Hacker News Reader

Comment by smeej | Hacker News Reader

Punishing civilians for the actions of their dictator is a despicable form of victim-blaming.

Russia isn't a democracy. Ordinary people can't oust Putin because the rest of the world makes their lives difficult. This doesn't fix the problem.

Punishing his existing subjects because he's invading another country to acquire more subjects is despicable.

View on HN

It is your opinion. The fact that Putin is still the authoritarian there is a consequence of people failing to navigate the game theory. You can not fix stupid, but you can change the game for them in a way that ensures specific outcome in presence of certain fallacies.

The subjects are the ones in the best position to get rid of Putin. And in a way the subjects are responsible for their leader. Many are fine with the status quo and sitting comfortably at home while Ukrainians are in refugee camps.

The whole context here is that a man has invaded a country and is taking it over despite the very best efforts and extremely firm rejection of its citizens.

And yet your argument is that, in an adjacent territory he already controls, the citizens should somehow be more successful at removing him?

In what possible way??

Either he is not a dictator and the people of Ukraine shouldn't worry because they'll just be able to "get rid of him" anyway, or he is a dictator and blaming Russian civilians for being under his dictatorial control is victim-blaming.

This doesn't work both ways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com