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Do you know that nothing stops them from rounding up engineers are move them to a camp with an order to develop certain technology in exchange for bread and wat

Do you know that nothing stops them from rounding up engineers are move them to a camp with an order to develop certain technology in exchange for bread and water and that their families will live? Soviet Union for example used to build entire cities where they crammed engineers from all over the Union, however rather than being exploited, the engineers had special privileges. But that easily could change with a stroke of a pen of a dictator.

d3ckard 6y ago
It's hard for people to be creative under pressure. Half the work in management of software companies is managing employee stress so they can do their work efficiently. My point is precisely that to get creativeness, you have to create right environment and that environment leads the way to less authoritarian rule.
- varispeed 6y ago
  That's true, but if they throw enough people at it (they have plenty), something eventually will come up... Probably the result for them will be having a group of engineers that can be creative under extreme pressure and since they struggle with over-population, the loss of engineers and their families which couldn't keep up would have some positives for them as well.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  > It's hard for people to be creative under pressure. How is it then, that inventions seem to accelerate during times of war? WWII alone saw the invention of, or massive improvements to rocketry, the jet engine, cruise missiles, Radar, and the Atomic bomb
  - oblio 6y ago
    They don't, it just seems that way because everything that can be used for war is used. There's a mad rush to productize existing inventions. People tend to focus on wars during discussions about history so their time periods are overemphasized.
numpad0 6y ago
There is sense of mystique associated with the Soviet Union but the best they managed to build were AKs, Soyuz, Chernobyl, all interesting and robust in its own ways but not all that competitive in terms of performance, so,
- kls 6y ago
  I understand the sentiment you are trying to express and to some degree I agree but I would argue that the AK is a really bad example that actually is probably the greatest example of the Soviet simple utilitarian technology. Out of all of the battle rifles designed (The big three being the AR, AK and FAL/SCAR) the AK has gone under the least amount of revisions, the biggest revision being the AK-74 where the Soviets decided to go to a smaller caliber to compete with the introduction of the AR and more importantly, really the only revision functionally was the 74 went to a short stroke vs the 47's long stroke. The AK platform has not only survive the test of time, but is probably the most reliable battle rifle built, it is a testament to the genius of Kalashnikov that the AK produced today is functionally the same design as built in 1947. It is also very emblematic of the Soviet thought process in design.
  - agurk 6y ago
    > of all of the battle rifles designed (The big three being the AR, AK and FAL/SCAR) To be pedantic about terminology the Kalashnikov family of rifles are generally not Battle Rifles. Of your listed examples only the FN FAL and some models of the FN SCAR are considered Battle Rifles. Battle Rifles as a term came out in the 80s to distinguish between autoloading rifles soldiers had fielded since WW2 that weren't assault rifles. Assault rifles are defined as a selective fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge with a detachable magazine. An intermediate cartridge being one that is more powerful than a pistol but less so than a traditional rifle cartridge. Germany pioneered, or at least mass-adopted, this concept with the 7.92 Kurz [short] round in WW2. The USSR ran with this concept - through seeing the STG-44 (German 7.92 kurz assault rifle), capturing some German weapon designers and following the train of thought of the period. This ended up with the AK-47, then later variants on this pattern. NATO countries generally also wanted to do this, see the .280 British - the original cartridge of the FAL (and the EM-2). With one big exception - the US Army Ordnance Corps pushed for adoption of a traditional cartridge, and NATO bowed (in part as the US agreed to adopt the FAL) and everyone ended up with the full powered 7.62 NATO round. Despite pushing for it, the US soon found out that having a high powered cartridge (and the sort of weapon that goes with it) wasn't what they actually needed, and they chose the 5.56 NATO round as used in the original M16 rifle (AR-15 platform). The rest of NATO caught up soon enough, often with platforms based of the AR-18/AR-180. This left them in the 80's with a new type of rifle that we would call an Assault Rifle but they also needed to refer to the (more) modern rifles they'd been fielding since the 2nd World War. This resulted in the term Battle Rifle being created to refer to a self-loading rifle using a full power cartridge with a slew of (optional) features like full auto (the SLR [UK's inch pattern FAL] was semi-auto only), pistol grips (the M14 had a traditional stock) and the like. The 7.62 NATO calibre versions of the FN SCAR are generally considered Battle Rifles, whereas the 5.56 NATO versions aren't.
ddingus 6y ago
They can also round them up and let them live lavishly. There still are walls, limits, secrets of course. Just saying there are any number of ways to advance and they are all available to a sovereign willing to get after advancement. Size matters too. China has size enough for these things to be true.

