Creating something great isn’t the same as temporary popularity, as the latter can be mere pumped up, generic mania – and not necessarily correlated with merit. To do anything well, the basics need to be mastered; this involves studying how the best do what they do, and, initially at least, learning by imitation. When you fully commit to bringing an understanding of yourself and your own idiosyncrasies into your work, using all the tools you have gathered, you then have the freedom to break the constraints and produce something worthwhile.
It is exasperating when someone answers a consequential question authoritatively, and then a simple lookup reveals them to be factually wrong. It means either they are deluded, deceitful or deliberately bluffing their assuredness.
Some people enjoy killing and being the cause of misery to others. These people sometimes control countries – because they are relentlessly driven in their machinations by an unquenchable thirst for power. The more authoritarian the country the greater the opportunity for them to commit their atrocities.
After the reckless destruction of war, countries need investment to rebuild and grow again. Governments and businesses need to place trust in that country as a partner, and, ideally, the country would have friends who want to help (or at least be seen to help). Russia has destroyed that for itself. Their future instead could be as a client state of China, a place that is hungry for imports of food and energy. The Chinese Communist Party of course wants to centrally control everything and view Russia as a colonialist nation that stole parts of its land (Vladivostok) when China was at a comparative low point in the nineteenth century.
Robert Walker 