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The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

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Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#41

Post by motohagiography »

homonculus1 wrote: post #39
motohagiography wrote: post #38

What is it about astronomers and blind spots for heresy risk. Is there a tradition starting with Archimedes through Copernicus and Galileo where they are just disagreeable? Reading about the soviet purges, it's almost as if they had a simple idea that implied a few consequent beliefs that allowed parties to signal alignment to each other, and then encouraged coordinated aggression against anyone not sufficiently on s…

It's happening in the West right now!

Yikes. Surely you cannot say that resisting and reconciling our shared history of colonialism is related to the obscure eurasian politics of over 100 years ago unless you harbored some pre-existing hatred and paranoia about losing privileges or were even radicalized by extremists. No reason to drill down on it and we can let it slide here, but out of curiosity, where did you say you worked again?

Found the astronomer.

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#42

Post by ajross »

hushpuppy wrote: post #17
peace4all wrote: post #14

Note that in the USSR, political questions and false accusations were often used to torpedo career competitors or to have vengeance at those who were more successful. Almost nobody in this story or in other cases were political dissidents. They didn't go out to protest or speak up on the political freedoms or other matters.

Glad we live in a era were accusations and rumors are not used as political weapons against individuals.

This is low effort and specious. One person losing a job or appointment isn't the same as people being forced out of careers entirely or (literally) sentenced to years in a gulag because someone didn't like them.

There is surely space for reasoned discussion about "cancel culture" and its effects on public discourse that doesn't involve likening a bunch of hippies on Twitter to the Soviet repression machine. Can we please start being better about this?

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#44

Post by mdp2021 »

ajross wrote: post #42
hushpuppy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad we live in a era were accusations and rumors are not used as political weapons against individuals.

This is low effort and specious. One person losing a job or appointment isn't the same as people being forced out of careers entirely or (literally) sentenced to years in a gulag because someone didn't like them. There is surely space for reasoned discussion about "cancel culture" and its effects on public discourse that doesn't involve likening a bunch of hippies on Twitter to the Soviet repression machine. Can we p…

You come with unduly assumptions with the contexts you throw in. «Political questions and false accusations» are still «used to torpedo careers» - just that.

In one place and time some excuses are more effective than others - if the counterpart is intentionally malicious they may just exploit that, irregardless the content.

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#45

Post by aisengard »

hushpuppy wrote: post #17
peace4all wrote: post #14

Note that in the USSR, political questions and false accusations were often used to torpedo career competitors or to have vengeance at those who were more successful. Almost nobody in this story or in other cases were political dissidents. They didn't go out to protest or speak up on the political freedoms or other matters.

Glad we live in a era were accusations and rumors are not used as political weapons against individuals.

Probably should focus on implementing strong labor protections and encouraging union participation (which would blunt the effect this sort of weapon has), instead of eliminating them.

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#46

Post by homonculus1 »

tenpies wrote: post #33
inglor_cz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where we are now. Long shadows of Hitler and eugenics do certainly have a chilling effect on research of intelligence etc. This article published last year in the New Yorker goes into details. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressiv... I get the political unease that surrounds such topics, but with things like CRISPR making gene editing possible, we could improve inborn traits in living…

> Long shadows of Hitler and eugenics do certainly have a chilling effect on research of intelligence etc. Speaking solely about eugenics: it wasn't Hitler, eugenics were largely considered progressive at the time and the Right Thing To Do. Most of the Nordic countries today that Western countries admire have eugenics programs to some degree or another, they just don't use the word eugenics. You could argue that the…

Here's a fun game: search "Margaret Sanger quotes" and then count how many blue-pills you need to dose yourself to remain ideologically comfortable.

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#47

Post by bluejekyll »

duxup wrote: post #35

The loss of humanity in Russia and Eastern Europe surrounding (not just during) WWII is astounding. If you weren’t persecuted by your own country you might be by an invading nation… and then again by a second invasion… It seems like if you were at all prominent or notably educated someone would be suspicious of you. And if you weren’t you still had a risk of random events.

Something interesting is that historically this area seems to have been under significant conflict in various times in history. For example, The massive movements of the Goths across northern Europe due to the Huns movement into Eastern Europe in the late 300's. This came towards the end of the Western Roman Empire, with some blaming these massive population movements (100's of thousands of Goths) into the grain producing regions of Rome in Spain and Northern Africa. That eroded the tax base and grain production for Rome.

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#49

Post by JaimeThompson »

newsclues wrote: post #23
ch4s3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t recall anyone being sent to work camps for criticizing government policy in the US recently.

Work camps are just the extreme of the policies that we have yet to implement. We seem to be lubing the slippery slope towards it though, with political correctness and cancel culture.

When do you think cancel culture started?

Re: The 1936-1937 Purge of Soviet Astronomers (1991)

#50

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

thesz wrote: post #16
simonh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He was vindicated by modern science. He denied that genetic heritability existed and that all characteristics were propagated epigenetically. That's hardly been vindicated. In practice his theories and practical policies were utterly disastrous. It is true that since then we have found some mechanisms by which some traits can propagate epigenetically, but characterising that as vindicating Lysenkoism is absurd.

I believe he denied existence of genes, not heretability of traits.

DNA wasn't yet discovered when he was alive, and "genes" were an abstract philosophical concept.
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