4 ms·

The fall of communism was one of the largest drops in quality of life and lifespan ever recorded, IIRC.

542458 3y ago
I’d like to see a source for that. I don’t really see how it could compare to WW2 or the Three Kingdoms War or Taiping Rebellion or Great Chinese Famine or Black Death or either the Justinian or Antoine plagues.
- goodbyesf 3y ago
  In comparison to ww2, the fall of the soviet union was worse than ww2. https://www.rferl.org/a/life-expectancy-cis-report/24946030.html https://www.rferl.org/a/life-expectancy-cis-report/24946030.... To put it into perspective, after ww2, the russian population recovered in a few years. The russian population today is still below their 1990 levels. In terms of population, life expectancy, quality of life, etc, ww2 (as horrible as it was ) was an insignificant blip. The fall of the soviet union has been a generational catastrophe for russia. A funk they seem unable to get out of demographically, economically, politically, etc. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population In the US, our population has grown 50% since 1990 ( almost 150 more people ). The russian population has dropped 5% since 1990. After ww2, russia had major population growth like the US. After germany and japan lost ww2, their population, economy, etc improved drastically. For some reason, losing a hot war ( japan, germany ) turned out to be much better than losing a cold war ( russia ). Think about it, we are nearly 2 generations into the post-soviet world and russia still hasn't recovered their population. After ww2, russia almost doubled their population in 2 generations. Losing the cold war appears to have demoralized the russian elite and people far more than losing ww2 did to germany and japan. Why? Who knows.
  - 542458 3y ago
    I disagree on how you scoped the discussion on the fall of communism. Why are we scoping down to just Russia? If you scoped broader to include the other post-Soviet counties you’d include all the countries where life expectancy has significantly increased since then. There’s also the matter of scoping WW2: I would argue that WW2’s direct effects on thousands of millions of people deserve more weight than the fall of communism, which affected hundreds of millions. If we don’t take this type of scoping into effect I could claim that one person’s cancer diagnosis was a worse quality of life drop than WW2, and the discussion gets a little absurd.
    - goodbyesf 3y ago
      > Why are we scoping down to just Russia? Because the soviet union was russia. Russia is the successor state of the soviet union. Which country would you use? Moldova? Estonia? > If you scoped broader to include the other post-Soviet counties you’d include all the countries where life expectancy has significantly increased since then. Even russia's life expectancy improved after the initial disastrous decline. My point was that overall population hasn't recovered since the soviet collapse. This is true for ukraine, moldova, russia, estonia, most former ex-soviet nations. The only one to buck the trend are muslim ex-soviet nations. > I would argue that WW2’s direct effects on thousands of millions of people deserve more weight than the fall of communism, which affected hundreds of millions. WW2 didn't affect 'thousands of millions'. The world population in 1940 was around 2 billion. Also we are talking about the effects of the fall of the soviet union. Why I limited it to russia/soviet union. > If we don’t take this type of scoping into effect I could claim that one person’s cancer diagnosis was a worse quality of life drop than WW2, and the discussion gets a little absurd. Maybe it's a language issue. You don't seem to have a solid grasp of the english language. My point was that the fall of the soviet was worse FOR RUSSIA than ww2 was FOR RUSSIA. I'm not saying that the fall of the soviet union was worse overall than ww2. That's another discussion. So no. One person's cancer diagnosis isn't worse than ww2. One person's cancer diagnosis is worse than that person's diagnosis of ankle sprain. You see. You have one person and two bad events. You have one russia and two bad events. You compare the bad events on the one person or one russia. You are being very disingenious here. I can't for the life of me understand why.
wddkcs 3y ago
Worse than the fall of the Roman empire, the decades of black plague, and ancient cataclysms that wiped out entire nations? Wow
- wiseowise 3y ago
  > one of the
  - wddkcs 3y ago
    It was lost in the sarcasm, but I was trying to emphasize the disparity. The fall of communism wasn't close in loss of life or resulting affects to any of those of hundreds of other events. What's more, how many people did Soviet 'communism' itself crush? What was the life span of a Ukrainian farmer in Soviet Russia? Did that go up after the fall of communism? I can't see any decrease in quality that can be directly and singularly tied to the fall of the USSR, except for perhaps the dictators at the top of the heap. Arguably, those same class of dictators are responsible for repressing quality of life even after the dissolution.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      USSR collapse was disastrous whether you agree with it or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_conflicts And on top of that go over what every post soviet republic went through after USSR collapsed. Those countries were under dysfunctional system for 70 years and suddenly they're being thrown in a 180 turn economy without any institutions. Also keep in mind that majority of republics were left on their own and had to become satellites of Russia if they wanted to survive.
      - wddkcs 3y ago
        How do all of those conflicts compare to the 61 million people killed during the halycion days of the USSR? https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM#:~:text=In%20sum%2C%20probably%20somewhere%20between,of%20this%20number%20is%2061%2C911%2C000 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM#:~:text=In....
resolutebat 3y ago
Only temporarily. Every Eastern European country, including Albania, now has much higher life expectancy than it did during the communist era. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ALB/albania/life-expectancy https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ALB/albania/life-expec...
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  I'm not sure I'd trust that site. Its information on the United States is in direct contrast to the CDC's own numbers. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/... It also doesn't reflect changes in life expectancy during COVID, showing a consistent 0.08% increase every year. Seems less statistics and more projections.
bequanna 3y ago
I think you mean: the collapse of a superpower nation caused a temporary drop, the sharp rise in quality of life.
mschuster91 3y ago
To add a bit of context for those not too well versed in Eastern European history (from someone with a Croatian background): Back in the real-sozialist/communist era, the people didn't have much rights (especially not those that were against the dictators), but in exchange at least the government took somewhat of a care of providing everyone with a life worth living (notable exception: the remote areas of Russia that have historically served only as a supply for young men to grind in Russian wars) - it's not unlike the societal reality currently in China. The nation blocks, either the Soviet Union or the "non aligned movement", supported each other and distributed workload to make sure everyone (both in terms of nations as well as people) could make a living - even if that was often far less efficient than Western countries, because the Communist nations prioritized jobs for their people over having machines do these jobs. Then, Communism fell... corrupt entities took over many of the countries, only looking to enrich themselves, and as the international solidarity system failed against "cheaper" products there was no hope to keep the often horribly outdated factories alive, and at the same time Western societies hungry for more labor force (and way more attractive currencies) began to "brain drain" the former Communist countries. Today, the people may have rights on paper, but in practice they're worthless (either due to corruption or because the state is too poor), and society is crumbling apart from decades of looting and corrupt elites on one side and young generations moving abroad because they can't see any way that their country escapes the death spiral. Many people struggle with survival every day. So yes, in conclusion it's warranted to say that the fall of Communism led to a massive drop in quality of life. TikTok and the "gangsta" life style are just the cherries on the cake.
- supazek 3y ago
  You really skipped over that “didn’t have rights” part. How many people were in Gulag? And you think there was no corruption in the ruling communist class? Corruption is a feature of any political organization and should be stopped, but money was just as much a motivator for the communists as it is for the capitalists. The only difference is that it wasn’t available to the working class so they weren’t incentivized to produce or invent.
  - wddkcs 3y ago
marcusverus 3y ago
This is hilarious. The reality is that the fall of communism led to a total crash… in the proportion of humanity living in absolute poverty. With the vast majority of the gains coming from formerly communist countries.

