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Comment by andrey123 | Hacker News Reader

[Disclaimer: Russian] According to my estimations, probably at least 95% of people who are "against the war" do not go out to participate in protests. My estimations are based on talking to my colleagues (large IT company).

Yes, starting from now, protesting becomes more risky (you may go to jail for years if you get caught second time). But just a week ago, it was mostly harmless (yes, some people get arrested for few days, but will anyone say it's comparable to what's going on in Ukraine?).

And from these 5% who go out now many (including myself) were not protesting in 2014.

So to be honest I cannot see how we are not responsible.

[Edit] 95% is a VERY conservative estimation.

[Edit2] And of course people from other countries are also responsible for crimes which their governments are or were doing (many of these crimes resulted in many more deaths than this conflict yet - hopefully it will remain so). So don't feel good about yourself guys.

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You can read the book:

Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World

It proposes many interesting strategies and ideas on how to protest in dictatorships. Be subtle, use humor and focus your message on the most common people. Don't call for democracy, free speech or anything like that. You will be branded as foreign forces. Find something every Russian believes in like peace or the brotherly bonds between Russiand and Ukrainians. Pick small battles to win first.

Perhaps rather than protesting, silently walking around holding signs that use of sarcasm? (To circumvent the anti-speech laws)

“Putin is king! Glory to USSR!”

“Synonyms for conflict may contain the words: war, special operation”

“Is the special operation over yet? My mother wants to see my brother”

“What’s next Vladimir?”

Subtle civil disobedience that the cops will overlook until it’s too late (I’m making a lot of assumptions here)

Make it so subtle that it feels like it’s a waste of time to arrest. Until everyone is doing it

people were arrested even for protesting with empty sheets of paper

None of those quotes are very subtle.

Turning "special operations" into a meme is a great idea. Use it jokingly in every day life. If everyone start using it you have won your first battle.

So, Putin won?

Not really. After all, there are no sanctions, it's a financial special operation in Russia.

The term's already become a meme in some places on the Internet.

The wider internet has already embraced this.

After Putin cried that the sanctions are an act of war they reply that no - it is just a limited special economic operation.

> Subtle civil disobedience that the cops will overlook

Oh, you sweet summer child.

You’ll be taken to a police dept by the first cop. Any form of protest is effectively banned. Sometimes with severe consequences.

I like the peaceful approach, but the scary thing here is that the dictator in power can be a straight up psychopath with no empathy. Putin doesn't seem to have any qualms with getting his perceived enemies murdered... So even to lead a peaceful movement like that, the identity of the leaders has to somehow remain a secret?

He didn’t start that way (well, I mean he was, but it wasn’t obvious!), he’s just made it so everyone is actually ok (and near as I can tell, he has wide domestic support even very recently) with him obviously being that way.

Part of this is the psychology of the abused spouse frankly - yeah he’s scary and terrible, but he’s on ‘my side’

Some time ago I saw a beautiful conversation in comments for some article about Ukrainian internal political life. One of their famous politicians (and scammer) Julia Timoshenko was jailed for some months and during that time she asked to transfer her from cell to prison hospital, for many reasons and one of these reasons was an injury, hematoma on her abdomen.

One of commentators said something like: - How is it possible, she's lying, here's no way to get hematoma on abdomen! And reply to him was: - When you will be jailed, you will learn: how is it possible.

So, when you recommending books like this, from the people who wasn't beaten even once, li looks hilarious. How to make revolution with lego figures and funny pictures, wow.

How to get your legs broken during arrest or lose one eye, do you want to know it? Even without new laws. How to get tuberculosis in prison in 30 days? How to get real imprisonment for a years for fabricated felony?

I see a kind of schizophrenia here: if Putin is dictator, he's already can do what he want without approval from electorate, but then I see here accusation for me that I and people like me didn't rid off him. It's not so easy to do, you may know.

More to say, when daughter of some corrupted govenor of one of Russia regions coming to USA, she got visa for extremely talented people, because she owns some startup (captured by her rich daddy).

If I will try to come to USA, I must pass TOEFL, pass through interview for Amazon/Google/whatever and then work, work, and pay rent and smile, and work again. I will have no time for anything except angry dislikes in youtube.

