Belarusian regime’s thugs shut down Imaguru, the country’s key startup hub • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by sergeykish » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #95

koonsolo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe isn't the world policeman. Most neighboring countries want to join EU for good reason. In Ukraines case, do you really think they don't want to become more like any EU country? I know plenty of people from Lviv. That 'coup' was not staged by 'the west', but was a force within their own population that want a better standard of life. So please don't compare US involvement in any Middle east country to the EU an…

Just because a country wants to join the EU doesn’t mean the EU should send weapons and foment a civil war there. It is scary and absurd that this needs to be said, yet here we are. Arguing for starting a civil war because of “freedom.” Where have we heard this before? Lviv/Western Ukraine is also very anti-Russia and has been for a long time (pre-WW2). Ukraine is a very divided country and there is more than one opi…

We are united against Russia aggression. No one wants their city destroyed like Donetsk and Luhansk. A lot of people are switching their language to Ukrainian to distance themselves from all the crime that Russia does, myself included.

Kharkiv, east of Ukraine.

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

#242

Post by maratc » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:54 AM UTC

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.

If you had a manufacturing plant bringing $10M, the government takes over your plant, so now they get $10M. If you had a bank bringing $10M, the government takes over your bank, so now they get $10M. If you had a property-holding company bringing $10M, the government takes over your company and your properties, so now they get $10M.

But if you had a software company bringing $10M, and the government takes over your software company and puts everyone in jail, they now get nothing.

Moreover, where they had, say, $100k in taxes previously, they have $0 in taxes now.

What you describe is possible, e.g. out of spite, but it does not make any financial sense.

Everyone in Belarus is "very careful to stay entirely out of politics". Still banks and plants get appropriated. Software companies do not.

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

#243

Post by sergeykish » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 10:25 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #218

sudosysgen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey is not going to fight the Russian airforce in the Donbass which is bolstered by the most advanced IADS and modern jets with F-16s. It would be a horribly bad idea. Turkey never fought Russia in Syria. They fought Assad's government with some help from Russian irregulars, even then they got stalled and recently had losses. Russia was however unwilling to escalate and there were no air battles, for example.

>most advanced IADS that is the key point. Turkey mastered how to use drones to kill Pantsir-S1 in Syria, and immediately applied that in Libya and Azerbaijan with great success. Pantsir-S1 - the first were brought to Donbass in August 2014 with the tank battalions which hit near Ilovaysk - is what caused Ukraine to stop using air force in Donbass. With Pantsir-S1 advantage removed, the tank-based Russian forces ther…

Right, except Ukraine is not going to attack.

Ukraine has to modernize army (including anti-air), stabilize economy (around 3% year to year growth prior to COVID). With each year more and more people understand that Russia is, unite against aggressor. It forces our government to implement much needed reforms. Meanwhile Russia economy is crumbling. All we need is time.

Unfortunately question today is not about deoccupation, but about preserving our freedom and sovereignty.

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

#244

Post by rafaelm » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

unnouinceput wrote: post #157

rafaelm wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak for Venezuela, and the corrupt murderer dictator party has been in power for just over 20 years. The country was completely ruined by the "corrupt murderer dictator" without any input from "the West".

I would not call US sanctions "without input from the West" https://www.state.gov/venezuela-related-sanctions/

The sanctions started 2-3 years ago. 5 years ago I had to buy milk and diapers for my newborn girl in the black market because the govt destroyed the economy. So don't try to "explain" the situation to me, since I'm living it in the flesh.

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

#245

Post by rafaelm » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

stadium wrote: post #166

unnouinceput wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call US sanctions "without input from the West" https://www.state.gov/venezuela-related-sanctions/

Pretty sure sanctions didn't start until after they nationalized (stole) the major foreign owned companies.

Not only that, they have been in power for over 20 years, with the highest oil prices ever. They've consistenly stolen all of the country's resources and destroyed the economy during all these years. The sanctions started 2-3 years ago.

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

#246

Post by wwtrv » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #136

wwtrv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what exactly would Russia gain by invading Central Europe? Even now they can barely afford maintaining their occupation of Crimea.

Nothing, but that didn't stop Putin from his past military misadventures.

Not that I’m in any way justifying them but Russia’s actions in the Ukraine might be considered to be defensive in nature (from a purely pragmatic real-politik point of view).

