Pavel Boldyn: "The development of modern technologies in conditions of censorship and destruction of science is impossible"

Where is it more comfortable to live, work and develop the industry - in Ukraine or in Russia? How is society and the economy changing from the point of view of the "creative class", and why is it leaving the Russian Federation? What is the difference between corruption in Russia and Ukraine, and what could be changed in our migration policy today in order to intercept the intellectual potential leaving the territory of a totalitarian neighbor? About this and another - in an interview with IT- engineer, publicist and blog editor (rummigrant.in.ua) "Russian IT migrants in Ukraine", a refugee from Russia Pavel Boldyn.

Pavel, always, when arguing about whether it is possible to develop modern technologies in Russia, they remember Skolkovo. There are different opinions, but what is your opinion?

In addition to the "Skolkovo" school (and village) itself, which is obviously a "money laundering" station named after Medvedev, there is also a fairly successful "Skolkovo" Foundation, which finances, including interesting and necessary projects. In general, in my opinion, the development of modern technologies in conditions of censorship and the destruction of science is impossible. By the way, "Elephant" had an excellent article on the topic "What can science do in an unfree society?" The answer is: "Nothing new." That is why the clock of the apocalypse is currently set to 23:57, and not to 00:05 - the tyrants simply could not create nuclear weapons.

In the ratings of "outsourcers", Ukraine and Russia have been in the top five for years, but why is it so, where is it easier to work, and, in general, why outsourcing?

Ответ простой: owners are afraid to introduce business to the CIS countries due to poor protection of property rights in them. Not to mention some legislative obstacles and the inadequacy of the country's leadership (in particular, see the situation with the speech of the President of the Russian Federation and the loss of capitalization by "Yandex"). Therefore, the ideal option for IT companies is to keep intellectual property and management abroad, outsource secondary development centers to places where there are enough specialists at a low price, and the level of education allows graduates to work in IT.

As far as I understand, from the point of view of the assortment of specialties in the exact sciences, you have chosen a fairly "elite" one - astrophysics. Can it be said that you have realized yourself in this industry? Although, rather... you see, we in Ukraine have been watching Science 2.0 for more than a year, and it turns out that fundamental science is flourishing in the Russian Federation?

In particular, I can speak only for my region and only for the state of affairs about a year ago. I worked in one of the best departments in my field, so our business was not bad. There were (and are) good international projects, which, however, are threatened by the inflexibility of some specialized organizations and institutes. I don't know what the state of affairs there is now, after the sanctions.

In general, science and scientists, as a part of the elite, are recognized in normal society as the standard against which other knowledge is measured. However, in the Russian Federation it is greatly aggravated by the abundance of purchased and frankly fake candidate and doctoral theses. This led to its own distortions, sometimes up to almost open "lysenkov" (see the case with the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky), not to mention the penetration of charlatans into all echelons of power and the expert community. Most of all expert conclusions that led to terms under the article "for extremism" were made by such people. At the same time, those who defended common sense were imprisoned by the authorities, as was the case with Olga Zelyonina, about which even Nature wrote.

With the current situation, I am afraid, science in the Russian Federation will not be in favor. Although there is an abundance of strong scientists and talented youth, that is why the international community has been trying to integrate the Russian Federation into the international systems of finance and science for 20 or so years.

In spite of our bureaucratic obstacles, in your opinion, Ukraine is more "comfortable" than Russia, or what?

Briefly about corruption: officials in Ukraine are used to milking the people, in the Russian Federation - the subsoil and business.

In the Russian Federation, grassroots corruption was eliminated in order to maintain the "vertical of power" - everyone in need was given a bread place, and bribes from ordinary citizens almost stopped (with the obvious exceptions - DPS and other trifles). Sons and daughters were arranged for oil flows of money. The worlds of these, "real citizens of the Russian Federation", and the rest of the 130 million people mostly did not intersect, with the exception of, for example, road accidents.

In such cases, the aforementioned "Grazhdane" made it clear who was the "equal" here, for example, at least for the well-known episode with the deputy director of Gazprom.

In Ukraine, grassroots corruption flourishes for the reason that the people are the source of money for bureaucrats all the time. This is very disturbing and it needs to be changed.

In most cases, the state here prefers not to interfere with private individuals. This is what led to the emergence of the middle class. The main task now: to “saddle” the middle class in a reasonable way, changed the structure of taxation. A person should not "jump through the hoop" to pay taxes - after all, he is paying the state for a service, and the cashier in the store does not make you tiptoe.

This was the part that concerns interaction with the state. Fortunately, in Ukraine, the state is much less involved in the affairs of society, and therefore the life of a person who does not depend on it is much more comfortable here. Personally, I see a difference already in the subway, simply in terms of the number of law enforcement officers. And where the state imposes its meanings less, it is easier for a creative person to think and work. This can be seen especially well in Kyiv. In Kharkiv, unfortunately, there are much more fragments of the old world.

