for a TV documentary (sorry) comedy that was actually about current affairs of its day.
Incentives. Exactly.
Finally someone recognizing how fundamental they are to literally every issue.
Its such basic stuff, and yet somehow 99% of people think its a great idea for industry to self-regulate, or politicians and lobbyists to switch jobs between each other frequently, and the list goes on.
What a culture that rewards psychopathic behaviour isn't good I'm shocked 😜
Yeah it's bit worrying how much something like a simple HR policy can have on creating a corrupt system.
I live in Norway and the country is extremely socialist and feminist as well as a focus on equity, the result has been devastating as why should you work harder than the laziest worker as you are paid the exact same, not based on workload but hours. This goes for most workplaces. Not to mention quota hiring which is openly sexist and racist, some jobs won't even hire Norwegian men and state as much in the adverts, due to diversity quotas. Now I can see some workplaces that would benefit from diversity like social workers trauma centers and the like where there is a need for people of different backgrounds to better relate to those they work with. Issue is it is taken to the extreme and the result has been that since 90s until today infrastructure is going to shit, services becoming worse and worse, workload being done is lower and lower, the only thing keeping it afloat is the oil. What is the incentive to work hard and be honest if that holds you back or others are rewarded the same for no effort? I know the example is adjacent but I felt the need to give an example of a similar issue on a national level.
@@INSANESUICIDE presume you meant equality?
Number of hours worked and quotas are equality of outcome not equality of opportunity. Basically you have problem with the type of equality being used it sounds like. Funny how even just a tiny mindset change in how you define equality can change outcomes.
@@murphy7801
No. He means Equity. Simply put, Equity is "everyone should be wealthy". Equality is "everyone should have the same opportunities to become wealthy"
Equity is enforcing diversity quotas by hiring someone based on their gender, skin color, nationality and/or sexual orientation.
Equality is hiring someone because they are most qualified for the job, regardless of any other factor.
If you have a company that is majority black employees and you hire a white employee because he is white, then that is a diversity hire in order to pursue a policy of equity.
Another hypothetical: you have a majority white company and you have a black man and a white woman in your hiring pool but you only have room for one new hire for a complex high-skill job. The white woman has a master's degree relevant to the job and years of prior experience. The black man has only an associates degree in an irrelevant field and no experience. So who do you hire? If you are for equality, you hire the white woman because she is most qualified for the job. You hire her because she has the best education and lots of experience that is relevant to the job you're hiring for, not because she is white. Equality in practice is color blind. You can mix up any of the ethnicities in the Equality example and it will work. You cannot do that with Equity. Equity in practice factors color and superficial features above all else.
"Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." That is what equality is.
@@That0therAsian equity doesn't mean everyone should be wealthy. I don't what definition your using.
Equality either is a when something is fair or about fairness, or when value of a property is in excess of claims.
On fairness or something being equitable, this just saying a deal is reasonable for all involved.
I don't know how you've twisted the English language to mean not this.
One of our greatest assets against Russia is Russia. Defeating them would be a whole lot harder if they weren't helping so much.
Shame that the same system of perverse political motivation is the sole reason for starting the war.
If Russia was not an autocracy it would not feel threatened by independent democratic Ukraine.
If Russia was not rotting under the weight of it's corruption it's neighbors would be less interested in completely cutting ties to it.
If Putin was not in power for 22 years straight he might have been able to recognize difference between feverish geopolitical dreams and reality. At least he would not have acted this directly on them.
Who's defeated the Russians brada? This ain't Vietnam or Afghanistan were we saw the yanks run like cowards lol
@@lcplapiata5501 Yes, only three 'gestures of good will' and air defenses on Moscow's rooftops, despite starting the war without announcement, using Belarus as a staging ground and negligence to civilian lives.
That is definitely a VERY successful chain of military operations, no defeats suffered, only temporally setbacks.
@@L1vv4n like Afghanistan? Twenty years wasn't it? when did you realise you had lost? Or were you like the ghost of Kyiv an kept believing you're overlords you were fighting for democracy against the vile Afghanis with their terrorist mentality lol WB those evil Iraqis an their WEAPONS OF MASSIVE STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION, that you're overlords harped on about lol?
@@lcplapiata5501 That is so nice of you to just plainly ignore the topic and arguments.
What USA failures in middle east have to do with Russia losing the war in Ukraine?
Except that they clearly show that
1) it's almost impossible to win a war against population willing to fight. Ukrainians clearly showed that they don't want Russian soldiers boots on their ground.
2) It's impossible to maintain a stable puppet government without constant military presence, which makes initial Putin's goals in Ukraine unachievable.
I remember reading in the Art of War the following:
"There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed."
Russia could stand to learn from the latter-most mentioned...
*Perun;* could you create a playlist on your channel solely on the topic of Russian corruption and dysfunction?
It would be handy to _recommend_ to non subscribers when discussing the topics.
done
That would just be a Russian Playlist
@@PerunAU Thanks.
@@badluck5647 Why it is Russian Playlist? As PerunAU stated, many time in videos, this effecting all nations and complex organizations. Russians just royally F-ed themself and just ongoing example very suitable for subjects he covering.
@@mindaugasstankus5943 Because corruption is such a fundamental part of Russian society that every video about the Russian military will have to address the corruption in one form or another.
