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Comment by lisnake | Hacker News Reader

I'm in Russia, an let me tell you, this does not have that effect at all. Most folks are just getting angry at collective west for all these bans, undeserved in their opinion. Big news: people are shortsighted and irrational, especially during crisis. I'm afraid this will just help Putin in uniting Russians in hatred.

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I think the anger is also understandable, there have been so many illegal wars, interventions and invasions that didn’t cause all these bans. If I were in Russia I’d probably be easily swept up by that anger. It’d be hard to see how it’s fair when this is happening to you, even if it feels deserved from an outside perspective.

> I think the anger is also understandable, there have been so many illegal wars, interventions and invasions that didn’t cause all these bans.

  "But mom, they got to do crime, why can't I do crime?"

Nobody gets to do crime.

But not everyone gets punished for it.

I guess because the Zodiac killer got away with it, people should be mad they can't serial kill too - instead of mad that they weren't caught?

one despot's crime is another hegemon's police action

Obviously superpowers get to do crime, Russia just mistakenly thought it was a superpower.

I mean, sure. But I think it's perfectly natural to get pissed off when some other party punishes you for doing something that other party does repeatedly, and without consequence. I imagine that there are plenty of Russian citizens who are against the war in Ukraine, but are also -- perfectly rationally -- angry at the US and West for the new round of sanctions and restrictions.

Your sentiment is normally valid, but most Russians supposedly literally don't believe they're at war because of the content Putin feeds them. They think it's a small operation in the Donbas. It has nothing to do with being 'illegal' or whatever.

Do you have a (recent) source for that? I can’t imagine that to be true with the impact this war has had on daily life for Russian.

The Russian government acknowledged that hundreds of soldiers died, publicly. That’s not a tiny mission.

> there have been so many illegal wars

Is this even an "illegal" war? I mean, other than by the standard of "every war is an illegal war"? Not taking sides (I don't know enough about the history and politics to do so), but I know Ukraine was part of Russia until very recently. If, somehow, Mexico had the means to do so and were to try to "take back" Texas... I can't help but wonder if the international response would be a lot more neutral than the response to Russia trying to "take back" Ukraine.

That will probably change over time as Russia becomes more and more isolated from the world.

I'm sure the oligarchs are pissed at yacht seizures and banking discomfort too but so what? This is a valid tactic since they didn't attack a NATO member.

If they did, then they would be facing the same things that Ukrainian citizens are.

Russia flexes their might against their own citizens constantly and disrupts their quality of life. There's always going to be some that will be emboldened for the wrong reasons. But it doesn't make sense for nations to sit idly by.

The idea that citizens over there could organize with internet and actually accomplish any change is nonsense.

I think its pretty rational to blame your censor, not your censor's enemy.

It's important to recognize that most people in the world are hicks. They are low information, and not rational in the way you mean it. (America is unusual because our hicks are rich, but we're mostly hicks, too.)

Let’s just call it as it is - Putin is a product of Russian culture and Russian society.

In retrospect we should have ground the Russian military to dust after ‘91. No aid without nuclear disarmament and population reeducation.

Hopefully when the dust settles this time, we don’t make the same mistakes.

Why? Why are people okay with their comfortable life getting worse? There doesn't appear to be any ideology. It isn't communism. It isn't religion. It appears to be an ego struggle paid for by the comforts of the Russian people. What are you getting out of this deal?

People are not okay. They are afraid. Starting from today in Russia any public action against war (or even calling it war) can be punished with up to 15 years in prison.

On the other hand people get killed in Ukraine while Russias army is leveling the cities.

We can all debate who is having a worse day. Doesn't seem productive to dismiss one group's problems because another group's is worse, regardless of the relation between the two.

If you don't live under a functioning democracy, you're not going to feel agency to actually change the actions of the state. For you it will be akin to a natural disaster, and it's better to live with the discomfort than it is to protest and surely forfeit your life and impact your family. This isn't like the West where you can organize massive protests in anger, however ineffective they end up being.

And if ISPs stop providing service, how will protestors organize anyway? By laying cable in the ground themselves?

Right but I don't see how any of this leads to blaming the West.

Because the West chose to impose these sanctions and restrictions, knowing full well that regular Russian citizens would be hurt by them, but also be fairly powerless to change the course of their government. "I'm pissed that you are hurting me because of the actions of others, and I can't meaningfully influence what these others will do." Seems pretty reasonable to me.

The logic doesn't follow though. Citizens have more influence over their own sovereignty than foreign nations unwilling to engage in armed conflict. "My country brought on the ire of the rest of the world and I am completely devoid of responsibility." Okay.

If you were to rank who is to blame for the sanctions why is the West in the top position? Why not the party responsible? If you tug on the thread of "why is this happening?" one thing seems clear: for no reason worth the discomfort.

If you don't live under a functioning democracy, you're not going to feel agency to actually change the actions of the state.

People keep saying this, but it’s not even close to accurate. The Shah, Marcos, Ceaușescu, and Mubarak come to mind.

And, I vaguely remember something in the USSR in ‘91.

Do they need connection to outside the country to organize? They can still organize on the local network.

strategic bombing doctrine during the second world war was designed with the same intent of incensing the targeted civilian populations into uprising against their government. in effect they simply made people depressed and hopeless. i do not see why deprivation would have a markedly different psychological effect than extermination, if suffering was all that was required to overthrow a despot, there would simply be no more despots.

Sanctions are a very far cry from bombing cities. I'm talking about discomfort, not terror.

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