Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

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You're missing something in that there is a war with two participants going on.

It is not accurate to say that "calls for anti-war can only be made to Russia". Ukraine could of course end the war today by surrendering. I'm not saying that that is good or bad, just that it's fact.

It seems to be heterodox to point out that the war could probably end immediately in some capacity other than total surrender by one of the combatants, which would necessarily involve a new status quo that does not comport with the pre-annexation territory lines. Musk was attacked endlessly for proposing such a thing.

I personally think the tragedy befalling the societies on both sides of this conflict are roughly on the same order in terms of magnitude, and that whatever we can do to end the senseless deaths of thousands of people should be done, regardless of where lines on maps end up. Our automatic and reflexive human drive for fairness and equity seems to be incompatible with this idea of letting an invader keep their ill-gotten territorial gains, preferring instead to continue slaughtering population on both sides in service of an old map.

It is not more or less tragic when a teenage Russian conscript's mother gets the news of her son's slaughter than it is when a Ukranian mother gets similar news of her own son after he has been forced into slavery in service of a status quo that no longer exists. I see everyone clamoring how this is "not our war" but neither is it that of those who are being forced at gunpoint into this violence, no matter what flag is on their arm.

If you believe, as I do, that the Ukranian people are a somewhat cohesive group with a distinct culture and identity that is worth preserving, the optimal strategy for preserving that culture and group into the future seems to me to take whatever actions possible that will preserve the lives of as many Ukrainians as possible, regardless of what nationality they are assigned by whoever controls the territory on which they live. I fear that they have chosen to trade numbers for sovereignty, which historically never works out very well when matched against an opponent with vastly more resources.

I want people (Ukrainians AND Russians) to stop being killed. Now. Today. All other considerations are secondary.

In the areas occupied by russians the killing does not stop when the fighting stops. There are countless examples of this from this war and previous ones.

So your claim that borders don’t matter one should just accept conquest is utterly naive.

The human wish for fairness has a reason and this comes from a deeper place of understanding that accepting aggression will encourage more aggression.

Well, not accepting aggression is also encouraging more aggression.

What is being done now is not working to bring about peace. Something else must be done.

Something else is being done, there are sanctions, there is ostracizing, there is building awareness, exposing misinfo, etc. Effectiveness of those stopping russian murder is fairly low however.

Ask yourself what would you do if a brute would show up under your home window and start shouting: “you are a nazi, some babtism happened in this neighborhood centuries ago, therefore I demand your home belongs to me”.

Then breaks down your front door, occupies your kitchen, kills one of your kids, rapes another, flings stones against your windows every night, cuts your electricity regularly, tries to set the house on fire etc.

Would you fight?

Would you ask for help?

Or would you appreciate a neighbor few streets down telling you ‘all this commotion is ruining my vibe, give your home to the bully and accept them as your new head of family’? Maybe they will not kill you, also maybe they will not starve you in another holodomor?

If you have any viable ideas of bringing peace, let’s hear them.

If they involve denying agency to the people of Ukraine, telling them that from now on you must live under russian tyranny then this is not a viable solution for ending killing nor bringing lasting peace.

I already made it: a viable idea for bringing about peace is to stop fighting. A war requires at least two combatants.

You rejected it, presumably on the basis that it is better to fight a war than to live under Russian occupation.

To answer your question directly, I would move somewhere else. This option is legally and practically prohibited by the Ukranian government for half their population.

It is interesting that you lot always call for Ukraine to stop fighting. Why are you not calling for russians to stop fighting or fuck off from Ukraine?

I have not called for Ukraine to stop fighting, as a point of fact.

That seems like a horrible suggestion: That might work for one person but an entire country? That people who have lived their lives for generations in Ukraine simply uproot their entire lives, give whatever wealth they've built up and move to a different country where they speak a foreign language, have different cultures and customs, where they need to integrate and learn the language to have a chance at any semblance of a life. Sorry that sounds like a horrible idea.