USA and EU made no way for me and people like me in Russia to be involved in politics while being in opposition to my government. It all looks like call "run into Kremlin wall and try to break it with your head, why you didn't it yet?".

There is a lot of rage going around. Some of it misdirected. It's incredibly hard to have nuanced discussion on the broader internet (HN is better than some places).

All attention is focused on Ukraine. They need all the help they can get. But that means forgetting that Belarusians voted to get rid of Lukaschenko and then were violently supressed. It means ignoring the Russians that are protesting even when they know they're risking everything. I saw a video of a Russian guy protesting alone in Kursk. That's an example of bravery.

I really think the Voice vs Exit[0] thing is very important here. If you can't be heard and can't succeed then you go elsewhere. Both at a personal level, but also at a grand economic level. If all the highly trained people make lives outside Russia, Russia will shrink to become less significant.

I will finish with a couple of short quotes from the book Why Nations Fail[1] (an incredibly dense read, but worth it).

> “NATIONS FAIL TODAY because their extractive economic institutions do not create the incentives needed for people to save, invest, and innovate. Extractive political institutions support these economic institutions by cementing the power of those who benefit from the extraction.” ― Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

> “A businessman who expects his output to be stolen, expropriated, or entirely taxed away will have little incentive to work, let alone any incentive to undertake investments and innovations.” ― Daron Acemoğlu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

[0]: https://genius.com/Balaji-srinivasan-silicon-valleys-ultimat... [1]: http://whynationsfail.com/buy/

In some way you’re right. But it’s important to note that we haven’t chosen this government, we haven’t chosen this country we live in.

I personally lost any hope to change it one year earlier after participating in pro-Navalny protests. Now, I just don’t want to have anything in common with this government. I’m choosing another one. And I’m not going to pay taxes to Russian government anymore

Don't beat yourself over it. Now that you're out of the country, you can donate time and/or money to help fight for tolerance and against Putin regime.

For the vast majority of normal people, just leaving the country without plans of coming back is the best they can do.

That would be a tough fight according to this poll reported on the 23rd February. Probably a disturbing result for those who think the Russians are not broadly in line with the government. However at that time only 13% thought it likely for the Kremlin to initiate military action towards Ukraine.

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk...

This is wisdom. There are so many great countries out there (seen through the eyes of a digital nomad). Countries that you can build in, and succeed in.

I can recommend Estonia, though it might feel too close with the current war. Also I love all the Nordic countries (haven't had the opportunity to visit Finland yet).

If you speak English and you're in IT then Australia is also a very good option -- you'll need to be sponsored, but IT doesn't have too many troubles. Great weather and AU political problems are tiny in comparison (though every country has it's challenges).

I've been finding it very easy to empathise with Russians in this. After what we've seen happening in so-called "enlightened" Western democracies, with all our press freedoms, and yet we still have homeopathy advocates, far-right (and left!) conspiracies, and all kinds of gnashing of teeth over "fake news".

How can I not look at Russian society, with a far more controlled environment, and think "how can Russians not know about it? How are they so easily deceived?", well, how are -we-, in the West, so easily deceived? It cuts both ways - but at least Russians have more of an excuse.

I am hoping you and your people find kindness wherever you decide to flee to. It is already difficult enough to uproot yourself (and your family), with an uncertain future, leaving friends and memories of better days behind. We need to advocate for Ukrainian refugees - those who are fleeing Putin's war of aggression - but we cannot forget that, while Ukrainians are the worse off in this conflict, many Russians will also be victims. Many Russians will not be able to return home. And many Russians may see friends and family prosecuted for opposing Putin's war.

I’ve yet to see any homeopathy advocates and conspiracy theorists attacking other countries. Stop pretending it’s the same thing.

This black & white view of good and evil is starting to get really tiresome. Is it the effect of modern movies/tv shows that causes this belief? In movies there's usually a clear/perfect/innocent "good" guy and a bad guy, but real life is rarely so cut and dry.

It is perfectly possible for there to be two different parties, each of which (to different degrees of course) make bad decisions that hurt innocent people. Being honest about this and calling it out is not the same thing as equating what the "bad guy" and the "good guy" do.

Well most people here are binary. Killing people and believing in astrology or homeopathy or whatever are not comparable. It’s not about good or bad. It’s about basic human morals and rights.

