5 ms·

Certainly many parts of the world aren't too big on democracy and self-determination, but from my point of view any military operation not sanctioned by the tar

by dvdkon 2y ago

Certainly many parts of the world aren't too big on democracy and self-determination, but from my point of view any military operation not sanctioned by the target region's people or government counts as an invasion. Maybe that's not how all the people involved saw it, but we see, judge, and name events through the lens of our own values.

protomolecule 2y ago
[flagged]
- mopsi 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - rubytubido 2y ago
    > short bombing campaign > It is one of the best examples of foreign interference During my visit to Syria, Iraq and Libya, I noticed something common between the people of these countries - when I told them I was from the US, they all said: "Thank you for your bombing campaigns, we are liberated now!"
  - dang 2y ago
    Please don't perpetuate flamewars like this on HN, and please don't cross into nationalistic attack on a fellow user, regardless of their (or your) nationality. Having replied as I did to the other user I feel I should add that you also are welcome here. The two of you are equally welcome, but we need you both to follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Edit: it looks like you've been doing this in other places too, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40541225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40541225. That's definitely not ok here, so please stop doing that.
    - mopsi 2y ago
      I just honestly don't understand what the issue is with NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and why Russians in particular are so butthurt about it. During some of the worst massacres in Yugoslavia, more people were murdered in the span of a few days than died during the entire aerial campaign. The campaign put a decisive end to wars, and the following decades have brought massive success. Former parts of Yugoslavia like Croatia are now advanced high-income countries. We see passive-aggressive hints about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on HN all the time, but rarely anyone explains where that comes from. I can understand why Serbians could be bitter - the campaign had several horrible incidents like the passenger train that got hit during a strike on a railway bridge - but why are Russians complaining more than anyone else about a thing that happened 25 years ago, thousands of miles away, to people they have no relation with? I'd really like to get an answer to that.
      - racional 2y ago
        I think Dan's point is that there's never a need to introduce references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits. No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
        protomolecule 2y ago
        "I think Dan's point is that there's never a need to introduce references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits. No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be." @dang So how comments like this fit the site's guidelines? Btw, that's another account "using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle".
        racional 2y ago
        There's nothing political or nationalistic at all in my comment. My posts refer mostly to historical events, and attempt to correct the various (sometime rather bizarre) cognitive distortions that some people like to hold and promote about them. Along with many much milder and more innocuous misunderstandings. Personally I eschew all forms of nationalism and nationalist rhetoric.
- dang 2y ago
  Please let's not go into flamewar like this. You're welcome here, but I've noticed that your comments are running a bit afoul of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd please review those and recalibrate, we'd appreciate it. It's not easy preserving the commons for everybody. Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. As you know, that's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it. If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. I know that users holding minority or contrarian views are under pressure that the rest of us are not, but that doesn't make it ok.
  - protomolecule 2y ago
    I see my comment as invitation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the statement I replied to and mainstream understanding of western values or as invitation to clarify the values of the author (which might be interesting). "you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle" I disagree with this characterization of my comments as a whole, they are often contradictory but informative and rarely combative. Perhaps some are unnecessarily sarcastic. "If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that" That's a fair warning, but I wonder why accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi aren't banned despite long history of waging 'political and nationalistic battles' and flamewars.
    - dang 2y ago
      I'm afraid you're underestimating the provocation and aggression in your comments by quite a lot. That's normal in the sense that everyone does it, but it's important to understand how that dynamic works if you want to use HN appropriately (and therefore not get banned). Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, leading to a 100x skew (I'm speaking metaphorically of course) between their own perception and how things appear to an ordinary reader. It's basically a case of "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" - a lot closer. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20objects%20mirror%20appear&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... This is how we end up getting flamewars in which all the participants are certain that their contributions are the reasonable ones, the other side started it, and the only thing the mods need to do is put a stop to the bad behavior of the others. As for the other two accounts you were asking about, the simple answer is I hadn't looked at their comment histories yet. All three of you are on the wrong side of the line in a similar way, so the moderation response is more or less the same in each case—once we've seen the data, that is. We can't moderate what we don't see, and we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here, or even 10% of what gets posted here. It's common for people to see a post or an account which hasn't been publicly moderated and jump to the conclusion that the mods must be condoning it and therefore taking the other side. That's a non sequitur. By far the most likely explanation is that we didn't see it.
thriftwy 2y ago
> any military operation not sanctioned by the target region's people or government counts as an invasion It does not give one an excuse to skip the whole history of the region and start it where it fits them. I wonder if their values include skipping uncomfortable trivia or highlighting it when appropriate. With regards to values, the legitimacy of a 3 years old government is in deep doubt. The values you've mentioned repeatedly lead to political backing of seriously unpopular regimes just because they fit the narrative that was never true in the first place.
- dvdkon 2y ago
  If you only care about the current citizens'/government's opinion, you actually can ignore history leading up to that point. Geopolitics is complicated, however, and I think most people would bring more nuance to any moral judgment. What if a large portion of the previous population was killed/driven out, for instance? What if the citizens are subjected to "brainwashing"? I do have to disagree on the notion that a government should have a historical or traditional basis to be legitimate. In my eyes it needs foremost the support of its "subjects". In reality, different factors make a stable government, but legitimacy is ultimately a value judgment.
  - thriftwy 2y ago
    I agree with you, but I was talking about a specific article which does an explicit history dive: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgia-looks-to-future-historic-euro-2024-football-appearance https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgi... Also, this convention of not digging into a country's history can only ever work before it brings its history as a topic of conversation. In case of small, post-colonial countries that often happens on the first contact.

