Some Data.

Which needs some elaboration. Because it explains one of the major factors behind geopolitical realignment taking place since the United States and EU unleashed a bloody mayhem in Ukraine. I warned already then that Russians are wrong people to fvck with. Well, here we are today with the US accelerating towards economic abyss while simultaneously destroying everything it prided itself on for couple of centuries, namely the rule of law, freedom of speech and whatever is understood under "democracy" in the US.  But behind all this massive geopolitical shift the "fundamentals" which define nations' real power one thing seems to be often forgotten and not brought up in the discussion often enough. Here is demonstration: this is 2017 statistics:

Well, I guess by now you can easily calculate that population of Russia being 2.2 times smaller than that of the United States and 9.9 times smaller than that of China (and 9.5 times smaller than that of India) per capita Russia produces the highest number of STEM graduates in the world. Here is another angle for 2018. 

Here are some top countries with higher number of graduates as Russian Federation takes the top slot with 454,436 of annual engineering, manufacturing, and construction graduates, followed by the United States with 237,826. Meanwhile, those engineering graduates from Iran number 233,695 annually.  

China is not included in this count, neither is India, but this is not what matters here. What matters here is quality. Not only Russia produces, in absolute terms, twice as many engineers than the United States, but even if one considers that the United States has an access virtually for free to already educated engineering cadres from elsewhere, primarily India and China, through immigration programs, I can easily point out a number of Russia's engineering schools whose graduates will never move to the United States, thus providing the US with a top shelf engineering expertise. And I am not talking about programmers; in this field Russia does provide the US with an absolute top-notch software engineering talent. 

It goes without saying that the United States will never have access to the most graduates of industrial and weapons engineering schools such as Bauman MGTU. Especially those who went through classified courses, nor will Russian military academies, which are top engineering schools in their own right, provide any inflow to US engineering cadres. Don't count me, I am an old fart who completely forgot everything I ever knew (secrets wise), plus I have no ambitions to pursue specifically engineering career. And then, of course, comes this economic thingy which for many top notch Russian engineers stopped being a crucial factor in making their decision on where to employ themselves--top talent feels itself money-wise very well in Russia. As people who know, and are such talent, testify--Russia pretty much matches most of "economic" desires for such talents. No, really. Exchange Moscow, St. Petersburg or Novosibirsk for NYC or "silicon valley"? Really? Russians have an easy access to the internet, travel a lot and know about real state of the affairs in the US. The city on the hill doesn't shine anymore. 

Some, of course, still fall for the gimmick of American rivers of milk and honey, but increasingly even those begin to reconsider. Mind you, I am talking about STEM talent. The United States is free to remove from Russia most political "scientists", lawyers, journos, business "analysts" etc. Truth is, the demand for those basically evaporated in Russia, with the exception of good accountants--this profession will always be in demand. But, having said all that, one begins to understand how the country "with the economy the size of Texas"(c) continues to produce some mind-boggling technologies both in military and civilian fields. Very simple--by nurturing national STEM intellect, which is in the foundation of national security and survival. It is also in the foundation of making things. You know, cars, aircraft, buildings, railroads, medicine, submarines, computers and other things which are of low interest for Wall Street or Forbes' "analysts" who obviously never attended any school which gives a good handle on STEM.  

Please, don't misconstrue me as bragging. I am not bragging, I just state cold hard facts which are going into my third book which looks at issues of geoeconomics and how American "elites", most of who have no serious applicable productive skills, betrayed own people and doing so de facto demolished US standing in the world, granted many applaud such a development. Recall Lenin's sacramental from his "Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power"  

We are not utopians. We know that an unskilled labourer or a cook cannot immediately get on with the job of state administration. In this we agree with the Cadets, with Breshkovskaya, and with Tsereteli. We differ, however, from these citizens in that we demand an immediate break with the prejudiced view that only the rich, or officials chosen from rich families, are capable of administering the state, of performing the ordinary, everyday work of administration. We demand that training in the work of state administration be conducted by class-conscious workers and soldiers and that this training be begun at once, i.e., that a beginning be made at once in training all the working people, all the poor, for this work.   

Boy, how many in the West even today are able to grasp the fact that apart from own internal, and deadly, rot, modern degenerate West is being outplayed, outproduced, outgunned and outsmarted by the heirs of those very unskilled laborers and cooks (have anybody read Putin's biography, wink, wink) who instead of going to political "science" or journo school went into... well, you know. But I am sure American know-how in producing "elite" will be in a huge demand in the third world which is so desperate for oversupply of philosophers, political analysts, stock brokers, journalists, creative writers and Queer and ethnic studies majors. Meritocracy is so overrated...especially in the 21st century where iPhones grow on trees and Hollywood "stars" influence public opinion.

Some Random Facts.

It is about "education"--no, not those funny papers which one puts on the wall and call those "degrees"--I am talking about education as a constant process of developing knowledge based on understanding fundamental processes in our constantly changing world. And I already pointed this fact out in a discussion board today and since Dillon brought yesterday up this issue of IYI--Intellectual Yet Idiot, I think it is a good time as any to recall such event as October 8, 2017, Apple's co-founder, Steve Wozniak's lecture to the students of famed Moscow State University (MGU) in which he, citing himself as "practical" and an engineer predicted what is going to die in the future in terms of technologies. Here what he said:

Сейчас довольно трудно предсказать, что точно будет развиваться в будущем, но зато вполне возможно предсказать, что "отомрет". Вот, например, механика точно уходит в прошлое. Мне, как инженеру, абсолютно ясно, что ни на какие другие планеты мы не полетим. Я человек реалистичный — знаю, что возможно, а что нет.

