>>40016
Wasteland was a great song to start this thread, but with Severina you convinced me to hear the full album. Great stuff, I can see why it grabbed hold of you. In listening to their follow up albums, Children and Carved in Sand, neither have matched God's own Medicine. Although there were a number of tracks that stood out-including Deliverance and Amelia(fair warning, the subject matter of the latter track is abuse, and may be disturbing). While Fabienne lacked a driving hook, the music was beautiful.

The Mission - Fabienne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHdzk1p_5Bg

I also enjoyed this Aerosmith cover:

The Mission-Dream On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na-tyZyY860

And I just have to mention this one from the album Masque. I'll confess that I didn't actually go this far forward into their discography, but skipping ahead I landed on She Conjures Me Wings. It's quite a departure from their usual sound, but is a really fun track. I can't believe they didn't release this as a single:

She Conjures Me Wings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We93XrOp9vA

>>39790
I don't know, this raises a bunch of questions:

- Did the Soviet experience leave unique characteristics in the former Soviet states?
- What other directions could have the Soviet Union taken in it's development?
- Was the 1917 revolution inevitable?

I think that it's possible that Russia could have taken a different route, continuing liberalizing since 1905 and taking steam from the socialist revolutionary movements.

On the Soviet Union itself, I suppose that all things considered, it could have gone significantly worse. Especially with its breakup, the end of the SU could have been a far more violent event if it wasn't for Gorbachev being Gorby.

And finally, I would say that the Soviet Union did create changes in Russian society that are present to this day. If for no other reason than how significant the 90s experience was for the development of modern Russian politics.

I don't think your deterministic approach of a Russia of boyars and peasants is that airtight and Russia could certainly be an entirely different monster today. If I had to bet, I'd say it would still be unique and very Russian because you are right that Russia does taint everything that comes in contact with it. In an interesting way, though.

I don't know enough about China to comment on similarities. I have a couple of books on China I am meant to pick up, but I've been stuck on Russia.

>>39879
Well, interesting topics are a can of worms. Another really interesting topic that is basically a room full of gasoline is the rise of Ukrainian national identity in the 20th century and how different events affected it. But 2014 KC still gives me PTSD, so maybe it's better to stay away from it.

1825-1917 is an interesting period in Russian history too. I like that Russian revolutionary groups seemed to have contributed more to reactionary clampdowns than any reactionary minister.
The murder of the Liberator haha ebin :DD Tsar is probably one of the more tragic events of Russian history.

>>39913

>- Did the Soviet experience leave unique characteristics in the former Soviet states?

Well of cource it's did. It's almost impossible to make something "out of nowhere" like initial plan was, but of cource powrefull leadrship can choose directions and move society where it need to move. Imagine it like "evolution" when some organs can become rudimentary and other increase in size and make from Rat something that looks like gigantic monster Fish but still staying mammal.
Other may say that even this may be logical path and result of late Serfdom that affect masses and become ideal ground for shaping such regmine and society making russia just example of lagging behind nation that always affected by modern world around and all this Russia west-vs-east-vs-"it's own thing" philosophies. And question about is russia moving anywhere or fall into constant stagnation is more something on modern politics side if we going into such psyhology.
So it's basicly "fight" between 2 basic concepts - "Things that happen is result of current state of society" vs. "Thing than happen affecting direction where society evolve"

I think truth somewhere in middle ground. Is soviet union affected direction of evolution of countries it's left after it? Yes. Was soviet system result of state of society it was based on together with outside factors? Also yes.

>- What other directions could have the Soviet Union taken in it's development?

I'd say that the direction it taked not count outside random factors was most... simple one? like country just "go with the flow" instead of attemting changing something radically probably since stalin. There was paths there and there but not something really radical different. And here, together with outer question

>- Was the 1917 revolution inevitable?

we starting to speculate of random unpredictable factors. Becuse history is always logical cource of actions+some random thing nobody expected to happen. Like from history science perspective - is Austro-Hungary and Germany tried to find way to soon or later try to start wars in order to increase power/stabilise thmeselfs from inside destructive movments? Yes, WW1 was something that may be prediced since Franco-Prussian War and slow change from Russia-Britain "big game" world war scenario towards "new big player on map want become even bigger". But how exeacly it started, what personalities do, their specific actions, it's always impossible to predict and impossible to really think about "what would happen".

