tmsr - Search: soviet

mircea_popescu: the only problem is the very lulzy soviet-style gerontocracy involved. i mean, they've nobody but 90yos left to "leadership" them, and if they need somebody to star in a tv production it's gonna be a dude born in the 50s ?! still, today as in 1970, as in 1980, as in forever, the heroes of socialist labour are the same exact physical items ?

jfw: ah right, I forgot, in soviet russia if-statement sorts the other way so they had to copy+paste+tweak it for that locale.

mircea_popescu: hanbot, i suppose frances mcdormand is the consummate icon of this outlook. not just in fargo, remember that scene when she is unhappy with the level of service the soviet embassy is providing ? "I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN!!! GIB MONYZ!!!"

ossabot: Logged on 2019-12-09 17:42:34 mp_en_viaje: meanwhile in other 60s lulz (since jfw 's memoirs prompted my sending intel on a digging expedition through the shockingly irrelevant microfractures of the us communist party mega-soviet outreach failure) : https://www.markrudd.com/

mp_en_viaje: meanwhile in other 60s lulz (since jfw 's memoirs prompted my sending intel on a digging expedition through the shockingly irrelevant microfractures of the us communist party mega-soviet outreach failure) : https://www.markrudd.com/

BingoBoingo: diana_coman: The Uk has one of the soviet Uruguay style customs regimes, doesn't it.

asciilifeform: indeed i expect mp_en_viaje is very busy nao, what with mailing out razor blades an' page #s where asciilifeform has to be cut outta the great soviet encyclopaedia.

BingoBoingo: The courts here do handle evictions far more quickly than across the river. Other than the former tax shelter reasons Argentines prefer property ownership in Uruguay because the courts do move (speed may vary when a Soviet monopoly is involved). Following some sit downs I hope to have a better picture on the chance to recover something, but I do want redundancy here. I've learned at least that much.

ossabot: Logged on 2018-07-04 12:23:48 mircea_popescu: it makes a very in interesting point re "cultural wars" and "rock and roll killed the soviet union", namely, that cca 1950 the su was winning the cultural war, very much so, the larger of the "allies", the most accomplished, sending dogs in space and building the new frontier

ericbot: Logged on 2019-10-05 01:38:54 BingoBoingo: mp_en_viaje: Criteria 1 was no nato, russia, or china. Asia sucked and charged incredibly for international conenctivity. Africa is Africa. Inside Latam the options with independently owned datacenters were Brasil and Uruguay. Brasil's paperwork culture appeared even more soviet than Uruguay's with additional visa/residency hoops.

ossabot: Logged on 2019-10-04 22:39:18 BingoBoingo: mp_en_viaje: Criteria 1 was no nato, russia, or china. Asia sucked and charged incredibly for international conenctivity. Africa is Africa. Inside Latam the options with independently owned datacenters were Brasil and Uruguay. Brasil's paperwork culture appeared even more soviet than Uruguay's with additional visa/residency hoops.

BingoBoingo as he waits a few more minutes for the rain to stop before taking a walk anyway feels he has to interject that at least Cambodia's Soviet wears a uniform advertising his Sovietness

BingoBoingo: mp_en_viaje: Criteria 1 was no nato, russia, or china. Asia sucked and charged incredibly for international conenctivity. Africa is Africa. Inside Latam the options with independently owned datacenters were Brasil and Uruguay. Brasil's paperwork culture appeared even more soviet than Uruguay's with additional visa/residency hoops.

mircea_popescu: whatever, the pravda's coming up next with "how much prosperouser we have become", to match the history of soviet decay exactly.

mircea_popescu: anyway, far from "oh, kgb sold off sovok", the fundamental problem was simply that soviet man ~gave up~.

mircea_popescu: i should prolly have a better link, there's somewhere in the logs where we discuss this mystery, of why and wherefore soviet thinking man simply laid over and gave up in the 80s.

trinque: as for the "checks from washington" I think you bring your soviet experience into these things without first going and looking

mircea_popescu: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-08-10#1927117 << amusingly, the sr was built entirely out of titanium exfiltrated from a remarkably cluess soviet union (large portion of the "private companies" in the afore-mentioned germany-switzerland ***trade was this) ; nobody else had the rutile sands.

mp_en_viaje: where's that joke btw, about how in soviet union 90yos get together to remove 70 yos for being too old

mp_en_viaje: asciilifeform, wtf was that "moment when soviet realises soviet system rotten" ? not morozov moment lol, but what ? -ov something

mp_en_viaje: largely the early soviet revolutionary thing was a long chain reorg. a tenuous if long coming interpretation of "wealth" got segwit 'ed out of existence.

