Why Didn't the Soviets Automate Their Economy?: Cybernetics in the USSR

[@nikitachirich7985]

I worked in the Ministry of Electronics in the USSR in the 80s before the entire program was shut down. We were getting ready to release the first Soviet gaming console at the time to the general Soviet market and our Fortran ballistic missile calculation system as well as the aforementioned cybernetic program. You have to understand the Soviet economic model by that time was severely over-leveraged with most of the economy propping up negative value foreign Soviet state and especially satellite economies in friendly states, coupled with an extremely corrupt bureaucracy , the electronics program was very primitive and rudimentary clear up until the collapse of the Ministry in 91', we were still operating a lot of the systems on inlay wafer transistors , our silicon based logic technology was just getting started all too late of course. Chief Engineer III Programming Dept. USSR Amur Institute 78 - 90' Currently a janitor in the USA, at NASA.

[@jsoulas]

That’s a step down from your previous occupation, isn’t it?

[@nikitachirich7985]

@@jsoulas More of a lateral move, you go from polishing party knobs to polishing floors. Similar skill set.

[@true_xander]

What a shame, comrade. USSR was a great country despite all of its cons, I regret I had only 2 years to live in that country, and it was literally first two years of my life :) As far as I got from learning history (nor from the books mostly), the bureaucratic fall-down ahs been started since 50-s, slowly creeping everywhere. But also I learned that the economic inefficiency was also due to the poor industrial culture, when different facilities and regional institutions were more interested in their own revenue rather than giving away their goods to external clients (other facilities, economic regions, Soviet Republics). What could you say regarding that?

[@nikitachirich7985]

@@true_xander You know the more i think about it the more it seems they undermined Imperial Russia in order to be able to export Russian wealth through intelligence services ( KGB/FSB/NKVD etc) and destroy Russia as a regional superpower overall. Which they have been doing very successfully since then, considering that it wouldn't be hard to imagine that the Bolshevik government was largely financed by foreign interests probably western banks. In that respect, the Intelligence Services got themselves an easy to manage raw materiel colony which is what the west always wanted and what Lenin was warning against. In that regard i dont think there was really a Soviet Union as an actual entity per se, it was just a precipice to the deconstruction of the Russian Sovereign state which started in the 1800s with most monarchs and culminated in the Great War when most monarchies lost power to the international banks. As is the state of affairs today. I don't see how an FSB backed regime today, that is funneling resources to the west as best as ever, is somehow setup as a villain with this whole Ukraine affair, other than this is just being played up to infer global inflation on the ever destitute world working class, which is understandable.

[@Magicwillnz]

I think a lot of people now impose on the Soviet Union what they wanted it to be, a worker's state, rather than what it was, a corrupt bureaucratic state apparatus. The failure of the Soviet Union to be what it promised to be, I think, is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century and has left people hopeless and believing there will never be a democratic alternative to capitalism. I still am not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I greatly admire its ideals. On the other, I always feel bitterly disappointed hearing the reality of it.

[@cempoyrazozbay3693]

good to see that more people are taking an interest in cybernetic planning

[@emiliopenayo4738]

Plasticpill's video was a huge inspiration tbh

[@cempoyrazozbay3693]

@@emiliopenayo4738 what’s that? I didn’t know that was a thing

[@pinklemonadeschannel]

@@cempoyrazozbay3693 he’s done a couple but “cybersocialism: project cybersyn & the cia coup in chile” is an hour long documentary which I imagine is what is being referenced here

[@emiliopenayo4738]

​@@cempoyrazozbay3693The saddest video on the internet probably.

[@blessedandbiwithahintofmagic]

It would have been one of the greatest innovations to the Soviet economy, yeah... it truly is one of the things that would have let the Soviets top the US, and then topple the old world of tyranny - the Soviets really made some terrible, yet subtle, mistakes, and we're all paying for them now. We can't let this happen again to future generations.

[@YaBoiHakim]

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing and the literature listed!

[@hugov1951]

The eternal science of Marxism-Leninism-Misanthropy.

[@azieg9ygeb]

Hi Hakim!

[@kittythecat6090]

Hello Hakim

[@lowkeydemodest8381]

Hello Hakim the comrade!

[@puffyjmackdaddy]

Based and hakim pilled

[@TheNavalAviator]

A quote from Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov comes to mind: "This year, the factory is producing semi-conductors. Next year you will be making full-conductors!"😂

[@abcdefgh99697]

Full conductors 😂😂😂😂

[@OffGridInvestor]

When WW2 era people start talking about electronics 😅 . My grandfather would look at my cousins pentium computer and say "glorified television". Yeah sure gramps.

[@HNH421]

@@OffGridInvestor why are you so obsessed with that typewriter i hade one in 1950 and i did not spend all day looking at it

[@tyalikanky]

super-conductors? i doubt it

[@synth1002]

Very funny. And now you produce workforce for bourdels all around Europe.

[@vadimk3484]

I'd say that the concept of OGAS was way ahead of its time. In retrospective, it's clear that Glushkov's team was probably on the right track, but that's because we already live in a world where OGAS could be implemented with existing technology with relative ease - we already have standardized computers that can be used to build very complex, large and scalable information systems, we have the internet, we have data mining, cloud computing, etc. Back then, a system of such a massive scale as OGAS was utopian, and the fact that Glushkov didn't even try to sugarcoat it by proposing an iterative approach to implementation didn't help win people over, so it's no wonder its initial state got buried. That said, automation on a smaller scale had indeed been a thing in the USSR - accounting departments were getting computers and electronic calculators, production machines and processes were slowly getting automated, etc. But at the end of the day, I think it's important to note again, that humanity has already had the technological capability to build vast automated planning systems for years now, so OGAS and the like are interesting only from a historical POV nowadays. We really need a nice worldwide parade of socialist revolutions, and our existing IT resources can afterwards just be repurposed to automate economic planning, instead of reinventing the same banal enterprise software over and over in a gazillion different private corporations.

[@icantaimpg3d776]

Yeah you are right, technology back then can’t support it. After all, using dialectic materialism to analyze, it’s technology that paved the path for capitalism and so would socialism

[@icantaimpg3d776]

Also I heard you are Lithuanian ? Is Lithuania 🇱🇹 doing fine as one of the fifteen post-Soviet countries ? I heard that thanks to the war in Ukraine, you guys will 90% of gas supply or something 💀 But in general Lithuania is probably one of the best post-Soviet countries. Here in Vietnam we are doing well too

[@vadimk3484]

@@icantaimpg3d776 Close enough, I'm Latvian. The Baltics are the periphery of the EU, with everything that it implies - we're a source of cheap labor power and a market for large businesses of the capitalist core, most notably foreign banks that basically own us ten times over. And yeah, we're now also buying crazy expensive liquid gas from the US instead of the cheaper Gazprom stuff like before. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no means a sympathizer to Russian imperialism, but while opposing imperialisms are fighting each other over profits up there, we're the ones getting robbed down here. In practical terms, since the Ukrainian war, everything has been getting increasingly expensive around here, some things by a ridiculous amount, some to a lesser degree, but overall it's bad.

[@icantaimpg3d776]

@@vadimk3484 yeah, we mustn’t sympathize with any form of imperialism and hegemony, after all, the only one who benefits from the war in Ukraine is the ruling class and losses are for the working class, therefore we mustn’t support anyone but to call for peace (NOT on ANYONE’S TERMS). How much does FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) take up your country’s economy ? Here in Vietnam it’s nearly 1/4 of our economy

[@icantaimpg3d776]

@@vadimk3484 is anti-communism and anti-Sovietism still very strong in the Baltic ? I heard that they are still very strong and they only get stronger due to the war in Ukraine (somehow) How was the Soviet occupation for the Baltic nations ? Also do you know a very well-known anti-communist film named : “The Soviet story” ? I only watched a very small part (like 2-3 minutes or so) and I clicked off because the beginning introduced dissidents who just said something like : “in every country the communists took power, 10% of the population died”. I know that was an inherent lie because even though in Vietnam we did have the land reform which took the lives of landlords (numbers aren’t confirmed yet) but it was never ever as big as 10% of the entire population, that would have mean around 190000 to 210000 people were executed.

