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I am in Ukraine right now. In a small village to the north of Kyiv. I am the author of PhotoSwipe (https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe https://github.com/d
by diiiimaaaa 5y ago
I am in Ukraine right now. In a small village to the north of Kyiv. I am the author of PhotoSwipe (https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe).
Yesterday I was filling bags with sand to make a fortification for local defenders. I hear artillery as I am writing this. And by the way, you get used to it.
In the last few days I received about 20 emails offering support, none of them were from russian devs. One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.
I see a few russian companies and personalities openly condemn the aggression (such as JetBrains) and I'm very grateful to them. However most are silent, or have very weak Instagram post "no war" with a sadface, or even worse - post with "we are out of politics".
And that's IT people, which are presumably more informed. Unfortunately, due to misinformation most russian people have no idea what's happening here, that's why sanctions should affect regular people, and not just putin and his close allies.
- dmitrygr 5y ago
- anovikov 5y agoUkrainians have been doing this for decades. Hell, yes.
- robert_foss 5y agoTo do nothing is to be complicit. Your taxes paid for this.
- dmitrygr 5y agoMy taxes paid for this? I am an American citizen living in USA
- robert_foss 5y agoAh, I assumed you meant you were living in Russia. Either way you have connections to actual Russians, now is the time to use them.
- jopsen 5y agoEven if you don't buy the complicity by taxes argument. What alternative do we have left? Sanctions is just the least bad thing.
- rimliu 5y agoHow good are people being bombed in Ukraine cities feel? Only the Russian people can stop this.
- dmitrygr 5y agoEver lived under a dictator? Ever tried to stop him from doing something? Ever done either of the above while having a family you care about? At the end of the day, no sane person would place their family in mortal danger to maybe possibly potentially make life easier for a large number of unknown far away people.
- cbg0 5y ago> Ever lived under a dictator? Ever tried to stop him from doing something? Ever done either of the above while having a family you care about? Yes, see Romania 1989. Over 1000 people died in the streets but we got the job done.
- wadim 5y agoDidn't all of humanity at some point? Ukraine being a more recent example. And here we are, living in mostly free and democratic countries. Weird how that happened.
- iso1631 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini > At the end of the day, no sane person would place their family in mortal danger to maybe possibly potentially make life easier for a large number of unknown far away people. US military personnel did this. Invading Iraq increased the risk of terrorism in the US to make life easier for a few haliburton board members.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoRussians themselves have done it in 1917.
- drran 5y agoDo Italian sabotage[0] (Итальянская забастовка[1]): execute all rules and laws as precisely as possible. It's the safest form of protest. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule [1]: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C...
- jdrc 5y agohave some empathy man, this is terrifying
- newaccount74 5y agoWhat's the alternative to sanctions? Diplomatic attempts to convince Russia not to attack the Ukraine have failed. Sending troops to Ukraine to stop the invasion would quickly escalate the war and hurt a lot more people than economic sanctions.
- jopsen 5y agoDo nothing, but then we'll eventually be at war with Russia. It's prefer Russia to be poor if we have to fight them. Yes, there is no better alternative than sanctions.
- Yoric 5y ago(assuming that GP is not a fake – recall that in war, the first casualty is truth) They're at war. Preparing to be bombed. Let's cut them some slack. edit Realized that my comment was aggressive. Rewrote it a bit. Apologies for the first formulation.
- anovikov 5y agoRussian here. This is not misinformation or anything. This is just because yes, vast majority of Russians from all walks of life are pure evil. Even those living in the Western countries for decades. I have deleted myself from all social networks 5 years ago and people keep sending me screenshots from Russian facebook groups in Cyprus and that makes me freak out. Nearly everyone is pro-Putin. Ridiculous posts get hundreds of upvotes. I really can't see a fix for it. You have to keep containing Russia: there is no chance in hell to ever have a sustainable democratic government there, Putin or not, because people are wholeheartedly against it - they don't respect any government that doesn't make them frightened as hell.
- jdrc 5y agothis is becoming a theme with immigrant communities, in a similar vein how german Turks are supportive of Erdogan. I'm sure those people are not evil, but this phenomenon is worthy of investigation.
