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Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

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Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#231

Post by dang »

baybal2 wrote: post #199
dang wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war. What? Even in the hellish flamewar of this thread, that stands out as beyond the pale. I appreciate your substantive comments but you can't keep breaking the site guidelines like this. Please stop it so we don't have to ban you again. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26892864 . https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthrea…

Yep, Have to admit. I totally lost my nerve here.

Appreciated.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#232

Post by baybal2 »

dang wrote: post #230
baybal2 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slur it is, but I have yet to see a more profound understanding of state of the country. A regime that masterfully plays hate, both from country's own century long social self-immolation, and its own spin. The crux of the issue is very much that Kremlin plays, and direct this bottomless reservoir of insecurity, and anger, but even without it, the country's tragic fate through whole modern history will keep moving i…

Doing more of what I asked you to stop is no recipe for staying unbanned. I realize you have a lot of experience in that part of the world, and your substantive contributions are welcome here, but outright slurs are just so totally unacceptable that, no matter how much we value your substantive contributions, we are going to have to ban you if you keep it up. Stop it now please.

I was trying to be as less inflamatory as possible above.

If you think it still should not be there, feel free to delete that post.

I'd say the original post is tactless in its wording, and is expressly offensive.

Even if any point can be drawn from it, it wouldn't still be possible to twist, or rephrase it without still sounding offensively.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#233

Post by mycall »

jakozaur wrote: post #143

I guess a lot of software engineers will continue to move aboard. Next door Poland got generous visa schema and hungry for tech talent with low cost of living. Salaries are getting close to Western countries. 1. If you are from Belarus you can get "humanitarian visa" for 10 euro, that gives you one year of work permit with no strings attached and no job offer priori. 2. Still getting regular work visa is very easy fo…

Do you know if #3 also works with Hungary?

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#234

Post by throwaway894345 »

sergeykish wrote: post #223
throwaway894345 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GDP in Ukraine is ~3,5k$ per year. I don’t know what to make of this comment; it’s certainly wrong by a wide margin. The entire country’s GDP cannot be less than I take home per paycheck. I thought maybe it was per-capita GDP, but the 2021 IMF estimate is $13k—almost 4x your figure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

That's value of GDP (nominal) per capita, year 2019. 2021 estimate is $3,984 [1]. Not much, yes, but that's in post USSR country that's fighting eighth year Russia agression. PPP is purchasing power parity. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...

Ah, thank you for clarifying.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#235

Post by thamer »

avodonosov wrote: post #173

> whose husband died in jail after standing at elections in opposition to the Lukashenko regime. What? He was in prison in 2004-2006, but died in 2014.

Indeed, this is incorrect. He didn't die in prison but his death was likely precipitated by the conditions of his imprisonment.

From Wikipedia[1]:

> In March 2005, in Orsha prison, Marynich suffered a cerebral stroke. The stroke was provoked by the prison administration when Marynich was denied access to his medicines after a very hard transportation in unheated train wagons from Minsk to Orsha. [...] Marynich died on 17 October 2014, at the age of 74. His death was officially ruled a homicide, caused by the stroke he received in prison 9 years earlier.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Marynich

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#236

Post by reducesuffering »

varispeed wrote: post #76

I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their geography, or more precisely their neighbour? If they removed their dictator from office, then it may be very likely that Russia will use the situation to do a land grab or finance instability. If current dictator knows that, then perhaps in a twisted way they want to keep status quo, so at least people can live without fear of the civil war. This is of course u…

> I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their geography

Prisoners of Geography is literally the name of the book determining this exact conclusion. Russia's history involves lots of invasions. (WW2 Germany, Mongols, etc.) Because of this, they want to secure the area around them geographically, whether by politically-aligned states or by controlling the territory themselves. West of Moscow is just huge plains, there's no defensible moat, so they think they need to secure all of the area until they geographically have a defensible moat for their army. That moat / natural barrier is the narrower choke-point on the left side of Poland, the Romanian mountains, Black Sea, and Baltic sea. That's also not-coincidentally what the USSR controlled. So Russia wants Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, and even Poland. That's why you see even Poland under Russian influence operations, as another commenter pointed out.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#237

