The USSR Almost Builds The Internet (1970) w/ Kevin Roose
This Day
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's November 9th. This day in 1970, a Soviet computer scientist named Victor Glushkov pitched to his bosses for a series of decentralized computer networks that would share information with one another. In other words: an early internet.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Kevin Roose of the New York Times to discuss Glushkov's ambitious idea, why it ultimately clashed with Soviet-style innovation, and how it may have spurred the US to advance its efforts to develop the first computer networks.
Kevin is the co-host of the excellent "Hard Fork" podcast, you should also check out his writing and books here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:10.5 | This day, October 1970, as the Cold War is heating up and the United States and Russia are locked in economic and military competition, a computer scientist named Victor Glushkopf |
| 0:22.4 | walked into the Kremlin to meet with the Politburo. |
| 0:25.9 | Glooskhov pitched the political bosses on a bold idea, the all-state automated system, |
| 0:32.1 | which would be 20,000 mainframes at major production points across the country that would |
| 0:37.0 | send data back to a hub |
| 0:38.6 | in Moscow, allowing the central government to make economic decisions for the entire USSR. |
| 0:44.9 | So basically, the internet, but used to advance communist planning efforts, which in many ways |
| 0:50.9 | cuts against our idea of how the internet was developed here in this country in the United States as the ultimate product of unleashed capitalism. |
| 0:57.6 | So let's talk a little bit about how the Soviets almost invented the internet and what a communist |
| 1:02.8 | cloud computing system might look like. |
| 1:06.3 | Here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. |
| 1:10.4 | Joining me on America's very own Internet. |
| 1:15.2 | Nice to see you. |
| 1:16.5 | Good to see you, Jody. |
| 1:18.1 | Hey there. |
| 1:19.6 | Would we be able to talk to each other if Victor Glushkopf had had his way? |
| 1:23.8 | I don't know. |
| 1:24.1 | We'd be on telephone speaking into mics. |
| 1:25.7 | So early on this podcast. |
| 1:27.1 | I know. |
| 1:27.3 | Yeah, exactly. And our special guest this episode is Kevin Roos, technology columnist for |
... |
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