Show HN: Crowdsource creation of Ukraine/Russia peace agreement | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Crowdsource creation of Ukraine/Russia peace agreement

54 points_6p8i60 comments

I've created an app with the goal to: Crowdsource creation of Ukraine/Russia peace agreement.

How did it come about? - I'm worried about the rapidly escalatory nature of Ukraine/Russia conflict. Western countries are taking many measures to stop the war, but all measures seem to be alike - they all escalate and deepen the divide between the nuclear armed military powers. Meanwhile, innocent people in Ukraine are suffering now, innocent people in Russia are going to suffer soon due to sanctions and I cannot see how adding more suffering to the World is good and is bringing us closer to peace. I wondered if an unconventional approach to trying to resolve the conflict could be of any benefit...

You can see a mock example of a peace agreement here:

https://peaceagreement.org/perfect-emblematic-fulfilling-cle...

I've committed $1000 to the best reasoned peace agreement anyone comes up with. If you have geopolitical understanding of the situation and can construct an objective and convincing agreement, please create a new one by pressing "Create new agreement button" in the landing page. The app has just been launched and not many agreement proposals have been submitted yet, so the competition for $1000 is not fierce currently.

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I appreciate your concern, but why would anyone take this seriously? In particular, why would crowdsourcing a foreign policy agreement be a good idea? Would you crowdsource the plan for your open heart surgery? Because this affects a lot more lives than that.

As it says in the FAQ, this project is likely going to fail, but I think it was worth trying given the stakes. In terms of seriousness, I've committed real $1000.

> In particular, why would crowdsourcing a foreign policy agreement be a good idea?

I think Internet's collective intelligence could be higher than that of any person on a well defined task.

> Would you crowdsource the plan for your open heart surgery?

Desperate situations, call for desperate measures. If I did, I would ask for "qualified heart surgeons to contribute" the same way I asked about "people with the understanding of geopolitical situation".

There are people that are not in the political administrations of the warring sides that have called the situation much more correctly than the administration. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

With respect, if someone actually came up with a peace agreement that worked for Ukraine/Russia, I would hope it would be worth far more than $1k.

I agree. Do you want to commit to the cause?

They did 8 years ago and it was far more worth but still below billions of military spending.

> I think Internet's collective intelligence could be higher than that of any person on a well defined task.

Well, maybe - but as long as it is led by people who know the political circumstances and are willing to dig deeper.

For comparison, there was a Post-WW1 Middle-East map, which took into cultures and ethnicities. It took a lot of work to interview communities: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/th... And? It was entirely ignored. Not for another meritocratic approach. Instead - with the "cutting pies" approach, where the great powers divided the territory among themselves.

> Would you crowdsource the plan for your open heart surgery?

I think you are over estimating the actual negotiators. Most (if not all) are politicians not hostage negotiators. And this is even a different game.

Don't we vote for representatives to ... represent the ourselves (the crowd) so we don't have to take individual actions like these ?

I personally prefer referendums to representatives on relevant issues. Representatives have a personal agenda that often does not align with the collective interest.

With a prior referendum I believe no war would ever start.

My plumber has a personal agenda that is different from mine, yet I hire a plumber to do my plumbing. Sure, politicians have personal agendas. They also might have expertise. Do you know more than Biden and his team about Putin, Russia and the Ukraine?

Your plumber's personal agenda aligns with yours: you want the pipe repaired and you don't even mind to pay X, the plumber wants to receive X and he doesn't even mind to repair your pipe. His knowledge is used in your interest also.

Politicians, by the other hand, may know more than us but that knowledge may or may not be used in our interest.

You’ve obviously never met a British plumber …

I think the point is the politicians are the ones implementing it, irrespective of their drafting skill. It's not just about the wording of the agreement, it's about their understanding of the others' position and which bits they might actually give way on, about how much they and fellow politicians that might replace them are willing to lose, about which pledges they expect to see broken/break and the expected consequences of breaking them, if any. Frankly the fairest settlement of all time which one of the parties immediately breaks at great cost to the other is less likely to work than a horrendously skewed agreement that gives some much needed wiggle room.

