[ExI] the myth of the US "liberal media"

[Stefano Vaj]

On 14 July 2011 22:12, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tsarist Russia was a powerhouse too. I think at the best the
> communists came near to recovering their Tzarist stature, briefly.

Mmhhh, I beg to differ.

Tsarist Russia *had been* a *regional* powerhouse. In the XIX century,
in spite of its enormous resources and territory was more blatantly
anachronistic than Japan, and in contrast to the latter did not seem
on the way of any kind of recovery.

Fast-forward a little, and it industrialised at an incredible pace,
even though admittedly by not keeping consumers too happy, won WWII
(terrestrial contribution by US-UK was secondary at best...), quickly
became the second world power in spite of the damages suffered,
established egemony on eastern Europe, managed to colonise much of
Siberia, developed leading space tech, etc.

The decline did not start with Stalin, let alone Lenin, in spite of
how little love Ayn Rand may have had for them. It started in the
Kruscev era, and even more importantly during Breznev's stagnant
gerontocracy. In this respect, Russian transhumanists do recognise
that for long years commies had been anything but neoluddites
("Soviets plus electricity"...), and that fundamental research and its
players enjoyed there a much higher status than in most other
countries.

-- 
Stefano Vaj