If you have the power to do something and you don't, that's taking a side. You either oppose something or you enable it. At least own that. If you're saying you're neutral, you either agree with the unpopular side and are scared to admit it, or you can't form an opinion because you're uninformed and thus uncivil, or you feel unaffected by what's happening and thus discompassionate. Either way, that's pretty much the definition of "acting like a kid".
By the way, everything is not propaganda: anti-propaganda can just be the truth.
I think this is an interesting argument, and I think it translates to a real world example quite well. For example, if my older kid hits younger kid I have to either:
1. Punish the older kid, taking the "side" of the younger kid
2. Not punish the older kid, thus taking the "side" of the older kid
however I think there's more nuance here than just that, because either of the kids could be lying. I wasn't' there, I have no video footage or proof, so I can only investigate and interrogate, and at some point I have to make a decision. Often times it comes down to the question of which is worse? Punishing an innocent kid, or letting a crime go unpunished?
The answer to that is far from clear to me. As an authority and neutral arbiter, I have a duty to administer justice, and I don't think taking a view that punishing an innocence can be worse than not punishing a guilty (obviously individual circumstances really matter here).
I also have a full time job, and I can't arbitrate between my kids all day long. I have limited time/attention. Given that there are dozens of issues every day that come up, and I don't have enough bandwidth to handle them, some packets will by necessity have to drop.
How do you know which position on which issue is the "right" one to default too when you don't have enough information? Given your argument, you must default to one of them. What criteria do you use when you have limited info?
I say that Ukraine has the right to sovereignty and I condemn Russia's assault on that right and on its people. It goes against what I want from the society I live in. There is no nuance there.
We could talk about war crimes that are seemingly being committed in droves by the Russian side. We might find nuances there. But, there's no nuance about the crime of starting the invasion in the first place.
Pushing political commit messages is not "power". If you like like everyone around you you are not a rebel, just a conformist.
And using indiscriminate IP-location malware to annoy people is the textbook definition of evil child behavior. I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to defend here.
> By the way, everything is not propaganda: anti-propaganda can just be the truth.
How do you know what the truth is when you have no foot on the ground?
I'm not debating whether it works or whether it's the right form of activism. I'm responding to your comment. Namely you saying that taking a side is childish.
> If you like like everyone around you you are not a rebel, just a conformist.
If your goal is to follow the herd, that's bad. If it's to go in the opposite direction, that's the same thing. I'd encourage a person like that to think about more than himself.
> How do you know what the truth is when you have no foot on the ground?
Are you disputing the recent Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
Not the GP. I don't specifically dispute that. But in a time when many fictional stories can be told through video, I think it's reasonable to be unsure and neutral on things that we don't have direct knowledge about. Put another way, I think being neutral and silent by default is a necessary defense against manipulation.
I can sympathize with the sense of confusion, but this is one of the principal purposes of information warfare. When successful it does one of following things:
1. disengages people who would otherwise be opposed;
2. sows doubt and division;
3. makes people believe the propaganda is true.
We often fixate on #3, but #1 and #2 are the principal goals of today's information warfare, because they're much easier to achieve. When the other side's population doesn't know what to think, you're in a great position. It's effectively demobilizing the enemy.
But what if the purpose of the manipulation is to suppress dissent, or at least encourage passive acceptance of the status quo, by convincing people remain to neutral and silent?
To whom? If everyone followed the rule you're proposing, the only people they could speak out to are people who share their firsthand experience or domain expertise. Communicating further would necessitate secondhand information or some form of media which can't be trusted, as it could possibly contain some manipulating element. Who could Ukrainians ask for help from? The Russians? Would everyone else be required to fly to Ukraine to try to verify the existence of the war firsthand before having an opinion?
There are more important things than being made a fool of sometimes. The risk of being manipulated exists no matter what you do, or don't do, and you can never have perfect knowledge of any situation, even if you're an eyewitness, because human perception itself is fallible, limited to a single perspective and prone to self-deception.
You might not like it, fair enough, but expressing one's opinion in commit messages is neither childish nor an instrumentalisation by any government.
It's childish because it's incredibly naive to think that commit messages are going to change anyone's mind. Instead they will look like someone preaching for no reason. Next, how about doing an online petition as well? /s
If you can't do that, but still want to engage in the discussion on the topic, your standpoint is clear. You're not some holier person not taking a stand. You have taken one, you just don't dare to spell it out.
That's not the topic at hand. The topic is, you don't need to pollute every thing you work on out there with your preachy opinions on every single topic, especially when you are whole-fully ignorant about what's actually happening, the in-and-outs of the conflict, because you are in a state of constant propaganda, whether you are in Russia or in the West.
And this is not just about the conflict at hand, it's about this disgusting habit these days of bringing politics in all walks of life where it was not before.
People who claim there were no politics before, were just oblivious to others' struggle. Which is ok, but it still happened, you were just sheltered or privileged.
Are the authors of the change in question actually in Ukraine? And I'm pretty sure that technical minded people there could find better uses for their talents, rather than petty vandalism
I can't remember when people cared about the bombs falling everyday in Yemen. How absurd is it for people to suddenly care and cry publicly about one country's conflict while another much bloodier one, not too far away, is being completely ignored. Is their blood less red? Are their children worth less? Systemic racism maybe, since these are not white people?
Mass media (including social media nowadays) is what shapes what people care and feel concerned about. It's not about people's values, this goes on to say a lot more about how easy people can be manipulated to project violence onto anything they had no clue about 5 minutes ago, as long as you repeat it all day long.
Your cause is not more important than thousands of other causes, and my refusal to spend my time amplifying your viewpoint does not in any sense imply I agree with the opposing view.
* russia invaded ukraine
* vaccines work
* wear a mask
* black lives matter
* trans women are women
* abortion is a right
then you're a pro-russian, vaccine-denying, anti-mask, white supremacist, transphobic, misogynist?
The list of Bad Things is endless, and failing to address any one of them does not make you in favor of that Bad Thing. It just doesn't.
You're just trying to bully people into spending their time amplifying your particular protest, and bullying in itself is a Bad Thing.
Are you saying they were agreeing with the oppressor? It must take some serious mental gymnastics on your part to write such statement.
There is not 'I can explain it' or 'this is not what it seems' or 'they must have a reason' or 'just kidding' here. This is not normal behavior in humans.
There is not any gray area about the war crimes of the Russian army. Had been videotaped, narrated, proven and reported extensively. Each building is a proof. And now they are talking about using chemical weapons to speed up this genocide. Seriously, what Russians were expecting? A clap?
Not taking sides? We are animals brain-wired to develop a strong reaction of seek and destroy in this cases. In less civilized times the murderers would be hunted and mashed to grinded meat.
Not more excuses. Don't call us kids, silly, ignorant, inconvenient or Russophobes. We are furious. We want this to stop. Right now.
How about not taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing one side is black and the other white with absolutely no gradient in the middle? Also, propaganda goes both sides, just like in absolutely every conflict in History. Stop being a tool of your own government.