Last Day of IKEA in Moscow • Hacker News Board

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#231

Post by PartiallyTyped » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 10:56 AM UTC

waffleiron wrote: post #149

jdrc wrote: post #97

These kind of photos always impress me about the number of people who are on their phones. We dont live in countries anymore, we live in screens with our legs on some kind of ground. I hope it's not irreversibly long until these stores can be reopened. We should stop pretending we re living in the cold war era, world is always new. Russia has shown itself to be an irresponsible holder of nukes. After the fall of puti…

> Russia has shown itself to be an irresponsible holder of nukes. In which way, so far only a single country has used nuclear weapons in war, and it’s not Russia.

In the way they actively threatened a nuclear holocaust.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#232

Post by PartiallyTyped » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 10:58 AM UTC

oezi wrote: post #207

aftergibson wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like when the west stood up to the US Government and stopped the Iraq war? It's easy to point the finger when you're far from the reality.

It was meant half as a snarky comment and half as a sad testimonial of human nature. I mean: You hear the news that Ikea is closing, you likely link it to the world news, you think "got to buy some last minute furniture". I know it is human. On the other hand: Lots of people protested the Iraq war. Lots of governments in the west did not participate in the coalition of the willing and protested (I know Germany under…

Include France in there, hence the propagandas like "White flag", "French need saving", "Freedom fries", and the deep resentment of France in the US.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#233

Post by hypertele-Xii » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

esperent wrote: post #68

oezi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it seems more russians are concerned about not getting a BILLY than standing up to Putin.

It's easy to point the finger when you're not the one facing the very real threat of 15 years in a Russian prison.

How many countries' farmer populations overthrew militant dictators or monarchs at risk of death and dismemberment? All of Europe, pretty much? The entirety of the United States? "oh you can go to prison" is a pretty weak excuse.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#234

Post by sneak » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #177

waffleiron wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia has shown itself to be an irresponsible holder of nukes. In which way, so far only a single country has used nuclear weapons in war, and it’s not Russia.

To be fair, they just happened to be the only ones with nukes at the time. Someone had to try it sometime to figure out exactly how horrible it would be. It’s much preferable that it happened with a 20kt bomb, as opposed to a 20Mt one.

Interesting point: nobody has used a fusion bomb in a war.

It was threatened this week, though. I don't think that has happened in a long time.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#235

Post by jillesvangurp » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

mushbino wrote: post #186

jl6 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western media bias works by using selective reporting and omission, plus artful mixing of fact and opinion. It doesn’t too often make up outright bare-faced lies like we see coming from the Russian government.

Exactly. The news doesn't lie to me about the wealthy dodging taxes, but they sure don't report on it. There are also lots of technical truths, but heavily spun.

Actually it's worse, there are lots of media publishing opinions, factoids, and things interesting to their audience. But depending on which media you read you are going to end up with a very different understanding of what is going on.

Russia has used this polarization to its advantage in recent years by adding its own targeted misinformation to the mix designed to further increase polarization (as opposed as to merely convincing people of their notion of the truth). Weaponized propaganda basically. Divisions in society erode the strength of alliances like NATO, it causes people to vote for outlier politicians, etc. Zelenski is a good example of such a politician where this actually backfired: he really stepped up. But the strategy was perhaps successful in the sense that Ukrainian governance has probably not been that great in recent years. The usual mix of populism, inept politicians, corruption, and mismanagement.

The Russians are world leading experts when it comes to mass delusion, propaganda, and misinformation and they completely control domestic media and information distribution. As far as many Russians are concerned this is a peace mission that is being frustrated by armies of neo-nazis sponsored by evil westerners. That's the official narrative right now. It's bat shit crazy of course but it follows many years of misinformation, indoctrination, and propaganda in a country that hasn't had a free press for a long time to correct any of these believes.

Also a note of caution: The Russians are extremely clued in and all over public fora like this. So, beware that what you read might be written by them. It might look and sound reasonable to you but that doesn't mean it isn't carefully designed to manipulate you into disagreeing with others. It would be preying on your confirmation bias. It doesn't matter what that bias is, they'll feed it. It's a divide and conquer strategy. They'll happily feed inflammatory opinions to both sides of a debate just to make them hate each other some more.

If you hadn't noticed, politics were kind of intense lately.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#236

Post by nirav72 » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #116

jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may well be on to something here: that Russia is doing this as a warning to other states still under its control that if they flirt with the EU they will get turned into rubble. That would at least make some sense.

I thought this was the generally accepted rationale? What other explanations are there?

Another theory being thrown around is that Putin also wants to reduce Russia's western defensive line by reducing it down to 600 km versus the 2000+ km it currently has after the break up of the Soviet Union. By taking non-nato nations on the European side, its back to the original line before the pre-soviet collapse.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#237

Post by chayleaf » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:14 AM UTC

delusional wrote: post #198

esperent wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to point the finger when you're not the one facing the very real threat of 15 years in a Russian prison.

That's a fair point, but the state of their prisons and their political system is their responsibility, right? I have a lot of compassion and empathy for the situation the Russian people are in right now, but they did make the system they are currently living in. If they want it to stop, they are going to have to stop it.

is it our responsibility that we protested the regime, forcing Putin to ramp up the repressions, to strengthen the police? If so, I guess we should've just stood still and patiently wait for Putin to die of old age instead of attempting to change anything.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#238

Post by hypertele-Xii » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:14 AM UTC

prawn wrote: post #54

threeseed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provided they are vertically integrated and own the entire supply chain. Otherwise they will find that planes not flying in/out and container ships not delivering will make it hard to import anything at scale. Not that they could pay for goods anyway. Also I suspect China may use its new found leverage to flood the Russian market with their goods.

Would Russia have an advantage in timber/forestry? Russia has almost 4x the forest area, but not sure about felling and organised industry around it. Almost 50% of Russia is forested to China's 23%, though I also found articles about China aggressively reforesting.

Even Finland, the densest forest in Europe imports 80% of its wood pellets from Russia. Russia's got plenty of trees being felled.

What I can't comment on however is the quality of lumber for construction purposes. Making pellets is trivial. Furniture, less so.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#239

Post by Borrible » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:16 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #204

Borrible wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, my God, that 40 miles convoy. A crawling duck, but sadly no Warthogs in sight. It's a shame.

Yes, it's a terrible shame that NATO is not engaging in a full on fight with a nuclear adversary.

Since I've already addressed this point further down the thread, which can't have escaped your notice, it's rather pointless trying to pin me down on this position. I was in your back before you arrived.

But you tried nonetheless, I give you that. Brave but dead.

Re: Last Day of IKEA in Moscow

#240

Post by cudgy » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 11:18 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #226

cudgy wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because programmers are smart generally and many of them are engineers. They can certainly figure out how to make furniture and repair or build simple woodworking machines and tools amongst many other endeavors.

>Because programmers are smart generally and many of them are engineers. They can certainly figure out how to make furniture and repair or build simple woodworking machines and tools amongst many other endeavors. I'm speechless. Actually, the most profound examples of stupidity I'm seeng lately comes from programmers and technologist who think they understand everything just because they can read high-level simplifie…

I don’t disagree that there are poor outcomes from much of the technocratic class. Also, you are correct that the ability to build basic crud apps and websites does not make you a genius or all-knowing seer of the cosmos. However, we are talking about making furniture here and repairing/building machines that have existed for over a century. Hillbilly mechanics and basic carpenters can accomplish these tasks.

Elon Musk takes risks beyond what most are willing to take and that is what separates him from the average technocrats. You don’t like that personality type, but some of us wish technocrats would reach farther than copycat social media and advertising ventures even if they fail sometimes.