this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

. . . anything and everything to do with space.

No. Just no. Soviets had their successes, but they were bad at building fundamental tech. Their space program was callous towards both human and animal life. They were focused on being the first at everything, and tended to run with the solution they could implement immediately. It wasn't built in a way where successes could be leveraged for more successes. Nor did it build fundamental tech in ways that could be used in the economy at large.

Ironically, capitalism was able use space technology to improve the lives of the working class better than a supposedly communist system did.

[–] masquenox -3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

but they were bad at building fundamental tech.

Yeah, they were so bad at it that they ended up in space first. Just absolutely terrible.

Their space program was callous towards both human and animal life.

Show us your proof, PragerU fan.

It wasn’t built in a way where successes could be leveraged for more successes.

So the Soviet Union launching Sputnik had absolutely nothing to do with them successfully landing Venera 7 on the surface of Venus?

Absolutely nothing at all, eh?

Strange how your right-wing friends at the RAND corporation didn't share your Ben Shapiro-level shittakes about the Soviet space program.

capitalism was able use space technology to improve the lives of the ~~working class~~ capitalist parasites better than a supposedly communist system did.

FTFY.

Also, learn what the word "irony" means.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, they were so bad at it that they ended up in space first. Just absolutely terrible.

And rushed it so bad they didn't have fundamental tech that was applicable to a wider economy.

Their space program was callous towards both human and animal life.

Show us your proof, PragerU fan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika#Ethics_of_animal_testing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage

The Soviet rocket program failed a lot, but they covered it up at the time. It's largely come out in the time since then, and it was horrific. If NASA lost an astronaut, everything shuts down and they figure out what happens. When a test site in Russia blowed up and kills over 50 people, including the head of the development program, that's just Tuesday.

capitalism was able use space technology to improve the lives of the working class capitalist parasites better than a supposedly communist system did.

FTFY.

Nah, I like my version better. The proof is the machine you're using to type this.

Also, I'm a socialist. I just don't think the USSR was very good system. There's both positive and negative things to learn from it, but the most important is "let's not do that again".

[–] masquenox -1 points 5 months ago

And rushed it so bad they didn’t have fundamental tech that was applicable to a wider economy

I hate to break it to you, Clyde - but the central technologies developed by the space race was "applicable to a wider economy" on both sides of the Cold War. The USSR had weather and communications satellites, too - unless you want to argue that those served no economic purpose to the USSR, perhaps?. Perhaps you are a bit too dazzled by all the anciliary stuff that dominates your consumerist fantasies? I'm sure you believe NASA's handheld vacuum cleaners made capitalism better for all the people that didn't get to live the middle-class WASP dream thanks to the New Deal... but it really didn't.

Handing off publicly-funded research and development to be used as a means of private profiteering for the capitalist class at the expense of everyone else (including you) is simply the way the US has always done technology - pretending that the USSR not doing the same is somehow a "flaw" is peak neoliberalism.

Their space program was callous towards both human and animal life.

I guess it's a good thing that NASA wasn't very forthcoming with their animal experimentation, eh? I wonder if the outcry would have been the same?

Yeah... sounds like Tuesday to me.

Khrushchev also ordered Leonid Brezhnev to head an investigation commission and go to the site.[11] Among other things, the commission found that many more people were present on the launch pad than should have been—most were supposed to be safely offsite in bunkers.

When Brezhnev arrived at the firing range on 25 October 1960, he said: "Comrades! We do not intend to put anyone on trial; we are going to investigate the causes and take actions to recover from the disaster and continue operations"

Afterwards, when Nikita Khrushchev asked Yangel, "But why have you remained alive?", Yangel answered in a trembling voice, "Walked away for a smoke. It's all my fault". Yangel later suffered a heart attack and was off work for months.

After all... we can't pretend thay the "Jewish-Bolshevist horde" would actually value human life now, can we? What would Reagan say?

Nah, I like my version better.

Yeah, you do, because you're an edgy liberal self-applying the term "socialist" without understanding what it means because you desperately want to distance yourself from your capitalist and fascist brethren while still buying into the same beliefs they hold on to.

[–] assassin_aragorn 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's well known that horrible things happened to animals during the Russian space program.

You sound like a liberal trying way too hard to pretend they aren't one by coming up with absolutely shit takes which are demonstrably incorrect. I'm actually surprised I didn't realize this until now. You're so over the top that overcompensation is the most charitable explanation.

[–] masquenox -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s well known that horrible things happened to animals during the Russian space program.

Yes... "everybody" knows that the "Jewish-Bolshevist horde" couldn't possibly have an ounce of human compassion for animals, isn't it?

But hold on there before you start calling for another go at "lebensraum," Clyde - let's first check who it is that you are actually comparing them to, shall we?

You sound like a liberal

Stop projecting, liberal - I'm not the one jerking off Cold War propaganda here. You are.

[–] assassin_aragorn 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Once more, overcompensating way too hard and needlessly throwing around terms to try and make yourself look like an actual leftist. You know what the clearest sign of this is, liberal? Other than you basically going "no u"?

I never said a thing about the USSR lacking compassion to animals. Nor did I ever mention NASA nor make a judgment on which group was morally superior. That all came from you, because you felt the need to bolster your leftist "credentials". But I see through it.

It's not terribly surprising that both NASA and the USSR space program did awful things to animals. They were racing each other, moving quickly and breaking things. It would be too risky to test humans in incredibly novel technology like that, but they wanted data and results. So they tortured poor animals instead of taking the time to go more slowly and do safer tests. And let me be explicitly clear, both space programs are guilty of this and damnable for it.

What's your next reply going to be, I wonder? Ignoring basically everything I said, and talking about more of NASA's fuck ups, like "well we don't know it doesn't work" with Challenger? Sprinkling in some leftist terms to convince yourself you aren't a liberal? Or will you totally pivot to something else and call me Clyde again?

Please, mix it up a bit this time. The formula is getting rather dull. There's better ways to try and convince us you aren't a liberal.

[–] masquenox 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nor did I ever mention NASA nor make a judgment on which group was morally superior.

Oh, you didn't have to - you just stepped in to help on of your fellow libs do a bog-standard and thinly-veiled "Jewish-Bolshevism" jig - that is all.

Aaaaaand...

It’s not terribly surprising that both NASA and the USSR space program did awful things to animals.

...the backpedalling begins.

Not very unpredictable, methinks.

[–] assassin_aragorn 1 points 5 months ago

Poor reading comprehension. Typical lib.