It's always fascinating how much of this I nod along with, saying, "Yup, sounds right, that's familiar, sounds like Steve, saw that" with my experience as a software developer in the corporate world. The basic rules of incentives, relationships, loyalty, and mismanagement are all pretty universal. If we ever meet aliens with completely different brains I am sure some of this stuff will be instantly familiar to them. "Yeah, Klarnax of Mars wanted all the Flurbongs, and he was friends with Zorlon The Gelatinous, so..."
And yet, people are always kind of surprised to see it. "What do you mean he was more interested in expanding his department so he was personally more important, rather than reducing costs to benefit the corporation as a whole but making himself less important by running a smaller department?! I'm shocked!"
_"The basic rules of incentives, relationships, loyalty, and mismanagement are all pretty universal."_
Scale it up to being at work on the highest levels of society and look at our globalized world and you might declare it one of the causes of the Fermi Paradox.
thats classic Klarnax, always looking our for number one, for sure not a team player. hearing Zorlon was involed shocks me though. Always thought he was a good bloke.
Fucking Klarnax
@@joansparky4439 It should be mentioned that the most likely solution for the Fermi Paradox is that:
1) Life isn't common. It may only pop up 1/1,000,000 times it has an opportunity
2) Then, life doesn't have many opportunities to become complicated
3) Complex life doesn't always give way to intelligent life
4) Intelligent life doesn't always give way to large-scale societies
5) If these large-scale societies do exist, it will be very rare, and since light travels relatively slowly compared to the size of the universe, we have a very small window to look through. Its like looking out the window at the ISS at an empty patch of the pacific ocean and declaring that there must be no life because you can't see it. No, you just don't have a view of the whole earth and that which you can see isn't in high enough resolution to let you see all the life that Is there.
The thing is, if intelligent life can form societies, it comes off as very unlikely to me that they will destroy themselves in such a way that leads to extinction. Even nuclear war is just a setback of a few thousand years max, which is peanuts compared to the age of the universe. I just dont see these types of structures as being a good solution to the Fermi Paradox because you should come across a successful system relatively quickly. Even if it takes a dozen attempts, each setting you back 1,000 years, thats 12,000 years. Humans have existed for close to 200,000 years. 12,000 years is nothing.
@@Isometrix116 our societies are made up of individual life. Individual life (in nature, in wilderness) functions per survival of the fittest individual by any means available (even at the cost of the rest).
Now, not all humans are like that (and not all to the same degree).. but just a few are enough to disturb things.. why? Because the remaining humans all came together in societies to have a higher comfort of existence, which is based on higher efficiency of acquisition of resources for survival, reproduction and fun having via division of labor / specialization.
But this creates a problem - specialists are not as good as generalists in protecting their stuff and themselves, so they outsource this part to a central benevolent monopoly force (modern: government).
This entity now is there to violently punish any individual opportunists among the specialists (or groups of them) and does this by enforcing common rules.. but who says that this entity can't also enforce a couple rules that benefit a few (selfish ruthless greedy) humans at the cost of the rest? No one.
You can guess what will happen - regularly.
Human history is mostly about exactly this conundrum of selfish individuals taking advantage of the societal rule enforcing entity for their own benefit at the expense of the rest until it breaks the societal efficiency and a new cycle starts.
Problem? The more technologically advanced we become as a species, the more damage we are able to unleash on our habitat / ecosystem / planet. Just look at Putin or Kim. Narcissists who not just control a couple tribes or legions.. no, they control nukes these days. WMDs. You know what happens when a (global) society allows individuals to own and control WMDs? That society at some point will have a very very bad day, namely when the individual who controls the nukes wants to see the world burn for this or that reason.
And nukes aren't the only thing we are coming up with.. what about some nasty viruses? Some strong AI?
This kind of problem is a universal problem that will affect ANY life ANYWHERE in the universe that follows a similar approach to social organisms as we here on Earth did, by building it from individual living beings. It's like a multi-cellular organism and a few cells developing cancer.. in the end the whole isn't gonna make it.
So whatever the chances are for intelligent life that is based on similar principles as us - this "individual vs. the whole" problem simply is universal and the bottlenecks that are obviously there will only become worse and more, as our technological capacity increases. We ain't seen nothing yet.
This presentation has aged incredibly well. Well done. Sergei is still standing and everyone else is now gone. The idiot taction is a master manipulator.
Love the sarcastic presentation of the domestic security force: "a moderat reported strength of merely" 340,000 personnel, 1,650 armoured vehicles and an artillery regiment.
Nothing screams "Of the people, by the people, for the people" like a domestic security force with a freaking artillery regiment. Being completely fine with the idea that, if push comes to shove, a civil uprising can always be quelled by letting 60 152mm howitzers splatter everyone involved.
"Artillery. Regiment." 😮
Folks, this isn't about your run-of-the-mill terrorism suppression SWAT team.
They need that to arrest those pesky illegal private armies that were enlarging itself for the past decade.
@@LD-Orbs My reaction's actually the reverse ... that's absolutely not enough artillery to act as anything other than replacement infantry for an actual Army. It's a force optimised for fighting civilians, not being an army.
The total is about 100k less than the USA national guard, so it's not THAT big
I recall watching a video discussing why Arab armies suck and there is many parallels here and in that video. This also explains to some extent why the modern Israeli state managed to survive the first 30 years of it’s existence despite being surrounded by enemies who wanted to destroy them and were sometimes better equipped. It’s always a pleasure to watch these PowerPoint presentations.
Being the regional strongman client state of a world-spanning military empire surely did help.
@@nihluxler1890 Sure, but that was largely after the thirty-year period he mentioned.
