41500+ entries in 0.023s
mircea_popescu: eg, s.nsa is more of a factory, in objective
terms,
than
tractorul brasov ever was or could have been. it's what it is,
these days "factory" is complex item.
☟︎ a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:59 asciilifeform: on my admittedly short expedition i saw 5 dead factories , and 1 working -- little
thing inside of much larger corpse ; and it made gears for bmw
mircea_popescu: yes
they "were brought by
the
tanks", but
they stayed because
they were actually effectual, and actually persuasive.
mircea_popescu: the commies answers
to fundamental questions, as insufficient, incorrect, inept, useless or w/e else you might find
them, seated in
the hallowed confines of
the republic, nevertheless blew
the fuck out of
the water
the available alternatives.
mircea_popescu: that communism was untenable by
the
time 80s rolled around is a historical fact ; but kingdom romania was actually ~more~ bankrupt, as an intellectual endeavour,
than communism ever got.
mircea_popescu: y "prior".
the whole
thing was a bunch of inept by-hand farmers (CENTURIES after
the french peasant had domestique-industrialize already! CEEENTURIES!!!!) and a 14% class literally dreaming on
top of
them, while "hating"
the boss
that "makes
them" do
the makework
that existed ENTIRELY as a pretext
to pay
them, in
the very "internal paint" hope
they might achieve something sometime somehow (all unspecified).
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:56 diana_coman:
to my mind
that's precisely
the
thing: it's not (or not only)
that "screaming meat" but
the fact
that at
the end of it, it's only a replacement with what is in fact an inferior, not a superior
thing
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:55 BingoBoingo: Don't forget
the unbutchered labor activists in
the Southern Cone who will consider shuttering a Ford factory "a win for
the people"
diana_coman: not
to mention when you get what you neither want nor need :P
mircea_popescu: the universal problem, in
the end :
there's a difference between what you want and what you need.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:49 asciilifeform: c ( or perhaps
this ball belongs with dej ? ) maybe 'soft', or maybe
thought could not afford
to kill %% of his subjects, i do not presently know why not pushed.
diana_coman: they did! "it's so-and-so-saint day, can't work or I'll get
the plague"
mircea_popescu: diana_coman sure, why not. for
the same money could just blame god
tho.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:46 asciilifeform: peasants quite logically dun want
to industrialize, it is elementarily misery in immediate
term
diana_coman: there is plenty of others
to blame and
then
the
top-name is at least easy
to remember so
there, win.
mircea_popescu: i ran into a lotta
these, you know, idle workers who couldn't work because basescu didn't let
them.
mircea_popescu: exact nonsense spewing out of
the same quarters during say basescu
terms.
diana_coman: i.e. look, not as bad as it can be; sure,
there is always worse.
mircea_popescu: the argument as i perceived it generally revolves around
this "omg, he's
the devil!!!"
diana_coman: sure but scoring based on
the bottom is dubious
mircea_popescu: not even a matter of upset or not upset, just, "order
this set"
diana_coman: if it is
to grant him
that
there are currently many worse
than him - readily granted.
diana_coman: this eerily reminds me of "but why are you so upset with yourself??? others got even worse marks
than you!!!"
mircea_popescu: it's unclear how much can be expected of one guy, or what exactly set of interactions
to judge him by. nevertheless, setting
top level policy broadly correctly is probably both
there and sufficient. in
this sense, ceausescu is better
than say
the english
tard, what's her name, or
the german
tard, what's her name.
mircea_popescu: in any case,
to briefly revisit : ceausescu's designs with his oil gains, while ultimately crowned by failure, were nevertheless A LOT smarter
than period venezuela's commitments. and certainly way
the fuck better
than qatar building another mall
today.
diana_coman: aha, ibraileanu in fact mentions both as similar in
this sense
though Caragiale even more instransigent on
the matter, supposedly because simply living closer
to
the problem as it were, as it started in Muntenia
diana_coman: quite;
there was a bit of an anger moment when I realised
that in school
they never even *mentioned*
those writings of Caragiale, let alone study
them
☟︎ mircea_popescu: yeah. and yes, his words for
the opposition would have been "partidul collectivist". what c a rosetti & co were pushing is entirely indistinct from
today's pantsuitism, in all its particulars.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:40 diana_coman: with
the added bonus
that Ibraileanu in 1909 cites from
the same piece of Caragiale (Politica si cultura) with
the comment
that Caragiale was
the most acerbic critic of... "liberalism" (the quotations marks are Ibraileanu's)
that is further explained as "partidul <<ros>>" aka
the red party.
