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Soviet-Era Industrial Design

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Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#91

Post by mantas »

lowry wrote: post #81
mantas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Lithuania was occupied and a part of Soviet sphere at the time. Although it's always nice when other parts of USSR get individual mentioning rather than just Soviet=Russian.

A sheer number of Lithuanians participated in The Revolution. Who invaded whom is questionable. Especially in the light of Lithuanuan Duchy expansion some 200 years before.

Are you saying that Lithuania in 1939-1940 tried to invade USSR? Or in 1918, when Lithuania got it's independence from Germany occupational government?

Lithuania territory at either time was smaller than original GDL territory "some 200 years ago" before the expansions. It was core GDL territory since first internationally recognised state in that area was formed in 13th century and stayed so till the Partitions in late 18th century.

Also, there was that simple act of sending ultimatum to replace government to a specific one, holding staged elections and then having that government "ask to join" USSR. All under overwhelming USSR army presence. Pretty much textbook occupation if you ask me...

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#92

Post by mantas »

TheForumTroll wrote: post #83
mantas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.

Would you mind answering why it took the US more than 20 years to catch somewhat up with Russian rocket engines even though they had access to information on how it was made if it is so easy? The best Russian rockets from the Soviet era wasn't beat by the US before SpaceX did so.

It's kinda cool that US managed to put man on the moon first, even with much worse rockets, eh? Also, US had reusable spaceships in 80s. While USSR struggled with a similar programme and didn't finish it before the collapse.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#93

Post by AsyncAwait »

mantas wrote: post #71
AsyncAwait wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want Agreed, surveillance, oppression are all terrible, but I highly doubt you can really choose any system you may want now, (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).

There's always play under the table. But democratic election where I can oversee voting, join one of many (or start a new one) political party or even go for office myself is infinitely more free than in Soviet system. Completely overhaul is probably not possible, because there would be a lot of people opposing it and simple majority is not enough to implement it. But significant adjustments are happening all the tim…

> Completely overhaul is probably not possible

Not complete, just a minor improvement that benefits your country is enough to put a quick stop to it, see Iran in the 50s for a good example of this.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#94

Post by AsyncAwait »

mantas wrote: post #70
AsyncAwait wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're saying that being first in space wasn't moving forward? > Especially on electronics and computers. I strongly suspect that was due to lack of resources for research, rather than lack of ability, as by the time there was a serious focus on these areas, the economy wasn't doing so well.

Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing. Thus resources were allocated differently. Sicne there was no free market, nobody took a stab on their own either. "Economy" didn't mean shit in USSR. It was all about priorities. War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens were having a hard time in their da…

> Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing

True, what I meant was exactly this. There's always resources plenty for the things elites consider important, but if there was enough of them and then some, something would have trickled down to computing also.

> War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens were having a hard time in their daily lives

Just like in every empire ever, including the U.S. at present, (still no universal healthcare there).

> So yes, sending first human to space is sad when you can't provide adequate life to your own citizens.

Agreed, but how is this different today?

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#95

Post by mantas »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #94
mantas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing. Thus resources were allocated differently. Sicne there was no free market, nobody took a stab on their own either. "Economy" didn't mean shit in USSR. It was all about priorities. War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens were having a hard time in their da…

> Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing True, what I meant was exactly this. There's always resources plenty for the things elites consider important, but if there was enough of them and then some, something would have trickled down to computing also. > War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens…

> True, what I meant was exactly this. There's always resources plenty for the things elites consider important, but if there was enough of them and then some, something would have trickled down to computing also.

Or they'd have had more resources towards military or friendly regimes. Those 2 are kinda black holes for money

> Just like in every empire ever, including the U.S. at present, (still no universal healthcare there).

I don't think finances are stopping universal healthcare in US. It's purely ideological.

> > So yes, sending first human to space is sad when you can't provide adequate life to your own citizens. > Agreed, but how is this different today?

