4 ms·

Socialism / communism.

by 202206241203 4y ago

Synaesthesia 4y ago
US computer technology was largely enabled and sustained by public funds. A lot of the research was done with public funding, and a lot of the early computers were bought by the military. Literally the entire computer marker would not have existed had computers not been bought by the military until the 60's In fact Soviet computer development was quite advanced for a homegrown solution.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  Socializing the initial risky R&D costs but leaving market mechanisms to iterate is a common pattern in US innovation. But I think the real difference was the relative wealth of the middle classes in each society, where the west tended to have a much wealthier society that could afford to spend more on early computers. The video basically outlines a couple of differences (like party leadership betting on the wrong horse a couple of times), but seems to be driving by at the fact that they just had few enough buyers and didn’t iterate as fast as a result, meaning they had trouble with things like nailing down good yields. This snowballed.
  - dundarious 4y ago
    Yes, Silicon Valley grew out of quite sophisticated WW2 military R&D, so quite similar to USSR actually. I like this talk given at the Computer History Museum about the history of Silicon Valley, which was secret for many years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo You can argue USSR lacked followup demand for computing from outside the military, and that this was caused by organizational issues. It’s probably pretty important to also state the relative wealth disparity at the start of the relevant period, from 1940 onwards, say. Russia was basically feudal in 1910, and it would be hard for advancement to catch up to US levels by 1940 no matter the organization of the economy, and then we have to account for the devastation of WW2 which followed (WW2 was expensive for US, but it didn’t lose industrial capacity except via opportunity cost). I don’t say this as any kind of apologia, but think it makes more sense to compare USSR to less developed countries than US — where it still doesn’t compare favorably in many ways, but it’s far more interesting and debatable.

Socialism / communism.

US computer technology was largely enabled and sustained by public funds. A lot of the research was done with public funding, and a lot of the early computers were bought by the military. Literally the entire computer marker would not have existed had computers not been bought by the military until the 60's In fact Soviet computer development was quite advanced for a homegrown solution.

mattnewton 4y ago
Socializing the initial risky R&D costs but leaving market mechanisms to iterate is a common pattern in US innovation. But I think the real difference was the relative wealth of the middle classes in each society, where the west tended to have a much wealthier society that could afford to spend more on early computers. The video basically outlines a couple of differences (like party leadership betting on the wrong horse a couple of times), but seems to be driving by at the fact that they just had few enough buyers and didn’t iterate as fast as a result, meaning they had trouble with things like nailing down good yields. This snowballed.
- dundarious 4y ago
  Yes, Silicon Valley grew out of quite sophisticated WW2 military R&D, so quite similar to USSR actually. I like this talk given at the Computer History Museum about the history of Silicon Valley, which was secret for many years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo You can argue USSR lacked followup demand for computing from outside the military, and that this was caused by organizational issues. It’s probably pretty important to also state the relative wealth disparity at the start of the relevant period, from 1940 onwards, say. Russia was basically feudal in 1910, and it would be hard for advancement to catch up to US levels by 1940 no matter the organization of the economy, and then we have to account for the devastation of WW2 which followed (WW2 was expensive for US, but it didn’t lose industrial capacity except via opportunity cost). I don’t say this as any kind of apologia, but think it makes more sense to compare USSR to less developed countries than US — where it still doesn’t compare favorably in many ways, but it’s far more interesting and debatable.