I think he meant that in all countries, there are some people who believe in crazy things -- but that he didn't mean to make the comparison you reacted to

” I've been finding it very easy to empathise with Russians in this.”

>But it’s important to note that we haven’t chosen this government, we haven’t chosen this country we live in.

From my perspective this is the only meaningful change you can make. If my government ever starts getting in my way too much I'll find another one. Voting with my feet literally. We have this luxury as in-demand professionals. Kind of hard for me to empathize with Russian developers when they had decades to make this move, it's not like everything changed a few weeks ago.

And, where will You find it? (The new government I mean)

Things are, The Reality is, much more complicated.

Corrupt west, of course. At least you can say what you think. Most of the time.

Just not in "private" spaces, like 99% of the internet, if you're open minded to ideas like the Lab Leak Theory (TM) back when that was verboten.

Really? Just go to the east then

Seconded. I'm in the US but I've looked into emigrating to quite a few different countries (including some with reputations for being more friendly to immigration such as Australia), and it's a lot harder than it sounds. I had a work visa in Canada for several months but then covid hit and they closed the border. Israel seemed like the easiest process I found, but only if you are Jewish (although temporary work permits are liberal there). The US also complicates things by being the only (?) nation on earth that still taxes it's citizens even if they didn't step foot in the country the whole year. This forces you to either renounce your citizenship entirely (which is extremely risky to do until you have permanent citizenship elsewhere, which can take many years), or be exploited by the US gov.

What countries are the best/easiest for immigration?

Actually, it is currently impossible for US citizens to renounce their citizenship for all practical purposes.

Technically it should be possible but in reality renouncing requires an exit interview and the US State Department has refused to schedule exit interviews for more than a year.

> This forces you to either renounce your citizenship entirely (which is extremely risky to do until you have permanent citizenship elsewhere, which can take many years)

Pretty much no country will let you renounce your citizenship until you already have a citizenship (not permanent residency, actual citizenship) of another country. This is done to prevent people from becoming "stateless". And the process for renouncing the US one is much simpler and easier compared to a lot of countries out there.

Not trying to be condescending or snarky here, but if that quote accurately represents the level of knowledge you have about immigration processes in general, I suggest you do way more research before you actually attempt to immigrate or even temporarily move to another country.

Source: me being a naturalized American citizen who has been (unsuccessfully) trying to get rid of his Russian citizenship for many years.

As a skilled developer ? Shouldn't be that hard - plenty of options to pick from. If you aren't fond of the US or EU there are other countries that have much better standard of living/ personal freedoms compared to Russia.

It's not easy in the sense that you'll just get a citizenship - but I have many former co-workers that went to Canada, US, Australia, etc., some got the permanent visa/citizenship, some are in the process.

> As a skilled developer ? Shouldn't be that hard - plenty of options to pick from.

Maybe it used to be that way in the past, but not these days.

When I tried to go to Ireland a year ago, entering the country was impossible due to a multi-year long COVID travel ban. Schengen visas were useless — you needed a job offer AND a job permit just to enter the country.

I passed a bunch of interviews, received preliminary offer from one Irish company, but got rejected during security screening (I have never learnt why). Decided against trying again, because Irish job permit queue was 6 months long and growing.

This was a year ago. Right now it is hardly possible to leave Russia at all — leaving by ground is denied by Russian border forces (remnant of COVID restrictions, which has been repurposed to enact impromptu iron curtain). Leaving by air is impossible because most companies stopped flying, airspace is closed and foreign governments are mass-arresting leased aircrafts. As if that weren't enough, Russian government has enacted a total flight ban, effective starting today.

Even if you somehow leave a country and go to Turkey/Serbia/Georgia with piddly $10000, — then what? You'd have to quickly find a job, rent a place to live, and get a residence permit before you are booted out of country. All of that under extremely hostile conditions, such as not having a bank account and being unable to speak the local language.

This is true, nobody I know emigrated during COVID, was mostly 5-6 years ago in that late 20s period before you settle down.

