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"He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy." I did not see that. I did see the opinion, that they do not represent the ultimate evil, like the orcs do.

by lukan 2y ago

"He made a theory that Russia is not the bad guy." I did not see that. I did see the opinion, that they do not represent the ultimate evil, like the orcs do. The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia, that is the point being made - and if this already qualifies to you as saying they are not the bad guys, then I recommend reading a bit more carefully, as it is exactly this black and white thinking, that is in the realm of fantasy.

libertine 2y ago
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia This is a very bold claim, can you back this up? Because we won't see massive lines of Russian men trying to join the army to defend the homeland. In fact, the moment a general mobilization was announced you had hundreds of thousands (if not million+?) fleeing Russia. The main motivations we've seen for the Russians joining are: - entrepreneurship - going to war became an entrepreneurial endeavor to get paid a large sum of money (if I recall correctly Russians are now being paid more than US soldiers if you factor in their sign-in bonus); - getting out of jail - to the point of seeing violent criminals commit crimes again; I'm not saying they see themselves as representations of evil; I'm saying they don't seem to care whether they represent it or not.
- lukan 2y ago
  Since I was talking about russian soldiers, I did talk about their motivation. Not about russian people who are not soldiers and don't want to become soldiers. Because the russian army still largely consists of voluntarily soldiers. And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is. But also the Nazis did not view themself as evil - but rather as powerful because of lack of restraint. And protecting the poor suppressed aryan people. So my point was not at all, that the russian soldiers are somehow nice - just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is - but people like the fantasy approach of black and white - and the proplem starts when they apply this thinking to the real world.
  - libertine 2y ago
    I was also talking about Russian soldiers. You can exclude conscripts because at the moment the Russian regime seems to want to avoid civilian unrest. > And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is. This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about? > just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is The Nazis crafted a narrative to start WW2 at a time when information didn't have the same freedom. This narrative seem to have heavily inspired the Russian regime: "ethnic russians are under threat in Ukraine!" instead of "ethnic Germans are under threat in Poland". So the whole casus beli does seem to be a dark fantasy, and people are aware of this, to the point of completely dismissing that reality. That's why I don't understand your point, nor do I see the logic of it.
    - lukan 2y ago
      "This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about?" It is not my point of view, I am not a fan of empires in general, but the "NATO aggression" is obviously the expansion of the NATO to the east .. And from the point of view of empire logic - it is aggression. The old empire was shrinking and in decline - Ukraine, which was formerly completely integrated in the empire, now on the brink of switching sides and aligning with the west. It is the logic of power. And I doubt you can find many russians living in russia who are confused by this. They understand. Luckily not everyone shares that logic(way too many do), but they do understand it.
      - libertine 2y ago
        > It is not my point of view, I am not a fan of empires in general, but the "NATO aggression" is obviously the expansion of the NATO to the east .. I mean, it is your point of view, which is shared by the Russian regime narrative as you know, hence why it's confusing. Once again when you say "the expansion of the NATO" you're framing it like an army marched into the east seizing territory and enforcing themselves onto sovereign states that wanted nothing to do with NATO. Or that NATO threatened countries to join them "or else" like Russia does. And my question is why are you framing it like that? Because NATO is a defensive alliance, which countries can apply to join. No nation was threatened into joining NATO. In case you didn't know both USSR and Russia signed agreements, memorandums and charters that stated Sovereign countries are entitled to choose their own economic and defensive alliances - ALL SOVEREIGN COUNTRIES, no exceptions here. By your logic, the WTC is an imperialist project, which is nonsense. Or agreements Russia had with Western countries, would be once again "imperialist western expansion"... very confusing and illogical stuff. Gorbachev himself clearly stated so, when he said that there was NO such thing as promises of non-NATO integration of eastern countries (which the Russian regime continues to try to spin these lies when the man himself denied any such promise). And by the way, former soviet states applied to join NATO when the world witnessed Russia restarting expansionism through war in case you didn't know. So once again, it isn't very clear. > And I doubt you can find many russians living in russia who are confused by this. They understand. Clearly, they don't understand, why do you think hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young and educated Russians fled Russia when the war started?
benterix 2y ago
> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway). How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all. If you say that they believe that Russia should be great again, and Ukrainians should be its subjects just like Belorussians, this makes much more sense, and there is support for this kind of thinking in the population. But let's not pretend they're good guys then.
- lukan 2y ago
  "But let's not pretend they're good guys then." I did not. "> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway" And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting? It is a voluntarily army. Econonic reasons do play a role, especially for people from asian backwater provinces - but all in all they do fight, because they choose to. So back to the main story - it is not just evil overlord Putin, that is the problem.
  - benterix 2y ago
    > And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting? Actually I didn't know that, the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise. In any case, last time I read they said they managed to mobilize 300 000 people[0]. So what happened to them? It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization
    - lukan 2y ago
      "the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise" Not the ones I read. "It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war." They can guard other borders (russia has lots of them) and replace the professional soldiers there, who then can be send instead to Ukraine. And 140 000 of those 300 000 you cite seem to be Ukrainians. And they do have to fight indeed. But russia really avoided forcefully drafting ethnic russians and sending them into the war zone - the few times it did - it created too much unrest.

