Had the Soviets developed IC technology and the US failed to do so, do you still believe the Cold War would have turned out roughly the same? I suspect it would have bolstered the Soviet economy, allowed them to develop technology faster than their adversaries, and ultimately win. You're right, this is a guess, because it's impossible to know. I'm also not pretending it's an infallible argument, just as others have pointed out flaws in your theory (that the USSR failed because it lagged behind in terms of economic growth) elsewhere in this thread. I feel like you're focusing on the end of the Cold War, and I'm looking earlier and how it could have influenced those later conditions. It's like trying to understand Germany in the 1930's without considering WW1 - there's a reason it developed that way.
I don't think there was only 1 key thing that decided victory of the Cold War, I believe there were many key things. To clarify, a key thing is something important enough by itself to swing the pendulum either way. I already mentioned the development of IC technology by the US and the Chernobyl failure by the Soviets.
Anyway, I appreciate your perspective. Agree to disagree.
I think you're looking at this as a debate instead of a conversation. I don't care whether or not you agree with me. I'm sorry you found the idea so distasteful.
I'm sincerely trying to have a conversation here. I feel like you're frustrated because you're sure I'm wrong, and you're unable to convince me I'm wrong. But that's just the way the world works. In fact, it's a cornerstone of the very system you're so passionately arguing is superior (western democracy / capitalism - I realize these aren't the same but in this instance it seems relevant to blur the lines). Sometimes people are going to vote against you, even if they're "wrong."
Why not just accept that I'm wrong and move on? What makes you think it's even possible to change my mind at this point?
I can understand that you're frustrated, but at this point I'm not sure what your goal is unless you still think you can change my mind.
If you think your theory is still valid without any good arguments for it, you are free to continue spreading them. You will just not be taken very seriously by people who consider fact-based arguments as a foundation for reasoned arguments, which incidentally are many people in this particular forum.
For what it's worth, I actually appreciate this - even though it probably doesn't seem that way.
> You will just not be taken very seriously by people who consider fact-based arguments as a foundation for reasoned arguments, which incidentally are many people in this particular forum.
The upvotes on my comments suggest people found what I had to say interesting. Of course that doesn't make me right :)
Cheers.
> I think most people on HN are familiar with the story of how computers won WWII, where Von Neumann used them to decipher German and Japanese encrypted communications. Also the Apollo missions were all controlled by circuits. Computers have been massively important (and expensive - the modern equivalent of ~100 billion USD was spent putting a man on the moon, and some of that includes developing IC technology) for a while.
Sure, they have been important, but again, they're not the key. As others have pointed out, the USSR was economically behind the US even right at the beginning of the cold war. Technically, the USSR was able to fight the Germans specifically because of the billions of dollars in Material that the US supplied to the USSR. The American view of the Soviet Union has been shaped by the simple fact of MAD with nukes and various made up scares (e.g. the space race), but if you look at economic and sociological data (e.g. life expectancy), the US was ahead of the USSR for the duration of the cold war.
As the GP has pointed out, reasonable people came to the conclusion that the system could not continue to exist without massive repression and tried to change it.
Your other arguments don't seem to make any sense, and are just referencing historical tidbits.