7 ms·

Children of high-ranking nomenclature didn't want to live in "their" country and they don't want now. Most of Russian parliament members, high-ranking officers

Children of high-ranking nomenclature didn't want to live in "their" country and they don't want now. Most of Russian parliament members, high-ranking officers and oligarchs keep their families in London or Miami. Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. That's where theories arise that Russia is just a cryptocolony of the UK and been that for 100 years.

dang 11y ago
> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  This is merely an observation. English is not my first language, but I assure you wasn't specifically aiming at insulting anybody. Unless observations hurt the observer, of course. P. S. I think I am a bit wrong: people who clearly are not in their right mind don't want to live in Russia either. There are of course people who are content to live in Russia right now or don't have much choice, but pretty much everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers. P. P. S. This compares to prevailing number of people in e.g. Japan or USA, for whom emigration has literally never in their lives crossed their mind. I hope I got myself clear this time.
  - dang 11y ago
    I have every respect for the learners of any language, but this response is evasive. That was obviously not an observation. It was a slur, and you can't do that here.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      https://www.google.ru/search?ie=UTF-8&hl=ru&q=%22nobody%20in%20their%20right%20mind%22%20site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.ru/search?ie=UTF-8&hl=ru&q=%22nobody%20in... Are all these slurs? If we read "nobody in their right mind" as "they're all batshit insane", we'll suddently see slurs against: prison guards, option holders excercising shares in certain fashion, developers preferring js to typescript, just from one page of search results. But I'm just trying to convey the prevailing line of thought in the society.
  - brd 11y ago
    > everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers. For what it's worth, I found this to be a fascinating statement. It's an elegant way to convey the psyche of the citizenry from places like Russia or China.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      If you're interested I can produce a whole article on that topic along with recommended reading.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      For example, some morning post: http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html "How I left to work in Luxembourg" "Скажем так, "уехать" никогда не было моей мечтой, но тем вариантом развития событий, который я никогда не выпускал из виду." == "Let's say, leaving abroad was never my dream, but it was an option that I always kept in mind" Sums up my ramblings nicely.
  - Crito 11y ago
    It is an article of faith among some these days that observations hurt the observed.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      This time, observation hurts the observer. We call this effect "правда глаза колет".
- muuh-gnu 11y ago
  > Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN This sentence was neither xenophobic nor an insult. > If you do it again we will ban your account. Stop threatening people for innocuous statements.
  - dang 11y ago
    It was xenophobic because it said something nasty (edit: and completely non-factual) about an entire country. HN has plenty of readers in Russia and they have the same right to civil discourse here that everyone else does.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      What if there are things you may consider nasty that might also be true? I've read pg's "what you can't say", I know you're supposed to entertain this idea to yourself and shut up about it so you don't get caught in wars you don't want to wage all your life. But this time I think it's important for readers to know that war is actually going on.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - SamReidHughes 11y ago
        Your comment was off-topic and uninteresting. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, or that it's some dude's (i.e. your) opinion. It's about as enlightening as a banana. Don't pretend this is about some minutia of phrasing, either.
        guard-of-terra 11y ago
        I fail to see how it is off-topic, since Stalin's heirs were the first (widely known) nomenclature children to skip Russia, but far from last. If we're not counting the White Emigration, of course, since it's obvious that Tzar's heirs and kin live in the West too. Some took the Eastern route, of course, via China, but end up in civilized world.
- swombat 11y ago
  Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all... Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement. Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way... I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!" "Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place... It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!
  - song 11y ago
    I agree. It's a very different thing to criticize the people compared to criticizing the country. For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route. I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      Russia's situation is similar and arguably much more severe.
- trhway 11y ago
  >> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. >Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. yes, man, have you been to Russia? While i disagree with the GP on many issues, he is a Russian like me and he knows what he is talking about. And before throwing a heavy term around, i'd recommend you check the definition of the term: xenophobia - intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. The term wouldn't be applicable here even if GP wasn't from Russia. His comment isn't PC-style of course, so man up and clearly state that as a reason for your ban threat instead of hiding behind "xenophobia" label.
