> to Russians
I don't understand why they say "to Russians" or "to the Russians" instead of "to Russian intelligence". It's like being Russian is the crime itself. They wouldn't write "tried to sell the computer to Jews".
I don't understand why they say "to Russians" or "to the Russians" instead of "to Russian intelligence". It's like being Russian is the crime itself. They wouldn't write "tried to sell the computer to Jews".
No, because they'd say "tried to sell the computer to Israelis." Jews are a race and Russians/Israelis are citizens of a country.
In mainstream American discourse being Russian is a crime.
Taking it that you aren't trolling (which I'm not certain you aren't) ignorance is an excuse. It is not a good excuse when knowledge is common but it is a great excuse when knowledge is uncommon (as is the case here, at least to Americans). Unless you expect everyone to be omniscient then this is exceedingly disingenuous and will just lead to people thinking you're being a jerk.
The other part I need to add is that this is also how we typically talk. "The British...", "The Irish...", "Americans...", etc. I'll admit that we could have more nuance and better communication by being more specific but what is stated here follows the Cooperative Principle[0][1]. It is implied in all these examples that what is meant is the government of the country and not the people of the country. Typically we'd say interpreting it as the latter would be in bad faith. Not that people don't do this (and that this isn't becoming more common) but that this is how people typically use language.
But if you're trying to just get people to yell at one another and feel angry (i.e. trolling) I'd ask that you please take your comments elsewhere because that's not the environment we are trying to create at Hacker News.
Also, we are simply always up to no good. I've been influencing the US presidential elections for a few years, with mixed results.
From the article - “intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service" Maybe that friend weren't ethnically russian, no one cares, the point is that it sounds more villainous.
Your example doesn't apply, because "Jews" is an ethnicity and "Russians" is a nationality.