Pandora's Box, E1: The Engineers' Plot

Why HN readers recommended it

HN recommends it as a fun, well-made documentary on Soviet planning, Gosplan, and why central control failed.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

nagualdesign

Topic

soviet central planning

Format

documentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

5

Recommendation years in dataset

2014–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Related and a very good BBC documentary on the role (and tragedy) of engineering and planning in the USSR: [VIDEO]

• Speaking of that I recommend watching Pandora's Box documentary. It is fun and pretty well made (although the quality on youtube is rather low). Here is where they start talking about Gosplan -- the central economic planning department: [VIDEO] It is funny to hear how …

• The USSR was never economically or scientifically on par with the US. They managed to be relatively competitive in some endeavours by concentrated massive percentages of their national people and resources on certain endeavours (industrialization, space, the military), often with brutal violence. The US was …