Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#361

Post by Const-me » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

sireat wrote: post #259

ogogmad wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many Russian people, especially those who watch or read mainly Russian news, hold such views with complete sincerity. The internal propaganda is quite effective.

Anecdotally, my inlaws who are NOT Russian also hold pro-Putin and pro-Lukashenko views. I avoid politics with them. Why? Because they mostly watch Russian TV (those Russian WW2 serials are addicting). The propaganda in the Russian TV talk shows and news is very well done. It is just like any other echo chamber. Just like watching Fox News,listening to Limbaugh in US, etc. There are echo chambers for all political sp…

It's OK to disagree with other people. It's OK to have civilized discussions about these topic, despite the disagreement.

Avoiding some topics in fear of insulting/upsetting other party, or in context of social media in fear of downvotes/flags, is the main cause of these modern echo-chambers.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#362

Post by mikelyons » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #269

mikelyons wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about the idea that it's all about Putin's revenge on USA for the attempted assassination?

Um, what attempted assassination? I think what's really going on is the usual. If you're stealing your country blind, manufacture foreign enemies and blame them, so the people at home think you're a hero instead of a villain.

I was wrong about attempted assassination, was thinking of Bush's: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/clinton-punishes...

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#363

Post by mikelyons » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #343

lightgreen wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can say the same about America and Biden. Or America and Bush. Or America and Clinton. > The masses always will consume the propaganda, I don't see how this will ever be eliminated. I could say that you have consumed leftists propaganda about Trump. But I won't. > The masses always will consume the propaganda > How can we improve the results? For starters, stop thinking of people as masses. They are capable of…

It was clear to me why people voted for trump the first time round. (Although, many experts believe it was more about voting against Clinton than for trump.) He was an outsider/wildcard/Maverick and perceived smart businessman so his promises to clean up the corruption seemed more plausible than the entrenched status quo. Now that his lack of business acumen, lack of general intelligence, non-existent diplomacy, zero…

There's a really good lens for understanding this called Spiral Dynamics, a scientific model of the evolution/development of consciousness which is the work of Clare Graves.

If you understand that Trump is at the red/orange level of consciousness, and so is a huge chunk of the American population, it's obvious why they will vote for him.

The stage red / stage orange worldview is pretty clearly what conservative Americans operate on, (and many are very on stage blue also).

The majority of liberal Americans are operating on stages orange and green.

And these are still all tier 1 of 2 tiers in the model.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#364

Post by knolax » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #277

knolax wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again with the blanket accusations of astroturfing without any proof. Crying shill whenever you encounter an opposing opinion is not something a rational and free-thinking person does. What you're basically doing is refusing to engage intellectually on certain viewpoints which just so happen to go against the interests of your home country's government. From the perspective of an outsider, it looks a lot like the res…

I agree with you in principle, but the way you expressed it reads too much like a personal attack for my taste. I don't think it's a good way to make the discussion more rational after the initial accusation of astroturfing.

And accusing fellow commenters of being foreign shills isn't a personal attack?

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#365

Post by sneak » Thu, Sep 03, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #258

Udik wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article you linked: "Novichok has, however, been known to most western secret services since the 1990s,[16] and in 2016 Iranian chemists synthesised five Novichok agents for analysis and produced detailed mass spectral data which was added to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Central Analytical Database.[17][18] Previously, there had been no detailed descriptions of their spectral prop…

From the actual source referenced: > The syntheses were carried out on a micro-scale in order to minimize exposure. "We synthesized trace amounts so we can detect it if it's used on us" and "we have an active chemical weapons program making useful quantities of the stuff" are vastly different things. You'd also have to ignore the additional evidence, like identified Russian intelligence operatives claiming to have be…

Nothing about that suggests exclusive access; it's entirely circumstantial, however extremely likely that it was used by Russian agents.

That said, it's plainly possible to be synthesized by other countries—because it has been.

It's sort of like being hacked from a Russian IP address.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#366

Post by yorwba » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 7:41 AM UTC

knolax wrote: post #364

yorwba wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in principle, but the way you expressed it reads too much like a personal attack for my taste. I don't think it's a good way to make the discussion more rational after the initial accusation of astroturfing.

And accusing fellow commenters of being foreign shills isn't a personal attack?

Of course it is, but responding to a personal attack with another personal attack doesn't negate the original one, it just adds another on top. If you want to be able to have a calmly rational discussion, you need to be able to resist responding to disruptive comments in kind, otherwise it only takes a single person to derail an entire conversation and ruin it for everyone.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#367

Post by dang » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 8:15 AM UTC

osipov wrote: post #100

actionscripted wrote: post #91

If you ever wonder about the extent of Russia's online efforts consider that the comments on this HN thread might be part of things. Not saying anything in here is good/bad/other but you rarely see this level of flagged and down-voted comments in a HN thread.

I'm training a machine learning model that honeypots commenters like you with provocative news articles. Next, the comments section is cleaned up to eliminate commenter spam. It works amazingly well!

Good grief. You posted this 7 times. That's obviously abusive and obviously a bannable offense. I'm not going to ban you because I understand how crazy-making it is to represent a minority/contrarian view and feel surrounded. But please don't do it again. Also, you were posting unsubstantive and flamebait comments more than once before that. Can you please not? We're trying for something better than that here. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

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

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#368

Post by knolax » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 11:23 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #366

knolax wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And accusing fellow commenters of being foreign shills isn't a personal attack?

Of course it is, but responding to a personal attack with another personal attack doesn't negate the original one, it just adds another on top. If you want to be able to have a calmly rational discussion, you need to be able to resist responding to disruptive comments in kind, otherwise it only takes a single person to derail an entire conversation and ruin it for everyone.

Being unable to engage with certain viewpoints to the point of bringing up foreign infiltrators every time you see it is a sign of brainwashing. I stated that as calmly as possible. I have received far worse replies on this forum.

What really derails the conversation is needlessly tone-policing people. People have a tendency of only doing that to opinions they disagree with; so in practice it's just another way to start a flamewar.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#369

Post by yorwba » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

knolax wrote: post #368

yorwba wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is, but responding to a personal attack with another personal attack doesn't negate the original one, it just adds another on top. If you want to be able to have a calmly rational discussion, you need to be able to resist responding to disruptive comments in kind, otherwise it only takes a single person to derail an entire conversation and ruin it for everyone.

Being unable to engage with certain viewpoints to the point of bringing up foreign infiltrators every time you see it is a sign of brainwashing. I stated that as calmly as possible. I have received far worse replies on this forum. What really derails the conversation is needlessly tone-policing people. People have a tendency of only doing that to opinions they disagree with; so in practice it's just another way to st…

I commented on your tone exactly because I frequently find myself agreeing with you when other people don't. If I disagree with someone in both content and tone, I won't bother engaging, I'll just downvote, flag and move on.

Re: Russia opposition leader poisoned with Novichok

#370

Post by hansdieter1337 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

Conspiracy theory: The US did it to piss of the EU against Russia. I strongly disbelieve that the Kremlin is that stupid. There are way easier ways to kill someone without leaving a big red sign like an UDSSR poison. Ofc I don’t have any proof, but that’s why they call it a conspiracy theory, right? :)