Well, the alternative is slow suffering and eventual capture and/or death at the hands of a better-resourced adversary. That sounds like a much worse idea. I'd run away, myself.

A huge percentage of Ukranian women have already fled the country, mostly to Europe. It's legal for them to do so, but not for the men. Russia has so far been unsuccessful in mass murdering the Ukranians who have fled to Europe, so it seems to be working for them.

There is literally zero circumstance that you could put me in that would result in me choosing to fight a war. None.

> There is literally zero circumstance that you could put me in that would result in me choosing to fight a war. None.

Not even to protect your spouse? Children? Family?

Don't try to project your own bravery onto others though. Ukrainians can choose for themselves whether they fight or not.

As for the claims that the male population can't leave the country, there are plenty of exceptions when they can and even then they don't need to become soldiers. I have several team mates who work either from Ukraine or abroad and have no issues.

> Not even to protect your spouse? Children? Family?

Not even to protect myself. I'd exhaust all available methods of avoiding fighting, and I'm sure at least one would be successful. If not, I'd just be captured or die. War is such a bad thing that I would literally rather be killed than participate in one, if those are my only options. (Those are almost never the only options.)

> As for the claims that the male population can't leave the country, there are plenty of exceptions when they can and even then they don't need to become soldiers.

Just because there are exceptions doesn't mean that the vast majority of Ukranian males aren't having their human rights stripped by their government. They are being enslaved in service of a war that many of them would not themselves choose to fight, as plainly evidenced by the fact that double-digit percentages of Ukranian women have fled over the western border of the country. It's shameful.

Your claims about "vast majority of Ukrainian males" and "enslaved" and "would not choose to fight" that should somehow result from double-digit women leaving the country are completely unsubstantiated. You are just making up stuff that you would like to believe.

The reality is that the war has united the nation and given purpose of being to many, to stand up to tyranny and be brave. As they say in the states: Live free or die.

What I find shameful is that someone in a cushy place far from war is telling millions to give up, let them be killed, raped and enslaved by maffia barbars so you would feel just a tiny bit better about yourself.

Facts:

Ukraine's population was 37M.

~25% of Ukrainians (~9M) have left their homes.

8.2M have left the country.

Of those 8.2M, 90% are women and children.

This suggests that there are AT LEAST around 8M men that would also have liked to leave, but are legally and practically prohibited from doing so, something that is a violation of their human rights.

The vast majority of human beings everywhere recoil from violence and do everything they can to avoid it. It is only when power structures impose harsh physical penalties for avoiding violence do they submit to wars and such.

> would also have liked to leave

you have no data about their wishes whatsoever.

The data is what the women did, and the fact that it is illegal for men to leave, and that women and children comprise 90% of the war refugees.

It is circumstantial, but it is not a big leap to assume that both women and men would prefer to avoid violence at a similar rate.

I think it is a bigger assumption that men and women would have different preferences about fleeing violence.

This is your OPINION it is decidedly NOT a FACT. Which you try to claim.

You are free to hold opinions but I'm also free to reject them.

I am not contesting that most people would like to avoid violence .. but don't assume most people will avoid violence AT ALL COST. Some people might care about their family, friends, home and freedom more than they want to avoid violence.

Some people think differently than you. I think, Ukrainians do, russians do.

I think war is bad but defending yourself against tyranny is not.

russians seem to think that war is good and inflicting violence on others is fine.

You think that war is bad and facing violence is worse than death.

These are demonstrably three differences in thought. Therefore you can't force your mindset as a fact upon Ukrainians.

You can't also just reject reality, war is horrible, but it still exists, I wish it didn't but it does. You can't just tell Ukrainians to give up and either be enslaved or flee. If they did then soon the tyrants would be attacking all the countries and you would actually need to face war.

I have many friends that have joined the local territorial defense here years before the current war and are training themselves for defending the country as volunteers. This is the spirit of defending your homeland.

Also being able to stand up for yourself is a useful skill to be had. I would recommend joining a local Krav Maga group. A very friendly but effective way of getting some self defense skills and confidence.

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