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The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

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Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#181

Post by zackmorris »

winstonewert wrote: post #147
zackmorris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to hear you say that. When I was growing up in the 1980s, everything was top-down (NASA, IBM, even pop culture). '95-99 was when the internet popularized the idea of barely controlled anarchy leading to success that we take for granted today. On a tangent, I personally feel that bottom-up design has been an almost complete failure. The US has lost its ability to articulate what it needs to do, and th…

> not to mention that elections can't be rigged when votes are centrally counted What?

I should have said "as easily"

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#182

Post by tehjoker »

thrwway34 wrote: post #162
tehjoker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markets are democracy for the rich. They are only democratic when everyone has roughly equal purchasing power, a condition which is nearly immediately undone by a market. The whole idea that founded the Soviet Union is that markets are deeply undemocratic and they were trying something different. You can criticize their attempt, but it's important to at least understand that.

There were plenty of markets and black markets in USSR. Most of the time the only reliable source of meat and poultry for ordinary citizen was a "Farmer's Market" (Колхозный Рынок).

Econometric data show higher caloric intake in the USSR than the USA during long periods of time.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#183

Post by winstonewert »

zackmorris wrote: post #181
winstonewert wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not to mention that elections can't be rigged when votes are centrally counted What?

I should have said "as easily"

I'm not sure how it is easier either. I would expect it to be easier to corrupt one single centralized count then many decentralized counts.

In fact, the votes that I've seen brought under suspicion are precisely those were ballots were collected in a central location before being counted.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#184

Post by andi999 »

myth_drannon wrote: post #115
andi999 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a while ago that in communist society there is usually a shortage of everything including labor (that also why females were encouraged to work soon after giving birth)

Nope, women were given a generous 3 years off work after birth. In general since all work was equally paid (sort of) and you could just choose your profession, it's possibly harder, more dangerous jobs had issues with filling up positions and you couldn't solve it in a capitalistic way of just paying more (or increasing immigration for cheap, slave labour). Too many people wanted to be writers, artists, etc.. and sin…

Well, I wasnt thinking about givin time off. Let me be more specific: while in West Germany it was common for females to stop working for more than 18 years (paid by the family), in East Germany there seems to have been social pressure to go back to work after 1 year (or slightly more). (This is annecdotal evidence, but I think it was rarer in East Germany for the wife to completely stop working)

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#185

Post by talideon »

quesera wrote: post #144
talideon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think you'll find that if you read your registration agreement, that is not the case. I spent about a decade of my life as running the management systems of a domain registrar, with all the fun of dealing with ICANN, the various gTLD and ccTLD registry operators, other registrar, and so on. One of the recurring issues that got registrants into trouble repeatedly was the fact that they didn't understand that the…

Call it a "lease", or call it a "deed". If you do not pay recurring fees to the relevant administrative body, your operating privileges for the asset are taken away. "Ownership" may be expected to confer more privileges than a lease, but that's just a matter of traditional terms. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Well, tell that to your landlord, &c. I'm sure they'd have a different point of view.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#186

Post by thrwway34 »

tehjoker wrote: post #182
thrwway34 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of markets and black markets in USSR. Most of the time the only reliable source of meat and poultry for ordinary citizen was a "Farmer's Market" (Колхозный Рынок).

Econometric data show higher caloric intake in the USSR than the USA during long periods of time.

That's why Soviets lost millions to several famines?

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#187

Post by quesera »

talideon wrote: post #185
quesera wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call it a "lease", or call it a "deed". If you do not pay recurring fees to the relevant administrative body, your operating privileges for the asset are taken away. "Ownership" may be expected to confer more privileges than a lease, but that's just a matter of traditional terms. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Well, tell that to your landlord, &c. I'm sure they'd have a different point of view.

I "own" a few real properties, some of which I lease to tenants under fairly traditional terms for real property.

I have the option of changing those terms to give my tenants effectively all ownership privileges except responsibility for some official correspondence with the city, e.g. property taxes.

If I fail to pay quarterly property taxes, the city will have a different opinion about who "owns" the property. They will divest me of all ownership and operating privileges, and I will not be free to offer them to others. My feelings on the matter are irrelevant, because they have guns and prisons.

I "own" several domain names. In fact, I also lease one domain name to a lessor under fairly traditional terms for domain names. I have given the lessor basically full operating rights to the domain, except responsibility for official interactions with the registrar.

If I fail to pay annual domain registration fees, the registrar/foodchain will have a different opinion about who "owns" the domain name. They will divest ... etc, see above. My feelings on the matter are irrelevant, since they have control of the administration of the .com TLD.

Your point, I think, is that you do not "own" a domain name. Because registrar agreements, ICANN oversight, court decisions, obligatory lease payments, etc.

I agree. But you seem to misunderstand how real estate property "ownership" works (in the US). It's not meaningfully different. I might even have more ownership privileges over domain names (I can serve autoplaying videos with loud audio all day long) than I have privileges over my real property (I cannot play loud music without being financially and legally censured).

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