Comments by "Piccalilli Pit" (@piccalillipit9211) on "Weird History" channel.

I just commented the following: Im an author who now lives in the former Soviet Union - I've interviewed hundreds of people who lived under communism and the BIGGEST mistake you can make is to listen to one person's story. Imagine asking a single mother working 3 jobs and having no health insurance and a sick kid what life in America is like??? Imagine asking a business owner making $250k a year what America is like. It NO DIFFERENT with the USSR. The majority of people I interviewed really liked it, want to go back to it. But this tends to be geographically orientated - people in Bulgaria had a good time under communism 75% want to return to communism, people next door in Romania had a horrific time, even so 35% want to go back to communism... It could literally differ down to the city you lived in, mayors had a lot of authority, they could abuse this or be incredibly good mayors. The even bigger mistake you can make is to ask a person who left the USSR and went to the west - this is called "survivorship bias" - they had to REALLY hate the USSR to leave, so that group of people should literally be removed from any objective analysis. The main thing about the USSR and communism is, it was DIFFERENT to western propaganda. Both worse and much better. The west was really lazy in its lies and propaganda, but we believed it... I believed it.
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Im an author who now lived in the former Soviet Union - I've interviewed hundreds of people who lived under communism and the BIGGEST mistake you can make is to listen to one person's story. Imagine asking a single mother working 3 jobs and having no health insurance and a sick kid what life in America is like??? Imagine asking a business owner making $250k a year what America is like. It NO DIFFERENT with the USSR. The majority of people I interviewed really liked it, want to go back to it. But this tends to be geographically orientated - people in Bulgaria had a good time under communism 75% want to return to communism, people next door in Romania had a horrific time, even so 35% want to go back to communism... It could literally differ down to the city you lived in, mayors had a lot of authority, they could abuse this or be incredibly good mayors. The even bigger mistake you can make is to ask a person who left the USSR and went to the west - this is called "survivorship bias" - they had to REALLY hate the USSR to leave, so that group of people should literally be removed from any objective analysis. The main thing about the USSR and communism is, it was DIFFERENT to western propaganda. Both worse and much better. The west was really lazy in its lies and propaganda, but we believed it... I believed it.
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@alienbsg - Thank you - but it DID take moving here to make me realise I had believed total lies and propaganda. Its amazing how effective propaganda is...
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@RhythmAddictedState I agree with almost everything that you said. But just to be clear "survivorship bias" doe not indicate the person is biased. It indicates your sample group is biased by the fact it exists. It comes from WW2 when they looked at fighter planes that returned and plotted where the bullets hit and WOW almost no planes were getting hit in the engine or where the pilot was. NO - those planes didn't make it home therefore skewing your sample. And its the same with the people that left the USSR - they had to REALLY hate the USSR to go to the trouble of leaving so THAT skews your sample. Its a sample of people who really hate the USSR.
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@Elizaveta "Sorry for the rant. It's complicated." No problem - This is kinda what I try to get across to people. You cant say the USSR was good or bad - its complicated. its a massive place and people had very very different experiences. "You meant fly, not drive?" NO - I mean dive LOL. In 2005 I had driven from England across the Sahara to The Gambia in western Africa and in 2006 I was to drive From Kent in England to Tashkent but the friend I was going with had problems and could not make it... "Btw, may I know about works as an author and what's your profession?" My professional career was in business, I owned the largest company distributing Bulgarian and Polish cosmetics in America and the UK. In 2015 I suffered brain damage in a mugging and lost everything, I was homeless for a while, lived in a motel for a while, then I wrote a book about it all, which sold reasonably well, wrote another two books, and I have just finished one called "ADRIFT IN THE SHARK TANK - How to survive in a post-pandemic world" which went to the editor today - it would be on sale next month... Before the pandemic, I was collecting stories from people who lived under communism. I think there should be a record of people's experiences - just for history. I don't think it will sell very well at all - but I think there should be a historical record before everyone dies off and their stories are lost. There are lessons to learn both good and bad from these times. "My parents condemn Lenin for assassinating Tsar and his family. " You see I have never met anyone who said that. these are important perspectives, I believe they should be recorded. Ive just finished 97 hours of lectures on the Russian revolution - the Tsar was not a horrible person, he was not evil, he was just the wrong person at the wrong time. Too weak to lead his country but too strong to let others with more skill run it for him.
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Im an author who now lived in the former Soviet Union - I've interviewed hundreds of people who lived under communism and the BIGGEST mistake you can make is to listen to one person's story. Imagine asking a single mother working 3 jobs and having no health insurance and a sick kid what life in America is like??? Imagine asking a business owner making $250k a year what America is like. It NO DIFFERENT with the USSR. The majority of people I interviewed really liked it, want to go back to it. But this tends to be geographically orientated - people in Bulgaria had a good time under communism 75% want to return to communism, people next door in Romania had a horrific time, even so 35% want to go back to communism... It could literally differ down to the city you lived in, mayors had a lot of authority, they could abuse this or be incredibly good mayors. The even bigger mistake you can make is to ask a person who left the USSR and went to the west - this is called "survivorship bias" - they had to REALLY hate the USSR to leave, so that group of people should literally be removed from any objective analysis. The main thing about the USSR and communism is, it was DIFFERENT to western propaganda. Both worse and much better. The west was really lazy in its lies and propaganda, but we believed it... I believed it.
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@RhythmAddictedState - No need to appologise. If you don't understand the first time - that's my fault for not explaining it correctly...
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@Elizaveta - this is really interesting and very similar to a lot of stories I hear. It was pretty good under communism, then unbelievably horrible when it collapsed... FYI - I was supposed to drive from the UK to Tashkent in 2006, but it never happened, sadly...
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I HAVE HAD GOUT it is painful on a level that you never knew existed - I could not tolerate the weight of a cotton sheet on my bed... Ive had kidney stones - gout is more painful.
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