Contact us, we'll make exceptions in cases like this. Thanks for what you are doing.
- some are trying to find their relatives in Ukraine
- some are coordinating and volunteering
- some are trying to get themselves and their families outside of Russia (which gets harder by the minute because of prices and sanctions)
- some are trying to smuggle at least some of the money outside, because their entire life savings are now blocked
- some are trying to preserve what they have despite ruble and market crashing
- some are hunkering down with what they have and their loved ones, trying to stockpile some food before prices skyrocket
and no one has any time to cope and process anything - don't forget usual workloads, too. planning for a week feels like it's already a strategic, not a tactical scope
I get what you're trying to do, but can't you at least give more time for everyone? Right now I need to drop everything and migrate my DNS as well because my private email that I use for docs will stop working in 6 days. And to figure out how to pay the transfer fees while doing all that. It's very much fucking stressful already.
edit: I've worded that badly - I'm not complaining, I'm just asking for a bit longer grace period for everyone. It's very easy to miss an email for 6 days during these times. All of these issues are obviously dwarfed by what Ukrainian people are going through right now.
Bad move.
There's been some estimates of how many votes Putin would get, if there were real elections, no vote fraud, no threats, opposition politicians hadn't been killed or imprisoned, everyone got to vote, didn't get bribed to vote on Putin -- and then from what I read, a large majority would vote against him.
This is a continuous choice by the Russian people to support men like Putin and Yeltsin, and it has massive negative consequences for the rest of the world.
Of course it makes sense to make it marginally harder to register and maintain a domain on the Internet as a result. If that’s the price a small handful of Russians have to pay for all of this, they should be infinitely grateful.
And yes, I really think the average Russian has enough resources to leave the country, because you need zero resources to stand up from your chair and walk in a direction. If you're stopped, that's not your fault, you're actively trying.
...or just be shot trying to illegally cross the border.
You’re literally suggesting some sort of self-genocide of 150 million nation.
Same if you think literally doing zero prep work to leave Russia has a high chance of success. If it's your only option, you're not thinking creatively enough.
It just seems like you're operating in a state of learned helplessness, which is immensely sad but not the only way to live.
Also please explain what “prep work” can an average Russian with monthly income about $450 can do to sucessfully leave Russia.
Until then you’re just cosplaying so you can sleep at night.
And it costs nearly nothing to legally cross a border, but yes if the options are, “Continue to live in Russia” or, “Illegally cross a border.” Then break the law.
Residence of which country you can get without having a lot of money and/or good career like IT specialist? How do you think unarmed person can illegally cross a border guarded by armed people without getting killed?
And if you don’t know what an insurgency is or how to run one, that’s on you to figure out. It is the only moral option if you’re Russian and want to stay in Russia.
“Lol just figure out how to overthrow heavily militarized government” is completely ignoring the obvious truth that this is simply impossible. It was probably possible some years ago with support from abroad, but the only thing international institutions cared about was cheap natural gas and oil, so they ignored violations of international law and treated Putin as a lawful president. So now we have decapitated opposition, silenced media (just today two independent media were banned) and 2% of Russians serving in police and military. It stops any seeds of revolution from ever growing.
It sounds like you're comfortable where you are, and need to justify it to yourself that your country is using your consent to commit atrocities that you're ultimately okay with as long as you remain comfortable.
That's cowardice.
Money used to invade Ukraine mostly comes from other countries buying Russian natural resources. If you want to stop the invasion, go and protest against _your_ government to make it stop buying Russian oil.
I’m staying so I can protest and try to sway the current governments intentions. It’s hard and dangerous, but it has more chances to succeed than overthrowing the government. I’m staying so I can help the protestors. I’m staying so I can actually _do_ something about the situation. Leaving the country is actually easy for me (unlike most Russian citizens), but I don’t think it’s the morally right action.
I think that says a lot about how you really feel, and it's not good.
What a horrific and insensitive comment. Christ…
I don’t think this is even close to the level of accountability necessary for the Russian people to see the gravity of their mistake.
You deserve isolation, in my opinion, for your marginal part supporting a system of corruption and mass murder. Some very small amount of Ukranian blood is on your hands, and that means you pay this minor economic cost.
I have nothing but contempt for you.
It’s naïve as hell to think the Russian people aren’t complicit in their government’s actions; Putin is not a dictator, and he is not the only evil actor in Russian government.
Collective punishment for the actions of the collective is not wrong, but a great way of meting out justice to those who have acted morally wrong, as the Russian people have.
You may have contempt for me, but I hold disgust and malice for the Russians here acting like they’re blameless for what’s happening in Ukraine; they’re just as proportionally responsible as Putin. He’s their leader, he’s their fault.
