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Comment by thaw45645624312 | Hacker News Reader

Apologies for the unrelated comment, but as someone with origins in Belarus, I find it absolutely gutting and disheartening when people see the country’s name (in this case, on a chart), overlook it, and lump it together with some generalized notion of “Ukraine and Russia.” These are three distinct cultures, three separate nations. Sorry, I have no intention of sparking a debate or political argument, just expressing the exasperation.

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I think you're all reading way too much into it. Russia and Ukraine are both in the top of both charts, the others aren't.

Belarus people are fine, the Belarus government has been horrible for a long time, it's not that surprising that people have a bad opinion of the country. And it doesn't look like it's going to get any better: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russias-quiet-...

All the people from Belarus I know fled and will never go back, they have parents and friends who've been jailed for facebook likes, family members tortured, &c.

> Belarus people are fine, the Belarus government has been horrible for a long time, it's not that surprising that people have a bad opinion of the country.

I would say the same could be argued for "Russia people" as well. They didn't select their dictator either, and have no way to remove him.

> They didn't select their dictator either, and have no way to remove him.

Political power comes from the consent of the ruled. All polities have a way to remove dictators. It's not pretty and causes a lot of harm, but then so do dictators.

I mean, they do, but it involves risking your livelihood and/or life.

There's no "or" there, serious challenge to the state is a life threatening endeavour in Russia.

That's a bit of revisionist history. Russians definitely chose Putin. Not all of them did, of course, but too many to ignore.

Just like many Italians chose Berlusconi and many Germans chose Hitler.

I feel sorry for the Russians who didn't choose this, but we shouldn't let the ones who did off the hook.

That's a big fallacy - Putin is a dictator. The first rule of democracy is that democracy must not kill itself to prove it exists. The same goes for Hitler and the other dictators. Democracy is not the solution but a tool. This tool is being cynically used by these criminals. Sure they get elected. But once they're in power they destroy it. They throw everything out of the window. This is not democracy. Don't fool yourself.

It's not a fallacy, and I think we agree on most points.

Russians today can't get rid of Putin through votes.

Russians in the past did vote him into power though. Because of that, they carry a part of the responsibility for what's happening today. Don't let them off the hook.

Slovakia and Estonia too get lumped in with Ukraine and Russia.

I assume they meant "Ukraine and Russia" as a synonym for "eastern Europe" as a whole, but it is a bit dismissive.

As an Estonian, I especially don't like being called eastern europe(ean). We're not, we're northern, according to UN geoscheme classification, according to EuroVoc, and I mean you can also just read the wikipedia page of a place to know where it is at. Furthermore, socially, culturally, and tech advancements wise, we're as far as you could possibly be from Russia association at this point.

Keep it up, if you wave your EuroVoc "NT1 Baltic States" designation harder maybe Pohjoismaiden neuvosto will give up and let you in. Or maybe not: https://satwcomic.com/party-crasher

So, what magic thing would convince you if not the UN, and if you do not respect the people who live in Estonia? I may be off base here, but you sound like a specific someone our people call vatnik. Maybe you'll only be happy if we all just call ourselves Russia.

Finland can into Nordic because it was part of Sweden for 600 years, all the rest all share a tight language family.

You on the other hand can't point to common language, have a paltry 70 years as part of a nordic country, and are literally across a sea. Nothing for it, you need to engineer a breakup of the continental plate and ship your bit across the sea my dude.

Nordic !== Northern. Educate yourself on the terms you use.

Dude, anyone can go and look at who are members of the Nordic council, you should try it.

Estonia maybe but I have never seen this for Slovakia

The geography data seems very amateur, to be polite.

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