With regards to Serbia at least, while I'm not from there it's a neighbouring country, Belgrade isn't that bad and working for westerners should be the same as working from Russia, minus a few hours of TZ depending on where you are from. English should be decent as well with the younger crowd, especially in IT, some older folk know Russian. And 10000$ would get you settled for months, people there don't make that in a year on average. Don't know much about the visa/bank account issues - maybe you could open a business and setup a bank account through that.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is also super cheap and a wild west regarding laws - people buy anything there - diplomas, citizenship. Also have working banking system. But standard of living is considerably worse.

Yeah we (IT crowd of Russia) had time to leave and wanted to leave and planned to leave. But even as programmer it's can be just hard to immigrate without losing 3-5 years of your life in the middle. Also losing all you friends and social circle isn't fun. I already lived abroad for 3-months / 6-months / 3-years and I know what how it feels to move countries.

I personally had amazing personal projects going on and finally started to work in game development industry. My dream was to play games and make games. I wanted to get current projects to completion and then look for relocation options.

All these terrible events just taken us by surprise. A lot of my friends are anti-regime, but no one including me expected Putin to go batshit crazy and start full scale war. Of course all we could do is to run.

What do you mean losing years ? It might be a bit tough depending on visa issues and so on but none of my friends that emigrated describe it as losing years. They are all working in their field, some are progressing insanely in their careers (especially compared to how they were doing back home). I mean I know it's anecdotal, and I've read some horror stories about employer visa abuse but assuming that's the default is kind of cynical IMO.

What I mean by losing years: when you forcefully immigrate your primary goal becomes to keep your work visa or getting residence permit. You cant afford to work on exact same projects you wish, change jobs as you wish. Until you get permenent residence or citizenship - this takes 3-9 years depend on country.

Also lets be honest here - not all of us are top-notch programmers and finding job and passing interviews is completely different skill that need to be trained. I for instance simply don't have any official degree and while this make no difference for freelancer it's handicap me greatly when it's come to getting work visa.

Also even if I am programmer my girlfriend is not automatically become one too. Finding a good job for her as English teacher (who is not a native speaker) would be much harder in EU / US. So this will put extra strain on my an her life.

Rebuilding social circle and finding new friends also takes a long time. Especially if you dont want to stick to communities of other immigrants.

PS: now this all doesn't matter because we turned into refugees. Yeah we're in much better situation compared to my friends in Ukraine who wake up to bomb shells, but our past life is still destroyed by Mr Putin and his regime.

Depending on the country you immigrate in, there might be a language barrier, general mistrust and many other issues like finding a place to live (flat, house, etc.). Some qualifications differ, but of course in IT the definitions of roles is a bit vague, so it is less of an impact. Generally Russian IT people have the a stereotype going for them, to be very capable, at least where I am from. Losing friends and contacts is also something that will take time to build up again.

Even among developers not everyone is footloose. People have parents to take care of, they get married, they have dogs. Or they just care about their country even if they hate its government. Remember Leipzig in 1989? The first slogan was Wir wollen raus. But then it changed to Wir bleiben hier.

> they had decades to make this move

But friends, family and loved ones where they live

As someone who lived under the Islamic Republic of Iran for half his life, what ends up happening with the "voting with your feet" strategy is that the country ends up with a "brain drain". This worsens the situation because the only people remaining are the ones who either had no means of escaping or have been indoctrinated by the government; thus making the change from "within" even more difficult.

That being said, it's hard to blame anyone. Staying and fighting leads to bloodshed, for example when the "green movement" started in Iran in 2009 [0] after the election, the government immediately started firing live rounds at people, arresting protestors and blacking out all communication from the outside world. Both my cousins were beaten in the Evin prison[1] for months and we were without any news from them for months.

Meanwhile, as a Middle Eastern living in the west, the hostility I experienced were enormous during those years and I expect the same to happen to Russian people now. Just look at the comments in the thread, much civility is already lost (and HN is one of the better communities).

Living under a dictatorship is suffocating. My heart goes out to all those suffering.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Green_Movement [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evin_Prison

> what ends up happening with the "voting with your feet" strategy is that the country ends up with a "brain drain". This worsens the situation because the only people remaining are the ones who either had no means of escaping or have been indoctrinated by the government; thus making the change from "within" even more difficult.

