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Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#201

Post by mindslight »

pydry wrote: post #179
mindslight wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that since the borders are expensive to defend, that would lead to trying to be more efficient with human life and other limited resources, rather than less. Furthermore, talking about the defense of Russian borders is kind of ridiculous in the context of the current attack on Ukraine, where Russia is trying to expand its borders which would otherwise remain stationary. It only makes sense if you interp…

>Furthermore, talking about the defense of Russian borders is kind of ridiculous in the context of the current attack on Ukraine, where Russia is trying to expand its borders which would otherwise just remain stationary. It's expanding at the points where the Nazi advance almost succeeded in breaking the USSR, where Russia has its only warm water ports and where, long term, NATO, the alliance that destroyed Libya on…

You're no longer talking about defense, but rather trying to justify an offensive war. Those lines on the map are Schelling points that had enabled a great deal of peace. And frankly they were much more defensible through their legitimacy with other nations, than whatever geographic obstacles are hoped to be obtained.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#202

Post by xwdv »

Animats wrote: post #193

Ah, the glory days of America. Yesterday, the local market was out of eggs and bananas. There were long lines at too few staffed checkouts. There's a homeless encampment in the mall's parking area. This is in Silicon Valley.

The only solace I find as Americans crumble into poverty and wage slavery is that there is no real better alternative in the world today. The entire world’s glory days are behind it, every place is getting shitty. Everything is expensive and few people are thriving. The future looks joyless and barely survivable.

To me the explanation for why everything got shitty all at once is obvious: the global pandemic “synchronized” all nations and produced hardship everywhere simultaneously. Fragile systems in every country were strained.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#203

Post by pjscott »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #124
avgcorrection wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then he saw the bananas. He really wanted bananas. He wouldn't ask for bananas. So I grabbed a bunch and put them in the basket. And then I told Andrei and Volodya about Banana Republics.

I’m always a bit surprised that Soviet era Capitalist propaganda remains so effective to this day. Of course Capitalism looks fantastic from the exploiters’ perspective. Today more than ever it should be clear that the opulence of America in the 90s is completely unsustainable on a global scale. That way of live has always been reserved for a global minority, one many of us may find ourselves excluded from in our lif…

Bananas are a photogenic edge case, not a staple food. Far more representative of America's food-wealth are grains and meat -- which it produces in enormous amounts, and exports to the rest of the world. That doesn't happen by exploiting other countries, because no other countries are involved; it happens because of technology, because of mechanized agriculture and high-yield seeds and synthetic fertilizer and many other under-appreciated pillars of the modern world. And those technologies have been spreading through the world, lifting people out of poverty in vast numbers.

I won't ask you to show appreciation for heroes like Haber and Bosch and Borlaug and all the rest, but they have my thanks.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#204

Post by chupasaurus »

int_19h wrote: post #113
thriftwy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For worker class in Russia, it is super common to own (as opposed to rent) your own apartment and also own a country house ("dacha"). You may be otherwise piss-poor, wage wise. The supermarkets has improved greatly though - not quite the USA level, but on par with Western Europe or sometimes slightly better (more chains, easier to eat healthy)

Today, sure. In USSR, no apartment was privately owned, though. You were assigned one "according to your needs" - e.g. when I was a kid, my extended family of 5 (me, my parents, and my mom's parents) had a two-bedroom apartment of 48.5 m^2 total, 27.2 m^2 of which was the two bedrooms. To give an idea of the size, here's the floor layout of that exact series of apartment buildings: https://i.imgur.com/ImxdsUG.jpeg (N…

There was a thing called building cooperatives which gave out the rights to gift or sell the apartment after the mortgage was paid. The private ownership on real estate was legalized in 1990 through that system.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#205

Post by ihatepython »

bane wrote: post #167
ubermonkey wrote: post #9

I dunno about Yeltsin and the Houston store, but I do know this: I went on a student tour of the USSR as a college student in 1991, arranged through my University (U of Alabama). I was getting a minor in Russian language, and it seemed like a fun trip. It actually got MORE fun because in the run-up to the trip (in spring, 91) there was some dissent in the USSR and many parents wouldn't let their kids go. In order to…