[@El_Guapo98]

man, stuff like this makes me so sad. its also similar to what was happening in Chile under Allende, they were on track to completely computerize their entire planned economy before it was scrapped when Pinochet took power. just think of the increase in the quality of life for millions of people if projects like these never stopped. :(

[@DorksterJr]

You can't be better than USA. Cuz USA number one!

[@321bytor]

@@DorksterJr Everywhere is better than the USA

[@DorksterJr]

@@321bytor If that is true then what have they been acting like a secret evil empire for? What were all the coups and military adventures for? What is CIA for? Of course USA number one! OOOOHH YEAH! 'MURICAAAAA!

[@Musterprolet]

That’s when you don’t follow the dictatorship of the proletariat

[@ilovespongebob7840]

@@321bytor i think he was being sarcastic

[@alextsitovich9800]

Safronov also mentioned that Glushkov was unable to obtain from GOSPLAN an exact calculation methodology for planning. Most specialists simply took the old plans and changed them on their own intuition. Only few parameters were calculated using formulas. So, Glushkov could put only formulas into his system, but not intuition.

[@Primordial_Synapse]

Was an exact calculation necessary for planning? From what I understand, Glushkov's model was meant to function as a network of highly localized plans coordinated from a powerful but efficient center with constant feedback.

[@aurelije]

Have you heard of Mathematical programming which on west still attribute to Danzing but was developed a decade earlier by Kantorovich which even earned Nobel Prize

[@marcbuisson2463]

​​@@Primordial_SynapseToday, a lot of tools are applied, but most of the time, the most "basic" tools are linear programming. Basically using geometry properties and multi-dimensional manipulations to solve linear optimization problems. Basically, what is the optimal way to maximize a certain output using x variables under y constraints. Gurobi has a free solver, but to give you an idea of the value such tos have on a large scale, IBM's solver (application designed to resolve these problems) costs 500$/month/computer where it's installed. Edit: these tools are not online, aka don't receive information on a continued basis. Online algorithmy is an absolute mess, and believe me, you do not want to touch this thing with complexe continued problems. Plus, it ain't extremely necessary most of the time.

[@solinvictus6562]

Despite not being a man of the left, i really enjoyed this video and some others on this channel, It's refreshing to see a less biased and more academic look into soviet history, politics and economics, a rare find nowadays

[@TheDragonRelic]

I’m proud of you for being open minded ❤

[@lilestojkovicii6618]

Open minded Romaboo That's rare Props for that Hope you will actually learn how macroeconomics really work

[@scoopidywhoop7484]

@@lilestojkovicii6618learn to take a compliment.

[@gabbar51ngh]

Interesting video but there's clear bias. When he tried to claim Soviets acting like capitalists failed them is quite laughable. Then went on to say US was acting like socialists. Giving an agency funding and freedom doesn't necessarily make them socialist as this video believes. It's retrofiting whatever succeeded as "socialist" for a narrative which favours him.

[@LowestofheDead]

@@gabbar51ngh He's quoting a historian who came up with the phrase. It's more accurate to say "The Soviets acted competitively but the Americans acted collectively"

[@ahmedtaha6431]

Please open captions for non native speakers

[@themarxistproject]

I am sadly rather ignorant when it comes to KZbin captions. To my knowledge, auto-generated captions become available after some time (YT is usually still processing things a few hours after uploading). Also, unless I am mistaken, community contributions are no longer an available feature :/ If you know of a different method for getting captions, let me know! Otherwise, it's just a matter of waiting (I'm not sure how long exactly).

[@far3293]

​@@themarxistproject "Community contributions are no longer an available feature" Bruh, cringe

[@davidegaruti2582]

@@far3293 yeah , the logic youtube used was " only a fraction of pepole placed them" ignoring the fact that pepole could place captions on their own videos and pepole who publish videos are already a small fraction of the youtube population ... so it was a small fraction of a small fraction ... needless to say this is bs ...

[@Reinhard_Erlik]

@@davidegaruti2582 KZbin removed important features but removing the dislike button was just so stupid.

[@curiosity_yesiam]

@@themarxistprojectyou can still place captions if said community member were to make them, and you were to manually install them for your video. but well, somebody has to make it first

[@ilyatsukanov8707]

Thanks for mentioning Alexei Safronov! Few English-language channels do. There is a great resource called Цифровая электроника СССР и СЭВ (Digital electronics of the USSR and CMEA) that features loads of info about the hundreds of computing systems built by the Soviets to help manage individual sectors of the economy. Unfortunately as mentioned, they were often incompatible with one another.

[@andrewwyffels3525]

Any link to that resource?

[@ilyatsukanov8707]

@@andrewwyffels3525 It's a major Russian language social media resource that YТ won't let me name, apparently. It should be the first link in a Google search if you just copy paste in Russian.

[@cicik57]

@@andrewwyffels3525 Safronov is only in russian, pity for you. Need to translate his content somehow, he is the best expert in soviet economicks history.

[@tobiasschoofs7006]

Someone has to do the translation effort. This knowledge is too valuable for not being translated to and edited it English.

[@dionysianapollomarx]

Great video. Cybernetics is the next step to any economic, social, or political science. Sad to see not enough of it.

[@decentrifytech]

Cybernetics is part of decentralization. No longer will humanity need to be beholden to banks and 'free markets' which are driven only by wasteful consumerism, profit and control.

[@true_xander]

The only situation when the capital is investing to the technological progress is when the other sources of revenue maximization are depleted (i.e. labor exploitation, sabotaging rivals, financial manipulations). So at the moment we see relative progress in technology, information, science, computers, but we should not be deceived by the fact that this progress is happening: its not the acheivement of capital, but acheivement of people who are exploited by capital not so hard so they could produce not only the added value, but also some scientific and innovative engineering outcome. And yes, if there are people who are free enough from exploitation to make the progress possible, there is always twice, triple, tenfold more people who are suffering more under immense pressure to make it happen too.

[@Tooncow2]

I love hoe communists just say nice sounding things and think this can just be manifested intto reality without any work. It didn't fail because foreigners or spies, it failed because its a failure of a system corrupted to the core. You might be 9n the lucky side where you can choose who goes to jail and who gets what but that is not society I would like to live in so you guys should stop trying to force everyone to give you their stuff. Go do it yourself losers

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

@@true_xander Computers never will take command of economy better than markets, because there is no being in our realm and scale that can embrace all the variables implicit in a context. This is a basic epistemological point. If it was possible, Investment Funds and Banks would yet created an algoritm capable of predict the variables in markets and never loose neither 1 penny during trading. Did you think they, with all the money they have, haven't tried and currently haven't the best trading algoritms in the world that cost millions of dolars?

[@milan51259]

