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East Germany balloon escape

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Re: East Germany balloon escape

#51

Post by bigstrat2003 »

mothballed wrote: post #36
thenaturalist wrote: post #15

> East Germany immediately increased border security, closed all small airports close to the border, and ordered the planes kept farther inland.[6] Propane gas tanks became registered products, and large quantities of fabric suitable for balloon construction could no longer be purchased. Mail from East Germany to the two escaped families was prohibited.[12] > Erich Strelzyk learned of his brother's escape on the ZDF…

Depends on the form of authoritarian. The two of the richest countries on a GDP PPP basis are Lichtenstein and Singapore, also some of the most free economically, yet they could probably be described as benevolent authoritarian systems. Dubai further behind, although some similar points. It seems authoritarians that know how to use their authority to force the populace to accept (some forms of) freedom can perform be…

That makes sense to me. Authoritarian government is not inherently abusive of citizens, even though it often gets used in rhetoric as though that was the case. It's just that there are no guard rails against the whims of the people in charge, so you better hope you manage to keep good people in charge forever (and that is obviously not going to happen).

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#53

Post by adharmad »

Reminds me of George Gamow and his wife's attempts to escape from the Soviet union by kayaking across the Black sea (first attempt) and the Norwegian sea (second attempt) until he was lucky enough to be given permission to visit the Solvay conference and was able to defect using conventional methods (Simply not returning).

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#55

Post by Terr_ »

mothballed wrote: post #47
martin-t wrote: post #20

One good metric of quality of life (which includes various freedoms) is how many people emigrate or immigrate. Anybody who defends authoritarians has to explain why so many people want to leave and why the regime wants to keep them in. (With some exceptions such as China which weaponizes emigrants by threatening their families.)

If that's the case the theocratic monarchy in UAE takes the cake, I think, although maybe there are similar amounts elsewhere. Pretty much all the highest % immigration countries are monarchy that I can think of, since in those country another tax payer is an easy win and immigrants that cause problem can be instantly booted so there is very little downside to taking anybody with $1 or a job who cares to come. Top Co…

I think "immigrants" is the wrong statistic here, since it includes workers with no path to citizenship. (In some cases, they can't leave because their employer stole their passport.)

It confuses "this is a good place to resettle" with "here I can arbitrage higher wages in order to send money back home."

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#56

Post by Terr_ »

thenaturalist wrote: post #15

> East Germany immediately increased border security, closed all small airports close to the border, and ordered the planes kept farther inland.[6] Propane gas tanks became registered products, and large quantities of fabric suitable for balloon construction could no longer be purchased. Mail from East Germany to the two escaped families was prohibited.[12] > Erich Strelzyk learned of his brother's escape on the ZDF…

The greatest trick authoritarianism ever pulled [0] was convincing people it was competent, rational, or efficient.

Putting young men into fresh uniforms to march in synchrony looks impressive, but in the background sycophancy rules while expertise is wasted, and people who could be improving harvests and preventing floods are slaving away in the "Office of Subversive Objects" trying to figure out the source of the googly-eye scourge being traitorously installed on Dear Leader's statues.

[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/03/20/devil/

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#57

Post by TimTheTinker »

neilv wrote: post #50
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #11

My elementary school showed the Disney movie about this at least once a year.

That movie was also all over the Disney Channel when I was a kid. Many other movies have related messages. And much of the public library books were a couple generations old, plus there was the Cold War, which meant lots of exposure to anti-fascism messages, and to anti-Soviet-like messages. So, today, people of a certain age, who paid attention in school, have been programmed that the secret police saying, "Your pap…

I think a lot of that programming and political action was because at the time there was genuine fear of communism taking over in the US and other western nations (like it already had in Eastern Europe).

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#58

Post by prmoustache »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #43

Wait... People want to escape from communist countries?

A communist country has never existed and never will so we will never know.

Communism is a lovely idea on paper but a complete utopia due to human nature. We are nearly all motherfuckers who if given the chance will try to obtain more power or more wealth than our peers in a group of any size. Thus you can't have all citizens of a given country agree on abandoning private ownership and sharing wealth, work and power in equal terms. Any government that pretended to do that was just faking it and forced their citizens to pretend.

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#59

Post by nunobrito »

lukan wrote: post #22
toephu2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'd be curious into how they acquired so much money

Likely black market deals/work I think. Also just getting a replacement car was not really easy for normal people.

Yes, was noticing the same. It was easy for them to sell the car and get a new one, so this meant a lot of connections and underground "jobs" for the extra revenue.

Anyways, fantastic story. First time reading despite living relatively close.

Re: East Germany balloon escape

#60

Post by neilv »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #57
neilv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That movie was also all over the Disney Channel when I was a kid. Many other movies have related messages. And much of the public library books were a couple generations old, plus there was the Cold War, which meant lots of exposure to anti-fascism messages, and to anti-Soviet-like messages. So, today, people of a certain age, who paid attention in school, have been programmed that the secret police saying, "Your pap…

I think a lot of that programming and political action was because at the time there was genuine fear of communism taking over in the US and other western nations (like it already had in Eastern Europe).

Yes, IIUC, that was one of the things that mobilized a lot of IMHO positive education/propaganda.

It may not have always been for the most noble of reasons (e.g., a very wealthy person not wanting to be disrupted), but the fascism-is-bad messages are still great messages.

For example, "Don't Be a Sucker" (long, but worth a watch sometime for anyone who hasn't seen it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGAqYNFQdZ4

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