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The description is not too dissimilar from a badly photoshopped motel ad. Yes, it nominally resembles reality but just barely and doesn’t tell you about all the

The description is not too dissimilar from a badly photoshopped motel ad. Yes, it nominally resembles reality but just barely and doesn’t tell you about all the nasty things that come with the tiny pool. Yes, everyone had a job. It was illegal not to have one. Jobs were basically assigned by the state. Most “normal” people could choose among a few OK-ish options. But if you got a hair out of line or crossed wrong people you could get assigned shoveling coal in a small boiler room or building railroads in Siberia. And if you didn’t want that job you became a criminal and went to some mine or quarry working double shifts for gruel in Gulag. Yes, everyone had a roof over their head. But that doesn’t mean space, comfort, or even privacy. It wasn’t uncommon to have no more than a bed and a small cabinet or chest. Most of the living spaces and urban areas were extremely depressing. It’s all grey boxes and muddy trails. The best you could hope for in most places is some trees and bushes adding a bit of green in the summer. There was very little people could do to change any of that. You couldn’t move elsewhere just because you wanted. People in cities with better professions could move if they managed to know the right people and could get a job elsewhere. People in villages were basically pinned to their colhozes. Their only option to see other places were a holiday trip if the managed to save up a little or to go into military and be stationed wherever. This lack of agency resulted in mass depression and alcoholism. Where do you think the grim and drunk russian stereotype comes from? It’s just the soviet reality.

BobaFloutist 1y ago
It's also almost on the level of self-parody: "In Soviet Russia we have eliminated all capitalist social ills. Unemployment is demoralizing and unproductive, so it is now illegal. Homelessness is unsafe and ruinous to the health of the mind, so it is against the law. Cancer is a terrible, deadly disease and also very expensive, so we have also banned it. And just like that, our surveys show 0% unemployment, 0% homelessness, and 0% cancer! Can your vaunted capitalistic West say the same?"
- idkfasayer 1y ago
  It would be a funny parody, if the path to 0% homelessness wasn't so brutal: 1) start a civil war killing a few % of the population 2) take every large property in the country killing or driving into exile its owners 3) deport ethnic minorities and take their property 4) artificially create a major famine killing many millions of people and driving half the country into slave like labour 5) start a major war killing a double digit fraction of your population 6) rely massively on foreign labour and foreign aid during and after the war. 7) cause smaller wars and crises around the world to extort more foreign aid. 8) jail and send to forced labour camps everyone not performing a government assigned job. 9) collapse, the second you can't extort labour internally or funds and goods internationally

BobaFloutist 1y ago

It's also almost on the level of self-parody: "In Soviet Russia we have eliminated all capitalist social ills. Unemployment is demoralizing and unproductive, so it is now illegal. Homelessness is unsafe and ruinous to the health of the mind, so it is against the law. Cancer is a terrible, deadly disease and also very expensive, so we have also banned it. And just like that, our surveys show 0% unemployment, 0% homelessness, and 0% cancer! Can your vaunted capitalistic West say the same?"

idkfasayer 1y ago
It would be a funny parody, if the path to 0% homelessness wasn't so brutal: 1) start a civil war killing a few % of the population 2) take every large property in the country killing or driving into exile its owners 3) deport ethnic minorities and take their property 4) artificially create a major famine killing many millions of people and driving half the country into slave like labour 5) start a major war killing a double digit fraction of your population 6) rely massively on foreign labour and foreign aid during and after the war. 7) cause smaller wars and crises around the world to extort more foreign aid. 8) jail and send to forced labour camps everyone not performing a government assigned job. 9) collapse, the second you can't extort labour internally or funds and goods internationally