> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia.
Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.
Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.
Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement.
Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way...
I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!"
"Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place...
It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!
For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route.
I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
I can see why HN might not want to show such to public viewers to be protective of their image if people have never came across the brand before and spent enough time to get a feel for what goes on here…
I'd also love to see the corpus on how HN classifies things as "nationalistic flame-baiting", but I as of now, I suspect it's usually ad-hoc indirect self-referencing ("I saw this user said something like $__non_exact_quote_of_what_some_user_has_said_ [which mostly reflects my personal bias/interpretation that may or may not be consistent over time, that may or may not be shared by others, but to the degree of which, I cannot say because I have no stats to show you]") to other instances where a mod has stepped in and labeled something as such.
I think that would be a much powerful citation… but yeah, not my forum, not my rules, HN/YC and their agents/mods are free to be transparent (and to the degree of which is defined as being transparent) as they like.
(On a silly note, your example of Switzerland is amusing because that's the country comedians use to make bigotry sound absurd, such as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo, or Orson Welles' legendary cuckoo clock rant in the Third Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6TYisX9oA&t=11s).
I think you need to spell it out in more detail, though. I would put it this way to someone like guard-of-terra: It's fine to say that you don't want to live in Russia, and it's fine to explain why. The politics, the institutions, the culture are all fair game. It's also fine to express as an opinion your opinion that a lot of Russians would rather live somewhere else. But attacks on people, even Russians in general, are not okay. So for example, "No one in their right mind would want to live there" says that anyone who likes it there is not in their right mind. That's a personal attack.
I like your candor, guard-of-terra, and I think you bring a valuable perspective. I don't want to see you banned. Please try to hear what I'm saying about the way you express yourself.
>Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN.
yes, man, have you been to Russia? While i disagree with the GP on many issues, he is a Russian like me and he knows what he is talking about. And before throwing a heavy term around, i'd recommend you check the definition of the term:
xenophobia - intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.
The term wouldn't be applicable here even if GP wasn't from Russia.
His comment isn't PC-style of course, so man up and clearly state that as a reason for your ban threat instead of hiding behind "xenophobia" label.
I'm not attached to the word, though; call it what you like. The point is you can't bash countries on HN. There was no factual content in the statements I objected to.
(And speaking of things someone is going to bring up, yes, my comments have made the flamewar worse and yes that is ironic.)
Unless observations hurt the observer, of course.
P. S. I think I am a bit wrong: people who clearly are not in their right mind don't want to live in Russia either.
There are of course people who are content to live in Russia right now or don't have much choice, but pretty much everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers.
P. P. S. This compares to prevailing number of people in e.g. Japan or USA, for whom emigration has literally never in their lives crossed their mind. I hope I got myself clear this time.
If we read "nobody in their right mind" as "they're all batshit insane", we'll suddently see slurs against: prison guards, option holders excercising shares in certain fashion, developers preferring js to typescript, just from one page of search results.
But I'm just trying to convey the prevailing line of thought in the society.
For what it's worth, I found this to be a fascinating statement. It's an elegant way to convey the psyche of the citizenry from places like Russia or China.
http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html "How I left to work in Luxembourg"
"Скажем так, "уехать" никогда не было моей мечтой, но тем вариантом развития событий, который я никогда не выпускал из виду."
==
"Let's say, leaving abroad was never my dream, but it was an option that I always kept in mind"
Sums up my ramblings nicely.
We call this effect "правда глаза колет".
This sentence was neither xenophobic nor an insult.
> If you do it again we will ban your account.
Stop threatening people for innocuous statements.
I've read pg's "what you can't say", I know you're supposed to entertain this idea to yourself and shut up about it so you don't get caught in wars you don't want to wage all your life. But this time I think it's important for readers to know that war is actually going on.
If we're not counting the White Emigration, of course, since it's obvious that Tzar's heirs and kin live in the West too. Some took the Eastern route, of course, via China, but end up in civilized world.
First their country was divided, then it was partially conquered by Japanese, then it was struck by civil war, lost some territories (Mongolia, Tyva), divided again (Taiwan), suffered under Mao and then lived in poverty and lack of human rights (one child policy) while building its economy.
I doubt anyone will argue that this was the place to go at the time.