asciilifeform: billymg: re heavy industrial amts of coin -- the only afaik fella here who could even theoretically help, is mp_en_viaje , ask him when he wakes up, it is possible that this is the year he's buying a soviet sub or sumsuch

mp_en_viaje: or put in other terms : soviet ship blew for exact same reason us ship blew, they just didn't have a feynman to chase politburo around with a beaker of iced seal rubber

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: 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).

trinque: asciilifeform: any history writers you recommend on the soviet era? I watched that garbage of which Orlov wrote, characters might as well have winked at the camera and sang "take me out to the ballgame"

mp_en_viaje: you have to register PHONE with polizei. literally, can get sim but will not work in any phone not sold in norway and can't have mobile in norway other than like typewriters in ye olde soviet lands.

asciilifeform: asciilifeform, for instance, has small stockpile of soviet-made cpu. not enuff for 'let's make wallet product', and certainly there aint enuff demand to even consider such thing, but for personal use.

mp_en_viaje: BingoBoingo, sounds very latin america, tbh. years ago they "discussed the soviet union" while not properly shoveling cow dung. but they had opinions and considered considerations.

a111: Logged on 2017-12-29 00:48 mircea_popescu: where the fuck is that piece commenting on how soviet citizens all sooner or later wake up to the disney quality of their state ?

BingoBoingo: Cuba held after the soviet union's fall for what seems to be the same reason. The Latinos who didn't want it already left.

mircea_popescu: tbh, the industrial reductionism of "better make one good car than three differently bad ones" is perhaps the most notable result to come out of the great soviet industrial experiment. and, amusingly enough, still very poorly understood, as illustrated in all sort and manner of lulz such as say http://trilema.com/2010/masini-bune-si-masini-de-lux/#selection-53.131-53.445

mircea_popescu: i don;t have a very clear view of patton ; but churchill is exactly as much a socialist as the whole temperance movement. he was unequivocally identified as such by ~all contemporaries, what, just because dumb soviet kid never heard of churchill other than for one newspaper notice dated 1945 this means something ? by the time hitler came to power churchill had been an openly socialist politician for a decade+

a111: Logged on 2019-03-26 09:18 mircea_popescu: "The present generation of Russians have never known spontaneity of collective action. If, consequently, anything were ever to occur to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet Russia might be changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies."

a111: Logged on 2019-03-26 08:58 mircea_popescu: nt: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment and to require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the members of the movement as a whole. This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet leaders themselves. It may v

mircea_popescu: "The present generation of Russians have never known spontaneity of collective action. If, consequently, anything were ever to occur to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet Russia might be changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies." ☟︎

mircea_popescu: ont-fucking-yield/][an unshakable stubbornness and steadfastness] in its orientation. This orientation can be changed at will by the Kremlin but by no other power. Once a given party line has been laid down on a given issue of current policy, the whole Soviet governmental machine, including the mechanism of diplomacy, moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a give

mircea_popescu: ary from week to week, from month to month. It is nothing absolute and immutable -- nothing which flows from objective reality. It is only the most recent manifestation of the wisdom of those in whom the ultimate wisdom is supposed to reside, because they represent the logic of history. The accumulative effect of these factors is to give to the whole subordinate apparatus of Soviet power [http://trilema.com/2016/and-they-w

mircea_popescu: nt: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment and to require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the members of the movement as a whole. This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet leaders themselves. It may v ☟︎

mircea_popescu: "On the principle of infallibility there rests the iron discipline of the Communist Party. In fact, the two concepts are mutually self-supporting. Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline. And the two go far to determine the behaviorism of the entire Soviet apparatus of power. But their effect cannot be understood unless a third factor be taken into accou

mircea_popescu: "Now it lies in the nature of the mental world of the Soviet leaders, as well as in the character of their ideology, that no opposition to them can be officially recognized as having any merit or justification whatsoever. Such opposition can flow, in theory, only from the hostile and incorrigible forces of [???]"

mircea_popescu: meanwhile on topics of "usg, the latest socialism", i very warmly recommend kennan's 1947 sources of soviet conduct.

mircea_popescu: turned the item from state a, "a thin sliver of french-wankists atop a million village-sized ancestral communisms" into state b, "a thin sliver of rarara nation-of-soviet bureaucrats atop a unified communism 30mn strong"

mircea_popescu: i must say though that this "heroic policemen" item smacks me of old soviet union narratives. you speak russian chonkin ?

