Hacker News Reader

Comment by piokuc | Hacker News Reader

What are you talking about? Can you be a bit more concrete and give a link or another reference to your "source"? You are changing subject of the discussion, derailing it into some allegations against "The West" and its past alleged wrongdoings against Russia, and you are praising Putin at the same time - that really smells like a nowadays Russian internet propaganda, there is so much of this on forums these days, this is what I'm talking about: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/rus...

View on HN

My source is the eXile, and while their archives from the years during which they published in print are in some disarray, you may safely take this article [1] by John Dolan as representative of its editorial stance on the matter under discussion. I grant that this does not constitute a primary source; on the other hand, my reading of the relevant history gives me no reason to find the claim at all incredible. Perhaps your understanding of history suggests otherwise. If so, you would do well to detail that understanding in order to support the claim you're making, rather than persisting in your attempts to discredit my statements by means of blatant ad hominem.

You seem to be reading a great deal into my statements on the subject. A more objective reading of those statements will reveal that I have uttered no more praise for Vladimir Putin than merely that he has consistently acted in Russia's interests, as is the minimal obligation of any head of state toward his nation. That's more or less what I've said about those from the West who have purported to act on Russia's behalf in recent history, as well; while I grant some of them acted in accord with their claimed motivations, others have acted in accord with their own interests and without regard to those of Russia, a claim which seems to me rather trivially defensible.

I am a citizen of the United States, and I have no particular love for Russia beyond the basic respect which any citizen of one sovereign nation may reasonably be expected to extend to another. Where you're getting the moral weighting, which you insist upon applying to my remarks in this thread, is a mystery to me, but regardless of its origins, the interpretation which results is entirely your own, and does not well represent the facts of the matter.

Of course you're welcome to your own opinion, as is anyone who participates in civil conversation, but I will thank you very kindly to desist from further accusing me of being in the pay of the Russian FSB. Quite aside from the fact that to act in such fashion would constitute a betrayal of the nation which has commanded my lifelong loyalty, I am, as already noted, subject to the laws of the United States, and I cannot imagine any way in which I could act as you've accused me of doing without placing myself in grave contravention of those laws.

[1]: http://www.exile.ru/print.php?ARTICLE_ID=6677&IBLOCK_ID=35

I did not know exile.ru till I saw the link in your comment, but what I gather from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eXile it doesn't seem to be a serious source of historical knowledge. It's a Moscow based satirical tabloid - how came you, an American citizen, know it so well?

By means of an amazing new technology on which Ames and Dolan, the eXile's erstwhile proprietors, saw fit for some reason to publish much of the same content which they included in the pages of their newspaper. This new technology of which I speak is colloquially known among anglophones as the World Wide Web. Perhaps you've heard of it?

I'm asking cause you were referring to "their archives from the years during which they published in print". Were you not suggesting you knew the "historical facts" from their printed version and it was difficult to find those articles in their online archives?

No. I was suggesting that, now that they've been booted out of Russia and retooled around an exclusively online presence which lacks any firsthand information about events in Russia and has therefore degenerated into a useless ideological exercise, they don't care very much whether their old website is navigable or indeed even working.

I'd like to say I'm not sure how you reached such an erroneous conclusion, but that wouldn't be true. I'm pretty sure that that occurred because you are proceeding from the assumption that I'm sitting in a windowless room in a Moscow office building, earning thirty-some bucks' worth of rubles a day by sitting in front of a computer typing what my FSB manager tells me to type. As I said before, you're welcome to that assumption if it pleases you to adopt it, but it's not particularly conversant with reality, not that I expect you to take my word for that.

Personal attacks, such as your repeated insinuation that a fellow user is a propagandist, are not allowed on Hacker News. Please do not do this again.

It's dismaying that the commenter most attempting to contribute substantive discussion to this thread would be treated like this. If you want to talk about things that HN is disappointingly "not free from ... apparently", such accusations belong at the top of the list.

(My comment does not endorse aaronem's arguments, only his right not to be treated uncivilly on this site.)

That it's necessary for you to include such a disclaimer, in order to avoid being misread, saddens me. I appreciate your efforts, in defense of civil discourse on HN, nonetheless.

While I don't like what Russia is doing regarding civil rights and Ukraine - accusing the people you debate of being paid to tell lies is poor form and hurts the point you're trying to make.

Especially because most people that support Putin do so not for money, but because they are Russian nationalists and consider Putin foreign policy a good idea. That's sad, and explains nicely why Russia couldn't transform into democratic country, but whatever, it doesn't mean everybody who thinks differently is paid.

I'd hate to think anyone misread me as speaking in support of Putin for any reason. To conclude, from my explanation of why people in Russia support Putin, that I must support Putin as well, strikes me as bearing the same relationship to the more ordinary jump to a desired conclusion, as an Olympic-class pole vault does to a bunny hop; further, if it's no longer possible for the average interlocutor to recognize the difference between explaining a position and supporting one, then I can only weep for the lost art of intellectual debate.

HN is a social echo chamber [http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/28232.html]. Given it's libertarian leaning, it would be a big surprise, if it would try to objectively assess a topic that is under heavy propaganda from all sides.

Actually the HN community is politically deeply divided. Complaints about its ideological bias thus tend to contradict one another. For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626420 says much the opposite.

You're right on the important thing, though. It's too much to expect HN to "objectively assess a topic that is under heavy propaganda from all sides". Objective assessment requires time, calm, reconsideration, and a high ratio of information per conclusion—plus a discourse in which people respond first to what is true in others' comments rather than to what is false in them. That bar is too high for an internet forum, or at least this one.

Whether he is paid for his propaganda work or not, or just brainwashed and honestly believing in Putin I don't know; these are equally probable options, but they have the same cause: Putin's propaganda.

Anyway, it is well known, that Russia is spamming online forums with propaganda: http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/7796 Honestly, I've seen many, many comments like that under any article criticising Putin and Kremlin, and I feel like I can recognise common traits of these comments - apart from the message there is also the weird, even though often very sophisticated language... Many people do not know what's going on, though, that's why I decided to say something, and I don't care about down-votes.

So much for intellectual debate [1], then, I suppose. Congratulations, if you like, on having genuinely astounded me; perhaps it's merely foolish naïveté on my part, but I'd never have expected anyone to conclude that I am a traitor to my country, based merely on the facts that I know a little bit about modern history and that my English is better than yours.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7630065

Welcum 2 'merika.

It's easy to assume that the problem lies with the assorted hicks, rednecks, and crackers who make up so much of this country's population.

As a Mississippi son, though, I have the good fortune to know better. After all, I doubt there are all that many hicks, rednecks, and/or crackers who participate on HN, my own humble self aside.

Have you really never previously encountered suspicions aimed at those with book larnin' and fancy talk?

Sure I have, even on HN. But, here at least, they're much more the exception than the rule, and I've never before encountered such an egregious example of the type. Even growing up in rural Mississippi, no one ever accused me of betraying my country because I talked fancy.

Yeah. Here on HN, what you see is mostly just valid skepticism of credentialism that sometimes bleeds into a backlash against all those with credentials.

True, though I don't fall foul of that myself, because I don't have any credentials for anyone to be skeptical about. I do have a tendency to indulge in rhetoric, though, and I've been pleasantly surprised on many occasions by how willing my fellow HN commenters seem to be to tolerate that deviation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com