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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

> Some of the stories are more in the line of “hooray for Soviet scientists” genre, which I find a lot less interesting

I find this very telling about the reviewer. When the Russians (or Soviets) show gallows humor, or are simply bizarre or we (in the West) want to read dark undertones in what they wrote: hell yes, it's just like I thought, the Soviet Union must have been a constant nightmare!

When they write in a self congratulatory tone, or simply praise their scientists: boring, let's skip that.

It is a way to self-select a vision of what the Soviet era must have been: all depressing, all zany, all the time.

The normal, they-were-humans-like-us bits get ignored because they are boring, confirming and reinforcing our preexisting ideas.

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You’re definitely reading more into this article than he is into Soviet society.

If you ever need a dose of reality, go see (google) some of Nikolai Getman's paintings of the life of prisoners in the Gulag which he had to paint in secret after being imprisoned for 8 years.

Thanks for the recommendation, I googled the paintings and they are both impressive and depressing.

However, I'm not sure I understand the relation to my comment. Do you think I was claiming life in the Gulag wasn't oppressive? Let me clarify: I was pointing out what I think is a curious bias in the author of the article.

According to Nikolai Getman, even staying in Soviet "Metropoliten" is soooo depressing (See more of him, not only related with Gulags).

Thank you for the recommendation.

Link for the lazy: https://onartandaesthetics.com/2018/10/03/the-gulag-collecti...

As a kid I don't remember that much, but I do remember a Stalin joke, which something like this:

A film crew is making a film about the benevolence of Stalin. A little child walks up to the leader and asks for a sweet. Stalin says fuck off and the crew is immediately filming 'He could have killed her.' card.

That said, I agree with your overall point. We all see, what we want to see. The few that don't are either children or those who train themselves to actually look.

Thast's actually a Russian joke about Lenin.

> Lenin sits, cutting pieces from an apple with knife and eating them.

> A little child walks up and asks Lenin to get a bit of an apple.

> Lenin does not respond in any way and continues cutting and eating apple.

> Now, do you see what a kind man Lenin was? He could have stabbed.

I think he’s just saying that self-congratulatory stuff, from any source, is expected and unenlightening.

I don't think it's expected or unenlightening. Scientists are scientists; we want to cheer at their wins. Feynman was pretty much self-congratulatory in "Surely you're joking" -- sometimes annoyingly so -- yet we celebrate his anecdotes, we don't skip them.

Self-congratulatory jokes are generally not very funny, regardless of what nationality or political orientation they come from.

The author says they are less interesting, not less funny.

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