asciilifeform: ' The deal will funnel $2.6 billion into Ukraine annually for the next 50 years. China will also send seeds and fertilizer, as well as build some vital infrastructure in Crimea...'

asciilifeform: a not entirely-implausible scenario, though.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: idea was that this (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/04619a7a-5da2-11e3-95bd-00144feabdc0.html) transport project would ship the resulting goods home.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: there is such a thing as an agricultural equivalent of 'strip mining'

asciilifeform: west u. is a kind of mournful shithole similar to certain u.s. 'red states'

asciilifeform: given that, after a russian victory, the process (if actual) will likely re-start

asciilifeform: if true, it's a bit of a 'pox on both houses'

asciilifeform: (as they are presently doing elsewhere)

asciilifeform: to be farmed to exhaustion

asciilifeform: that yanukovych was in the process of selling vast tracts of land in u. to the chinese

asciilifeform: currently trying to confirm or refuse a certain interesting rumour ☟︎

asciilifeform: subject beaten to death elsewhere

asciilifeform: bankrupt, serious ethnic split, little to no history as an actual nation... dead industry

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: how the fuck is the ukraine a failed state << exactly same way as the u.s.

asciilifeform: (or 'million deaths is a statistic, one death a tragedy')

asciilifeform: (there is also no proof that stalin spoke the famous 'no man no problem')

asciilifeform: but, to 50% of russian-speaking people, she may as well have said it

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'll say now that i was never able to track down an authoritative proof of this.

asciilifeform: or mrs. thatcher's 'we need no more than 15 mil. russians. to service the pipeline.' ☟︎

asciilifeform: 'colonize' doesn't have to mean 'administer british-style'

asciilifeform: or a traitor, sure of protection from his foreign master

asciilifeform: you'd have to be an idiot

asciilifeform: now a brit, french, or one of us - might agree! but who expects the chinese crown to agree.

asciilifeform: and thrown in oubliette for his troubles

asciilifeform: like that chinese fellow who wrote that his country ought to be colonized for 300 years before it can be considered 'civilized'

asciilifeform: 'orc culture 101.' in the lands of the orcs, when 'human' shows up and says 'we can have government without corruption!' what people hear is 'if we'd let the jerries win, we could be in a mercedes benz. but it isn't too late! and if we end up as the seats, that's our place'