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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

This is in reaction to a much greater moral outrage: thousands of dead Ukrainian civilians because of an unprovoked Russian invasion.

One can either 1) sanction Russia (which impacts all Russians) 2) partially sanction (which is unavoidably subjective and abusable) or 3) not sanction Russia. This is a case of 1, based on the source link, "Norway announce that no Russian players will be able to play in the 2022 edition of the event"

It is not fair to talk about "civic and ethical values" outside of this extremely relevant moral context.

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If a Russian in America gets hurt and goes to a hospital, should it be denied medical attention? Where do you draw the line, actually?

If I'm not Russian but my parents are, should I be sanctioned as well? Again, where do you draw the line?

If you happened to be at Russia, would you be okay if everyone denied their services to you?

If your country got involved into a conflict, and you don't even live there anymore, and people started treating you like a pariah, would you feel be fine with that?

Some guys thought about all these things, and wrote:

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the POLITICAL, JURISDICTIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF THE COUNTRY OR TERRITORY TO WHICH A PERSON BELONGS, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

I don't think that's open to interpretation but YMMV. Check it out by yourself at, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

I think it's made by some guys at the UN or something, they seem to know a thing or two about human rights.

You seem to be confused about the moral weight of being temporarily banned in gaming and sports tournaments to unprovoked invasion and warfare. They aren't equivalent. Your questions are just absurd slippery slope fallacies that I won't give the dignity of answering, and you should be a little embarrassed about using that technique in a good faith discussion.

Which article in the UN link that you sent would categorize participation in a chess tournament as a human right?

Where is your concern about Ukrainian human rights? If you are so passionate about Grischuk's human rights to participate in this competition, then you must be incensed the magnitude of the violation of individual rights being violated in Ukraine. Do you condemn the Russian invasion?

You do realise that Grischuk is a Ukranian surname, don't you? As well as the fact that Grischuk's first wife was Ukranian and his current wife is of the half-Russian, half-Ukranian descent?

And he's also vocally against the conflict, which matters much more to me than his ancestry. His moral character in this regard is extremely admirable. Many people in Russia have Ukrainian surnames for obvious reasons of proximity, which is why so many Russians are against this invasion.

I don't know anything about his personal circumstances, but it is not inconceivable that he, or his spouse, or both have relatives in Ukraine who are potentially being shelled at this very moment or hiding it out, and that Grischuk and his relatives are in a great distress right now.

My heart sincerely goes out to him. I suspect this weighs on him much more than other circumstances. I think any individual passionate about morality and chess can follow https://twitter.com/Kasparov63 and learn how someone deeply impacted by this situation feels about it.

But this is banning someone who has actively spoken against the war. If you're a Russian doing that, you're exposing yourself to danger in the name of doing the right thing.

This isn't someone who was caught up in broader sanctions, like the innocent Russians whose life savings are being demolished. That's terrible, but in the broader context it is understandable and necessary. This is someone being specifically targeted for his nationality despite the fact - and this is the key differentiator - that doing so in no way does any damage to Russia.

You want to harm Russia? Treat anti-war Russians well. Show that the world isn't blindly taking action out of anger, but rather doing so in a targeted way to harm Putin and the Russian government. Russians who are speaking out against the war are good for Ukraine and the rest of the world, and they're bad for Putin. It makes no sense to punish them.

There's certainly a gray area for Russians who don't comment - they could be pro-war, or they could be reasonably afraid for their safety - but for Russians who say "In my view what we are doing is very wrong from both a moral view and practical view," punishment is counterproductive.

I was against the war in Iraq 20 years ago. I am still ashamed of it, and as an American I bear some shared culpability for it. I would have understood bans and boycotts and would have been at peace even if I were personally impacted. It would have been immeasurably less than what the hundreds of thousands of innocent, dead Iraqis suffered. I think Tyler Cowen is more concerned about this than Grischuk. I wonder why.

You're totally ignoring my point, though - bans and boycotts make sense. I fully agreed with that. Targeting you, specifically, even if you protested against the war, does not. You're pointing out the immense suffering of the Ukrainians, which I think everyone here agrees with, but then you're using it to avoid the question of why their suffering makes it appropriate to punish someone whose actions (speaking out against the war) are beneficial to them.