@@nihluxler1890 I'm reasonably read up on the subject and I can't remember any mention of Israel being a strongman to anyone. The U.s only provided direct military aid once during the Yom Kippur war in 1973 and that was in response to the Soviets providing so many Anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Arabs that they were firing them like shotgun cartridges.
There's an old paper by an American Colonel that talks about why the Arab militaries had such an abysmal record against each other and against Israel. His assertion that an Egyptian colonel had about as much independent authority as an American sergeant first class was illuminating to me.
@@cracklingvoice Apparently the resounding success in the 6-Day War caused the Israelis to look down on the militaries of their Arab neighbors.
The Yom Kippur War in 1973 changed that, and Israeli soldiers expressed respect for the enemy Syrian and Egyptian troops (the Syrians displayed tenacity and determination, advancing relentlessly despite suffering heavy casualties, and the Egyptians moved and advanced much faster than the Israelis predicted they would)
Personally, I feel that the Yom Kippur War was madness on the part of the Arabs. Had they broken through the Israeli military and reached the major cities, the Israeli government would have authorised the use of nuclear weapons. What the hell were the Arab leaders thinking? What was their reasoning and rationale for launching the invasion?
Maybe Simon Whistler made some videos about 1973. I should see if he did.
Dear Perun, Thank you again for a well researched and important piece. The most common complaint of Democracies is that they are slow, bureaucratic and inefficient, however they are developed this way by necessity, and nothing shows that necessity than the examples you have used in your series of videos. There is a saying that Democracy is the one of the worst forms of government there is, excepting ALL of the others. Separation of Religion and State, Checks and Balances, Public Disclosure, an Independent Judiciary, a Free Press, and non-political Government Positions is a recipe for endless meetings, numberless discussions, and the feeling of nothing ever getting done, BUT all of this prevents the emergence of specific individuals, political groups, or religions from gaining power and never releasing it.
True. And I think that dictatorships and authoritarian systems are equally as inefficient and buerocratic as democracies. In democracies, these processes are just more visible.
So true!
_"all of this prevents the emergence of specific individuals, political groups, or religions from gaining power and never releasing it."_
It does not prevent it, just slows it down to decades / centuries.
At the core of our modern democracies is two flaws. 1) we elect representatives that then have some time to make "mistakes" that have real world consequences and the worst / best will even go unnoticed. 2) our societies harbor millennia old customs / mechanics that create powerful individuals / groups that no one notices as working that way.
Both those flaws destroy our societies bit by bit.. it just takes time, longer than an individuals lifetime, which is why you don't notice.
Efficient bureaucracy is actually necessary in our societies. What we don't need is criminals in power.
True!
For real tho. My grandfather was an officer in Indonesia's Suharto era military dictatorship. Back then if you wish to attain vital position in the military you have to kow tow to Golkar, Suharto's Party. That or you came from a well respected family who has too much of an influence for Suharto to just wipe off the floor. As a result many senior officers are elected based on their political allingment rather than merit.
So when Indonesia invaded Timor Leste many of the Army Generals somehow got themselves surrounded and flanked by Timor militia despite the fact that Timor is a rather flat-hilly tiny island with little room for ambush.
My grandfather and other junior officers ended up having to save their corrupt assess out of those ambushes.
@@noele6588 Perhaps
@Arthur Lasido How is Indonesia doing now? Are things better or still a lot of problems. I hear the capital is supposedly being relocated.
@@jgw9990 it depends, Indonesia is not a truly unified country like say, Great Britain.
Let me put it this way: Someone who lives in Maluku let's say, would have a very different experience than one living on the outskirts of Jakarta. The guy from Maluku would struggle to even find a used LED TV for fair price while the guy from Jakarta would be able to purchase an okay gaming PC (6th gen Intel, 8GB ram, etc) for a month's wage. With that being said the guy from Maluku doesn't have to deal with Jakarta's bullshit, India/China level of air polution.
On regards of Ibu Kota Baru/ New Capital. It is ineveitable that the seat of power needs to be relocated out of Jakarta. Borneo is a strategic location, but there's definitely concerns about enviromental damage, etnic tension between Javanese migrants and locals, as well as fear of Chinese investors pulling out a Sri Lanka on us.
I don't think we'll be as wealthy as '2nd rate' countries like Poland any time soon. But we're definitely better prepared in terms of long term development compared to Arab countries who dumped their money on mindless luxuries or insane, unpractical mega-projects.
@@arthurlasido258 Is it going the route of Islamic Republic?
@@platinumsun4632 This is a complicated situation for Indonesia. The government is officially secular, but the vast majority of voters are Muslim and still rural, so since Suharto's fall, Islamic parties have become popular in parliament. Society is less open than it used to be, but there isn't a secret police or dictator anymore. As for the future, it's actually quite a balance point at the moment with the huge controversy around the current proposed update of the legal code. It's well worth looking up more information about this for yourself, but it seems like a decisive moment for Indonesian politics.
I never expected the sentence "Once all of the senior leadership is made up of people who can sink mad 3-pointers from halfway" but I'm glad it's here with us.
"This is slavic history and happy endings are banned" As a Slavic I AM FUCKING DYING HERE! :D :D
Of course you are, you're a Slav.
Thank you for choosing the most popular Slavic ending /jk
(American author: I will die for freedom!
British author: I will die for honour!
French author: I will die for love!
Russian author: I will die.)
And coincidentally, I used to have exactly the same profile pic by HR Giger about 15 years ago, funny how it turned up here.
