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How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

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Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#41

Post by frandroid »

hylaride wrote: post #27
nradov wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR was never actually catching up. With access to more accurate historical data we now know that much of their reported economic development was based on falsified official statistics.

That's not entirely accurate. Between 1930-1970s (with some hiccups) the USSR was indeed "catching up", but this was because they were industrializing from almost nothing, plus rebuilding after the war. It was the stagnation in the 1970s where the centrally planned economy couldn't adapt to consumer goods, light industry, and technology where they fell further and further behind. Various incentive problems exasperate…

In industrial societies, we re-invested about 20% of our GDP into production capital; under Stalin, that percentage was closer to 40%. That diminished after he died, to improve people's quality of life, but at the expense of overall productivity improvement.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#42

Post by HideousKojima »

throwaway023421 wrote: post #32
nradov wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine is kind of a clone of Windows, and available to everyone. But in general Microsoft and Apple change their desktop OSs so fast that it's impractical for cloners to keep up. The clones will always have compatibility problems and fail to support some applications software. Just implementing the published APIs is insufficient because there's so much undocumented behavior.

Not so simple. If the clone gains significant market share it can enforce compatibility.

I.E. basically what happened with IBM Compatibles in the 80's

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#43

Post by cambalache »

andrepd wrote: post #24
cambalache wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't like it. I mean, the argument and data were interesting. What bothered me was the narrative, it was trite and disingenuous and clearly written by a clueless white guy.

Can you elaborate, and explain why the author's skin tone is relevant? Unless I'm very mistaken, Russian people are mostly very fair-skinned... I'm not saying the rest of the criticism is right or wrong, but that last bit was uncalled for.

I have learned these kind of discussions are worthless in this site, but since if you seem to have good faith here we go.

The episode I remember the most was one when an American delegation went to Moscow (IIRC this was in the sixties, remember, the book is fiction), anyway, in the book the American delegation is comprised by you know, normal people, students and so on. The Soviet delegation is comprised by political-quasi-robots zealots a-la Ivan Drago. One of the members of the American delegation is a black woman, a fact the "Soviet zealots" take as an opportunity to claim that under capitalism racism exists in America. Well, what you do know, the black character proceeds to educate them and tell them they are very well mistaken because black Americans enjoy the same opportunities as white Americans.

This seemed to me very very weird, even if this was a work of fiction. No person of color in their right mind would have that opinion, even less in the 1960s. So I was interested to check who the author was and why they wrote such an unbelievable character. He is a white English guy. Surprise, surprise. The fact he minimized or discarded the huge challenges black Americans faced and still face, just to score a cheap political point in a work of fiction was disgusting to me.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#44

Post by rafaelvasco »

rayiner wrote: post #38
alexgmcm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked it - I felt it didn't really answer the question it seemed to set out with though. That is - there was a time when it looked like the USSR was genuinely going to catch up with and surpass the USA, how did they manage this and where did it go wrong?

Command economies don’t work. The USSR experienced growth initially because Russia was an economic backwater. That ran out of steam by the 1960s. The USSR never exceeded about 50% of US GDP, despite having a much larger population. The USSR did some amazing things, for example in space. That just proves that a command economy can divert investment to specific ends. The USSR narrowly beat the US in several space miles…

USSR event went as far as researching the use of psychic abilities for espionage. US only started researching PSI later, fearing USSR would get the edge on that; It's very interesting to read CIA papers about remote viewing experiments; Funny to see so much people think these things are pure fabrications, fantasy etc, but the US has been researching this stuff for decades. If they bothered to expend the resources to do that it means something;

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#45

Post by UncleSlacky »

rayiner wrote: post #38
alexgmcm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked it - I felt it didn't really answer the question it seemed to set out with though. That is - there was a time when it looked like the USSR was genuinely going to catch up with and surpass the USA, how did they manage this and where did it go wrong?

Command economies don’t work. The USSR experienced growth initially because Russia was an economic backwater. That ran out of steam by the 1960s. The USSR never exceeded about 50% of US GDP, despite having a much larger population. The USSR did some amazing things, for example in space. That just proves that a command economy can divert investment to specific ends. The USSR narrowly beat the US in several space miles…

Command economies might work better now that we have the capability to transmit accurate market information in (near) real time.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#46

Post by UncleSlacky »

anticodon wrote: post #40
naveen99 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why the Russians or even the Chinese or Indians haven’t publicly attempted to clone Microsoft Windows (a desktop os). There is a Russian Linux distro. But I would think it would be more productive to have an international software arms race than a military / space arms race.

There's ReactOS. I'm not sure but I believe that many of ReactOS developers are Russian. Although I don't understand the point of Windows clone.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure the Russian government donated to ReactOS development a few years back.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#47

Post by amylene »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #45
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Command economies don’t work. The USSR experienced growth initially because Russia was an economic backwater. That ran out of steam by the 1960s. The USSR never exceeded about 50% of US GDP, despite having a much larger population. The USSR did some amazing things, for example in space. That just proves that a command economy can divert investment to specific ends. The USSR narrowly beat the US in several space miles…

Command economies might work better now that we have the capability to transmit accurate market information in (near) real time.

My understanding is that it wasn’t the delays as much as the incentives to lie. Tech doesn’t fix what are essentially people problems.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#48

Post by amylene »

cambalache wrote: post #43
andrepd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate, and explain why the author's skin tone is relevant? Unless I'm very mistaken, Russian people are mostly very fair-skinned... I'm not saying the rest of the criticism is right or wrong, but that last bit was uncalled for.

I have learned these kind of discussions are worthless in this site, but since if you seem to have good faith here we go. The episode I remember the most was one when an American delegation went to Moscow (IIRC this was in the sixties, remember, the book is fiction), anyway, in the book the American delegation is comprised by you know, normal people, students and so on. The Soviet delegation is comprised by political…

I don’t find this exchange implausible. Black women who represented the US would likely want to project pride in their country, especially an American with Soviets.

That is to say, what she said may not have even sounded truthful to herself, but it is plausible that it would be said in that context.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#49

Post by gallegojaime »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #45
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Command economies don’t work. The USSR experienced growth initially because Russia was an economic backwater. That ran out of steam by the 1960s. The USSR never exceeded about 50% of US GDP, despite having a much larger population. The USSR did some amazing things, for example in space. That just proves that a command economy can divert investment to specific ends. The USSR narrowly beat the US in several space miles…

Command economies might work better now that we have the capability to transmit accurate market information in (near) real time.

we're probably way too clueless on that, but it would be interesting to try out.

Chile's Project Cybersyn was coordinating productivity all the way back in the 70s, with Telex machines. Perhaps we can bottle some markets' behavior into computers and good C&C human structures.

Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)

#50

Post by cambalache »

amylene wrote: post #48
cambalache wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have learned these kind of discussions are worthless in this site, but since if you seem to have good faith here we go. The episode I remember the most was one when an American delegation went to Moscow (IIRC this was in the sixties, remember, the book is fiction), anyway, in the book the American delegation is comprised by you know, normal people, students and so on. The Soviet delegation is comprised by political…

I don’t find this exchange implausible. Black women who represented the US would likely want to project pride in their country, especially an American with Soviets. That is to say, what she said may not have even sounded truthful to herself, but it is plausible that it would be said in that context.

Of course, you dont. You are white, right? I will only tell you something, I am willing to bet my life that no black/brown writer would write a character like her, in that circumstances, ever.
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