  - SamReidHughes 11y ago
    It has nothing to do with a comment being PC and everything to do with nationalistic flamewars that have popped up in the past, e.g. the one that involved Germany and Greece. The purpose of moderation isn't to police opinions or thought (I think this is obvious by inspection) but to keep this a civil place where people have something interesting to read instead of some shitheap like comp.lang.lisp or #startups on Freenode.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 11y ago
    I knew someone would bring this up, and even originally added that autoxenophobia is still xenophobia. But that distinction is irrelevant here. No doubt it is psychologically more complex, but for an internet forum that wants to avoid flamewars, it's just as bad—or arguably worse, since it sounds more legitimate and gives garden-variety xenophobia something to point to. I'm not attached to the word, though; call it what you like. The point is you can't bash countries on HN. There was no factual content in the statements I objected to. (And speaking of things someone is going to bring up, yes, my comments have made the flamewar worse and yes that is ironic.)
forgetsusername 11y ago
>Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. There Red Scare is alive and well on the internet, where Russia and China can do no right.
coldtea 11y ago
>Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia They just enjoy richer countries with more niceties for them (and/or better weather) because they have the money. That's the same not just in Russia, but in most countries in the world. Rich people go (and send their kids for school) to places like Paris, London, Zurich, New York etc.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  People who are not rich don't want to live in Russia (forever, together with all their family) either. Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself. And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies. Surely there are some. Kims study in Switzerland I've read.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself. If there's an "opportunity" then it doesn't really count in the same way. Would a Walmart worker living in some US state go elsewhere if "an opportunity presented itself" (e.g. new job, make more money there etc)? I'd say a lot, or most, would. That's not because Russia is some unique hell, but because of shared characteristics in lots of other places, unemployment, poverty, etc. People might see Russia strangely as some "superpower" (owing to Cold War BS mythologies), but in fact they are a developing country first and foremost. >And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies. Indian and Eastern Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, etc) elites have for ages sent their kids abroad. British and Swiss schools are choke full of them. Same for rich upper class kids from Eastern Europe and places like Portugal, Greece, etc.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      Russia is a pretty unique kind of hell. People who are not affected by unemployment and poverty are leaving. If you're successful, leaving is a logical choice that you have to consider. Russian emigration is white collar contrary to most of other "developing countries'" emigration. Russia is not a developing country. Russia is a crumbling country with a long history of failures and no clear future prospects. While it is true that people leave e.g. India, there's more people in India who get richer and happier staying in India, and there's still a lot of people who come to stay in India because weather is nice, food is tasty, accomodation is cheap and culture is interesting. Neither of that is much true for Russia. Only people who come is uncontrolled muslim work migrants from Central Asia, and even those are now leaving.
mildbow 11y ago
Yeah. Nobody with the means to do otherwise wants to live in Russia. And, even if they have extra-ordinarily high means and comfortable life-style (a side-effect of having lots of power in most societies) their children probably want to leave/don't fit in. Why? There are atleast 2 reasons: 1) Russia might not have the sort of opportunities(life/career/amenities) they are looking for. For the really rich, most of them are probably grew up in Switzerland/US more than Russia. 2) Being seduced by mainstream media which is very west-centric. You comment sounds harsh because very few people on HN have the same perspective as some of us. Namely, the outlook people who grew up in a "broken" country have.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  People who don't have means to do otherwise, don't want to live in Russia too, they just haven't got much choice. It doesn't take much means, btw. People leave all the time, ordinary people like me and you (don't know about you, but assuming). Not just software developers. As far as I know Russians integrate OK in civilized countries. Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have. There are more reasons: 3) Nobody knows where country is going. 4) No rule of law. No respect for human rights. No democracy. 5) Pretty much everybody is irritated and hates everybody else. 6) Country doesn't produce much of anything other than oil, gas, raw minerals and weapons. Plus some inferior things for internal consumption that are not going to sell on open market. Downturn in raw mineral sales? We starve and freeze. 7) Climate is awful most of the year and also costly to live in. Unlike scandinavians, did not figure out how to live happily in it. 8) Ethnic violence is kind of expected too. I could name ten more if you wish.
  - mildbow 11y ago
    > Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have. Definitely worth repeating. Probably causes at least #5 and #8.