I’d like to see a source for that. I don’t really see how it could compare to WW2 or the Three Kingdoms War or Taiping Rebellion or Great Chinese Famine or Black Death or either the Justinian or Antoine plagues.

goodbyesf 3y ago
In comparison to ww2, the fall of the soviet union was worse than ww2. https://www.rferl.org/a/life-expectancy-cis-report/24946030.html https://www.rferl.org/a/life-expectancy-cis-report/24946030.... To put it into perspective, after ww2, the russian population recovered in a few years. The russian population today is still below their 1990 levels. In terms of population, life expectancy, quality of life, etc, ww2 (as horrible as it was ) was an insignificant blip. The fall of the soviet union has been a generational catastrophe for russia. A funk they seem unable to get out of demographically, economically, politically, etc. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/population In the US, our population has grown 50% since 1990 ( almost 150 more people ). The russian population has dropped 5% since 1990. After ww2, russia had major population growth like the US. After germany and japan lost ww2, their population, economy, etc improved drastically. For some reason, losing a hot war ( japan, germany ) turned out to be much better than losing a cold war ( russia ). Think about it, we are nearly 2 generations into the post-soviet world and russia still hasn't recovered their population. After ww2, russia almost doubled their population in 2 generations. Losing the cold war appears to have demoralized the russian elite and people far more than losing ww2 did to germany and japan. Why? Who knows.
- 542458 3y ago
  I disagree on how you scoped the discussion on the fall of communism. Why are we scoping down to just Russia? If you scoped broader to include the other post-Soviet counties you’d include all the countries where life expectancy has significantly increased since then. There’s also the matter of scoping WW2: I would argue that WW2’s direct effects on thousands of millions of people deserve more weight than the fall of communism, which affected hundreds of millions. If we don’t take this type of scoping into effect I could claim that one person’s cancer diagnosis was a worse quality of life drop than WW2, and the discussion gets a little absurd.
  - goodbyesf 3y ago
    > Why are we scoping down to just Russia? Because the soviet union was russia. Russia is the successor state of the soviet union. Which country would you use? Moldova? Estonia? > If you scoped broader to include the other post-Soviet counties you’d include all the countries where life expectancy has significantly increased since then. Even russia's life expectancy improved after the initial disastrous decline. My point was that overall population hasn't recovered since the soviet collapse. This is true for ukraine, moldova, russia, estonia, most former ex-soviet nations. The only one to buck the trend are muslim ex-soviet nations. > I would argue that WW2’s direct effects on thousands of millions of people deserve more weight than the fall of communism, which affected hundreds of millions. WW2 didn't affect 'thousands of millions'. The world population in 1940 was around 2 billion. Also we are talking about the effects of the fall of the soviet union. Why I limited it to russia/soviet union. > If we don’t take this type of scoping into effect I could claim that one person’s cancer diagnosis was a worse quality of life drop than WW2, and the discussion gets a little absurd. Maybe it's a language issue. You don't seem to have a solid grasp of the english language. My point was that the fall of the soviet was worse FOR RUSSIA than ww2 was FOR RUSSIA. I'm not saying that the fall of the soviet union was worse overall than ww2. That's another discussion. So no. One person's cancer diagnosis isn't worse than ww2. One person's cancer diagnosis is worse than that person's diagnosis of ankle sprain. You see. You have one person and two bad events. You have one russia and two bad events. You compare the bad events on the one person or one russia. You are being very disingenious here. I can't for the life of me understand why.