Also, I don't know what country you're in, but there is a HIGH chance that you do NOT want to be held accountable for the crimes it committed and will continue to commit.
Sorry but no. This regime exists because the Russian people allow it to exist, full stop. If you think there’s nothing you can do, that’s just your cowardice talking. The Ukranians are proving that one hundred fold.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
It is alarming how quickly this has shifted to open acknowledgment: "yeah, these measures are meant to punish ordinary people until they sacrifice their lives for regime change." This has always been the subtext, but I haven't seen it wielded so freely like this.
I wonder if this situation will change the framing of sanctions in other countries. Maybe we can stop pretending that sanctions aren't strictly meant to bend the population until they break.
The mask have been taken off. All we see is the cold face of war.
Something like that said the president of Finland. And the diplomatic paths were tried for months already.
We (the west) all know that sanctions are going to hit ordinary Russians, but also people outside the Russia. Nothing to compare with horrors in Ukraine. But it looks like we have currently no other option. Are we sliding to a new world war. That is what we try to avoid. We are already sending weapons but non-acting would seem we support the war Russia has started. Putin has went so far that it is unlikely that he will stop. We hope the change comes from the inside, and that he is stopped. I know, it is a naive thought.
This is a lose-lose situation for everyone.
At the same time we are in danger of escalating energy crisis, banking crisis and the climate change.
I think this was always an excuse by economic interests trying to limit the scope of sanctions in hopes of reducing the business impact, at least that's how I've read it.
Sanctions are a flexible tool of warfare that scales from targeting leaders, to damaging the enemy's ability to replenish supplies, to total economic collapse so as to destroy the state's ability to function.
"If more grace time is necessary for some to move, we will provide it."
The overall picture I get in Western media is that Russians are being dragged into this against their will by Putin. People have started calling for sanctions on certain regime members and supporters, but have so far avoided more broadly demonizing the Russian populace. I hope it stays that way.
Good luck.
Not only do they more broadly believe Ukraine isn’t a legitimate country independent of Russia, they’re also more likely to perceive threats from the west and the potential for Ukraine to become a contributor to the threat very quickly. They’ve witnessed conflicts materializing very quickly in the past, and they’re aware it could happen again. Ukraine has dramatically improved their military training, equipment, and size since Crimea. Given that alone it’s clear to see how many Russians might see Ukraine as a threat with their non-NATO status and demilitarization not being guaranteed.
Having said that, it seems Putin has been trying to encourage acceptance of war in Russia for months because evidently there isn’t a broad enough acceptance as it is. At least from the government’s perspective, as they’ve been planning this war for quite a while. I believe the necessity of the war from their perspective came sooner than expected, otherwise they likely would have been seeding the idea of the need for war much earlier. I’m not sure.
So there are certainly a lot of Russian people who believe the war is justified. I’m not sure what the ratios of for/neutral/against are, but I suspect they’re not especially lopsided. Unfortunately. It doesn’t seem there’s significant reason to believe Putin will back down, or that Russian people will force him to.
I was born in Russia and emigrated in 1999. Till then, I only heard about the glory days of USSR and how we liberated the world of evil.
I moved to Czech Republic and went straight to school. Little did I know that Russia has a bad rep by being an occupant as well as textbooks describing completely different picture of the world. Including the facts of red army raping everything in their way to Berlin's parliament building.
If you would have grown up subject to propaganda for more than 30 years, you would probably turn out in a similar way.
Asking a person to think independently without expanding their peripheral brain thinking is super hard and almost impossible IMO. Curious if there are any scientific studies how to do it.
I am not defending people for "not-knowing" just trying to paint the picture of how it was living and growing up there compared to the rest of the world. All my friends who left Russia are against the war. Unfortunately the divide is also growing in Russia and I had to forgo several people I knew from childhood because they are adamant on war being justified and I am sure I am not the only one.
Years of brainwashing... also partially the reason why people haven't revolted already.
Brainwashing is certainly a term that comes to mind as I learn more about this, but one I have a hard time using since it can seem sort of like a slur from here in Canada. The truth is though that it seems us here in North America are somewhat brainwashed to fear and resent many parts of the world as well, including Russia. It’s scary. As I’ve tried to make sense of this by asking questions or generally discussing the current conflict online, I’ve been attacked for being pro-Putin or a Russian troll several times. I’m nothing of the sort, I never take a side, and I do my best to be objective, but many of the people I live with here are furious if you aren’t laser-focused on condemning the war and Russia. I’m absolutely opposed to the war, but banging that drum eternally doesn’t help me understand it any better.
