Miscellaneous News

Santamaria said:

Actually the Lada probably is better.

In Spain the Lada Niva was superfamous for being reliable to go to the country side during countryside bullrunning (a kind of bullrunning where bulls are free in the coutnry side and some people go with horses, other with cars and others running).

Lada Nivas was favored over Range Rover and that kind of american cars because they were more resilient. Resist better if the bull attack you and were famous for being usable during decades and decades.

And in addition they were cheaper.

In reality most of what westerners think about Soviet union is propagandized lies. I myself was in that trap during many years. When you really analyses numbers you see how wrong this is.

Western way of thinking is:

Soviet launched supersonic civil aircraft earlier than Concorde, however the soviet is a copy and the concorde is better

Soviet created a sapce shuttle before US, but the US was the original and the soviet a copy

Soviet created the space stations, but US was better.

You can continue this list as much as you want.
Only aspect where is really provable that westerner things was better than soviet is in consumer gadgets like coffee machines, microwaves and so on, because the only way of really catching the consumer needs is the consumer loop that soviet union lacked.

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FriedRiceNSpice said:

But unfortunately, consumers care more about coffee machines and microwaves than space stations and supersonic passenger planes. In 1980's China, that was a saying that it was better to sell tea-flavored eggs than to build nuclear bombs. Ultimately, what matters most to the citizens of a country is their standard of living and quality of life.

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supersnoop said:

But the automobile in the West is a consumer good, therefore we must observe it like a gadget.

One of the selling points of the car in the west is crash test rating, thus we can safely say in this respect western cars made a point of improving this once fatalities peaked in the 70's.

In the Soviet Union, it was simply lucky to get a car due to the convoluted system of approval and quotas. Ease of repair is important because you might never get another car.

I understand the importance of objectivity. I had a science teacher who illustrated this quite clearly. Talking about the Mir space station, he was critical of the (western) media focus on the technical issues that plagued Mir near the end of its operational lifespan. Rather than focus on those issues, they should be amazed at how they can keep that "piece of crap" floating in space for so long, and in fact much longer than they expected.

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Serb said:

At this point either these Anglos are some massive certified dumb racists (those kinds of bullshit articles are demand-driven for readership profit), or live in a North Korea-type society (supply-driven over-capacity of such articles directed by the intelligence apparatus) or both.

Imagine what would happen to all of their rent-seeking or finance bankster oligarchs (especially important for the UK and US) if those populations realized the truth about the Chinese superior and fair societal model where you have people always put in the first place.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1795981639526543775

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Minm said:

No middle income country has ever developed significant world leading technology, China is the only example. Setting China as the baseline means that everyone else falls short. Turkey and Iran have both developed technologies for substituting some imports, but without the scale of China or India they can't possibly develop a complete ecosystem.

For developing countries, the examples I mentioned are doing ok. Not as good as Korea or China, but they're going in the right direction and are slowly catching up. Maybe some cultures are slightly slower at development, maybe it's the neighbourhood in which there's constant war. But overall, competent central and western Asian governments are comparable to south east Asian countries in their development. Muslim countries clearly can develop. Just not all of them do. I'd agree that a radical religious government is not a very good way of governing a country, but most Muslim countries aren't ruled like that

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Minm said:

I think the example of east Asian countries shows that Confucianism can be very good for development, but you have to combine it with a competent government and peace. China didn't decline because of culture, but because it was threatened by rebellion and hostile neighbouring empires and had a government which wasn't competent enough to deal with these issues

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coolgod said:

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The app’s executives proposed giving the Biden administration control over its U.S. operations and a kill switch if things went south. The administration declined, setting up an existential legal fight.


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Bytedance denied the allegations in Chinese, though tbh I trust WaPo over Bytedance here.

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Zelenskyy’s office wrote a memo on May 26 that outlines talking points for officials and MPs to use when speaking with western partners and media about the summit, and specifically instructs Ukrainian officials and lawmakers to pile public pressure on Biden and Xi.

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“It is unlikely that the world will understand President Biden and President Xi if they do not join in the realization of such undeniably just goals and bringing peace closer.”

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sndef888 said:

This is so hilarious

Remember when the US completed its "pier" in Gaza after sending 10+ ships and spending $350 million
Reddit muricans were tooting their own horn about how they're the best at logistics and building stuff and the US Army rocks
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ctd8vt ]

Less than 2 weeks later it has fallen apart
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1d2qh8c And now they're finding excuses and claiming it was a good learning experience

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