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Yeah, as a Pole I always cringe at such communism glorifying comments. What the hell is a computer club? And weren't we burning all kinds of shit? The only reas

by eska 7y ago

Yeah, as a Pole I always cringe at such communism glorifying comments. What the hell is a computer club? And weren't we burning all kinds of shit? The only reason people didn't have cars was because they had no fucking money. This has nothing to do with smart central planning. And reuse of glass bottles etc was because people actually knew how to plant, harvest, and cook their own food.

kolinko 7y ago
There is a difference between communism glorifying and saying what it got right. I doubt any Pole who remembers communism and is on HN now would want it back. But the public transit, even in communism, was better than it is in modern day USA. So was urban planning.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >was better than it is in modern-day USA Why not compare it to Western Europe? North America had a different evolutionary path. The prosperity that emerged post-WW2 enabled vast swaths of the population to own a car (leading to a cultural obsession with the car). That same population also wanted homeownership which lead to the creation of suburbs and their vast stretches of single-family homes (I don't think people realize how attractive this lifestyle was when compared to what came before it, or compared to what you had back home if you immigrated). Those kinds of things coupled with relatively young cities, lead to investment in roadways over public transit. Those were not options under communism, and for much of Western Europe (though for somewhat different reasons). Eastern European populations had limited access to the car, road infrastructure was decrepit and the government was spending minimally on maintenance, and housing development was largely limited to ugly concrete, uninsulted high-rises with tiny apartments (which you had to wait for years to be allocated).
  - eska 7y ago
    Not to mention that the US is completely different geographically. It is way too vast with too long distances between inhabited cities, most of which are small. Flying is much more feasible on a national level. To me this kind of thinking sounds like saying the trains and Autobahn were better in the Third Reich, which is true, but completely ignoring the cost of that one benefit (built for war, paid by war and human right violations) as if it were isolated from the remaining clusterfuck of decisions of that time. So that's why I call it "glorification". It's naive beyond belief and quite frankly it pisses Poles (who were victims of both Nazism AND communism) off when Westerners go "Oh, but it wasn't all bad..", and in the extreme form commonly heard as "That wasn't real socialism, real socialism gets other parts right, too.." (which is really hip and cool in western academia). The communists, Nazis, dictatorships, monarchies, etc. couldn't have had the "good" things without the "absolutely horrible" things. One can't observe these things in isolation. And we have remainders of that still in the present. Many successful German companies like BMW are only so big and successful now because of e.g. Jewish slaves and theft. Westerners should be more proud of their countries and political form, and less jealous of quickly built airports in North Korea by dying workers and eco-friendliness of starving people.

by eska 7y ago

kolinko 7y ago

There is a difference between communism glorifying and saying what it got right. I doubt any Pole who remembers communism and is on HN now would want it back. But the public transit, even in communism, was better than it is in modern day USA. So was urban planning.

macspoofing 7y ago
>was better than it is in modern-day USA Why not compare it to Western Europe? North America had a different evolutionary path. The prosperity that emerged post-WW2 enabled vast swaths of the population to own a car (leading to a cultural obsession with the car). That same population also wanted homeownership which lead to the creation of suburbs and their vast stretches of single-family homes (I don't think people realize how attractive this lifestyle was when compared to what came before it, or compared to what you had back home if you immigrated). Those kinds of things coupled with relatively young cities, lead to investment in roadways over public transit. Those were not options under communism, and for much of Western Europe (though for somewhat different reasons). Eastern European populations had limited access to the car, road infrastructure was decrepit and the government was spending minimally on maintenance, and housing development was largely limited to ugly concrete, uninsulted high-rises with tiny apartments (which you had to wait for years to be allocated).
- eska 7y ago
  Not to mention that the US is completely different geographically. It is way too vast with too long distances between inhabited cities, most of which are small. Flying is much more feasible on a national level. To me this kind of thinking sounds like saying the trains and Autobahn were better in the Third Reich, which is true, but completely ignoring the cost of that one benefit (built for war, paid by war and human right violations) as if it were isolated from the remaining clusterfuck of decisions of that time. So that's why I call it "glorification". It's naive beyond belief and quite frankly it pisses Poles (who were victims of both Nazism AND communism) off when Westerners go "Oh, but it wasn't all bad..", and in the extreme form commonly heard as "That wasn't real socialism, real socialism gets other parts right, too.." (which is really hip and cool in western academia). The communists, Nazis, dictatorships, monarchies, etc. couldn't have had the "good" things without the "absolutely horrible" things. One can't observe these things in isolation. And we have remainders of that still in the present. Many successful German companies like BMW are only so big and successful now because of e.g. Jewish slaves and theft. Westerners should be more proud of their countries and political form, and less jealous of quickly built airports in North Korea by dying workers and eco-friendliness of starving people.