It’s probably a very late response, but I’ll still leave it if you want it.

I honestly don’t know what typical quality of live is or was ever has been. From my very own experience of someone who’s making damn good money - not crazy good money, but damn good - I can tell you that life has gotten much more expensive. My lifestyle is something I think many people would consider enviable, because my expenses mostly come down to food and rent, with a lot of disposable income that, to my shame, is getting disposed all right.

Being a bit of a dreamer, I often imagine purchasing some stuff like real estate or a car because I’ve switched my lifestyle, or just pretend to be preparing to replace some things in my life. During these times, I look at the prices, and since that had already happened before time and time again, I can tell that the prices for everything have increased dramatically.

The prices, though, are one thing: what’s more is the fact that the salaries haven’t increased for most people, of course, and the ruble itself has plummeted down, devaluing everyone’s salaries basically. The people who get paid in dollars or euros directly or simply receive equivalent sums in rubles are much better off on paper, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that the economy isn’t doing well for the people; I don’t really think it’s doing well for the military either, to be honest.

Now, there’s no empty shelves or any kind of shortages that you would notice in your regular life, but I’m saying this because I’m not in the market for anything that’s now gone for decades, I believe. For example, various medications are either unaffordable now or are completely absent, with some substitutes taking their place; unfortunately, I don’t know nearly enough as to tell you more here.

Another thing that’s definitely taken a hit is choice: there’s simply much less stuff to choose from now all across the market. That being said, there are some alternatives that have attempted to take the places of the goods that had left the market, but that cannot be said about every niche - and even more importantly, often you can’t say the substitutes have the same quality as their predecessors, on multiple levels ranging from sheer product quality to support and service.

The weird conclusion is that it’s kinda difficult to say that the country is on the brink of collapse, but you definitely can’t say that the sanctions haven’t done any damage to the economy and the quality of life here. The consequences, in my opinion, have been far from intended nonetheless, mostly because there are some aspects of dealing with Putin in particular and Russia as a whole that the people establishing and trying to enforce these sanctions simply couldn’t have anticipated; to be fair, many people within Russia or deeply associating themselves with Russia couldn’t have anticipated those aspects to play, for the lack of a better word, well in this situation.

Things are very complicated and difficult to forecast when it comes to such a scale, I believe.

Great questions, thank you. I’ll try my best to stick to the point and provide answers that don’t span paragraphs. I’ve already been accused of my very typical Russian tendency to write out lengthy sentences here.

What is your experience when talking to other people about your opinion? Do you think twice talking about that topic?

I think much more than twice before I indicate my position towards Putin, his government, or the war whenever I’m not talking to people I know I can trust. As important as it feels to “spread the word”, it’s just not safe to be display disloyalty towards the regime: some may tell the police about you (sometimes deliberately exaggerating to cause you more trouble), some may try and fight you, which sometimes ends really bad, and at the same time, sometimes it’s just a very regular, easy conversation where you just share your opinions and go about your business, no harm done.

Sometimes, judging by what the people you’re conversing with say and how they say it, you can tell whether they’re capable of even thinking of doing anything nasty if you disagree and to what degree. It’s still best to not risk it and steer away from that kind of talk with strangers or people you’re not sure about yet.

How many people you know have a opinion like yours?

Like MINE? Probably just me alone, but I’m saying this because the topic itself already encompasses a lot of issues, like the international law, Crimea, decolonization, imperialistic complexes and ideas, patriotism, guilt, various traumas, and many other things. There’s no way two people agree on everything - I’ve met people who are just as anti-war and anti-Putin and pro-west like me, very liberal or left-leaning and all, but can’t even begin to imagine Russia having to pay reparations after the war; there’s more: I personally know a person that wants all of it to end, like no Putin, no war type of attitude, but they seem to have something personal against Ukrainians, as if they actually hate them. It’s very nuanced and complicated.

That being said, if we boil down my opinion to something as practical as “Out with Putin” and “No more war”, then every single person I know would fall into that category: including the people from older generations, the ones that were most affected by the propaganda. Some of them are bitter about it, like they don’t want the war to end with anything less than a total Russian military victory, a complete defeat and conquer of the entire Ukraine; some are much closer to me, thinking that the Russian army should just pack up and leave to the borders that were internationally established in 1991, so Crimea goes back to Ukraine as well…

So, in general, the people who want the war to go on are an actual minority. Everybody is tired of it, but each in their own way. I don’t think anyone has been affected in a positive way, not after 2 full years of this: even pragmatically, we’ve all lost too much in both short- and long-term as a country, and even some of the “luckier” people who maybe got higher wages on their industrial facility because the demand has increased go to the same supermarkets and drug stores as I do, they go to the same hospitals, use the same infrastructure and all that, and they’ve surely suffered the consequences as much as anyone else, and even their (most likely temporary) material gains could never make up for, say, ruined international relationships, maybe ruined personal relationships, maybe dead relatives, and many other things.

