Stakhanovites and apologists
Mikhail Arsenin, " <url>"
The brochure, which I came across while digging once in the funds of the technical library of the old Soviet Research Institute, was published in 1937. It was called "The Stakhanovites give the apologists of the bourgeois theory of the limit a slap on the hands."
The works of the malicious apologists of this theory, as it turned out, had nothing to do with the purely apolitical principles of mathematical analysis, nor with the purely bourgeois theory of marginal utility.
Everything was much simpler: the recommendations of the still uncut bourgeois technical professorship clearly indicated the need to repair machines and mechanisms after exhausting strictly defined limits on machine hours of work or kilometers of mileage. In refutation of this "wrecking theory", the brochure cited numerous instructive examples in which the brave Stakhanovites drove their cars and machines without repair three or four times longer than the specified apologists prescribed. And you have no time for failure, one solid benefit for the construction of socialism!
The old men – miraculously surviving veterans of the industry – named three circumstances that explained this plague.
Firstly, "healthy cynicism" with terrible postscript and good career prospects.
Secondly, fear: if the engineer does not extend the repair time, he will be put in jail for sabotage immediately, but if he does, he will become a pest not earlier than the car fails, that is, at least not today.
And, finally, thirdly, the profound ignorance of hastily learned and out of mind advanced new Soviet specialists.
However, in another pamphlet published in the post-war years, the term wrecking was already characterized by the operation of machinery with violations of the repair deadlines; of course, without any references to the forgotten recommendations of forever exposed apologists of the bourgeois theory of the limit.
I remembered this story while analyzing some digital data published today in the official press.
Here is one of the typical cases on this topic.
Can life expectancy in the country increase at a rate year by year and reach 75 years in 2020?
In order to assess the plausibility of these hypotheses, let us turn to the graph we borrowed from the Electronic version of the bulletin "Population and Society" published by the Institute of Demography of the Higher School of Economics.
Forecast of life expectancy of the Russian population (both sexes), years
Source: website www.demoscope.ru .
It is easy to see that a technical forecast made in the standard technique of processing time series, that is, if you like, within the framework of the "bourgeois theory of the limit", gives a value of life expectancy for 2020 of the order of 65 years and puts a 95 percent confidence interval in the fork from 62 to 68 years.
The target forecast presented here is made in the spirit of "mature socialism", that is, contrary to the technical forecast, but taking into account the target standards set by the "Concept of Demographic Development of the Russian Federation" and the priority national project "Health". Within its framework, life expectancy for 2020 exceeded 72 years.
The authors associate the feasibility of this forecast with the implementation of some highly successful state programs to combat alcoholism, drunkenness, smoking, as well as the arrival in Russia of a "cardiovascular revolution" of the Western European type.
However, even this overoptimistic forecast seemed insufficiently Stakhanovite on the eve of the elections. Therefore, the second and third presidents of the Russian Federation, followed by the first lady of the government of the Russian Federation, Ms. Golikova, and then a lot of officials and propagandists with a smaller rank marked a new milestone: 75 years by 2020.
The technical basis of the presidential forecast is simple in Stakhanov's way: we take the last two points at which a certain increase in the indicator was observed, and extrapolate in a straight line up to 2020. In probability, that is, again within the framework of the "bourgeois theory of the limit", this is already very close to the "miracle of Jeans".
Let me remind you that the Dictionary of the Church Slavonic Language, compiled by the 2nd Department of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in 1868, defines a miracle as "according to general laws, an inexplicable matter or event." Let me also remind you that within the framework of the well-known calculation of Sir James Jeans, the water in the kettle put on the stove does not boil, but freezes!
Judging by the already published data, the entire text of the "Concept of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation until 2020" will be filled with the same miracles. Any indicator reflecting the latest instructions of both presidents is taken: from the victorious entry into the world market of the shipbuilding and aircraft industry to the replacement of the "alien" GPS with native GLONASS or the rapid growth of human capital. Two or three last successful points are taken and a forecast is made for them to the heavens, to the stars! Moreover, if there is no such support, then it does not matter: you can simply draw exactly the same straight line up to the heavens. And no one will argue particularly, and no one will say anything about probabilities with limits: the country, of course, rises from its knees…
(The second part, about the "mathematical wonders and secrets" of the Russian electoral system, can be read in the full text of the article – VM).
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru18.03.2008