Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
I think I'm going to go into publishing. I have a degree, all you do is find authors and send their stuff to printers.
I can spend most of my day playing golf.
I could probably be a minister of a department in the time left over from that, all you do is delegate.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
History and political science majors should be the only ones with political leadership roles. How can you ruin a country if you never wrote a 3-5 page , 12 point font, double spaced paper about running a country.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Dilbert_X wrote:

I think I'm going to go into publishing. I have a degree, all you do is find authors and send their stuff to printers.
I can spend most of my day playing golf.
I could probably be a minister of a department in the time left over from that, all you do is delegate.
you seem very confused.

there is more to policy, and more to guiding an orderly society, than 'make an algorithm for it'. this approach to human affairs is either asinine or autistic: make your choice.

also, no, i do a lot more than send things to printers and find authors. lol. that is the preliminary and finalization bit. 95% of the job comes in between that. for a person who is so rash to judge, well, everybody else, you aren't much of a worldly fellow are you?

on that note i suggest you check out my china post in the pandemic thread if you want to check out more on a society that views itself as 'engineer-driven' or 'engineer-guided'. turns out all of china view xi as a legit engineer-type too, and they have an entire political philosophy based off it. so much for your 'xi can't be an engineer because he also read marxist pamphlets at university'.

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth. doesn't that give you pause for thought?

whoosh! over your head.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth.
That's because they replaced God with the religion of science in their schools and homes. The same thing happened with the Nazis and Fascist Italy. Hitler and Mussolini turned their backs on their Catholic heritage and look at what happened.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

There is more to policy, and more to guiding an orderly society, than 'make an algorithm for it'. this approach to human affairs is either asinine or autistic: make your choice.
I doubt there is anyone working in govt who hasn't had the experience

"Yeah, we've got this problem right? Could you do the science ready for my press conference tomorrow morning? Thanks".
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth. doesn't that give you pause for thought?
No, the inhuman evil came first, they're using science as a tool. Tools can be used for good or evil.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423

SuperJail Warden wrote:

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth.
That's because they replaced God with the religion of science in their schools and homes. The same thing happened with the Nazis and Fascist Italy. Hitler and Mussolini turned their backs on their Catholic heritage and look at what happened.
strange you don't mention communist russia, which was explicitly the most atheistic and technocratic of them all, in that sort of progressivist-utopian strain of 'reinventing man' and so bringing about a worldly paradise, etc-ra. marx's original philosophy is very theological and messianic in that way. fascism sort of came to an accommodation with religions, actually. hence why the catholic church has so many skeletons in its closet about nazi collaboration or turning-the-other-way.

the soviet union and china were/are both expert-led, centrally planned, technocratic societies who tried to replace a bourgeois and 'decadent' liberal intelligentsia with a 'caste' of enlightened engineers and experts. that was kind of the whole deal. dilbert can keep playing his little pan-pipe 'no true scotsman' tune all he likes, declaring so-and-so 'not a real engineer' or this-and-that 'not the correct approach', but the simple fact is that we've tried the scientistic-society thing several times. not only the radical-utopian left, either, but also the hard-right. pinochet and many latin american dictatorships were hard into 'pragmatism' and scientistic central planning. 'not the real deal!' says dilbert. we're waiting. oh and those scientists and big data wonks being used in the UK now to devise disastrous algorithms ... also not the real thing.

lol. we could be here a while.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-17 18:04:00)

uziq
Member
+492|3423

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth. doesn't that give you pause for thought?
No, the inhuman evil came first, they're using science as a tool. Tools can be used for good or evil.
what does that even mean? so vague and convenient. 'they were inhuman and evil!'. no, they were humans just like anybody else. humans who had the idea that science and scientific truth could be asserted as a transcendental value, an a priori, that would methodically sort and solve all of humanity's problems.

claiming that someone was 'pure evil' is just metaphysical, and indeed unscientific, rubbish. it actually forecloses understanding. what ahistorical and illiterate nonsense. 'the explanation for this is that he was actually pure Evil'. why not just call them possessed and demonic? the fuck does that even mean?

