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Bulgarian is phonetic to a large degree so if you know the sound associated to a letter, you can understandably pronounce it as well. Regarding communism and c

Bulgarian is phonetic to a large degree so if you know the sound associated to a letter, you can understandably pronounce it as well. Regarding communism and computing, deterministic systems where the entire state is knowable and predictible have certain appeal for the communist mind. If you search in the HN archives, you might find even more stories about the bulgarian computer industry with a MIT publication in the mix. There could've been even more, but a combination of distrust towards the new capitalist science and later unwillingness for those pesky machines to show the real state of the USSR economy meant that this was not developed with the full backing of the eastern block.

summa_tech 6mo ago
You know, I never thought about it that way. But you're making a lot of sense here. And in older sci-fi literature, after a very early period of distrust of the concept, cybernetics as a component / enabler of perfect collectivist society did show up, before - as you said - the West advanced too far away from the local state of the art. Also, as a broader view of your point, perhaps technocratic communism degenerates by giving way to bureaucratic communism.
- gostsamo 6mo ago
  One thing to understand about communism is that lots of people believed in it, but for the most part the communist elites considered it a feudal system where one's access to resources made them valuable and gave them power. Anything that would provide the higher ups transparency and accountability would be ruinous for the balance of power and therefore met significant pushback. There was never a technocratic communism because idealists would be either defanged to act as specialist executor clas or outright removed as unreliable players. Regarding computer usage, it was increasing to the very end, but the desolution of the USSR stopped it and the industry was destroyed in the following crises. The elites tried to modernize the economies, but it was too little too late.
unmole 6mo ago
> Regarding communism and computing, deterministic systems where the entire state is knowable and predictible have certain appeal for the communist mind. Francis Spufford explores this idea in Red Plenty, which I highly recommend. More broadly, I think the book would appeal to many HN readers.
- NitpickLawyer 6mo ago
  Some explorations with an AI overlord also in LeGuin's "The Dispossessed"
  - WaxProlix 6mo ago
    Hard to talk about favorites in books, but there was a solid decade of my life where I'd have probably said this was my favorite sci fi book. Highly recommend to anyone reading this.
- keybored 6mo ago
  The incredible things I read on this site. The communist mind? Oh right, there’s a book for that, and it’s probably agreeable to people on this site. What the heck is this psycho-mysticism.
  - vidarh 6mo ago
    It's a fascinating exercise in antrhopology to see otherwise smart people confidently discuss the mind of people most of them have had no exposure to in person. Having spoken to a variety of people across the very broad spectrum of left-wing thought, ranging from libertarian marxists opposing the very existence of a state, to hardline marxism-leninists who thought the former group belonged in labour camps, I find the idea of a singular "communist mind" as ridiculous as you.
    - mike_hearn 6mo ago
      All actual communist societies work the same way, so it's clearly possible to generalize.
anovikov 6mo ago
Was there "communist mind" in Bulgaria? Which is same as asking - did you guys perceive Communism as something homegrown, something of your own - "your take on how it is best to develop a country", or something forcibly imposed on you by the Soviets? Bulgaria was seen with disdain in the Soviet Union as seen as a country where little but tomatoes were made (even if we knew it wasn't really the case), so in our Soviet mental map of the world there was no particular image of what a Bulgarian thought about Communism. We knew Serbs liked it and we knew Czechs and Poles didn't, for instance. What about Bulgarians?
- gostsamo 6mo ago
  I used "communist mind" as a collective term for the ideological framework in which computers were discussed. The state had a party and the party had an ideology and the ideology legitimized the other two, hence all actions of the state and the party had to be justified through it. It does not mean some other kind of consciousness that allowed one to be closer to the ghost of Marx or whatever some people seem to ascribe to it. Regarding your question, I cannot talk on behalf of everyone. Many who didn't like communism were killed or crushed otherwise in the early years, many who accepted communism did it because of the association with Russia and the historical connection there, many who had their best years in the booming years of the regime until 1970 approx remember it fondly, many who had their worst years in the nineties have a nostalgia avoiding to talk about the bad aspects of it, many didn't give a damn and lived in the system while undermining it, and many of those who would formulate intellectual criticism of it were actually well incorporated in the system to give a damn about what is good or bad. Overall, there were lots of people who disliked both the party and its dependence on the USSR, but there was not a mass movement until the very last years when things started to break down.
  - anovikov 6mo ago
    My question wasn't about liking the 'socialism' or not as much, more about seeing it as something of your own - no matter if good or bad, or something that your enemies imposed on you by force?
unj 6mo ago
"systems where the entire state is knowable and predictible " was exactly what got computer systems killed in Communist Poland. WEKTOR system was killed because it would made deputy minister of innovation at that time (Jan Mitręga) the best informed person in the Communist Party. INFOSTRADA/KSI (Krajowy System Informatyczny - National IT System) systems were killed because they would disrupt the falsified and controlled information flow within the Communist Party.