@@vojtechhoracek7704 The Russian one is bleak as fuck. 😂☹️😂☹️
These are always my favourite of the videos you do. Systematically analysing why Russia has performed the way it has in a way no other channel even has the capability to do. Keep up the good work!
Hmm, I fell asleep cos I had no sleep the night before, so I'm going to watch now although I was very worried from the beginning that perun was about to fix the russian army.
I am 99.9999% sure that the head of rt has been watching this series and that is why she did that famous clip that jake played in which she said 'stop the lying'
I just hope Ukraine starts to look at corruption not just as bad, but as an enemy of the state.
The Russian media claims are reaching ludicrous NK levels.
52:28 "In response to the criminal strike of the Kyiv regime..."
Yes, because a nation defending its own territory and population is clearly an illegal act according to international law....
OMG! The third in the fabled series! Corruption, Lies, Politics! - Theses are pure gold and advanced my understanding of Russia, it's culture and it's army by LEAPS AND BOUNDS! Other content also excellent, but these 3 in particular are MUST WATCH material!
General Oligarkov and Private Conscriptovic are my favourite characters in the series
Your corruption series should be required viewing for anyone self-aware enough, who not only wishes to understand human interaction, but also, and more importantly, to give incentive to confront our very own psychological cesspool. True progress begins with ourselves.
you can't get rid of selfishness, it's intrinsic to life.
@@joansparky4439 But Perun suggests that one can structure how it operates so that it isn't necessarily destructive to the group and in fact may serve the ends of the group. Not an original argument there, it does echo the Federalist Papers in its own odd way. And if you look at smaller scale societies, they can ruthlessly suppress the kind of individualism that feeds selfishness. If you were expelled from a hunter-gatherer society for "selfishness", it was often effectively a death sentence.
@@alanshackelford6450 I discussed with someone just 24 hours ago UNDER THIS VIDEO who claimed that hunter gatherers where selfish/competitive and had no such social structure..
Anyhow.. _"Perun suggests that one can structure how it operates so that it isn't necessarily destructive to the group and in fact may serve the ends of the group."_
That principle is called free market (economics) and democracy (politics). It boils down to the rules that a group enforces for it's members is not benefiting ANY individual of that group at the cost of other members.
Problem is in the detail - namely the entity that creates and enforces those rules for a LARGE group. This entity can also enforce rules that benefit a few at the cost of the rest, which is very easy as soon as the size of the group goes above 50. Not to mention that feedback loops get very complex very fast and cause and result of rules being enforced is not always obvious for the individual there (case in point - our fiat currency copied a flaw from metal currency that turns it into a monopoly as soon as GDP growth falls below the inflation rate).
Or in other words, 250 years ago a scottish social philosopher already had a hunch how this worked (for the economic realm, mischief version):
_"The interest of the dealers [referring to stock owners, manufacturers, and merchants.. anyone really], however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacture, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."_
&
_"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."_ Adam Smith
Our problem in 50+ member societies is simply that individual selfishness runs counter to creating and enforcing common rules that do not benefit individuals at the cost of the rest.
Representative democracy / constitutional republics per definition create powerful individuals from the get go who WILL abuse the system. We need another form of democracy I'm afraid.. some form of direct democracy where there are no positions of power.
@@joansparky4439 Anyone who claims hunter-gatherers have no social structure isn't intellectually up to such a discussion.
@@alanshackelford6450 Hehe, I'm always following 'in dubio pro reo' and who knows.. occasionally even a blind chicken finds a grain. I also helps me sharpen my arguing skills. So I see it as training exercise.
That was interesting. Picking up on the quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” it would be great to hear your thoughts on how politics and corruption are evolving in Ukraine . It seems to me there is a realisation that international aid, the desire to win and grow closer ties to the West, has lead to an effort to develop a good model of democracy; a drive become honest and accountable as well as to stamp out corruption at every turn. What I wonder is has their culture changed for the better due to this war?
Most likely ukrainians are learning to despise corruption to the core because of this war
This is an interesting question. Because while Ukraine and Russia really are different places and peoples, they really do share much history and obviously both emerged from the same organization after the USSR was dissolved. The Union may have gone, but its structures and people remained and it takes time to change minds and methods developed over decades. But it always seemed to me, in my experience with Roscosmos and Ukrainian military/space and with joint ventures involving them all, that the Ukrainians were more interested in getting things right while the Russians valued getting things done. It felt like Ukraine was the source of expertise and Russia was the source of power. Ukraine as a place and people also felt more European to me and less instinctively antagonistic toward “the West.”
So, I think Ukraine has always valued competence and quality a bit more than Russia and therefore has a bit more of a cultural value for getting things right. Corruption seems to value getting rich or gaining power and Russia seemed to run on “rules” that were often unsaid and were sometimes flexible and sometimes not. It felt like a place where you could get away with anything and at same time might get into huge trouble by accident by crossing the street wrong.
Something that seemed to illustrate this difference was this, though it was in the 2000’s mind you: When flying from Moscow to Kiev, maybe 10 miles out from Moscow was all fields, little towns, enormous factories, etc., all connected by these crooked roads and nothing looked like it was planned well or maintained well and where anything was seemed sort of ad hoc. The pilot told us when we’d crossed the border and you could see the difference immediately. All of the pieces looked the same - the same little villages and cracked cement and factories - but the roads were now straight and connected at right angles. Everything was just better thought out and better executed and you could tell that the people there cared more about the place. If a Russian wanted to know if I thought George Bush was better than Putin, a Ukrainian would want to know if I thought their country was nice or their people beautiful.