dang 11y ago

> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. You know this, since I've had to tell you before. If you do it again we will ban your account.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
This is merely an observation. English is not my first language, but I assure you wasn't specifically aiming at insulting anybody. Unless observations hurt the observer, of course. P. S. I think I am a bit wrong: people who clearly are not in their right mind don't want to live in Russia either. There are of course people who are content to live in Russia right now or don't have much choice, but pretty much everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers. P. P. S. This compares to prevailing number of people in e.g. Japan or USA, for whom emigration has literally never in their lives crossed their mind. I hope I got myself clear this time.
- dang 11y ago
  I have every respect for the learners of any language, but this response is evasive. That was obviously not an observation. It was a slur, and you can't do that here.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    https://www.google.ru/search?ie=UTF-8&hl=ru&q=%22nobody%20in%20their%20right%20mind%22%20site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&gws_rd=ssl https://www.google.ru/search?ie=UTF-8&hl=ru&q=%22nobody%20in... Are all these slurs? If we read "nobody in their right mind" as "they're all batshit insane", we'll suddently see slurs against: prison guards, option holders excercising shares in certain fashion, developers preferring js to typescript, just from one page of search results. But I'm just trying to convey the prevailing line of thought in the society.
- brd 11y ago
  > everybody eyes the possibility of escaping, if not for themself then maybe for their children or relatives. Russia is a nation of emigrants run by emigrants, using emigration as a reward for best achivers. For what it's worth, I found this to be a fascinating statement. It's an elegant way to convey the psyche of the citizenry from places like Russia or China.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    If you're interested I can produce a whole article on that topic along with recommended reading.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    For example, some morning post: http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html http://krocodl.livejournal.com/1235708.html "How I left to work in Luxembourg" "Скажем так, "уехать" никогда не было моей мечтой, но тем вариантом развития событий, который я никогда не выпускал из виду." == "Let's say, leaving abroad was never my dream, but it was an option that I always kept in mind" Sums up my ramblings nicely.
- Crito 11y ago
  It is an article of faith among some these days that observations hurt the observed.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    This time, observation hurts the observer. We call this effect "правда глаза колет".
muuh-gnu 11y ago
> Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN This sentence was neither xenophobic nor an insult. > If you do it again we will ban your account. Stop threatening people for innocuous statements.
- dang 11y ago
  It was xenophobic because it said something nasty (edit: and completely non-factual) about an entire country. HN has plenty of readers in Russia and they have the same right to civil discourse here that everyone else does.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    What if there are things you may consider nasty that might also be true? I've read pg's "what you can't say", I know you're supposed to entertain this idea to yourself and shut up about it so you don't get caught in wars you don't want to wage all your life. But this time I think it's important for readers to know that war is actually going on.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - SamReidHughes 11y ago
      Your comment was off-topic and uninteresting. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, or that it's some dude's (i.e. your) opinion. It's about as enlightening as a banana. Don't pretend this is about some minutia of phrasing, either.
      - guard-of-terra 11y ago
        I fail to see how it is off-topic, since Stalin's heirs were the first (widely known) nomenclature children to skip Russia, but far from last. If we're not counting the White Emigration, of course, since it's obvious that Tzar's heirs and kin live in the West too. Some took the Eastern route, of course, via China, but end up in civilized world.
swombat 11y ago
Hey dang. Sorry for wading in, but it is a public conversation thread after all... Personally, I don't find that to be a xenophobic slur. If someone said "nobody in their right mind wants to live in Switzerland" or said that about the UK (the country I grew up in and the country where I live), I would not feel offended, but ask why they say that and take that merely as a strong expression of opinion. Then I would discuss the opinion rather than the statement. Now, that being said, I don't feel any particularly strong attachment to the institution of countries, any more than I do to religions, various *-isms, or even programming languages! It's a big varied world out there and each of those things have their pros and cons. I do feel strongly attached to the ability for people to debate things and discuss disagreements in a civil manner, particularly when they disagree strongly. I do wonder if we should defend the right of people to be protected from having their nationalistic, religious or other types of beliefs challenged, albeit in a very mildly offensive way... I think the OP statement could have been phrased better but I personally don't see it as a xenophobic insult. To me that would be more something along the lines of "those damn Russians, they bring organised crime wherever they emigrate!" "Russia is not a nice place to live" (an equivalent statement to the OP's) is just a statement of opinion about a place... It is entirely your choice what you do as you are the one with the responsibility as moderator of HN, and I don't know everything that you know, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there, hopefully not in an offensive manner. Please feel free to use or ignore it as you please. Thanks for reading!
- song 11y ago
  I agree. It's a very different thing to criticize the people compared to criticizing the country. For example, I've lived in China, I have very good Chinese friends but because of the political situation and the past history, I fully understand why a lot of rich Chinese immigrate outside of China when they can or put themselves in situations that would allow them to have an escape route. I believe that Russia's situation is a bit similar, it's not an indictment against the people but it's an indictment against the government and the way the country is run currently.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Russia's situation is similar and arguably much more severe.
trhway 11y ago
>> Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. >Xenophobic insults are not allowed on HN. yes, man, have you been to Russia? While i disagree with the GP on many issues, he is a Russian like me and he knows what he is talking about. And before throwing a heavy term around, i'd recommend you check the definition of the term: xenophobia - intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. The term wouldn't be applicable here even if GP wasn't from Russia. His comment isn't PC-style of course, so man up and clearly state that as a reason for your ban threat instead of hiding behind "xenophobia" label.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  It has nothing to do with a comment being PC and everything to do with nationalistic flamewars that have popped up in the past, e.g. the one that involved Germany and Greece. The purpose of moderation isn't to police opinions or thought (I think this is obvious by inspection) but to keep this a civil place where people have something interesting to read instead of some shitheap like comp.lang.lisp or #startups on Freenode.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 11y ago
  I knew someone would bring this up, and even originally added that autoxenophobia is still xenophobia. But that distinction is irrelevant here. No doubt it is psychologically more complex, but for an internet forum that wants to avoid flamewars, it's just as bad—or arguably worse, since it sounds more legitimate and gives garden-variety xenophobia something to point to. I'm not attached to the word, though; call it what you like. The point is you can't bash countries on HN. There was no factual content in the statements I objected to. (And speaking of things someone is going to bring up, yes, my comments have made the flamewar worse and yes that is ironic.)

