“Oh, herbal medicine’s been around for thousands of years!” Indeed it has, and then we tested it all, and the stuff that worked became ‘medicine’. And the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri, so knock yourselves out.
I disagree on the dissidents point though. The example of GDR has taught us how easily capitalists can sway people if they feel their life is getting austere. Such people can be convinced by a number that looks and feels large but won’t make a dent to bourgeois coffers, to abandon their home or even to betray it actively. As such I don’t see a point in criticism unless we see evidence they’re making a mistake.
It’s actually Dara O’Briain. He isn’t based or anything, but his repertoire on pseudoscience is hilarious.
After Germany was split, the west quickly realised they could harm the eastern part by causing a brain drain. Educated people and specialists were invited with monetary incentives and there were campaigns to inform them of the opportunities that awaited them in the west. Now, convincing da russian or georgian to uproot their and perhaps their family’s entire life to move to the US or western Europe is a hard sell, but the cretins in FRG were merely suggesting they essentially move neighbourhoods, quite literally in the case of Berlin.
There is a grain of truth in the horseshit they say about the Berlin wall and the Stasi, and it’s that they didn’t want folks to leave willy nilly. The worker’s state couldn’t educate people for years, only to lose half of them to dreams of shoe emporiums and shit.
Anyway, I hope the long winded explanation helps convey what I mean. The west, having the advantage of having that sort of money, has always used economic incentive to pull people to their side, literally and figuratively. The western incentive isn’t limited to such direct means as what they provided to the student leaders at the 4th June incident. A small group would be directly bought, a larger group would be “informed” of “opportunities”, and a much larger group would be fooled by the former two. I’m not saying that’s all the dissidents, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t make up a significant number, even a majority.
IIRC life in the DDR was quite austere because they had to pay war reparations for Nazi crimes. The BRD got help from the US to pay- (yes in a very self serving fashion from the US side but still), whereas the DDR obviously didn’t get any help. It’s an interesting layer of context in the greater picture of post-war development and the tale of two Germanies.
Then again it’s not like life suddenly got better after the annexation. Reunification and Treuhand were unmitigated disasters for the east, and it’s noticeably behind even a generation later.
To quote a comedian and physicist:
I disagree on the dissidents point though. The example of GDR has taught us how easily capitalists can sway people if they feel their life is getting austere. Such people can be convinced by a number that looks and feels large but won’t make a dent to bourgeois coffers, to abandon their home or even to betray it actively. As such I don’t see a point in criticism unless we see evidence they’re making a mistake.
That line sounds like something George Carlin would say.
Can you elaborate more on the GDR?
It’s actually Dara O’Briain. He isn’t based or anything, but his repertoire on pseudoscience is hilarious.
After Germany was split, the west quickly realised they could harm the eastern part by causing a brain drain. Educated people and specialists were invited with monetary incentives and there were campaigns to inform them of the opportunities that awaited them in the west. Now, convincing da russian or georgian to uproot their and perhaps their family’s entire life to move to the US or western Europe is a hard sell, but the cretins in FRG were merely suggesting they essentially move neighbourhoods, quite literally in the case of Berlin.
There is a grain of truth in the horseshit they say about the Berlin wall and the Stasi, and it’s that they didn’t want folks to leave willy nilly. The worker’s state couldn’t educate people for years, only to lose half of them to dreams of shoe emporiums and shit.
Anyway, I hope the long winded explanation helps convey what I mean. The west, having the advantage of having that sort of money, has always used economic incentive to pull people to their side, literally and figuratively. The western incentive isn’t limited to such direct means as what they provided to the student leaders at the 4th June incident. A small group would be directly bought, a larger group would be “informed” of “opportunities”, and a much larger group would be fooled by the former two. I’m not saying that’s all the dissidents, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t make up a significant number, even a majority.
IIRC life in the DDR was quite austere because they had to pay war reparations for Nazi crimes. The BRD got help from the US to pay- (yes in a very self serving fashion from the US side but still), whereas the DDR obviously didn’t get any help. It’s an interesting layer of context in the greater picture of post-war development and the tale of two Germanies.
Then again it’s not like life suddenly got better after the annexation. Reunification and Treuhand were unmitigated disasters for the east, and it’s noticeably behind even a generation later.