But at least you prevent said country from becoming a global threat. Russia minus its professional class would spiral into total irrelevance in a matter of weeks.

you said « Middle Eastern living in the west, the hostility I experienced were enormous «

Could you explain? I know people in usa are afraid of religious extremists. but I always assumed if you are comings from Iran, Liban, moroco … and speaking good english they will be friendly to you.

That is because majority of american don’t even know where on a map Iran is :-)

It’s not that easy to move to the West when the only preoccupation of our governments has been reducing immigration.

For what it's worth, if anything, I think you're a hero and I deeply appreciate your efforts. You're doing more than the vast majority of people (in any country) would do. It's just far more easy to change your principles than to live them and most people choose the path of least resistance.

This is exactly what Russian government wants. It does not need this much Russians. It will be happy to have maybe 500 000 of them, just enough to pump oil and gas.

> Yes, starting from now, protesting becomes more risky (you may go to jail for years if you get caught second time). But just a week ago, it was mostly harmless (yes, some people get arrested for few days...

Even one arrest record is enough to be disqualified for or complicate any visa or moving abroad plan :(

Is it the other countries who don't like arrest records, or can Putin's regime prevent people with these records, from getting a visa elsewhere?

It is common for visa applications to have a question like "Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offence or crime, even if the arrest did not result in a conviction". And residency applications usually ask for a police record.

Oops. Having been arrested in Russia maybe should count in one's favor instead

But I guess that will never happen :-(

I've been in touch with my family in and around Moscow. Older generation is militantly pro-Putin, as a direct result of listening to the what the TV spews. My generation is ignoring it all and is keeping their heads down because it is too dangerous to express anything. My uncle who had a green card and had an opportunity to settle here in USA couple of decades ago but chose not to is being very philosophical, and says he's at least happy to have pre-paid for Egypt resort in the fall before the money became completely inflated away. I am unconvinced that he's going to be able to enjoy it and wish he has made a different choice on the green card.

Can you be more precise with which generations you are referring to? Maybe age ranges?

I am not from Russia, but have a lot of friends and relatives there.

In my circles everyone below 40 years of age is strongly anti-regime. Especially below 30. Many of them have left the country (everyone who could basically, and one has bought the ticket and is waiting to leave soon).

Above that age group it's hit or miss, and depends whether or not the person in question watches television and bothers to read one of the few remaining independent news outlets.

Pretty much everybody above 60 strongly believes in whatever bullshit Putin is saying this week. Although there is one exception that I know of.

At the same time... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t6b827/russian_inf...

That polarising effect on older generations versus younger ones is something that has affected a large part of the world and I’d be curios to know whether it originated by one source or it simply emerged as a trend. First time I heard about troll farms was something brewed in Russia but it certainly spread around by then

I would expect there to be a divide between Russians who were old enough to experience the full effect of the chaos and privation following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and those who came of age later.

In the US, where I live, we also have tension between the generations, but it has more to do with changing demographics. There's nothing comparable to what Russians experienced when the Soviet Union fell.

Tensions between generations are probably the rule rather than the exception, at least over the last few hundred years of rapid change.

Yeah, that's exactly what Putin built his whole career out of. It's mostly a myth (because the country was helped out of its troubles by high oil prices), and it's especially ironic now that the same person is pushing the country back into the 90s at full speed.

It originated as a consequence of a burgeoning free media environment due to the proliferation of smart phones and the internet. The younger generations, with their higher level of fluid intelligence, are able to approach things with better critical thinking and navigating the complexities of the internet world. The older generations aren't able to adapt and are sitting ducks for being easily manipulated by technology they don't understand.

I used to be of this opinion until I asked myself whether I'm really that fluidly intelligent and able to approach things with better critical thinking, and am not a sitting duck for being easily manipulated by technology. Turns out, I was wrong and I am human after all and there are ways to manipulate me, especially by using the technology I love so much.

Other comments here seem to be indicating this is a binary "young people unaffected, older people affected" dichotomy. No. It's about the generality. Bell curve clearly exists for many dimensions.

Agreed. And, look, you wrote:

> The younger generations, with their higher level of fluid intelligence, are able to approach things with better critical thinking

Personally I try to write "are more often able to", or "tend to ...", so it sounds more bell-curvish

This seems like wishful thinking. Young people are in no way manipulated by advertising and influencers et al. right?