wddkcs 3y ago

Worse than the fall of the Roman empire, the decades of black plague, and ancient cataclysms that wiped out entire nations? Wow

wiseowise 3y ago
> one of the
- wddkcs 3y ago
  It was lost in the sarcasm, but I was trying to emphasize the disparity. The fall of communism wasn't close in loss of life or resulting affects to any of those of hundreds of other events. What's more, how many people did Soviet 'communism' itself crush? What was the life span of a Ukrainian farmer in Soviet Russia? Did that go up after the fall of communism? I can't see any decrease in quality that can be directly and singularly tied to the fall of the USSR, except for perhaps the dictators at the top of the heap. Arguably, those same class of dictators are responsible for repressing quality of life even after the dissolution.
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    USSR collapse was disastrous whether you agree with it or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_conflicts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Soviet_conflicts And on top of that go over what every post soviet republic went through after USSR collapsed. Those countries were under dysfunctional system for 70 years and suddenly they're being thrown in a 180 turn economy without any institutions. Also keep in mind that majority of republics were left on their own and had to become satellites of Russia if they wanted to survive.
    - wddkcs 3y ago
      How do all of those conflicts compare to the 61 million people killed during the halycion days of the USSR? https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM#:~:text=In%20sum%2C%20probably%20somewhere%20between,of%20this%20number%20is%2061%2C911%2C000 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM#:~:text=In....

resolutebat 3y ago

Only temporarily. Every Eastern European country, including Albania, now has much higher life expectancy than it did during the communist era. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ALB/albania/life-expectancy https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ALB/albania/life-expec...

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
I'm not sure I'd trust that site. Its information on the United States is in direct contrast to the CDC's own numbers. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/... It also doesn't reflect changes in life expectancy during COVID, showing a consistent 0.08% increase every year. Seems less statistics and more projections.

bequanna 3y ago

I think you mean: the collapse of a superpower nation caused a temporary drop, the sharp rise in quality of life.

mschuster91 3y ago

To add a bit of context for those not too well versed in Eastern European history (from someone with a Croatian background): Back in the real-sozialist/communist era, the people didn't have much rights (especially not those that were against the dictators), but in exchange at least the government took somewhat of a care of providing everyone with a life worth living (notable exception: the remote areas of Russia that have historically served only as a supply for young men to grind in Russian wars) - it's not unlike the societal reality currently in China. The nation blocks, either the Soviet Union or the "non aligned movement", supported each other and distributed workload to make sure everyone (both in terms of nations as well as people) could make a living - even if that was often far less efficient than Western countries, because the Communist nations prioritized jobs for their people over having machines do these jobs. Then, Communism fell... corrupt entities took over many of the countries, only looking to enrich themselves, and as the international solidarity system failed against "cheaper" products there was no hope to keep the often horribly outdated factories alive, and at the same time Western societies hungry for more labor force (and way more attractive currencies) began to "brain drain" the former Communist countries. Today, the people may have rights on paper, but in practice they're worthless (either due to corruption or because the state is too poor), and society is crumbling apart from decades of looting and corrupt elites on one side and young generations moving abroad because they can't see any way that their country escapes the death spiral. Many people struggle with survival every day. So yes, in conclusion it's warranted to say that the fall of Communism led to a massive drop in quality of life. TikTok and the "gangsta" life style are just the cherries on the cake.

supazek 3y ago
You really skipped over that “didn’t have rights” part. How many people were in Gulag? And you think there was no corruption in the ruling communist class? Corruption is a feature of any political organization and should be stopped, but money was just as much a motivator for the communists as it is for the capitalists. The only difference is that it wasn’t available to the working class so they weren’t incentivized to produce or invent.
- wddkcs 3y ago

marcusverus 3y ago

This is hilarious. The reality is that the fall of communism led to a total crash… in the proportion of humanity living in absolute poverty. With the vast majority of the gains coming from formerly communist countries.