6 ms·

> Whether oppression and coercion were part of it is not something I can or would like to comment on ... But that does not detract from the quality of the engin

> Whether oppression and coercion were part of it is not something I can or would like to comment on ... But that does not detract from the quality of the engineering. Jacques, you're one of my favorite posters here, but I really disagree with this sentiment. In the top post you wrote: "they designed that thing on a budget that was probably a very small fraction of what the design of its American counterpart cost and it was just as deadly" -- That's a terrible sentiment. The reason American things cost more is they can't just grab a scientist or engineer and say, "Build this for us, or else..." Yes, we can admire some Soviet weaponry and machinery (the Kalashnikov rifle is amazing for what it's good at, in particular) - but we should also mention the very real costs and atrocities they committed to get these projects done. Saying that they did it on a smaller budget than the Americans is false - their budget was less cash and more violence. Some amazing weaponry came out of totalitarian states - Nazis with rocketry, Soviets with durable machinery - but we should remember the very real costs of human misery, literally human blood, sweat, and tears that were forced into the production of those weapons.

jacquesm 16y ago
Don't get me wrong, I'm about as anti-war and anti-violence as it gets. But we're talking about a piece of pretty heavy artillery here, a nuclear submarine meant to kill people, wholesale. Now, I didn't set the stage for that, someone else did. As far as the methods and the means of the former SovBlock countries goes, I lived in Poland before the fall of the wall for a while and it taught me a lot. For one it taught me how the people in a country like that are to some extent complicit by refusing to stand up for their fellow man when it matters. The Nazis, the Soviets they were pretty bad in their days. But don't overlook the small detail that we today are pretty bad in many other ways, and we are also complicit. We should remember, I'm very much in favor of that. So lets work to create a world in which weapons such as this will be reminders of the period that will hopefully be called 'the crazy years' when looked back at from some arbitrary point in the future. But don't confuse the engineer with the puppet master. Those guys did their jobs to the best of their ability, what pressures were used to make them do their jobs are not part of that story. In fact, I can feel some sympathy for an engineer producing a work like that under duress, but I can find very little sympathy for someone doing that just for money.
- berntb 16y ago
  >>Don't get me wrong, I'm about as anti-war and anti-violence as it gets. Yes... military -- boring, military tech -- double plus cool. :-) >>I lived in Poland before the fall of the wall for a while and it taught me a lot. For one it taught me how the people in a country like that are to some extent complicit by refusing to stand up for their fellow man when it matters. I didn't live there, but those in the Eastern block knew what would happen if they stood up (e.g. Hungary, Czechoslovakia). When it became clear there wouldn't be Soviet divisions rolling over the border if they stood up, then they threw out their Soviet puppet regimes in months. Edit: OK, sorry for missing the point.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    That's standing up on a slightly larger scale than I meant, I specifically meant when the local 'zomos' or whatever they were called in the country of choice were using informants to rat on their fellow men instead of forming a solid block. There always seem to be people willing to collaborate in return for favors. Revolution is a different matter.
adobriyan 16y ago
> The reason American things cost more is they can't just grab a scientist or engineer and say, "Build this for us, or else..." Russia is getting more and more democratic every day. Soviet engineers are no longer afraid, because they either on tiny pension (those who haven't died), and after USSR decay nobody quite cared about new generation of engineers. The military budget is second largest in the world (all things considered) but the amount of new weapons army gets is diminishing. How is F-22 (360 mil $ per aircraft) going?
- berntb 16y ago
  >>Russia is getting more and more democratic every day. It is? Wonderful! From the outside I had the impression it was going backwards with political control over media, etc. (Not ironic, this is really good news for the world. I'd still like some links...)
kds 16y ago
The same relates to iPhones - and other smartphones - and the conditions in which they are produced in taiwanian and chinese factories... How not to remember their workers' misery, suicides, and tears that were forced into the production of fancy mobile devices so we could all tweet and update our facebook profiles while on the go?
- berntb 16y ago
  What is your take on this old argument from Krugman? http://www.slate.com/id/1918 http://www.slate.com/id/1918
  - berntb 16y ago
    Sigh, in hindsight I should have written something like "Krugman calls bullshit"... :-) It would have been interesting to see if that article could have been answered seriously. (On the other hand, I have used that as a reference for a decade without seeing a good counter argument. It changed my world view, so I'm interested in seeing it discussed.)
    - kds 16y ago
      Briefly stated Krugman says that cheap-labour manufacturing is better than rural poverty for the Third World. He is right on a historic scale (development taking decades and presuming that transfer of know-how and tech sooner or later is to be followed by the ability to retain larger profits within the receiving nation). But this is nothing original as a thought because ~150 years before him it was Marx who said that capitalism is better than the rural feudal economics, anyway, and explicitly acknowledged its productive power (Before dissecting his problems as a social order, in his understanding). Anyway, this arm-chair observations hardly matter to the overworked and overstressed individual, or to the parents of those who commit suicide out of desperation.
      - berntb 16y ago
        Not relevant to the point, which is: Cheap labor manufacturing is better than the alternative of no cheap labor manufacturing -- and the first step on the ladder to a better/modern economy. I don't like it, either. But afaik, there is no other way to start the road to a modern society (this also needs good governance, no conflicts, etc). Obviously, if you had a better answer, you would have addressed the point. Edit: Did I miss that you are arguing FOR something -- instead of just complaining that the first step out of poverty is just a few times better than the poverty?
rdtsc 16y ago
> Jacques, you're one of my favorite posters here, but I really disagree with this sentiment. I agree with Jacques, and I actually lived in the Soviet Union half my life. > American things cost more is they can't just grab a scientist or engineer and say, "Build this for us, or else..." Really? You think that's how these things were built. With soldiers holding engineers at gunpoint? I understand Western propaganda is of the highest quality but sheesh... I had no idea they had you brainwashed that well. The truth is engineers who built these were very good engineers who got payed very well. It was a very prestigious profession to have. It came with a better apartment and other perks. > but we should also mention the very real costs and atrocities they committed to get these projects done. Please, spare us the propaganda. I am assuming you are American or British. What about their attrocities? Or let me guess, American bombs are only to kill "terrorists" and "enemy combatants" while their enemies' weapons conduct "atrocities". What about all the countries in South America, or Vietnam? Who helped commit those attrocities? > "literally human blood, sweat, and tears" There were a lot of engineers who would have love to shed some "blood, sweat, and tears" working on such a project. /Yes, I am beign sarcastic...
- gaius 16y ago
  With soldiers holding engineers at gunpoint? No but you have to look at the entire value chain. In the old Soviet Empire (call a spade a spade) conditions were often very poor for miners, farmers, etc. If those people had been paid a market rate for the raw materials and labour, and so on, at every stage in the value chain, then the cash bill at the end would have been much, much higher. I don't doubt Russian engineers were very talented - we all saw that Russia produced great mathematicians, chess players, etc. But not so good as they could work miracles.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    > conditions were often very poor for miners, farmers, etc. If those people had been paid a market rate for the raw materials and labour, and so on, at every stage in the value chain, then the cash bill would have been much, much higher. You could be writing about very large parts of the world today there, not just the USSR as it was. And some of those parts would be closer to home than you may be comfortable with.

