Jorge

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @krstic42967 @postsocialismus Fair play, nation was the word I was reaching for, but what do you feel id the issue with the polling?

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@krstic42967 @Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus But it would be very odd if young men were getting press ganged in service of a deeply unpopular state that the population would be so against a surrender

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@krstic42967 @Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus I’m really only willing to engage on the empirical claims here man, we have robust polling indicating Ukrainians do not want surrender and that they have a higher per capita rate of mobilization compared to the Russians. Obv grabbing young men off the street is a tragedy

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus I think there’s a defensible version of the claim that would be “the non-mobilized population of Ukrainian is less willing to fight/less responsive to financial incentives compared to the Russian population” but I think that’s a very different claim

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus I think it undermined the claim that Ukrainians are less willing to fight than Russians and the claim that they’re less responsive to financial incentives, Ukrainians willing to fight vs e.g. Vietnamese is a very different claim

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@krstic42967 @Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus For clarity sake, mobilization here refers to military recruitment and not use of other resources towards the war

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@krstic42967 @Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus Empirically, Ukraine has less people and a higher rate of mobilization, so there is a smaller group left over for further mobilization. I’m saying this would reduce responsiveness to financial incentives bc the population that would respond to them has already been mobilized

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus Financial incentives are likely more effective in populations who are already more willing to sign up to fight (whether in RU or UA), in UA one would assume those populations are likely to have joined early on due to other incentives (being invaded is likely a solid incentive)

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus My question is how are you controlling for the fact that Ukraine has a higher per capita rate of mobilization and a lower population? One would assume that even with a hypothetical population more willing to fight, they would also run into diminishing returns quickly

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus This feels especially notable given the fact that Russia is increasingly moving towards a more full mobilization, which would imply they too have nearly tapped out the population willing to volunteer (even w/ financial incentives)

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@Volod_Ishchenko @postsocialismus And if the extra money Russia spends on recruitment isn’t a large factor, then it’s deeply odd that they keep increasing the amount they spend on recruitment bonuses

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@GK_93 @VoxCuriosa Poland literally blackmailed the USA into letting them into NATO, Clinton didn’t want to let them in at all until Poland mobilized polish Americans to campaign against him on the grounds that he wouldn’t let them in

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@GK_93 @VoxCuriosa But if the EU and NATO let Russia join w/o significant market and anti-corruption reforms, it would just undermine both organizations. I also don’t think there was ever a world where member states would be happy with Russia joining

[Jorge @JackhammerRabbi]

@NicolaMelloni @k_sonin This is a reductive narrative that fails to acknowledge that many western elites preferred Gorbachev to Yeltsin. The west also did provide significant aid to Russia after the fall of the USSR. Once yeltsin took power, the west essentially had to back him due to nuclear fears