How history turned itself if Franz Ferdinand not died? What happened if there was no that mistrious grenade that killed Kornilov? Nobody can predict, I think.

Sorry for boring answers

>I don't think your deterministic approach of a Russia of boyars and peasants is that airtight and Russia could certainly be an entirely different monster today.

Well, Russia already different one. Question is, will it form over time western civil society, or it'll stuck in post-selfdom forever? Is modern russian society more developed or over time of soviet union we even more degradated than from 1905-1917 times? All this very debatable questions.

>Another really interesting topic that is basically a room full of gasoline is the rise of Ukrainian national identity in the 20th century and how different events affected it.

Problem with ukraine from general russians side outside of modern politics is absolute lack of knowlege about fate of different principaties after mongol invasion. Generally 99% learn history like that:
1.Learning all principaties
2.Mongol invasion
3.Learning only north-eastern principaties and how they fight each other for become dominant and how moscow won over tver.
So whole theme of how Nvogorod formed as different state and almost as different nation, how Lithuania and western-rus language start form, what is "microrussia" thing, how lithuania and poland united - all this events was left outside of history and then there. Averege russian meet southern rus land when it's border wars between moscow tsardom/empire and Rzeczpospolita.
From here comes not understanding "why ukraine thinks it's different nation?"

>1825-1917 is an interesting period in Russian history too. I like that Russian revolutionary groups seemed to have contributed more to reactionary clampdowns than any reactionary minister

It's interesting time of combination of attempt to divide world with british empire on outside combined with crisis of selfdom and outdated imperial institutes inside, also combined with rise of new radial economical and philosophical ideas all over the world, yes.
And ye, I'm not big fan of Alexander III. Wrong person in wrong times - Russia needed more reforms probably in this age, to avoide all this dumpster fire after.

https://youtu.be/WSKi8HfcxEk?t=425
This is a totally unrelated thing from kurzgesasgt about automation but I came here just because of how butthurt that made me. Fewer people doing jobs, stagnant man hours, stagnating wages, highly educated work force stuck flipping burgers and not owning their own homes or raising families, all this leaves me the question:
What exactly was the deal with automation in Communism? Because as more of my hyper Capitalist society has been automated they're trying to blame all this on automation but somehow I don't think that's why we're poorer. In fact I think that on some fundamental level automation and freeing up of energy was the reason everybody skyrocketed from late 19th century standards of living to modern ones and that that's been falsely attributed to Capitalism. I'm starting to get this weird suspicion that if anything increased living standards happened in spite of, not because of, Capitalism, and that the system has finally found a way to sponge off workers and consumers to such a level that everybody is getting put in cages while working for a couple Jeff Bezos in the world who themselves don't really end up working.

Am I wrong? It's almost like automation just got turned into a new way for the elite class to sponge off the rest of society and have to give less out, in man hours, in bottoming wages, in nobody having benefits anymore, etc. I say this because Communism also increased the standard of living but had literal feudal societies to work with modernizing whereas the rest of us were already modernized and industrial.

Are my instincts wrong? I don't exactly understand what the deal is or is supposed to be in Communism with automation. If everything is automated under Communism then what's supposed to happen?

Now that everyone has to be assburger by law I thought I'd share some mildly interesting documentaries.

>The Tulip Bubble

As you can imagine this documentary covers the tulip mania that gripped the Dutch Republic during the 17th Century. I liked the way it analysed the multitude of reasons why tulips became the first speculative bubble owing to biology and Dutch Calvinism.

I'm very fond of tulips. Womankind suffers because, even when I set out to buy roses, I cannot resist the allure of their sturdy petals and bell shape. Lovely/10 - would become a greedy tulip baron.

>Oak Tree: Nature's Greatest Survivor

This is a two part series that focuses on the wonders of oak with a special focus on a tree that dates back to the English Civil War. I especially liked learning about how the Trees root system has a mutually beneficial relationship with fungi that burrow into solid rock to extract phosphates.

>Tank on the Moon

Provides an overview of the Soviet Lunokhod Programme to put robotic rovers on the Moon during the 1960-70s. I especially liked learning of all the engineering that went into making these machines that would only see an American equivalent in the 1990s and occurred at a time when people knew nothing of the Moon's surface. [I assumed the name comes from the fact that they used a Leningrad tank factory to design the chassis]

I've been getting the most out of my Curiosity Stream subscription lately. The catalogue is limited and has many unwatchable documentaries but it's good for noise and only £20 for the year.