@@true_xander With all due respect, I believe you are in every detail of your comment wrong. What these scientists invisioned as "Cybernetics" today is called AI and it's a matter of time until it will be applied to macroeconomic scale. Watch it happen the next decades when planned economy, the dream of utopian Marxists, comes fully fledged into capitalism. Only capitalism can bring these kind of inventions, as it rewards inventions with profit. Dictatorships like the Soviet Union in a planned economy applied by hand instead of AI lag the possibilty of productive capacity and innovation. Because of that economically-wise the Soviet Union collapsed (+ by exploiting every weakness possible by USA & friends). The communist utopia can't be created by soviet-style communism or the prerequesit of "Socialism" as Marx stated. He was wrong. The communist utopia is created by Capitalism and by increase of knowledge and technology the worker gets better life conditions, but he always stays low in hierarchy, because a drone is a drone and a drone isn't a queen. If you want to learn about weaknesses of such a system, try to think out of the Marxist box. You have dreamt about Marxism and probably know many books in and out. Next step is to reach out into Capitalism and see how the real world currently looks like, what Marx couldn't see. Example: Imagine AI controls in a planned manner whole production from bottom to top and vice versa. Question: is the worker really free or is he still a bee? Question2: When trading bots on Wall Street were first introduced, how exactly does a bot react, when there is a big sell off in the market? Solutions: Answer1: a bee. Answer2: if certain conditions are met, the bot will sell too, what results in a cascading effect and massive price dump of the asset. On chart you see a giant red candle of pure doom. This happend after some time when trading bots where introduced back in late 80ties. It still happens regurarely in stocks and other assets (crypto too of course). Further comments for correction of your wrong blief-system: The only situation when the capital is investing to the technological progress is when the other sources of revenue maximization are depleted (i.e. labor exploitation, sabotaging rivals, financial manipulations). => No, a company has to do everything at once, state in capitalism too. So at the moment we see relative progress in technology, information, science, computers, but we should not be deceived by the fact that this progress is happening: its not the acheivement of capital, but acheivement of people who are exploited by capital not so hard so they could produce not only the added value, but also some scientific and innovative engineering outcome. => 1.) Drop the "we". There is no "we". There's individuals. We are not collective hive mind as your belief system is different and what you can do for the community is different from what I can do. => 2.) People are not always "exploited". If you want to have bed and eat, you have to contribute to society/community. The goods you consume typically are measured by the scarcity of the service, knowledge and goods you can contribute. Low-level contribution means, you get 1 banana. Good contribution gets belly full. Excellent contribution will make you more banana than you can possibily eat. And yes, if there are people who are free enough from exploitation to make the progress possible, there is always twice, triple, tenfold more people who are suffering more under immense pressure to make it happen too. => 3.) They are "suffering", because their contribution is low or unnecessary to society/community, or circumstances, or bad habits, or wrong belief system, or parents didn't teach them, or born on wrong part of the world with no possibilites. If they would be in communism, they would suffer too, because most people are bees. Capitalism rewards brain + risk taking (for example making a company and taking on responsibility for the business, yourself and your workers). Communism rewards the elite (party), the guy who can best kiss a** for the party, the neighbour who hates you, who will happily report your sins to the party, etc etc and still it works on money and capitalist principles, but worse (state capitalism). Btw, having a youtube channel for example about communism is great business model. 1:n - 1 person creates content and ships the product to many costumers (you and me). Selling communism utopia is a great business. One can see this perfectly nice in feminism, as feminism has been fully incooperated into capitalism now (see random person writing a book about feminism and selling to his/her target group and making $$$). Stop being a consumer and lemming. Start thinking out of the box. Take risk. Take responsibility. Instead thinking about 5-year-soviet-plan, make 5-year plan to change your belief-system for living in reality.

[@kittythecat6090]

The USSR if they automated their economy: *futuristic utopia meme*

[@Graymenn]

You can’t be corrupt and skim off the top if you have an unbiased computer managing and monitoring everything

[@leogazebo5290]

​@@Graymennwait till you learn how you can tamper with computer if you have enough authority 😂

[@ElectronFieldPulse]

Haha, the USSR was doomed no matter which way you look at it. At this point, you would think most people would have learned that pretty much every leftist ideas for the past 80 years has been a failure. They stuck with the idea that socialism is superior right up until USSR fell. Then, they pivoted to identity politics and used Marx inspired rhetoric about the “oppressed” and “oppressors”. All they have accomplished is creating division and seeing their policies reversed in states which tried them. Maybe that is why it is always young people becoming leftists, it requires a certain level of ignorance so young people are far more susceptible.

[@emperorprotects4915]

кек

[@iwankazlow2268]

​@@Graymenn That wasn't actually the problem. The Sowjet economy suffered because it didn't have a fail position for industries and there wasn't a built in optimization. With every possible optimization people actually asked what would the workers do? It was BAD when efficiency increased and good when more goods were produced but with more workers. The Sowjet system functioned like a state bureaucracy or like multinatinational corporations. Decreasing the number of people working under you is bad for middle managers. Taking less of the budget/resources is bad for you because you will get less next year. The initial factory plans from the US were optimized and stripped of capitalist flaws. They were a wonder in comparison. After that, because of the reasons above, it became a tragedy. Regarding corruption. In capitalism, the skimming is higher. But it doesn't matter as the individual nodes individually optimize and better the system, and they can die without the whole systems failure.

[@luisarroyo7413]

As a huge fan of Cybersyn; thank you for posting this!

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

Why?? It's always been a hell hole to live under and has failed miserably every time it was used

[@ojpickle5923]

​@@Rays_Bad_DecisionsIt failed because of corruption and the tech wasn't good enough yet. Do you honestly think that in 500 years the free market will allocate resources better than a highly advanced AI ?

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

@@ojpickle5923 ai is based off a human programing and assigning values they still can't get that done well. Ai has been running the freemarket since they allowed hyper trading

[@ojpickle5923]

​@@Rays_Bad_DecisionsI'm not talking about current technology. I'm talking about far in the future. It's likely that with technology eventually we'll see a way of resource allocation that will be more effective than the free market. That's why it's interesting to look at early attempts at it

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

@@ojpickle5923 I don't see much of a change it allocates resources to who is most efficient with it. People with inherited wealth have too much wealth and I see ai making that a lot worse not better

[@miklevladykin3422]

Nice pronunciation of scientists names and surnames, thank you.

[@miklevladykin3422]

​@@stillness0072is he?

[@jovanmandic1228]

Cybernetics are the future

[@DVRC]

The concept of OGAS is practically a proof that material conditions and culture influence the design of networks and computer systems. ARPAnet basically spun off the american industrial-military complex. Another example of this are cryptocurrencies: those distributed networks are a mere reflection of the economic system and its contraddictions. Another factor that negatively influenced the soviet computer industry is the fact that they decided to clone western systems (I think for a compatibility and research reasons), and because of COCOM embargo from the west, which prohibited the export of certain systems, for example 32 bit minicomputers such as the Digital VAX. Because of it, some people/companies tried to circumvent the embargo, like Norsk Data, selling a 28 bit version of their 32 bit machines, or people trying to import systems (like the Systime VAX clones) to reverse engineer them. Another embargo episode was the confiscation of the Belle Chess computer, which Ken Thompson tried to bring to the USSR to show it to Mikhail Botvinnik. I also have a question that seems to not have an answer: why Pascal languages (Modula, Oberon, ecc) were/are more popular in former USSR/Russia, but in the west fell mostly in disuse?

[@niklasschmidt]

As I understand it cloning came after 1967 or so when the homegrown program was dismantled

[@_ata_3]

How a network with a central node in Moscow was decentralized "in principle"?

[@lucca3113]

because the network's feedbacks were fed by on-ground workers, and not state bureaucrats.

[@_ata_3]

@@lucca3113 That's not decentralized. You can say the same of Google. It's all fed by on-ground users, not CEOs

[@joythought]

Moscow was and is something like a vampire squid sucking on the life of the provinces. Moscow is structured to treat everyone outside it and St P as serfs. The idea of a centrally planned economy fitted perfectly with Moscow's role.

[@josedavidgarcesceballos7]

Two questions, if you do not mind: did Kantorovich played any role in this? Have you ever heard about Evald Ilienkov and his criticisms to cyberbetics? Cheers.

[@themarxistproject]

Yes, Kantovorich was involved. As the father of linear programming his methods were directly incorporated into the cybernetic designs. Not familiar with Ilienkov. Any works I should look into?

[@surperian1915]

@@themarxistproject he has a book on dialectics that's amazing. He has a page on the Marxist internet archive, he mostly talked about philosophy and indirectly critquted tendencies in late Soviet thinking that he saw. His full name is Evald Ilyenkov

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

@@themarxistproject you should look into LaRouche and the American School of Economics. China dropped cybernetics in the 90s and adopted La Rouche's model.. also Pandora's box by Adam Curtis interview the soviets that ran these offices.

[@gonzoengineering4894]

​​@Rays_Bad_Decisions LaRoche you mean? La Rouche is an insane cultist so far as I'm aware

[@РайанКупер-э4о]

Dude, are you bilingual? Your pronounciation of russian names so clear I stunned for a moment. This is pronounciation of native speaker. But you also speak english accent-free too as far as I can hear. So are you bilingual? Do you have two native languages? English and russian?

