Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

The point here is the concept of Sportswashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportswashing

When he plays professional chess, Grischuk _is_ representing Russia, he's not just an individual. A win for him is a win for Russia, and the chess commentators constantly say things like "I'm excited for the Hungary vs Russia final" and "looks like Russia will come out on top in this game".

In one of the "Russian Roulette" episode when the Ukrainian army circle and bomb some city in Dombas, the journalist notice a swastika pendant on one of the soldier and ask if he is not afraid of being misrepresented as a fascist, before moving on. Double standards at its best.

You obviously do not support what we are doing in a vacuum. We are trying to hurt and ruin the lives of people who had nothing to do with something (and some, as in this case, who were even actively outspoken against it) because of their nationality. We are becoming the worst of everything that the "liberal world order" is supposed to stand against. The reason you might be okay with this is because of Machiavellianism - a belief that carrying out large scale injustice might trigger chaos and even a revolution/coup/insurrection in Russia and eventually result in a nation that might be more aligned with our geopolitical interests.

When you look at history the one thing you will find is that things rarely work out how you want them to, and more often than not the resultant end is often nothing like you desired. We successfully worked to overthrow the democratic, secular, and relatively benign and democratic government of Iran in 1953 and replaced them with an exceptionally unpopular puppet monarchy. Then in 1979 the Iranians had a genuine revolution of their own against our puppet monarch and installed their own government. This is where the current radical Islamic government came from that, for some reason, really doesn't like the West. Today we'd give anything to have the Iran of 1953, but that's a bridge long since turned to ash.

And the other tales are endless as well. The point of this is that Machiavellianism relies on a claim that the ends justify the means. But even if one believes that, you can't really make that argument in good faith when you cannot realistically claim to have any idea of what the ends will be. All that one can be certain of is that we will live through the means. So we are turning into tyrants for what may very well be an even worse future for Russia and us alike.

You have a puzzling, and, I think, bespoke, notion of "Machiavellianism". If a cancer patient undergoes painful therapies to cure the disease, is that Machiavellianism, because the ends, curing cancer, justifies the painful means?

I would say no. That's simply an example of doing something unpleasant in pursuit of a larger goal. Typically, when people use the term Machiavellianism they are referring to doing immoral and objectionable things in pursuit of personal goals. That's not really the case here at all.

Free people have no moral obligation to transact with one another. There is no moral obligation to permit people to your chess tournament and no moral violation in denying them. When we decide that the crimes of the Russian government, acting, at least nominally, on behalf of the Russian people reach a critical point we can decide to discontinue business and relationships with the Russian people.

Perhaps you think, as others in this thread have suggested, that this is something like a civil rights action. Indeed, in the US we have laws prohibiting businesses from denying service to people purely on skin color. In my view this is more of an ethical choice than a moral one, but even if you think it's a moral necessity not to deny service to someone based on their immutable characteristics, that is irrelevant. Russians are being denied service not because the world has suddenly become slavophobic, but as a condemnation of their country's crimes. Put another way, it would be wrong for a restaurant to turn away a customer because they are black, but completely understandable for a restaurant to turn away a customer because that customer is OJ Simpson.

I assume you would say that individuals are unlike countries, and I think that's true. Some individual Russians oppose their government's attack on Ukraine. Alas, there is no way to scope sanctions such that they hurt only people with the wrong opinions. There is a simple way to scope sanctions such that they hurt Russians though - i.e. make the sanctions apply to Russia. (And here I use a colloquial sense of the word "sanction" that I mean to extend even to non-governmental groups making decisions to refuse service to or interaction with Russians).

Finally, I agree with what I think you mean - which is that it's very possible for things to work out in ways other than what are expected. I expect that the majority of "things" work out roughly as expected throughout history but it is unremarkable when they do. If most of our choices were going awry civilization would probably unstable.

That said, I agree with the spirit - it's hard to predict the consequences of our actions. But, so what? It's hard to predict the consequences of sanctions and hard to predict the consequences of no sanctions. My own reasoning is: a war is too much, nothing is too little, and sanctions seem about right. Sanctions must hurt or they are meaningless. I would not want to see a headline like "Russian school hit by stray bomb, hundreds dead." A headline like "Russian chess player kicked out of tournament" seems about right for unintended consequences.

The ones who are able to travel while their country is invaded, yes.