Regardless, you’re making a great point. Questioning the war would be difficult for any human being if they were raised in a culture in which it was justifiable. How many Americans supported the Iraq war which ended as an abject failure with very little support? All that changed was that people were forced to face reality. The war didn’t make any more or less sense from the day it started. It’s easy to criticize Russia from across the world, but they’re no different from us here in Canada or the USA in that sense. As you mentioned, it’s remarkably difficult to break out of the sort of cultural mould we’re born and raised in.
Thanks for the response. I hope the friends and family you left in Russia are safe, whether they support the war or not.
And now I know why it's not being taught more widely, despite the obvious economic advantages this could provide. You don't want the population to be able to speak to their 'enemies' or read news from the other side easily. It's pretty obvious now the mad lunatic has been preparing the country for what's happening for about a decade, and he truly believed when he talked about the 'encirclement' and 'sending nukes to Florida'.
For exemple a simple brainwashing illustration in the west is the fact that Imperalism is synonym to weapons/war/bombs and all things related to military. While indeed the biggest treat and real imperalism is culural and linguistic.
Hollywood and affiliates are bigger treat than any US Battaillon into subverting and destroying nation.
And it's even more dangerous because im an active actor of my own subvertion, of my own languistic and cultural destruction like im forced to use English (not my native language to expose my opinion here)
For dictators.
Read and understand your brainwashing
If the people like a certain forms of culture more than others, well, then that's there preference and their freedom to choose. It doesn't harm anybody, and if you have something better to offer, go and tell people. Let them decide if they like it or not. That's not going to happen with tanks and bombs.
Has anybody ever died from speaking or listening to English? As ugly a language as it is, I prefer that 1,000,000 over having a grenade explode in my front porch.
Precisely. Imagine your area of knowledge is like a circle, you think you kind of get 80% of it in terms of worldview and subjective opinions. Now some random people come in and saying you are wrong and there is this other big circle which is in order of magnitude 100x bigger which shrinks your knowledge and understanding. Its very difficult to recognise that we might not be understanding all the things. But just being open for trying to get the other side helps tremendously. Even understanding the root cause of why perhaps people even think that way?
It's kind of scary... and we tend to block the scary things. Because well... its easier.
The issue in the conflict such as this is that it's never black and white. And if someone is telling you that you are pro-putin by just not condemning Russia without hearing your reasons or just blatantly attacking you - thats very short-sighted and personally I just end the debate right there, because its not up to my standards of rationality.
There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc. And again, what is right and what is wrong? Never that easy to say - all depends on your personal context.
I wish we could have a conversation something like that: - Ok lets look at the claims: - Claim X - Claim Y - Claim Z
Alright, claim Y is not that simple, because remember what happened was A, B, C.
Ok valid point, but B is also not so certain because of G.
I feel like our world really needs more education on critical-thinking and meta-learning.
However strongly I am angered and scared by the current attack on Ukraine, I am also deeply shaken by questioning my own views. If one nation can be brainwashed into thinking that they are saving Ukraine from fascists, and they do not know they are brainwashed and think the other side is brainwashed... what am I brainwashed into? I already know I was also deceived big time (I totally believed that lie about WMDs in Iraq), what else is there? And I know that it can be argued that "western media" is more open and pluralistic, but don't Russians think the same about their media?
After seeing Brexit, Donald Trump, Covid, now Ukraine... we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.
Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on the views from someone closer to Russia.
With Ukraine, hundreds of countries are all seeing the same thing, independent journalists are watching.
There is no justification for escalating to a war which is what Putin has done. If he had sent troops into the regions already contested you could maybe argue that (even then it would be tenuous).
Western media isn’t controlled by the state but frequently acts in service to it. See Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.
I'm not naive (but far from an expert). There are all kinds of problems with western democracy, capitalism and the media (in no particular order).
There is a vast difference between the 'western media problems' and the propaganda coming out of Russia though.
The narratives around refugees in Australia are a very good example at least one of the problems with western media. Referring to refugees as 'Illegal' has led to them being locked up off-shore for extended periods of time (6+ years in some cases).
We all have our biases, I wonder if journalists are so diligent to be thorough and re-evaluate things they assume to be X to make sure it's really X, but I doubt it.
It's a good idea, but people with power and money have an agenda, and their agenda is often not in sync with current reality. They want their agenda to be future reality, and suppress current reality to get there. Just my opinion.
Oh please. I'm all on board with criticizing the war, criticizing the human rights abuses, criticizing the megalomaniac Putin.