Even if the winning open heart surgery plan was drawn up by a couple of brilliant surgeons, I'd still expect the person wielding the tools to prefer their own plan, and probably for the best

I love the idea and love your implementation.

However, from the perspective of Ukraine, Russia cannot be trusted. This is due broken security assurances made less than 30 years ago [1]. Actually, If I were to speculate, I am not sure any other country in the world will trust Russia or any other 'big state' on 'security assurances' after this conflict.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

https://twitter.com/thingskatedid/status/1498803126765191173

> hello i'm from the tech industry. today i'm going to explain how to solve all problems with whatever it is you do! based on my experience of writing software! which means i'm qualified to solve any problem in any field. i have checked this with zero people

Public opinion is the last thing on the mind of the leadership. If they cared what we thought, there wouldn't be a war in the first place.

Nice idea though.

I'm not sure what a peace treaty would even look like, except essentially Ukraine surrendering to Putin's demands.

It is not as if Russia and Ukraine were two bitter enemies, locked in a death-match.

Ukraine is extremely close to Russia historically, culturally, etc, but they chose democracy, and were moving more and more toward a western style open and free society.

It seems that was too much for the Putin regime in Russia. Ukraine must now be brought back into the fold, and never again be allowed to stray.

Honestly, the relationship seems to be more like an abusive marriage than two independent states.

Is a peace treaty even really possible, or meaningful, with that underlying grievance? Perhaps only if Ukraine promises never to stray ever again, and to always be there when Putin demands it, etc. Or if Putin is brought to his knees with sanctions or other means.

> I'm not sure what a peace treaty would even look like, except essentially Ukraine surrendering to Putin's demands.

Putin isn't seeking a peace (as between nations) treaty with Ukraine at all. This is about adding to his recreated historic Russia, and on that basis to push forward for a new accommodation with the west.

If this war ends with a peace treaty it will do so because it eventually escalated to a nuclear standoff with NATO. That's the only umbrella under which Putin could ever agree a "retreat".

> Honestly, the relationship seems to be more like an abusive marriage than two independent states.

This is a good characterisation and it has been made before -- that Putin's approach is that of an abusive spouse. "Look what you made me do."

I agree, the only 'peace treaty' that will work for Putin is Ukraine agreeing to become a vassal. Unless his power is diminished to the point he cannot impose his will.

Yes. I suppose that would technically have to have some "treaty" to ratify it, so in that sense there will be one.

I don't have extensive geopolitical understanding, but I wondered why Ukraine wasn't willing to compromise on some issues that I thought could've been dissected and resolved:

- some fine tuning in the administration of Luhansk and Donetsk

- restoring flow of drinking water into Crimea that Ukraine stopped after annexation

- committing not to host NATO nuclear weapons

It's because none of these things are really germane to what Putin wants.

Ukraine is a pivot, not the prize.

Putin wants Ukraine, and the Luhansk/Donetsk "peacekeeping" situations were largely manufactured to give a pretext to explain the trucks crossing the border -- which let's be honest he abandoned within less than 24 hours.

The abusive partner analogy again: it's like when (usually a) woman agrees to sacrifice some freedom (her male friends, not socialising with a particular female friend, not going to the gym on her own) because it "unnerves" her partner. It's never asked in good faith, and it always prefigures more sacrifice down the line.

Putin has manufactured these things you think Ukraine could consider compromising on.

Because https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/map-russian-empire-191...

The most interesting aspect to this project, to me, is that if you try as hard as you can to come up with something, I am almost certain that there's no way an agreement can be even remotely reached given the known positions of Ukraine and Russia... I would be incredibly happy if someone actually proposed something that could be acceptable to both parties... failing to do so is like admitting that war was the only way (not saying was is justified, just that given the known positions of both parties, that if one of them was willing to sacrifice themselves by entering a war with the other party - and we knew Russia was willing - and even then, no agreement could be reached, that we couldn't have expected any other outcome).

your post is predicated on the view that it is just a conflict between positions of 2 countries, like say where to put the border. While theoretically "conflict of positions" description is true, the situation here is really different. The position of Ukraine which is its existence and existence of its people is in conflict with the Russian position of "non-existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians" (a bit more on that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30540609 ). In such situations there is no midway "half-existence". The peace agreement possible here is only like the one in 1945 with Nuremberg 2 for Putin and his clique. As Zelensky has said 20 minutes ago on Ukranian TV "Russians need to start learning the words 'reparations' and 'contributions'".

