While I'm not discounting the current geo-political climate, but every so often you'll see reports that some calamitous event will occur. When it invariably doesn't occur, no one follows up and says "why did you say that, nothing happened". If it does happen though, they can say "See, I told you so!"
Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#22As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would be able to do a better job.
I wish people wouldn't downvote someone for an alternate opinion. It's interesting to see the Russian view point on these things. I think the parent poster is indoctrinated with the typical anti-western mindset, but it's still valid and adds to the discussion. > He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty The Soviet Union was in free fall economically…
Free his people? The man actually walked all over the will of the people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991
Those who grew up in Russia in the 90s see this differently.
People had to turn to growing vegetables in their rural cottages (dachas) to survive. Massive unemployment, staggering inflation. Gang leaders elected as mayors and governors who murdered anyone who dared to oppose them.
Does any of this sound like you would want in your country?
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#23As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would be able to do a better job.
Can vouch that this is a mainstream point of view in Russia.
Virtually nobody takes Gorbachev seriously no matter their political views.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#24As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would be able to do a better job.
Gorbachev inherited 65 years of Soviet communism: a super fragile system, based on very tight, top-down command & control. On the surface these command & control societies appear more orderly than democratic societies, but they are very bad at dealing with complexity and at adapting to big changes. Gorbachev made the "mistake" of perturbing the system too much through his attempts at reform. Also, economically, I don…
The problem with your argument is the existence of China, to this day ruled by the Communist party of China. It's GDP grew by a factor of 25 since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish people wouldn't downvote someone for an alternate opinion. It's interesting to see the Russian view point on these things. I think the parent poster is indoctrinated with the typical anti-western mindset, but it's still valid and adds to the discussion. > He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty The Soviet Union was in free fall economically…
Free his people? The man actually walked all over the will of the people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991 Those who grew up in Russia in the 90s see this differently. People had to turn to growing vegetables in their rural cottages (dachas) to survive. Massive unemployment, staggering inflation. Gang leaders elected as mayors and governors who murdered anyone who dared to oppose them. Does…
People always had to grow vegetables in their dachas to survive up until the collapse of soviet union. In the beginning(1944+ for Estonia) authorities snatched everything you grew and shipped it to russia and murdered anyone who tried to oppose and some who didn't, just in case.
No wonder Moscow lived prosperously:)
I remember very vividly the empty shelves in shops as long as I can remember and my memories span few years before Gorbatchev came to power.
The referendum results are interesting. Estonian independence referendum results division matches closely the ratio of natives and civilian population of that the occupying power(USSR) transferred into the occupied territory. Same with the voluntary referendums organised by pro-Soviet front-organisations. The count of voters is close to illegal occupant's population. We were lucky. After breaking free we did not suffer such harsh conditions as you have mentioned(Gang leaders elected as mayors and governors who murdered anyone who dared to oppose them.) Economy boosted and living conditions improved drastically every year.
We can safely establish that part of the soviet union wanted to stay together and part of it did not. And the results varied drastically country-by-country - nation-by-nation.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gorbachev inherited 65 years of Soviet communism: a super fragile system, based on very tight, top-down command & control. On the surface these command & control societies appear more orderly than democratic societies, but they are very bad at dealing with complexity and at adapting to big changes. Gorbachev made the "mistake" of perturbing the system too much through his attempts at reform. Also, economically, I don…
The problem with your argument is the existence of China, to this day ruled by the Communist party of China. It's GDP grew by a factor of 25 since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Don’t really know much about China to be honest. They definitely managed to open up gradually, even if mainly in terms of allowing private investment decisions.
Let's see how the Chinese communist party handles a situation where the low hanging fruit of pedal-to-the-metal big percentage GDP growth has been picked.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gorbachev inherited 65 years of Soviet communism: a super fragile system, based on very tight, top-down command & control. On the surface these command & control societies appear more orderly than democratic societies, but they are very bad at dealing with complexity and at adapting to big changes. Gorbachev made the "mistake" of perturbing the system too much through his attempts at reform. Also, economically, I don…
The problem with your argument is the existence of China, to this day ruled by the Communist party of China. It's GDP grew by a factor of 25 since the fall of the Soviet Union.
If Russia's GDP per capita reaches China's, its total GDP will shrink 50%, ok?
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish people wouldn't downvote someone for an alternate opinion. It's interesting to see the Russian view point on these things. I think the parent poster is indoctrinated with the typical anti-western mindset, but it's still valid and adds to the discussion. > He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty The Soviet Union was in free fall economically…
I lived in Soviet Union as well during the collapse. I think there is a lot of propaganda from the west that makes you think it wasn't Gorbachev's fault. People were happy, had children and believed in their country and made progress in art and science. Then one person who possibly had good intentions "gave everyone freedom". You can't just do that without consequences. It should have been a very gradual transition s…
> I lived in Soviet Union as well during the collapse. I think there is a lot of propaganda from the west that makes you think it wasn't Gorbachev's fault.
The Soviet Union, when Gorbachev took over, had spent itself to the brink of collapse in a decades long military spending competition with the richest nation on the planet and it's rich allies, and papered over that with propaganda, which was itself weakening after some notable and hard to cover up setbacks.
Gorbachev pulled back some of the veil of propaganda simultaneously with (and as part of) trying to engineer a soft landing. It's true he largely failed, but I doubt anyone could have done much better (an authoritarian might have managed to paper over things longer and direct blame at external actor when the bottom eventually fell out, and by doing so remained more popular at home -- at least, among Russians if not the rest of the people under Soviet rule.)
I think much of the perception that things were his fsult is a result of pre-Gorbachev propaganda (mostly Soviet, but also Western propaganda about the strength of the USSR that served to shore up support for the Western side of the spending war.)
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gorbachev inherited 65 years of Soviet communism: a super fragile system, based on very tight, top-down command & control. On the surface these command & control societies appear more orderly than democratic societies, but they are very bad at dealing with complexity and at adapting to big changes. Gorbachev made the "mistake" of perturbing the system too much through his attempts at reform. Also, economically, I don…
The problem with your argument is the existence of China, to this day ruled by the Communist party of China. It's GDP grew by a factor of 25 since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Apples to oranges. China, while communist, does not have a centrally-planned economy like the USSR had. They began a series of extensive economic reforms in 1978, leading to privatization of industries, opening to foreign investment, allowances for entrepreneurship, etc.
Re: Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'
#30You wonder how the world can sink into war and then you start to understand how it works when you study today's political climate. It seems like a slow motion inevitability. People's opinions are just so strong. To make matters worse, seems like the smartphone revolution has provided quick communication channels that magnify the rhetoric. Forget more information at your finger tips, smartphones and the internet provi…
It's not the speed that's the problem, it's that they aren't as well vetted, nor are they diverse. It's easy to avoid uncomfortable facts and opinions. It is necessary to get variety in order to triangulate and assess.
The Balkanization of news and opinions is a minor facet of the overall situation that's unfolding.
The biggest thing going on is opinion shapers and propagandists have been given powerful tools the 20th century PR men could have only dreamed about. Growth hacking, sentiment analysis, personal network analysis, and deep learning are all things that allow cunning people to do extraordinary things.
Messages can be tested and fine tuned to see which ideas resonate. Communication channels can be established directly to the recipient of your message by creating Facebook groups and the like.
People simply haven't developed this critical thinking skills to defend themselves from this new onslaught of opinion shaping tech whose efficacy is based on very timely data.
I imagine Boyd's Law of Iteration is going to be a huge factor in deciding who wins the new propaganda wars. https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/
Updated: Minor edits for clarity