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I Lost My Past (2017)

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Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#101

Post by cblconfederate »

qayxc wrote: post #99
cblconfederate wrote: post #62

Maybe democracy is a luxury belief of rich countries, or at least of states that have gone through all the steps of state-building and there is substantial rule of law. One of the most stupid things in the history of this century was the belief that arbitrarily "imposing" democracy in countries that have never finished their state-building was possible (e.g. arab and middle east countries). And after 30 years of post…

That's due to factors unrelated to the political system, though. Some recent examples (Iran, Afghanistan) are completely self-made catastrophes, i.e. countries that were democratic, modern, and free and lost that due to foreign (or, let's face it: US-)intervention in the first place. Same with post-communism. The factors at play here cannot be reduced to "imposing democracy" onto countries. Do you have any idea what…

> i.e. countries that were democratic, modern, and free and lost that due to foreign

their state formation was severely lacking. Just because they had elections doesn't mean they were substantial democracies.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#102

Post by refurb »

moksly wrote: post #84
refurb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the story that is told, but one can’t avoid the similarity between the South’s alliance with the US, AUS, NZ, Korea and the North’s with the USSR and China (which had many soldier stationed there). Without material support the USSR and China provided, the North never could have won the war. There was no “rightful” liberation. It was a civil war in its essence with two opposing groups of Vietnamese fighting fo…

This is the sort of distorting of history the article speaks about. Vietnam was invaded by the French in the 1800 and turned into a colony. That colony was lost, and then semi-regained over the course of WW2 and the years following. When the French lost and withdrew, America invaded and was subsequently beaten. This is not a defence of China or Russia, look at how they are invading Tibet and the Ukraine, but the Viet…

No, you’re distorting history.

After the communist victory at Dien Bien Phu, the French negotiated a peace (without much choice) that forced them to give up the North (where the communists were strongest).

The French slowly disengaged from the South over the next decade leaving a fragile Vietnamese government in the South that had no interest in joining the communists in the North (1 million fled during partition).

The US did back a fractured, unstable government in the South in order to contain communism - I’m not arguing that. But to claim that the country, one that lasted 20 years, wasn’t “real” is just silly.

It’s like saying South Korea isn’t real because the UN backs it’s security and the communists had significant support prior to partition.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#103

Post by justsomehnguy »

throwaway2331 wrote: post #12
oldsecondhand wrote: post #2

> Thus I came to realize that all these other memories from Eastern Europe and Communism that pop-up on today’s screens and “populate” the literature, have almost nothing in common with me. And yet I lived under such a regime for thirty years! There's a reason why in scientific discussion anecdotal evidence is dismissed. There's no singular canonical experience that people in Yugoslavia share. Also, people can live a…

> There's a reason why in scientific discussion anecdotal evidence is dismissed. Because it doesn't feed the research machine! One anecdote is dismissed. Ten anecdotes are collected to start grifting for grants. And one hundred anecdotes gives you Empiricism (TM)! I've come to value anecdotes as a marker of "something is there." To throw them away completely is foolish. Have you read most research papers being pumped…

> I've come to value anecdotes as a marker of "something is there."

AKA "there is a grain of joke in every joke".

Not everything is bigger in Texas but this is a clear marker on some aspects of Texans self-perception. Which was exported so successfully it's now known not only in all other states but in other states too.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#104

Post by torginus »

_ugfj wrote: post #18

I grew up in Hungary where the socialist leadership (it is a very interesting fact how much they avoided the word communism and used socialism everywhere but I digress) was hell bent on continuously raising the standard of living because Janos Kadar was afraid of another revolution. (As his deranged last speech in 1989 revealed, he had nightmares for decades of his comrade, Imre Nagy, the prime minister in 1956, whom…

Well, if you want hopelessness I suggest you live in contemporary capitalist Hungary - in many ways, the country's fate is similar to the one described in the article, it has turned into a Western vassal, where nothing worth having, no company with meaningful profits is actually owned by Hungarians.

The problems about life you've described in your post are still valid today - we the country has become a nearshore colony of western corporation, nothing you do or think up will as an intellectual will actually end up in the ownership of Hungarians. No interesting R&D will ever be conducted here - all the companies that built high-tech things, and all the research institutes collapsed like a house of cards during the 90s, or were bought up and watered down by the West.

The political situation is somewhat similar to the one under Socialism - boy, I do hope you like the the current party, since any meaningful democratic transfer of power seems unlikely in the near future.

The prices and taxes and salaries being what they are, the necessities of a basic, liveable middle-class life - a house, a car, some reserves for financial stability - is a pipe dream for even the educated upper-middle class - barring financial trickery, help from parents or working abroad.

As for the concrete prefabs - while they were not aesthetic I agree - but the urban planning concept that surrounded them meant that they didn't just go up on their own, but they made sure everything - playgrounds, schools, pharmacies, stores was accessible in walking distance. The blocks were also mostly placed far apart enough, that one could get sunlight and breathing space between them.

