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

Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

copyriot.se

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 122 posts

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#51

Post by brabel »

rosndo wrote: post #49
brabel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a throwaway account solely created to try to make us, Westerners, believe that the War by Russia is as evil as Hitler's War because it has the same root motivation: ethnic hatred with a genocidal goal. You may be motivated by your rage against Russia starting this terrible war, or it may be simple counter-propaganda, i.e. Ukrainians lowering themselves to the level they believe the enemy to be for the purpos…

If you’re going to link Mearsheimer, you could also be honest enough to discuss what other geopolitics scholars think about his take.

Please provide alternative view points from other scholars on geopolitics and we can happily discuss.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#52

Post by puchatek »

reikonomusha wrote: post #44
haydar_ai wrote: post #2

> Here we may take a break to consider the fact that Russian is not only the language of one country, Russia. It is also the native language for millions of Ukrainians and Belarusians. Therefore it is far from obvious that a Russian-language podcast initiative should be based in Russia. The fact that some people speak Russian in Ukraine/Belarus does not mean that it’s better to do it there. This is like trying to mak…

I wanted to add a bit of footnote commentary on how I understand Russian to be spoken in Ukraine. Millions of native Ukrainians, especially in the eastern side of Ukraine, exclusively speak Russian, and in fact speak it much better than Ukrainian. [1] (Almost all Ukrainians understand Ukrainian perfectly fine, and even study it in school, but a large contingent don't speak it as their mother tongue.) It's much, much…

I think it can be compared to e.g. The Irish learning Gaelic. It's part of the identity for some and spoken in the west of the island by a few. The government invests in keeping the heritage alive and you see it e.g. in how names are written. But many Irish don't speak a word of Gaelic without feeling less Irish as a result. Ukrainian is a bit like that except it's easier to learn if you already speak Russian.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#53

Post by gleenn »

just-ok wrote: post #29
gleenn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it that you think a corporation is not capable of making geopolitical judgments? You don't think they have a PR department? You don't think they have leadership that can read the news?

“Reading the news” hardly gives you the ability to make geopolitical judgments.

> Al Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer of Visa Inc., said in a statement: “This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values.”

From the New York Times. Someone seems to be able to make these judgements. Also kind of absurd given Corporations status as legally people in the US. If they get those protections, shouldn't they also bear the responsibilities?

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#54

Post by scrollaway »

CheezeIt wrote: post #21
trhway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RT propaganda is an organic part, a psyop, of the genocidal war in Ukraine. There is nothing about free speech in refusal to support genocidal war. If anything it is a duty of any normal person (and any company consisting of such people).

This isn’t a “genocidal” war.

Yes, it is. Russia wants to squash Ukraine out of existence. He’s going out of his way to get rid of the Ukrainian language and culture.

For him, Ukraine is a part of Russia, and its independence and own culture is a threat to Russia.

What is your argument that this isn’t genocidal, by definition?

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#55

Post by brabel »

sofixa wrote: post #48
brabel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just for the reason of ethnical difference... How the hell has this suddenly become an explanation for the war (or even a thing in the first place)??? No one had ever mentioned Ukrainians being "discriminated" by Russians before the war, quite the opposite, Russian-ethnics and Ukrainians have lived peacefully in Ukraine AND Russia for generations (except for a small minority of far-right nationalists). > committing…

> This is a desperate attempt by some Ukrainians to paint a picture of Russia as being equivalent to Nazi Germany, playing the same Hitler card that Putin did to start the war. You can't deny there's similarity in how they operate, the excuses they used for "reasons" ( that's not a country, people there are Russian) and the even flimsier excuses they used for the "provocation" (false flag operations) they're "respond…

No, I can deny, there's no similarity at all.. There's no concentration camps. There's no gas chambers. There's no ideology of a supreme race. Nothing at all is similar.

While I do agree Putin's speech was based on flimsy excuses, the actual trigger of the war was the West's refusal to accept Russian terms in their ultimatum[1], which you seem to have forgotten, which only asked one thing of Ukraine: to abandon plans to join NATO.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-...