forgetsusername 11y ago

>Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia. There Red Scare is alive and well on the internet, where Russia and China can do no right.

coldtea 11y ago

>Nobody in their right mind wants to live in Russia They just enjoy richer countries with more niceties for them (and/or better weather) because they have the money. That's the same not just in Russia, but in most countries in the world. Rich people go (and send their kids for school) to places like Paris, London, Zurich, New York etc.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
People who are not rich don't want to live in Russia (forever, together with all their family) either. Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself. And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies. Surely there are some. Kims study in Switzerland I've read.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Some might say they do, but don't believe them just yet, watch them a bit when some opportunity will present itself. If there's an "opportunity" then it doesn't really count in the same way. Would a Walmart worker living in some US state go elsewhere if "an opportunity presented itself" (e.g. new job, make more money there etc)? I'd say a lot, or most, would. That's not because Russia is some unique hell, but because of shared characteristics in lots of other places, unemployment, poverty, etc. People might see Russia strangely as some "superpower" (owing to Cold War BS mythologies), but in fact they are a developing country first and foremost. >And I also doubt that "most other countries" do that on Russian scale. British and Swiss schools have just so many places, and those are already occupied by ruskies. Indian and Eastern Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, etc) elites have for ages sent their kids abroad. British and Swiss schools are choke full of them. Same for rich upper class kids from Eastern Europe and places like Portugal, Greece, etc.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Russia is a pretty unique kind of hell. People who are not affected by unemployment and poverty are leaving. If you're successful, leaving is a logical choice that you have to consider. Russian emigration is white collar contrary to most of other "developing countries'" emigration. Russia is not a developing country. Russia is a crumbling country with a long history of failures and no clear future prospects. While it is true that people leave e.g. India, there's more people in India who get richer and happier staying in India, and there's still a lot of people who come to stay in India because weather is nice, food is tasty, accomodation is cheap and culture is interesting. Neither of that is much true for Russia. Only people who come is uncontrolled muslim work migrants from Central Asia, and even those are now leaving.

mildbow 11y ago

Yeah. Nobody with the means to do otherwise wants to live in Russia. And, even if they have extra-ordinarily high means and comfortable life-style (a side-effect of having lots of power in most societies) their children probably want to leave/don't fit in. Why? There are atleast 2 reasons: 1) Russia might not have the sort of opportunities(life/career/amenities) they are looking for. For the really rich, most of them are probably grew up in Switzerland/US more than Russia. 2) Being seduced by mainstream media which is very west-centric. You comment sounds harsh because very few people on HN have the same perspective as some of us. Namely, the outlook people who grew up in a "broken" country have.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
People who don't have means to do otherwise, don't want to live in Russia too, they just haven't got much choice. It doesn't take much means, btw. People leave all the time, ordinary people like me and you (don't know about you, but assuming). Not just software developers. As far as I know Russians integrate OK in civilized countries. Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have. There are more reasons: 3) Nobody knows where country is going. 4) No rule of law. No respect for human rights. No democracy. 5) Pretty much everybody is irritated and hates everybody else. 6) Country doesn't produce much of anything other than oil, gas, raw minerals and weapons. Plus some inferior things for internal consumption that are not going to sell on open market. Downturn in raw mineral sales? We starve and freeze. 7) Climate is awful most of the year and also costly to live in. Unlike scandinavians, did not figure out how to live happily in it. 8) Ethnic violence is kind of expected too. I could name ten more if you wish.
- mildbow 11y ago
  > Many people are just passive. Doesn't mean they want what they have. Definitely worth repeating. Probably causes at least #5 and #8.