Also, it's not reasonable to compare the culpability of an American, who lives in a democracy and can choose to spend their time and effort protesting the country's leadership and trying to oust it in the next election, to someone living in a dictatorship who cannot reasonably do those things.

Just because you can speak or write, doesn't mean you should. Nothing you said is reasonable.

Japanese American imprisonment without due process or access to legal counsel during WW2 was condemnable. You advocate the opposite. I mean, nothing was written against then, was it?

Advocating for an individual's human rights and disassociation from their government's actions doesn't mean unequivocal support for the latter.

I think it's pretty reasonable to separate injustices by magnitude. If one doesn't do that, one begins to think things like "being asked to wear a mask is like the Holocaust because in both cases the government told people what to do". It is a lazy way for one to make a point when they struggle to make a point on its own merits.

In fact it is a special and famous case of sophistry to leverage a tenuous connection between two things and declare they are comparable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence. To quote, "This fallacy is committed when one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result"

You are correct - in both cases, Japanese Internment camps during WW2 and Norway Chess's banning of Russian competitors in a chess tournament are examples of cases where innocent individuals were harmed by collective punishment. I completely agree with you on that.

However, only a very silly person would think both actions are comparable. It would be extremely offensive to suggest they are. While they exist on a continuum, they are very, very far apart and any reasonable person can see that 1) the forced imprisonment of 100,000+ people for multiple years while being charged with no crime and 2) the temporary exclusion of several dozen entrants from an international chess tournament are not in the same moral universe.

The moral calculus of applying pressure to Russia to withdraw from a war of aggression that is killing thousands still isn't easy, and decent people can disagree civilly about it.

I think you are simply describing collective punishment. You are making the case that collective punishment is easier and more fair because you don't even consider about if any individual person punished is deserving or innocent.

It is like Israel bulldozing random Palestine homes because someone else fired a rocket. It is like people beating up random Chinese on the streets of San Francisco because of some decision Xi Jinping made

> This is in reaction to a much greater moral outrage: thousands of dead Ukrainian civilians because of an unprovoked Russian invasion.

No, this is racism and intolerance under a thin guise of outrage. We are talking about targeting individuals who bear zero responsibility for what people claim they are outraged about. The sole reason these individuals are targeted is because of their nationality. This is cancel culture at its worse - we don't even care about what people think or say anymore, and hurt them for something they can't change anything about.

What next? Should we make the Russians immigrants in our countries live in fear of reprisals? Should our children bully theirs in schools? How far can we take it before the outrage excuse wears out?

Outrage over the Russian invasion of Ukraine is warranted. I feel the same. It is good to see an international reaction to it, and I sincerely hope that this will pressure Putin to stop. The virtue signalling and posturing we have seen this week on social medias is not justice, however. It's a disgusting act of violence by people who feel they can get away with it. Is that violence comparable to what the Ukrainians live through at the moment? Of course not! But that doesn't make it excusable.

Like I said - you can ban none, some, or all Russian participants. That is just simple logic. If you ban some participants, you harm the integrity of the competition by subjective criteria. If you ban none, you are failing to impose a cost for Russian war crimes. It's an awful situation for everyone involved and the best situation would be for an immediate cessation of hostilities and military withdrawal so the ban can be lifted. After all, this is simply chess and nobody is dying. On the other hand, thousands of civilians are dead, families are divided, and there is real hardship.

> Like I said - you can ban none, some, or all Russian participants.

I can understand sanctions, they specifically target the country. I can understand sanctions against individuals who are supporting Putin like the oligarchs. I can understand cutting financial, business ties as they specifically target the country.

It starts to get difficult based on the criteria of nationality, there are a variety of reasons to ban people from Israel, Iran, Saudi, United States, and a bucket full of others. Many countries are involved in human rights abuses, military occupation, questionable politics etc. Should all their citizens suffer because of what their country's are involved in.

