Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria • Hacker News Board

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#111

Post by TomAbel » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #72

spaetzleesser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" he was apparently good at managing the program." That's one thing a lot of people don't understand. A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Beria was a good manager, so was Himmler who led the Nazi SS. Stalin also was a hard worker and a master bureaucrat.

The same goes for today's leaders of organised crime, you have be CEO-material in order to manage 'Ndrangheta's ~50 billion euros business [1], it's not enough just to be able to kill some guys on a dark street in Catanzaro anymore. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210113-ndrangheta-crime...

Here is a insightful blog post from Erik Bernhardsson on Business secrets from terrible people[1] where he writes about management lessons from the Taliban, Theranos, Al-Qaeda and The Black Kings a crack-dealing gang in Chicago.

And here is an interesting article from the Economist on management lessons from Mexico’s drug lords[2]

[1]https://erikbern.com/2018/08/16/business-secrets-from-terrib...

[2]https://www.economist.com/business/2014/06/25/narconomics Archive of the Economist article https://archive.md/EU3Wd

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#112

Post by arpa » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

caf wrote: post #3

In the Deadlines for Everyone story, isn't part of the joke that the prisoners have the possibility of parole, but the engineers don't?

when my history teacher told me that there was a verdict "ten years' shooting", I thought he was kidding. Apparently he was not. It means 10 years in gulag and then a bullet to the head, provided you survive that ordeal. Paroles, hah!

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#113

Post by Koshkin » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #87

Animats wrote: post #2

Beria really was in charge of the early Soviet nuclear weapons program, and, while everyone was terrified of him, he was apparently good at managing the program. The classic joke about that, and it may not have been a joke, is that after the first bomb worked, the people who would have been shot if it failed got the Hero of the Soviet Union award. The ones that would have been sent to a labor camp got some lesser awa…

The hard antithesis of "fail fast and early so you learn something". The problem with this technique is what to do once you've shot the first group of experts.

Or get fired at your workplace.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#114

Post by ectopod » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #50

spaetzleesser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" he was apparently good at managing the program." That's one thing a lot of people don't understand. A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Beria was a good manager, so was Himmler who led the Nazi SS. Stalin also was a hard worker and a master bureaucrat.

Beria's daughter in law mused to Simon Sebag Montefiore, a recent Stalin biographer, in an interview that "Beria was the kind of man who, if he lived in the United States, might very well have become chairman of General Motors."

This is one of the benefits of capitalism. It provides a relatively harmless occupation for the monsters.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#115

Post by rossdavidh » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

So I guess I'm just a bad person, but after reading this article my thoughts were:

1) the book seems funny, I wish it were available in English

2) the author of this article seems to have not much of a sense of humor

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#116

Post by spaetzleesser » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #107

Animats wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

Don't worry, the US electoral process is very effective at screening out competence in candidates for national office.

That's what the Germans thought until the Nazis started working the system. I bet if Trump had been a little smarter, sometimes kept his mouth shut and not kicked people around all the time, he may have got away with much more.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#117

Post by sangnoir » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

JeremyNT wrote: post #107

Animats wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

Don't worry, the US electoral process is very effective at screening out competence in candidates for national office.

The smart and competent know this, and put on a persona, like Bush II's drawl or Boris Johnson, who intentionally ruffles his hair - as that is the image he wants to project.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#118

Post by ReactiveJelly » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

Animats wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

That’s what I am thinking. It doesn’t even have to be MAGA only. I bet wokeness could also turn into a dictatorship with the right leader. That’s why rohe current US political climate where people think that the other side is evil and can’t be negotiated with is so dangerous. The right leader can make a case that there is a dangerous crisis and that laws have to be suspended to deal with the threat and voila you have…

That's why I'm pre-committing against the death penalty. Even murderers shouldn't be killed by the state. [1] I invite anyone on the right to join me in this stance - It puts a cap on how bad the consequences for our political positions can get.

[1] There's a bunch of edge cases for self-defense and how to apprehend people. I don't have the time to get into these. Most people know what I mean by "Abolish the death penalty".

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#119

Post by jmnicolas » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

I discovered a long time ago that Russian jokes aren't funny for us westerners. My then Russian girlfriend told me a joke and I didn't laugh (I'm sure the translation was top notch she spoke French very well). She then proceeded to tell the joke in Russian to her mother that laughed so much that she had tears in her eyes.

Good times.