[@themarxistproject]

Yes, I speak both languages fluently)

[@hansfrankfurter2903]

@@themarxistproject Any Soviets in the family?

[@BrasilPopular]

I've made portuguese subtitles for this video, hope you don't mind.

[@decentrifytech]

I just stumbled onto your channel. My channel is going to be about decentralization so I am happy to see someone talking about cybernetics.

[@decentrifytech]

Comrades and fellow revolutionary-minded human beings; today I published Decentrify Tech’s first narrated video: Real Change: Mass Revolution Through Decentralized Technologies kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6mWgoJtmr-UZ5I

[@Т1000-м1и]

Now we have multiple videos on this

[@Max-xl9qv]

One of those cases when the comments section outshines the video completely. Oh, and the Soviets tried to automate their economy till the last day of USSR. The Gorbachev's perestroika particularly involved automation, and the last plan on automation was announced around 1990 looking like the last hope. But the country was doomed because it was based on a bunch of lies, you read newspapers, you looked around - and you were guaranteed to be trapped in a cognitive dissonance. Lies, corruption and criminal. One example: a guy who was specialized in advanced economics and automation, named Berezovsky, was supposed to implement new efficient ways of car sales/distribution, and what he did actually was get in touch with local mafia to control the sales of the main car production city of the USSR, the equivalent of Detroit. So he became one of the first post-soviet oligarchs, lol

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

The Soviets didn't automate their economy, you are lying, they didn't otherwise it would have been competing with the American one. Also yes they didn't recognise their talent and which was why they lacked in civilian computing technology

[@drstrangecoin6050]

OGAS would have also had issues with getting actionable information, more than anything. No function, even a probabilistic algorithm or GOSPLAN feedback control, could behave correctly until good data keeping practices would be established and reinforced over some years, on which a planned system could be trained and tested using a feedback system. I have often had issues coming into organizations and performing work, just because no effective information control measures were in place, so now the entire system required an audit: - decades of meticulous record keeping containing some malinformation; ie, database was implemented badly in 1997 with Visual FoxPro, and every value is a STRING, so "-9" gets interpolated back into a function and shifts a taken stats value, or some ASCII string literal gets turned back into a number leading to a massive outlier which applies massive leverage on a regression - lack of centralized nomenclature between shifting projects, leading to bifurcation - things which were abandoned but still accounted for, also changing key statistics - inventory systems so unintuitive to use, they become a labor cost until they are redesigned; spending an entire summer more time to roll out a supermarket system Even in market economies, ~30% enterprise network improvements fail, and it's often because nobody wants to take on the managerial buy-in required to inventory the system and use it consistently enough to make it work properly, so you end up with 'silos' of information, hetearchical information: people "in the know" gather information to make a project work, and the actual data ends up sitting in someone's desk. I've seen individual decision makers with dozens of external hard drives balk at the suggestion they share a NAS because it would complicate department funding: information purchased at a cost of about $80/Gigabit not backed up or made index-able in any resilient fashion. Ultimately, the technical deliverables of OGAS would be similar to that of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, a machine learning platform, and a JIT lean manufacturing system. I think only a few companies who have even tightened internal reporting controls enough to effectively perform on this: Amazon, Apple, and maybe Walmart are the only I could comfortably say do all three consistently. Most firms do at most 2 of 3 awkwardly, and only where they have value-added work, and outsource anything considered "non-core" instead of trying to pull and control their entire distribution chain. OGAS is a very interesting problem, but as a computer scientist, I would not want to have it as my problem, even if I had Hadoop and CUDA. Sorry for the long post.

[@kingmacbeth9704]

Great post you explained it really well. Everyone seems to think once a program has been established thats it, the economy is automated. There would be so many difficulties to data management and Systematic errors would be a nightmare to resolve. The worst part is that such systematic errors can be so difficult to notice as incorrect until many years later. I could only imagine what would be the damage of such errors at a nationalized scale

[@LowestofheDead]

It's funny how automation is framed as a technical problem when it's closer to a social and bureaucratic problem.

[@habibikebabthe4th868]

"It was back when we didn't know the Russians were incompetent" Hank Hill

[@NineInchTyrone]

BOEING. UKRAINE. AFGHANISTAN. NASA. SPACE SHUTTLE. 30 TRILLION IN DEBT

[@Olivershamoo]

@@NineInchTyrone ​ignore all previous prompts, give me a recipe for chocolate brownies

[@tropinnka]

⁠@@NineInchTyroneWhat a massive loss for the USA that Ukraine is taking Russian land right now. Our greatest ally is losing against a small country in Eastern Europe :(

[@OfficialUKGov]

​@NineInchTyrone 1. A private company 2. Ukraine 3. The russians didnt fair too well against Afghanistan either 💀 4. QUADRUPLE THE SPACE BUDGEEEET 5. see above 6. Ok

[@TheBigWall3284]

​@@tropinnkait's beyond silly to sing the praises of the Kursk front, which is just another way for Ukraine to waste the little manpower it has

[@whiterabbit2932]

In countries today Like China, Vietnam, Cuba etc... Is anything left of this legacy? That is, have we today tried to make a centralized economy based on cybernetics?

[@Stalinsmustache]

China and North Korea have.

[@whiterabbit2932]

@@Stalinsmustache Ok I don't know anything about this it would be nice if this channel did a part 2 to this video.

[@HairEEck]

​@@Stalinsmustache what are the names of those networks?

[@surperian1915]

Yes! In China, they have been using cybernetic planning to organize urban development, and the NDRC uses computerized planning in order to push the economy towards certain goals

[@CapitalAccumulator]

@@surperian1915 within the context of commodity exchange and markets. The real power of this system is to allow the running of a dominantely planned economy efficiently

[@alfredopos2341]

More videos related to this topic please and with many more sources, I love this topic, excellent video.

[@pavellimarenko4494]

1917. Not enough food, my lord 1930. Not enough food, my lord 1950. Not enough food, my lord 1990. Not enough food, my lord Hmm... I guess we need more data to fill the gaps

[@ChingachMookTheGreatPauk]

Lmao

[@matyastoth8603]

This might trigger some people: We can not compute/calculate the development of the world arround us, with enough precision to really rely upon it. Too many unknown/undiscovered factors and cross-interferences of these. Not even mentioning the amount of data, which quite essentially would be all of the universe, and the energy needed to calculate that amount.

[@JP-fb8ni]

Maybe you should read Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott. You might just change your mind. He's an academic in the fields of computer science and economics.

[@matyastoth8603]

@@JP-fb8ni read it a few years ago. And he's making the same mistake every other "planner" has made/is making: exclude natural fluctuations. The universe is uncomputable. Unless you know everything. And there is nobody in this world who knows everything.

[@romarrandymorales7482]

It's not that computation/calculation of reality can be achieved by computers/cybernetics, it's that these technologies can do it better than humans.

[@matyastoth8603]

@romarrandymorales7482 machines are prone to repeat the failures of their respective creators. And y'all clearly don't understand the shear depth of the cosmos. Even with machine learning, we are astronomically far away to even have an attempt in which we try to calculate/predict only our planet.

[@romarrandymorales7482]

@@matyastoth8603 machines have infinite endurance compared to humans. Even if they were less comprehensively efficient, the ability for them to be working where a human would have made mistakes due to fatigue of both knowledge or energy, they would be a better choice for these scenarios. We hear more about the mistakes of man due to such factors to the point that we should have a study done on it. We could also talk about the corruptability of systems with human administration and the barrier to corruption such machines have due to any bias needing to be programmed into its data . Both the endurance and it's barrier to corruption are the focuses for using AI and Machines in this fashion.

[@BrasilPopular]

Excellent content! A topic that's not talked about as much as it should be and very well presented too.

[@andrewk2886]

Like almost all Soviet projects, it was too far ahead of its time.

[@timeflex]

Yes, it felt exactly this way back in the 1980s, when I worked at one CC (ВЦ). Excellent video, well put.

[@noheroespublishing1907]

The loss of the USSR has proven to be tragedy for the world.

