Arnold

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@NayrhitB @SusquehannaVC @LightspeedIndia @BCapitalGroup @beenextVC @sparrowcapvc @2point2club Deck. Cheers!

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

"Sadly, the Great Influencer, Scott Adams, has passed away... He will be truly missed. God bless you Scott!" - President Donald J. Trump 🇺🇸

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@X_FINALBOSS miro

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@josephxhenry webinar

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@organicbond Army

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@CalebTheos_ YouTube

[Steve Vai @stevevai]

Ace Frehley was the embodiment of rock ’n’ roll attitude — unapologetic, loud, and irresistibly catchy. His riffs had swagger, his tone had bite, and his presence lit up stages like a supernova. The Spaceman has left the stage, but his orbit will shine forever.

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@benkellyone biz

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@spwfeijen clone

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@FynCas auto

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@willia_mbrown yes

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@MikeMike1728271 999

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@wearetheselect Meta

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@rayvo_xyz @michael_lwy @monad Gmonad

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@_theshash Book yes pls + following u. Curious to hear how you find & apply acq ai to crescendo

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@drjackkruse_btc Perplexity

[Firefly Aerospace @Firefly_Space]

Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, #BlueGhost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium. A historic moment on March 2 we'll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots! #BGM1

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@georgesttock Coffee

[Arnold @arnoldyanovich]

@devoncnp Gpt

[Balaji @balajis]

We actually have the natural experiment in which a libertarian/nationalist coalition took down a far-left empire, made its way through the subsequent collapse and tribal shattering, rebuilt their churches, united under a strong leader, strengthened their military, and confronted the deep state.

It’s called Russia.

One of the secrets of the Soviet Union is that ethnic Russians got all the way down to 50.8% of the USSR by the 1989 census. This is part of what drove the collapse. And today, after the reboot, ethnic Russians comprise a full 71.7% of Russia.

So: they took their country back!
All it cost them was their empire.

And the MAGA man might consider that a fair trade, but he should at least understand that it was a trade. You see, while the 1990s was a grand party for the West, it was Grand Theft Auto for Russians.

Because after communism, no one believed in anything.
So savings got zero'd out by hyperinflation.
Pensions (their Social Security) went to zero too.
Territory won in blood was lost in a night.
Former allies turned to the West.
Life expectancy crashed.
Drug abuse soared.
Streets fell to gangs.
Talent fled the country.
And a superpower was humiliated on the world stage.

Most fundamentally, the overarching Soviet identity was gone, replaced overnight with the individual identities of all the many tribes that made up the USSR, of which the Russian tribe was only one:

This is extremely similar to today's USA. Roughly speaking, the ethnic Russian was to the USSR what the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant is to the USA.

In both USSR and USA, a European-ancestry ethnic group formed the base for a global ideological superpower that became so ethnically diverse that its founding majority fell to ~50%. And in both cases, this loss of majority status triggered rumblings that shook the empire to its foundations.

Because take a look at the 2020 US census:

And then compare those numbers to this 1989 report on the diversity (there's that word again!) of the Soviet Union, with its 90+ ethnic groups:

Essentially, one take on what happened at the end of the USSR is that (a) many Soviet minorities felt empowered, while (b) the ethnic Russian majority felt endangered — so the whole thing split into shards.

And then every ethnic group got their own country — or tried to. Some that didn't took up arms. Much shooting ensued, with countless conflicts ranging from Yugoslavia to Chechnya to the Tajikistani Civil War all the way to today's war in Ukraine.

But...Russians did get their country back.
The Eastern Europeans did get their freedom back.
And the oppressive empire that was the USSR did fall.

So: the outcome was mixed, muddled, messy — but you can argue it was nevertheless desirable on balance. Anyway...if the US decides to repeat this history, you may as well learn it.