- eps 5y agoBack when I lived in Canada and had some exposure to some of local Russian communities, it was bloody obvious that there was a concentrated Russian government effort to manipulate and control their opinion. All online spots - forums, bbses, etc. - had at least one troll reposting from the offical news. More places than one had these as mods or admins. Agitating and stirring the pot was a daily occurence, which was quite effecient given that migrant communities tends to comprise people that aren't exactly well off and generally happy with life. To give an example - people discussing faking a divorce to double their unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. So given them an outlet to vent was working well. Conversely, those who were better established steered clear of these and formed smaller clusters of their own. So what the GP is experiencing is likely related to them being (originally) a part of one of these poorer bubbles and the effect just lingers on.
- jdrc 5y agoRussians living in cyprus are not poor
- 5ESS 5y agoHow are sanctions going to make anybody more informed? They dont…That makes no sense. Instead of sanctions, a more effective strategy would be to provide Russians with free VPNs so that they can access western news media.
- wadim 5y agoThe same Russians who are currently using VPNs to post Russian propaganda all over reddit, facebook, twitter and co? If you think Russians are this way just because they don't have access to the guardian, then I have 20 years worth of Russian politics waiting for you. They don't care. They haven't cared when the wars in Chechnya or Georgia happened, they won't care now. The sanctions are supposed to force them to care.
- danuker 5y agoSupposedly those can already read the news, so they would not be the target audience.
- raverbashing 5y agoYou can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink it Some people do prefer what the "voices in their head" are telling them (and while propaganda is big, it is not all of it) Sanctions do matter as you're seeing all of Putin's acolytes feeling the heat these days
- jdrc 5y agoSanctions do work, cutting off communication with the west doesn't. There 's a feeling that Russians need to be jolted off their seats. I m seeing many of them asking for alternatives for payments or incorporation elsewhere
- chupasaurus 5y agoMost of the pro-invasion citizens are being fed by propaganda exclusively, cutoff wouldn't make any significant impact.
- 5y ago
- a254613e 5y agoOh come on, someone asked you a technical question - you can't expect everyone to research the country of origin, country of residence, and perhaps a personal situation of every private person, developer, or a company before emailing them.
- zeroping 5y agoThose few words are a perfectly adequate response though. The author has bigger things to get done right now.
- thombat 5y agoThe whole sentence is self-explanatory: > One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply. Innocently asking the question seems fine; as you say we generally don't know the personal circumstances of online contacts. But once appraised of it a quick reply would be human, at least to the effect of "good luck, keep as safe as possible & please ignore my question until happier times are restored"
- allie1 5y agoI think this is more so because they are afraid.
- gdy 5y agoDmytro, I'm Russian living in Russia and I'm devastated and terrified by this war of aggression. I have friends in Ukraine and I can hear siren wailing while talking with them via Skype. There are already about 30 thousand members of Russian IT-industry who signed open letter against this war. Yesterday it was about 20 thousands. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rSmclqedrhTASIsyXLOz39pU0WzV8b443au9X88Lx_c/preview?pru=AAABf2jwWdI*e19LIcUVOzFPAwkz3tcPAg https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rSmclqedrhTASIsyXLOz39pU...
- app4soft 5y agoJFYI, I'm also Ukrainian living in Ukraine[0] (Poltava region), actually joined territorial defence forces as volunteer to defend own town. All Russian should do right now — go outside of your house, gather with other Russsians and strike & show your protest "by hands" near your city administration! Signing "open letter", "petitions" or just "keep placard" would NOT has any effect — so do not waste your and our time & lives! [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897
- gdy 5y agoI know
- diiiimaaaa 5y agoI really appreciate your position, but the letter is incredibly weak. I understand that it's aimed at government that won't read it otherwise, but: You call it "operation", it's not operation, it's war. You ask to prevent human casualties, but thousands are already dead. A lot of people signing from companies such as Yandex - a search engine that promotes propaganda and hides evidence-based journalism. From VK - a social network that bans opposition communities and spreads misinformation. You can't have it both ways folks.
- gdy 5y agoI didn't want to imply that we are doing anything meaningful, just that we at the very least don't condone what's happening. Many are running the hell away from Russia and that's something the government has already got concerned about. Unlike the letter.