Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria • Hacker News Board

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#101

Post by hnaccount_rng » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 12:30 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #45

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am willing to agree. That is one of the reasons I sometimes feel people do not treat Putin seriously enough. The guy rose through ranks of US equivalent of CIA. You do not get there purely by luck. You do need skills including management.

I would rate Putin as extremely intelligent. What he has achieved is pretty impressive and he has held his position for a very long time. . You don’t have to like him but you have to accept that he is very good at what he does.

Is he though? Yeah he is definitely intelligent and surely ruthless. However: there is a reason he’s still in power. There is no one, in the world, to be able to guarantee his and his family’s safety once he leaves power. At the moment he’s all-powerful, but wouldn’t you rather have the option to retire?

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#102

Post by drran » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 12:41 PM UTC

thriftwy wrote: post #98

drran wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it looks like he will succeed at demolishing of the Jail of Nations.

Comments like yours, where you threaten the demolishing of their homeland when talking to people, is what make people cling to ones like Putin.

The cycle is complete. The Doom is inevitable.

USSR collapsed in 70 years. RF is about 2x smaller, so it should collapse in 35 years -> 2026.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#103

Post by bambax » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 12:52 PM UTC

> a reminder that we are having some laughs in the service of the building of weapons of mass destruction and there’s something inherently problematic about that

I don't get it. The problem is with building weapons of mass destruction in the first place, not doing it and then finding humor in the situation.

Isn't it quite funny that a so-called "intelligent" species would expend so much energy, money and time to build a series of devices to annihilate itself? Surely it's at least a bit ironic?

Dr Strangelove is a comedy about exactly that, and its humor works. It seems when Kubrick started to work on that project he wanted to do a "serious" movie, but the more he learned about the whole system the more he found it utterly absurd, and he came to the conclusion that the only way to talk about it was to make a satire.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#104

Post by simtel20 » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

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?

That’s what I am thinking. It doesn’t even have to be MAGA only. I bet wokeness could also turn into a dictatorship with the right leader. That’s why rohe current US political climate where people think that the other side is evil and can’t be negotiated with is so dangerous. The right leader can make a case that there is a dangerous crisis and that laws have to be suspended to deal with the threat and voila you have…

Please let's not "both sides" this. It's the maga crowd who have fallen into a cult of personality and are excusing those personalities for their incompetence and its results. Until that appears from another vector it is dishonest and misleading to project this on any other group.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#105

Post by rpeden » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

BoxOfRain wrote: post #81

Animats wrote: post #2

Beria really was in charge of the early Soviet nuclear weapons program, and, while everyone was terrified of him, he was apparently good at managing the program. The classic joke about that, and it may not have been a joke, is that after the first bomb worked, the people who would have been shot if it failed got the Hero of the Soviet Union award. The ones that would have been sent to a labor camp got some lesser awa…

The Soviet nuclear weapons programme was completely terrifying, their early reactors were open-cycle which meant the water cooling them was contaminated and simply dumped eventually leading to this lovely tourist spot where an hour on the shores of the lake would be a certain death sentence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_of_Lake_Karachay

The lake has some decently funny reviews on Google Maps.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#106

Post by the_af » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #76

the_af wrote: post #5

> Some of the stories are more in the line of “hooray for Soviet scientists” genre, which I find a lot less interesting I find this very telling about the reviewer. When the Russians (or Soviets) show gallows humor, or are simply bizarre or we (in the West) want to read dark undertones in what they wrote: hell yes, it's just like I thought, the Soviet Union must have been a constant nightmare! When they write in a se…

Self-congratulatory jokes are generally not very funny, regardless of what nationality or political orientation they come from.

The author says they are less interesting, not less funny.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#107

Post by JeremyNT » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

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?

Don't worry, the US electoral process is very effective at screening out competence in candidates for national office.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#108

Post by roenxi » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

simtel20 wrote: post #104

spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I am thinking. It doesn’t even have to be MAGA only. I bet wokeness could also turn into a dictatorship with the right leader. That’s why rohe current US political climate where people think that the other side is evil and can’t be negotiated with is so dangerous. The right leader can make a case that there is a dangerous crisis and that laws have to be suspended to deal with the threat and voila you have…

Please let's not "both sides" this. It's the maga crowd who have fallen into a cult of personality and are excusing those personalities for their incompetence and its results. Until that appears from another vector it is dishonest and misleading to project this on any other group.

That is routine for US politics; partisans always forgive their team for incompetence and its results. I think only catastrophes as egregious as Afghanistan (all the way through from Bush to Biden) have managed to pierce the partisan distortion field.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#109

Post by rtpg » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #103

> a reminder that we are having some laughs in the service of the building of weapons of mass destruction and there’s something inherently problematic about that I don't get it. The problem is with building weapons of mass destruction in the first place, not doing it and then finding humor in the situation. Isn't it quite funny that a so-called "intelligent" species would expend so much energy, money and time to buil…

I think that when you are actively participating in the building of the weapons, being like "lol isn't it funny that we are helping to make hell on earth possible in a heartbeat?" is a bit questionable.

Last I checked Kubrick wasn't working on the bombs himself.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#110

Post by emodendroket » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

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?

Oh, well, that's pretty obvious, they revealed all the plays already.