jacquesm 16y ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm about as anti-war and anti-violence as it gets. But we're talking about a piece of pretty heavy artillery here, a nuclear submarine meant to kill people, wholesale. Now, I didn't set the stage for that, someone else did. As far as the methods and the means of the former SovBlock countries goes, I lived in Poland before the fall of the wall for a while and it taught me a lot. For one it taught me how the people in a country like that are to some extent complicit by refusing to stand up for their fellow man when it matters. The Nazis, the Soviets they were pretty bad in their days. But don't overlook the small detail that we today are pretty bad in many other ways, and we are also complicit. We should remember, I'm very much in favor of that. So lets work to create a world in which weapons such as this will be reminders of the period that will hopefully be called 'the crazy years' when looked back at from some arbitrary point in the future. But don't confuse the engineer with the puppet master. Those guys did their jobs to the best of their ability, what pressures were used to make them do their jobs are not part of that story. In fact, I can feel some sympathy for an engineer producing a work like that under duress, but I can find very little sympathy for someone doing that just for money.

berntb 16y ago
>>Don't get me wrong, I'm about as anti-war and anti-violence as it gets. Yes... military -- boring, military tech -- double plus cool. :-) >>I lived in Poland before the fall of the wall for a while and it taught me a lot. For one it taught me how the people in a country like that are to some extent complicit by refusing to stand up for their fellow man when it matters. I didn't live there, but those in the Eastern block knew what would happen if they stood up (e.g. Hungary, Czechoslovakia). When it became clear there wouldn't be Soviet divisions rolling over the border if they stood up, then they threw out their Soviet puppet regimes in months. Edit: OK, sorry for missing the point.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's standing up on a slightly larger scale than I meant, I specifically meant when the local 'zomos' or whatever they were called in the country of choice were using informants to rat on their fellow men instead of forming a solid block. There always seem to be people willing to collaborate in return for favors. Revolution is a different matter.

