> Does Russia already have a talent base or flourishing industries for all the stuff they are being denied? (...) They used to have huge talent pool of all kinds during the Soviet times but that is no longer the case.
That's why I brought up programming. If the legendary Russian skills are still extant in that industry, then that's one example of a pool of talent that remained intact. Sure it won't help with a furniture crisis, but programming and IT skills are the core of a modern economy, so they will help with other things.
Because programmers are smart generally and many of them are engineers. They can certainly figure out how to make furniture and repair or build simple woodworking machines and tools amongst many other endeavors.
>Because programmers are smart generally and many of them are engineers. They can certainly figure out how to make furniture and repair or build simple woodworking machines and tools amongst many other endeavors.
I'm speechless.
Actually, the most profound examples of stupidity I'm seeng lately comes from programmers and technologist who think they understand everything just because they can read high-level simplified explanation of a concept in wikipedia or some blog post.
This arrogance is deeply concerning for me, it usually comes from people with no depth in anything other than programming. Dunning–Kruger effect? Maybe.
Elon Musk is a good example for high profile version of this. Without knowledge of caves he adventured to build robot to get kids out of a flooding cave, then proceeded to attack the person who actually knew his stuff and saved the kids. Another one is again him, predicting the end of Covid in the US. Another gold from Musk is him insulting medical professionals for not pumping a drug that cures Covid, that later turned out not to cure Covid.
This is Musk but Musk-alikes dominate the programming culture. It's horrible.
I don’t disagree that there are poor outcomes from much of the technocratic class. Also, you are correct that the ability to build basic crud apps and websites does not make you a genius or all-knowing seer of the cosmos. However, we are talking about making furniture here and repairing/building machines that have existed for over a century. Hillbilly mechanics and basic carpenters can accomplish these tasks.
Elon Musk takes risks beyond what most are willing to take and that is what separates him from the average technocrats. You don’t like that personality type, but some of us wish technocrats would reach farther than copycat social media and advertising ventures even if they fail sometimes.
> Does Russia already have a talent base or flourishing industries for all the stuff they are being denied? (...) They used to have huge talent pool of all kinds during the Soviet times but that is no longer the case.
That's why I brought up programming. If the legendary Russian skills are still extant in that industry, then that's one example of a pool of talent that remained intact. Sure it won't help with a furniture crisis, but programming and IT skills are the core of a modern economy, so they will help with other things.