"It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes." - Theodor Reik The same tragic, traumatic events are being "rhymed" now in Ukraine. Yeah, perhaps we're tired of hearing it - but I'm writing this because after 110 years of industrialized warfare, our institutions and systems have still not restructured themselves to prevent these cascades of events. The consequences…
>More than any other profession, many of us - as software developers, mathematicians, scientists - have a better grasp of complex systems. And most of us on HN have a healthy, deeply internalized sense of morality. I really hope some of us will branch out into politics or other power-positions in those institutions, and start knocking people's heads together. Having a good grasp of complex systems doesn't make one av…
Also, smarter folks understand that in hyper-complex structure like our global society, or on smaller nation scale, how good and freedom is something that's rare and practically unique for our current times, and should be protected at (almost) any cost since its loss may not be easily reversible for generations. Simpler folks care only about their own situation, bigger concepts are an afterthought at best.
Also, its much easier to spot manipulators and liars, typical populists these days really can't wrap their manipulation in some clever package that requires detailed analysis to unwrap, at least not most of them (and usually that's enough). When you can easily detect lies and twisting of truth you know who you deal with, you can assess both/multiple sides and weight on who is who much closer to actual truth.
Morality doesn't become some fancy foreign inconvenient concept but understanding how things that go around come around, always, and how only so you can build strong free society with bright future. And so on.