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

On Thu, 22 May 2025 14:22:35 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

<snippo>

Trying to catch up to Star Wars caused the Soviet Union to go broke.

>
Sure.  Pull the other one.

<snippo details>

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.

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.

So, from this, the possibility that the Soviet Union found itself
between a rock and a hard place in trying to plan everything exists.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"