Balaji Srinivasan
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Okay.
For the average Russian in the 80s, their quality of life dropped dramatically when communism ended.
And their main geopolitical rival were the Americans.
And they lost territory.
They lost life expectancy.
They had drug overdoses.
They had mafias running their things.
All kinds of bad things happened after the end of communism.
Still, in the medium to long run, few Russians would want to go back to communism.
Like it was like net.
Even if they didn't like they still don't like the Americans, they're still, in fact, fighting the Americans.
Right.
Nevertheless, it was good that there was an alternative to communism.
Right.
That is a complex thing that doesn't just it's not a Hollywood thing of good versus bad.
Right.
It was short term bad in many ways.
It was arguably long term good in some ways, though, of course, it's not a Hollywood ending because obviously, like the Russians, while they may be capitalists in some way, they're also mad about losing their empire.
You know, they're very conflicted.
Everybody's very conflict relationship to the whole Soviet Union because.