To which country Russia compares the best (level of development, living standards etc).

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Você certamente não sabe o que falas... não há potencial algum no Brasil em termos de desenvolvimento sócio-econômico.

O potential está lá, só falta concretizá-lo.

The problem with our education is that it's extremely exclusive. While USP is very good, it's close to impossible to enter in a non-meme course without years of studying after graduating high school. The mass in Brazil has to deal with shitty expensive private institutions, and our average professional has will, but does not have the tools to do stuff well.

Funny that in Argentina it's the exact opposite. People are very scientific in the stuff they do as you can enroll easily in a quality public uni (Other than med school that has been swarmed by we the migrants and runs on very low resources. I do my studies on a private uni here due to that), but have no ambition whatsoever (anecdotal evidence).

If you want to get into Harvard or Oxford you also have to be the best of the best. That's how it works with the top universities and that's how it has to be if they want to keep their status. Ease of entry to Universities is a major mistake. It discredits academic courses, trivializes them, and diminishes the quality of students.

[PlattitüdenPaule]

Whatever a Westerner talks to you about, he thinks about money (more often about yours).

Not true. I always ever think about beer, brawls and music, even when talking to other people.

[capocannoniere]

If you want to get into Harvard or Oxford you also have to be the best of the best. That's how it works with the top universities and that's how it has to be if they want to keep their status. Ease of entry to Universities is a major mistake. It discredits academic courses, trivializes them, and diminishes the quality of students.

The difference with the USA is that you have top universities almost every state. The gap between Ivy League and a "normal" university is smaller than that of USP (and some others good public ones in the South/Southeast) and your average Brazilian private institution.

Public unis in Argentina are easy to enter but hard to get out, it's not as if they produce a ton of graduates every year. But while in Brazil you need to spend years studying on expensive preparatories for standardized testing on unrelated subjects, in Argentina the uni will always give you the classes and the material, and even if it takes you long, you have relative equality. Now compare the Nobel Prizes, famous writers and important inventions of Argentina to the Brazilian ones. We indeed shouldn't give away degrees, but opportunity should be given away and it's not the case in Brazil other than affirmative action.

[Methuselah]

It is not easy to compare. At first glance Turkey doesn't have as much crime as Brazil but it has terrorism, a decades-long problem with Kurdish pro separatist factions. Turkey seems to be more unstable politically, it has coup attempts almost every decade and a more autocratic government too. Both countries have quite poor regions but Brazil perhaps has more extreme poverty in some more isolated regions, which also might be a result of the country's sheer size. Corruption seems to be rampant in either country but Russia is by far the most corrupt nation out of the three. In terms of education Russia performs better than Turkey or Brazil. Brazil probably has the worst educated citizens on average but their universities are better than that of Turkey and their upper middle-class and upper class is more successful, educated and entrepreneurial compared to that of Turkey. I do not know if Russia on average has better universities (probably not) but I would be surprised if they had one that comes even close to USP (University of São Paulo).

A simplistic analysis, but if we take into account the present, Russia is the worst off by far since it is currently a pariah state while Brazil and Turkey with all their problems are still seen as countries with future potential.

Nice answer, thanks. Yes, hard to compare. If we go to pre war time Russia, then many would say that statistically speaking Russia is more developed since it produces more scientific articles and has better education. But again, Russia has huge socio-economical problems that many other countries don't have. And less positive attitude for life. Let's not forget that Russia was a full blown mess in 90's learning new way of life after the collapse of the USSR.

Russia has few highly ranked universities including Moscow State University.

[Ranger0075]

According my sources Russia by GDP PPP per capita is between Malaysia and Bulgaria, going by HDI it's closer to Romania, cost of living similar to Spain while in quality of life index it is closer to Brazil

As a whole it may be statistically closer to Southern Cone (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile) which makes sense since it is a huge country with many different people living on it.

[Methuselah]

Another thread from the main expert on Russia, who once again tells us how we suffer.
We will never be like you, but since we are neighbors, we will be forced to study you.

The main consolidating principle of Westerners is systemic racism (the same primitive biology, in the wild every species is a racist). Additionally - clannishness, as increased loyalty to a separate privileged brood. Individual "advanced" representatives and groups of them have learned to consolidate on the subject, creating structures such as "gang" (corporations, as a modern example).
In social studies, Westerners like to look for answers in the wild and draw parallels with the animal world, which leads to certain thoughts.
The icing on the cake is the notorious liberalism, as the "law of the jungle" in a modern reading. The so-called "elites" practice mutual incriminating evidence, apparently the only thing that can "cement" their pack and stop the internal squabbling.
Their main "civilizational" achievement - they adapted to share the stolen without stabbing (and even then not always), which is proudly called democracy, and, due to their stupidity, is considered inaccessible to the rest ("lower" races). On a practical level, they exist due to three "s": stealing, selling, showing. Whatever a Westerner talks to you about, he thinks about money (more often about yours).

Of interest for study are, for the most part (in order to develop countermeasures), the main fraudulent schemes and techniques for manipulating consciousness (most of them have long been known and borrowed from gypsies and ordinary scammers, but not only). Although, studying the standard racist-egocentric “firmware” of a Westernoid can also make practical sense.

2 hot Finnish guys, stop analyzing Russia already, you're not doing well. Your views are largely outdated, and the West is already being replaced by an unattractive post-West.

I don't want to spend my time fighting with you but your logic is mystery to me. Comparing Russia to Romania, Turkey, Brazil or Argentina is not telling that you suffer, all of these countries are growing economies. Stop thinking you live in country that you can compare to Japan, South Korea, Germany or Sweden, because you are not. Russia is not developed economy and it makes me feel deep shame when some Russians are trying to prove otherwise, if it was some game kids play and who screams better wins. Statistically Russia is not a developed economy, there is no point even to argue. Without oil Russia would be in a bigger trouble.