I think this conflict has served to shake a bunch of holdover people doing things in the old ways out in Ukraine. The people there want the sort of prosperity and lives like the ones they see in Berlin, Paris, or even Poland. They don’t want to go back to living like people do in Moscow, accepting great personal but little political freedom, everything built poorly because half the budget got pinched, and ultimately being a vassal state to Russia. Their cultural value for doing things right and making things well shares more in common with their neighbors to the West than their mean, bully cousins to the East.
In short, I think this conflict is allowing Ukraine to become more like its true self rather than reordering values towards less corruption, if you see what I mean.
Maybe Putin was right and Ukraine didn't existed, before the war. Now it's alive
@@b.w.22 i hope that you are correct and thanks for the thoughtful reply
The question "has the culture changed" can ONLY be answered after that war.
That is to say, they currently have an external reason to change. But once that pressure is gone, things usually tend to revert to their old customs.
Now, this is a change that most people will support, so there's a better chance for it to stick, I'd wager. But that's still not a guarantee either...
Thank you for the honesty about VPNs, a lot of content creators exaggerate the benefits of security.
Honestly you are quickly becoming one of my most favorite and respected channel.
Perun hums along at 0% on my bullshit meter. I put new batteries in it and still 0%. Go figure.
He is more honest than most, but VPNs aren't necessary, to use public wi-fi. If the website you are going to is HTTPS, it's already encrypted, the only thing a bad actor/admin can see is the website. And you really should have HTTPS mode forced on, especially on your phone.
@@husenberg1 That won't get you around geographic content restrictions though. For that you also need TOR. Of course, for most things the increased latency added by VPNs or TOR isn't worth the bother.
@@thekinginyellow1744 yeah I said it's more honest than most ads for VPNs, but it's still wasn't 100% accurate. Maybe he sees this and can correct it in later sponsor segments.
@@thekinginyellow1744 And that fact actually lines up with what he said - Geographic limitations and protecting your surfing habits from your ISP or whatever public gateway you’re on (assuming they’re watching). All they’ll see is that traffic to the VPN provider.
This is your magnum opus. You’ve pulled together so many ideas into one inevitable conclusion.
His videos on Corruption, Lies, and Politics destroying Armies is fantastic. They should really be watched sequentially. Politics builds on the ideas of Lies and Lies builds on the ideas of Corruption.
Somehow his videos keep getting better.
@Geopolitiikka ja sota bro Germany doesn’t want pictures of burnt up leopard 2s in Ukraine
That’s bad for business
One of the most bitter ironies is that had Russia not been so corrupt and autocratic, they might've been a much more powerful military force and a much stronger opponent. Except they would have had no reason to start any wars in the first place had their system encouraged normal partnership and cooperation, and had their politicians had at least a miniscule incentive to actually make their voters lifes better or at least not actively make them suffer for no reason.
This is a similar example when people say how Germany could of won Ww2 where you have to change them to the point where they are there no longer Nazis so they wouldn't have started the war in the first place hence the entire outcome is mute
@@mattmopar440 Germany had economic reasons to start the war. Russia in 2022 has none. And none in 2014 actually.
@@mattmopar440They would still have to fight with Russia when it gained strength
@@adrianalexandrov7730 Yes they did putin saw a small country with 50% of the GDP of his own he could take over and start stealing everything like he has from his current country
Your comment especially at the end perpetuates this democratic peace theory which is a myth. Democracies have been going at war with eachother for centuries one example is american revolutionary war aginst britain, or indo-pakistan war both were democracies in 1948 , first negorno karabakh war etc
Wagner made a medal for capturing a small town? Woww what a joke lmao
One of your best ever, Perun.
Thanks so much for putting in all the research hours, and condensing them for us so well.
Seconding. Perun, your videos are a gift and I deeply enjoy them. I would love to see "softer" discussions as collaborations from you and some other creators, namely Kraut. I totally understand you're already working a ton on each video and that it might not be feasible to add another style of content to the mix. "Softer" in the sense that you can both opine more and have some (sensible, which few collaborators would effectively be) back and forth.
Also I'm sure you could clown around more too, there are some facts about what's going on that are absolutely hilarious, given the "you can laugh or you can cry" side of things.
Anyways, stay golden, keep your sanity by not overextending yourself, and I hope you are reaping the fruits of your labor sufficiently to maintain both :)
All the best!
Revisiting this after Prigozhin apparently starts civil war against Russian MOD.
As a Brit (and a serving civil servant), I found myself chuckling at the Yes Minister background picture at the slide entitled ‘The Problem of Incentives’. That was just brilliant.
Yes minister is the best documentary I've ever seen.
Yes Minister was hugely popular here in Australia too. Because we have a near identical political system to the UK, as well as a similar distrust of ministers, the show translated exceptionally well when shown to Australians.
Me too!
@@tdb7992 Dont have the same system in Sweden however some problems seems to be universal or should I say human ?
I hear tell Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister are required viewing in Whitehall and other sections of the government.
Imagine being Perun's partner when he says "we need to talk". The feeling of dread would be palpable. 🤣🤣🤣
If it were me, my heart would immediately stop. 😂
Imagine being Perun's parent when he said 'we need to talk about aligning incentives'
@@jong-wonlee4554 First words out of baby Perun's mouth XD
*pulls out powerpoint*
@@SofieAndMe Here is a four hour powerpoint about why I feel you have perverse incentives to maintain a culture of lying in our relationship, which leads to a sustained culture of social imbalance in our intrapersonal interaction.