mircea_popescu: i don't
think
this was avoidable. like
that schmuck whose name's forgotten who wanted
to be famous so bad, set athens on fire.
diana_coman: but plesu, liiceanu, dinescu, mungiu etc are equally products of communism and I'd much rather have preferred not hearing of
them ever
mircea_popescu: very different sports.
there's a reason communisms produce ballerinas.
mircea_popescu: and it is VERY different
to
take credit from
the industrial products
that are 12yo gymnasts,
than
to sit about and go "o look,
this excellent
tennis player got #1".
mircea_popescu: meanwhile ceausescu's communism DID produce
the only olympic gold romania got
till
those
times.
diana_coman: re stupid my understanding of
the usual charge is
that he was non-intelligent, not non-smart; clever and shrewd perhaps;
then again,
this is my "translation" - I don't really know either way, not as if I knew
the guy
mircea_popescu: on
the contrary --
to
them, its most excellent quality is
they've something
to blame for ~their own~, wholly subjective and entirely cosubstantial nothingness.
mircea_popescu: the problem with communism, however, is not
that it kept plesu, liiceanu, dinescu, mungiu etc from producing great crystals of pure
thought
to make
the fame of romania
throughout
the ages.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 22:40 mircea_popescu: but
there's
two lines of pedestrian ceausescu-hate
that carry no water. one is, "he is responsible for drought". dood is not a 12yo girl dancing naked in
the street, has no peculiar relationship
to rain.
the other is
that he was particularly stupid. was not -- way
the fuck smarter
than period writers, or generally "intellectuals". less aware of
the ample
thesaurus of borrowed knowledge
they used
to drop in conversation as a s
mircea_popescu: incidentally alf, ludwig 2 of bavaria is a fine example re
this wot. one day decided
to ditch his cabinet --
the cabinet decided it'd better ditch him first!!!
☟︎ mircea_popescu: somehow
they never fucking heard of anything, it's like
talking
to bouvard & pecuchet.
mircea_popescu: (i also fail
to hear
these "cultured" fucktards explain how ~exactly
the same~ was said of what now makes
the glory of austria,
that insane dood's palaces)
☟︎ diana_coman: I always rather considered casa poporului among his achievements - at least
there is something everyone knows re Bucharest, what do you want now
diana_coman never heard
this "how ugly it is" re casa poporului, possibly because she never listened
to mungiu-pippidi and
the like
mircea_popescu: notwithstanding ceausescu watched
tv for his own interest, at least, which is a step above
the nigglet.
mircea_popescu: and i fail
to hear stupid cunt-pippidi explain "how ugly it is"
diana_coman: if anything, casa poporului at least is basically
to
this day a ...monument if nothing else
diana_coman: and fwiw it has everything inside made-in-romania so
there, pride
diana_coman: I didn't even realise casa poporului was such a reference point in
this sense; i.e. ugly well, it's
typical era-style, what
mircea_popescu: the
typical "oh, casa poporului is so ugly" item goes right in #2 above : it's a code, exactly like
any other code. it's function is
to permit
the sort of moron who is affraid of
the world
to recognize who's likely
to huddle with him.
mircea_popescu: ort of handshake, but imo
this is defensible disinterest. you wouldn't say a kid "learns nothing in school" because he doesn't come home with
the list of what grunge bands
to listen
to for maximum cooldom.
mircea_popescu: but
there's
two lines of pedestrian ceausescu-hate
that carry no water. one is, "he is responsible for drought". dood is not a 12yo girl dancing naked in
the street, has no peculiar relationship
to rain.
the other is
that he was particularly stupid. was not -- way
the fuck smarter
than period writers, or generally "intellectuals". less aware of
the ample
thesaurus of borrowed knowledge
they used
to drop in conversation as a s
☟︎ mircea_popescu: possibly.
there's very many variables
to control in comparisons.
diana_coman: moscow is also waaaay bigger so presumably
the shitholness factor is a few degrees of magnitude higher, easily
mircea_popescu: ie,
the yugos had it arguably
the best in
the 80s, among
the whole warsaw pact.
mircea_popescu: i'm not saying
this is
the dood's doing
to any degree --
there's a very clear gradient, once
the crisis hit, it propagated west
to east.
diana_coman: I suspect it's Moscow
that was a superlative shithole simply
mircea_popescu: i dunno
that he knows what he's
talking about. as a factual matter, 1985 living conditions were worse in moscow
than in bucharest (and by far worse in bucharest
than say cluj, or
timisoara)
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 21:15 asciilifeform: diana_coman: 'didn't get
to
the part where it gets better' <<
this is
the distinct impression i get . and i suspect on acct of
the shoemaker being soft.
