You can't post like this to this forum. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30510198.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506315.

Most of people here has no any experience of fighting against even a soft authoritarian regime. You just don't have a clue how it looks like where the police officers beat you in the chamber in the night and you are screaming and nobody help you, they torture you putting a bottle in your anus and smashing your teeth. It's completely immoral to blame people they are fighting not enough, you don't know NOTHING about it.

My sympathies, these are hard times and there are very few absolutes. I really hope that at least someone in a position to make a difference will do so and soon because the clock is running out for lots of people if that doesn't happen.

Note that you are closer to the point of origin so people will automatically assume that you have more agency than they do. Some people in Russia are already taking action, depending on how many will stand with them they may succeed, there is ultimately safety in numbers, you can't jail a whole country.

>whether you live in a pretend democracy like Russia or the USA

Thanks, I've always maintained that there are no real democracies. Democracy is typically a sophisticated form of dictatorship. They are sophisticated enough that most people believe they have 'rights' and so on.

Of course democracy is a dictatorship. If it's working well it's a dictatorship by the majority of citizens.

If you aren't in the majority democracy could be not so rosy, but from a utilitarian point of view is far better than dictatorship by the kleptocracy. A kleptocracy is what Russia / N.Korea and meany 3rd world countries have.

But the West isn't either of those. People in the West tend to manage themselves using a democractic dictatorship whose dictators have decided to ceed a great deal of their powers to laws and judges. Mostly that power is about adjudicating property disputes, because the power they ceed is mostly the ability to seize property and labour. In a capitalist economy those things are exchanged freely between individuals so the democratic dictators get almost no say. This system is occasionally called "rule of law".

Capitalism has its failure modes too - a total monopoly is a dictatorship, a dictatorship of far fewer than a democracy or your average kleptocracy. So the West is a democracy that manages a capitalist economy, steering it away from that failure mode.

I'd say that's the best system mankind has invented so far. I expect China would disagree. They have a different different sort of system that manages a capitalist economy. While I think they are wrong which one is best, it's probably fair to say the jury is still out.

Think of it as a continuum and it starts to be more tractable.

I think every adult knows that there are limits to what you can do in any country.

I can imagine Putin saying that to the Ukranians.

Those missiles that are killing 6 year old girls aren't building themselves and paying for themselves. I respect that it's tough, but you have to respect this company's right to do the things you can't or aren't willing to do.

Did you hear about the starving children in Yemen? Or they don't count because not European or "white?"

Whataboutism and cheating at the Olympics. You could tell me the year is 1982.

Right, which is exactly why companies / other nations / etc are having to step in to stop the Russian regime, because clearly the Russian people can't / won't.

I mean, nobody does, right? We’re all quite comfortable enough even with a regime in charge. Not much to be gained by the individual if they keep putting their head on the block.

I live in Ukraine, I was on Maidan in 2014. So I know how it is.

Russians on the other hand don't. The are constantly afraid while in Ukraine we are ready to risk lives for freedom and democracy.

Good @Russian, I wish nothing but peace for Russians and Ukrainians. We must stand together against our autocratic profit and war-driven regimes. Especially here in the US.

So from your perspective it is ok to generalize and discriminate the minority? Sorry, but how are you better than Putin then?

How is he better than Putin? I think it’s safe to assume he never invaded a sovereign nation? (Or murdered any journalists, or shot down a passenger jet, or murdered political rivals, or bombed apartment blocks, or attacked foreign elections, or sponsored mercenary groups to overthrow African governments)

but the narrative is the same. if minority disagrees it’s ok to fuck them over.

If you genuinely believe that russian people chose to live under the dictatorship, then following the same logic you could say that african-americans chose to live in slavery. Does it also sound reasonable to you?

The statement “oh well, you are a minority, so you deserve to be discriminated” is quite an ignorant thing to say. Don’t you think so?

The passenger jet example isn't the best, since the US shot down a passenger jet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

>"I think it’s safe to assume"

No it is not. Do a little research and you will find the examples of everything mentioned.

do my research on what? on russian dictatorship? on logic? on slavery? lol If you see inconsistency in my reasoning, I’m happy to hear your criticism, but not lazy “go do research”, coz you have nothing to say

>"I think it’s safe to assume he never invaded a sovereign nation? (Or murdered any journalists, or shot down a passenger jet, or murdered political rivals, or bombed apartment blocks, or attacked foreign elections, or sponsored mercenary groups to overthrow African governments)"

West done most of the above.

Bystanders living in Russia are defacto supporting the regime by paying taxes, working, buying goods, etc.

Leaving isn’t free, but it’s much safer than protesting inside Russia.

But not as complicit as say the German government, which is controlled by a much smaller number of people and made a disproportionally larger contribution to the Russian war coffers.

Leaving isn't just expensive, but there are also matters such as visas.

Economic pressure will eventually reduce the threat that Russia poses. This is a long-term strategy.

It'll take years, and it will drag the Russian people into poverty.

Sad, but what's the alternative?

With a little luck this avoids a war. Russians might suffer, but they would also suffer of we fight a war.

Agreed, it won't work. It won't remove Putin.

But it means that if we have to fight a war with Russia. The Russia we'll be fighting will be poor.

I'm guessing that's the cold logic behind it.

Mind you, sanctions probably aren't at that level yet. Oil and gas still flows.

To clarify, I'm saying sanctions is a crappy tool. But there are no better options.

NATO isn't going to liberate Russians from Putin. That seems like a bad idea.