What up, Russians?

First off, to the Russians who keep trying to hack me: why? I’m small fry, not worth your effort. I have 13 subscribers with a handful of other readers, and I run a blog that is mostly a wall o’text. No pretty pictures, no clickbait ads, and no one powerful cares what I think.

Granted, I’ve got your number. You’re either an entrepreneur or a state-sponsored hacker. You’re probably just trying to make a buck in an authoritarian state where the average wage has dropped to what, $200 a month? $100? Less? Where corruption, alcoholism, drug use, and kleptocracy have run rampant since the failure of perestroika, while life expectancy has plummeted. Where your Supreme Despot deflected your rightful anger away from himself and toward cultural ‘others’, in a shameful alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Hint: Pussy Riot isn’t your enemy. Putin and his friends are.

Communism failed to ever create its perfect state, with Russia, Cuba, North Korea…shall I go on? The authoritarian leanings in your country transformed emerging capitalism into plutocracy almost immediately; jury’s still out on what going to happen in Cuba or North Korea.

When you copied Western Capitalism, you also imported the worst of our attitudes toward scorning the poor and the working class, and worshiping the rich. I’m sorry for that, I had better hopes for you. Carl Sagan saw where you were going in 1996:

Russia is an instructive case. Under the tsars, religious superstition was encouraged, but scientific and skeptical thinking—except by a few tame scientists—was ruthlessly expunged. Under Communism, both religion and pseudoscience were systematically suppressed—except for the superstition of the state ideological religion. It was advertised as scientific, but fell as far short of this ideal as the most unself-critical mystery cult. Critical thinking—except by scientists in hermetically sealed compartments of knowledge—was recognized as dangerous, was not taught in the schools, and was punished where expressed. As a result, post-Communism, many Russians view science with suspicion. When the lid was lifted, as was also true of virulent ethnic hatreds, what had all along been bubbling subsurface was exposed to view. The region is now awash in UFOs, poltergeists, faith healers, quack medicines, magic waters, and old-rime superstition. A stunning decline in life expectancy, increasing infant mortality, rampant epidemic disease, subminimal medical standards, and ignorance of preventative medicine all work to raise the threshold at which skepticism is triggered in an increasingly desperate population.

But honestly, while I love Russian art, culture, and poetry, I have to accept I’m talking about a social mindset that still thinks xenophobia and Stalin are worthy ideals.

So for the user in Moscow with the IP address

31.173.101.161

Stop trying, you’re just embarrassing yourself. Go be useful to humanity’s future. Go hack the American GOP again, and show the world whatever pictures of live boys and dead girls you can hold over Trump & Co.

2 Comments on "What up, Russians?"


  1. The article title certainly caught my eye! I wonder if you’re dealing with a Russian bot or a human being. It’s not always easy to tell. On a practical note, can you block the IP from your server?


  2. Oh, it’s been blocked. Many of them are bots, but some I can track as people from their linguistic and behavior patterns. Until AI gets better, there are clues.

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