Young people have dealt with trolls and a have a better grasp at getting what internet misinformation is and isn't. It's not great, but it's much better.

The older generations in the US are demonstrating fluid intelligence by being manipulated to support actions and ideology they would never have condoned in the past and coming up with stunningly complicated rationalizations. And the manipulation is through newer avenues like social media. They keep moving further and further into alternative avenues like youtube and Facebook alternatives that maintain their preferred echo chambers. These people are now able to find millions that agree with them and it it is self reinforcing even without FB's algorithms so that they become increasingly extreme.

Young people can absolutely be manipulated, it’s probably even easier than with older people due to lack of experience.

However, the thing that works in younger peoples favour is they are less isolated.

Generally people are very social when young and then as life and routine sets in they stop socialising as much and when they do it’s usually with the same people.

Isolated people don’t have the personal experience to be aware that the ads on Facebook are just ads and not the actual conversation going on around them.

And therefore we have this perception that old people are so dumb and easily fooled, while IMO it’s purely the social aspect that’s at work.

(There is also some contribution from lack of technical literacy but honestly even some of my 30s IT coworkers lack that).

>>There is also some contribution from lack of technical literacy but honestly even some of my 30s IT coworkers lack that

My favorite explanation of this was an analogy to cars. Early drivers had to be mechanics, able not only to drive, but maintain and service their cars. Modern drivers just need to know how to drive, and often have no idea how a car works...

I think that maps well to computers. Early geeks had to know how to build, upgrade, program, network, etc. Current users just have to know how to _use_ an application and often have little idea of the 'behind the scenes' stuff..

I got to stay at home with my parents through the pandemic and watched them become increasingly old and misled in real time as they attached themselves to the US alt-conservative news, called the mainstream sources "fake", but still watched both, one in adoration and the other out of spite. This trend was evident before, but simply accelerated by the fact that they were not out in the world in any real sense as an actor engaging with specific consequences. They used to participate a little bit in comments threads on the local paper, posting cherry picked sources for their views with the assertion "I'm just providing information". Then the comments section closed down, so they stopped. Now they just spend two or three hours of each day rabidly agreeing with each other that the world is insane and someone or some conspiracy is to blame. Any suggestion that they should try to disengage a little is met with the justifications of addiction.

But I have an aunt who is slightly older and rebuffs attempts to broach political discussion. And she is, so far as I can tell, stable and content with things, even after the passing of her husband. I recall visiting when I was young and the husband carefully managing the TV remote to mute commercials - there was a definite control over exposure and conscious decisions about faith that my own parents would never attempt and only enacted on us children haphazardly.

With people of roughly my generation, I can see the long-term indoctrination creeping up as they settle into careers. It comes and goes more easily early in life, for sure. By eighteen you're molded roughly into whatever society said you should be, and the onset of that is precisely the thing that makes so many teens commit suicide, and so many others foot soldiers to some ideology. But afterwards things become a little more self-inflicted, built off subconscious voices trying to justify how you ended up where you are. Many people do make a break away into "standing for something" that can take them away from the political sphere and engage with life in a more concrete way like my aunt. The terrified, reactionary elderly, I think, never got there, and ended up in a place where they have no pursuits or rules of conduct that would ground them and make them reconsider their concerns about new information. Once you're attached to bad ideas and you have a media source to reinforce them, all your energy starts going to their defense and you have nothing left for yourself - you just hate everything all day and your personal decline only motivates going deeper and rejecting friends and family; additional socialization by itself doesn't do it, it leads to "drama at the dinner table" as the entire conversation is pulled towards their topics of choice; every word out of their mouth inevitably leads back to their attachments. It's really on society to cut off the supply and deescalate, but for now, the war continues, I suppose.

I don't know about 'fluid intelligence', but due to 40 years+ of neglecting education, I wouldn't want to bet on 'better critical thinking'. Just looking at any social media site, will show you how many people (of all generations) will believe things without any confirmation or critical thinking applied.

edit: that goes for myself as well. I'm lazy enough not to verify stuff unless I think its 'important'...

The divide is clearly between people who watch Tv and people who don’t. It happens that younger people watch less TV, and this is the only reason.