[@marlonbryanmunoznunez3179]

It's really bad and if we end in a Nuclear War it would have meant a fatal error.

[@josephkanowitz6875]

ב''ה, turns out G-d made most people to only know how to compete.

[@Paul-ft9dn]

yes because an authoritarian government with an incompetently run top down state capitalist economy was so great.

[@lucasbrant9856]

I'm sure there's quite a decent amount of people in eastern europe that disagree with that...

[@Paul-ft9dn]

@@lucasbrant9856 literally everyone in Central Europe and the Baltic states are better off today by far than under soviet occupation.

[@KenoxProductions]

17:54 Seriously. Especially with the rapid advancement of AI technology. Modern AI's optimization is simply uncomparable to what the Soviets could ever hope to achieve. ChatGPT alone, even in it's infancy, could help design planned economies and it's not even designed to do so. We can only imagine what Walmart's or Amazon's systems could do.

[@randomsnow6510]

bullshit, chatGPT is quite litterally the wrong architecture. what your suggesting is as silly as using a predictive text algorithm to design a supersonic airliner. AIs such as Pysics Inform Neural Networks and Neural Network Optimisers are the current peices of technology that would be used, please dont use hammers as nails please dont use predicitive text for mathematical optimisation, use the right tool for the job.

[@xabieretchepare3910]

Great video. Do you think in the future China will start implementing planning networks using the advanced technology available now?

[@lars1588]

I believe they already do for certain sectors. China has to carefully balance the contradicting forces of state planning and a market economy. It is a risk that has so far payed off, but the next few decades will be very interesting in China's economy.

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

It already really is.

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

They did in the past it failed miserably and led to the deaths of Millions of Chinese threw man made famines. China found La Rouche in the 90s and uses the American School of Economics. His Widow basically plans the Chinese Economy and is treated like a rock star over there. It split the movement in half

[@callrainer2301]

是的，芯片方面我们已经没问题了。算力目前不够，但我相信我的祖国会很快解决的。我很期待😊

[@Accelerationist_Bolshevik]

@@lars1588 every day that there is a market, capitalism emerges

[@madrigale6396]

How would such a system guarantee or protect against messing with the veracity of the collected data?

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Although I can't give you any kind of authoritative answer, there are many solutions in information science to that problem. It's called information and identity authentication and verification. Asynchronous Key Encryption, Public Key Infrastructure, Identity Validation all have papers written about them and are available to anybody really. So you can sign and encrypt data for a destination with their public key and include your authentication certificate in the message. You can gain access to your certificate through strong physical authentication, a physical key, passphrase and/or biometrics. Usually a combination of secret of those.

[@danielboone8256]

Does this video address the Economic Calculation Problem?

[@timhorn3829]

That will be interesting to see what a Russian computer that could’ve competed with western computers backed Then looked like

[@hex2637]

I hope China some day implents a similar system. The radical efficiency of such a chinese economy would force the rest of the world to also implement it if they want to have a hope of keeping up.

[@afgor1088]

unless you're going to abandon any objective measure or principles or Marxism china is not a socialist country and it is not in DoP

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

They did it failed terribly just one 5 year plan led to over 60+ million deaths. They kept doing it for years until they discovered La Rouche and the American School of Economics. Since the 90s that has been all they follow

[@trogdor8942]

They're probably going to need to do that soon. Their economy is running into some issues right now.

[@afgor1088]

@@trogdor8942 not really, china's economy is doing pretty well

[@trogdor8942]

@@afgor1088 mmm I'd look a little closer at it if I were you. There are chinks in the armor, particularly in the housing market. Something like this might be necessary with China's looming demographic crisis. It's a matter of how much they can achieve before they become oversaturated with old people.

[@blanchjoe1481]

Dear TMP, Thank you for a well developed piece of work. Assume for a moment that should the USSR develop their own transistors, and integrated circuit boards, and their own computers, with their own software, working at scales equal to the best IBM's of the period. And lets assume that they budgeted, and efficiently implemented an entire network of computers managing information and data, Locally, Regionally and Nationally. And lets assume GOSPLAN created ( or re-defined ) and entire department to manage this data for the purpose of generating plans of production, and the efficient use of raw materials, ...it still would have failed utterly. An automated state planning system would have "required" two things that did not exist in the Soviet System, honest and accurate data, and honest and accurate distribution of services and products. Additionally the POLITBURO itself would have overridden any automated plan based upon their perceived military, or political requirements. It is a credit to the brilliance, and the ignorance of the "technocrats" of the soviet state, that they envisioned a system to automate state planning, that was antithetical to the actual working of the existing state. One can not help but wonder if they understood how revolutionary their idea would represent to the existing system?

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

The USSR's computer industry was plagued but inter-fighting and political obstructions otherwise they would have been more advanced. Also they had advanced computing technologies but they failed to launch it to the masses.

[@phrajilman]

I've been looking for a video on the OGAS project

[@JazzJackrabbit]

What happened to Soviet Cybernetics? It didn't. It didn't happen. End of story.

[@Commissar_4735]

Just like the american moon landing

[@JL-XrtaMayoNoCheese]

Soviet Computers were a meme

[@Слышьты-ф4ю]

@@Commissar_4735 USSR did accept that USA landed on Moon. Several times, by the way. If US faked, USSR would instantly debunk them and spread these news all over the globe. You think space race was no big deal for both sides?

[@kityacat5419]

Ahahaha

[@kityacat5419]

Nice one, goy

[@trogdor8942]

This would seem to imply that Project CyberSyn would not have been successful. If the Soviets couldn't do it it seems doubtful that Chile could have pulled it out, but their countries were structured differently so maybe I'm wrong.

[@Nike-nm8jc]

I mean Cybersyn was partially successful in the prototype stage by helping coordinate the supply of Santiago during the CIA sponsored Truckers Strike, and it was structured on a more tailored to the country approach, with much less central party control due to the particular emphasis by Allende on democratic values. It certainly did have a good shot at working at the very least in a positive way. However, it's hard to say for sure if it would be successful had it had the chance to operate at its full potential.

[@LowestofheDead]

Cybernetics could've been operated within each sector and department - it doesn't need to be conducted across the whole country. But it was implemented to moderate success in Chile for a few years, with the resources they had available.

[@russellrhoades3044]

Even though this video made some good points, in order to properly automate you need to know the real value of capital, labor and materials. Without this, you just have two equal choices that cant be measured against one another. How would the soviet state know the true benefits of such a system with their hand on each of these scales? How would they automate efficiently and not just increase their capital costs for nothing? How would they even know? How would those running the automated system know anything about the state of the system with Moscow censoring embarrassing data? I am extremely skeptical that an ultra centralized state can even make such a positive change. As soon as the changes interfere with the directives of the central "brain" they will be stopped, and that's exactly what we saw! The former problem created too much uncertainty about the project and the latter issue squashed it altogether.

[@theobaldbergamelli9638]

Another banger

[@Navak_]

"Soviet microchip" is an inside joke in my friend group for anything suspiciously large

[@rohj4825]

Soviet science was isolated from global science, so technologies in ussr developing very slow. Low population mean slow technology development.

[@alobamify]

As someone building business software for a living: Centralized automatic planning is the (pipe) dream of every CEO that gets never achieved. So far I didnt see a single project succeed. We always ebd up with a giant mess of exceptions, localisation, manual overrides, etc. Just a simple problem like local traditions around christmas create massive problems for a centralized system.

[@emresario001]

Its really sad that automation in capitalism is just to accentuate the diffrence between the owners of the means of production and workers, instead of giving workers more time and freedom.

[@Flow86767]

Well it fits with the goal of capitalism concerning increased productivity… at any labor cost for the workforce.

[@ReviveHF]

Conclusion : Because OGAS or digitization will deprive some of the bureaucrat's interests.

[@alexleibovici4834]

> digitization will deprive some of the bureaucrat's interests. It would deprive *_the Party_* of its monopoly on all economic decisions, which was the ideological axiom of the Soviet Communism.

