Re: “Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Missile Shield Expected To Cost $500 Billion”

Paul S Person  <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

When I took an economics class, it was pointed out that the Soviet
Union was planning its economy using typists and carbon copies. It was
projected that in a few decades (which would have been the 80s), if
this continued, 100% of the adult population would be involved in
economic /planning/, leaving nobody to do the actual work.

This is true, although GOSPLAN got very interested in computers in the
big BESM-6 days and although they didn't actually computerize much
they had the idea of trying both to model the economy and to keep track
of economic activity with computers.  But by 1970 they were at least
thinking about the idea.

The GOSPLAN-equivalent in Jugoslavia actually did computerize things in
the seventies.  They still suffered from the same sort of severe GIGO
problem that always affects planned economies though.

A related theory suggests that this caused the Soviets to modernize,
that is, move to computers. Which they of course "invented" after
careful examination of American PCs. This helped with the clerical
problems, but it produced two more:
-- printers/photocopiers could be diverted to print /samizdat/ books
-- networking could send file copies of /samizdat/ books everywhere to
be printed out everywhere
which made control of publishing (ie, censorship) a lot harder.

This happened much much later.  Control of copy machines and printers
was very highly restricted just as the Czar kept tight control over
printing presses and type.  That continued well into glasnost days.

So, from this, the possibility that the Soviet Union found itself
between a rock and a hard place in trying to plan everything exists.

Central planning sounds like a great idea but it requires everyone in
the system to be honest and provide valid data.  When it's against a
person's interest to provide good data, they likely won't.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."