d3ckard 6y ago

It's hard for people to be creative under pressure. Half the work in management of software companies is managing employee stress so they can do their work efficiently. My point is precisely that to get creativeness, you have to create right environment and that environment leads the way to less authoritarian rule.

varispeed 6y ago
That's true, but if they throw enough people at it (they have plenty), something eventually will come up... Probably the result for them will be having a group of engineers that can be creative under extreme pressure and since they struggle with over-population, the loss of engineers and their families which couldn't keep up would have some positives for them as well.
sangnoir 6y ago
> It's hard for people to be creative under pressure. How is it then, that inventions seem to accelerate during times of war? WWII alone saw the invention of, or massive improvements to rocketry, the jet engine, cruise missiles, Radar, and the Atomic bomb
- oblio 6y ago
  They don't, it just seems that way because everything that can be used for war is used. There's a mad rush to productize existing inventions. People tend to focus on wars during discussions about history so their time periods are overemphasized.

numpad0 6y ago

There is sense of mystique associated with the Soviet Union but the best they managed to build were AKs, Soyuz, Chernobyl, all interesting and robust in its own ways but not all that competitive in terms of performance, so,

kls 6y ago
I understand the sentiment you are trying to express and to some degree I agree but I would argue that the AK is a really bad example that actually is probably the greatest example of the Soviet simple utilitarian technology. Out of all of the battle rifles designed (The big three being the AR, AK and FAL/SCAR) the AK has gone under the least amount of revisions, the biggest revision being the AK-74 where the Soviets decided to go to a smaller caliber to compete with the introduction of the AR and more importantly, really the only revision functionally was the 74 went to a short stroke vs the 47's long stroke. The AK platform has not only survive the test of time, but is probably the most reliable battle rifle built, it is a testament to the genius of Kalashnikov that the AK produced today is functionally the same design as built in 1947. It is also very emblematic of the Soviet thought process in design.
- agurk 6y ago
  > of all of the battle rifles designed (The big three being the AR, AK and FAL/SCAR) To be pedantic about terminology the Kalashnikov family of rifles are generally not Battle Rifles. Of your listed examples only the FN FAL and some models of the FN SCAR are considered Battle Rifles. Battle Rifles as a term came out in the 80s to distinguish between autoloading rifles soldiers had fielded since WW2 that weren't assault rifles. Assault rifles are defined as a selective fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge with a detachable magazine. An intermediate cartridge being one that is more powerful than a pistol but less so than a traditional rifle cartridge. Germany pioneered, or at least mass-adopted, this concept with the 7.92 Kurz [short] round in WW2. The USSR ran with this concept - through seeing the STG-44 (German 7.92 kurz assault rifle), capturing some German weapon designers and following the train of thought of the period. This ended up with the AK-47, then later variants on this pattern. NATO countries generally also wanted to do this, see the .280 British - the original cartridge of the FAL (and the EM-2). With one big exception - the US Army Ordnance Corps pushed for adoption of a traditional cartridge, and NATO bowed (in part as the US agreed to adopt the FAL) and everyone ended up with the full powered 7.62 NATO round. Despite pushing for it, the US soon found out that having a high powered cartridge (and the sort of weapon that goes with it) wasn't what they actually needed, and they chose the 5.56 NATO round as used in the original M16 rifle (AR-15 platform). The rest of NATO caught up soon enough, often with platforms based of the AR-18/AR-180. This left them in the 80's with a new type of rifle that we would call an Assault Rifle but they also needed to refer to the (more) modern rifles they'd been fielding since the 2nd World War. This resulted in the term Battle Rifle being created to refer to a self-loading rifle using a full power cartridge with a slew of (optional) features like full auto (the SLR [UK's inch pattern FAL] was semi-auto only), pistol grips (the M14 had a traditional stock) and the like. The 7.62 NATO calibre versions of the FN SCAR are generally considered Battle Rifles, whereas the 5.56 NATO versions aren't.

ddingus 6y ago

They can also round them up and let them live lavishly. There still are walls, limits, secrets of course. Just saying there are any number of ways to advance and they are all available to a sovereign willing to get after advancement. Size matters too. China has size enough for these things to be true.