mircea_popescu: but yes, ceausescu's imperialist plans were obviously going
to fail by
the
time mid 70s
turned around, and were well and
thoroughly doomed in 1980.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: there's no argument as
to degradation.
the objection is
that
the whole soviet world was undergoing
the same process, and it hit
the russians worse.
diana_coman: not
to mention how many were full of mould
to
the point
that you'd get children with asthma and what not
☟︎ diana_coman: from
the 60s
to
the 80s it goes from can build house on worker's salary
to get
to live in
the party's shit
diana_coman: at any rate, it's not just a palace in dubious style; look at
this point of ref: in 1960, new workers in Ploiesti got
to buy a strip of land and build
their own house; and
they did, not one or
two but whole streets; some of
those were even fixed-size parcel, others (more expensive) not; in
the 80s, workers got assigned (when? well, when enough children) some concrete-hruschebas-sorta-kinda-finished on
the rule of n-1 rooms (not dorms, room
mircea_popescu: the local
twerps
tho knew better, wouldn't
touch
the stuff. so it got sold in south-east asia instead.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:12 diana_coman: ftr funnily enough precisely fish was very much missing from ro diet
to such extent
that yes,
there were slogans "nici o masa fara peste"
mircea_popescu:
http://btcbase.org/log/2019-03-13#1901961 <<
this actually worked into
the whole imperialism angle above. ceausescu had both drydocks of large capacity and steel production. decided
to make ocean
trawlers
to compete in
the (at
the
time) ongoing race
to
the bottom --
throughout 70s world oceans were systematically and industrially depopulated, a classical disaster of commons situation.
☝︎ mircea_popescu: willy-nilly
these are
the points of comparison as
to
the extant real estate inventory.
mircea_popescu: diana_coman
there were
two major earthquakes in romania : nov 1940, and march 1977.
mircea_popescu: yes dood made a palace in a dubious style,
that all
the
tircovnici obositi kept "superiorily" criticizing. but
tell you what -- none of
them were born in a better palace.
they have all
the footing
to
talk
that any other african does.
diana_coman: what does 1930
to 1960 have
to do with it?
mircea_popescu: and
the houses!
the data's even published on
trilema, compare
the rfucking living surfaces 1930
to 1960, ie during
the
two earthquakes.
diana_coman: that is
true; I kept
thinking of
the inept useless huge buildings , not
the hydro and roads
mircea_popescu: or a hruscheba, or w/e
the fuck
they call it. makes entirely no difference, for
the vast majority of
the population of romania at
the
time had never lived in paved dwellings.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: that log
thing about "what sovok is -- it's when
they
take
the poor country girl and give her a house for free",
that fucking happened. whole generations of what else'd have [been]
turned into
http://trilema.com/fata-satului got forcibly
taught how
to be
textile mill workers , and got forcibily placed in 1k sqft of new construction
to call a house.
mircea_popescu: diana_coman yes, useful and durable. romania got a hidro power structure, for instance.
the reason it even has power
today.
mircea_popescu: guy was ahead of his
time, it's not specifically his fault
that
the spawn-and-divideresources cuntal strategy fails.
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:11 diana_coman: (not
to mention it's easier without, no?) ; circul foamei
diana_coman: mircea_popescu, when was
that original hungarians driving over? because if it's 60s, dunno it has anything
to do with him or with greaua mostenire in reverse
a111: Logged on 2019-03-13 20:11 diana_coman: and
that's valid for
the 1000 bakeries
too; I suppose one can argue
that it's still an achievement
to have bakeries with no bread
than
to have no bakeries and stale bread but I don't buy it; and note
that in
the 80's
the latest brightest idea (in
the same vein, all hail!) was
to further do
this sort of great "improvement",
to wit
the communal "neighbourhood kitchen"
to get rid of such waste as having individual kitchens in every hruscheba
mircea_popescu:
http://btcbase.org/log/2019-03-13#1901958 << it's a matter of infrastructure
that's discussed. in any fair comparison, nicu's building/whitewashing butade is actually closer
to
truth
than any aferations of
the "european stability and development funds" wank. infrastructurally, romania grew in
the 60s and 70s.
this was not matched hence (or ever afore, even accounting for surface and population,
the carol boom is almost a degr
☝︎ mircea_popescu: soviets needed a slightly larger ukraine like i need slightly longer nose hairs.
they ~did~ however need a friendly romania more
than
they needed hats.