i think you really are susceptible to some seriously religious ways of thinking. your manichaeism, your black-and-white, good vs evil stuff. arts and humanities versus scientists! the noble and righteous versus the corrupt unbelievers! you don't really think like a scientist at all. a scientist recognizes the limits of their understanding and the provisionality of their knowledge. you start out with these absolutes. 'inhuman evil'. you sound like an old lady in a calvinist congregation.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-17 17:56:25)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690

uziq wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth.
That's because they replaced God with the religion of science in their schools and homes. The same thing happened with the Nazis and Fascist Italy. Hitler and Mussolini turned their backs on their Catholic heritage and look at what happened.
strange you don't mention communist russia, which was explicitly the most atheistic and technocratic of them all, in that sort of progressivist-utopian strain of 'reinventing man' and so bringing about a worldly paradise, etc-ra. marx's original philosophy is very theological and messianic in that way. fascism sort of came to an accommodation with religions, actually. hence why the catholic church has so many skeletons in its closet about nazi collaboration or turning-the-other-way.

the soviet union and china were/are both expert-led, centrally planned, technocratic societies who tried to replace a bourgeois and 'decadent' liberal intelligentsia with a 'caste' of enlightened engineers and experts. that was kind of the whole deal. dilbert can keep saying playing his little pan-pipe 'no true scotsman' tune all he likes, declaring so-and-so 'not a real engineer' or this-and-that 'not the correct approach', but the simple fact is that we've tried the scientistic-society thing several times. not only the radical-utopian left, either, but also the hard-right. pinochet and many latin american dictatorships were hard into 'pragmatism' and scientistic central planning. 'not the real deal!' says dilbert. we're waiting. oh and those scientists and big data wonks being used in the UK now to devise disastrous algorithms ... also not the real thing.

lol. we could be here a while.
The Soviet Union at least tried to put their techno-atheism to a good end though. The Soviets did want to continue to dominate the space and near space of the Russian Empire but their influence did put pressure that advanced human rights in the far flung colonies of the British and French and even the U.S. civil rights movement. The Soviet Union did send engineers to develop former colonies and worked hard to educate potential leaders in governance. Of course most of that was part of undermining the western nations but then what excuse does the west have for not developing their colonies for so long that the Russians had to do it? Meanwhile the Germans and Italians fascist weren't trying to do anything much more extreme than reestablish the empires that World War 1 took from them. The Germans were just more murderous and had better sense of aesthetics.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423
haha, a succinct summary.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

the most technocratic nation on earth which explicitly places a very high valuation on scientific expertise and engineering 'pragmatism' is also quite possibly the most inhumane, anti-democratic, nightmare state on earth. doesn't that give you pause for thought?
No, the inhuman evil came first, they're using science as a tool. Tools can be used for good or evil.
what does that even mean? so vague and convenient. 'they were inhuman and evil!'. no, they were humans just like anybody else. humans who had the idea that science and scientific truth could be asserted as a transcendental value, an a priori, that would methodically sort and solve all of humanity's problems.

claiming that someone was 'pure evil' is just metaphysical, and indeed unscientific, rubbish. it actually forecloses understanding. what ahistorical and illiterate nonsense. 'the explanation for this is that he was actually pure Evil'. why not just call them possessed and demonic? the fuck does that even mean?

i think you really are susceptible to some seriously religious ways of thinking. your manichaeism, your black-and-white, good vs evil stuff. arts and humanities versus scientists! the noble and righteous versus the corrupt unbelievers! you don't really think like a scientist at all. a scientist recognizes the limits of their understanding and the provisionality of their knowledge. you start out with these absolutes. 'inhuman evil'. you sound like an old lady in a calvinist congregation.
Nope, just think, if someone had bought a few more of Mao's pamphlets, Stalin's poems, Hitler's paintings we wouldn't be having this discussion.

What goes through the heads of arts types? "You don't appreciate my art? Fine, I'll turn your world upside down and slaughter you all"
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uziq
Member
+492|3423
what? mao's book was one of the most popular books in china.

stalin wrote and recited poetry -- like pretty much every young person in pre-television times. it was an amusement, an entertainment, an art. you've never spoken to a russian person, have you? they memorise poetry a lot. their culture is very 'oral'. i bet you shahter gets drunk and recites poems or sings russian songs. that's just what they do. stalin was never serious about poetry. were you ever paying attention to how many artists and writers he took pleasure in crushing?

hitler failed to get into art school. well done. can you get a new fact now? we get it, you buy ww2 bestsellers from the history section of walmart. what do you think had a bigger impact on hitlers life, his decision to apply briefly to art-school as a teenager or, i don't know, being gassed in the trenches in ww1 and experiencing national humiliation and defeat? i wonder what was a bigger catalyst for his fierce nationalism? an admissions tutor being rude about his draughtsmanship?