by dvdkon 2y ago

protomolecule 2y ago

[flagged]

mopsi 2y ago
[flagged]
- rubytubido 2y ago
  > short bombing campaign > It is one of the best examples of foreign interference During my visit to Syria, Iraq and Libya, I noticed something common between the people of these countries - when I told them I was from the US, they all said: "Thank you for your bombing campaigns, we are liberated now!"
- dang 2y ago
  Please don't perpetuate flamewars like this on HN, and please don't cross into nationalistic attack on a fellow user, regardless of their (or your) nationality. Having replied as I did to the other user I feel I should add that you also are welcome here. The two of you are equally welcome, but we need you both to follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Edit: it looks like you've been doing this in other places too, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40541225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40541225. That's definitely not ok here, so please stop doing that.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    I just honestly don't understand what the issue is with NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and why Russians in particular are so butthurt about it. During some of the worst massacres in Yugoslavia, more people were murdered in the span of a few days than died during the entire aerial campaign. The campaign put a decisive end to wars, and the following decades have brought massive success. Former parts of Yugoslavia like Croatia are now advanced high-income countries. We see passive-aggressive hints about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on HN all the time, but rarely anyone explains where that comes from. I can understand why Serbians could be bitter - the campaign had several horrible incidents like the passenger train that got hit during a strike on a railway bridge - but why are Russians complaining more than anyone else about a thing that happened 25 years ago, thousands of miles away, to people they have no relation with? I'd really like to get an answer to that.
    - racional 2y ago
      I think Dan's point is that there's never a need to introduce references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits. No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
      - protomolecule 2y ago
        "I think Dan's point is that there's never a need to introduce references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits. No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be." @dang So how comments like this fit the site's guidelines? Btw, that's another account "using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle".
        racional 2y ago
        There's nothing political or nationalistic at all in my comment. My posts refer mostly to historical events, and attempt to correct the various (sometime rather bizarre) cognitive distortions that some people like to hold and promote about them. Along with many much milder and more innocuous misunderstandings. Personally I eschew all forms of nationalism and nationalist rhetoric.
dang 2y ago
Please let's not go into flamewar like this. You're welcome here, but I've noticed that your comments are running a bit afoul of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd please review those and recalibrate, we'd appreciate it. It's not easy preserving the commons for everybody. Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. As you know, that's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it. If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. I know that users holding minority or contrarian views are under pressure that the rest of us are not, but that doesn't make it ok.
- protomolecule 2y ago
  I see my comment as invitation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the statement I replied to and mainstream understanding of western values or as invitation to clarify the values of the author (which might be interesting). "you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle" I disagree with this characterization of my comments as a whole, they are often contradictory but informative and rarely combative. Perhaps some are unnecessarily sarcastic. "If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that" That's a fair warning, but I wonder why accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi aren't banned despite long history of waging 'political and nationalistic battles' and flamewars.
  - dang 2y ago
    I'm afraid you're underestimating the provocation and aggression in your comments by quite a lot. That's normal in the sense that everyone does it, but it's important to understand how that dynamic works if you want to use HN appropriately (and therefore not get banned). Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, leading to a 100x skew (I'm speaking metaphorically of course) between their own perception and how things appear to an ordinary reader. It's basically a case of "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" - a lot closer. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20objects%20mirror%20appear&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... This is how we end up getting flamewars in which all the participants are certain that their contributions are the reasonable ones, the other side started it, and the only thing the mods need to do is put a stop to the bad behavior of the others. As for the other two accounts you were asking about, the simple answer is I hadn't looked at their comment histories yet. All three of you are on the wrong side of the line in a similar way, so the moderation response is more or less the same in each case—once we've seen the data, that is. We can't moderate what we don't see, and we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here, or even 10% of what gets posted here. It's common for people to see a post or an account which hasn't been publicly moderated and jump to the conclusion that the mods must be condoning it and therefore taking the other side. That's a non sequitur. By far the most likely explanation is that we didn't see it.

thriftwy 2y ago

> any military operation not sanctioned by the target region's people or government counts as an invasion It does not give one an excuse to skip the whole history of the region and start it where it fits them. I wonder if their values include skipping uncomfortable trivia or highlighting it when appropriate. With regards to values, the legitimacy of a 3 years old government is in deep doubt. The values you've mentioned repeatedly lead to political backing of seriously unpopular regimes just because they fit the narrative that was never true in the first place.

dvdkon 2y ago
If you only care about the current citizens'/government's opinion, you actually can ignore history leading up to that point. Geopolitics is complicated, however, and I think most people would bring more nuance to any moral judgment. What if a large portion of the previous population was killed/driven out, for instance? What if the citizens are subjected to "brainwashing"? I do have to disagree on the notion that a government should have a historical or traditional basis to be legitimate. In my eyes it needs foremost the support of its "subjects". In reality, different factors make a stable government, but legitimacy is ultimately a value judgment.
- thriftwy 2y ago
  I agree with you, but I was talking about a specific article which does an explicit history dive: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgia-looks-to-future-historic-euro-2024-football-appearance https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgi... Also, this convention of not digging into a country's history can only ever work before it brings its history as a topic of conversation. In case of small, post-colonial countries that often happens on the first contact.