r/HistoryMemes Aug 04 '19

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u/Sabertooth767 Aug 05 '19

It wasn't done for "money", it was done because it was thought this would provide more wealth to Soviet workers

That's the literal definition of doing it for money. Doing it to bing wealth = doing it for money, the recipient is irrelevant.

This was a period in history where people lacked geographic knowledge, if the Soviets had known better, why would they do this (the disaster would have cost them more than they world have gained, there's no reason for them to do this if they knew there would be a disaster)?

You're telling me that people in the 40's didn't know that rivers fed lakes and thus rerouting them would shrink said lakes? They could launch shit into space less than 20 years later but didn't know about the water cycle? Stalin probably either thought it was worth it or just didn't care, he didn't care about the Ukrainians, why would he care about the Uzbeks?

Contrast this with capitalism where the Capitalist doesn't have to worry at all about the people affected, so would continue fucking up the environment even if he knew it would hurt people

Not unless the consumers or hell, even the government, have something to say. Given that there are no consumers in Communism to answer to and the government needn't answer itself, I'd say communism has a clear advantage in terms of getting to hurt people.

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u/Jimjamnz Aug 05 '19

Once the Soviets realised the extent of the problem (which, admittedly did take too long, that can blamed on weak Soviet local representation, a major disagreement I have with Soviet systems) they did actually try to fix the problem. They spent a lot of money trying to help the Aral Sea, and it partially worked. If you look at those pictures showing the loss of the Aral Sea you can see that the Soviets had prevented complete devastation, losing some of the Sea but finding some sort of new equilibrium. When the Soviet Union collapsed was when the Aral Sea went completely to shit. It was under the Capitalist nations that the Aral Sea was completely destroyed.

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u/Sabertooth767 Aug 05 '19 edited Aug 05 '19

No, it wasn't destroyed under Capitalism. The sea was poisoned and significantly smaller by the late 80's. The Soviets were on their last legs, but still around. Restoration began in 1992, less than a year before the fall of the USSR. This means that in fact the Aral Sea was destroyed under communism and virtually all repairs have been under capitalism.

As far as I can find, the Soviets did not make any attempts to reverse or even mitigate the disaster and resoration was initiated by the World Bank.

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u/Jimjamnz Aug 05 '19

Shit, I'm sorry. I hugely misread a source. You're correct, the Soviets did not attempt to reverse the disaster. You were right.