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Comment by willvarfar | Hacker News Reader

One plausible explanation is straightforward corruption. The captain was paid to do this. Its easy to imagine him being approached when in port in Russia. And he was prepared to do it in part because of feeling secure in being Chinese flagged so there would be no repercussions.

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Russian ships got away with doing the anchor drag sabotage multiple times already such as in Norway in 2021 on a remote research station https://youtu.be/pw2lO4sxZn8

There was a NYTimes article that said Russian GRU agency has turned to recruiting petty criminals to do arson and shootings across Europe because most of their spies have been kicked out. And the main side effect is they are sloppy and easy to catch unlike professionals.

Very likely in this case.

It's much easier and cheaper to support criminals and criminal organizations in western countries to sow division and destruction, instead of installing their own networks. Hell, they managed to get criminal elected in USA, for a second time. I wonder when the west stop sleeping and start doing something about it. Or is everyone waiting for real nuke strikes and fallout, like in the Hollywood movies?

There is nothing particularly new about today's modern politics. Here is a rant by George Carlin from 1988 about a previous government nearly 40 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og9DV0Si8bs

You can pretty much find-replace terms to closely match what we imagine George would say in 2028.

So nothing really changes, and the broad general positions of the parties doesn't really change. People just have short memories.

Honestly, I'm not finding it very easy to imagine a Chinese captain speaking Russian, nor that said captain would think its perfectly normal to encounter a Chinese speaking Russian.

And what is the pitch? "Hey, how about committing a very visible crime you will get caught doing and will risk your ability to ever captain again?" Oh yes, very enticing.

Do you imagine that all the worlds sea captains, when in foreign ports, cannot communicate with anyone there?

There was quite likely a large sum of money involved.

The pitch is dubious, but China and Russia share a border. Chinese speaking Russians and Russian speaking Chinese are a dime a dozen.

Isn't it more plausible that it was an accident? Anchors cut these cables all the time.

No, because the ship was zigzagging over the sea cable.

Just to be clear: that is a claim not a fact.

100 miles of anchor dragging is a lot.

Such a big boat cannot zigzag. Do you have any links?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42268849

Big boats cannot turn? It just takes longer and is harder to hide but all boats can do it.

Do you have a source on that?

Source?

A source. I need a source.

Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion.

No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered.

You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence.

Do you have a degree in that field?

A college degree? In that field?

Then your arguments are invalid.

No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation.

Correlation does not equal causation.

CORRELATION. DOES. NOT. EQUAL. CAUSATION.

You still haven't provided me a valid source yet.

Nope, still haven't.

best slam poetry contender I've seen on HN yet!

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