Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 933 posts

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#691

Post by jacquesm »

skybrian wrote: post #685
bigfudge wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be clear. The Russians being punished outside of Russia have blood on their hands. They should never have been allowed to buy property and football clubs in the uk, because they weee gangster crooks who had stolen from their own country. That the uk govt was complicit in this at the time doesn’t make it wrong to act against them now. I have a lot more sympathy for the people hurt in Russsia now. Russians, wheth…

This might be true, but they aren't being tried for their own crimes. It's just revenge.

Clearly it is not revenge, that is a ridiculous thing to say. Sanctions are the kind of things that tend to send unmistakable messages: we are serious about this and we're willing to hurt our own interests to hurt yours, stop what you are doing or it will get worse. Of course that requires a modicum of rationality on the other side, which we may not have in this case, and obviously the rulers will usually be utterly unaffected. But six degrees works as well in Russia as it does elsewhere, and living under sanctions is a lot more comfortable than living under a rain of artillery fire.

If you aim at the Russian industrial complex (which produces a lot of the arms), and the government with sanctions then obviously you will it the people too. But that's not as bad as a shooting war (or a nuclear war) would be. And it doesn't rule either out.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#692

Post by dang »

gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #630
freedomben wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This black & white view of good and evil is starting to get really tiresome. Is it the effect of modern movies/tv shows that causes this belief? In movies there's usually a clear/perfect/innocent "good" guy and a bad guy, but real life is rarely so cut and dry. It is perfectly possible for there to be two different parties, each of which (to different degrees of course) make bad decisions that hurt innocent people. B…

Quoted post unavailable.

You can't break the HN guidelines like this, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't do it again. Even in the hellscape of flamewar we're dealing with right now, your comment stands out as painfully bad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#693

Post by dang »

freedomben wrote: post #639
gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

Please do not post in the flamewar style or attack another user, no matter how bad their comment was or you feel it was. That only makes everything worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#694

Post by SXX »

pelasaco wrote: post #686
SXX wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could they incarcerate millions of people? Nope, but even in Belarus it was possible to incarcerate tens of thousands of people. Half a million people on street couldn't win against 20,000 of people with guns. Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very litt…

> Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I don't think so. For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.

I totally agree with you on this point, but unfortunately it's will take months or even years of economic crysis before reasonable amount of people in Russia understand this. Little too late for Ukraine or Russia itself.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#696

Post by snek_case »

option wrote: post #462

I feel bad for the Russians who oppose putin. Anecdotal story: I am originally from Ukraine (now a US citizen) and currently host 2 Ukrainian refugees (relatives of mine). Yesterday we were walking in Santa Barbara, CA chatting in Russian (our native language). An angry American passed by listening to some Ukraine-Russian news on his phone (via speakers), recognized we speak Russian and angrily told us something alon…

That sucks and I'm sorry you had to endure that. If it happens again, I would encourage you to just tell them "we are from Ukraine!", they might realize how stupid they are being and hopefully be a bit more careful next time they want to pass judgment. It's hard, but it is possible to change (some) people's mind, even with small interventions. Worth a try IMO.

I wish you and your relatives the best. Long live Ukraine.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#697

Post by SSLy »

alex239 wrote: post #604

I am trying to find a way to escape now, and it gets harder every day. Land borders are still closed for a formal reason (COVID) and most likely will never open again. Unfortunately state television (the only television available for the most people) has been persistently making an enemy out of Ukraine since 2014. I don't know how it works, but propaganda can erase brains. The elderly and the poorly educated peolple…

My acquaintance escaped via bus to Estonia yesterday.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#698

Post by Etherlord87 »

akrymski wrote: post #616
Etherlord87 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had Putin wanted to kill civilians you wouldn't have 100s of deaths but millions like in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this some grim joke? Had putin wanted to kill civilians, he could use nuclear weaponry in various forms to kill billions. But putin, like everyone in this world, is limited by various factors, like army morale, or the patience of its neighbors. The economical situation of russia is terrible, but it can…

Or maybe he actually doesn't want to kill the civilians but wants to overthrow the government that he believes is targeting Russians in Eastern Ukraine and wishes to deploy US missiles on Russian borders? I don't think we can find a diplomatic solution unless we truly try to understand the enemy. Saying he did this with no reason doesn't help this. There's always a reason for any war. Bush had a reason to invade Iraq…

I can agree on many issues regarding the Iraq war, I think we all heard about the "weapons of mass destruction" that turned out to be false (well, never proven at least). It wasn't the only reason, though [1]. A very important quote from there:

> UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the war as illegal, saying in a September 2004 interview that it was "not in conformity with the Security Council"

However, I find comparing Ukraine to Iraq simply unconvincing. The latter had a recent history of aggression [2], which largely fueled the suspicion about the "weapons of mass destruction".

Comparing saddam husein [3] to Volodymyr Zelenskyy also fails spectacularly.

The comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis is a miss too: in Ukraine the opposite happened, the nuclear weaponry was removed which was the Ukraine's part of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [4]. However russia doesn't respect its part:

> 1. The Russian Federation [...] respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

That's why I call it symmetrism: on one side there's an aggressive country, run by a tyrant with proven crimes against humanity, on the other a democratic country that wants to be free and independent and choose its allies. But putin considers it aggression.

It's one thing if it's a valid casus belli - people thinking so I consider to be unreasonable.

Another thing is, that putin calls a lot of things an aggression against russia. Recently he called sanctions such aggression. So now pretty much the entire world, in this madman's mind, has attacked russia and *IF* we accept the casus belli used against Ukraine, we have to accept a cassus belli against any other country putin attacks next. In other words, the idea behind cassus belli corrupted to the point where it's useless. It's like defining "cold" as colder that a quadrillion °C - now everything is cold, even the center of the Sun. The word became useless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#699

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

sharpneli wrote: post #682
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall of Soviet Union. We're basically next Moldova?

Moldova has a separatist area maintained by Russian troops. Transnistria. So in a way Russia has already attacked them, though not yet tried to conquer, yet. Also Moldova shares no land border with Russia, yet (and very much hopefully not). Finland is the only land border sharing non nato country left.

What makes you think Russia would invade Finland? I seriously doubt that would happen.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#700

Post by bigfudge »

ignoramous wrote: post #522
SeanLuke wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome to your own opinions, and your own blithe dismissals, but you are not welcome to your own facts. I lived during most of the period discussed by the GP. Everything from the Bay of Pigs to supporting the Shah to Iran Contra to the invasion of Grenada was well covered and well criticized in the US press. And the US invasion of Iraq was highly criticized in the US press even as the US government was facing…

Having "free" Press does not absolve US of its crimes. That's even ignoring the fact that the Press itself is a propaganda tool for the US military-industrial complex, while steeping in biases of its own. You're welcome to live in your own bubble of facts.

There’s merit on both sides here. I think the key is that OP was making a personal Point about their own reflection. However well documented in academic texts or small newspapers thinking about how the US has meddled and more is not mainstream in the US, especially on the centre right. 911 did something similar for a number of my friends too - they started looking at some of that history in more detail, and it became important in their decision making.
Post reply on HN