Map Men did a great video on the reverse of this, classified Soviet-made maps of Britain which were all labelled in Polish! They were in some cases more accurate than the British OS maps of the era which did not print some features around military bases, but they did make mistakes too.
I thought it was quite interesting, I'm too young to remember the Cold War but it's always described to me in terms of nuclear warfare and mutually assured destruction. The quality of the Soviet maps suggests the mentality of a conquering adversary rather than a destroying one though, as though they intended to occupy the territory they were mapping rather than nuke it.
> They were in some cases more accurate than the British OS maps of the era which did not print some features around military bases,
Not so much more accurate ('classified' features aside), as more detailed: The soviet maps included such things as bridge weight limits...... After all, if trying to invade you need to know if the local bridges can support a T-62 tank.
the Cold War started before MAD became a thing. Had the USSR and NATO started a conflict in 1949, nukes would still have to be delivered by (slow, fragile, at heavy risk of interception) plane. ICBMs arrived in the late '50s, and submarine launches in the '60s, at which point MAD became a thing; but even later, all sides largely continued to operate like a conflict would follow traditional engagement patterns, when it came to the basics of planning. Nobody stopped, say, spying activities just because "eh, we'll nuke them all anyway" - if anything, because this allowed for targeted activities that ensured MAD would not get triggered.
The Soviets had a "no first strike" doctrine because they perceived themselves to be the stronger force on the continent. They had a huge standing army and massive numbers of armored vehicles and expected to be able to roll through the fudla gap and across western Europe as they had done through Eastern Europe in the final stages of WWII.
NATO, on the other hand, expected to be overrun by the soviets and used the threat of nuclear counterattack to keep them from trying it. The Soviets built up their own nuclear deterrent to prevent NATO from responding with nukes (the MAD).
If the US/NATO nuclear threat wasn't credible and the NATO armies were no match for the soviet army, then western Europe became a pawn for the soviets, leading the western allies to also invest in conventional arms.
In short: the argument for the conventional forces was that the nuclear threat wasn't really credible because nobody would choose to end the world.
Why does the summary of each map read like it was AI generated? Somehow no feeling at all in any of the summaries.
> By 1980, Moscow was under intense scrutiny from Western intelligence agencies.
> The city hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics during a period of heightened Cold War tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. CIA maps like this would have been useful for diplomatic security planning, intelligence analysis, and understanding the geography of Soviet government operations.
The clean graphic design is characteristic of late Cold War CIA cartography.
> Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation. E (sic)
> very rail yard, roadway, and public site could hold intelligence value, especially in a closed society like the USSR where reliable geographic information was often difficult for outsiders to obtain.
I can’t find a human behind any of this on the website. I’m certain there is one, but I’m not certain the summary is anything other than AI generated. Content farms at a new level? To what end?
> I am currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd, which owns and operates several websites in the UK payment, energy and small business sectors.
> Previously I was the Senior SEO manager for the EMEA region at Hotels.com and the Head of B2B SEO at MVF (Winner of the Sunday Times Tech Track 2013). I have over 13 years experience in SEO and online marketing and have worked for large corporations, startups and independently over that time.
> In my spare time I continue to operate a few test websites to see what's working in the world of SEO and also run my blog RandomlyLondon.com which has been featured in the Londonist, TimeOut and The Guardian.
And in the ‘blurb’ in his current company, he says:
> I'm currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd which publishes websites in various sectors including, business finance, payments and home improvements.
Maybe because it is AI generated? Not sure if it's true, but I had the same feeling. Also, it reads like someone seeing a good old city map for the first time: "Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation." Yes, city maps rarely have relief shading, that would only get in the way.
In this case, not only is it a theory that fits the facts, it’s likely.
A content farm having a disparate range of websites, for the sole purpose of SEO needs to be able to create engaging content quickly. AI generation allows for that; and by purposefully keeping a name that we can try to trace back to a real human as the author, the post itself lends credence to the theory that it’s AI generated.
Ironically we're not far from having custom AI filters that remove any sentiment we want, namely, "this seems AI generated".
I'm with you, those comments add no value and are only guesses. Even normal samples of writing will include AI traits like em dashes or "it's not just that, it's this". Conversely, it's not difficult to tell an AI to stop sounding like itself. It's overall burned thought cycles that can never be recovered.
My pet peeve lately is low effort comments that don't reflect anything substantive in the content. We don't have that problem on HN, but on YouTube it's prevalent. Comments like "absolutely/me too/exactly what I thought" etc. The only thing they can help are bot farms, and even if they were from a human they offer no value.
Whatever they and their affliction are called, they've successfully ruined the last few comment sections on the web that were still worth visiting for me. I hope they'll eventually receive the help they so desperately need. Maybe they'll be able to handle reality one day.
Map Men did a great video on the reverse of this, classified Soviet-made maps of Britain which were all labelled in Polish! They were in some cases more accurate than the British OS maps of the era which did not print some features around military bases, but they did make mistakes too.
I thought it was quite interesting, I'm too young to remember the Cold War but it's always described to me in terms of nuclear warfare and mutually assured destruction. The quality of the Soviet maps suggests the mentality of a conquering adversary rather than a destroying one though, as though they intended to occupy the territory they were mapping rather than nuke it.