In 1995 I had the pleasure to be part of a State Department sponsored "cultural exchange" with our then new friends in the Russian Federation. Basically it amounted to myself and about a dozen others, organized into a small chamber orchestra going to Russia for a summer, and in exchange a group of Russians formed into folk/pop entertainment group visiting and staying with us for a while during the school year. I can'…

What did they think when they went to Best Buy? (or maybe it was CompUSA, Radio Shack, or Circuit City back then)

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#206

Post by pjscott »

Animats wrote: post #193

Ah, the glory days of America. Yesterday, the local market was out of eggs and bananas. There were long lines at too few staffed checkouts. There's a homeless encampment in the mall's parking area. This is in Silicon Valley.

Sounds like a combination of (a) panic-buying of commodities that people heard were in short supply, similar to the Great Toilet Paper Incident, and (b) local government that doesn't do anything about homeless encampments in mall parking lots. Over in my part of America, and as far as I can tell most parts of America, things go on as usual but with higher prices for some foods.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#207

Post by pavlov »

danielodievich wrote: post #198

Few years into our emigration to USA, my family brought my grandfather over to USA. He was a blue collar worker, electrician at the cement factory, entering that profession right after the war, which he spent under the occupation and mostly I think as a shepherd for cows and pigs in what is now Belarus. He has built several houses in his life and was always incredibly handy with tools. We took him to Home Depot. He l…

Now the challenge for us is that we’re still stuck thinking stores full of Chinese junk is the pinnacle of civilization and we’re unable to know any better despite accumulating evidence of planetary destruction.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#208

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ihatepython wrote: post #205
bane wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1995 I had the pleasure to be part of a State Department sponsored "cultural exchange" with our then new friends in the Russian Federation. Basically it amounted to myself and about a dozen others, organized into a small chamber orchestra going to Russia for a summer, and in exchange a group of Russians formed into folk/pop entertainment group visiting and staying with us for a while during the school year. I can'…

What did they think when they went to Best Buy? (or maybe it was CompUSA, Radio Shack, or Circuit City back then)

Best Buy has been around since the early 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Buy

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#209

Post by bane »

tomcam wrote: post #187
bane wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1995 I had the pleasure to be part of a State Department sponsored "cultural exchange" with our then new friends in the Russian Federation. Basically it amounted to myself and about a dozen others, organized into a small chamber orchestra going to Russia for a summer, and in exchange a group of Russians formed into folk/pop entertainment group visiting and staying with us for a while during the school year. I can'…

That sounds like a once in a lifetime experience. What kind of music did you play, exactly? What instrument did you play?

I played violin. We played a mix of classical music and pop film scores. A local composer in one of the areas we visited composed a song for our group that we also played a few times.

The Russians played half late 80s early 90s synth pop and half Russian folk music complete with wardrobe changes. They were really cool.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#210

Post by bane »

ihatepython wrote: post #205
bane wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1995 I had the pleasure to be part of a State Department sponsored "cultural exchange" with our then new friends in the Russian Federation. Basically it amounted to myself and about a dozen others, organized into a small chamber orchestra going to Russia for a summer, and in exchange a group of Russians formed into folk/pop entertainment group visiting and staying with us for a while during the school year. I can'…

What did they think when they went to Best Buy? (or maybe it was CompUSA, Radio Shack, or Circuit City back then)

I don't recall making it to an electronics store at the time. But I do remember talking a lot about the state of consumer tech. Most of what we talked about or showed them in our homes was familiar even if they didn't have this or that device at home. My host family for example had a color TV, a Dendy NES clone, and a boom box that my host brother endlessly played Metallica mix tapes on. I saw a few desktop computers in passing, but have no idea what they were. They shared a single phone with the entire apartment building. It sat outside and was red. I think it looks almost exactly like the phones in Half Life Alyx.

The Internet was very nascent at the time and they all seemed nonplussed by the BBS scene.

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