I applaud your stance, I don't discount it as being objective. But Alexander Grischuk, he is not Russia and we should think about the motives and reasons why such bans should be in place and just because their "homeland" is doing something doesn't mean they are. Imagine carte blanche banning people like Yeonmi Park from events because she is from North Korea.

Here's a bit of irony, Russian athletes are banned from competing in the Winter Paralympics which is based in a country know for it questionable human rights abuses and political stances including that against Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is a very difficult situation with Ukraine and I feel this fits into a situation where there are no correct answers.

There are reasons to ban then, but is it the right thing to do.

The point here is the concept of Sportswashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing

When he plays professional chess, Grischuk _is_ representing Russia, he's not just an individual. A win for him is a win for Russia, and the chess commentators constantly say things like "I'm excited for the Hungary vs Russia final" and "looks like Russia will come out on top in this game".

I found https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/europe/chess-russia... much more though thoughtful than Cowen.

Clearly, Tyler Cowen has his reasons for framing this issue in an inflammatory way. I suspect he didn't seek out any 44 open letter signatories for their feelings.

I simply see no way of keeping out Karjakin in an equitable way. I am tired of repeating myself about how I hate this situation, but the victims are not Russian grandmasters, they are Ukrainian children. Some people are trying very hard to move the focus off of this (I don't believe you are, and I appreciate your conclusion.. I agree there are no right answers).

> I am tired of repeating myself about how I hate this situation, but the victims are not Russian grandmasters, they are Ukrainian children.

Nobody in this thread has denied that Ukrainian children are victims, and nobody has disagreed that there should be a reaction.

What people are questioning is who should be targeted by this reaction, and with what actions. Your stance, as I read it, is everyone who is Russian, because there is no other way. Even with that, people didn't argue against, at least when it comes to economic sanctions. But bans that do not affect the war criminals, but only common people (aka, civilians)? That does feel petty and unnecessary. And to be clear, unlike others in the thread I don't suggest selecting people based on their opinion -- it feels too antithetic to our democratic ideals (so that it is clear, I personally despise these opinions).

Forgive me for changing the focus a bit, but since you bring up the plight of children, it is likely that Russian children will also suffer from the consequences of economic sanctions. Some will grow up in poverty because of this mess, some will die indirectly, from the effects of poverty. I don't really have a solution to that (right now the efforts should go to stop the war in Ukraine), and that doesn't mean that sanctions can be avoided, but I do think that they are also victims.

If a man murders someone, the victim's family sues and win, and as a result the murder's children are economically deprived... everyone comes out worse than before. But who is at fault and what is the equitable outcome?

> If a man murders someone, the victim's family sues and win, and as a result the murder's children are economically deprived...

Sorry but this is not accurate. This would be more accurate: a man is in the process of murdering hostages, so we hurt his children to make him stop.

The sanctions are not "justice", they are pressure tools to make Russia stop the invasion. There cannot be any justice until the crime (the war) is stopped.

> everyone comes out worse than before. But who is at fault and what is the equitable outcome?

There is no equitable outcome, and it is not a betrayal of the victim to feel empathy for the murderer's children.

> you are failing to impose a cost for Russian war crimes.

Isn't the simple logic that the people who should bear the cost of war crimes are those who commit these war crimes?

> It's an awful situation for everyone involved and the best situation would be for an immediate cessation of hostilities and military withdrawal so the ban can be lifted.

Not only that, but the immediate cessation of hostilities and military withdrawal would be better for everyone even if there were no ban. Aside from a few deranged hawks in the Russian government I can't see how this conflict is good for anyone, Russian or not.

> this is simply chess and nobody is dying.

And the ban does nothing that would influence Putin's decisions. The economic sanctions might change his attitude (only time will tell). A ban of Russian chess players won't. Sanctions are a tool to force Putin to the negotiation table. Pointless actions like this are only harming people with no influence or responsibility on the conflict.

> On the other hand, thousands of civilians are dead, families are divided, and there is real hardship.

This war is dreadful, and I would like (without much hope) that Putin and those responsible for it respond for their crime. I just don't see how imposing hardships (however less strong they may be) on people unrelated to the conflict has any bearing on this.

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