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Video games made in the USSR (2020)

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Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#171

Post by d3vmax »

grishka wrote: post #83
jltsiren wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine. I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the border…

At the individual level, the boundaries are really blurry. I'm a Russian. I know many Ukrainians. Often, when you meet a Ukrainian, you'll never know that they are, in fact, from Ukraine, unless you ask. Sometimes their pronunciation ("г" as "h" instead of "g") would give them away, but other than that, there are practically zero differences — especially cultural ones. We really are mostly the same people and we shou…

I disagree with you. Ukranian and Russians are not the same people. It is this type of thinking that Ukranian people are same is what got us in today's soup. And it's a shame of not one person's ambition but of Russian ideology in general and years of acceptance of it. Putin is a reflection of the society not the other way round. So, stop deflecting blame and accept responsibility.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#172

Post by d3vmax »

podviaznikov wrote: post #112
grishka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the individual level, the boundaries are really blurry. I'm a Russian. I know many Ukrainians. Often, when you meet a Ukrainian, you'll never know that they are, in fact, from Ukraine, unless you ask. Sometimes their pronunciation ("г" as "h" instead of "g") would give them away, but other than that, there are practically zero differences — especially cultural ones. We really are mostly the same people and we shou…

As a Ukrainian living abroad for 12 years it’s the opposite for me. It’s easy to spot russian person: visually, by russian accent, by English accent, by the way of carrying themselves and so on. There were always tons of different queues: not 100% accurate, but many good heuristics.

Spot on!

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#173

Post by MomoXenosaga »

int_19h wrote: post #160
orbital-decay wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I mainly see foreigners drawing that false equivalence, and am always puzzled by it, as it seems to be far more persistent than anything constructed by the Soviets themselves. So I don't really think it's rooted in Soviet propaganda, it's always been there, even during early USSR which was worshipping the International. The perception in the US was especially persistent, you can see this in every media ar…

It's not really surprising. The West has always seen USSR as a new reincarnation of the Russian colonial empire, and its nomenclature reflects that. Conversely, Soviet propaganda always focused on "internationalism" and "brotherhood of the nations" (on paper), and thus always made a clear distinction between the two.

Well to be brutally honest the West is just not that interested in the complicated history and ethnicity of that part of the world and just likes to simplify things.

Anything East of Berlin is "Eastern Europe" for instance.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#174

Post by orthoxerox »

jltsiren wrote: post #63
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine. I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the border…

Think of it as England and Ireland. The Wikipedia category [0] is massive, but there's a difference between how the Irish and the English view their two nations. A modal Englishman could say, "the English, the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish built the British Empire together, we should all be proud of what we did", but a modal Irishman would reply, "no, thanks, we didn't need your empire and we don't need your patronizing fraternization". The fact that both of them have a grandparent from Derry and a grandparent from Norfolk wouldn't matter at all.

Ukraine is currently undergoing the same kind of national divorce. Ukrainian roots don't matter, what matters is that one supports the idea of Ukraine being a distinct nation with its own way.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_people_of_Iri...

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#175

Post by orthoxerox »

augustuspolius wrote: post #65
xkcd1963 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've to step in here, because also native Russians starved during the Holodomor. My grandmother saw half-starved people and corpses as a child in the city

Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.

Outside. Basically, there was a broad swath of territories where smallholder peasants thrived and wouldn't agree to collectivization without state terror. It included most of Soviet-controlled Ukraine and a large chunk of southern Russia.

The discussion basically amounts to "are heavy-handed anti-crime policies targeting urban youths racist against Blacks or not?"

- "No they aren't, because they target all urban youths, including Hispanics and Whites, and not just Blacks" - "Yes they are, because they affect a disproportionate share of young Black people. The fact that they affect a disproportionate share of young Hispanics doesn't make it less racist"

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#176

Post by orthoxerox »

romanhn wrote: post #25

Not exactly USSR, but I was a big fan of the very popular 1993 game based on the Russian "Wheel of Fortune" knock off show. The game participants were characters from classic Soviet cartoons. https://youtu.be/RlnsWw-YHlY EDIT: Just read an interview with the author. Looks like he built the game in just one week. His email and personal phone number were included in the title screen, so he often got phone calls, includ…

The same author also made a Battleship game featuring a Russo-Ukrainian War as its setting. The idea sounded completely ridiculous back in the 90's.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#177

Post by justsomehnguy »

int_19h wrote: post #164
asveikau wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U... That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...

This particular map is the territory claimed by the then still newly-minted Ukrainian state. Basically the then-current Ukrainian equivalent of the likes of Greater Serbia, Greater Hungary etc. There was no border in those territories for so long, anything they could have drawn wouldn't really have any meaningful historical connection. So IIRC they went by the Russian Imperial demographic maps and claimed most territ…

It's kinda amusing what these people are bashing current Russian maps with Kherson, yet they are fine with a postcard as the evidence of.. expansive borders.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#178

Post by flohofwoe »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #169

Eastern Germany was very big in industrial espionage and they shared everything with their big brother. Ofcourse just having access to the latest chip designs doesn't mean you can mass produce them so it never amounted to anything even remotely challenging Western technological hegemony.

Not much industrial espionage needed if you can just buy a Z80 CPU in any electronics shop in the West, then decap and put it under a microscope ;)

The bigger and more impressive challenge was "acquiring" the first batch of machinery required to build up the chip manufacturing industry despite the COCOM embargo, now this was apparently some James-Bond-like shit which involved 'proxy companies' in West Germany, which then conveniently went bancrupt to sell off their equipment, and 'somehow' this equipment ended up in East Germany a few months later.

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#179

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

augustuspolius wrote: post #97
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have to agree... No, you just constructed a false dichotomy. Russian Empire and its successor states USSR and Russia is a product of imperialism that was born in Kiev when Grand Prince Vladimir has brought Orthodox Christianity to those lands. This imperialism conquered some territories, lost some territories (Kiev proper), then regained them back and conquered a lot more, then splintered. The current war is the…

It’s a false dichotomy only if you indeed believe that Russia has “created” Ukraine and that Ukrainians are not a real nation. Russia has as much right to claim Ukraine as Ukraine - Russia. None.

There are some people, including some modern Ukrainians, who claim that Ukraine is a continuation state of people who had always lived in that area and have founded Kiev (I assume that it wat this 'ancient Ukraine' you were referring to here [0]). In that case, yes, 'Ukraine' was 'harassed' by itself, as Russia is nothing else, but a state created by this 'ancient Ukraine'.

If you hold another opinion - that Ukrainians are mixed descendants of people who came to live in this area in ~15 century after it was devastated by Mongol invasions and later steppe nomads plundering in 13..14 centuries, then no, Russia could not have harassed it in 'ancient' times.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33948877

Re: Video games made in the USSR (2020)

#180

Post by possiblelion »

vbezhenar wrote: post #145
jltsiren wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine. I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the border…

My mother is Russian. My father is Ukrainian. I never saw any difference between those cultures other than Ukrainian language being a funny version of Russian. I never had any issue communicating with Ukrainian people and then didn't have issues understanding me either. I don't believe there's ANY difference between Russians and Ukrainians. To me it's the one nation and that's about it. Ukrainian-Russian war is a civ…

It's not very relevant to tell people of Ukraine what they should be thinking or identifying as. Even the very first narodniks of the Russian Empire realized the big cultural differences between Ukrainians and Russians. Estonians and Finns are very similar in ways regarding culture and language, yet distinctly different as well. You wouldn't deny Estonia's existence and relegate it to some mistake made by Trotsky in 1918 when he failed to conquer the nation.
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