Clannishness is ultra Russian thing and even Russians know this. In the West it is more individualistic but clans of course exist and people tend to create links with each others. But the way to rule in Russia is more authoritarian/tsarist and clans play role here. Everything was about clans fighting each other in 90's when privatization failed and mafia was running the business. Learn your history. Of course there is corruption too in the west, and clans, but it's still different.

You said that the West is already being replaced by an unattractive post-West. Does it make sense? Russia is then what? Post Empire post Soviet post modern state? Post-West means nothing, you have to define it.

Stop telling other people what to do. Your analysis of the West is just very pathetic too. All you can do is to talk about "gays and negroes". It's so hard to look in the mirror tho. We know Russia well enough, of course Finns tend to oversimplify things and many have bad memories but young generation knows a lot about Russia.

Now let me tell you few facts about life:

1. Social Darwinism was invented by Westerners because that's how science collided with nihilistic ideas and selfish behaviour. But, Russia also is know for racism and there is a lot of racism in Russia. It is also true that West has looked down sometimes on Russia but so have some Russians done looking down on certain people. Gypsies can be racist. Jews can be racist. Russians can be racist. Americans can be racist. People are people.

2. Like i mentioned before, Russia is undeveloped economy. Maybe we can compare it to Turkey or Argentina to some degree assuming it will stop fighting soon. Russia has good things but also a lot of people living under the poverty line. Russia is very far from fully developed countries like Japan, Scandinavia, Germany etc.

3. Don't take everything so personally. It's not like only Russians do this but it is so annoying that you start talking about a country and "the Defenders" come here telling other people if they can talk about a country or not. You are not Russia, you are Russian. You are not Ovechkin, Gogol, Tolstoy or Dostojevski. You are just ordinary dude who does not know many things about politics or economy. These are Russian's worst parts. Always been. Of course be proud of your country and defend it when you can. But don't tell us it is developed. It has never been. With oil reserves this big it could potentially be at some point more developed, maybe without the revolution it could have been.

4. There is a lot of selfishness in the West (US and Europe) and there is a lot of selfishness in Russia too. There is huge amount of selfishness in China as well. I understand that the West has been succesful for a long time and had stability Russia never had but that does not mean that all evil is there. Evil and corruption is everywhere, to some degree at least. Russia has been through a lot and also looked down at and just ordinary people suffer from this. But let's not forget that also Russia has been fighting and treating people, including own people wrong. My point was not to show that Western people are better, because they are not, but to try to find an alternative for Russian economy/society. West is more developed and it clearly shows up. It's a good thing because economical stability is a good thing. Does not mean you have to spend all your money on shit. But you can buy a house or save for your kids or help poor people. Is this hedonistic behaviour? I don't think so.

[JamesBond007]

What do you mean with "dealing with criminals"? If you consider everyday crime, Russian ethnic regions of central and southern Russia (majority of population lives there) are very safe, safer than lots of European capitals.

Russia, South America and China have the most cybercriminals do they not ?

[Rumata]

How it this related to the topic or being a fully developed economy? But if we start talking then I'm not talking that Russia need salaries of Norwegians or that spending money could satisfy our inner souls. I'm talking about basic needs of millions of the people, this includes clean houses, schools and hospital with good air and no mold problems, stable salaries even for cleaners (because even if Russia you need money to survive), less gaps between poor and rich etc. I'm not here asking why Russia does not have more oligarchs.

I see. My post was addressed to those who measure the living standard by ability to buy things (often unnecessary).

2 hot Finnish guys, stop analyzing Russia already, you're not doing well. Your views are largely outdated, and the West is already being replaced by an unattractive post-West.

Methuselah is a good expert on Russia. Second to maybe only Finnish Swede

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Nice answer, thanks. Yes, hard to compare. If we go to pre war time Russia, then many would say that statistically speaking Russia is more developed since it produces more scientific articles and has better education. But again, Russia has huge socio-economical problems that many other countries don't have. And less positive attitude for life. Let's not forget that Russia was a full blown mess in 90's learning new way of life after the collapse of the USSR.

Russia has few highly ranked universities including Moscow State University.

One of Russia's biggest problems is keeping its talent in the country. The war has only made the Russian brain drain worse and if it weren't for the Western embargo that doesn't allow visas for Russians we would probably be seeing an even greater exodus but this should not be news to you since thousands of them have tried to move to Finland.

[Methuselah]

I see. My post was addressed to those who measure the living standard by ability to buy things (often unnecessary).


Methuselah is a good expert on Russia. Second to maybe only Finnish Swede

I have met a lot of Russians in Finland because i have Russian friends here and also speak Russian pretty fluently. I have to say that many Russians are nice people but they are completely uneducated on the topics of politics and economy, it's almost like they came from another world. At worst they don't even want to discuss, just laugh at you and shoot down your points without checking facts. I'm not saying all Russians are like this or all Yankees are like this etc but this is just something i have seen. On the other hand Russia is something similar to Brazil and Argentina and is quite hard to analyse as a whole because it has big and quite developed cities like St Petersburg, Moscow, pretty decent education compared to the world average and a culture reminding Europe. A the same time it's full of corruption, full of inequality and instability because of it's interesting history. Brazil and Argentina are Catholic, Mediterranean cultures basically so it's a bit hard to compare maybe to them even. Russia is just as brutal as it gets and as high in potential as it could be. Well, enough of words. Now you can tell me what i said wrong and write your own opinion. I still didn't get where did you disagree.