> They were in some cases more accurate than the British OS maps of the era which did not print some features around military bases,
Not so much more accurate ('classified' features aside), as more detailed: The soviet maps included such things as bridge weight limits...... After all, if trying to invade you need to know if the local bridges can support a T-62 tank.
the Cold War started before MAD became a thing. Had the USSR and NATO started a conflict in 1949, nukes would still have to be delivered by (slow, fragile, at heavy risk of interception) plane. ICBMs arrived in the late '50s, and submarine launches in the '60s, at which point MAD became a thing; but even later, all sides largely continued to operate like a conflict would follow traditional engagement patterns, when it came to the basics of planning. Nobody stopped, say, spying activities just because "eh, we'll nuke them all anyway" - if anything, because this allowed for targeted activities that ensured MAD would not get triggered.
The Soviets had a "no first strike" doctrine because they perceived themselves to be the stronger force on the continent. They had a huge standing army and massive numbers of armored vehicles and expected to be able to roll through the fudla gap and across western Europe as they had done through Eastern Europe in the final stages of WWII.
NATO, on the other hand, expected to be overrun by the soviets and used the threat of nuclear counterattack to keep them from trying it. The Soviets built up their own nuclear deterrent to prevent NATO from responding with nukes (the MAD).
If the US/NATO nuclear threat wasn't credible and the NATO armies were no match for the soviet army, then western Europe became a pawn for the soviets, leading the western allies to also invest in conventional arms.
In short: the argument for the conventional forces was that the nuclear threat wasn't really credible because nobody would choose to end the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg-UqIIvang
in absence of giant oceans that's the only way to make buffer
Why does the summary of each map read like it was AI generated? Somehow no feeling at all in any of the summaries.
> By 1980, Moscow was under intense scrutiny from Western intelligence agencies.
> The city hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics during a period of heightened Cold War tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. CIA maps like this would have been useful for diplomatic security planning, intelligence analysis, and understanding the geography of Soviet government operations.
The clean graphic design is characteristic of late Cold War CIA cartography.
> Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation. E (sic)
> very rail yard, roadway, and public site could hold intelligence value, especially in a closed society like the USSR where reliable geographic information was often difficult for outsiders to obtain.
I can’t find a human behind any of this on the website. I’m certain there is one, but I’m not certain the summary is anything other than AI generated. Content farms at a new level? To what end?
Ah, the company that owns the site “Brilliant British Ltd” is a content farm. Its managing director says this on his own LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-wright-2079531b?originalSubd...):
> I am currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd, which owns and operates several websites in the UK payment, energy and small business sectors.
> Previously I was the Senior SEO manager for the EMEA region at Hotels.com and the Head of B2B SEO at MVF (Winner of the Sunday Times Tech Track 2013). I have over 13 years experience in SEO and online marketing and have worked for large corporations, startups and independently over that time.
> In my spare time I continue to operate a few test websites to see what's working in the world of SEO and also run my blog RandomlyLondon.com which has been featured in the Londonist, TimeOut and The Guardian.
And in the ‘blurb’ in his current company, he says:
> I'm currently the Managing Director of Brilliant British Ltd which publishes websites in various sectors including, business finance, payments and home improvements.
Maybe because it is AI generated? Not sure if it's true, but I had the same feeling. Also, it reads like someone seeing a good old city map for the first time: "Rather than artistic relief shading seen in earlier maps, this style focused on clarity, precision, and rapid interpretation." Yes, city maps rarely have relief shading, that would only get in the way.
What is the opposite of ai psychosis? Where you're so afraid of being hoodwinked that you accuse ai of being everywhere
In this case, not only is it a theory that fits the facts, it’s likely.
A content farm having a disparate range of websites, for the sole purpose of SEO needs to be able to create engaging content quickly. AI generation allows for that; and by purposefully keeping a name that we can try to trace back to a real human as the author, the post itself lends credence to the theory that it’s AI generated.
Discernment?
Ironically we're not far from having custom AI filters that remove any sentiment we want, namely, "this seems AI generated".
I'm with you, those comments add no value and are only guesses. Even normal samples of writing will include AI traits like em dashes or "it's not just that, it's this". Conversely, it's not difficult to tell an AI to stop sounding like itself. It's overall burned thought cycles that can never be recovered.
My pet peeve lately is low effort comments that don't reflect anything substantive in the content. We don't have that problem on HN, but on YouTube it's prevalent. Comments like "absolutely/me too/exactly what I thought" etc. The only thing they can help are bot farms, and even if they were from a human they offer no value.
Whatever they and their affliction are called, they've successfully ruined the last few comment sections on the web that were still worth visiting for me. I hope they'll eventually receive the help they so desperately need. Maybe they'll be able to handle reality one day.
I would love to see other countries classified maps of US cities.
Here's a fun collection of Soviet maps of DC - https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/
Someone on reddit got the actual maps but the link has bitrotted, wayback saved some - https://web.archive.org/web/20241207144716/http://architecto...
Thank you, that Wired piece is fascinating. (I probably enjoyed it 10 years ago too.)
Do they have pointers to the bars with the best vodka?
You could like The Red Atlas by John Davies and Alexander Kent. It is full of maps made by the Soviets of the Western world during the Cold War.
Came here to make the same comment. I have a copy of The Red Atlas. Fantastic. Here's a link to the comment thread about it here on HN
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15378422
Wake me up when they offer an unredacted, unadulterated map of S4.