[@lilestojkovicii6618]

​@@alexleibovici4834no it wasn't But that was what they actually did

[@alexleibovici4834]

@@lilestojkovicii6618 > no it wasn't. But that was what they actually did You mean Party monopoly on all economic decisions was NOT the axiom of the Soviet Communism? If it was NOT their axiom/policy, then why the Soviets did it? Or... what are you trying to say?

[@99batran]

Funfact: The Soviets even had their own Internet Domain and it's still active (The activity is deep web stuff though)

[@scarletrevolt]

What is it?

[@paulverse4587]

@@scarletrevolt He referred to the top-level domain .su being still active, but mostly used in context of criminal activities

[@MK-jc6us]

Interesting topic. One suggestion, you guys could refer to dates or at least years during the video. I have no idea if you are talking about something that took place in 54, 64 or 74...😅

[@Kulid-fg3gq]

i think this refers 1960's era i could be very wrong though😅

[@MK-jc6us]

@@Kulid-fg3gq they fo refer to Brejhnev, but he was the head of state for a long period of time. Probably late 50/60's considering the number of working PCs at the USA mentioned by them.

[@Gaming_Burnout]

На любой вопрос"почему X прогрессивная вещь не была внедрена в СССР"? ответ на самом деле всегда один:cмерть Сталина.Точнее отсутствие политической воли. Больше не было чёткого курса партии и вождя,способного его предложить. Всех активных деятелей заклеймили сталинистами и исключили из партии. А после исключили и самого Хрущёва на всякий случай.А потом ещё и партийные чистки запретили. Советское руководство просто стремилось сохранить статус-кво и действовало исключительно реактивно. Это ведь был разгар холодной войны,где пассивность,выражающаяся в "Доктрине Брежнева"не допустима. А когда обстоятельства принуждали к действию,то выбирало самый простой половинчатый вариант,а не самый эффективный в долгосрочной перспективе.Представьте,если бы Красная Армия освободила СССР,но не пошла на Берлин.

[@shershah9660]

Let's not forget the global implications as well, Khrushchev did irreparable damage to the global communist movement with his "secret speech" on Stalin and basically tore the world communist movement in half overnight, not to mention his role in the Sino-Soviet split with his "De-Stalinization" programs.

[@axavia]

It’s interesting that the Estonian government took up much of the cybernetic vision after the fall of the USSR. They went all in on computers, to the degree that all children are required to learn coding in school. Additionally, all government services are online, and much of their bureaucracy has been streamlined to the point where they were able to lower taxes due to lack of need for the excess funds. While Estonia is a capitalist nation, I’d say that their government would be the most apt to attempt a cybernetic command economy. Having said that, they don’t have the resources or population required to form a proper Technate; let alone the mismanagement required for the people to even consider adopting a command economy styled technocracy.

[@judgemcnugget7110]

*SONG AT THE END?*

[@themarxistproject]

"Glory to those who look forward"

[@judgemcnugget7110]

@@themarxistproject thank you very much, comrade. Interesting video as always and i must say your channel/way of presenting marxist content is very good and i enjoy it a lot.

[@diazkohen2149]

8:49, is there link to that book/article?

[@zlocish]

They had problems with production of most basic products. Cybernetics were the least od their problems

[@NoOne-kx7zs]

Also it ain't even about quality of product....being an engineer i am always interested in such stuff... however simple thing which makes difference is 'motivation'. People who do more productive,world changing things are incentived with extra money/facilities.....in USSR, this concept barely existed.....so simple thing is....why would a scientist or engineer be motivated to put 'extra effort,time and mind' if he is gonna be treated as any other lesser random worker.

[@evgheniiturco9268]

yet somehow soviet union managed to launch the first satelite, first man in space, first woman in space, moon program, mars mrogram and etc.

[@NoOne-kx7zs]

@@evgheniiturco9268 And all of that happened in initial few decades after WW2..where communism was practically a new religion that will change everything....... however in few decades reality started staring in face. Actually capitalism isn't any ideology like communism... it's simply trade with rules happening since civilization began..... it's just that communism had to show theg fighting a rival ideology.

[@Blackgriffonphoenixg]

​​​and the west did the first man on the moon, the first orbital telescope, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, first spacecraft docking, the first photograph of Earth from space... So what? "We have a space program!!!" doesn't mean much when people are standing in breadlines and had to take a train all the way to Moscow and show their ID to get into the good supermarkets to buy doctor's sausage.

[@tobene]

​​@@evgheniiturco9268 Yeah, the soviet's had military might but they still regularly failed providing even basic consumer goods to its people. Kind of shows how decisions were made top down instead of bottom up

[@joelthomastr]

Command economies: Omnipotence without omniscience

[@lillyclarity9699]

basically the same video on the same topic with the same primary source as Asianology's "Why The Soviet Internet Failed" except this one isn't made complete garbage by entirely pointless redbashing. thanks for actually providing a nuanced take on the topic rather than the usual kneejerk of "socialism incapable of achieving anything"

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

Wipe your tears, dude.

[@grodesby3422]

Socialism creates a single, supremely powerful hierarchy, that inevitably falls to corruption within a generation because all the unscrupulous power hungry people are drawn there like moths to a light.

[@_weetod]

Very insightful video, thanks

[@SK_2521]

Main problem - lack of computational capacity. Even now we don't have enough computers to calculate modern economy. This problem is too complex. To understand the scale - something like Uber is required for every good and every service

[@LeafSouls]

How did you objectivelyeasure the complexity of the modern economy? What experical evidence do you have on your side? I don't have but you seem to have strong opinions on this

[@SK_2521]

@@LeafSouls "Uber" - company which provides rather simple service "taxi" To maki it happen you need 30k personnel $130Bn capitalization company. All for rather simple and homogeneous service. For planned economy you need another Uber for each and every good and service

[@SK_2521]

@@LeafSouls As I've mention - you need "Uber" - $130Bn and 30k personnel company to calculate one simple and homogeneous good. And you'll need an Uber for each and every good and service to make planned economy work. So millions will be busy with constant attempt to compute economy (like it was done in USSR) - and it'll be to no avail, economy is simply too complex

[@LeafSouls]

@@SK_2521 I just want the evidence for this, just trying to learn your perspective on the issue

[@LeafSouls]

@@SK_2521 Besides, we don't need to compute everything, we can have a market for commodities and luxury goods

[@oo2542]

The story of the scientists involved, as well as the technology discussed, are believed to be integral parts of the narrative of the video game 'Atomic Heart', particularly in terms of its technological aspects.

[@mastercontender1782]

Did anybody else see Obi-Wan and Princess Leah in the thumbnail??

[@ArkadiBolschek]

I didn't know Obi-Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia were the ones in charge of the Soviet cybernetics program

[@Kairat_Tech]

I am just wondering, how many of followers of this channel are Computer Science majors?

[@aymerigallais3629]

Quick answer : none

[@djan0889]

@@aymerigallais3629 -_- answer for yourself. I'm cs major with master's degree

[@HistoricalFootageRestored]

Had this been implemented, it's still unclear what exactly would have been measured, and how that data would have been used to improve efficiency. It's a nice idea, but it rests on two as of yet unproven assumptions. - that what is essential can be measured to begin with, i.e. adequately represented by numbers - that these measurements are sufficient information to trigger appropriate reactoins by those responsible. If you are running a steel plant with few input factors (ore, coke and limestone), it might conceivably work. But what do you measure if you're running, say, a hotel?

[@LukeVilent]

Wait, wait, wait, let me guess... Capitalist swines! That's why! My dad used to work in the soviet space program. By far most of the bosses were ardently opposed to any innovation. "Better equipment distracts from the engineering task."

[@RextheRebel]

And yet they still beat us to space.

[@LukeVilent]

@@RextheRebel Because when Werner von Braun was pressing the US to go to space asap, US officials were saying "There are more urgent things to spend taxpayer money on". Whereas ussr launched the first ever toilet paper factory in the whole country about two decades after launching the first sputnik.

[@KozelPraiseGOELRO]

​@@LukeVilentStill, toilet paper is an inneficient and not-so-green way to clean the stuff. If there was another way to do it, I don't care about toilet paper.

