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I think there was excellent higher education in the soviet union. You have many people with phds, engineers etc. They also promoted intellectual pursuits such a

I think there was excellent higher education in the soviet union. You have many people with phds, engineers etc. They also promoted intellectual pursuits such as chess. The issue was/is the Communist system and now the unbelievable amount of corruption/organised crime at every level of government. The intellectual class in russia were robbed after the fall of the soviet union. They are scientists, mathematicians, engineers, they are extremely capable, but they have never been given a chance.

roywiggins 4y ago
Not just corruption, at least during Stalin's rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov > Vavilov's work was criticized by Trofim Lysenko, whose anti-Mendelian concepts of plant biology had won favor with Joseph Stalin. As a result, Vavilov was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in July 1941. Although his sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, he died in prison in 1943. According to Lyubov Brezhneva, he was thrown to his death into a pit of lime in the prison yard.
adolph 4y ago
Asianometry also has a video "Why the Soviet Computer Failed" [0]. If the Soviet Union had excellent higher education, why was/is Communism and then corruption/organized crime an issue? At what point do phds, engineers, etc take responsibility for the society in which they live? When do the smart people say "we have met the enemy and he is us?" [1] 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnHdqPBrtH8 1. https://library.osu.edu/site/40stories/2020/01/05/we-have-met-the-enemy/ From the video description: In 1986, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 10,000 computers. The Americans had 1.3 million. At the time of Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was the world's third most proficient computing power. But by the 1960s, the US-Soviet computing gap was already years long. Twenty years later, the gap was undeniable and basically permanent. Why did this happen? The Soviet state believed in science and industrial modernization. Support for research & development and the hard sciences were plentiful. They had the country’s finest minds. Goodness gracious, they launched Sputnik! They landed on Venus! How did it come to this?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  See also their theft of computing intellectual property https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_computing_technology_smuggling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_computing_technology_... Radar theft: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/09/24/soviet-radar-allegedly-stolen-from-us/3a754179-c337-4d60-8471-2e7b1d76f6bd/?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/09/24/s... Entire books were written on the subject. Here’s one: https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1126/112610.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1126/112610.html Reminds me of China today. “ Mueller, operating since 1974, is said by US officials to have set up some 41 dummy firms in Europe and Africa solely for the purpose of facilitating the diversion of sensitive US high tech. He is the technobandit said to be behind the now-famous attempted VAX computer diversion last year from South Africa to the Soviet Union via West Germany and Sweden. The diversion trail, as outlined by the authors, demonstrates the lengths to which determined smugglers may go to attempt to avoid detection. According to the authors, the sensitive computers were transferred from one of Mueller's South African firms, Microelectronics Research Institute (MRI) to another of his South African firms, Optronix. The computers were then resold to a Swiss firm, Integrated Time AG. The Swiss firm was a subsidiary of Mueller's German firm, Deutsche Integrated Time. In the meantime, the computers had been loaded on a ship bound for Sweden and the Soviet Union. The VAX computers in question had originally been legally licensed for export by the US government to MRI in South Africa, but under the condition that they not be resold or transhipped elsewhere.”
diebeforei485 4y ago
> The intellectual class in russia were robbed after the fall of the soviet union. They weren't compensated fairly for their work during the soviet union either.

roywiggins 4y ago

Not just corruption, at least during Stalin's rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov > Vavilov's work was criticized by Trofim Lysenko, whose anti-Mendelian concepts of plant biology had won favor with Joseph Stalin. As a result, Vavilov was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in July 1941. Although his sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, he died in prison in 1943. According to Lyubov Brezhneva, he was thrown to his death into a pit of lime in the prison yard.

adolph 4y ago

Asianometry also has a video "Why the Soviet Computer Failed" [0]. If the Soviet Union had excellent higher education, why was/is Communism and then corruption/organized crime an issue? At what point do phds, engineers, etc take responsibility for the society in which they live? When do the smart people say "we have met the enemy and he is us?" [1] 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnHdqPBrtH8 1. https://library.osu.edu/site/40stories/2020/01/05/we-have-met-the-enemy/ From the video description: In 1986, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 10,000 computers. The Americans had 1.3 million. At the time of Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was the world's third most proficient computing power. But by the 1960s, the US-Soviet computing gap was already years long. Twenty years later, the gap was undeniable and basically permanent. Why did this happen? The Soviet state believed in science and industrial modernization. Support for research & development and the hard sciences were plentiful. They had the country’s finest minds. Goodness gracious, they launched Sputnik! They landed on Venus! How did it come to this?

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
See also their theft of computing intellectual property https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_computing_technology_smuggling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_computing_technology_... Radar theft: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/09/24/soviet-radar-allegedly-stolen-from-us/3a754179-c337-4d60-8471-2e7b1d76f6bd/?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/09/24/s... Entire books were written on the subject. Here’s one: https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1126/112610.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1126/112610.html Reminds me of China today. “ Mueller, operating since 1974, is said by US officials to have set up some 41 dummy firms in Europe and Africa solely for the purpose of facilitating the diversion of sensitive US high tech. He is the technobandit said to be behind the now-famous attempted VAX computer diversion last year from South Africa to the Soviet Union via West Germany and Sweden. The diversion trail, as outlined by the authors, demonstrates the lengths to which determined smugglers may go to attempt to avoid detection. According to the authors, the sensitive computers were transferred from one of Mueller's South African firms, Microelectronics Research Institute (MRI) to another of his South African firms, Optronix. The computers were then resold to a Swiss firm, Integrated Time AG. The Swiss firm was a subsidiary of Mueller's German firm, Deutsche Integrated Time. In the meantime, the computers had been loaded on a ship bound for Sweden and the Soviet Union. The VAX computers in question had originally been legally licensed for export by the US government to MRI in South Africa, but under the condition that they not be resold or transhipped elsewhere.”

diebeforei485 4y ago

> The intellectual class in russia were robbed after the fall of the soviet union. They weren't compensated fairly for their work during the soviet union either.