Videos like these remind me why societies that were managed with genuine competency and meritocracy are relatively few and far between (or only lasted for a short period of time).
Whereas dysfunctional systems, where corruption and politics were the main reason things were done, are usually the rule rather than the exception.
One of the greatest ironies of this conflict is the terrible fate of the Russian speaking population of the Donbas, the very people that Russia has been claiming to protect.
Instead they've been conscripted en masse and thrown to the wolves with pathetic levels of training and equipment. It's almost as if Putin wants to exterminate every military aged man in Donetsk and Luhansk.
I think thats the plan. Use the war to get rid of the lose ends.
The Russian population cares less of Donbass soldiers than their own
Too many dead Russians and Putin is overthrown like the Czar
I have literally watched this video 5 times. I don't know why. I'm not super political and until i found your channel have only been mildly interested in militaries. I love how objective and logical you are and i only wish more channels could learn from you. Not to mention something about your voice is so easy to listen to.
Same. Perun just has a way of really explaining things well with the necessary humour, nuance and detail, examples we understand and to correct misconceptions we might have had.
It’s the Aussie accent 😉😇
This aged well
Funny thing is that your trilogy on Russia's dysfunctions also illustrates the very reasons why this war was needed in the first place. Put it simply, nobody in the region wants to have anything to do with Russia's political/cultural system (well, other than Belarus which serves as an example of what might happen to you if you become a Russian vassal). As a result Russia has little to no soft power over it's neighbours despite (or maybe because of) the shared history. If they want to rebuild their empire - and they clearly do - the only tools they have are bribery and physical force. Bribery alone won't do it in anything bigger than Chechnya so physical force it is.
Very well said, and awnsers the question of can Russia change itself? Sadly NO. They are well and truly trapped in a toxic culture. Reform seen as a defeat.
Just want to reiterate how much we appreciate your channel. The effort you put in is obvious. The case study between Telegram messages is an extra step not many people would take, and I appreciate that you did.
"Wagner could be a video all its own"
Me, talking to the screen like Palpatine: "Do it."
DO IT!
1986: RBMK Reactors don't explode, soviet nuclear industry is supreme
2022: Thousand of tanks didn't explode, Russian army & industry is supreme
Cigarette smoking is the new 3.6 Roentgen
@@dx-ek4vr A heavy dose of lol ❤
Putin should just use his table as a second land bridge to Chrimea if it has fallen
This is the kind of golden content that you tube was designed for... a masterclass for the interested masses.. I wonder if you could a series on how Ukraine was able to let go of their old soviet ways and what it took... the Ukraine army of 2014 is so different to the one of 2022 but the change happened so effectively in less than a decade... how?
“Scorn your soldiers and enrich your friends” - Putin probably
Sounds like basically every Russian ruler I can think of.
Yup, I watched Drach's video on the ships of the Imperial Japanese Army. They took intersevice rivalries to levels that may make sense in an anime.
Kantai destruction
yup, Drach did a great video on that.
The idea of "the boss is never at fault" is perfectly demonstrated in Germany's Nazi history. "Wenn das der Führer wüsste" was a common saying. It means "If the Fuhrer knew about this...", basically assuming that he cannot possibly know about it, since he would fix it. And Hitler, just like Putin, was fantastic at keeping his underlings constantly at odds with eachother. This is not just a Stalin thing. The entire "Führerstaat" or Fuhrer-State was built around this idea. Have things horribly hierarchical so people constantly compete over the Fuhrer's favor or the favor of whoever is next in line above them. There can never be a revolution against the top, because everybody wants to be the new guy themselves. This has been thoroughly researched in Germany and it's quite sad to witness the same exact thing play out yet again, when people should know better and be able to prevent such power structures from ever being created again. But I guess Russians probably didn't learn much about the failures and inner workings of Stalinism in school or simply didn't care, seeing how most of them are happily cheering on this war, no matter who's in charge, as long as Russia wins...
That was absolutely fascinating Perun. Very well researched and presented, well done! If I worked for any Western Ministry of Defence I would hire you as an analyst in a micro-second.
I suspect he already was/ is
@@ashgamble1168 Yeah me too. Would be criminal if he wasn't.
Wagner's "consultant" experts on their way to Moscow to give MoD the mother of all powerpoints, apparently
As someone who knows people who work in a management consultancy in the UK, I'm sure they're devastated that they're not equipped with Challenger 2, AS90 and M270 MLRS.
This trilogy has been fascinating to watch, much more in depth and thoughtful then any other coverage of the war I’ve come across in the last year. Amazing job!
Great videos! I think that if someone translates these three into Russian, a certain number of people will finally stop supporting this horror.
And the stress in the word "Vranyo" is placed on the last syllable. The stress in Russian always falls on the letter Ё (Yo). And your pronunciation of the word "ochkovtiratelstvo" made my day))
That's not how war support works in Russia. People actively look for excuses not to accept the truth because they don't want to accept it. You can never run out of excuses if you are motivated enough. (Example: this video was fabricated by russophobes.) Belief that it's not you who was supporting the horror is a strong enough motivation.
@@blitzkringe Okay, I mean more those who began to doubt.
@@v0id_mg According to Vlad Vexler, over 50 percent of the Russian population are completely passive and depoliticised, to a point where they would have supported any decision Putin made, be it to invade Ukraine or to donate billions of dollars to Kyiv.
