mp_en_viaje: (and, therefore, also minus numeracy, but w/e, colonies)

mp_en_viaje: people cared deeply about obscure points of literary theory, topology, solid state physics and whatnot in a manner typical of the time, too -- greenwich village beatniks ~synchronously did ~same thing [minus, of course, a parental state to force them to also work]

mp_en_viaje: as opposed to a culture of whatever the fuck this "our company policy" bullshit is.

mp_en_viaje: because the guy's loyalty was to the fucking truth of the matter, and to intellectual excellence, rather than to a 3 ring binder, and his petty habits and inhabituations of schedule.

mp_en_viaje: and THEN re=emerged 3rd day to ha-HA!

mp_en_viaje: i once passed an exam (whatever, highschool term paper) because i introduced as a lemma a clearly absurd geometrical proof ("all straight angles are obtuse") and then on the basis of this 1=2 proceeded to prove the question at hand. the teacher a) gave me full points because couldn't spot the error in the absurdity and then b) took sick leave the next day

mp_en_viaje: (unless, of course, one was blue collar, with no university degree even. then one was not a person, simply put)

mp_en_viaje: the typically ustardian notion that it's acceptable to not know, to not understand, to not care even was entirely unknown ; that "i dunno man, i just work here" typical redditism entirely repressed, socially inacceptable and universally deemed morally reprehensible.

mp_en_viaje: f a very internalized sense of duty, like a saint bernard next to a freezing person. "this can not stand"

mp_en_viaje: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-06-27#1920337 << the culture of literacy is possibly the largest lost point. yes, at a time on this very planet and within my own personal memory. in ye glory days of the 70s you could, literally, stop people in the street with whatever interesting math problem, and they'd drop whatever the fuck they were doing and seek a solution out o ☝︎

mp_en_viaje: BingoBoingo, it's the eastern hound, tall chicks, nice bone structure, some tits and ass but nothing latino/jewish

mp_en_viaje: i should prolly publish pics of this apt, it's something else too.

mp_en_viaje: this is what "just works" fucking means even, that whoever did it did it right the first pass and you don't have to keep debugging all the corners

mp_en_viaje: and omfg holy shit phf's thing handles nested bracketing. dude this is so pleasant....

mp_en_viaje: (perhaps also worth the mention : soviets have the cult of the memoir, and they generally do a much better, or at least differently broken job than the current ustards, who are similarily afflicted. both kosigin [soviet economic main man, a sorta ru isarescu] and gromyko [ur-diplomat of teh soviet union, so strong he's broken into popcult] wrote memoirs ; they're prolly the highest payoff per time sp

mp_en_viaje: but, fundamentally, what you ask for doesn't exist because the russkis are morons ; and not a little morons, as in neglectful. they're thoroughly and fractally fucked in the head, and thereby they've made for themselves such a history of the 20th century, ~through fucking living it~ as no sane human being could readily follow. ☟︎

mp_en_viaje: after that, things will snap into meaning as time goes by and you happen to read things, which is exactly what a local intelectual (or however you'd call the cultural dominant class) does anyway.

mp_en_viaje: you can read as much of its links and references as you have the time / stomach / patience for ; you will not become knowledgeable thereby, but you will become more capable of distinguishing between useful and useless source material than you are now, and importantly : capable enough to trust yourself (though to some degree you're evidently capable even now, i suspect the absence of that last element's what irks you).

mp_en_viaje: ike the former read the one true book as there isn't such a thing, it's that the former spent days upon days and weeks and weeks and years fucking around with a broken thing and its disparate legs and probiscii -- would be picking up sheila fitzpatrick's swansong (revisionism in soviet history).

mp_en_viaje: the only apptroach available, short of learning russian, polish, romanian, german, and going blind on reconstructive work through archives and choice secondary sources (chosen how ?) -- which is precisely what "we"'ve done, if passively and over time nevertheless still to the tune of thousands of hours, the difference between one "from there" and "not from there" is like the difference between "familiar with windows" and "unfamiliar" : it's not l

mp_en_viaje: nor does this exist in russian, to my knowledge. nor in romanian -- there are fragmentary bits that are useful -- to the very finely informed. no synthesis, however.

mp_en_viaje: trinque, i do not believe you will find such a thing as a useful history of rus' 20th century in this language, like you have say a useful history of the latin centuries 3-5. ☟︎