You may be surprised how strong propaganda is. I spoke with quite a few people recently and it is mind boggling. Propaganda victims cannot answer some basic questions such as - “If Ukrainians are nazis why we don’t see millions of refugees?” The problem is they are not ready to get the answer. Instead they became emotional and stressed and start yelling at you for no good reason. I guess this is uncontrolled reaction to prevent their imaginary world from collapsing.

Одиевич. Поляк?

Polish Belarusian Russian Armenian mix. Lots of family in Byalistok, Gdansk, Krakow and other places like that, but same goes for Armenia and Ukraine

American here, and I am involved with the US anti-war movement. I really wish we could get 5% involved with the movement, but people don't get interested unless it starts affecting them or their family. To this day, the most active members of the US anti-war movement are baby boomers because they were being drafted to fight in Vietnam. The US ended the draft after Vietnam.

The sanctions in Russia could build resistance to the war in Russia, but they could also backfire if the Western governments do not set reasonable criteria for removing the sanctions. So far they have not indicated how to end sanctions.

If Western governments will only remove sanctions if Putin is thrown out, than I fear that there is little chance the war will end soon. The Syrian sanctions will never end without regime change so the sanctions are purely punitive.

Agree completely. May I ask, how big is your anti-war tent? For example, in my experience the most anti-war people are anarchists (sometimes disambiguated to anarcho-socialists) and anarcho-capitalists. However only a small percentage of each group is willing to join with the other for an issue. Are you? Are you part of an organization like this?

> May I ask, how big is your anti-war tent? For example, in my experience the most anti-war people are anarchists (sometimes disambiguated to anarcho-socialists) and anarcho-capitalists.

I came in through left-wing organizing and I've worked with a few groups. Some are officially non-ideological except for being anti-war (but if I had to place them I'd say liberal-left) like Peace Action https://www.peaceaction.org/. They have a lot of members form the Vietnam era Peace movement.

Other visible contributors to the anti-war movement are socialist orgs like DSA and ANSWER Coalition. DSA has a bigger base, but ANSWER really tends to be ahead on organizing street events. Then there are various solidarity groups for countries like El Salvador or Palestine. The Latin American solidarity groups from the Dirty Wars of the 1980s still exist.

These left leaning groups would never work with right-wing groups, and for what it's worth you almost never see right-wing groups try to seriously organize anti-war, or at least they way they organize/lobby is very different.

There's always this catch-22 with participation. People in America don't think it affects them, so they don't participate. Same thing happened in Russia though. And then suddenly it did. Americans statistically don't vote issues, they vote tribe - straight ticket Democrat or Republican or whatever. The tribal aspect in the U.S. routinely bites us in the butt, even aside from the problem of a democracy where a minority is winning more national elections than the majority due to the Senate and Electoral College.

I suggest folks re-read about the Cold War. A good short one with the basics is The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction (there's many, many other topics in that series). Why? Because the Cold War is a direct result of diverging histories, needs, ideologies between the U.S. and USSR's methods of imposing their view on the vulnerable world. That's probably going to start happening again with Russia as a lesser influence than it was in the first Cold War, and China as a bigger influence in the next one.

I really wish the U.S. would do more to give the rest of the world more power and responsibility for solving these problems in the U.N. The super powers need to be held accountable too if we are to avoid proxy wars. The super powers won't engage in direct conflict because the risk of nuclear escalation is too high. The problem remains with proxy wars.

What's your answer to people who proclaim things like: a) Ukraine has a right to self-determination, b) Putin has moral agency, c) NATO is necessary to protect states that wish to turn away from Russia, d) What about the wishes of Ukrainians?

In the context of the US antiwar movement? Most leftists, even those that have deep mutual disagreements with each other, have long held that NATO expansionism is harmful. But I've been seeing a lot non-leftists use points a-d) to argue that the leftists are wrong. Have you seen this and how would you resolve this?

My own answer has been that NATO is kind of like a road system. Stop building so much and polluting our forests and lands. But if there's an avalanche, it is ethical to use the road to evacuate people. But I still feel I don't understand it fully and I'm not sure what ought to happen or what ought to have happened between NATO versus any country in a situation like Ukraine's.

