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Comment by jdthedisciple | Hacker News Reader

Interesting how fast people lose all compassion and sympathy, and really humanity, towards a whole population which itself might be against what it's leaders are doing ...

Also: I have yet to see such suggestions directed at the US or Israeli population for the many, well-known war crimes their leaders have committed and still are.

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I imagine if the whole world was using a Russian VCS site, and silicon valley was a region of moscow these same discussions would take place in reverse.

Cutting off the US for their invasion of Iraq would have seemed pretty reasonable.

But maybe not so much, since that country was provably ruled by a dictator, so people wouldn’t feel the same about the attack as about one made on a liberal democracy.

"Imagine if the good guys were bad and the bad guys good."

But they aren't. And you know why? Because you can't have creativity and innovations without freedom. You can't have money and success without a population where the best and most successful are allowed to create and keep a large part of the value they build.

This is why dictatorships never build Silicon Valleys while their best and brightest quietly emigrate to work and create in freedom.

To some extend this is true, but I think China tells is that there is a balance somewhere, even if we haven’t quite found it yet.

Interesting how fast you lost all compassion and sympathy for the innocent civilians getting killed by Russia in the Ukraine ... assuming you ever had any.

No one wants any harm to the Russian people, but they too must do something to stop their madman. I know it is much more dangerous for them than for us keyboard pundits, but it is their responsibility. Think how much more dangerous it is for Ukrainians.

Russia is a huge totalitarian prison and nobody can do much without being arrested or murdered.

Just like Ukranians are being murdered.

For their opinion?

For even less, for just being Ukranian.

Any proofs? Please send me a link to an article where some Ukrainians were killed by their own government forces (that’s an important point) for being Ukrainian. Or for some protest actions.

From my side, I can easily send you hundreds of links to prove that you can be jailed just for clicking the “like” button in Russia.

That's not what I mean.

I mean Russians are murdering Ukranians right now.

So the least Russians opposed to it could do is protest even under threat of arrest. Protests already are happening in Russian cities so it is possible.

You are not following Belarus or Russia close enough to know that protests are going on non stop for pretty much a decade for little to no avail. Your view is understandable (I used to be likewise naive), but it does not have much connection to reality.

While enacting a substantial change does not appear possible you can protest and people do, at least in larger cities streets become full with people holding banners. (Photo galleries were posted on HN and FWIW I have supporting information from someone who is directly there.) Protesters are selectively detained, but there is no mass murder or vanishing of people unlike what I imagine would happen in China (or Hong Kong now) so not sure if 'totalitarian prison' is entirely descriptive.

Blocking is a trade-off. Take Google access as another instance. On one hand, it lets sane people not be limited to just state propaganda by watching live the destruction their government is enacting, as well as communicate to the outside world that they do not support it by protesting and sharing photos of protests. OTOH, it lets bots mass-report YT livestream watchers, causing automated ban waves. If we block access, we address the latter, but also eliminate the former.

There are ways to protest without risking arrest: walkouts and silent vigils. Nobody will arrest people simply walking on the streets in silence.

Imagine the power of rivers of people covering the Russian city streets at the same time, simply walking in silence. No signs, no screaming, no pushing against police - just walking. It would send a strong signal to the leadership with minimal danger to the protesters.

You kidding? That's exactly what have been happening in Russia, or Belarus. When there is a larger crowd on the street that it supposed to be and it shows some signs that it's politically motivated, the police starts to catch people, like any random person. Because it doesn't matter who you put to jail. It made like that to send a signal so everyone sees that them could be next simply by going outside.

Sorry, I didn't know. That's horrifying.

I guess you have to see how it work there:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfKdiI_usQs - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/usqhDfBPsMc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q40OsZjoV8 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3acUPxtV-w

Or just search something like "russia protests police" on YouTube

How about China?

“Whataboutism” is not helpful. Focus on the problem at hand.

The presented "solution" isn't one at all, see Iran.

China is the problem at hand, among many.

Examining arguments for logical consistency and reasoning is very helpful to find flaws in them.

Yeah, and see how you want to help them to fight against Putin - you block their access to GitHub to make them lose their jobs. Without the money - do you think they will go fight on the streets? No, they will look for other ways to feed their families. If they are isolated, they will have no other choice than start working on government.

By action like this, you are just turning into enemies those who want to be on your side.

I totally sympathize and agree it doesn't sound fair but you will see more and more embargos and boycotts directed at Russia and Russians the more this Ukrainian murderous invasion continues...

I do not think you “sympathize”, I’m reading through your lines that you are quite enjoying it. I’m not in Russia, it will not affect me, so don't be so excited. But such hostile nationalistic behavior will be remembered, and not only by me.

You have all the reasons to hate Putin - I hate him too. But if you are saying (literally or not) that you just hate Russians - feelings will quickly become mutual.

You are reading wrong: I am in Eastern Europe and I have Russians ancestry so hating Russians would mean hating myself.

I can't do much really and I am just wondering here how we can solve this mess...

So when are economic sanctions appropriate? Never? Because economic sanctions are meant to hurt people so much that regime instability becomes a story.

In the scale of damage, this is harming random Russians less then economic response or military response. This is same level of boycott as soccer, skiing or eurovision boycotts of Russia.

Unfortunately, there is no way how to harm Putin and his friends only. Wars are like that.

I haven’t lost any sympathy for the Russian population, especially not the part that doesn’t support Putin.

But sanctions cannot and will not only affect the Russian leadership or war machine. It must affect society as a whole. So long as Russians are still more afraid of Putin than of a decade of recession, the sanctions are not harsh enough. Putin doesn’t care about sanctions. He worries about being lynched.

Also: take the whataboutism elsewhere. It’s not an argument to say “but what about X? Why didn’t the same happen when X did something wrong?”.

>Also: I have yet to see such suggestions directed at the US or Israeli population

Then you can't have looked very hard because there's a plethora of boycott movements against Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sancti...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel_in_sports

There's even a Github example:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200923222519/https://github.co...

On the other hand: "Twenty-six states have adopted laws that punish companies that choose to boycott Israel."

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/9/18172826/bd...

BDS is literally a movement by Palestinians directed at their war-enemy next door. That would be like Ukrainians boycotting Russians now. You get the point ...

I don't get your point, actually. Of course the US or Israel won't boycott themselves.

Sure, but let me give you an example of what I mean: "The consensus view of the international community is that Israeli settlements are illegal and constitute a violation of international law." [0]

Yet, have you seen any western govt demand sanctions on the Israeli population for that? Have you seen this guy here demand github be banned for all Israelis? Of course not - and that's just the moral double standards I'm calling out.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israel...

There's been plenty of calls within the EU to ban trade of goods made in Israeli settlements. AFAIK the latest news it that the EU courts ruled in favor of a ban.

Afaik, those calls happened multinationally multiple times, being blocked by USA every single time.

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