Lets give it a crack:

1. Immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces

2. Russia acknowledges criminal nature of the aggression and gives up the war criminals - Putin, his generals, top political leaders and oligarchs who approved and participated.

3. Russia compensates all the damage to Ukraine.

4. Russia returns Crimea and Donbass (with grace period for the people to relocate who want to stay in Russia and/or Ukraine agrees for Russian language to be a second official language there and some extended autonomy for those regions, may be gradually expiring in say 50-100 years, may be some UN force presence for the next 10-20 years)

5. Russia gives up nuclear weapons and agrees to the limits on military power so it would be suitable and sufficient only for pure defense.

6. Probably some changes to Russian Constitution like hard term limit for President, electability of regional powers, freedom of speech, judicial independence and other measures to make sure that a fascist regime like the current Putin's regime has no chances to arise again.

I find your answer emblematic of why the war has started and will probably only end after very bad losses for both sides (Ukraine specially, as the theater of war).

You speak as if Ukraine alone had demands to make, despite the fact that its territory is currently occupied and whatever leverage it had before the conflict started, it has lost already.

The only way to stop a conflict peacefully while your country is occupied is to make concessions. I understand you might think Ukraine must not make any concessions at all because Russia is on the wrong here... I agree Russia is bad and a bully in this story... but that doesn't matter if the objective is to stop the war. The objective, right now, is not to make justice, that's beyond anyone's reach by a long margin... it's to avoid further loss of life and Ukrainian infrastructure (which if destroyed, will take a full generation to be re-built, and will be paid for by several future generations).

Russia is somewhat weakened by the Western World's sanctions, but Ukraine is on its knees right now and quite frankly on its last few breaths as an independent nation, despite everyone rooting for them (there wouldn't be 60km of Russian tanks just outside Kyiv otherwise, with the other largest cities except Odessa already surrounded by the Russian army, and already badly damaged).

When a bully has a knife to your throat you don't get to make demands, unfortunately.

I am not sure bravery is something to be admired when you know that the cost of your bravery is your country being completely destroyed and whatever you were fithting for simply being bombed out of existence. Ukrainians will live on, and the less destruction there is now, the better equipped they will be to react appropriately when the time comes, but the time just isn't now.

your comment sounds like Ukrainians have a choice here, and that means you don't understand the nature of genocidal conflict. I grew up in USSR where the history of WWII is everywhere. Hitler declared destruction of all Jews and 90% of Slavic. So in December 1941 with Hitler 30km from Moscow your comment would sound the same and would be totally wrong the same way. There wasn't a way to make peace agreement back then and stop the bloodshed. The same way today - there is just no way for Ukrainians to make peace agreement with Putin and stop the bloodshed. It isn't about justice, it is about existence. The only way for Ukrainians to continue to exist is to fight and win that war, and this is what they do.

>Ukrainians will live on, and the less destruction there is now, the better equipped they will be to react appropriately when the time comes, but the time just isn't now.

That was the logic of 2014, and it was right, it worked, it gave them time to unify and to build better army. Now though Putin is intended to finally solve the "Ukrainian question".