Post by pezezin »

disabled wrote: post #172
vagrantJin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like an excellent read. Will definitely get my hands on a copy. I don't know what it is about East European authors' ability to explore the human condition with exacting clarity. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

They have a good command of language in general, and especially when it comes to expression. In Slavic languages, there are often a lot of words that have the exact same meaning (compared to English or romance languages), but you have to learn individually how to use the right one to capture the moment best for your situation. Also, at least for the Slavic language that I speak (not a native speaker), it is clean, di…

   English has 3 grammatical cases, 12 tenses, and 1 gender (natural gender).
But only pronouns retain those 3 grammatical cases, for nouns is only 1, or 2 if you count the genitive. Same for verbs, there are only 3 real tenses (present, past/participle and gerund), every other tense is formed with auxiliary verbs. Also, no verb-subject agreement.

I speak Spanish and compared to Romance languages, English grammar is so much simpler ;)

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#238

Post by anovikov »

mariksolo wrote: post #155
T-A wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

35% of Russians disapprove of Putin, according to this: https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/ 41% of Americans disapprove of Biden, according to this: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

I personally don't have a ton of trust in polls like that (referring to the Russian one). It is a strong claim to make that Putin is more popular in Russia than Biden in the US.

It's not a strong claim. He is absolutely a lot more popular. Popularity doesn't work in the same way as in the U.S., in the Orthodox culture where there is no concept of independent opinion: doublethink is innate.

Russian thinking is wholly totalitarian, in the good old Hitleresque sense (while ofc, Russian state is absolutely NOT totalitarian, it's just a soft dictatorship not unlike vast majority of governments in the poor world). Totalitarian thinking means that Putin is "us", i.e. government, State overall, country, nation, and society are the same, they are inseparable: most Russians could not explain how is "society" is different from "state", or discard the whole concept of "society" as Western weed. Rejecting Putin thus means self-rejecting. Very few people can even think of it.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#239

Post by anovikov »

worik wrote: post #208
maratc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is irrelevant to my point, which is: If you have a 2,500-strong manufacturing plant, the government can come and take over your plant. If you have a 2,500-strong bank, the government can come and take over your bank. If you have a 2,500-strong property-holding company, the government can come and take over your company and your properties. But if you have a 2,500-strong software development center, the governmen…

I disagree. They take over your software company, and put you in jail. Sure they do not get your IP, but you loose it. I will hazard a guess that the software development centres striving in Belarus are very careful to stay entirely out of politics. Belarus is not a democracy.

Except owners have foreign passports and never come to Belarus since many years. Only some middle managers are in, and key team is usually in the U.S. or in Cyprus, too.

Re: Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub

#240

Post by sergeykish »

minipci1321 wrote: post #134
levosmetalo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me it is "here". The fact that for you it is "there" Sure, and I know some people for whom it was also "here" and now it's "there" because they can't live any more in their hometown because of war. For you guys "here" in Kiev Donbas is also "there". > Besides, it might be a novel concept for you, but here we have an actual elections. People can always vote for some Russian puppet (Medvedchuk, for example) and "…

> NATO is happy to have war against Russia or Russian allies to the last Ukrainian solder and civilian. I think this devalues your all other arguments. Where it comes from?

That's Russian propaganda.

There is no independent TV in Russian Federation for 20 years. State controlled media spreads all possible lies. Everything to distract from internal problems. Right now state breaks down peaceful protests, 1600 detained, each is fined by about $200, that's almost half of the average wage ($500). Opposition leader in jail by fabricated claim, requires medical help, poisoned previous year. Income is falling, retirement age increased. State leaders are corrupt beyond possible.

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