AI is a broad field that encompasses a lot of things that you probably don't think of as AI such as linear regression, clustering, and decision trees. I understand this annoys some people, but I can assure you that this isn't anything new. This is what AI was always about.
You are describing "weak AI" and it's not what AI was always about.
When people say "AI" by itself, they typically mean "strong AI," but not always.
Does the iPad still NOT ship with a native calculator app?
The Soviet Union wasn't building "Communism", so it could not fail at it
I guess you don't understand what "nominal" means, hence the confusion. See here for the full definition and examples. Also check the de jure vs de facto distinction. Afterwards, if you re-read my replies, my meaning will become clearer.
You had a point that the Soviet ideological goal was Marxist Communism
No, I said it was Socialist and Marxist, but not Communist, and that it had as its nominal goal bringing about Communism. The inheritance Socialism -> Marxism -> Leninism -> Stalinism isn't disputed by any scholar, at most they discuss how much Russian political traditions influenced the way the latter two' approached Marx's ideas (example), so I'm not sure what your point is. A contrarian position, maybe?
Spammy McSpammerson over here.
I've lived through the best years of the "Socialist Camp" myself, although not in the SU itself, so I know how it was first-hand.
Therein lies the issue. I don't doubt your experience was between really bad and horrible, but you're doing a different comparison than the one I'm doing.
Your perspective is contrasting a) the Socialist system you lived through versus how b) democratic societies of the time were. This is a fair comparison, and it's undoubtful the first was, in comparison to the later, bad. Really, really bad.
What I'm arguing is different though. I'm doing a comparison between what your reality was (or, more precisely, what the URSS reality was) versus c) what it would have been had Tzarism continued, by extrapolating from the later based on how other feudal societies historically developed over similar timespans.
A third possible comparison is between what Russia became versus d) what it would have become had it gone through a Liberal revolution in 1917, rather than a Communist one, that is, a revolution that had embraced Classic Liberalism in economy, Representative Liberal Democracy in politics complete with multiple political parties, full freedom of the press, full free speech rights, full human rights with a comprehensive bill of rights, limits on central power with a fully enforced Constitution government branches couldn't ignore, pulverization of power via federalist mechanisms of governance, and so on, and so forth. It doesn't matter much if it'd have turned Republican or remained as a Constitutional Monarchy, as the long as the remaining of the list had been adopted and kept running.
Hence, what I'm arguing, basically, is that, in terms of best to worst, we have this hierarchy:
i) Already established Western Liberal societies (case "b") would have remained better in comparison due to already existing, already working, and already having established self-reinforcing mechanisms, to continue doing what they were doing.
ii) A hypothetical Liberal Russia (case "d") would have been the best possible scenario had it happened. Liberal 1950s' Russia would still be behind older Liberal democracies, but way ahead of what Socialist Russia achieved, all without so many deaths and misery.
iii) Actual Socialist Russia (case "a") was bad, but better than a straight continuation of Tzarist Russia would have become.
iv) Lastly, a hypothetical Tzarist Russia that continued into the 1950s would have been the worst possible scenario. It'd have failed to industrialize and would have become a producer of grains and of raw minerals. A small industry would exist, but by and large it'd have turned into an importer of added-value goods, with little hope of turning out better due to an ever-widening gap between its low technological reality and the high technological one of Liberal countries.
Hence, as before, it isn't as much that we're disagreeing, but that we're focusing on different sides of the same issue.
It is a safe bet it would have happened anyway, but it might have taken longer without the propaganda race (...)
True. Probably much longer, but the seeds already existed in the welfare system implemented by Bismarck in Germany in the second half of the 19th century.
Interestingly, Marx himself was intensely opposed to such welfare systems, and argued bitterly against reformist, anti-violent revolution group that departed the then workers' movement to eventually become Social-Democracy. His argument, in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", was that providing such welfare for workers would make proletarians comfortable enough in their lives that it'd defuse their revolutionary spirit, perpetuating Capitalism.
Most ignored this argument until the Russian Revolution happened. Then everyone went back, looked at it with much renewed interest, looked at what Bismarck had done, noticed how the later had shown increases in productivity, noticed how Germany hadn't gone through a Communist revolution despite everyone but the kitchen sink believing the first big one would happen there, put 2+2 together, and began implementing welfare programs all around, which really did dampen that revolutionary spirit and prevented Communist revolutions from popping up everywhere.
Too bad modern Neoliberals, Libertarians and US-style Conservatives seem to have forgotten the lessons of 100 years ago, and are doing all they can to break apart the welfare system. The growing inequality is reigniting that very revolutionary spirit, as wished by Marx. If this idiotic anti-welfare impetus isn't quelched ASAP, the next few decades will see Communism returning in force. After all, what will the dispossed have to lose by embracing it?
The USG never defaults. Who is going to enforce that?