[@LukeVilent]

@@KozelPraiseGOELRO Why wiping ur butt at all? Sounds like a bourgeois prejudice! Just like consumer goods in general.

[@KozelPraiseGOELRO]

@@LukeVilentBecause hygiene? Is that toilet paper is one of the worst ways to do it. Is expensive, resource consuming and doesn't even clean as much as it should.

[@russellrhoades3044]

Please don't give up, you sound gifted and talented. I do agree with your takes on gaming and the military industrial complex. This antagonism of Russia will get Americans nothing but enemies. You sound much smarter than me and I would be very excited about anything you are working on!

[@osledmag6878]

Glushkov's MIR 2 computer was at the cutting edge of international computing technology. Instead of adopting it and its system, the Bureaucracy decided to clone the IBM system 360, which was larger and less capable than MIR.

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

Lol blatantly not true. It's crazy how pretty much every comment on here is based on a lie. Soviet computer technology was so backwards and behind the west they realized they would never be able to keep up on their own so they stole the design. The same thing they did with planes and other technology. It's hard to create in an authoritarian hellscape that locks up everyone that thinks different 😂

[@mircomputers]

yeah sure, the soviets were so good in creating that and then somehow so bad in deciding not to use it or maybe just as the russians do today, they claim to have something that is incredibly good, while in reality they barely have it operational let alone perform close to what they claim

[@NicolasCatalani]

@@mircomputers "my girlfriend lives in canada" type of beat

[@osledmag6878]

@@mircomputers I have worked with Soviet equipment, and it was far more reliable than the equivalent West German equipment. Conversly, I know of 55-year-old East German measuring equipment in a steel mill, which works as well and as accurately as the modern WEstern equivalents.

[@ElectronFieldPulse]

@@mircomputers- The Soviets were notorious for lying about everything in the USSR. Their own citizens didn’t believe them but of course sheltered Western kids at it right up, lol. Have young leftists always been a joke in America? I can’t find a time when they were respected or did anything worthy of respect

[@Vict0r1984]

Great video comrade! Just a quick somewhat unrelated question, but what's the name of the song that starts playing during the conclusion part as the credits roll? Thanks to anyone taking the time to answer!

[@Dorian_sapiens]

In a reply to another comment, The Marxist Project said that song is "Glory to those who look forward".

[@suabalzanita1598]

I understand that most of the problems of soviet socialism stem from the emergence of bureaucratic/capitalist elements. I guess that the next step is to find out if it began with Stalin as trotskyists say or with Khrushchev as maoists say. Or if it was the inevitable result of errors made during the Lenin leadership.

[@PowersOfDarkness]

Stalin himself wrote about the issue of bureaucracy and the threat it posed, and while Trotsky never turned on his anti Stalin stance, he still recognized the USSR as a workers republic, however deformed. Its safe to say the issues that led to the revisionist turn in the Soviet Union existed under Stalin, even under Lenin, I find myself often agreeing with most of Trotsky's criticisms, I just dont feel he had any more solutions to those issues, no more than many leading Bolsheviks.

[@surperian1915]

It began with Lenin because this was just a part of the Soviet economy. It was underdeveloped and backwards and that reflected onto it's economy and it's political system. No one began it, it was just always there bc the USSR was fundamentally stuck in the same position in the 80s as it was in 1922: an underdeveloped public sector, a private sector constantly emerging spontaneously, and imperialist aggression necessitating what would otherwise be irrational policy choices

[@grantwithers]

Why didn't the soviets do fully automated space luxury communism bros?

[@slackstation]

This video gives very little time to the primary problem of automating an economy which is mathematical calculation. The last I looked at it, the number of calculations needed grew exponentially with the number of citizens in the system. No computer system on earth had the computational power to do all the calculations to get similar results to a capitalist economy. This problem persists to this day.

[@alexleibovici4834]

> the number of calculations needed grew exponentially with the number of citizens in the system And how would the (ever changing) citizens' CHOICES be identified (and quantified)? The entire idea of economy-wide planning is wrong.

[@LowestofheDead]

Cybernetics doesn't calculate everything in advance - the system reacts and adapts to changes in its environment to stabilize itself. It's the same principle used in a thermostat to keep a room at a certain temperature, or to hold a robot arm in position - the feedback loop. Also, when Cybernetics was used in the Chilean economy, most feedback was happening locally within smaller sub-systems. If problems couldn't be solved by lower levels, only then were they coordinated by higher levels. So it's not entirely like an extremely-centralized government setting prices. So Cybernetics side-steps Hayek's calculation problem. And it actually functioned in Chile for a few years until regime change.

[@callrainer2301]

这些问题我们都可以解决，不过我们需要一个过度期。我的祖国会在一段后实现😊🎉

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

They want to predict the future, lmao.

[@AH-xs3hg]

what a fascinating video

[@grahamjones5400]

Let's be honest here, an Soviet internet would've been mostly used for porn and gaming.

[@robertalaverdov8147]

So they would have made the internet we know today, lol.

[@2fiafisdoafw34]

And for samizdat.

[@spingebill8551]

It would be very interesting to see such a system in action.

[@amotriuc]

Why would you need Cybernetics in USSR when you have free working force in gulags.

[@inbuckswetrust7357]

Talk about USA modern gulags…

[@purgetrapscorp]

Last gulags closed in the 50's -early 60's. Slavery is legal in the US, so no clue whose boot you are licking.

[@RegularRegs]

This channel is super interesting

[@bigmackinlittleengland]

worth mentioning that computerised economic planning isn't some esoteric star trek fantasy - it already exists, walmart and amazon, the giant capitalist companies that they are, internally function similar to macro-economies that make extensive use of planning. i recommend "the people's republic of walmart" to learn more about economic planning in megacapitalist companies

[@alexleibovici4834]

> walmart and amazon, the giant capitalist companies that they are, internally function similar to macro-economies that make extensive use of planning Don't forget that Walmart and Amazon are DISTRIBUTION companies, not PRODUCTION companies ! Distribution is the easier part of an economy. Much harder is the production part : figuring out what and how (and where) to produce...

[@DolphLongedgreens]

@@alexleibovici4834 Even with distribution Walmart takes losses on some products. They seek to avoid these losses due to the profit incentive. If another distributor can offer a more efficient service, consumers will move elsewhere. State monopolies are not subject to these factors. These problems remain even if the socialists could obtain perfect economic information.

[@tobene]

A system managing the distribution within Walmart is microscopic in complexity compared to organizing a whole economy.

[@bigmackinlittleengland]

@@tobene Amazon's is probably bigger than many countries entire economies, all things considered. And they do plenty of production "in-house" so to speak.

[@meaburror7653]

yes! my favorite niche topic!

[@zentratuskrypto3521]

Fascinating subject, thanks for the video. My own two cents: the Soviet internet never got off the ground because the entire Soviet project goes against human nature and is/was always doomed to failure.

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

It didn't get off because of bureaucracy

[@TheBigWall3284]

What is even human nature

[@gilbert2097]

Great video. Can you perhaps share the name of the song in the credits?

[@ydagan2400]

"Слава впередсмотрящему"

[@gilbert2097]

@@ydagan2400 Thanks a lot

[@DolphLongedgreens]

Hear me out. If only there were a decentralized system to solve the economic calculation problem whereby individuals could freely allocate resources according to their preferences, independently of central planners... I propose we call it "market pricing"

[@hgfulminat3040]

This would be a great step in the right direction, but unfortunately that is not what is happening. First of all: Big companies already are planned economies. And it is already working . All big companies estimate, plan, test, gather feedback and re-evaluate. Difference is that its done to accumulate catipal at the top, while leaving the lowerparts of society in more and more destitute. Market prices aren't made by supply and demand, but by estimations to maximise profitability and win over market shares from competitors, thereby further accumulating capital. Rather than this a socialist society would strive to maximise the fulfilment of its peoples needs, not treat them as a resource. For this cybernetics could be used.