seriously, you need to grow up. you are tragically pathetic..
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
In his first school year, Mao befriended an older student, Xiao Zisheng; together they went on a walking tour of Hunan, begging and writing literary couplets to obtain food.[
I've worked with various Russians over the years, our local informal shooting coach was Russian/Polish, one of my current colleagues is Russian.
Have you ever spoken to a Russian person?
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uziq
Member
+492|3423
i was the editor of count tolstoy and have been in relationships with russians. my college chaplain was russian. i’ve read a lot of russian stuff. i also have two russian colleagues, one of whom i interact with every day and have a close working relationship. russians RECITE POETRY. the oral tradition and language is an important aspect of their culture.

in that same era, again the high mark of literacy and before mass media and radio/television, PEOPLE KNEW POEMS. it was a widespread form of entertainment. english people could recite Kipling, Hausman, Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth. jesus fucking christ why does this have to be explained to you? try and imagine the forms of media and shared cultural expressions available to someone in 1880 or 1910, let alone a pre-industrial peasant society as pertained in pre-revolutionary china and russia. if we can remember memes and viral tweets, stalin as a youth in a bumfuck poor province could remember a bunch of poetry.

poets were national heroes in the 19th century, some of them as close to rockstars as the pre-mass media days could allow. everyone in russia knew pushkin, just like in britain even non-lettered types knew of byron. ukraine’s whole movement for national identity was inspired by a poet, shevchenko. having a passing interest in reciting or coming up with poems, for people in that day, was no different from teenagers in a ghetto trying to rap today, or in the suburbs learning the lyrics to their favourite taylor swift songs. it was part of the environment and everyday cultural fabric.

so mao walked around china coming up with rhymes to beg for pocket change. and? AGAIN, this was a main form of entertainment in pre-televisual societies. like travelling carnivals, circuses, men coming through town with a talent, begging for tips. people in highly ordered societies place a high value on poetry. this has been a part of western society since at least Homer. england has a long history of people coming to town and telling a yarn at the pub, being given a meal and board, etc. it’s part of an earlier pre-industrial way of life. you know, LIKE MAO’s CHINA. being able to come up with a few couplets is just a grift, a way of amusing people, a party trick. he wasn’t Li Po ffs.

you’re so historically illiterate it’s even pointless to try and explain. the thing that gets me is that you’re nor even remotely scientific, either. if being rejected from arts school makes tyrants out of failed artists, why has there only ever been one hitler? do you have any idea how many people get rejected from art schools? a lot more than get accepted, i’ll tell you that. why isn’t the world full of raving anti-semitic lunatics who blame all their problems on shadowy ‘others’ who must be brought to heel under 1,000 years of order? WAIT a minute ... D D D DILBERT?!?

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 00:38:32)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

if being rejected from arts school makes tyrants out of failed artists, why has there only ever been one hitler? do you have any idea how many people get rejected from art schools? a lot more than get accepted, i’ll tell you that. why isn’t the world full of raving anti-semitic lunatics who blame all their problems on shadowy ‘others’ who must be brought to hell?
Not everyone is going to be a high achiever, but rejected artist does seem to be a bit of a theme amongst homicidal tyrants.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-10-18 00:32:08)

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uziq
Member
+492|3423
that is not good statistics. please learn how to be a scientist.
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

uziq wrote:

stalin wrote and recited poetry -- like pretty much every young person in pre-television times. it was an amusement, an entertainment, an art. you've never spoken to a russian person, have you? they memorise poetry a lot. their culture is very 'oral'. i bet you shahter gets drunk and recites poems or sings russian songs. that's just what they do.
shahter doesn't get drunk. he does enjoy russian poetry though, mayakovsly especially. songs too.

stalin was never serious about poetry. were you ever paying attention to how many artists and writers he took pleasure in crushing?
for a person who claims to know stuff about russia you post too much cold war propaganda bullshit. stalin was a great patron of arts, literature especially. he knew a great deal in that field and, while he wasn't an artist himself, he dedicated much of his time and effort to support russian artists of the time. a lot more time than he took repressing the undesirables - for that he had other people.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Hitler got rejected from art school but the school suggested he instead go into an architecture program since he showed talent drawing buildings. Hitler's interest in designing cities makes it pretty clear he was not into the gay sciences part of art school.
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https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423
that sounds like a bit of a nonsense to me. ‘stalin loved arts! really all those artists who were repressed and crushed feared beria, not stalin. other people did the censoring and the torturing’. that doesn’t make any sense, and you know it.