adobriyan 16y ago

> The reason American things cost more is they can't just grab a scientist or engineer and say, "Build this for us, or else..." Russia is getting more and more democratic every day. Soviet engineers are no longer afraid, because they either on tiny pension (those who haven't died), and after USSR decay nobody quite cared about new generation of engineers. The military budget is second largest in the world (all things considered) but the amount of new weapons army gets is diminishing. How is F-22 (360 mil $ per aircraft) going?

berntb 16y ago
>>Russia is getting more and more democratic every day. It is? Wonderful! From the outside I had the impression it was going backwards with political control over media, etc. (Not ironic, this is really good news for the world. I'd still like some links...)

kds 16y ago

The same relates to iPhones - and other smartphones - and the conditions in which they are produced in taiwanian and chinese factories... How not to remember their workers' misery, suicides, and tears that were forced into the production of fancy mobile devices so we could all tweet and update our facebook profiles while on the go?

berntb 16y ago
What is your take on this old argument from Krugman? http://www.slate.com/id/1918 http://www.slate.com/id/1918
- berntb 16y ago
  Sigh, in hindsight I should have written something like "Krugman calls bullshit"... :-) It would have been interesting to see if that article could have been answered seriously. (On the other hand, I have used that as a reference for a decade without seeing a good counter argument. It changed my world view, so I'm interested in seeing it discussed.)
  - kds 16y ago
    Briefly stated Krugman says that cheap-labour manufacturing is better than rural poverty for the Third World. He is right on a historic scale (development taking decades and presuming that transfer of know-how and tech sooner or later is to be followed by the ability to retain larger profits within the receiving nation). But this is nothing original as a thought because ~150 years before him it was Marx who said that capitalism is better than the rural feudal economics, anyway, and explicitly acknowledged its productive power (Before dissecting his problems as a social order, in his understanding). Anyway, this arm-chair observations hardly matter to the overworked and overstressed individual, or to the parents of those who commit suicide out of desperation.
    - berntb 16y ago
      Not relevant to the point, which is: Cheap labor manufacturing is better than the alternative of no cheap labor manufacturing -- and the first step on the ladder to a better/modern economy. I don't like it, either. But afaik, there is no other way to start the road to a modern society (this also needs good governance, no conflicts, etc). Obviously, if you had a better answer, you would have addressed the point. Edit: Did I miss that you are arguing FOR something -- instead of just complaining that the first step out of poverty is just a few times better than the poverty?

rdtsc 16y ago

> Jacques, you're one of my favorite posters here, but I really disagree with this sentiment. I agree with Jacques, and I actually lived in the Soviet Union half my life. > American things cost more is they can't just grab a scientist or engineer and say, "Build this for us, or else..." Really? You think that's how these things were built. With soldiers holding engineers at gunpoint? I understand Western propaganda is of the highest quality but sheesh... I had no idea they had you brainwashed that well. The truth is engineers who built these were very good engineers who got payed very well. It was a very prestigious profession to have. It came with a better apartment and other perks. > but we should also mention the very real costs and atrocities they committed to get these projects done. Please, spare us the propaganda. I am assuming you are American or British. What about their attrocities? Or let me guess, American bombs are only to kill "terrorists" and "enemy combatants" while their enemies' weapons conduct "atrocities". What about all the countries in South America, or Vietnam? Who helped commit those attrocities? > "literally human blood, sweat, and tears" There were a lot of engineers who would have love to shed some "blood, sweat, and tears" working on such a project. /Yes, I am beign sarcastic...

gaius 16y ago
With soldiers holding engineers at gunpoint? No but you have to look at the entire value chain. In the old Soviet Empire (call a spade a spade) conditions were often very poor for miners, farmers, etc. If those people had been paid a market rate for the raw materials and labour, and so on, at every stage in the value chain, then the cash bill at the end would have been much, much higher. I don't doubt Russian engineers were very talented - we all saw that Russia produced great mathematicians, chess players, etc. But not so good as they could work miracles.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > conditions were often very poor for miners, farmers, etc. If those people had been paid a market rate for the raw materials and labour, and so on, at every stage in the value chain, then the cash bill would have been much, much higher. You could be writing about very large parts of the world today there, not just the USSR as it was. And some of those parts would be closer to home than you may be comfortable with.