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Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

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Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#171

Post by mc32 »

RestlessMind wrote: post #99
394549 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one thing that you didn’t get in the Soviet Union was everyday crime, well, what we understand as crime....but property crimes and such were close to non existent. This isn't about the Soviet Union, but another Communist country. I recently visited China, and was surprised to see that literally every apartment window had aftermarket bars installed (and every enclosed balcony was surrounded by a cage), even 20 s…

True that, for China. When I visited China, Beijing / Shanghai felt safer than San Francisco, especially when walking at the night.

I agree it may “feel” safer, but a lot of that, in my experience, comes down to not knowing what you don’t know about a place. For example, I would say, “oh, yeah, such and such place seems alright, not bad, I walked around and felt fine.” Locals would say something like, what, that’s nuts, we don’t go there unless we’re looking to get knifed, stay away from that area, it’s trouble”. Now, I also know that locals are prone to exaggeration too, but just goes to show that as an outsider we may enjoy naive safety.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#172

Post by rdtsc »

baybal2 wrote: post #47
mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that you didn’t get in the Soviet Union was everyday crime, well, what we understand as crime. Sure they could and did send people off to the camps for weird [political and crimes against the state] offenses, but property crimes and such were close to non existent.

>property crimes and such were close to non existent. Whaaaaaaaat? Well, according to official statistics. From my father's side, we had relatives living in a closed down military city, but they were totally paranoid about break-ins during "Peak Brezhnev." Break ins were 50/50 annual events. Street poverty existed as well, just not in big cities, where classless were either branded as substance abusers and locked awa…

> Break ins were 50/50 annual events.

It really depends on the city and region. For example some of the people I went to school with ended up as serial burglars and pickpocket. Most came from broken homes with alcoholic or otherwise absent parents. Many were caught, sent to prison, then back out again presumably becoming even more hardened criminals. Others from the same school though ended up as software devs in the West, accountants and CEOs.

Going by personal narratives you can basically support either point of view. I've lived in more dangerous places in US in general, yet I've experience more personal harassment and bullying in the Soviet Union in the 80's than here in US. It's just hard to compare overall without good statistics.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#173

Post by eeeuo »

danharaj wrote: post #161
eeeuo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you feel the invasion of Germany in 1944 was in the services of geopolitics? It's not geopolitics to try and determine if fewer people would die with or without Saddam in power. Saddam's chemical attacks against civilians are well documented and not widely disputed. His internal security apparatus was open with their brutality in order to induce fear on the population. I think that the 2nd Iraq War was a mistake,…

> I think that the 2nd Iraq War was a mistake, particularly how the government mislead the people, but I find it absolutely baffling when people will not even honestly address the situation in good faith. The justification for the war was obviously fabricated, so I don't know what sort of good faith you are asking for. Perhaps to debate some post hoc justification for a thoughtless decision that was paid for with the…

I suspect those inside the Warsaw Ghetto may have had different views on intervention than you do.

I absolutely agree that talking about intervention is murky, which was precisely my point.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#174

Post by knuththetruth »

fjsousa wrote: post #126
woah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships. The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry, it is caused by the homeowners who have been blocking apartment building construction in 90% of the city for 50 years.

yeah, of course you can't blame tech itself, but the whole social democracy project is crumbling down. As an european visiting SF it was heart breaking, the disparity of living conditions. spending the first few days commuting from russian hill to the financial district vs visiting the tenderloin in my last few days. I simply can't understand how a city so socially minded accepts such a wealth gap. I mean, it was lik…

>I simply can't understand how a city so socially minded accepts such a wealth gap.

Because “social-mindedness” without at least some opposition to Capitalism is meaningless given the scale of problem that Capitalism creates when things like healthcare and housing are surrendered to it.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#175

Post by mc32 »

golergka wrote: post #147
mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that you didn’t get in the Soviet Union was everyday crime, well, what we understand as crime. Sure they could and did send people off to the camps for weird [political and crimes against the state] offenses, but property crimes and such were close to non existent.

This is one of the myths that a lot of former Soviet Union citizens believe themselves. Unfortunately, crime levels isn't a thing that can be accurately reported from your own experience - you have to rely on some objective outside measure. And while any crime-related news (or any bad news, for that matter) were heavily suppressed, soviet police was equally reluctant to open investigations, because of statistic-based…

Thanks for the insight. It gives a more balanced perspective into the SU.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#177

Post by Johnny555 »

closeparen wrote: post #63

> living five adults to a two room apartment This one has become terrifyingly normalized - even within the industry, people who don’t live this way are decadent irresponsible pigs. People who resent living this way are entitled redneck whiners. And despite all that, don’t you dare suggest you’re not really a member of the evil elite 1%.

Where is that? I work for a startup in the peninsula, and most of our employees over the age of 25 live by themselves (or with a romantic partner). And I don't know of any that live more than one to a bedroom.

Many of the younger employees do live in shared housing, but then, so did I when I moved to SF and that was nearly 3 decades ago.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#178

Post by sangnoir »

bepotts wrote: post #121
jdietrich wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim sticks in the throat of a lot of Europeans, because of the visible level of inequality in the US. We see many of your citizens suffering in ways that simply wouldn't happen in our countries; we struggle to find a charitable way of reconciling that with the claim that America is the best country. If you're the richest and most powerful nation in history, why do you have the highest incarceration rate in the…

Even when Europeans critique the United States, they're critiquing the US from the US liberal perspective. > Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely? Because we don't have a national healthcare system. Why? Because people vote against it. The party in charge of the entire country would cut the government by half if it had the power to do so, and they keep getting elected because a…

> Even when Europeans critique the United States, they're critiquing the US from the US liberal perspective.

You probably know this, but "US liberal perspective" is center-right to the rest of the world (not only Europe). I'd argue they're critiquing from the political center.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#179

Post by LeftTurnSignal »

lord_ring_111 wrote: post #29
jpzisme wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

Of late i have noticed is u praise us or condemn other countries you get down voted.

That's been common for a long time.

I still don't get why someone has to say A is better than everything else. The second someone says A is better, there's an army of people frothing at the mouth who will (usually justifiably) say the opposite. There doesn't seem like any happy mediums anymore. One person is wrong, one person is right, but I'm pretty sure they're usually both right and both wrong.

tl;dr People are silly.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#180

Post by imbokodo »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #149
imbokodo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just go to Wikipedia and look Russia: American Expeditionary Force, North Russia - American Expeditionary Force, Siberia China: Second Opium War - Eight-Nation Alliance ...I could point to dozens more for China, the latest article would probably be... Hainan Island Incident Saudi Arabia: United States withdrawal from Saudi Arabia

First: Many people read a comment. One writes it. It's kind of nice to take the time to put the links in, rather than making all your readers go to Wikipedia and search for themselves. Second: The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't.

> The US withdrew from Saudi Arabia. That doesn't mean they got there by invading. They didn't.

The US says Russia invaded Afghanistan. How did the US occupation of Saudi Arabia differ from what the US always termed as an invasion of Afghanistan?

I mean just the usage of the term "Saudi" Arabia, as if one puppet family had the divine right to rule a peninsula is itself some US/Aramco propaganda.

Also the US withdrew from Arabia because Saudi patriots fought the US military occupation - on Saudi soil and on US soil.

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