a111: Logged on 2014-06-15 02:28 asciilifeform: 'the Western blok... preferred to view the Eastern European nations as victims of Soviet aggression, ignoring the simple and manly fact (that would have been instantly understood by a Roman) that Soviet legions, without anyone's help, took possession of Eastern Europe via force of arms, answering aggression with aggression. And the Roman would an absurdity - he could not comprehend, in the name of what so-called

a111: Logged on 2018-05-22 05:18 mircea_popescu: long story short, soviet kids integrated into youth culture faster than soviet state integrated "soviet world" ; the result was the failure of the soviet state.

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.

mircea_popescu: asciilifeform the relation between "official" and "defector" is in your head because as it happened to work in the soviet union, all jobs were state jobs. the new soviet pretends "private", and so you can have non-officials that are nevertheless defectors.

a111: Logged on 2018-05-22 05:11 mircea_popescu: this paradigm readily explains the soviet state - "rock and roll" relationship, and moreover that historical accident had a lot to do with why alphabet even ~exists~ today. otherwise, on the naked strength of imaginary "advertising revenue" google is worth ~dozen stackexchanges/slashdots/sourceforges. but, generals always fight last year's war, and so here we are, "bayesian lesswisdom".

mircea_popescu: http://archive.is/3cRY7#selection-1855.167-1855.241 << in other lulz, notwithstanding the text, there depicted is ~romanian~ (if the soviet-style ro army uniforms didn't make it plain enough) nicolae ciuca.

mircea_popescu: in any case, the problem in terms of "1 tiger is said to have been match for 2-3 t-34" is already misstated. the point is : marginal war gain per german soldier from tiger was like .1, marginal war gain per soviet soldier from t-34 was like 6.5

mircea_popescu: (your http://btcbase.org/log/2019-01-08#1885908 courtly comment, which is factually untrue -- ru 5-6x the headcount, sparked some investigation that turned up a buncha lulz like that. turns out mid 80s soviet was INCREDIBLY weak and complacent, for some fucking reason.) ☝︎

mircea_popescu: i was really contemplating getting the car jacked on those APC tyres they had back in soviet days.

mircea_popescu: if only soviet union lasted a decade or two more and had better notions re cs, he could have been so happy. imagine -- re-doing emacs FOR STALIN

mircea_popescu: it's one hell of an object to contemplate, this evolution, for someone who was there in the 80s. "you mean every penny saved off every old schmuck that died in soviet-style economical health care system / every bled out 1950s style (in the us, heh, http://trilema.com/2009/comunismul-capitalismul-si-oprimarea-femeii/#selection-71.0-71.8 ) woman because contraceptives cost money whereas her slavespawn is worth money, ALL THAT,

mircea_popescu: next we're going to dig up a 1990 era soviet stolen sub to run it on their handcranks also.

asciilifeform: he report. from the age of five, i knew what is 'last round' -- the little shining key that opens in your skull (or heart, tastes vary) the door to soviet Valhalla. the pistol always seems to me not simply a personal, but an intimate weapon, a tuning fork by which one measured resolve: put its barrel to your noggin, and think, will you be able to pull the trigger when the right time comes ? the warring motherland , surrounded by foes

mircea_popescu: (and yes, in general the same process should yield, tumblr got picked because google kept popping it up. but we DEFINITELY live in the age of retardation, google is as useful for search as soviet mall is for shopping.)

asciilifeform: ( the crt, strangely, was great, and peculiarly un-1980s-flavoured, despite 'soviet' appearance when switched off -- http://www.loper-os.org/?p=52 << they had the glass custom-blown and thing actually displayed razor-sharp 1024x768

mircea_popescu: but yes, in terms of ye olde "Wäre es da Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung Löste das Volk auf und Wählte ein anderes?", 15yo soviet pioneer ~only true and proper citizen of soviet state.

a111: Logged on 2017-10-18 17:54 asciilifeform: ( 'stierlitz walked on the streets of berlin. mueller recognized that he was a soviet spy, but not because of the ppsh machinepistol clumsily slung across his shoulder, and not because of the parachute he dragged behind him, but because of the maker tag on his waistcoat, 'bolshevikess', which in typical russian slopiness had not been torn off.'