Having said all that, I will also tell you this as a bonus: it’s getting harder to disagree. Even the pro-war bloggers (the so called z-bloggers) are now getting the stick treatment for getting out of line; they used to think that they’re the in-crowd and they have the free pass on reporting the real state of affairs, i.e. openly talking about problems, losses, incompetence, etc., but one thing a dictator can’t have you do is steer away from the official line, as that hurts the narratives the propaganda is going for. The irony knows no bounds.

P.S. Still got lengthy and all, my apologies.

I still live in Russia and want to offer a bit of an optimistic perspective.

First of all, Putin and the officials siding with him one war or another have been fearmongering a war with Europe, the USA, or even the entire NATO for years already. Granted, they did the same with Ukraine prior to the invasion, but I doubt there’s any decision-makers left in Russia that genuinely belive they can swing at NATO and expect anything else but a swift and painful defeat: the amount of resources dedicated to the current attempts to do anything in Ukraine would make it even harder to launch a new offensive, let alone defend anything.

Arguably, fighting Ukraine, Russia is still fighting mostly Ukraine, albeit with significant aid from its allies or at least Russia’s opponents; as reluctant as the EU, the USA, or NATO (or some of their counterparts) may seem to ditch the political ratings for either coughing up more resources or even restructuring to produce them, one tendency of our species remains strong: we do act when it’s about us, when it’s seemingly too late. Ukraine, for now at least, probably doesn’t feel like an integral part of Europe or NATO, maybe some even still believe the country to be that similar to Russia, which, combined, explains the rather cautious approach in terms of providing more lethal aid.

If Russia attacks, say, Moldova or Lithuania or Estonia or Latvia or Poland or Finland or anything else (other than Belarus, perhaps), nobody is ever going to think of it as of some kind of conflict between neighbors that somehow seems more complicated than it actually is (partly because both neighbors are slavs and tend to have somewhat nuanced, rather than obvious differences, I guess), and on top of that, any doubts like whether it’s possible to wear the Russian army down by dripfeeding supplies to the ones that fight it, or whether Putin can be appeased, or whether Putin will calm down after “reclaiming actually historically Russian land”, or anything like that - all of that is going out the window and people start acting, fast, with the combined might much greater than Russia is managing to muster now through elusive contraband military imports and making use of decades-old equipment and economical manipulations.

And in a conflict like that, who’s going to side with Russia, against the much bigger dog of NATO? Anyone who joins on the Russia’s side gets at the very least sanctioned to smithereens in the event of an actual war, and neither China nor India can have that; some of the dictatorships from the middle east may try, but I doubt they’d want to give NATO a proper excuse.

Putin is a gopnik and understands only the language of clubs and stones - the powers that Putin chose to call his enemies not only have bigger and meaner clubs and stones, but have more of them, and have the means to get even more. He might have attempted something had he actually conquered and held Ukraine, but not after this kind of reality check; he’s back to being the strong wife-beating alcoholic that sits tight when a real threat looks his way.

That’s amazing, thank you!

Has it already been confirmed or it’s still a hypothesis?

Please share any material proving it if you have any, I love space.

Matrix? @noobdoomguy8658:matrix.org

There’s also DMs on Lemmy if you prefer, and IRC, but I’m new to the latter.

I kinda wish I could make everyone in my circles to get into Matrix and fediverse in general, maybe IRC, but that’s hardly a fun time for them - just another website, app, or service to learn and use just for one lefty dork, and not for a very frequent communication, too.

Couldn’t agree more. I, too, spoke with my friends, but in a very different way - I first sent one of them an invitation to come with and leave a signature for the man, giving a brief explanation of what we could achieve; I didn’t make a long or comprehensive speech, and my friend agreed, as did the other one, who was in a Discord call with the first one at the time. None of these two are particularly interested in politics, I doubt I could call them left-leaning or part of the current opposition in Russia, but the sheer ease and speed with which they just agreed to come with me and sign for Nadezhdin spoke volumes to me, even more so than the Prigozhin’s march.

The most beautiful thing about it is the fact that the point we got to initially wouldn’t be open for another 30 minutes, and then we learned we had to go to a completely different one because it was the only one open due to all the strain on the volunteers and the entire campaign; there we learned that they were out of blanks for the regions two of us were signing for, so they asked us to print some somewhere nearby, which we did, and then signed off as planned. None of them protested, despite the fact that all three of us were already late for work that day. The only concern I heard came from the least liberal of my friends, which basically boiled down to them saying that they hope Nadezhdin, should he become the president, wouldn’t become another Putin. That, too, says a lot about the Kremlin gremlin.

As to why Nadezhdin got so far… I think Maksim Katz put it best - the government is full of morons, is run by morons, and those morons seek to make other morons happy. It’s been over two decades of theft, murder, deliberate destruction of trust and unity and critical thinking, extreme bureaucracy, cleansing, lies, and wiping out autonomy - of course a system like that is prone to make mistakes, isn’t it? Especially when it’s stressed with so much stuff already, and even more so amidst the elections the prime candidate for which is definitely not in favor as evident by his joke of an announcement to run for presidency, complete lack of his face on any material advertising the elections, and now the fact that seemingly a much larger portion of the population is actually going to attend the elections, making any tampering more difficult and risky

They’re just incompetent and they get high on their own stuff, possibly truly believing that everyone is in love with Putin and everything he brings, that the opposition is just a few 18-year students making irregular donations to some irrelevant politicians. I really hope they’re losing sleep and mental health more than ever now as their beliefs crumble and they get more and more irrational, increasing the potential for even more mistakes that we can take advantage of.

