Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction

Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by TekMol on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:02PM (#36033150)

I'm surprised no one here is arguing in favor of Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Russia has 140 million people. How many of them are in favor of their government? Shouldn't some of them find their way to Hacker News?

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by maerF0x0 on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:38PM (#36033626)

I did, but as you see HN's culture has turned from quality of discussion voting to agree/disagree voting.

Meanwhile we have distinguished political science professors being dismissed without rebuttal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&t=1s

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by EA-3167 on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:05PM (#36033182)

Why bother? Surely the community + mods here would crack down on that, and this isn't a site where you can just throw out a load of nonsense and expect that no one will analyze it to find flaws. Add that to the low user count (a few million a month compared to hundreds of millions or more for things like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter and FB) and limited resources are clearly better spent elsewhere.

Plus ideologically the people who support Russia most vocally online are Western tankies, and I don't think those guys would do well here.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by 4bpp on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:15PM (#36033310)

Are you, or anyone you know, arguing against its actions in any forum that is Russian-operated and overwhelmingly pro-Russian in this war? Few people have a taste for deliberately exposing themselves to overwhelming social disapproval and hostility, and HN is not even primarily a political forum. As a hypothetical pro-Russian user, why would you choose getting yourself dogpiled and possibly risking a ban which would prevent you from using HN to discuss technology, rather than just steering clear of the topic?

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by lisasays on Monday May 22, 2023 @03:35PM (#36035675)

As a hypothetical pro-Russian user, why would you ...?

Because as a troll, your goal certainly isn't to be popular. It's to dilute the narrative, and wear people down. For which getting dogpiled is just par for the course.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by pjc50 on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:08PM (#36033226)

They are, and obviously they're getting downvoted to oblivion.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by lisasays on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:25PM (#36033464)

From their language they seem not to be Russian natives, but rather Westerners who have bought into the Russian (government's) narrative.

Pure mindfuck all the way down, in any case.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by happytoexplain on Monday May 22, 2023 @12:07PM (#36033204)

I keep Show Dead on, and I often see one or two pro-Russia posts whenever the topic comes up. However, pro-Russia sentiment on this war is corollary to a trollish sarcastic attitude, so they get flagged.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by themgt on Monday May 22, 2023 @01:02PM (#36033917)

There's a very large difference between arguing in favor of Russia's actions versus attempting to posit any degree of complexity and nuance in explaining how we reached this point, who shoulders responsibility, what a realistic end to the conflict is likely to look like, etc.

The recent piece in Harper's does a good job of laying out "the other side" i.e. realism and historical context against the "Putin is a delusional Hitlerian madman bent on dominating Europe" theory: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

On the current trajectory though, the west's belief in its own eschatological hegemony looks like it's already collapsed the "unipolar moment" of the last 30 years and there's a good chance of us continuing to climb the escalation ladder into World War 3, so the narrative that none of the sowing of this conflict was remotely our fault is providing an important psychological bulwark to steel everyone's nerves for what we may reap.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by kvonhorn on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @06:42AM (#36042358)

Thanks, I've been looking for an article like this for over a year. Whenever I've requested this perspective in the past, the only reply I've received is that I'm an ignorant, brainwashed American.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by timaios on Monday May 22, 2023 @01:34PM (#36034312)

Any such post is immediately flagged and dissapears. Actually it does not have to be in favor of Russia, it is enough that you contest "facts" as they are presented in the western media.

First hand experience.

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Re:Bakhmut Is Gone: An Aerial Look at the War’s Destruction by TheLoafOfBread on Monday May 22, 2023 @02:46PM (#36035172)

It would be like arguing in favor of Germany's actions ... in 1943

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