Ukraine used to be pretty much a puppet state of Russia until 2014. When pro-western parties cam to power Putin decided to just peel off what he can (Crimea) since they are are gonna loose the rest anyway and start permanent border conflict in Donbas so that the Ukraine would never be accepted into NATO.

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

#247

Post by rurban » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #168

arthur_sav wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, ask all the Arab Spring countries. In the history of regime changes by the West and by West i mean US, it has never really worked out. In fact, it always destabilises the countries. Not supporting the current regime, just saying history has proven West supported coups don't work.

History has proven west supported coups mostly work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... From Costa Rica to South Korea to Japan to modern Iraq to Egypt in 1952 to Lebanon etc.. Iran didn't work out. Some of the central American operation didn't work out. Cuba didn't. But things are not static either. Things have a habit of working out given a longer timescale.

"Mostly" is arguably a loaded term. It might have worked for the US, but certainly not for the native people.

Let's start with Italian fascism and Mussolini, financed by the US. Worked ok, everybody was happy. Next Hitler financed by the US. Worked ok, everybody was happy. Until their partners started to threaten Singapore and those pesty sunken ships. US and Britain suddenly not so happy anymore. Let's turn it around.

Next, coups in Turkey, Greece, ... and massive interventions in Italy and France. Military fascist dictatorships were of course great for their countries, and their people, esp. the workers.

Or East Asia. Japan's and Korea as prime examples but also most others, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Kambodia. Turned out extremely well for Indonesia and Kambodia, lots of dead socialists. Japan still ruled Korea via proxy military dictatorship, but everybody loved the new fascist systems in Korea and other proxies. A few thousand protesters were killed in massacres, but workers protests need to be fought hard, right? Socialism.

Latin America also loved their US coups and military dictatorships. The few socialists were tortured or flown out to the sea, and business could flourish. Happy times. Certainly the best system in the world. Freedom.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #195

sudosysgen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important thing about drone warfare campaigns is that they are only successful if the enemy is unwilling to challenge your air supremacy over your own territory. This is the case in Ukraine right now and in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia is unwilling, right now, to challenge all of Ukrainian airspace, and Armenia/Russia was unwilling to challenge Azerbaijani airspace. The moment this change is when the dro…

It's strange that any of this is up for discussion. If Russia wants Ukraine, they're going to take it. Ukraine has no ability to fight with Russia. NATO isn't going to do anything directly (they'll push some weapons into Ukraine, that's it). What's going to happen is that Russia will slice Ukraine at the Dnieper River and also take all of Ukraine's Black Sea territory. That will include taking Odsesa and Kharkiv. By…

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by avodonosov » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

thamer wrote: post #235

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 o…

Well, the "officially ruled a homicide" part seems false too, the reference after this sentence in the wikipedia article leads to a tut.by news post, where nothing is said about "ruled a homicide".

But overall, I agree, his case looks unlawful and politically motivated, from what I can find in the public sources (the wikipedia and tut.by) - he was sentenced for stealing computers that US Embassy provided to his NGO, while US Department released a statement that they don't have any claims against him.

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

#250

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #218

sudosysgen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey is not going to fight the Russian airforce in the Donbass which is bolstered by the most advanced IADS and modern jets with F-16s. It would be a horribly bad idea. Turkey never fought Russia in Syria. They fought Assad's government with some help from Russian irregulars, even then they got stalled and recently had losses. Russia was however unwilling to escalate and there were no air battles, for example.

>most advanced IADS that is the key point. Turkey mastered how to use drones to kill Pantsir-S1 in Syria, and immediately applied that in Libya and Azerbaijan with great success. Pantsir-S1 - the first were brought to Donbass in August 2014 with the tank battalions which hit near Ilovaysk - is what caused Ukraine to stop using air force in Donbass. With Pantsir-S1 advantage removed, the tank-based Russian forces ther…

Pantsir is basically a truck mounted Tunguska. It is not the real threat, the real threat is S-300 and S-400 with interceptor cover. Turkey has had no luck against that at all.

Pantsir is not even an IADS. It is at its core 50 year old technology. S300 and S400 are fundamentally different and an order of magnitude more dangerous, they are real air defence systems.

The F-16 would have no situational awareness advantage. It would be without any AWACS and the Russian jets would be networked into the S400 system and sharing data. They would have the clear and obvious situational awareness advantage.

And this is only if Turkey is willing to fight the Russian airforce. So far even in Syria Turkey has not dated to do so, there is no chance Turkey will dare to do so that close to Russia.