http://jsbangs.com/2012/02/14/what-orwell-got-wrong/#comments
My friend J. S. Bangs blogged a bit about what Orwell got wrong in some of his writings and that inspired a brief conversation about whether or not the Soviets actually had an initial advantage in military tech. Josh S. pointed out that the Soviets ultimately did not have a lead in military tech or the space race. I piggy-backed on that observation to point out that the reason the Soviets took an early lead included not only their utterly cavalier and contemptible use of human resources but also the simple reality that when you have massive deposits of platinum and titanium in the regions you control (which the Soviet Union had) you have more raw materials from which to build aircraft and space-travelling machines.
Yet in the long run the obvious advantage in natural resources through a geological advantage of metal deposits and a geographical advantage of controlling cultures and peoples with a long history of working with such metals stops being an advantage if you treat those people as expendable. How many sets of skilled laborers were obliterated by Stalinist purges?
So, anyway, a link and some thoughts about how a nation that had advantages in natural resources didn't manage to benefit from it so much because of stupid and tyrannical leadership.
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