Video games made in the USSR (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#161

Post by int_19h » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

augustuspolius wrote: post #85

alwayslikethis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "genocide" is the right term here. It is part of a wider man-made famine, which is an act of great evil perpetrated by the communist regime, but it affected all parts of the southern USSR, including areas with mainly ethnic Russian populations. For more information, you may want to read more about the policies that led to this event, such as "dekulakization"

I am aware that genocide is a disputed term in this context. I lean towards it because the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians (and Kazakhs) and was at least in part not mitigated intentionally to punish minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment.

There's an interesting question there whether the primary distinction for those "minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment" was ethnic or economic. It just so happens that your average Ukrainian (and, to a lesser extent, southern Russian) peasant was a fair bit more rich - partly because of better soil and climate, and partly because the brutal Russian take on serfdom wasn't practiced as long there as it had been in central Russia. And rich peasants were considered "economic enemies", which Soviets interpreted in very draconian terms (tainted the whole family).

But, of course, this possibility does not exclude the other. If this was the primary motivation, however, it neatly explains why some southern Russian regions were also severely affected despite not having any separatist tendencies.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#162

Post by nullifidian » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

qwytw wrote: post #113

FpUser wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Novgorod was conquered by Moscow" Every territory got conquered at some point. Most "Quite Brutally". This is how current countries were born.

Perhaps, but I was replying to the comment above... Modern Russia is clearly a successor state to the Grand Duchy of Moscow so I don't really see how can it have a bigger claim to the history of Novgorod than to that of Kiev/other ancient city states in the current territory of Ukraine.

> don't really see how can it have a bigger claim to the history of Novgorod

Maybe not bigger, but the people of Novgorod now live in Russia and believe they are Russians. What's with that state-centric view? Ukrainians are Ukrainians despite multiple occupations, but if Novgorodian people believe they are Russians it's illegitimate and they lose all the claims, and are now relegated to have their claims go through Kiev->Moscow. Only "pure" identities with existing independent states can have claims?

This "Ukraine is the true Rus, and Russians are some splinter northern Finno-Ugric goblins" nationalist narrative is just tiresome and incoherent. It's pretty obvious that both sides have about the same level of claim.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#163

Post by GauntletWizard » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:48 AM UTC

podviaznikov wrote: post #112

grishka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the individual level, the boundaries are really blurry. I'm a Russian. I know many Ukrainians. Often, when you meet a Ukrainian, you'll never know that they are, in fact, from Ukraine, unless you ask. Sometimes their pronunciation ("г" as "h" instead of "g") would give them away, but other than that, there are practically zero differences — especially cultural ones. We really are mostly the same people and we shou…

As a Ukrainian living abroad for 12 years it’s the opposite for me. It’s easy to spot russian person: visually, by russian accent, by English accent, by the way of carrying themselves and so on. There were always tons of different queues: not 100% accurate, but many good heuristics.

Both can be true; Russia is a big place that's sort of an amalgam itself.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#164

Post by int_19h » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:49 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #135

justsomehnguy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am aware Yet you use it. > I lean towards Maybe because you just want to use it? Just look at the map[0], read the legend. Explain who were the people in 18, 17, 11 regions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg

Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U... That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...

This particular map is the territory claimed by the then still newly-minted Ukrainian state. Basically the then-current Ukrainian equivalent of the likes of Greater Serbia, Greater Hungary etc.

There was no border in those territories for so long, anything they could have drawn wouldn't really have any meaningful historical connection. So IIRC they went by the Russian Imperial demographic maps and claimed most territories on those showed >25% "Malorossians". Ironically, this ended up pilfering some territories from Belarus, as well - note where Pinsk is on that map!

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#165

Post by int_19h » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:53 AM UTC

Georgelemental wrote: post #107

Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Written years ago when, let’s admit it, most of us were still writing “Kiev” because we didn’t know better and were, of course, ignorant.

My understanding is that most residents of Kyiv/Kiev speak Russian day-to-day, and therefore are more likely to use "Kiev" themselves. Russian language ≠ Russian state

It's a bit convoluted. Those people may speak Russian, but then "Kiev" is not a Russian spelling - it's a transliteration of one into other languages. And since those other languages are already foreign, they might as well prefer "Kyiv" for, basically, symbolic reasons.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#166

Post by int_19h » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:57 AM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #51

rosnd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, to be fair, is something that much of the Ukrainian population still does. It's mostly foreigners that see this as something important.

A lot of Ukrainians I know seem to be speaking much more Ukrainian than they did a few years ago. People from Russian speaking towns. There does seem to be a serious de-russification vibe, stronger than ever and definitely not just something foreigners are interested in. I'll give just one small example that I'm reminded of... There's been a lot of drama about signs when you enter a town. Russians will capture a town…

Russia focused so much on language issues to justify what it's doing that it backfired - in any discussion where Russian vs Ukrainian can be brought up, it will inevitably be symbolic now, regardless of what people speak.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#167

Post by ace2358 » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 9:58 AM UTC

NovaVeles wrote: post #133

danielodievich wrote: post #20

Tetris creator Aleksey and few of his company were bought out and borught to Seattle in early oughts by Microsoft and they made a bunch of games for MSN Zone. There was one called Hexic that I remember him posting into a Russian email alias with an offer to take whoever got 5 black pearls first to dinner with him, which I think took out od a good portion of Russians on that channel out of circulation for a day or two…

Only question I would ask him is what he though of the love letter than is the 2018 game Tetris Effect?

I love Tetris and DJing. It’s like two of my favourite things combined!

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#168

Post by nullifidian » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 10:12 AM UTC

justsomehnguy wrote: post #138

asveikau wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U... That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...

> Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders I would prefer a slighly more credible resource than a postcard made in times of great turmoil. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropays... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Su...

The second map separates big cities and the rest, could look misleading in some cases.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#169

Post by MomoXenosaga » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

Eastern Germany was very big in industrial espionage and they shared everything with their big brother.

Ofcourse just having access to the latest chip designs doesn't mean you can mass produce them so it never amounted to anything even remotely challenging Western technological hegemony.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#170

Post by podviaznikov » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 10:27 AM UTC

GauntletWizard wrote: post #163

podviaznikov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Ukrainian living abroad for 12 years it’s the opposite for me. It’s easy to spot russian person: visually, by russian accent, by English accent, by the way of carrying themselves and so on. There were always tons of different queues: not 100% accurate, but many good heuristics.

Both can be true; Russia is a big place that's sort of an amalgam itself.

Parent comment is mostly true to russian people.

They assume if the other people know russian language and understand their culture it means everything else is the same. But lots of nations in that region in addition to understanding russian language and culture have their own.

A and that is why it can never be said that we are the same people.

At a minimum such statements and observations come as the result of ignorance - there are not many russian people that I know that would come and visit Ukrainian museums or ask for a tour or ask a question about Ukrainian history.

If you have settled world view and don’t try to learn of course you will not see counterexamples of what you believe in IRL and you would just write decades old cliches like “we are the same people”