If you have not seen Vexler’s videos, I highly recommend them.
Valuing loyalty over competence.
How positively Trumpian.
The more I learn about real world organisations and structures the more I think the crazy organisations in 40K that were created by GW to sell new models might be actually some of the more realistic part of the lore.
Well 40k is basiclly the real world and every other sifi combined but on steroids.
40k Humans have always stuck me as a pretty accurate representation of what an authoritarian regime that's arbitrarily large might look like.
I'm not super familiar with WH40k lore but my impression has been that Empire/Human institutions have a lot this kind of detail but many aliens have much less. E.g. the Tau probably don't have these problems at all (which has some kind of in-story justification).
My exact idea. Corruption, inefficiency, duplicate a lot, private military, inter service squabbeling and civil war. Everything is present.
@@seneca983 The different casts are basically kept in line by pheromone mind control by the ethereals as well as mind control devices with some client races. They are far more subtle but yes, becouse they are more unified they are more streamlined.
“I could make an entire video making fun of Ramzan Kadyrov.”
Is this the Perun/Lazerpig collaboration I never knew I always wanted?? Please do it!!
Nah, Lazerpig is insufferable and I wouldn't wish him on Perun. The info might, I stress, might, be good but the presentation horrific. I suffered his gimmicks for two videos before I noped.
@@oohhboy-funhouse skill issue
This aged like fucking Honey
Director Krennic learnt this the hard way, when Tarkin destroyed a major base just to remove him as a political rival.
And then Tarkin learned it when the Death Star was destroyed due to the fact that using essentially Slave Labor to make your wunderwaffe probably wasn't the best idea.
The Andor show also shows some of this inner politicking at work in the Empire. Fantastic show.
Once again my carefully planned day is delayed by an hour of the most interesting analysis on TH-cam. Wife: "Perun posted!" Me: "The heater fix will have to wait, put on a coat."
>That feeling when the company whom employs you has identical organizational deficits to Russia's Armed forces.
Gotta love that Yes Minister reference! Still a hillarious show all these years later.
It's depressing how accurate it remains sometimes, I wish it wasn't still the guide for politicians on avoiding answering a question
All that nonsense about the meek inheriting the earth... it could do irreparable damage to the defence budget!
On the topic of the Japanese inter service rivalry, to illustrate the absurdity of this split, during the American Air offensives the army argued that the bomber came from the sea making them a navy problem while the navy argued that the bombers were hitting land targets and were therefore an army problem. This resulted in america loosing about 600 Planes over Japan in three years to all causes (including weather and accidents) compared to the nearly 18000 Planes it lost in Europe.
It was a miracle that Doolittle's raid even can be planned had it not come from a directive from President Roosevelt. Flying Army Air Corp medium bombers that ditched everything that doesn't give them extra range, strap on extra fuel tank, and trying to take off (but not land) on carrier was stupendous on many level. No escort fighter, and very little military value was achieve (except it forced Japanese Navy to take defense of the home island a lot more seriously, thus tying down some of their ships).
@BigFire The raid was more important for American morale. I think it probably caused some Japanese concern that they failed to stop such a small air raid, in a way it foreshadows the massive air damage done later on.
@@dyingearth With respect: only someone who doesn't understand yanks & their morale, would think the Doolitlle raid was wastefull.
Men don't live on bread alone; and courage & willingness to sacrfice it all for the collective victory, is highly contagious. ^^ ❤
How the IJN supplied the IJA on Guadalcanal borders on criminality. Just pushing the supplies overboard into the surf and making a run for it is just horrifying.
@@SVSky
At first I thought you were talking how the US Navy abandoned the Marines.
As a German M.A of History i really appreciate your comparison of nazi germany military feudalism to the actual russian situation. Especially your mention of the WWII Luftwaffe field divions are very useful to make the point of your video because in 1942 after heavy army loses in the Sowjetunion the OKW demanded the transfer of 250000 men from the Luftwaffes ground personal as replacements to the army. Göring refused this transfer and took the chance to grew up his sphere of power in raising Luftwaffe field divions as a separate ground force which were poorly trained and equiped for their task and took heavy loses. In September 1943 at long last the remnants of the divisions were transfered to the army when Görings politcal position was dwindeld by the course of the war. It would have been more efficient to do this two years earlier.
Most of this could be followed by quotes from Dilbert’s boss. “I must increase my tiny empire “.
"This is slavic history and happy-endings are banned" - as a Pole I dieded laughing way more than I should... Perun is gold
You're probably aware of this, but in economics the technical term for the problem you're discussing is "public choice theory." It's essentially the idea that just as people act in their own perceived self-interest when buying, selling and working in the free market, they also do so in their professional roles. As one BBC journalist put it when reporting on the Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to public choice theorist James Buchanan, "Public choice embodies the homely but important truth that politicians are, after all, no less selfish than the rest of us."
It's not that nobody ever does the right thing out of a sense of mission or principle or whatever, it's just that overwhelmingly their overriding priority is going to be to protecting and advancing their own self-interest. It's the sales VP you mentioned whose desire to advance the company's interests end where his own self-interest begins. It's the general who won't call BS on the procurement shadiness he sees because he knows he'd just be reassigned to (literal or figurative) Siberia and someone of more selective awareness would take his place. That's public choice theory, and once you understand and internalize it you start seeing it *everywhere* in your daily life.
Speaking of Nobel-laureate economists, there's a great quote from Milton Friedman that in many ways sums up this entire video: “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
As Perun is an economist, I am sure you are right.