But once you go into this kind of criticism, you start the same propaganda you are criticizing Putin of. Make a difference between a corrupt regime and the country, the people. If you really want to make the point of the "whole country" being based on war, you need to be fair and do that to every country. The U.S.? Based on genocide of the natives, slavery and oppression of Africans and now playing world police bullying everybody who does not want to play along. China? Thousands of years of history of basing their power on war or the threat of it. British Empire? India?
Please, let's just not go there.
Unfortunately, this is profoundly incorrect. I know a lot of young(-ish) educated Russians, and at least 50% (by my estimate) kind of agree with Putin that "they were left no other choice".
And even if you make the effort to evaluate both sides objectively, having too much information in any language doesn't work that great either. Most people aren't equipped to properly select their information sources, to parse everything and discriminate fact from feeling, propaganda from truthful reporting. To highlight how difficult it is, this happens at scale even in the most civilized of countries, with solid education systems, and freedom of speech and press.
Most people tend to choose sides which become core to their beliefs, and are reluctant to reconsider ever again. Once they picked a side it's "just" a matter of selecting the information that supports it. This is why the same person can read the same information and decide whether it's good or bad based on who did it rather than what was done? Some people read "country X bombed school in country Y" and purely depending on their "allegiance" will decide whether the school was full of terrorists or the bomb was launched by terrorists.
Whatever you do to change that will earn you the label of "other side's troll" (sometimes, ironically, from both sides) and you quickly learn that freedom of speech only works when you exercise it in your own bubble, thus reinforcing that bubble.
I hope it is not an argument againt freedom of speach?
I wonder what are your conclusion on how to tackle the problem? Because I ask myself this question regularly when I observe both sides arguing on the topic of free speach. But it’s very hard for me to be against free speach.
Education (and future to be invented tools) isn’t any magical stick, but the best I can think of for the long term.
possibly tools like: having feed filtering algorithms also implemented clients side. You’ll always be in some sort of bubble, but having more say in it (like many inventions have evolved). This of course creates new challenged, but that’s a natural thing
I grew up in South America. If you knew the kind of crap we are fed by our own very teachers that vilify american citizens as invading thieves without any care to make a distinction about the people and the government. I clearly remember during a certain heavy metal concert the keyboard player innocently tried to make a solo of the country national hymn followed by the american hymn and he was attacked by an angry mob of retards throwing things while literally chanting "Bin Laden". And yeah I was young and I thought "the yankee bastard had it coming".
I was in my 30s when I started realizing its all bullshit and the american people don't really have a say about the atrocities their government is causing in foreign lands. We've been fed with propaganda and programmed to hate people we don't know.
I suppose that's somewhat metaphoric for the philosophical differences in how authoritarian rule manifests vs. whatever it is we call it in the West.
I have empathy for everyone in Russia who is going through hardship during this time.
silently losing your email address because you've missed one email in that rush sounds very very bad, esp if you're waiting for some important documents that can make or break your life/immigration/whatever.
I see many stories of people mobilizing to help Ukrainian refugees however they can and those are great; I hope those of you getting caught in the chaos on the russian side can also find compassion from someone, in what I imagine is just the start of these coarse collateral-damage-prone punishment-minded moves (well intentioned as they may be).
I'm pro-siege, because I see Russian activists as collateral damage to stopping the machine, but it's not their individual fault they can't overthrow an authoritarian government.
You might as well say "just assassinate Putin, it's much easier".
But agreed that figuring out something to do would be good
Dictatorship is a form of government.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_...
There was an ECHR decision ordering Russia to free Navalny, but it was ignored by Russian government and Council of Europe did nothing about it.
One thing he can do, is to kill a few, give it lots of press, and it'll seem to people as if they'll get killed they too if they cause problems
So tell us what we should do instead of sanctions?
This shit isn't even targeted at the oligarchs, only Russian people
They said support is not responsive, any way you can be more discriminating about the level of Russian involvement that will trigger a suspension? I will post a link to your statement here for them.
If you're serving the like of RT.com then redirect that to somewhere truthful yesterday, but turning the screws on individuals feeds right into Putin's censorship goals. At least consider moving your deadline back to something more graceful like 60 or even 30 days.
It has been said that exceptions can and will be made.
Though I suspect it might not be as easy as just asking because if it was everyone would just ask, so those needing an exception will at least need to take time to formulate an explanation, and wait for responses, etc.
Not ideal, but IMO understandable from namecheap's position.
It's no longer a reliable platform, or rather it never was.
You're hurting a lot of people who are using foreign services because they want to limit their exposure to Putin's regime.
The Russian state doesn't use Namecheap. Do you really think the negatives could be outweighed by some positive here?
I'm 100% supportive of Namecheap's actions in this.
Or what is the appropriate anti-Putin a customer must have to be allowed to use your company's services?