Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Bucephalus355 3066 days ago
Around 50% or so of Russian PhD Dissertations are plagiarized.

Here’s your source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/...

Russia did a lot of innovation in the 1950’s - 1970’s. They then made two terrible decisions. One was to stop producing their own computer parts and steal from abroad, which worked at first but then it became harder to steal and reverse engineer than simply make themselves. The BESM-6 mainframe was an incredible computer, sad they didn’t continue working on it. Second was the move against the Jews in the 1970’s. Kind of ironic they didn’t learn the lesson of Hitler, lots of great future scientists left. Anyway this is why the Google founder Sergei Brin is now in the US. His father was Jewish and wanted to be a mathematician, but since he was a Jew he could only be a janitor.

2 comments

>it became harder to steal and reverse engineer than simply make themselves.

That

The very same thing is with China these days I say from my first hand experience.

Here is one example from great many:

I once worked with Rapoo, a PC peripherals and cellphone accessories manufacturer. They had a guy who was a brilliant industrial designer. He authored ALL of Rapoo's Red Dot award winning products (and they have many.) The only problem with him was (or how it looked to company's managers) that he had no degree, and he was a vocational school grad. He first came to the company as an unpaid intern, and he then designed their first award winning product while still receiving no salary. That product was his first design work at the company. He singlehandedly made them known and distinguished from the sea of noname OEMs all making products that looks like half-used soap bars.

It took his extreme efforts just to get his design being chosen over a yet another boring one bought from product design sweatshop.

When it became news that it was his design that won the company fame, the reaction from managers was not encouragement, but disdain! It was only enough to get him hired full time on a measly salary. He continued to work and win awards for them.

After years without any recognition, he thought it was enough when it came to yet another design review where he had to defend his vision in front of bimboish mid-managers. Contending with his design was one from a recently hired mediocre Italian designer (hired for an astonishing salary of 50k CNY per month, while his was just 12k.) After hours of intense debates with the "jury," they were both told to "just to do it like that Apple style" for the reason "Apple style is expensive." That was the last drop for him.

The guy now lives a comfy life and enjoys a dream job in one idyllic Alpine country.

What I wanted to say here: just like Soviets killed their own computer industry out of their own sense of insecurity and fiery inferiority complex, Chinese industry alienates its best genuine talents by not being able to admit over insecurities of the affluent class that Chinese tech specialists can produce superior original works themselves.

If only even 1% of Chinese corporate functionaries had little bit more of believe in themselves, along with self-esteem and self-confidence. If they thought in a way where they don't think "there is no chance that we can do this better than foreigners" before even trying, Chinese industry would've been like nothing it is today.

> Around 50% or so of Russian PhD Dissertations are plagiarized.

Your "source" looks like a troll to me

While I can’t say if the percentage is correct it’s not that far off.

Both my parents were on their 2nd PhD in Russia in during that time (born 1942) both are Jewish the level of plagiarism in the academia was insane they had to enroll under non Jewish names to be even accepted were accused of plagiarism multiple times while some of their dissertations were not only plagiarized but effectively stolen.

It took my father probably an extra decade to get trough every thing PhD in biology and an MD simply because of the corruption in the academia where party favorites got preferential treatments and outcasts would have their exams lost recieve false penalties and if you happen to be Jewish often given tests which were designed to be impossible to pass.

It’s a serious article from the Washington Post?
Do you find the title serious? And how about the illustration? Did you ask yourself if this could possibly be a russian bashing wapo article by any chance?
It’s from 2014, before the Jeff Bezos acquisition and the current Russian collision investigation.

Regarding the Russian investigation, I agree with Glenn Greenewald that there is nothing there, and that the Democrats are in danger of becoming the HUAC of the 2020’s.

Also, in defense of Trump, I think he understands that the real danger is China, who fakes both the degrees AND the research. See this article:

- Fraud Scandals Sap China’s Dream of Becoming a Science Superpower https://nyti.ms/2kNc3Ez

I hope that adds more nuance to my post.