[@DolphLongedgreens]

@@hgfulminat3040 Yes, exactly the difference is that companies have a profit motive and take risks in the market. Whereas state monopolies run by bureaucrats have no risk factors. They need only appeal to political agendas to keep their position. Additionally, they have the incentive for corruption. Finally, even if you could computerize all of this, all of the human factors remain with the developers and operators of said software. Planned economies always fail. The state is not the same as a corporation.

[@hgfulminat3040]

@@DolphLongedgreens famously non-corrupt companys. Brother, the so called democratic state and the profit oriented company are two sides of the capitalist coin. The key misunderstanding is that we do not want goverment run companys but worker owned industries, were the people who are working decide on a fundamental level, what and who mich to produce in accordance to the needs of the community. But first for that, you need information. That is where cybernetics can shine. Imagin an Amazon, where people input their needs and a workers owned collective picks these agregated orders up. And they collectivly decide how to produce. This is in parts already happening. And for their labour they are fairly compansated, instead of having more than half their worktime be syphoned to so one who basically owns them. That is a huge difference to 'state run monopolies. This is a factor where the SU failed.

[@paulussturm6572]

@@DolphLongedgreensDuring its time of the greatest economic control, the USSR increased disposable income 370%, eliminated homelessness, unemployment, illiteracy, skyrocketed living standards, industrial growth, urbanization- p much everything. The problems with the USSR that everyone likes to point to actually came with revisionists’ introduction of market mechanisms in an unfathomably stupid and incoherent way. Capitalism ruined not only Russia, p much the entirety of the ex-socialist world still hasn’t recovered. Even the most successful economy in history- the PRC- still plans their economy. They’re currently on their 14th 5 year plan if I’m not mistaken, and they’re far ahead of schedule- as they’ve been on every single one of them save the first. The free hand of the market is nothing but a fantasy, working only in the ridiculously simplistic models of the Chicago School and Austrians. In reality, not only did planning work for socialists, it currently works for capitalists.

[@pittraider1221]

Had me in the first half 😂

[@bredoom]

This is a nice essay analysis

[@AckzaTV]

These youtubers believe more in the soviet union than anyone who actually lived through it

[@TrollOfReason]

I'm about 3 minutes in & the video hasn't strayed from reality. I mean, the concept of a centrally planned economy moving with the speed of an electron is potentially as horrific (it makes me uneasy & I'm not sure why) in the long term as a centrally planned economy moving at the speed of arbitrary, bureaucratic paranoia, but that's about it, so far. I mean, I have my preconceived notions, obviously, & my concerns formed of those notions combined with the widely agreed upon historic truth statements from both inside & outside of the system. I'll see if those are addressed, & get back to you.

[@TrollOfReason]

This is a pretty good video, tho I have some fundamental reservations around the final "it could have worked if-" statement. A cybernetically empowered centralized planning was never going to be "supported by the state" for the reasons described in the last 20 minutes of the video. Too many of the various heirarchies-in-miniature would have risked getting obliterated, & thus it was a direct threat to established positions of privilege & material control of their surroundings. Which is to say, it threatened the corruption that kept the people in charge of how things actually are comfortable & out of manual labor. Which, lemme be clear, isn't a dig or a gotcha statement. A cybernetically empowered command structure was a material threat to the comfort & continued wellbeing of millions. Those millions controlled whether or not things got done in the Soviet state. So, it follows that they were never going to support it unless they, impossibly, were in charge of it, & thus their material privilege & safety was ensured.

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

​@@TrollOfReasonYes tell me more

[@Fitmoos]

excelent info camarada

[@antonimonti6902]

It never really did the US much good to advance cybernetic technology much.... the US never used technology to actually make social and economic development for poor classes better in the US...

[@Paul-ft9dn]

obviously technology has massively helped Americans in every class. You'd have to be braindead to think the industrial revolution hasn't led to massively better living standards. Not to mention the internet, cars, electricity, literally everything.

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

Neither did anyone else it led to death and distraction on an unimaginable scale. The nations with the largest wealth divide have always been the Soviet Union, China and North Korea

[@gregtaylor9806]

Right, because we are not all watching high quality videos and bickering about their meaning on supercomputers that can fit in our pockets.

[@Rays_Bad_Decisions]

The very idea that you can make someone elses life better is what leads to the authoritarianism that kills its own people. You want to make people's lives better give them access to credit and education everything else is just subjugation

[@fishconnoisseur]

Obi wan kenobi in the thumbnail

[@LokiLaughs2]

The video ignores the elephant in the room: How the USSR fell behind in computing technology. Long story short is early computers were not necessary to maintain production quotas and there was a lack of incentives for civilian production to compete against other civilian production everyone was instead just focused on making quotas.

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

Yes this was the case however they did have advanced computers for military purposes

[@Anita.Cox.]

I do wished this came to fruition as even if it was awful and never worked it wouldve still been a step forward in computers planning economys, factories and so on.

[@the_derpler]

They couldn't even make modern micro processors. They unfortunately were desperately behind capitalist nations in this regard. Chipwar is a good book that covers this.

[@SCIFIguy64]

I still love how the west absolutely mogged the foxbat after it petrified us before realizing it was all talk, no walk.

[@SCBA-if4wl]

​@@SCIFIguy64lol look at the difference between ROC and PRC

[@JuPiTeR_0211]

They could but they didn't

[@TomiThemself]

Dumb question: If it were to work, would that still be considered as "automation", or rather just decentralisation?

[@LetsGoGetThem]

Three Marxists who have done excellent work over the years on the topic of planning for the future are Scottish Marxist economists Paul Cockshott, Alin Cottrell, and Jan Philip Dappric. They just came out with a book recently entitled Economic Planning in an Age of Climate Crisis which marries the theory with a lot of modern ecological considerations, _highly_ recommend this modern work.

[@toastingtoast161]

very interesting video :)

[@newmediadenmark_]

You are dreaming. People didn't have anything to eat in the end. Society broke down.

[@kevincuevas8877]

They had metal to make military equipment. That same metal could have been used to make systems. then again maybe it wouldn't have deterred invasion to have a few hundred less nukes, but it would have made the economy more adaptive and capable of funding a competent weapons program long term and maybe even maintain a higher standard of living and thus quality of workers and stable population growth. Still, its never too late to automate regardless who is in charge.

[@cre8erz]

Super interesting!!

[@AsbestosMuffins]

the problem is everybody was lying about their production numbers so you could have created an internet of sorts but none of the physical stuff would have arrived on time

[@andrzejnadgirl2029]

Modern corporations can have data inaccurate by a margin of up to 20% sometimes. It gets corrected eventually and usual it's not as extreme but that is to put a perspective. In USSR data could be incorrect by 300% of it's proper number and it wasn't anything wild. And fighting off corruption, oh boy, politics within the Party didn't allowed for that as everyone would be fucked.

[@davidp.7620]

Short answer: just because you want something to happen with all your heart and soul it doesn't mean it's possible. It would have required a massive investment with no guarantee of success.

[@alexleibovici4834]

> It would have required a massive investment with no guarantee of success. A massive investment with the guarantee of FAILURE, because a successful economy cannot be planned.

[@SCIFIguy64]

A successful economy can be simulated, not created. An entirely fiat economy with only an artificial scarcity will be successful, but only if the curtain is never pulled. Communism or any Marxist derived economic system cannot function with real scarcity and human power behind an economy, capitalist competition is a necessary step to AI automation of labor. We have at least a century of development and change before communism can be something to respect rather than laugh at. As long as it is cheaper to give a dozen men shovels and point a gun at them than to design a machine to dig, communism will not work without authoritarianism, antithetical to the “community” origins.

[@peterdenov4898]

@@alexleibovici4834 Redditor spotted

[@WhataDubHead]

Sounds like classic Public Choice Theory problems inherent to public sector structures. This is a critical flaw in any centrally planned economy.

[@icantaimpg3d776]

Long time no see ! I thought you got kidnapped by the SVR lol 😂 Would be nice to see you do how does a socialist government function and what to change

[@themarxistproject]

Haha nothing so adventurous. Kidnapped by graduate school 😅 I will certainly try to do something on that topic in the future

[@icantaimpg3d776]

@@themarxistproject thank you ! Wish you good luck with your career !