There is going to be big protest rally tomorrow and I’ll be there. My friends in police told me they are on full alert, even Putin’s guards (ФСО) will be on streets tomorrow. I don’t care. Many Russians are evil and full of Putin’s propaganda shit. I’ll go to streets tomorrow to meet other Russians who are better than that. I hope to see many of them.

I think Russians are responsible, but I do not think they are 100% responsible. But whatever the responsibility is, the punishment will be collective and disproportionate. Some of that will be fair, a lot of it will not be. The young kids today, and not yet born, who had no ability to become part of a rebellion, will be punished. The old folks today, the ones who have died since Putin was in power, they're not going to get any extra punishment. They can be asked no questions, they can provide no answers.

If it is true that a Russian should have protested and gone to prison, in order to avoid Putin starting this war or the next war - isn't it also true every human is somehow fractionally responsible for not having tried to assassinate him? Like, how could that even work? To what degree are nationals responsible for the actions of their leaders? And when they fail to act, how should they be punished for it?

I'm proposing we still have a significant flaw with our international agreements and institutions intending to preserve international peace. Because there's a lot of mistakes that have been made since WW2. The recent events in Ukraine tell me that despite being flawed, we need these institutions more than ever or we're absolutely going to blow up the world again.

And one of those flaws, in my opinion, is the permanent security council veto power. It is not much security or a counseling, when permanent members can violate the charter and veto resolutions trying to hold them accountable. The U.S. has done this, and so has Russia. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that, and the various violations aren't even comparable. We should hold Russia accountable, but we cannot forget the Treaty of Versailles when figuring out how culpable the Russian people are. What are the proper incentives for any other country in the same situation? Is there something that would be more useful to preserving international peace than punishing Russia?

Hell, maybe a suitable punishment would be making Russia into a democracy, it could be worse. (This is supposed to be funny, but I know in advance it's kindof a bad joke.)

What happened in Putin’s Russia had happened in many other counties. What makes it special is large nuclear arsenal that makes Putin immune to an intervention. I won’t go into how much Russians are responsible if at all as this is just too controversial. But I do believe that a long term solution is international pressure to establish functional political institutes that are more powerful than any single politician working inside them. I don’t care if it is called a democracy or something else. I care about the system which is above any single participant and does not break when someone tries to take full control over it.

You can sidestep the democracy question by just saying you prefer a polyarchy over monoarchy (or autocracy).

> According to my estimations, probably at least 95% of people who are "against the war" do not go out to participate in protests.

"Courage" really understates the sacrifice that Russian protestors are making. I've participated in a fair number of demonstrations for various causes over the years (in the US), but none of them involved any personal risk or enduring consequences. Attending a single anti-war demonstration in Russia is a much more momentous act.

It's uncomfortable sitting in judgment of even pro-Putin Russians, because as you say we in other countries have also been responsible for grievous harms. But like today's Germans, we can't let ourselves be paralyzed by past history when deciding whether we can legitimately do something about the horror unfolding before us.

> So to be honest I cannot see how we are not responsible.

I cannot se how you are responsible

It’s the whole ‘the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men do nothing’, combined with the very real reality that being the first (or part of it when it isn’t enough) to do something usually results in predictable catastrophic terrible consequences for whoever tries to do something.

And that successful evil uses that to ‘boil the frog’ and constantly shift the normal bit by bit in the direction they want, never doing it enough they get a critical mass of resistance, and slowly pruning out all the good people (with terrible consequences for those folks), and then being able to accelerate as they go due to lower and lower portions of folks willing and able to speak out.

It’s terrifying to watch, even more terrifying to know what it can mean unfortunately.

Because we recognize ‘evil’ as being evil and bad because of the horrible and wide reaching consequences of it for everyone in the longer term.

Hopefully Putin made too big a step here (overconfidence maybe, or his hand was forced by something else), we all have recent even painful experience to react strongly enough, and the backlash will be sufficient to actually result in critical change and not a ratcheting up of the ‘new normal’.

how's this rhetoric different that Russia's "there some bad actors in Ukraine, so let's wreck the whole country"? Some people didn't vote for Putin, some even went to protest and been to jail and all got sanctions. Saying it's "deserved" seems rather insensitive. It escapes me how the regular Russian people are often considered the only group that can quickly change the situation today. Yet all they get in western media is hate and shame.

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