Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "The Lunatic Responsible for Destroying Every Beautiful City in the World" video.

*Cheapness. People can and still do build beautiful things, it's just more feasible to build simply structures instead of embellishing and overengineering to hell. People forget just how much the population has exploded since industrialization, building entire cities in a 'beautiful' style is simply impossible. Unless you want to live in a dirt hovel (like most Europeans at the time did), you should be grateful for the ugly box you call home. Sorry.
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@sechmascm Yes, the one where serfs had to work for decades bonded to their land? With little to no food? Such a great time that was, really. The Communists may have mismanaged horribly, but the Tsar was slow to industrialize and without the Soviet gigafactories, Russia simply wouldn't exist (Hitler's ultimate plan was to eradicate the Slavs and turn East Europe into Lebensraum).
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@iHaveTheDocuments Have you seen American buildings? They're not much better. At least the Soviet blocks were made of concrete, your shit is made of MDF chickenwire, and drywall, and lasts 50 years max.
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@денисбаженов-щ1б First part true, second part not. Most of the oldest Russian buildings (and part of the reason people think Russian architecture is so young) were made of wood. They, of course, rotted away, but the few that are left are as old as other European styles. This is where the onion dome and multi-layered cathedral designs come from; they're not present in Greek Orthodox buildings. The only reason Greek and Roman architecture is older (beyond the fact that the Mediterranean climate allowed their people to build civilizations easier) is because they built with stone and concrete.
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@AverageAlien Nope, no country's experience is identical, and recency matters. China succeeded because they learned from the Soviets' mistake. They also have a massive labor pool. India? Same thing. Enormous population and friendly relations with the U.S.. What's Russia to do? They can either compete with high quality European goods (which takes time), or compete with Chinese and Indian low quality goods. With less than a third the population, and most Russians being high skilled (expensive labor). What do you suggest if there are "no excuses"? (The lack of a niche for Russia to fill is a pretty good excuse so I'm expecting an actual answer, otherwise you're wrong).
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Why are modern buildings ugly? A sobering answer: economics. It's simply cheaper to build them like shit. Unless you want housing prices to go even higher, we should all be thankful politicians don't insist on making everything beautiful. With domestic labor costs, no one could afford to live anywhere. Also consider, that the cities with all these beautiful historic buildings, weren't always like that. They had shitty buildings for the poor back then, too. The pretty buildings were the ones that survived because we maintained them. The ugly ones were simply demolished. So we're seeing survivorship bias. You only see the best of the best when it comes to the past. How many of our buildings today still survive 100 more years? Your house won't, but the White House? Absolutely.
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@AverageAlien After a world war and an economic collapse? Better than anyone expected.
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@UmbralDraco87 Um, you clearly haven't been to Russia. The entire point of "postmodern" Soviet architecture was to be aligned and regimented, mostly for economic reasons. You can that they're ugly. Of course they are. My point is that they're sturdier than the shit houses Americans live in. And yes, the tradition of hanging Ottoman rugs on walls is older than the entire history of the U.S., what about it? I don't see why that's supposed to be a point— if you want to use that go insult Russian architecture, then implicated all the same. You have entire regions built by fourth-generation slaves. Again, what's your point?
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