However, as I read it, Perun tackled this issue from the corollary, as an end to his trilogy which was essentially based on "corruption".
I doubt the average person is "corrupt", which is an extreme form of "self interest" or selfishness, as you describe.
Nevertheless, Friedman nailed it in terms of what is necessary in many countries regarding what those in power can and, separately, will do, especially where political systems are weak for incumbent leaders. Such is the case in America today where Biden does not control the House, and Germany where coatition considerations can stymie good decisions.
Minor nitpicking point -- there is no Nobel Prize for Economics. The central bank of Sweden (Sverige Riksbank) chooses someone to be their award winner in the name of Alfred Nobel, not the Nobel Committee. The bank's choice are awarded at the same ceremony as Nobel Prize winners but Friedman, Krugman etc. are not actually Nobel laureates. The Nobel family object to this hijacking of their ancestor's name and reputation by the bank but they are not in charge of the Nobel Prize process or the awards ceremony.
I don't know how but the Wagner vs MoD rivalry somehow turned out to be worse than the IJN vs IJA one.
Going back to watch this after Wagner's mutiny and the subsequent completely accidentally plane crash is wild. So much has changed in 7 months
Hahaha, Prighozin and Rogozin are fighting each other to see who is the Truegozin.
The winner stayzin, while the loser has to gozin
You are by far my favourite youtube channel. I hope you continue with economics/logistics/military videos when this war is over.
The term "Basketball Based Selection System" is not one I expected to hear, yet I'm determined to work it into my daily conversations. Will report back
Once again politics ruines everything. Butt, BUTT, this may be the rare case where that is good.
Excellent video. This idea of political leaders acting according to their own interests rather than the interests of the organization they lead is an important insight for understanding the world. The book The Dictator's Handbook goes in-depth on the topic, and CPG Grey made a great video summarizing this point called Rules for Rulers.
How large is your research staff?
How many work hours does it require for your presentations?
I always enjoy your presentations. Reminds me of sitting in a professor’s class in college.
Thx for your work
My personal theory is this is similar to his irl job so he does it all alone.
He already said he did data analyze by trade.
And his position does not allow him to talk about Aussie armed force.
So I assume many of the topic is already filed in his computer, he just pull them out, dust them off, update with new figure, and maybe reassess the conclusion with the new figure, wrote the script, record the talking, phone his editor, and video happen.
I expect around 1 months of lead time.
Perun, listening to your weekly update strangely makes me feel better about my grandparent who chose to stay in Ukraine. Thank you for providing such well written and researched content through this tough time
"If an organization is illegal, then you have the ability to just arrest all of its members and wind it up if it ever ceases to be useful to you."
Of course, this might depend on the force that does the arrests having more armor and artillery than the army they're arresting.
A good example of how this can be done is Hitlers crushing of the SA. He used the SS to kill and arrest the SA leadership, thereby effectively beheading it. It wasn’t necessary to arrest every member,just to remove the leaders.
just purge the leadership, like HItler did to the SA on the Night of the Long Knives
Wagner is not big enough to resist arrest in such a manner.
could just take the leader and some other pivotal links out and then process the rest piecemeal
This has some Purging of the Knights Templar by the French King Vibes
As crazy as this sounds, my new favourite Sunday morning ritual is a coffee and watching your new video releases first thing. Reminds me of being a kid again waiting for the new episode of your favourite show to air during Saturday morning cartoons.
I asked this before but in recent weeks it has become even more relevant.
Your thoughts on what’s happening in western Balkans/ former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro & Serbia) would be welcomed, especially since its now has become very linked to the war in Ukraine.
There is also the politics of the West. I know it is a little stickier because the nations do not want to escalate more than necessary. But on the other hand, not taking decisive action early has created its own issues and has allowed the conflict to change as it goes on. Thank you for your insight and I appreciate the videos you produce.
German politics in January 2023 are illustrative.
No, thank you Perun for your work. This particular area is something I've studied deeply as part of my job, and it's something I try to share with students as a small contribution to learning from history in my own country. Seeing and hearing these phenomena and correlations presented like this to a large audience is nigh on therapeutic.
My respect for you grows with every episode. I will replay this briefing a couple of times to digest everything more thoroughly. Thank you for your work.
Hey perun! I was trying to find the UN report on the donbass casualties of the ukraine russia border conflictyou used in your recent Bakhmut episode, but even with the screen grab I couldnt find it on the UN website.
I'd be very grateful if you could send a link, or details of where you found that report.
I'd like to use it for my own purposes as online there are tankies that use the "from 2014 to 2021 X civilian have been killed" to hide the fact that the conflict was dying down before russias invasion.
they're still updating now - this is one of the Jan update
www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/01/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-3-january-2023#:~:text=From%201%20to%2031%20December,is%20yet%20unknown)%3B%20and
Pre-war version
ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related%20civilian%20casualties%20as%20of%2031%20December%202021%20%28rev%2027%20January%202022%29%20corr%20EN_0.pdf
They're not gonna believe you anyway. If it's even a real person.
@@johanj3674 yup gotten into a discussion with them they always pretend that every single dead on both side military and civilian was exclusive donbass civilians
@@johanj3674
Oh I've got a cut and paste document I use, it's more for the bystanders anyhow, but I've blunted some tankies before.
I do enjoy arguing with people on the internet, though its something I'm trying to do less of recently.
@@PerunAU Thanks for replying, huge fan of your channel!