Support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression | Hacker News Reader

Support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression

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31 pointselvis7021 comments

Funding more killing is not ethically justifiable.

Pacifism has no easy way out in this conflict. Of course one could (reasonably) argue more weapons kill more people in the long run — however people tend to have other values than just pacifism. Would one accept a peace when it is an injustice in the way it is executed? If yes, at which level of injustice does this stop to be the case? Any peace for any price as fast as possible is an easy stance to take in theory, but one that does fails to deal with the underlying currents that lead to the war in the first place. Not to speak of the signal this could send ("If you are stronger than your neighbor country just invade it, you will definitly get something out of it and in the end people will accept everything if there is some kind of peace in the end").

Same goes for weapons. One could easily imagine a situation in which no weapons deliveries will stretch a conflict out and lead to far, far more civilian casualties than if the conflict quickly moves into an phase where negotiations are something all sides of an conflict actually want. So a dogmatic "no weapons" stance can easily cost more lives than a more balanced stance that looks at things in a more nuanced way.

Ethically it depends. Are one's ethics about the strict enforcement of fundamental rules regardless of the outcome? Or are one's ethics about minimizing the harm that is created regardless of the rules that have to be broken to get there?

In reality everybody will fall somewhere between those poles.

It’s not even the injustice that’s the problem. Russia is quite clear that they intend to eradicate Ukraine as a nation. They already perpetrated several genocides. Previous attempts at solving the problem by concessions (Crimea) only made them more aggressive. Using force to pacify Russia is the last available option.

> Would one accept a peace when it is an injustice in the way it is executed?

Yes, I would. If another country came to occupy my country I would bow down and hope I'll retain my life and my property. I don't particularly care whether my government is the current thieves I have or thieves from another country.

The balance between me and society is unchanged (assuming it's a pacific takeover and they just won't steal all my stuff or rape / kill me).

If the odds are stacked against my country, I think there is a higher chance of me surviving if I don't fight.

If we have a chance to win, then I'd fight to avoid having to suffer the potential looting. I don't think in modern days countries with similar firepower are likely to fight though.

I imagine future conflicts will stay on very uneven grounds with a large army attacking a small one - like USA vs Middle East, Russia vs Ukraine, China vs Taiwan.

This is interesting. I feel like from a man’s standpoint the only thing we really fear , for ourselves, is either losing our lives or own property. At worse we’ll either be tortured or enslaved or whatever. For women however there are much worse horrors awaiting if the invaders don’t follow a strict moral code. If I were a woman I wouldn’t accept pacifism in any capacity as I would be the one more likely strip of bodily autonomy in a worse case scenario.

That's an odd viewpoint, considering that in every war ever, the majority of victims are men. Women are raped, absolutely and that's awful. Men are generally seen only as a threat so they are killed (if they're lucky), or tortured and then killed.

Your comment reminds me of the campaign a few years back to bring attention to the horrible fact that 1 in 4 homeless people were women. The irony of course being that nobody gave a shit about the other 75% since they were men.

I think from my perspective, I would rather be tortured and killed than raped and killed. To me it’s similar to walking on the street at night. Sure they’re are victims of all sexes in the night but, as a man, the most I have to fear averagely is being robbed and then shot. A woman has much more things to fear than a man does walking at night. But that doesn’t invalidate the victims of other crimes and of other sexes in the night.

The majority of violent crime victims are men though.

Also, your war comparison doesn't work since the percentages of men tortured and killed, to women rape and killed, isn't close. Very few women are killed compared to men in war, and on the street as well.

So sad. Your thougts do not sound as free person thoughts. On a countrary I would better be dead than a slave.

> If another country came to occupy my country I would bow down and hope I'll retain my life and my property. I don't particularly care whether my government is the current thieves I have or thieves from another country.

Sure, but if you're an Ukrainian, if you do this, you'll get raped and murdered by the Russians. "[Retaining your] life and my property" is kind of not an option if the invader has genocidal ambitions.

> I think there is a higher chance of me surviving if I don't fight.

This is a valid opinion to hold and I hope that you are right – it is very hard to tell what Russia plans to do next through all this fog of war though.

My point wasn't that pacifism is pointless (it isn't – I'd call myself a pacifist as well). But as someone who grew up learning his whole life about the attrocities my grandparents generation comitted (I grew up in Austria, my grandfather was a Nazi fighting on the eastern front) I have a hard time seeing e.g. how Europe would look today if our neighbouring countries didn't at some point decide to fight back. Not to call Russians Nazis, but they are certainly extremely authotarian fascists – and being a province to authotarian fascist empires has historically never been a good place to be in.

Aside from that, I do believe that Ukraine will have less casualties if it gets a ton of support and pushes strongly till it is in an position to negotiate a lasting peace. Of course one could imagine a scenario where Ukranians stopped fighting and Russia just be like: "Ok, now we are friends again if you just let us install a new president and do all these things on the list", but in practise this would very likely lead to decades of simmering conflict, of the type that can destabilize a region for good. If that would be more or less dead, more or less lifes destroyed is not something I am willing to bet on.

However I don't live there, and I don't have to fight, so it is all too easy to take that stance.

Helping a country fighting for the existence of its people, bracing against forced deportation, mass executions & rapes and more importantly championing freedom against tyranny of a madman, isn't ethically justifiable?

You choose a very poor hill to die on (no pun intended).

Not funding results in more killing, based on a reasonable analysis.

So, given that, what's the ethical action

>So, given that, what's the ethical action

Sometimes the winning move is not to play, there's good arguments for supporting the humanitarian funds, but I disagree that foreign civilians should directly fund someone else's military (and the weapons used to kill others).

Of course I'd rather there not be a war at all and I'm a strong proponent of self-defense (I'm not Ukrainian however and Russia isn't directly attacking me currently), but I don't think it's ever ethical (from a principled standpoint) to personally (as a civilian) fund the killing of others (even if it's an unfortunate reality that can't be avoided).

If my elected government is concerned about the interest of my country enough that it believes it is beneficial to ensure the safety/sovereignty of my country (and/or related allies) to support Ukraine's military is an entirely different situation than asking ordinary people to directly finance weapons that will likely be used to kill (even if in self defense from another invading country).

All of that is assuming the weapons remain in the "right" hands as well. Personally I would feel bad if a weapon I helped fund got taken by the opposing soldiers and used to kill people from the side I were intending to help defend. The chances of ever finding out about something like that happening directly is slim, but it's a distinct possibility.

tl;dr I think it's improper to delegate military funding decisions (and potential consequences) onto normal civilians for something that should be at a greater military / governmental level.

Not ethically justifiable?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10797707/Russian-br...

I disagree. Torturers need to be eliminated.

Funding more killing _in defense_ is very much ethically justifiable.

Interesting brand of ethics, if someone invades my house and threatens to kill my family (or worse), I would personally fight

What if it's not your house, there is a criminal living with you which takes money from you under the threat of locking you in the basement and another criminal comes to replace him?

I would kill the one coming to replace him while he is weak then I would turn against the old one with heightened power. There's no point in sitting around like a slave in a country like Ukraine which you can leave so really only russians are slaves.

Sure. Except supporting Ukraine means funding less killing. A hundred thousand dead Russian soldiers is less killing than many hundreds of thousands of genocided Ukrainians.

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