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Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#61

Post by 1123581321 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #52
1123581321 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat must be legible and have a credible threat of authoritative judgment so steps can be taken to predictably avoid the consequence. It's not at all clear to a homeless person what steps they should take to reduce suffering in their life. (I'm aware I'm replying to a homeless or formerly homeless person. And it needn't be said, but I'm not saying that an effective threat is moral.)

Or the steps to reduce suffering are clear to them. You just don't like the conclusion they drew and don't approve. There is insufficient affordable housing in the US. We build apartments designed for a nuclear family and expect young single people to get roommates and split the rent and then you see questions on the internet about "How do I deal with this roommate from hell?" and we make horror movies about it like…

Yes, I agree with all that. Not sure where your second sentence is coming from. I was only responding to the idea that there is only one kind of way to threaten someone, that is ineffective.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#62

Post by igorkraw »

d0mine wrote: post #53
lmilcin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding. So, no, he most likely wasn't a good manager the same way a bank robber isn't showing "good interpersonal skills" because he was able to convince all patrons to sit by the wall and employees to open the vault.

Fear may be harmful for creative work. At the very least it is not obvious whether threatening to fire/firing say 10% of under-performers would improve productivity for complex tasks. There can be other ways to make people productive e.g., "psychological safety" https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful...

I couldn't find any hard research on this but the sentiment seems to be that stack ranking at Microsoft was part of their stagnation before their revitalisation by the new CEO

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#63

Post by watersb »

Jokes about nuclear power in the hands of authoritarian despotism are quite disturbing. I don't know how to compare the insanity of the past (over there) with the insanity of the present (over here).

And as I write this in Los Alamos, the humor feels very much like whistling [happy tunes] while walking past the [deeply creepy] graveyard...

That said, I did actually laugh out loud at one of the jokes. I'm not sure if the humor I found in it is the intent of the original Russian gag, but maybe I can re-frame the story to reflect my time served in Silicon Valley and tech indistry elsewhere:

""" The engineering team lead at the new, secret facility came into the Major's office one morning, carrying a cheerful poster that read:

        Keep in mind these important lines:
        Working hard shortens your time!
"What's the meaning of this?!" the team leader cried. "Are the deadlines being cut again?"

The Major was quick to reassure his civilian counterpart: "Nothing to worry about, Jim! That's been put out for the prison labor group that's coming in this week!"

Much relieved, the engineer returned to his cubicle, where he drafted a memo to his team to pass along the encouraging news.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#64

Post by ldehaan »

Animats wrote: post #49
spaetzleesser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" he was apparently good at managing the program." That's one thing a lot of people don't understand. A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Beria was a good manager, so was Himmler who led the Nazi SS. Stalin also was a hard worker and a master bureaucrat.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

Not much more than what is currently sanctioned by all the people who work in the government and aren't elected. You don't have to be maga to destroy a country, just the kind of small minded person who would think that it is possible to do so, and so out of fear of being called names, and the local Karen giving you the dirty eye at the hoa meetings, you would lie down and let the self ascribed "adults" take care of "it" for you, instead of thinking for yourself and questioning authority. ;)

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#65

Post by DoreenMichele »

1123581321 wrote: post #61
DoreenMichele wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the steps to reduce suffering are clear to them. You just don't like the conclusion they drew and don't approve. There is insufficient affordable housing in the US. We build apartments designed for a nuclear family and expect young single people to get roommates and split the rent and then you see questions on the internet about "How do I deal with this roommate from hell?" and we make horror movies about it like…

Yes, I agree with all that. Not sure where your second sentence is coming from. I was only responding to the idea that there is only one kind of way to threaten someone, that is ineffective.

Chalk that second sentence up to baggage (and exhaustion).

I wasn't trying to be argumentative. Just happy to expound on a topic I know something about.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#66

Post by ldehaan »

ldehaan wrote: post #64
Animats wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

Not much more than what is currently sanctioned by all the people who work in the government and aren't elected. You don't have to be maga to destroy a country, just the kind of small minded person who would think that it is possible to do so, and so out of fear of being called names, and the local Karen giving you the dirty eye at the hoa meetings, you would lie down and let the self ascribed "adults" take care of "…

This reads better with /n's

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#67

Post by 1123581321 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #65
1123581321 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree with all that. Not sure where your second sentence is coming from. I was only responding to the idea that there is only one kind of way to threaten someone, that is ineffective.

Chalk that second sentence up to baggage (and exhaustion). I wasn't trying to be argumentative. Just happy to expound on a topic I know something about.

I did appreciate reading it! :)

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#69

Post by paganel »

butterknife wrote: post #59
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am French. This is the exact problem I have with some movies my Polish friends told me to watch. They were from the 70-80's and were making fun of the situation at that time (how to game the communists, the system, or the absurdity of said system). I did not find them funny at all because I did not have the context. To me they were depressing. I wonder how contemporary young Polish people see them today (when they…

Czech here. Lived through last ten years of Communism. These films were repeated ad nauseam like a propaganda assuring us that the system is great because we can game it. Hated it then, hate it now.

Romanian here, mostly the same age as yours, humour greatly helped us during the last years of Ceausescu's regime, when things were becoming really rough (power cuts in the middle of winter, food rationing etc.). I'll leave one of the (dark) jokes in here just for the sake of history:

> There's a funeral procession on the street just outside Bulă's house (Bulă was the eponymous hero of almost all our jokes back then) and Bulă and his mother could hear the grieving lady crying from outside:

> "Where do you go, my beloved husband? Why do you have to go where it's eternally dark and cold?"

> Bulă, to his mother: "Mom, quick, lock the doors! They're bringing that guy over here to stay with us!"

It still cracks me up to this day thinking about that joke, even though the cold (especially the cold) was a very difficult thing to negotiate as a kid.

We also used to have jokes with a Russian scientist, an American scientist and a Romanian (didn't really matter if he was a scientist or not), in the end the Romanian was always getting the better of the other two (that sort of joke is alluded to in the text, with the Russian scientist doing something bad to a snake in Los Alamos).

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#70

Post by inglor_cz »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #56
tada131 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian too, yep thats not funny, but you should know one of the most must-do things for US (gov payed) historian today - eventually write story about freaky-bloody Stalin, Gulag and Beria who eats children. For the sake of Freedom and Wellfare of course. Don't forget that von Neumann was truly genious at least because he wanted to wipe that Hell from the Earth (Yep they never told you that) Somewhat expressive and s…

It's questionable how much that really was von Neumann's actual opinion. It was stated during the peak of McCarthyism, and he had a lot of personal contacts with people who had been impacted by it. Always very vocally being the most anti-communist person in the room might have been just a defensive strategy.

IDK about Hungary, but Czechoslovakia executed almost 200 people for political crimes within a relatively short timespan of true Stalinism (1948-1953). Hundreds more were shot at the border trying to escape, or killed in concentration camps mining and processing uranium ore without any protective gear etc. Thousands survived the camps with health undermined.

Many of those were members of the intelligentsia. An average escapee with an academic title was likely to know at least a few victims by name.

It wasn't hard to hate the perpetrators genuinely.

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