You are being extremely dramatic... whatever it is Putin wants, there has been zero evidence he's looking to eliminate the Ukrainian people (there has been civilian casualties, obviously, even if you're American with high precision bombs, they still are going to end up in the crossfire someetimes - but if anything, conflict experts have been surprised by the slow intensity of the attacks and small deployment of weapons by the Russians - which may hint at them just being careful to not spend too much power upfront rather than just trying to not hurt innocent people, nobody really knows - e.g. they've only used around 75 aircraft out of thousands that they have at their disposal)... you are maybe confusing his desire to deny Ukraine is a separate entity from Russia... at least as I understand it, he thinks of Ukrainians as the same people as Russians, not as inferiors and definitely not as Hitler thought of Jews, for fuck sake. He seems to take issue with Ukraine's existence as a separate country, not just simply with its pure existence! I don't know where you're getting your news, but if this war is looking like a genocide to you, I would suggest you try to look into more reliable news sources (I won't suggest any to avoid biasing you in any way, take your pick).

>he thinks of Ukrainians as the same people as Russians, not as inferiors and definitely not as Hitler thought of Jews, for fuck sake.

definitely you aren't from Russian nor Ukrainian culture, and thus can't really "appreciate" the 2 last speeches of Putin where he took whatever gloves were still on. His approach here is more like Hitler's to Slavic than Jews - ie. some share of population will still be allowed biological existence while stripped of cultural identity and denied any self-governance.

>He seems to take issue with Ukraine's existence as a separate country, not just simply with its pure existence!

he denies existence of Ukrainians as a separate ethnicity, in his proclaimed view Ukrainians are just a version of Russians not capable of governing themselves, etc. while you can see his deep hate to the Ukrainians.

>they've only used around 75 aircraft out of thousands that they have at their disposal

thousands? you're really no aware what is going on. Russia has pretty small number of actually flying combat ready aircraft, and those 75 is all what they could use without leaving the rest of the country completely naked.

>whatever it is Putin wants, there has been zero evidence he's looking to eliminate the Ukrainian people

you can't listen to his speeches, so you are trying to get the best interpretation possible. Unfortunately Putin isn't going for such an interpretation. In a few days there have already been 1M people who left Ukraine, and will be many more. The resisting will die - he was clear about that, you can find the transcript. And whoever left in depopulated country will be converted to "Russian", and there will be no more Ukrainians there.

Forcing people out, and killing or converting the rest, all that on the base of ethnicity - that is textbook ethnical cleansing and genocide.

> definitely you aren't from Russian nor Ukrainian culture

Listen, I have Ukrainian/Belarussian family, pls address my arguments and avoid personal attacks like that.

> he denies existence of Ukrainians as a separate ethnicity, in his proclaimed view Ukrainians are just a version of Russians not capable of governing themselves

That's like saying the USA denies the existence of Texas because it sees Texans as Americans (noticing that Texas was annexed from Mexico not a very long time ago, in case you don't know it). It's ridiculous. I don't agree that Ukraine should be annexed by Russia, that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is that Putin appears to consider Ukrainians as Russians and that's why he wants to, if not annex Ukraine, keep it under Russian's sphere of influence.

> thousands? you're really no aware what is going on.

Yes, according to all data I've seen, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-mil...

Maybe you have "insider" information we don't?!

> The resisting will die - he was clear about that

What do you expect in a war? The resisting to be assisted?!? Does that make any sense to you?

> Forcing people out, and killing or converting the rest, all that on the base of ethnicity - that is textbook ethnical cleansing and genocide.

It sucks people have to flee to be safe, but this is not happening for the reasons you think it is. It's happening because Ukraine has only one choice on a fight with Russia: to use urban warfare (people have been calling it protracted war) because in open combat, the Ukrainian military would've been destroyed much more easily - which means that they know their only defense is to mix with civilians and they know well what's going to happen. Do you deny the Ukrainian military is hiding in the cities, which is why Russia is attacking the cities? Or you believe that even if Ukrainian forces came out on the field and stayed out of cities, Ukrainian cities would still be bombarded anyway? If you could prove the latter, I would believe you that there's some evil ethnical genocide going on, but fortunately, the only cities being attacked so far appear to be the cities where Ukrainian military is intentionally bringing the fighting to (I am sure they don't like to do that either, but they made a choice and will have to live with that choice).

>Listen, I have Ukrainian/Belarussian family, pls address my arguments and avoid personal attacks like that.

it wasn't a personal attack. It is just a statement of an obvious and important fact wrt. your obviously low level of awareness. And i was right - you have family from that context yet you aren't from that context yourself.