In Russia - it's same old. I wouldn't consider it a democracy or west or whatever either. In the west, people have radically better living standards and they seem to be going to much bigger compromises with their ideals for the sake of comfort. E.g. Nord Stream gas pipe.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#96

Post by georgecmu »

pandaman wrote: post #11
Jhsto wrote: post #9

For those interested, this particular kind of design is known as retrofuturism around the Internet. Reddit has a good subreddit on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/ I personally have once had these Sputnik razor blades: https://www.ebay.com/p/Sputnik-100-Double-Edge-Razor-Blades-... In addition to being dirt cheap, I also found the branding funny. Somehow I felt like I am buying something not very good in t…

It's Ladas (a Greek athlete). Surprisingly Wikipedia has no entry for him but only for a village named after him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladas,_Messenia

Indeed:

https://www.amazon.com/Engraving-Sportsman-Spartan-Foot-Race...

http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Ancient/en/Athletes.htm...

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#98

Post by AsyncAwait »

mantas wrote: post #95
AsyncAwait wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computer research was more because Soviet elite didn't believe in computing True, what I meant was exactly this. There's always resources plenty for the things elites consider important, but if there was enough of them and then some, something would have trickled down to computing also. > War in Afghanistan got plenty of resources in meantime. As well as aiding friendly regimes around the globe. Meanwhile citizens…

> True, what I meant was exactly this. There's always resources plenty for the things elites consider important, but if there was enough of them and then some, something would have trickled down to computing also. Or they'd have had more resources towards military or friendly regimes. Those 2 are kinda black holes for money > Just like in every empire ever, including the U.S. at present, (still no universal healthcar…

> I don't think finances are stopping universal healthcare in US. It's purely ideological.

Ideology is used as a mask to protect corporate (private insurance) interests, which is why the top brass doesn't have interest in universal healthcare. It's a matter of interests and priorities, just like it was a matter of interests and priorities for the Soviets to ficus resources on things other than improving people's living standards.

> In the west, people have radically better living standards

Compared to Russia, yeah, but there's always the supposed lack of money for public services, which is often magically found for military purposes. It's the same mentality that the USSR had in that instead of funding public services, fund military endeavors.

Of course, I am not making a 1:1 equivalence in terms of freedom, but when it comes to allocating resources, today's world doesn't seem all that different.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#99

Post by lb1lf »

caf wrote: post #75
rdtsc wrote: post #37

Moscow Design Museum has some more examples too http://moscowdesignmuseum.ru/en/exhibitions/1/ . Those that grew up in Soviet Union will recognize familiar objects. I recognized the phones, the "basketball" game, and the portable checkers game. Well and of course the Moskvitch 408 car. I don't remember really thinking about design back then. Maybe because we didn't have many choices. You wanted a tape player you pick…

I think in that era electronic equipment often came with schematics in the West, too. I'm pretty sure our TRS-80 manuals had a schematic, and I remember opening up a few transistor radios to find the schematic screen-printed on the inside of the case.

I remember poring over the C64 schematic for hours on end back in the eighties.

I believe it was printed as a fold-out at the back of the programmer's reference guide.

That schematic probably more than anything else influenced my later career as an electronics engineer - I really, really wanted to be able to figure out how it all came together and actually made a useful product.

Re: Soviet-Era Industrial Design

#100

Post by c-smile »

v_lisivka wrote: post #77
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think…

All countries in the world was pre-industrial monarchies just 150 years ago. Please point to your point. Moreover, in WWW2, USSR lost about 1/6 of population. It's hard to name such losses as "win". Western Allies, which is also at war with Germany, provided continuous aid to that "superpower" in addition to their own soldiers at war.

But far not all them had at their possession resources of half of rest world.

Western Europe is all about that. How many colonial guldens are under each stone of town squares of its cities ...

No surprise that technical revolution was originated there.

Back to Russia...

At WW1 it had no chances to confront rest of Europe. Like it was "shell hunger" in Russian army in 1916 - it's "industry" simply could not produce enough.

But at WW2 time it did that - pretty much all Europe was working on Hitler's war machine.

Rise of potential was tremendous if to consider that it happened between 1917 and 1941.

Of course the only option of that burst was exploitation of its own people - Russia didn't get any (significant) investments from outside.

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