Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its to make people consider why they're doing something and whether it's actually for the reasons they think by comparing to another situation where the same reasons hold but they didn't do the thing. It can be a useful tool for figuring out your own feelings.
The same reasons don't hold for me, because my country is friendly with USA and (currently) openly hostile to Russia. The same holds for most of the western world, so likely most of the HN readers. Nothing irrational in avoiding software controlled by your (country's) enemy. There is also the emotional aspect that you dismiss. Using somebody's products, and especially paying for them, can be constructed as helping th…
It just goes to show that Europeans/westerners don't care about Iraqis, and they care about Ukrainians. Almost every other justification for the discrepancy between how Europeans reacted back in 2003 and how they did now is just rationalization or lack of perspective. Though maybe it's because I'm Muslim and arab so I'm pretty biased here. :)
(And no I'm not saying that the US is just like Russia or whatever. I'm just saying that Westerners are completely sheltered from the effects of their own foreign policy. There's no consequence from wars, interventionism etc and the effects are far away. America is a paradise compared to Russia, but it is still a superpower.)