This Week I Learned #73
“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up”
2019-10-21
"The unexamined life is not one worth living" - Socrates
2019-10-22
A thought-provoking essay on risk by Paul Graham. Using 'hiring' as the backdrop, his analysis into thinking about users, what people really want, how companies are proxies for users and the pooling of risk creates something to think about not only in how the company-employee relationship will evolve but also how one can evaluate risk for his own career. http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
2019-10-23
A quote on writing: "Say what you mean and say it briefly". I forget who said it but it continues to ring as a reminder in my head.
2019-10-24
Learnings of the Soviet Union; prompted by a visit to Berlin, finishing the "WWII in Color" docu-series and re-watching The Death of Stalin in that order.
It ended with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. I thought it would've ended with the death of Stalin but surprisingly, he didn't get to enjoy much of his new empire after passing away in 1953. Though Mussolini and Hitler both died with the end of the war in Europe, the leaders for the Allied powers all saw relatively short-lived periods of influence as FDR past away in the final year of the war, Churchill lost reelection immediately following the end of the war and even the supreme ruler Stalin couldn't escape death via cerebral hemorrhage.
The late collapse of the Soviet Union explains why when I was growing up, all my globes and maps still said USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) when I studied countries. It's crazy to think that the USSR collapsed a year before I was born.
Though it seems like it was a staggered end to the USSR as the Berlin wall fell in 1989 to make way for a democratic Germany as West Germany took over the Eastern side
Stalin's purge in right before the start of WWII let to the deaths of approx. 1M people. Many were government/military officials and people in educated professions (i.e. professors, doctors, engineers, scientists). The killings continued after WWII as well with many war heroes being killed off after winning the war as well. The Russian gulags (concentration camps) continued to get filled up with people considered "enemies of the state" (aka non-poor people and those Stalin didn't like).
After Stalin died, there was a struggle for power between Beria, head of the NKVD (secret police), and others in the leadership committee like Kruschev. Eventually, Kruschev and his gang overthrew a short power hold by Beria and Malenkov (deputy to Stalin) with the help of the Red Army's General Zhukov (the commander of the Red Army in WWII).
Beria was responsible for the Katyn massacre where some 20,000 Polish military officials were killed when Germany and Russia split Poland in 1939, which also marked the start of WWII in Europe for some. Though the Nazis were cruel to the Jewish population, Soviets were cruel to anyone anti-communist and the Poles suffered mightily under Russian rule as well. It was common for USSR countries to embrace the Nazis as liberators when they first attacked East because people believed life under Nazi rule would be better than under Stalin's USSR.
Digging further into Beria. Some sources say Beria actually murdered Stalin. Before becoming head of the NKVD, Beria was a deputy and his predecessor tried to have Beria killed. Beria ran to Stalin to convince Stalin that he was more valuable than his predecessor and had his predecessor killed so that he could take power over the NKVD. When the coup happened to usurp Beria and Malenkov, Beria was executed on trial. Part of his trial included some 148 cases of rape. Many with underaged women. He had a practice of giving these women a bouquet of flowers after raping them to indicate that it was consensual. Rather strange behaviour for someone who literally controls who lives and dies in the USSR. This list of victims is to be made public in approx. 2028. The list also included actresses, some blackmailed for freedom of their family members imprisoned in the gulags (many were executed long before but the women were not made aware of this). Many women were also murdered after the rape as bones were found under Beria's mansion.
2019-10-25
The Supernova in the East series by The Hardcore History podcast. It's about 13 hours for the current 3 parts. I'm awaiting part IV with excitement. These podcasts episodes don't stay free forever and do expire so I'd recommend haste to listen in on it. Similar to exploring the Soviet side of WWII, I was looking further into what happened in Asia in WWII as this is also not covered in detail by the Western powers. Also because unlike Germany, Japan denies much of what happened. Though, the US doesn't help the situation either as they made an agreement with Japan not to expose too much of the human experiments they did and punish their war criminals in exchange for information on the Russians Japan had collected + the research Japan did on bio-weapons as the US were preparing for the cold war with Russia. Anyhow, this is an awesome series that:
Digs into all aspects of Japan's societal culture and how the state embraced the Samurai mentality of "honour in death" well after the end of that era. It goes into the extent to which Japanese soldiers would make suicidal attacks (like blowing themselves up with a grenade even while wounded, how they throw their bodies infront of machine guns so the person behind them can take out the gunner etc...)
Details into the massacres in China, how the Nazis had actually helped China in the beginning before becoming allies Japan
Japan's 'pitch' to become the supreme ruler of Asia to free the continent from the 'evil white rulers' as much of Asia consisted of colonies to the imperial countries in Europe
The many direct accounts of Western powers referring to Japanese as the racially inferior savages who can't wage war properly and how that let to how Japan could dominate the colonies so easily
Japan's no prisoner policies. In Europe, US/British POWs (prisoners of war) at 4% chance of death when captured by Italians/Germans but had 27% chance of death when captured by Japanese. It was known that Japanese soldiers would go into captured hospitals and stab all military patients and behead prisoners and take pictures of it to remember it.
Dan Carlin also paints a great picture to portray the difference of fighting in the Pacific where much of it happened at night as the Japanese used lots of infiltration tactics and much of the fighting happened in close ranges in the jungle. It was common to wake up the next morning and see the foxhole next to you have your buddies be mutilated by knives from a night attack.