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

brabel wrote: post #55
sofixa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a desperate attempt by some Ukrainians to paint a picture of Russia as being equivalent to Nazi Germany, playing the same Hitler card that Putin did to start the war. You can't deny there's similarity in how they operate, the excuses they used for "reasons" ( that's not a country, people there are Russian) and the even flimsier excuses they used for the "provocation" (false flag operations) they're "respond…

No, I can deny, there's no similarity at all.. There's no concentration camps. There's no gas chambers. There's no ideology of a supreme race. Nothing at all is similar. While I do agree Putin's speech was based on flimsy excuses, the actual trigger of the war was the West's refusal to accept Russian terms in their ultimatum[1], which you seem to have forgotten, which only asked one thing of Ukraine: to abandon plans…

> the actual trigger of the war was the West's refusal to accept Russian terms in their ultimatum

The actual trigger of the war was Putin’s order to invade. The list of demands issued to the West prior wasn't even cited as a pretext for the special military operation when it was announced, though it had some conceptual overlap with a subset of the very long lost of grievances and excuses cited in the announcement of the “special military operation”.

> which only asked one thing of Ukraine: to abandon plans to join NATO.

This is true in a sense: the only thing the ultimatum demanded of Ukraine was that it be permanently prohibited from entering NATO. BUT it also demanded of NATO that it be permanently banned from any further expansion, that it withdraw all troops and equipment from all countries that joined NATO after 1997 (which is a weird date, as no countries were admitted to NATO between 1990 and 1999, so it really means 1990), and that it be banned from holding drills in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, or the Caucasus without advance permission from Russia.

While the invasion was targeted at Ukraine, the ultimatum was targeted at NATO, and specifically at removing it's capacity to interfere should Russia choose to invade, or threaten to invade as a means of dictating internal policies, it's neighbors (including existing NATO members) in the future.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#57

Post by sofixa »

brabel wrote: post #55
sofixa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a desperate attempt by some Ukrainians to paint a picture of Russia as being equivalent to Nazi Germany, playing the same Hitler card that Putin did to start the war. You can't deny there's similarity in how they operate, the excuses they used for "reasons" ( that's not a country, people there are Russian) and the even flimsier excuses they used for the "provocation" (false flag operations) they're "respond…

No, I can deny, there's no similarity at all.. There's no concentration camps. There's no gas chambers. There's no ideology of a supreme race. Nothing at all is similar. While I do agree Putin's speech was based on flimsy excuses, the actual trigger of the war was the West's refusal to accept Russian terms in their ultimatum[1], which you seem to have forgotten, which only asked one thing of Ukraine: to abandon plans…

> Ukraine: to abandon plans to join NATO.

No, for Ukraine and NATO to sign a guarantee Ukraine will never join NATO. Which is a ridiculous thing to ask, just like Danzig, or the Autro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia was. And of course, it was 1) deliberately unacceptable 2) all for show, as Kadyrov's leaked communications show ( he's talking about the impeding invasion weeks in advance).

The lack of complete parity doesn't impede drawing parallels where they exist, and there are a lot of them.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#58

Post by ciupicri »

tgv wrote: post #47
jazzyjackson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It captured the tone of the article to me, reading in too deep to motivations of a publically traded company where there might be easily explained, boring, financial incentives. Don't know why anyone expects a corporation to take the moral high ground.

Viewing a company as only having purely financial interests is very limited, IMO. Hey, let's sell hypermodern weaponry to the Russians and the Chinese. It'll make us a quick buck! But you may well be right that that's all Spotify has, given their predatory business model. What's wrong pointing that out? Why would you even criticize that, given that it's that site's financial incentive?

It's a business, not a charity.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#59

Post by haveyoubeen »

buro9 wrote: post #23
aliswe wrote: post #11

So now we are beyond "praise a company if they shut their business in Russia", and have arrived at "ostracize them if they don't", even though (afaik) they haven't been ordered to censor their content or otherwise be a mouthpiece for them? Is there an extreme to this or is it all going to pass public judgement?

I run over 300 forums. These are based in Europe, America, Australia. They are for varied interests from cycling to cars to telescopes. There are threads about the war on every forum. And individuals on every forum are actively cancelling subscriptions and tracking boycotts. It's not just going to pass public judgement, it has enthusiastic and vocal support of most of the public. This anecdata is based on a monthly u…

No post body was provided.

Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin

#60

Post by rosndo »

brabel wrote: post #51
rosndo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re going to link Mearsheimer, you could also be honest enough to discuss what other geopolitics scholars think about his take.

Please provide alternative view points from other scholars on geopolitics and we can happily discuss.

I’m not interested in having that conversation with you, just pointing out that this is one of the more extreme points of view on the table. It is certainly not a widely accepted one.

You could for example read what Mearsheimers university of Chicago colleague Paul Poast, or Stanfords Michael McFaul have to say about this.

They’ve gone as far as argue that it is exactly the absence of NATO expansion that is to blame for creating the permissive conditions for Putin's invasion.

It’s hard to view linking only to Mearsheimer as anything but deliberate cherry-picking.

Post reply on HN