it’s like saying hitler was a great patron of the arts. true if your line was neo-classicist kitsch, very untrue if you were an expressionist painter or interested in international modernism. then you had to leave before they confiscated all your property and thugs caved in your skull. ‘hitler loved art, he spent lots of time even putting on exhibitions!’ yes, shows called things like the ‘degenerate art exhibition’.

everyone in the west is of course familiar with doctor zhivago. pasternak lived in fear of stalin and really it was only his whim that spared him. many poets didn’t survive stalin. why would you lie about the history? even tarkovsky, who lived near the lubyanka, was continually under threat of being taken in.

all this is just to say, anyway, that stalin wasn’t the man or leader he was because he was a ‘failed poet’ or ‘thwarted poet’. poetry was everywhere in the 19th century. his later attitude to art was that of all dictators: fine and well when they played the right tune. the sparing of pasternak comes across like a moment of exceptionally enlightened behaviour from stalin in an otherwise repressive and depressing regime.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-18 01:06:37)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

that is not good statistics. please learn how to be a scientist.
3/3 is like over 90% +/-10%
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

uziq wrote:

that sounds like a bit of a nonsense to me. ‘stalin loved arts! really all those artists who were repressed and crushed feared beria, not stalin. other people did the censoring and the torturing’. that doesn’t make any sense, and you know it.
it didn't make any sense from the moment you started talking about "systematic persecution, censoring and torturing". none of that happened on the scale that you have served to you by your propaganda machine.

everyone in the west is of course familiar with doctor zhivago. pasternak lived in fear of stalin and really it was only his whim that spared him. many poets didn’t survive stalin. why would you lie about the history? even tarkovsky, who lived near the lubyanka, was continually under threat of being taken in.
that's what i'm talking about. stalin didn't have any preference in repression of artists any more than any other undesirables - he spent most of his life preparing and then fighting the worst war in history. and that war was as much about ideology as it was about everything else - that's the only part where pasternaks of the time mattered. so yes, the fucktards didn't have the greatest of times, but no more so than any other who would oppose soviets in their fight for survival. some rash and unjust stuff happened, yes. but systematic persecution of artists? - no, definitely not.

all this is just to say, anyway, that stalin wasn’t the man or leader he was because he was a ‘failed poet’ or ‘thwarted poet’.
that i would agree with. stalin was, first and foremost, an excellent crisis manager, his character was pretty much defined by that trait. poet, failed or otherwise, doesn't really enter into that imo.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
an excellent crisis manager? the guy who ignored all the warnings about barbarossa and witnessed the holodomor?

‘say what you want about eichmann, he was an excellent project manager’.

pasternak a ‘fucktard’? i mean, really? mandelstam a fucktard too? both of whom were active in the revolution and in marxism-leninism? both of whom believed in the revolution?

do you not see how often your thinking and rhetoric just becomes bootlicking authoritarianism? stalin was a nice guy, really he just sent off fucktards to die in camps, they were fucking useless anyway. putin is an asshole but fuck that liberal, fuck those barbaric muslims ...

you are really quite something.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-19 08:23:11)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
Stalin wasn't a good crisis manager considering he broke down once the Germans invaded. It was the Russian generals who managed to save the Soviet Union. I wrote about this beforehand but Stalin deserves credit in only managing to not bungle the diplomatic situation after the invasion had started.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Shahter
Zee Ruskie
+295|6746|Moscow, Russia

uziq wrote:

an excellent crisis manager? the guy who ignored all the warnings about barbarossa and witnessed the holodomor?
as i said - too much cold war propaganda bullshit. stalin is long dead, soviet union is long gone - it's okay to drop your pitchforks and torches and start looking at stuff objectively now.
if you open your mind too much your brain will fall out.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
propaganda from whom? khrushchev? please stop making out like criticisms and denunciations of stalin are western propaganda.

he presided over a society ruled by fear and many artists rightfully feared for their lives. you call them 'fucktards'. how very revolutionary of you. never mind that many of the artists were revolutionaries themselves who had fallen foul of a foul-tempered and insecure tyrant.

but ok, we are lost to 'propaganda'. carry on.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-19 08:26:41)

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