171–180 of 324 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree - although the shine has rather worn off the ‘move fast and break things’ approach.
SpaceX is doing fine woth that approach?
But when Musk took that approach to DOGE, chaos.
And some of the approach hasn’t always gone well at Tesla either.
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/06/01/elon-musk-wan...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/24/elon-musk-...
Was curious to know the calculations involved. Found them to be pretty simple. Vibe-coded an online calculator for future escapists: https://balloon-lift-calculator.pagey.site
Now calculate the necessary rate of fuel burn and fuel requirement for a given trip; tensile and tear strength needed for the balloon material and seams. Tbf they probably didn't do all these calculations, but should have. They risked their lives by getting some of these things wrong.
Thanks..
To see a bigger picture let's juxtapose these escapes with the life of Luke of Simferopol (N. F. Voyno-Yasenetsky). He was a surgeon and a bishop of the Orthodox church. He opposed the anti-church policies of the Soviet government, was sent into an exile into Siberia and nearly died there. Then the war came. So he wrote a letter to Soviet officials asking to be sent to work in a hospital near the front, where his surgical skills would be of much use. At the end he added: "When the war is over I'm ready to go back to exile".
It is interesting how dictatorships for resourceless countries needed to keep the people in like east germany or czechoslovakia. But current dictatorships with natural resources like Venezuela or Iran let dissent go. It makes them more stable sadly.
Since West Germany considered East Germany to be occupied territory, East Germans had automatic citizenship in the west. This made it uniquely easy to emigrate into the much wealthier country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably this is an also big component in the notorious German preference for cash over cards.
That was caused by interchange fees, and it has disappeared now.
My ex partner wouldn’t even allow location services on her phone to put exif data in photos.
It is interesting how dictatorships for resourceless countries needed to keep the people in like east germany or czechoslovakia. But current dictatorships with natural resources like Venezuela or Iran let dissent go. It makes them more stable sadly.
Since West Germany considered East Germany to be occupied territory, East Germans had automatic citizenship in the west. This made it uniquely easy to emigrate into the much wealthier country.
For the East there were 2 citizenships. They had no adjectives, they only talked about "citizen of the German Democratic Republic" and "citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany".
The occupation view was not official politics after 1970. The West had recognized the East as a state. But citizens of both states were assumed to have the same citizenship.
Edit: recognized as state should maybe recognized as some kind of state. Like the citizenship there were numerous differences compared to other foreign nation states.
This reminds of a person I read about on HN years ago - a Russian guy who escaped from the USSR jumping off a cruise liner and swimming a couple of days to Philippines. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Kurilov [1] https://www.amazon.com/Alone-Ocean-Slava-Kurilov-S/dp/965555...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That was caused by interchange fees, and it has disappeared now.
It’s still a thing in some areas from direct experience recently. Hell it’s still a thing with former East Germans I know in the UK. And it’s not about interchange fees - it’s about purchase surveillance. My ex partner wouldn’t even allow location services on her phone to put exif data in photos.
This should be standard practice, I do it as well. Not East German but East European. We had our own Stasi that would terrorize youths for listening to Western music of Radio Free Europe.
But not that surprising when you look at Russian history.
- What capitalists did in 6 months that communists didn't manage in 50 years? - Make communism look good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_nostalgia
- No poor people; everyone supported by the State; Everyone works for the common good; shared resources no matter how lucky or unlucky you are…
From an intentional and moral perspective, nothing can beat it.
However it fails and will always fail because of a couple of important reasons:
- it requires the sacrifice of freedom and individuality. - it needs to suppress any other political alternative - it’s finally always implemented by humans (flawed by default) that have their own benefit as a goal.
Even with constant examples of countries demonstrating why communism always ends up being a perverse system, many people still romanticize the system. Interestingly usually only people in free capitalist societies.