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Comment by sssilver | Hacker News Reader

One day I hope the humanity will credit the Soviet Union for what it really was -- a technocratic meritocracy, where scientific progress and enormous projects of planetary scale mattered more than daily preferences of spoiled individuals.

Hopefully one day such a society will emerge again, and this time they will not dismantle themselves over having Coke and Levi's. Having lived in USSR -- no, we seriously didn't break up because of human rights issues. We just simply wanted Coke and Levi's.

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Maybe it deserves credit for R&D and engineering talent, but certainly not for what USSR really was.

As born in the USSR I can confirm that the USSR was a much better place to live in than modern Russia from almost any point of view: the best education system, better and affordable healthcare, practically no crime (if to compare with modern Russia), books and movies of much better quality than the flood of post-modern shit we have now, zero unemployment rate etc...

As a Jew born in the USSR that soon emigrated, I've thankfully avoided the harrowing experiences my parents and grandparents had to go through. Comparing favorably to a kleptocracy that used Capitalism as a false flag just as much as the old oligarchy used Socialism isn't the sort of glowing recommendation I think you intended.

I was born in Russia in 1984; it was pretty great to me, because a) young kids don't notice as much of society's ills, and b) I'm the grandchild of a well respected academic.

Life was pretty good for me and my family; not so good for my friend, who had to share a two bedroom apartment with two other families.

(I feel that books, movies, etc. are pretty subjective - I like the flood of post-modern shit we live in. You might have to dig a little harder to find diamonds, but there are more of them.)

> a technocratic meritocracy

Unless you're Jewish.

Arguments much?

Clicked on a random one, Igor Tamm - Wikipedia says that "some sources" describe him as Jewish. They're all print books, and I'm not willing to grab them all to settle a meaningless internet argument, but I'd wager that he was not considered Jewish at the time.

In any case, alright; some Jewish scientists did fine. Others didn't. We can praise the things the USSR did well without white-washing its history altogether.

How about this guy?

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...

Meritocracy? Really? Then explain Lysenko, for example, who single-handedly, thanks to his political clout with Stalin and Krushchev, set Soviet agriculture, genetics and biology research back several decades. For severall years, going against Lysenko's theories was actually illegal.

And you can feel free to arrange your own little Soviet state. For my part, my marxist views would most likely have gotten me sent to Siberia or worse, so I'd much rather stay clear.

Are you fucking kidding me? Nearly as many people died due to Stalinism than did in the entirety of WWII. It was a horrorshow. A violent, oppressive regime that murdered millions and caused misery for millions more? Technocratic meritocracy? Bullshit. It was always about political favoritism. When smart people were in political favor maybe good shit got done, when dumb people were in political favor, well, shit got fucked. Lysenkoism is hardly a ringing endorsement for communism. Nor is the Venera program for that matter. Was it worth tens of millions butchered? Tens of millions enslaved under brutal conditions in labor camps? Tens of millions living lives of fear and hopelessness?

I know you were provoked by a trollish comment, but it should be obvious that this not an appropriate post for Hacker News.

All: this indignant political subthread is off topic.

When scientific progress mattered more, so why was cybernetics considered bourgeois pseudoscience? Also, how can you progress on planetary scale, when there's shortage of toilet paper?

It seems that USA has many kinds of treatments for cancer these days - a manifestation of recent scientific progress obviously. What is the typical way very poor people to get it (or lets say even a chemistry teacher, who obviously cannot be poor in a reasonable society)? (But toilet paper is obviously important as well).

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