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Pandora's Box, E1: The Engineers' Plot

nagualdesign · documentary · Watch on YouTube

World historyDocumentaries & storytellingGeopolitics & foreign policy

What it is

The first episode of Adam Curtis's 1992 BBC series Pandora's Box, on the engineers' plot, examining communism in the Soviet Union and the rise and limits of technocratic central planning.

Why Hacker News recommends it

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

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2014, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “a very good BBC documentary on the role (and tragedy) of engineering and planning in the USSR”

    BBC documentary on engineering and planning in the USSR

    bluekeybox, 2014-10 · Recommendation · in “Project Cybersyn and the origins of the Big Data nation”

  2. “I recommend watching Pandora's Box documentary. It is fun and pretty well made”

    Fun, well-made documentary on Gosplan and Soviet control attempts

    rdtsc, 2015-12 · Recommendation · in “In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You (2012)”

  3. “this whole documentary is extremely fascinating on how central planning got to sophisticated and how the USSR ground to a halt”

    Shows American expertise building Magnitogorsk and central planning limits

    hylaride, 2025-12 · Recommendation · in “The US polluters that are rewriting the EU's human rights and climate law”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: adam curtis, soviet union, technocracy, gosplan, bbc documentary

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