This is in stark contrast to modern real estate practices, where the goal of the for-profit developer is to buy a plot of land - oftentimes far away from existing city infrastructure, and turn it into as many sellable m^2 as possible, with no regards for liveability or infrastructure load. But no matter since these hovels are more often than not are sold at prices that eclipse the lifetime earnings of your average Hungarian.

The only meaningful improvement I can think of is the ease with which one can move to the West.

In summary, I hardly think the situation's unchanged - but your chief complaint - `hopelessness` - is just as valid as ever.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#105

Post by bidivia »

My father was an elite worker in a Communist country. He cared about his work(in contrast with most of his colleges), was smart and had an independent mindset. He left because his life was impossible to live there. He went away with some close relatives while it was yet possible(over time it became almost impossible to escape).

In a capitalist society and with very little money he experienced a shock at first but over time he did very well.

Going back for visiting after the Iron Curtain fell he was considered someone like a traitor or something by the people that remained there. Most of them were nostalgic of the communist regime.

It is easy to understand, first the people that loved freedom or autonomy either left or were just exterminated. The people that remained were like sheep with zero personal initiative that needed constantly someone leading them telling them what to do.

Then suddenly the System collapses and they are told to live by their own means. They are old(and old dogs can't learn new tricks) and there is no people around that can show them as they were exterminated, or institutions, or examples to copy.

Countries like the US were created mostly by people that could not stand being told what to do in their original European countries. That makes not only the structures in the US but their genetics as well.

In communist countries people with initiative were exterminated and that not only affected their economic and political structures, but their genetics as well, they did not passed their genes to a new generation.

Probably because of my genes I am entrepreneur today. It is not for everyone as there is not such a thing as "safety".

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#106

Post by timeon »

trasz wrote: post #72
gigel82 wrote: post #60

I have friends that immigrated from Romania, and I was surprised by their very different stories of living as a teenager in the 80s under communism. One was enjoying vacations abroad, imported goods and generally mostly living a western lifestyle while the other was struggling to survive. Later learned that the former's father was an informant for Ceausescu's secret police (Securitate) - a butcher by profession but a…

Quoted post unavailable.

Your comment gives me chills.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#107

Post by shrimpx »

trasz wrote: post #96
kolinko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not even in the same scale. Many people could become „wealthy” then, but their conscience prevented them from doing things that would be required from them in exchange. If you want to draw a comparison - imagine that every single worker in US gets a personal „eject” button that gives them $1M to their bank account, but it requires them to do things that will be unethical and oppressive towards their friends, fam…

Quoted post unavailable.

You probably have a decent point to make, if only you bothered to hone in on it.

Sure you can say some people won't work for Google because their conscience prevents them, but you can't reasonably compare getting rich by working for Google to getting rich by getting your friend arrested because they read a book or listened to a radio station... If you have a point to make, make it.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#108

Post by luckylion »

vidarh wrote: post #35
luckylion wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we though? We generally consider Iraq under Saddam not to be a good place to have lived in. A terrible place if you're a Kurd and your village gets attacked with nerve gas. And a bad place if you're an ordinary citizen that isn't specifically targeted because of his ethnicity, but there's always the risk of Uday Hussein driving by and just fancying murdering you for no particular reason. And yet, of course, the up…

You're making the point for me. You're presenting a narrative that the vast majority of Iraqis would also not have experienced. Most did not live in the regions that were gassed. Most did not have family who got tortured. That does not mean Saddam wasn't a psychopath and a brutal oppressor. The fact he did those things are enough to condemn him as the evil dictator he was. There's no need to erase other experiences.

Nobody is "erasing" other experiences, they are just very uncommon.

When talking about how "people in a country" live, you look at the average person. You don't say "but the King and his ministers live differently, we shouldn't erase their experiences". The inner circle always lives differently from the masses, but by definition, they are very few. Look at the lives of the many, not the few.

And regarding Iraq: during Saddam's reign about a quarter of a million people were murdered or disappeared. There's a good chance that the majority of Iraqis did have someone in their family affected, though it might not have been their son, but a cousin or nephew.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#109

Post by shrimpx »

jeroenhd wrote: post #53
anovikov wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Communism would be great if people would actually be good. It's hard to not feel enticed by a future where everyone has equal rights, where the plentiful resources of the world are shared among everyone else and where there is no need for class warfare. Sadly, time and again humanity has proven unable to do good at the scale of a country. The laudable ideals of any political system will need to resist man's evil natu…

I agree with your comment but I would add that whatever the Russians and Chinese have done is not "communism" in any meaningful sense.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#110

Post by vidarh »

PixyMisa wrote: post #92
vidarh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are "they"? Russia existed. It had nukes. Nobody were in a position to tell Russia it wasn't allowed to exist, and attempting to force it to split would have been a gross violation of international law.

Nobody cares much about international law, but it was in no-ones interest to have a dozen smaller, likely unstable, post-Russian states all armed with nuclear missiles.

Nobody might care, but nody also had any way of imposing a breakup.
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