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Children's Railways of the Former USSR

dzd-ussr.ru

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Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#71

Post by andrepd »

dmingod666 wrote: post #43
erulabs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomas Aquinas (just to name one) was a scholar of the highest order and was absolutely not just pretending to be a Christian. It’s a strange worldview to imagine that Christianity provided no academic contributions to the world. To some extent, it invented academics. This is more or less z I am not a Christian and was for a long time a fairly militant atheist - but this point is historical fact.

Religion is a human need - maybe not an obvious animalistic one but because it crops up with every civilization, I think it isn't something on the outside, it's something within us. Wheather you think it's a means of social control, a way to create distinct in-vs out group, a means to cope with death or whatever you attributes you give to it.. Just because you can rationalise it doesn't mean it goes away.. just like…

Religion is far from a universal biological need. The proof of that is in the huge rise of secularity after (i) we began to rationally understand the universe, including deep questions such as how our bodies minds work, the origin the universe, etc, and (ii) religious freedom meant people could freely reject the dominant religion and not be killed for it, which is usually a pretty strong motivator to "love" the dominant religion.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#72

Post by andrepd »

LambdaComplex wrote: post #50
WalterBright wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Libertarian movement is inherently individualistic. Where do people get these ideas? Libertarianism is all about freedom, including the freedom to cooperate with others. For example, a baseball team is all about voluntary cooperation for a common goal. Nobody is forced to play. Baseball has nothing whatsoever inconsistent with Libertarianism. What Libertarianism lacks is forcing people to conform and cooperate.

What you describe may very well be a valid definition of "Libertarianism," but Libertarianism's modern form (at least in the United States) seems to fundamentally rely on the belief that individuals are on equal footing with megacorporations and that therefore removing restrictions on said megacorporations will result in them acting in ways that are better for society rather than worse. But, given things such as the…

Yes, unfortunately "Libertarian" in the US is a synonym for anarcho-capitalist.

Those people would have a stroke if they knew what Libertarian used to mean in the 19th century... ;)

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#74

Post by vkou »

anovikov wrote: post #42
nonrandomstring wrote: post #9

> Then, why is it "Children's?", you might ask. Because it is operated by the schoolchildren, 9-15 years old. This blew my mind, and immediately made me think of John Taylor-Gatto [1] who won numerous teaching awards trying, but ultimately failing, to convince American teachers to show children the same respect. My 30 year old masters students are not even allowed to run their own WiFi network never mind an actual RA…

These children were mostly railway workers' kids. Whole purpose of it was to teach them railway jobs were cool to make them follow their parents' steps. In the Soviet Union, and to a great extent in Russia till now, railway system is very independent from the State. It's frequently called a state within a state. It has it's own power stations, construction departments that build among other things, housing for worker…

> housing for workers, their own hospitals and even their own medical schools, it's own police, their own hotels and Black Sea resorts for workers,

Other large enterprises in the USSR had similar things, to one extent or another. Railway police are common in other countries.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#75

Post by vkou »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #35
smeej wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of scientists, authors, and innovators who were not only Catholics, but Catholic priests is enormous. Maybe you've met some dopey religious folks, but don't paint with too broad a brush.

Yep, and a lot of them lived back when being accused of heresy by the church was literally a death sentence. So again, not exactly an environment that fostered critical thinking, certainly one that punished speaking out against the church in any sort of way. Galileo, for example, was condemned on his death bed by the pope and buried in an unceremoniously small room next to the novice's chapel for almost 100 years bef…

Galileo didn't get in trouble for his theories about the Earth and the Sun, he got in trouble for making theological conclusions from them, and for being an utterly insufferable douche who also managed to personally piss off the pope.

His theories also did not have a scientific backing, given the knowledge available at the time, and were closer to wild-ass guesses that just happened to be right.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#76

Post by tallanvor »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #63
nightpool wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I'm sure whatever beef you have with IT staff and admin policy is completely well-founded. But comparing the children's railway to IT limitations preventing graduate students from running their own WiFi networks is absolutely ridiculous. University IT has lots of good reasons for centralizing the administration and allocation of WiFi networks that have nothing to do with "children" (30 year olds) not being "res…

This is a complex area that I can't sensibly respond to in this forum. But JFYI I have written counter-policy documents and popular articles [1] that sparked investigations into how ITC is managed in educational institutions. Things do need to change. [1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/we-cant-teach-...

That article doesn't say anything about wifi networks, or about why you wouldn't be able to setup an isolated lab for students to try out attacking access points. And for such an isolated lab (no internet access is required), I can't imagine a university IT department having to be involved except possible to request that the lab have isolation to prevent the APs you're using from interfering with theirs.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#77

Post by avodonosov »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #9

> Then, why is it "Children's?", you might ask. Because it is operated by the schoolchildren, 9-15 years old. This blew my mind, and immediately made me think of John Taylor-Gatto [1] who won numerous teaching awards trying, but ultimately failing, to convince American teachers to show children the same respect. My 30 year old masters students are not even allowed to run their own WiFi network never mind an actual RA…

The responsibility here is to give rides to other children. It is not used for real transportation needs.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#78

Post by pjc50 »

deepdriver wrote: post #3

The steam locomotives (scroll down for color photos) look remarkably like Thomas the Tank Engine: http://www.dzd-ussr.ru/towns/gorky/foto1-eng.html Those photos are from the late 1990s, so maybe the resemblance is intentional.

Other than being a steam engine in the same shade of light blue .. no? Different number of wheels, and without the characteristic rectangular water tanks on the side of the boiler that makes it a tank engine.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#79

Post by orthoxerox »

anovikov wrote: post #42
nonrandomstring wrote: post #9

> Then, why is it "Children's?", you might ask. Because it is operated by the schoolchildren, 9-15 years old. This blew my mind, and immediately made me think of John Taylor-Gatto [1] who won numerous teaching awards trying, but ultimately failing, to convince American teachers to show children the same respect. My 30 year old masters students are not even allowed to run their own WiFi network never mind an actual RA…

These children were mostly railway workers' kids. Whole purpose of it was to teach them railway jobs were cool to make them follow their parents' steps. In the Soviet Union, and to a great extent in Russia till now, railway system is very independent from the State. It's frequently called a state within a state. It has it's own power stations, construction departments that build among other things, housing for worker…

It's the railways in the US that have their own private police force. Soviet and Russian railways had/have dedicated departments responsible for the railways within the larger national police force, because otherwise local police departments along the route would have to coordinate train-related crimefighting themselves.

Re: Children's Railways of the Former USSR

#80

Post by wrp »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #34
wrp wrote: post #21

So, these were educational projects, the purpose being to instill in children a sense of responsibility. I'd be interested in hearing about how well it worked. I've lived in rural America and I see a huge difference in maturity between suburban and farm kids. The daily responsibilities of farm life seem to instill a focus and determination that carries into the workplace. The trains project would be a much less immer…

Just curious why do you say it would be a less immersive experience? Running a train system is no small thing. From drawing up time tables to ad hoc rerouting when something inevitably breaks to all the signal and rolling stock maintenance...

The trains experience would be something children would voluntarily spend a few hours on occasionally. Farm life would be a daily responsibility that children would have no option of walking away from. I anticipate that children running a train could be very immersed in the moment, but the goal of the activity was to instill a sense of responsibility, and I'm wondering how effective that transitory experience would be.
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