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Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

> There is very rarely ever a situation in which Good vs Evil is a correct or useful framing, even if it may be a comforting and inspiring story to tell ourselves.

To use the example already given, how about Ukraine? I have a very hard time not placing that in a good vs evil framing.

It’s true that Ukraine isn’t perfectly good, and Russia isn’t purely evil, but it’s pretty damn close.

Here’s a nation that was just keeping to themselves and growing closer to the ones that didn’t want to annex them (surprise surprise) and the evil overlord thought that was too threatening and decided to pre-emptively annex them.

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Emotionally it makes perfect sense, and it's great for propaganda purposes, but rationally it has no appeal. How does making Russia into an enemy that needs to be obliterated and destroyed for the safety of the world help anybody or serve to end the conflict? If you say they are evil and don't want to destroy them totally, what is the point of labeling other than for propaganda?

Ok. Russia evil, Ukraine good. Now what? Do we sit around and wait for the chosen one? Is Zelensky the one? How much time should we give him? Maybe Trump is the one?

Don't get me wrong, I'm swede and like most here I'm firmly on Ukraine's side and see the pure evil shit Russian military does _every _day without any illusions. But this framing of good vs evil does not seem to pan out. A common sentiment is just to wipe out Russia from the map. And tempting as it might be, that doesn't seem very noble/good and the alternative, "Russian people finds the good in them and throw out the oligarchy forcefully and install democracy", is very naive. I mean even the US, a fully armed populace of strong freeminded men can't seem to see that they are treading the same path as Russia and take action. How reasonable is it then to have that expectation of a people systematically disempowered for decades.

"Throw the Russians out of Ukraine" would suffice. No need to wipe anything out. (Except what logistically is needed to achieve said goal.)

Good vs evil is simplistic, but it serves as shorthand for "it's worth fighting for".

"Good vs evil is simplistic, but it serves as shorthand for "it's worth fighting for"."

Are you in Donbas currently? If not, you are not fighting anything.

> Are you in Donbas currently? If not, you are not fighting anything.

That's a very simplistic world-view. One does not have to be on the frontlines to help an effort. People donating to https://ukrainedefensefund.org/ are still "fighting", even though they aren't literally gunning people down in Donbas.

No, it is not simplistic. People donating are, well, donating. It is a right thing, a noble thing, it is a necessary thing.

But they are not fighting. They do not take the same risk, they do not suffer the same, they do no share burden with those that do.

How do you want this worded? It’s worth giving the Ukrainians a fuckton of equipment, and potentially organized military intervention for? You can summarize that as ‘fighting’.

The problem is that as a European, giving in here means they come closer. Next time it’s the Polish border, then the German.

No one said they were.

Why would you want to wipe Russia off the map? I don’t think we’d achieve anything with that except our own destruction. I’d settle for giving them a good punch in the face instead of strongly worded letters.

Asassinate Putin, a sponsored coup. Something like that.

Good vs evil is simplistic enough that It can be used to convince basically anyone that those are a good idea. The only thing we really have to be wary of is that thing someone said:

The only thing that’s necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

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