But comfort is, of course, first of all, an everyday thing. And in this regard, even Kharkiv differs favorably from Moscow: here it is customary to hold the door of the subway in front of people walking from behind and to throw out garbage from the tray in fast-service establishments. Not to mention the absence of schizophrenic propaganda at every turn (here, at least, you can simply turn off the TV). From the stories of eyewitnesses, I know that the society in the Russian Federation reverberates much more strongly with propaganda. It is difficult for me to imagine myself in such an environment.

Such an argument often appears in the discourse: yes, in Ukraine there is all this "famous democracy", but in Russia there is "a lot of money", which means that it is better there. What do you think about this?

First of all, this "much money" has ended, and the problems accumulated due to the abundance remain - to hire the same incompetent children of security forces for positions in state corporations. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of structural errors that will sink this "Titanic".

Secondly, unstable systems deprived of feedback cannot exist for a long time without being replenished with resources. This subsidy disappeared along with the price of oil, which means that the resource will be taken from the people. In a democratic society, the people could demand a review of the social contract with the government, but in a "stable" system without feedback, there is no mechanism to do this.

In short, my advice is this: forget about Russia. This state is living out its last years. How many more people and states it will drag to the grave now depends, unfortunately, mostly on the West.

I'll say frankly - I was impressed by your sociological exercises, which somehow deviate from programming. In your opinion, which societies are generally more competitive?

The history of human development is the history of the process of copying the internal structure of the brain (neuron network) to the outside. The structure of the brain is such that each part of it is responsible for a specific function, but all of them are quite strongly connected with each other. It is this connection that makes the brain "smart", and it is these connections that change in the process of learning, which is impossible without feedback. And increasing the connectivity of the network, the nodes of which are people, increases the cultural, scientific and information productivity of the network as a whole. You no longer need to go to the library - you have access to any information right from home.

According to my views, I am a "capitalist communist" - I believe that the best way to organize society is small private business (ideally - in the form of communes) in a strongly connected network. This will be especially successful if it is possible to produce goods with the help of 3D printing - the basis will be the production of an intellectual product - know-how. This, by the way, is now being observed in the form of many startups on crowdfunding systems, collecting money for their projects from around the world. Usually this is a group of students working at the same department who provided the prototype to the public through Kickstarter and the like.

Probably, this is a utopia, but this system seems to me to be the best, since it has the clearest methods of customer-business feedback — small customers are often not so important to large corporations, and since the point of interaction between the manufacturer and the customer is "humanized": this job was done for you. here are these guys", and the potatoes were grown by "here is grandfather" ("his own trademark"). At the moment, it is such a system that is the vanguard of intellectual developments in the world. This is not a coincidence - this is how the community of engineers has been built since the 80s, especially open software engineers.

Oddly enough, China, which is, in fact, the largest factory in the world, very quickly reoriented itself to the production of 3D printers for everything from plastic to houses. It is futile to try to fight this trend, and China is trying to lead it.

The second sustainable way of development of capitalist society is "corporate fascism". Historically, only large companies had the necessary resources for production. In most cases, there is a clear hierarchy within such companies, which does not take into account the social needs of the lower layers of workers, simply exploiting them. The creation of trade unions helps only to a certain extent, since trade unions easily enter into collusion with the management, because they often have a similar management structure.

Worst of all, in mono-towns, corporations and trade unions broadcast their structure to the outside, segregating society. Especially large corporations even broadcast their laws through lobbying - this is what happened with GMOs, where a high barrier is beneficial primarily to large GMO companies - only they have the means to undergo laboratory research.

The next century, in my opinion, will be the century of struggle between two modes of production: "capitalist communism" and "corporate fascism". The outcome of this struggle depends on what society will be like in a hundred years: whether it will be the horror of cyberpunk or the lesser horror of household communes with "a 3D printer in every home!".

It is obvious that the Russian Federation (and many of its allies) is playing on the side of "corporate fascism" — all business in the Russian Federation is a few large corporations with their own rules and huge lobbying in power (the heads of state corporations eat grouse with the president).

If we want a new type of society - and there can be no second way out, since only flat structures are stable - we need to understand what laws are necessary for this. This is a program for reforms for decades.

The policy of Ukrainian migration agencies is already a proverb. Personally, I am a supporter of radically changing our outdated legislation and attracting active people from all over the world. Faced with our madness - tell me, what would you advise to change?

If very briefly, the following is enough for now:

1. It will simplify the registration of the private enterprise, while at the same time raising the single tax for foreigners.
2. Make a FOP with a payment balance of taxes sufficient to obtain a temporary residence permit (or extension of stay).
3. He will announce holidays and amnesty for those Russians who exceed the limit of stay.

And the last thing: is it possible - and indeed - to say that the perception of reality in the "capitals" and "deep" is different, or is it a myth?

In the Russian Federation it is absolutely so. And even, for example, Tomsk differs from Krasnoyarsk. And in the taiga, where the state cannot control people, I generally met the most European Russians — responsibility for the land leads to thinking through the local community, not through the "state." In fact, such thinking is the basis of democracy.

The capital of the Russian Federation is the main place of concentration of the creative class, these "two million people who need democracy". The deep ones still think through the "tsar", they don't even understand why their democracy is imitation. But, again, it depends on the specific settlement.

Interviewed Maxim Mykhaylenko

Images from the site: render.ru