The US government defaulted in 1934, and again in 1971.
a) Agreed.
b) I mostly agree, but I think you exaggerate the lack of development for civil uses and the impact of imported technology (and of internally developed technology) on the lives of the population. Generally speaking, and this applies there as well as elsewhere, the existence of an industrial complex, with the linked need for urban living, with the mass migration of peasants from the fields to the cities to work in those factories, itself meant a huge improvement in the standard of living for those former peasants turned factory workers. The West did that process much better, over a longer timespan, and with a huge dose of freedom in the process. The URSS did that in the worst way possible, but also much more quickly.
c) I mostly agree, but I'd say Leninism isn't that much of a departing from what Marx wrote. Young Marx defended, in his 1848 articles, imposing a dictatorship of the proletariat and the use of terror techniques to bring down the bourgeoisie. Lenin added to that the idea of the vanguard leading that process, but the notion of forcing things with extreme violence was definitely part of Marx's original notions. Similarly, Stalin's idea of doing it via conquest isn't that dissimilar from original Marxist ideas, in that Engels, also in 1848, or maybe early 1849, stated that eliminating entire classes and even entire conservative populations would be a good step forward. Stalin embraced that genocidal concept and ran with it.
Both Lenin and Stalin put a lot of emphasis on things that in Marx's own works were relatively secondary, but that they were there, they were.
More to the point, they're *guaranteed* bucks.
People don't understand the significance of risk to profitability. By underwriting 80 billion dollars of risk for banks, it's essentially guaranteeing them profits. When it's politically infeasible to spend money on something, the government guarantees loans. That's politically popular across the board because it's spending *later* money and it puts money in bankers' pockets.
a) Your first point is dependent on semantics. I mean superpower in a narrow sense of a country that's powerful and can get its way beyond its geographical sphere of influence, as distinct from a regional power, which has similar power locally. If we add to the concept a delimitation of needing to hold that broad influence via soft power, then yes, the URSS wasn't a superpower. But those are two different definitions of the word.
b) This is another instance where we're using the same word with differing meanings. What I meant was access to technological developments. Russia advanced from a mostly agrarian society to a technological power in those 30 years. It took the US to get to the same level about 200 years. But yes, all you said also happened too.
c) Socialism isn't Communism. In Marxist jargon, Socialist policies are temporary measures that are to be dropped once Communism proper starts. The URSS never attempted to start Communism, it just kept circling around variations of Socialist policies. Failing for almost 4 generations to bring about Communism, despite layers upon layers of totalitarian policies designed, in theory at least, to bring it, is a pretty clear indication it cannot be done, which is the core critique one can develop against the worst of Marxist delusions.
Do you really think parents were sharing intimate moments in-front of everyone?
Of course they were. There was no concept of this moment being "intimate", to the point guests watching a couple have their first sexual intercourse was part of the wedding. And see also this reply of mine to another commenter.
Do you have some proper data for that?
This Reddit question has three answers with links and references. I'll copy and paste a 19th-century quote provided by the second answer. Reading and clicking the different links is very informative:
"Modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where, in one small chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and growing up girls --- two and sometimes three generations --- are herded promiscuously; where every operation of the toilette and of nature --- dressings, undressings, births, deaths --- is performed by each within the sight and hearing of all; where children of both sexes, to as high an age as 12 or 14, or even more, occupy the same bed; where the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded into something below the level of the swine. It is a hideous picture: and the picture is drawn from life." (Rev. James Fraser, in a 1867 report "on the living conditions of agricultural women and children")
You see, my society spent the time from 14th to 19th century as part of the Ottoman empire. (...) Nobody had sex in front of the kids, though! At least not in my society in the last several hundred years...
Well, Islamic societies were in many aspects ahead of European ones. It's remarkable to me that you mention the 14th century as the starting point for such records, which suggests to me they refer to the period after the Mongol conquests, which were quite thorough in destroying most of what existed before with few exceptions ("rivers running black with the ink of all the libraries destroyed" etc.), so my educated first guess, supposing your country was among the Mongol victims, is the reconstruction and moralizing that came about after that "end of the world" event saw some pretty extreme cultural changes compared to how things were done before.
What I described is common all around the world except there where it was made to change. So my default hypothesis is things weren't much different in your country before the "end times", and only came around after it, likely in answer to it ("God punished us for our sins, so we must become pure" and the like).
Maybe the Brits are particularly perverted in this sense
Nah, they were just normal. This is how humans function normally when they haven't been religiously indoctrinated into the belief sex is evil and corrupting. And even when they are finally convinced by incessant preaching that sex is evil and corrupting, cultures still change slowly, especially if people are left to their own devices. The way to accelerate that, which is what's been used most everywhere this change happened was via violence (morality policing), which does make people quickly change their behavior.
It is much harder to find a job than to keep one.