>Yes, according to all data I've seen, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-mil...

>Maybe you have "insider" information we don't?!

it is well known to everybody - 1300 total aircraft out of which only half at best is capable of flying, usually even less than that. So taking 75 to Ukraine already really hits Russian defense capability elsewhere.

>It sucks people have to flee to be safe, but this is not happening for the reasons you think it is. It's happening because Ukraine has only one choice on a fight with Russia: to use urban warfare (people have been calling it protracted war)

it is a very low morale propaganda statement of victim blaming, right from German Nazi playbook.

>because in open combat, the Ukrainian military would've been destroyed much more easily

The frontal combat like in Hostomel airport shows that Ukrainian military is fully capable of strong wins over Russian forces in key strategic battles.

> which means that they know their only defense is to mix with civilians and they know well what's going to happen.

you're using the main point of Russian propaganda - "human shield", "nazis hiding behind regular people". And that is lie. And extremely disgusting morale position - "You're making me to kill your civilians". Again German Nazi come to mind as they practiced that a lot.

I hope you just aren't aware, and not spreading those lies intentionally. You can see the videos on YouTube and Telegram - one of the main tactic by Ukrainian forces right now is to attack the convoys. It is obvious tactic at that stage. If Ukrainian forces were hiding behind civilians the Russian propaganda would have a lot of videos for that. They don't.

>Do you deny the Ukrainian military is hiding in the cities, which is why Russia is attacking the cities?

I definitely deny that. Russia is attacking the cities to take them. And Ukrainians, regular civil Ukrainians including, are fighting back throwing Molotovs and shooting RPG at Russian armor and hunting down Russian soldiers.

>Or you believe that even if Ukrainian forces came out on the field and stayed out of cities, Ukrainian cities would still be bombarded anyway?

this is what happening. Just watch those Harkiv bombing videos or any other Ukrainian city bombing.

>the only cities being attacked so far appear to be the cities where Ukrainian military is intentionally bringing the fighting to (I am sure they don't like to do that either, but they made a choice and will have to live with that choice).

that is clear Russian propaganda and blackmail - stop defending your cities or your people will die. "They made a choice" - how can you even write that, as that is again straight out of German Nazi playbook. Ukrainians definitely didn't bring the fight to Kiev, nor to any other of their cities. It were Russian airstrikes and tanks which brought the fight there.

Honestly, man, it is unbelievable that any reasonable man, like i'd suppose you're would bring in so much clear Russian propaganda which is right out of Nazi playbook.

If you make concessions in a circumstance like this, you just have the same problem again in a few years. If doing this gets Putin anything at all that he wants, it will keep happening. We know this because it already did, more than once, and because we've all seen it before many times. Every concession made strengthens Putin and reinforces his desire to keep trying this.

If Ukraine's goal is to exist, concessions of any kind at all to Putin make that harder. It's not "because Russia is wrong" that I don't think they should make concessions. It's because, if they make concessions, Russia will try again, because it worked.

Also, I think you're massively overestimating the strength of Russia's position here.

> If you make concessions in a circumstance like this, you just have the same problem again in a few years.

If everyone thought like that, no negotiation would ever result in agreement.

I really appreciate the initiative but I dislike the form: should be way simpler. This may justify the low participation on such a relevant issue.

Each informal proposal could have maximum of 10(?) items/lines to be easy to reason about. Russians/Ukranians/Other people could vote, results would be percentual. (e.g.: 56% of Russian voters, 32% Ukranians and 65% other voters agree with this proposal).

I believe, the real negotiators would take a look as source of ideas, the media has been fundamental in this war.

Simplistically, as an outsider, I would propose:

1. Immediate cease fire.

2. Crimea and separatist territories get independence and are free to join Russia.

3. Ukraine joins EU.

4. Ukraine stays neutral and out of NATO.

3. and 4. What if the EU builds an army?

Secondly, like NATO the EU has it's own mutual defense clause contained in the treaty of Lisbon.

