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Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

Which brakes? Russia's attack on Ukraine? Sure, let's stop or slow that down, but how?

I would imagine the parent is referring to some of the more "Freedom Fries"-esque excesses of Russophobia, like canceling Tchaikovsky from symphony programs, discarding Russian vodka, banning Russian cat breeds from competitions, etc

> I would imagine the OP is referring to some of the more "Freedom Fries"-esque excesses of Russophobia, like canceling Tchaikovsky from symphony programs, discarding Russian vodka, banning Russian cat breeds from competitions, etc

all insignificant compared to the suffering Russia is imposing on Ukraine. Russophobia should be the least of people's worries when Russia is dropping bombs on hospitals full of Ukrainian kids.

And before "whataboutism people" come here say "USA does it too", well, yeah, that's why a lot of people in middle east have a visceral hatred for Americans.

> that's why a lot of people in middle east have a visceral hatred for Americans.

we had a lot of visceral hatred for them, too, because our media in the early 00s propagandized us into having visceral hatred for them, in order to manufacture consent for invasion. the rest of the decade was spent telling us that we were morally wrong for having this visceral hatred for them—despite said visceral hatred having been intentionally instilled upon us. now, in hindsight, few are willing to acknowledge what happened, because to do so would be to admit having had, in the past, irrationally visceral hatred for a broad group of people, for ill-defined reasons, only to go on to "unlearn" this behavior later on, and we all want to think of ourselves as good people, so let's just pretend none of that ever happened.

I fully expect this exact same pattern to play out again this time, too.

Plot twist: There is a Russian Blue Kitten controlling Putin all along :-)

it's unbecoming to willfully misinterpret someone's statement in order to make a point distinct from that which they were making, and then to go on to agree with said willful misinterpretation.

Sarcasm is unbecoming, but only because it's a thinly disguised insult. Read that comment as "What you just said was so egregiously stupid that I'm going to show that by pretending that you meant something different". Put that way, it would be clearly inappropriate for HN, so they use sarcasm as a fig leaf.

It might be more becoming to say "Many people are dying and I think it's inappropriate to use a generic, vague expression pertaining to this other, much less directly violent thing." Or words to that effect. But I'm not surprised that the GP post was so shocked by the phrasing that they resorted to sarcasm instead.

> Sarcasm is unbecoming, but only because it's a thinly disguised insult. Read that comment as "What you just said was so egregiously stupid that I'm going to show that by pretending that you meant something different".

this is supposed to be against the rules here on HN. it's not as though I didn't understand what was being communicated.

They are hoping that by not actually putting it that way, they can get away with it. I don't know if they can or not. It's up to the moderators to make that decision of whether it crosses a line.

If it were up to me, I'd tell people that they have to keep far away from the line, and not try to sidle up to it without crossing it. But as you can tell from the many other comments, many people disagree that there should be any moderation at all, and certainly would allow something that isn't explicitly a call for violence.

I am enjoying the irony of discussing the moderation of a nonviolent comment in a thread about relaxed moderation of violent content.

Whataboutism. Focus on the current issue of Facebook enabling hate

It's not whataboutism when it's the literal cause.

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