The USSR was not "doing fine" before the reforms, things were going badly hence the need for reforms. The USSR peaked in the mid-1960s but it was downhill after that.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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Doing badly in what exactly? Be more specific.
USSR fell when those elite basically told Yeltsin to wind it down. no amount of media could change it. this is the basics. The mistake Yeltsin did was not firing this foreign ministry stuffed with leftist USSR officials that keep countries like Iran afloat in 90s. This prevented the relations with Arabs and Israel. only alliance of Arab and Israelis can sort out this Africa and Europe when they not have to deal with Iran and other failed states. now Russia 30 years later doing same thing.
Just heard from an US based influencer buddy that an agent representing Xiaohongshu reached out to him earlier today, and invited him to register and post content on their platform for $$$$.
This means that Xiaohongshu definitely intends to remain and grow in the US market.
Though whether the Chinese userbase and US userbase are to remain integrated or will be segregated is still TBD.
This means that Xiaohongshu definitely intends to remain and grow in the US market.
Though whether the Chinese userbase and US userbase are to remain integrated or will be segregated is still TBD.
The initial success of Soviet Union's industrialization relied on transferring labor from the countryside to the cities to work in factories and huge infrastructure projects. Initially this provided a huge boost in productivity and was responsible for its massive growth and transformation, but slowing demographics meant they eventually ran out of surplus labor, and because their system lacked the competition incentive to innovate (or as Xi Jinping would say; "new productive forces"), their output stagnated. They got a reprieve in the 1970s with the discovery of oil in Western Siberia, but when oil prices plunged in the 1980s their economy came to a screeching halt.
They ended up in an awkward situation where they could no longer feed their people (civil economy) and fund their gigantic military industrial complex at the same time, the leadership had to make a choice. Gorbachev said f*ck it and chose the civil economy. This didn't help because military spending made up 15% of GDP and the MIC constituted a significant chunk of its economy, its near shutdown reverberated across the entire economy and made an already dire situation worse. The Soviet people, including many in the Communist Party (aside from a few Stalinists), especially the mid to lower level functionaries, grew disillusioned with the whole communist project and helped bring the system down. This was made easier because the ethnic minorities, with the absence of funds coming from the central government, no longer had an incentive to subordinate themselves to Moscow.
The result: a state that can't control its internal borders, military, and feed itself at the same time is no longer viable and so the USSR ceased to exist.
POTUS can't unban TikTok because the ban is passed by Congress
supercat
Major
But if the president doesn't sign it, it cannot become law?
The University of Michigan is right to terminate their relationship with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Yeah.
Feels awfully early to start poaching influencers from other sites before the dust settles no? While it took the US half a decade to ban TikTok finally, very feasible that they don’t take as long again if they want to. Or people just get bored and leave. Feels like a very myopic strategy imo.
Also even with a better algorithm, I think they know that the main appeal is just being able to interact with Chinese. If you remove it, I don’t think there is much room for growth unless leadership is really that myopic. Would be funny if the fumble is from the company itself being dumb than any government intervention.