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Soviet gamification

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Re: Soviet gamification

#21

Post by robinh »

caf wrote: post #13
networked wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a side node gamification drives me mad. IMHO only an idiot would care about made up "achievements". Considering how token economies [1] are generally successful as motivators (HN karma, anyone?) I'd say this has less to do with idiocy and more with the "human nature". BTW, if anyone wants a good, quick introduction to the criticism of gamification I can recommend the Errant Signal video on the subject [2]. [1] ht…

I'd say military decorations are a particularly convincing example.

Would in-game achievements also count?

Re: Soviet gamification

#22

Post by nine_k »

oddx wrote: post #20
nine_k wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A former Soviet citizen here. > Yet during the 1930s, when starving veterans were being shot dead in the streets of Washington DC, when unemployment in the US and Europe was over 20%, the Soviet economy was booming. Oh yes. The US and Europe credited the Soviet Union well, and the Soviet Union paid in gold. At the same time, Soviet authorities robbed its own people, partly by putting hundreds of thousands to forced l…

May be it was no best model, but about "hundreds of thousands to forced labor camps"- it was about 1 million people in GULAG before second world war (0.59% of 170 millions population). For modern USA incarceration rate is 0.74%. Are you sure it's better model? > You want a competition between producers? Have you tried the so-called 'market'? Market is nice when you have many producers. But as soon as company became '…

I'm definitely unhappy with the US incarceration levels.

I still think that cutting wood or digging ore in Siberia (see e.g. the weather in the fine city of Norilsk) is noticeably more cruel than serving time in a US prison. A quick googling allows me to assume that forced labor as a punishment has not been used in the US since 1940s, except for rare cases in the military.

I very much hope the the US government, however crooked it might be, is not considering high incarceration level as an engine of economic growth.

Re: Soviet gamification

#23

Post by oddx »

nine_k wrote: post #22
oddx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be it was no best model, but about "hundreds of thousands to forced labor camps"- it was about 1 million people in GULAG before second world war (0.59% of 170 millions population). For modern USA incarceration rate is 0.74%. Are you sure it's better model? > You want a competition between producers? Have you tried the so-called 'market'? Market is nice when you have many producers. But as soon as company became '…

I'm definitely unhappy with the US incarceration levels. I still think that cutting wood or digging ore in Siberia (see e.g. the weather in the fine city of Norilsk) is noticeably more cruel than serving time in a US prison. A quick googling allows me to assume that forced labor as a punishment has not been used in the US since 1940s, except for rare cases in the military. I very much hope the the US government, howe…

Yes, United States stopped using penal labor at twentieth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#United_States). Soviet Union at fifties.

I think 30 years lag is not soo bad considering level of social-economic development of USSR and USA.

Re: Soviet gamification

#24

Post by pyre »

nine_k wrote: post #22
oddx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be it was no best model, but about "hundreds of thousands to forced labor camps"- it was about 1 million people in GULAG before second world war (0.59% of 170 millions population). For modern USA incarceration rate is 0.74%. Are you sure it's better model? > You want a competition between producers? Have you tried the so-called 'market'? Market is nice when you have many producers. But as soon as company became '…

I'm definitely unhappy with the US incarceration levels. I still think that cutting wood or digging ore in Siberia (see e.g. the weather in the fine city of Norilsk) is noticeably more cruel than serving time in a US prison. A quick googling allows me to assume that forced labor as a punishment has not been used in the US since 1940s, except for rare cases in the military. I very much hope the the US government, howe…

I think that a couple of states in the US southeast still make use of chain gangs and labor.

Re: Soviet gamification

#25

Post by moxie »

oddx wrote: post #23
nine_k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely unhappy with the US incarceration levels. I still think that cutting wood or digging ore in Siberia (see e.g. the weather in the fine city of Norilsk) is noticeably more cruel than serving time in a US prison. A quick googling allows me to assume that forced labor as a punishment has not been used in the US since 1940s, except for rare cases in the military. I very much hope the the US government, howe…

Yes, United States stopped using penal labor at twentieth ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#United_States ). Soviet Union at fifties. I think 30 years lag is not soo bad considering level of social-economic development of USSR and USA.

Penal labor is extremely prevalent in the US, and if anything, is growing (over 1 million US prisoners today are engaged in penal labor).

It might not be "punative" penal labor, which takes it out of the category of "forced labor." But US prisoners do labor in private prisons for private companies, with the sole remuneration of reducing time from their sentences.