summa_tech 6mo ago

You know, I never thought about it that way. But you're making a lot of sense here. And in older sci-fi literature, after a very early period of distrust of the concept, cybernetics as a component / enabler of perfect collectivist society did show up, before - as you said - the West advanced too far away from the local state of the art. Also, as a broader view of your point, perhaps technocratic communism degenerates by giving way to bureaucratic communism.

gostsamo 6mo ago
One thing to understand about communism is that lots of people believed in it, but for the most part the communist elites considered it a feudal system where one's access to resources made them valuable and gave them power. Anything that would provide the higher ups transparency and accountability would be ruinous for the balance of power and therefore met significant pushback. There was never a technocratic communism because idealists would be either defanged to act as specialist executor clas or outright removed as unreliable players. Regarding computer usage, it was increasing to the very end, but the desolution of the USSR stopped it and the industry was destroyed in the following crises. The elites tried to modernize the economies, but it was too little too late.

unmole 6mo ago

> Regarding communism and computing, deterministic systems where the entire state is knowable and predictible have certain appeal for the communist mind. Francis Spufford explores this idea in Red Plenty, which I highly recommend. More broadly, I think the book would appeal to many HN readers.

NitpickLawyer 6mo ago
Some explorations with an AI overlord also in LeGuin's "The Dispossessed"
- WaxProlix 6mo ago
  Hard to talk about favorites in books, but there was a solid decade of my life where I'd have probably said this was my favorite sci fi book. Highly recommend to anyone reading this.
keybored 6mo ago
The incredible things I read on this site. The communist mind? Oh right, there’s a book for that, and it’s probably agreeable to people on this site. What the heck is this psycho-mysticism.
- vidarh 6mo ago
  It's a fascinating exercise in antrhopology to see otherwise smart people confidently discuss the mind of people most of them have had no exposure to in person. Having spoken to a variety of people across the very broad spectrum of left-wing thought, ranging from libertarian marxists opposing the very existence of a state, to hardline marxism-leninists who thought the former group belonged in labour camps, I find the idea of a singular "communist mind" as ridiculous as you.
  - mike_hearn 6mo ago
    All actual communist societies work the same way, so it's clearly possible to generalize.

anovikov 6mo ago

Was there "communist mind" in Bulgaria? Which is same as asking - did you guys perceive Communism as something homegrown, something of your own - "your take on how it is best to develop a country", or something forcibly imposed on you by the Soviets? Bulgaria was seen with disdain in the Soviet Union as seen as a country where little but tomatoes were made (even if we knew it wasn't really the case), so in our Soviet mental map of the world there was no particular image of what a Bulgarian thought about Communism. We knew Serbs liked it and we knew Czechs and Poles didn't, for instance. What about Bulgarians?

gostsamo 6mo ago
I used "communist mind" as a collective term for the ideological framework in which computers were discussed. The state had a party and the party had an ideology and the ideology legitimized the other two, hence all actions of the state and the party had to be justified through it. It does not mean some other kind of consciousness that allowed one to be closer to the ghost of Marx or whatever some people seem to ascribe to it. Regarding your question, I cannot talk on behalf of everyone. Many who didn't like communism were killed or crushed otherwise in the early years, many who accepted communism did it because of the association with Russia and the historical connection there, many who had their best years in the booming years of the regime until 1970 approx remember it fondly, many who had their worst years in the nineties have a nostalgia avoiding to talk about the bad aspects of it, many didn't give a damn and lived in the system while undermining it, and many of those who would formulate intellectual criticism of it were actually well incorporated in the system to give a damn about what is good or bad. Overall, there were lots of people who disliked both the party and its dependence on the USSR, but there was not a mass movement until the very last years when things started to break down.
- anovikov 6mo ago
  My question wasn't about liking the 'socialism' or not as much, more about seeing it as something of your own - no matter if good or bad, or something that your enemies imposed on you by force?

unj 6mo ago

"systems where the entire state is knowable and predictible " was exactly what got computer systems killed in Communist Poland. WEKTOR system was killed because it would made deputy minister of innovation at that time (Jan Mitręga) the best informed person in the Communist Party. INFOSTRADA/KSI (Krajowy System Informatyczny - National IT System) systems were killed because they would disrupt the falsified and controlled information flow within the Communist Party.