Either that or it’s some secret anti-Putin plot from within, because everyone is tired of the old bastard at this point, regardless of their political or ideological views.

As for the people whose views aren’t as humane… my answer is Realpolitik. You’re right, they’re not going anywhere, and that’s why we must learn to work with people we don’t like - so must they. We’re not going to build a healthy and safe society that in turn builds a healthy and safe county, both for its citizens and the rest of the world, if we ostracise people that aren’t 100% with our idea of good or fair or just: it’s a yet another path to tyranny, for who gets to decide, and more importantly, most people often turn to radical, inhumane views and parties when they have no true human contact or empathy in their lives. We’ll have to offer everyone a chance to become a part of a kind and supporting community, one that doesn’t punish you the moment you disagree or seem different, one that embraces and teaches, one that’s inviting and welcoming - that way, the radical, the violent, and the hating communities and parties and candidates and politicians will have progressively less and less to offer, losing their old populist tricks of pride and grandeur they promise to give back.

I’m glad we’ve met over here, my friend. I wish I knew of more people like you in my country and places to meet them easily, but that’s a whole other story. Let’s talk more and network, if you don’t mind - I think we all need it right now.

Seconding this as another Russia, another singee for Nadezhdin.

The most important aspect here is let people act and get out of rut of feeling powerless and alone, which is exactly what’s been cultivated by Putin and his regime for decades. A lot of people never do anything because they’ve learned to see it as pointless, both through propaganda and through other commenters’ apathy, which is often propaganda, too.

First there was Duntsova with her signatures and candidature, then many protested in Bashkortostan, then mostly self-organised to find a cat that was thrown into the cold out of a train by the conductor/stewardess, now Nadezhdin with his signatures amidst the coldest time of the year, traditionally long Russian winter holidays and rush to get everything done - people are seizing any opportunity to show themselves and others that not everyone is a warmongering blood-thirsty maniac, and that’s a very good thing.

Some have been very skeptical about Nadezhdin and the elections, but even if all that proves to be worthless and fruitless in the end, there’s still a much greater benefit in trying to do something, confirming that there’s many like-minded people around - and it’s much, much more helpful than any apathetic take saying that the Kremlin will deal with Nadezhdin in one way or another; sometimes it feels like people want Putin gone, but hush and shame any attempts to do so, except for the unrealistically idealistic ones like a brutal revolution.

The latter isn’t always the case, but the rest is very accurate. I try to use my skills in English to offer people outside Russia some insights, both to help them understand this place a little more and help myself cope with everything a little better, but your post is precise and concise, which is best for this kind of case; I just can’t stop talking and end up writing confusing and complicated paragraphs because ei get emotional and try to put too many things into a single comment.

So good job and thank you!

Fair enough. I live here and always surprised my family whenever I refuse dried fish with beer - I’m more of a smoked cheese braid or chips kinda person.

Not fish necessarily, but any beer snack, yeah.

I once worked with someone from France, while working in a German branch for a company, and they lived in Switzerland at that time, saying they just pay less taxes that way and take home more money.

Your post makes me think it wasn’t just taxes.

Thanks for the numbers! Seems pretty comfy, especially compared to a less developed country with greater disparity.

How’s your political climate these days? I know Germany is seeing AfD getting higher ratings for various reasons, but somehow never thought about its German-speaking neighbors.

And the income for one? I’d imagine the taxes would tend to flat out a lot of differences, but I know it’s gonna depend on so many things that’s it’s best to omit it.

The layout is what matters for vim and it’s derivatives. I might be wrong here, but if you really need to be able to use the same keybindings as you would on a English qwerty one, you could try remapping things to their addresses or whatever that’s called - basically the same key, physically, regardless of its layout mapping.

That being said, it’s vim, you can remap the command to get back to normal mode from terminal mode to whatever key or key sequence you like most.

Using mouse to scroll up and down your terminal window inside vim also gets you back to normal mode.

And, well, quitting the shell of your terminal in vim works just fine - either via command or hitting Ctrl+d.

Ctrl+\ Ctrl+n gets you back to normal mode.

Doesn’t sood good at all. I’m sorry to hear that, friend. I really hope there’s enough upsides there compared to working at a more mature company for you.

How you liking it? How many years have you aged in the months working at your startup?

That’s the point - you have the expertise to make proper sense of whatever it outputs. The people pushing for “AI” the most want to rely on it without any necessary expertise or just minimal efforts, like feeding it some of your financial reports and have generate a 5-year strategy only to fail miserably and have no one to blame this time (will still blame anyone else but themselves btw).

It’s not the most useless tool in the world by any means, but the mainstream talk is completely out of touch with reality on the matter, and so are mainstream actions (i.e. overrelying on it and putting way too much faith into it).