Wish I could read it but the constant popups on mobile drove me away. I would have expected better from this website.
Here you go. https://archive.ph/gFnLH
Russia killed its tech industry
131–140 of 285 posts
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
2/3 of world's population won't have any issue converting currency to yuan if BRICS decide to use it for mutual commerce (though I doubt a WW3 won't happen before this happens).
India will never agree.
Is it because of occasional skirmishes in Himalayas or something else?
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not downplaying the achievements, I'm saying they could've been a lot greater if the system didn't try to mutilate and murder it's author.
You're right it could've been a lot greater however you should apply the same analysis towards the USA as well. If you're black you're all but barred from participating in the space program. This was only recently acknowledged in a Hollywood feel good movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Figures The space program was bootstrapped by Nazis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip I'm saying they achie…
That is a travesty and a loss for everyone, but you cannot compare those two things in good conscience.
>All the while they were actively preventing 399 men from receiving the same treatments.
And:
>The emergent consensus among scholars is that, of the 14 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag camps and the 4 million prisoners who passed through the Gulag colonies from 1930 to 1953, roughly 1.5 to 1.7 million prisoners perished there or they died soon after they were released.[
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Preserved” in the original state, like in museum - yes. Russian communities outside Russia rarely contributed anything new to it. Russian culture actively developed in last 30 years, against all odds and efforts of the state, which coincidentally wanted to freeze it or roll back in time too. Russian language indeed borrowed a few words, but this is not a bad thing, it’s a common reflection of Zeitgeist that happened…
Russians outside Russia for the last 100 years have contributed literature, music, movies, and helped to introduce Russian cultural aspects to the West. In the past 30 years this only accelerated. Even before this war there were huge numbers of Russian intellectuals, artists, etc living in the West, but contributing to Russian culture.
I’ve been reading a lot of books in Russian, watched lots of movies and attended a lot of contemporary art exhibitions in Moscow and St.Petersburg. I’m struggling to find any traces of such contribution of emigrant communities in the last 30 years (well, maybe Akunin or Sorokin?). There are a few names from Soviet times, but they represent a fraction of what’s been happening and emigrants usually reflect on the past.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now have a think how different things would look if Russia would've been an more liberal europeanesque superpower instead of a communist kleptocracy.
USSR achieved around a century of advancement under capitalism in the west a few decades after USSR was formed. Despite US having vastly more resources than USSR, the Soviets were able to keep ahead of US in many technological advancements. Maybe you yourself should think of what the west could've achieved if it wasn't run by oligarch kleptocrats.
Indeed. That's the point here. Russia was high up on the axis of overall innovation. But by adopting the bolshevist/communistic terror system, the direction of progress was permanently set into a downward direction. It is a loss for all of humanity at 100% certainty.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re conflating a group of pro-western enterprise software developers - with little to no adulthood responsibilities aside their work, due to their age - with a group of the brightest folks.
Software developers make up maybe a third of that wave, if that. There's also artists, scientists, teachers, journalists, political activists and all kinds of other folks that simply don't see the future in the country. A lot of them are families with kids, so it's often not the lack of responsibilities but a higher willingness to take the risk.
Political activists and journalists are hardly the brightest group of people either, so you’re just assigning the opposition group that you prefer to align with, with a token of “the brightest” because it makes you feel good about it. How about you look at the rest of the society who couldn’t or weren’t willing to leave the country and who still run projects in Russia despite the sanctions. Are they not the brightest because they work and associate their career within - let’s say for the sake of the argument - Rosatom? That’s just one hard science sector of the vast energy industry of the country, for starters.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Enough to defend. Not enough to win decisively. Timing matters. If EU and USA provided the help that they did but in the first 6 months - Ukraine would have already won. But the help is drip-fed to Ukraine, supposedly to "not escalate". The result is that the war that could be already over is dragging on, and eventually people will stop helping for one reason or another. If we want a quick win for Ukraine we should s…
You are wrong about your military assessment. A quick win would mean Russia would hold on to a lot of military resources. By providing Ukraine just enough to deny Russia any wins, and Russia stupid enough to not pull out, they are basically draining Russia to death. Right now Russia is sending T-54's to the battlefield. Their 'storm the front' tactics is killing their soldiers at a crazy rate. Now this is the militar…
Russia has nukes, it doesn't matter how much we drain its military, it can just freeze the war, go back and rebuild. Let's say it takes 10 years. It's not solving the issue, just pushing it back to reappear later.
On the other hand a decisive win for Ukraine followed by western-integration success story there - would directly contradict Putin's core internal justification for keeping his power (west is lying ,democracy is bullshit, ruskie people are different and if we try democracy it would just be 90s again). If Ukrainians have democracy and are more successful than Russians (and Russians would know - they have families and travel) - this whole system (not only Putin - but all his FSB friends, oligarchs, orthodox church, state media etc) - break down.
Remember that they are constantly telling their people that Ukraine doesn't exist, Ukrainians are just Russians brainwashed into believing "western lies". If these western lies WORK - it's the end of putin & company.
This is the most likely road to a democratic, constructive Russia. Such Russia would be a massive boon for EU and NATO, both Russia and its neighbors wouldn't need to waste billions of dollars on weapons. And of course it would be a massive improvement for Russians. Actual rule of law. Local self-government with reinvestment of oil money into infrastructure & education. The possibilities are endless. But it would require Russia to go through the imperial cycle to its conclusion - decisively losing a colonial war, realizing we're the bad guys, dealing with the history, etc. You need the defeat for that.
If we keep Russia alive we're making this very hard. Much more likely it will become a big North Korea.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re conflating a group of pro-western enterprise software developers - with little to no adulthood responsibilities aside their work, due to their age - with a group of the brightest folks.
People who left the country are not just software developers. We have seen the exodus of musicians, scientists etc, which after some very painful decision process just packed their things and took next flight anywhere. Many took their families.
Software engineers were a simple example of the conflation point. Those who left and those who’re the brightest aren’t the same group.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re conflating a group of pro-western enterprise software developers - with little to no adulthood responsibilities aside their work, due to their age - with a group of the brightest folks.
> pro-western What does being pro- or anti-West has to do with the topic? There are many Russian expats in Germany who openly manifest their support for Putin's war on the streets of Berlin. You can be anti-Western and at the same time pragmatically leave Russia to avoid draft and being killed for basically no reason.
That’s a fair point. I was trying to exemplify the conflation point between two groups with the assigned traits (“the brightest” vs “rest of them”) with bringing my own selection of people everyone would clearly disagree with to be a valid representation.
Re: Russia killed its tech industry
#140You can vote yourself into authoritarianism, but you cannot vote yourself out. And when that authoritarian you love so much makes a major blunder, invading Europe for example, he takes everyone with him, and that's by design.
>a major blunder On the contrary this war is Putin's multiyear bet on Russia's useful idiots in the West. US Republicans overwhelmingly supported US military aid to Ukraine in the beginning of the war. However Tucker Carlson and other populists spend the next 12 months lowering that support to less than 40%. The only reason Russia started this war is because they believed their useful idiots in the West will save the…
> On the contrary this war is Putin's multiyear bet on Russia's useful idiots in the West.
It's not even that complicated. His bet was that the West would respond the same as we did with Georgia, Chechenya, and the Donbas/Crimean invasion of 2014.
It was 'safe' to assume that the West would react the same with a complete invasion of Ukraine. Seems like not.
If Putin was smart, he would have gracefully pulled out of this. But seems like he much rather want to turn his country into a new North Korea.