mircea_popescu: younger scholars picked up on Brezhnev's growing popularity among certain members of the Russian population. These people remembered with fondness Brezhnev's alleviation of their or their parents' poverty, a relief made all the more striking by the extreme impoverishment experienced by many in the post-Soviet era. This reassessment may appear unwarranted to those who prize political liberty above marginal increments in materi

mircea_popescu: meanwhile in other lulz, here's anglopedia official sendoff on brejnev : "For Gorbachev and his adherents, Brezhnev came to personify everything that was wrong with the Soviet regime. The popularity of Gorbachev's program among Western specialists, and the interest generated by the new leader's dynamism after the boring stasis of Brezhnev's later years, precluded a reappraisal of Brezhnev's career until 2002, when a group of

mircea_popescu: asciilifeform the guy has a solid point, continuing with the "soviet republic is actual republic" notions became well impossible for thinking man in the 50s. the whole trotsky thing hadn't done it, but by the time of hungartian uprising...

a111: Logged on 2015-02-22 21:47 asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: actually, disgraced soviet bureaucrats (usually posthumous - see hruschev's speech re: l. beria) had 'rapacious daily rapist' tags nailed on

mircea_popescu: his idea was, summarized by someone who's not retarded like they were : that if a) portions of industrial production get redirected to consumer goods and b) the state media finds a vanna white in the zaporoje countriside, then c) soviet union can turn into a large game of stakhanovist jeopardy.

mircea_popescu: the notion of "soviet computer work amortizing" is EXACTLY this sort of "naive extension". the ~very concept~ of "amortization" exactly mirrors the concept of "reproduction" in the previous step : you are using a naive notion that you're trying to extend naively.

mircea_popescu: i very much doubt it was "brejnev's bean counters" that told soviet man to be stupid ; much as i doubt it was ceausescu who told morons to be morons, and IGNORE 16 months of their own life because "didn't sign up for this", and not eat the fucking fish because "how dares owner think of us as cattle when that's exactly what we are", and so on.

mircea_popescu: but let's dig into it : WHAT ~precisely~, in central substance if not in peculiars of extension, DROVE this switch from "hey hey, soviet won space race and has ics of a sort" into this "ho, ho, soviet's buying scrapyard fare at new-from-factory prices" ?

a111: Logged on 2018-12-01 03:23 mircea_popescu: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-01#1877034 << weird "saving self" thing, like the indians have with ejaculation. seems nutty enough if expressed, but it's kinda my takeaway, soviet thought "last man to think wins".

mircea_popescu: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-01#1877034 << weird "saving self" thing, like the indians have with ejaculation. seems nutty enough if expressed, but it's kinda my takeaway, soviet thought "last man to think wins". ☝︎☟︎

mircea_popescu: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-11-30#1876374 << item looks rather like 1980s era soviet collegiate campus. ☝︎

a111: Logged on 2015-06-25 07:05 mircea_popescu: "Our Solutions Leadership About Us Careers News Contact" who the fuck thought this is how you do it ? it's almost like the soviet butcher, "we're the advertising shop, we don't have publishers. fish is what they don't have in the shop down the street"

mircea_popescu: and wives that actually worked and banks that actually worked and suppliers and everything else that actually worked ; and very little of the soviet http://btcbase.org/log/2015-06-25#1176177 ☝︎

mircea_popescu: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/23/section/1 << amusingly, here's a snapshot of the uk's soviet pioneer statute.

mircea_popescu: and, amusingly, everyone's now a "designer", that design's so fucking dead... do you ever look at classical soviet oh of courese you do, the buran discussion right ? that item had a line to it, and you can tell from a glance it was made by humans.

mircea_popescu: seems to me like the empire-of-can't-pay-outside-obligations is moving into a soviet outfit. got plasticar, plastiphone, plastifastfood and on your way.

BingoBoingo: My impression is generally Soviet Union penalties post Stalin were soft compared to current Obamareich

mircea_popescu: this, incidentally, was ~always~ the case. during soviet times, i recall older guy saying to (friend) who worked at jail, "god fucking help you if an actual thief ever ends up in there".

mircea_popescu: rmed by Soviet mass culture? Mass-cultural statements are constantly in the process of making themselves true by causing people to experience their common lives in those terms." :

mircea_popescu: we could restate the life narrative of the millenian in the terminology of "It may be argued that what is wrong with Soviet art is not that it restricts itself to the common experience but that its version of that experience is false; were it faithfully to reflect the true experience of the Soviet masses it might be valid art. But how can one speak of a common Soviet experience without taking into account that it itself is fo