prof_TApr 28
Peter Gleick
Stalin fundamentally crippled Soviet #science in the 1930s and almost a century later it still hasn't recovered.
That's what Trump, RFK Jr., Vought, and MAGA are doing right now to the United States.
Apr 28 at 5:34amWeb
Show threadRoadskater, Ph.D.Apr 28
@petergleick RFK, Jr., bringing Lysenko-ism to the USA.
Show threadProScience πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡ΊApr 28
@petergleick 🎯
Show threadNoel KellyApr 28

@petergleick

Meanwhile, Chinese science is where US science was in the post war boom.

Show threadAngus MackenzieApr 28
@petergleick Enthusiastically dismantling the foundations of their excellence.
Show threadFerretApr 28
@Peter Gleick what on earth are you talking about

Trump and Stalin could seriously not be more different.
Show threadMartin Vermeer FCDApr 28
@ferret @petergleick Ah, the resident tankie checked in
Show threadAskoldApr 28

@ferret trump and stalin both are incompetent, paranoid, hates everyone that have different opinion, make stupid military decisions and purge generals

also both are considered strangely charismatic with their "jokes"

Show threadFerretApr 28
@Askold

incompetent
He literally oversaw the construction of a backwater nation into a superpower.
paranoid
Western propaganda that you've swallowed. There were severe splits, external meddling, and internal efforts to sabotage the revolution, which came to bear in Trotsky (if you ever actually read him and what he did rather than assuming Animal Farm is historical fact) or just literally see what happened following his death. He wasn't afraid of losing power, (he literally tried to step down several times) or his life (he remained in Moscow when it was being encircled).
hates everyone
Citation needed. He hated capitalists and fascists, and people who supported them. If you don't, then I don't know what to tell you.
made stupid military decisions
He literally won the war my dude. The whole "human wave" thing was invented by Hollywood.
considered strangely charismatic
No, actually, Stalin was never all that charismatic. He didn't like speaking, and only did so publicly a handful of times. One of those times was during the aforeentioned encirclement. He didn't much like public appearances.
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Show threadAskoldApr 28
@ferret "revolution" is stalling brochure for stupid mfs who can't recognize a genocidal empire when they see one. there were no revolution, just one russians changing management with other. its was still empire with repressions and slave labor.
Show threadFerretApr 28
@Askold what genocide. what on earth are you talking about lmao
Show threadAskoldApr 28

@ferret ahahahhahhahahah you fucking kidding? imagine pretending knowing history but only parts that confirms your point. how very convenient.

go educate yourself I don't have time googling wikipedia for you

Show threadAskoldApr 28
@ferret oh yeah the glorious 30s when millions died of "accidentally starving themself to death" after "social" government "redistributed" their "excesses", yeah it wasn't malice trying to justify itself by being incompetent, no you see, somewhere in moskow people are actually had fun at that time, so it's no so black and white propagandist history what you to think
Show threadFerretApr 28
@Askold my goodness are you ever brainwashed. There isn't a single word of that that's validated by history and you don't even realize. "Accidentally starved to death' was never even an argument, for crying out loud.
Show threadAskoldApr 28

@ferret OK stalin was actually sometimes funny and donni is just a plain racist pedo

is stalin secretly a good guy? my brain is so washed it's squeeqs when I think, so tell me a funny story of how nothing bad ever happened

Show threadFerretApr 28
@Askold Of course bad shit happened. There was a region-wide famine and then a world war in which his country was the primary target and had no support. He and his administration made errors, as all do, and certainly did during that time. But if you want someone who's a lot like Trump, look at Hitler, or even Churchill; he and Stalin are really nothing at all alike.
Show threadSashaApr 28
@petergleick allowing for megacorps to step in and build internal universities and indentured scientists.
Show threadMartin Vermeer FCDApr 28
@petergleick And remarkably, both are motivated by religion: like fundamentalist Christianity, Stalinist Marxism-Leninism rejects Darwinian evolution as then, building Homo Sovieticus along Lamarckian lines would become impossible.
Show threadarceuthobiumApr 28
@martinvermeer @petergleick which is odd because Marx understood Darwin better than most contemporary scientists.
Show threadPeet TetterooApr 28

@petergleick

Exactly - well formulated and bridged ..

Show threadRich Stein (he/him)Apr 28
@petergleick
A self-inflicted "win" as we return to the Dark Ages. Incredible β€” and incredibly sad β€” to see from the nation that attracted more scientists from more countries each year since the end of World War II, because of its scientific leadership.
https://mastodon.social/@RunRichRun/116468282962608451
#ScienceMatters #science #USpolitics
Show threadRich Stein (he/him)Apr 28

@petergleick
Former MIT president says the US is losing the innovation race to China
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/25/nx-s1-5772703/former-mit-president-says-the-us-is-losing-the-innovation-race-to-china

Cited article: "America Is Losing the Innovation Race: Why the Future of Science Might Be Chinese" https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-losing-innovation-race
@dmacphee
#ScienceMatters #science #USpolitics

Show threadRich Stein (he/him)Apr 28
@petergleick
A self-inflicted "win" as we return to the Dark Ages. Incredible β€” and incredibly sad β€” to see from the nation that attracted more scientists from more countries each year since the end of World War II, because of its scientific leadership.
https://mastodon.social/@RunRichRun/116468282962608451
#ScienceMatters #science #USpolitics
Show threadRenΓ©Apr 28
@petergleick #USSA united sovjet states of america.
Show threadToni AittoniemiApr 28
@petergleick Stalin killed socialism, Maga killed democracy.
Show threadMichael WestergaardApr 28
I agree with the sentiment, but it is over-simplifying a bit.

Russian science was recovering in the 2010s. In 2012 I, along with the leader of my group, were hired to participate in a new research group at the HSE in Moscow. This was funded by new research grants set up to get Russian research up-to-speed. The grant funded Western scientists (who would spend some time in Russia), Russian scientists (professors, post-docs, graduate students, and under-graduates), equipment (to bring them mostly up-to-date), and travel grants (for international conferences), as well as general overhead.

The purpose was to bring the Russian scientists up-to-date with Western research. Today, we know that was part of the Fortress Russia strategy to protect against sanctions expected to follow after attacking Ukraine, but that was not clear at the time, and it actually worked – at least for a bit. The Russian group grew and did contribute international research and they were in the running for hosting one of the larger conferences in the field. Given more time (years, not decades), they could have caught mostly up. That was one group in a quite niche field, but it was a general strategy.

So, Russia is still fucked but 1) it is possible to recover if there is a desire to, and 2) Russia is not just fucked because of Stalin, but also because of Putin (and likely others in-between I know less about). Will that transfer to the US? Who knows?

(I quit the position in 2013, before shooting down the Dutch plane and attacking Ukraine, for personal reasons.)
Show threadSassinake! ᑐ βˆͺ ∩ βŠ‚Apr 28

@petergleick

They don't want progress, they want the Hunger Games.

Tech has progressed to generate fabulous amounts of energy and tech oligarchs immediately found ways to waste it (with ai slop) instead of elevating the people's standard of living.

They will always poison the well so you have to buy water from them.

Show threadBeggar MidasApr 28
@petergleick Trying to. But Stalin had to run his purge first. So if we can ditch this camp of asshats soonish we can head a lot of that off at the pass.
Show threadSβ˜…m Vβ˜…rmβ˜…Apr 28
@petergleick @mattsheffield Got to get rid of any alternate power/truth centres in the society