Translation: it is fairly difficult to predict what will be developing in future, but it is fully possible to predict what will "die out". For example, mechanics obviously is passing away. For me, as an engineer, it is absolutely clear that we will not fly to other planets. I am a realistic man--I know what is possible and what is not. 

Couple of Russian comments under the summary of Wozniak's "speech" leave no doubts about how this "engineer" was looked at. I am sure NASA must be completely stupefied by Wozniak's profound "knowledge" of astronomy, since Moon is definitely "the other planet" and NASA flew to it many times throughout its Apollo program. But this is not even the point, the point is that this "engineer" never studied "mechanics" (in fact, he may never heard of it) because he, obviously, couldn't comprehend that if not for this "mechanics", starting from the building of MGU, though the passenger plane which took him from the US to Russia, to the car which drove him from hotel to MGU--all that and much more was built primarily by "mechanics", starting from resistance of Materials, Material Science, Theoretical Mechanics and other parts of this real science which deals with the study of the properties of physical bodies and materials without which there is no modern world, including computers.

But that brings us to the other issue, how this guy reached such a level of arrogance as to parade himself as a complete dumbfvck who has zero background for passing any competent judgements on subject matter which is way beyond his purely electric and computer engineering field. I guess I have at least part of the answer. Take a look at other computer "genius" Bill Gates, who parades his utter lack of systemic, and hardly won, understanding of the surrounding world daily by promoting utterly medieval and insane health and social agenda. Bill Gates may be good at writing code, but he is obviously not an educated man, including this formal education, or a degree, since he dropped out of university after two years. So, one needs to ask a question, how people who reached primarily a financial success in one-two fields and who often are not really educated properly "earn" their right to pontificate? Only through PR and media, who ARE illiterate themselves. The hero of Generation Z Elon Musk doesn't have proper engineering education--the guy is, actually, entrepreneur with primary focus on business. "Majoring" in physics through 4-year old BS (yes, yes, BS) program does not provide serious engineering education, which requires a much longer term and rigorous training. In fact, 4 year Bachelor's Degree in engineering field is primarily a joke. Especially when one is starting from the American public schools where systemic cluster of rigorous Mathematics (Algebra, Trig, Geometry, Intro to math Analysis, Intro to Calculus)--Physics--Chemistry (Organic, Inorganic) simply do not exist, even on the level of some "elite" schools whose programs only begin to approach complexity of curricula of regular public schools in Russia, Japan, China. Yet, we have those victims of SAT/ACT fraud pontificating on the most complex issues of our time. 

No surprise then, that Wozniak doesn't understand basics of Newtonian Mechanics or Gates pushes for eradication of CO2 as such from the planet. The guys are certified morons, they may pass some BS IQ test, but they have no scientific-engineering foundation, let alone cultural level, upbringing and taste not to parade themselves as ignoramuses whose only real success is measured by their stock option and value of real estate. They are Exhibit A of a failure of US educational system which allows, under the guise of freedom of speech, for modern snake-oil traders to pour streams of pseudo-scientific trash over the heads of immature and badly educated public, convincing them that being irrational is normal.  

Nuclear Titanic?

I am no specialist in "energy" issues, but what was labeled in the West (of course) a Nuclear Titanic (or Floating Chernobyl, if one prefers), still departed to sea and eventually should be towed to Vilyuchinsk on Kamchatka. 

Yet, no matter what one says--and to be sure many "environmentalists" are going apoplectic in the West and in Russia--Akademik Lomonosov floating Nuclear Power Station is an incredible feat of real hi-tech engineering. 

Displacing 21,500 tons, this "barge" is capable of providing electric energy for the cities with population of up to 200,000 people. Vilyuchinsk (aka Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky-50) being the main base of Russia's Pacific Fleet nuclear submarines (in reality it is Rybachyi which is right across Vilyuchinsk) seems a natural place for it, even in a purely dramatic sense, the town is stuffed with nuclear power and propulsion to the hilt anyway and will continue to see new arrivals of nuclear powered submarines in the near future. Two of Borey-class (project 955) strategic missile submarines are already based there, more are coming, including newest Yasen-class (project 885) SSGNs and modernized Oscars (project 949A) all getting there.  In general, Russia's Far East will need more energy, especially for cities growing along the coast and this type of energy supply seems very convenient. 

Of course, once one speaks about Kamchatka, one should always remember that it is a very seismic area (I can confirm that first hand) and some parts facing Pacific of this huge peninsula are known to be subjected to tsunamis, some of them very large. But Vilyuchinsk, together with Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky didn't see a serious tsunami, even with consideration of a couple big ones, earthquakes, striking Petropavlovsk in 1970s, for many decades. In fact--centuries for Petropavlovsk. Krasheninnikov Bay also seems to offer good protection. And then, of course, as tragic experience with Kursk demonstrated--Kursk's reactors automatically shut down, upon catastrophe unfolding, as was designed. In this sense Lomonosov's reactors safety is way better than of any land-built nuclear power station, especially in seismic areas, and especially so incompetently, if not negligently, engineered as was the case with Fukushima. So, we will see if this historic first will turn out to be a Nuclear Titanic or will simply work for many years as a reliable source of energy for future settlements along the coastline.