Ukraine stays neutral unless Russia is an EU ally/member also. Post-Putin Russia should integrate somehow EU. I believe young generations would rejoice.

"A day will come when you — France, Russia, Italy, England, Germany — all you nations of the continent will merge, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious individuality, in a close and higher unity to form a European brotherhood, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, all our provinces are merged together in France." -- Victor Hugo (1849)

So I assume Russia will join the EU 13 years after being utterly destroyed as Germany has been joining the EU in 1958 - we have only very limited data points here. Though because of the Russian scare of the 50s perhaps Germany was let in earlier then one would have guessed. We would need an external threat like China that unites the EU with Russia, something very unlikely from the current point in time.

The problem is much deeper than Ukraine vs Russia. It is a proxy war. And if you see a war then start looking for money. When you realized how big those money, then the only solution might be:

Put in octagon may be 50-100 maximum people, those who ruling the world and leave them there to fight as gladiators until only one left. If you can find a way how to corner them in octagon, I will commit much more than $1000... but time will pass and there would be another "leaders" who will want exclusive world power, so it is circle of live... unfortunately

I mean this in all seriousness, but I can't figure out if you're ignorant, naive, or a Russian troll.

I'm curious to understand what makes you think so?

Sidenote, but that's a really nice system you've got there. I'd consider making it available as a debate platform for any topic, or release it as an open source project. Nice work!

While the idea is a noble one, this is not going to be a viable option.

Let's look at the opening negotiating positions. Russia wants the effective end of Ukraine as a sovereign state. Ukraine... doesn't. Well, so much for finding compromise there.

The goal of war is to make the situation such that one side realizes it can't achieve its political aims. Here again, both sides have reasons to be hopeful. From Russia's perspective, an operation that wins successful control of much of the country would hopefully make Ukraine realize that its existence as a sovereign state is already de facto impossible, so it might as well commit to that in a peace treaty. But Ukraine can point out that the war has not been going well for Russia, and the longer the war drags on, the less likely Russia will be able to reach that culminating point. Wars can simmer on for decades without concluding if things stalemate--the Korean War is 70 years long without a peace treaty and still ticking.

If your concern is that nuclear weapons would be involved, then this initiative is even more useless. There is no geopolitical reason for Russia to be firing nukes (and NATO isn't going to militarily intervene in large part to avoid giving anybody a reason to fire nukes), so if those start coming, Russia is already not acting with concern for geopolitics, so the foremost geopolitical expert is utterly useless here.

A peace agreement is the outcome of a negotiation. Without the participation of the parties, there is no negotiation, and no agreement.

As far as art projects go, this could be pretty interesting. How do you handle moderation?

Anyone can create a new agreement without logging in. Agreement link and negotiator links are all public but not guessable. Only "published" agreements show on the front page. To get the agreement published, submit it to either @PeaceAgreementO or peaceagreementorg@gmail.com .

To create a new agreement you can go to:

https://peaceagreement.org/new

> I cannot see how adding more suffering to the World is good and is bringing us closer to peace.

Sometimes change is painful

> they all escalate and deepen the divide between the nuclear armed military powers.

Hello, Vladimir

Hello, Cheney

Why

A word of advice (offtopic, sorry): your text loses credibility because you repeat the link https://peaceagreement.org/ 4 times. It comes across as spammy and gets in the way of your story. You should have that link once at the top of your thread. (The other link is ok, since it's pointing to a different page.)

You can edit your text above, or I can edit it for you and fix the formatting to fit HN conventions a bit better (I'm an admin here.) If you want me to do that, let me know.

Thank you @dang, I've taken your advice into account.

Have you considered implementing the peace agreement as an NFT?

The blockchain can revolutionize peace or even armistice talks, allowing for traceability of signatures, terms and military positions.

We could also tie countries reserves to a specific smart contract which removes the funds if an NFT agreement is breached!

I genuinely do not know if either one of you is joking, or if you know for sure the other is/is not.

This is the point we have reached with NFTs.

I don't know if the OP was joking, but I surely am

Hell I can't even tell if the OP is serious

You must be taking the mickey, surely.

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