Re: Soviet gamification

#26

Post by kostya-kow »

alive-or-not wrote: post #2

Author doesn't seem to know exactly how successful the Soviet Union was with this tactic. In four years - 1929 to 1933 - it transformed from an agrarian country, devastated by wars, to world second industrial power. Just a few years later USSR was capable of outproducing in many areas the whole of Europe under fascist control. As a side node gamification drives me mad. IMHO only an idiot would care about made up "ach…

> As a side node gamification drives me mad. IMHO only an idiot would care about made up "achievements".

Idiots make an overwhelming majority of population.

Re: Soviet gamification

#27

Post by oddx »

alive-or-not wrote: post #14
huhtenberg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, your understanding of Soviet space history is pretty limited. That part you got right.

Care to correct me than? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-1_%28missile%29 R-1 was the Russian name for the German V-2, Sputnik was launched by R-7.

V-2 is progenitor of all modern rockets, but it's difficult to call it "minimal modifications": compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fus%C3%A9e_V2.jpg ,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:V-2_rocket_diagram_%28with... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R-7_%287A%29_misil.svg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sputnik_8K71PS_grey.svg

Re: Soviet gamification

#28

Post by samatman »

moxie wrote: post #19
frozenport wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 30s, 40s, early 50s, workers were a lot more DEAD! I still have family who remember Stalin's purges, starvation and WW2. The same people say life in the USSR was only reasonable under the later leaders like Brezhnev. Nobody likes Gorbachev, but they would be first to admit that the differences in their lives in the 1940s and 1980s were vast.

During the purges of the 30s and 50s, the most dangerous place to be was a member of the central committee. Ordinary workers were not affected by the bulk of the purges (and to some extent did not even realize they were happening), with the notable exception of Jews during weird Stalinst manipulations like the Mingrelian affair. As recently as 2009, 60% of Russians preferred the Soviet days (with older citizens that…

Your first paragraph is astonishingly untrue, and a comparison to Holocaust denial would not be unfair. Middle of the road estimates for those murdered by gulag are around 40 million.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM

That matters in Russia worsened after the fall of Communism is separated by decades from the nadir of Stalinist violence.

Re: Soviet gamification

#29

Post by omonra »

Author might want to learn about soviet laws about mandatory work & punishment for 'absenteeism'

"On 8 January 1939, the government made clear that an unauthorized lateness of 20 minutes (or taking a break 20 minutes too long, or leaving 20 minutes early) counted as absenteeism, grounds for mandatory dismissal (Pravda, 9 Jan 1939). Transportation breakdowns (a common event) were no excuse; a doctor's certificate was required, and doctors who gave certificates too easily themselves faced prosecution and prison.

Some workers still found it worthwhile to be absent and force a mandatory dismissal, so that they could seek work in a place where labor books were not closely read. Stalin put an end to this with a remarkable law,

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 26 June 1940 "On the Transfer to the Eight-Hour Working Day, the Seven-day Work Week, and on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Departure by Laborers and Office Workers from Factories and Offices2"

This replaced the civil sanctions of the 28 Dec. 1938 decree with mandatory criminal penalties: 2-4 months imprisonment for quitting a job, and 6 months of probation and 25% pay confiscation for an unauthorized tardiness of 20 minutes. Both managers and prosecutors were themselves subject to criminal prosecution if they did not enforce this law strictly."

Russian - http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%...

English http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/labor-discip.html

Re: Soviet gamification

#30

Post by avmich »

kostya-kow wrote: post #26
alive-or-not wrote: post #2

Author doesn't seem to know exactly how successful the Soviet Union was with this tactic. In four years - 1929 to 1933 - it transformed from an agrarian country, devastated by wars, to world second industrial power. Just a few years later USSR was capable of outproducing in many areas the whole of Europe under fascist control. As a side node gamification drives me mad. IMHO only an idiot would care about made up "ach…

> As a side node gamification drives me mad. IMHO only an idiot would care about made up "achievements". Idiots make an overwhelming majority of population.

Idiots include also that vocal part of population longing for - and getting - Nobel prizes.

One ought to realize how different SU was in 20s, 50s, even 70s from Russia today. People in SU thought about themselves and their country very similarly as it is in US now - the most progressive country, and of course, the smartest and overall best people. Little doubt about that. Tokens were much more serious then - in US one says "if you smart, you should be rich", in SU it was "if you're good, you can perhaps show an Order" - and they weren't easy to get.

Imagine the life in the South, pictured in "Gone with the wind", without slavery - because almost everybody was in the same conditions - and stimulus responses will be different. Again, what use would be for a pile of cash in SU? Not much - you can't buy proportionally, since the whole economy is targeted to "regular people", and you'd get people looking at you funny pretty soon.

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