by lukan 2y ago

libertine 2y ago

> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia This is a very bold claim, can you back this up? Because we won't see massive lines of Russian men trying to join the army to defend the homeland. In fact, the moment a general mobilization was announced you had hundreds of thousands (if not million+?) fleeing Russia. The main motivations we've seen for the Russians joining are: - entrepreneurship - going to war became an entrepreneurial endeavor to get paid a large sum of money (if I recall correctly Russians are now being paid more than US soldiers if you factor in their sign-in bonus); - getting out of jail - to the point of seeing violent criminals commit crimes again; I'm not saying they see themselves as representations of evil; I'm saying they don't seem to care whether they represent it or not.

lukan 2y ago
Since I was talking about russian soldiers, I did talk about their motivation. Not about russian people who are not soldiers and don't want to become soldiers. Because the russian army still largely consists of voluntarily soldiers. And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is. But also the Nazis did not view themself as evil - but rather as powerful because of lack of restraint. And protecting the poor suppressed aryan people. So my point was not at all, that the russian soldiers are somehow nice - just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is - but people like the fantasy approach of black and white - and the proplem starts when they apply this thinking to the real world.
- libertine 2y ago
  I was also talking about Russian soldiers. You can exclude conscripts because at the moment the Russian regime seems to want to avoid civilian unrest. > And as far as I know, defending mother russia from NATO aggression is a major motivator, as well as money is. This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about? > just that the world is not as black and white as fantasy often is The Nazis crafted a narrative to start WW2 at a time when information didn't have the same freedom. This narrative seem to have heavily inspired the Russian regime: "ethnic russians are under threat in Ukraine!" instead of "ethnic Germans are under threat in Poland". So the whole casus beli does seem to be a dark fantasy, and people are aware of this, to the point of completely dismissing that reality. That's why I don't understand your point, nor do I see the logic of it.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "This is very confusing, and a lot of Russians are also confused by this by the way: what NATO aggression are you talking about?" It is not my point of view, I am not a fan of empires in general, but the "NATO aggression" is obviously the expansion of the NATO to the east .. And from the point of view of empire logic - it is aggression. The old empire was shrinking and in decline - Ukraine, which was formerly completely integrated in the empire, now on the brink of switching sides and aligning with the west. It is the logic of power. And I doubt you can find many russians living in russia who are confused by this. They understand. Luckily not everyone shares that logic(way too many do), but they do understand it.
    - libertine 2y ago
      > It is not my point of view, I am not a fan of empires in general, but the "NATO aggression" is obviously the expansion of the NATO to the east .. I mean, it is your point of view, which is shared by the Russian regime narrative as you know, hence why it's confusing. Once again when you say "the expansion of the NATO" you're framing it like an army marched into the east seizing territory and enforcing themselves onto sovereign states that wanted nothing to do with NATO. Or that NATO threatened countries to join them "or else" like Russia does. And my question is why are you framing it like that? Because NATO is a defensive alliance, which countries can apply to join. No nation was threatened into joining NATO. In case you didn't know both USSR and Russia signed agreements, memorandums and charters that stated Sovereign countries are entitled to choose their own economic and defensive alliances - ALL SOVEREIGN COUNTRIES, no exceptions here. By your logic, the WTC is an imperialist project, which is nonsense. Or agreements Russia had with Western countries, would be once again "imperialist western expansion"... very confusing and illogical stuff. Gorbachev himself clearly stated so, when he said that there was NO such thing as promises of non-NATO integration of eastern countries (which the Russian regime continues to try to spin these lies when the man himself denied any such promise). And by the way, former soviet states applied to join NATO when the world witnessed Russia restarting expansionism through war in case you didn't know. So once again, it isn't very clear. > And I doubt you can find many russians living in russia who are confused by this. They understand. Clearly, they don't understand, why do you think hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young and educated Russians fled Russia when the war started?

benterix 2y ago

> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway). How do they explain the cognitive dissonance that instead of defending Russia they are actively attacking Ukraine? It makes no sense at all. If you say that they believe that Russia should be great again, and Ukrainians should be its subjects just like Belorussians, this makes much more sense, and there is support for this kind of thinking in the population. But let's not pretend they're good guys then.

lukan 2y ago
"But let's not pretend they're good guys then." I did not. "> The russian soldiers also largely don't think they represent evil, they think they defend russia Let's suppose this is true (I'm not convinced, in practice most of them are fighting because they don't have choice, so what they think doesn't matter that much anyway" And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting? It is a voluntarily army. Econonic reasons do play a role, especially for people from asian backwater provinces - but all in all they do fight, because they choose to. So back to the main story - it is not just evil overlord Putin, that is the problem.
- benterix 2y ago
  > And are you aware, allmost no russian conscripts are involved in fighting? Actually I didn't know that, the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise. In any case, last time I read they said they managed to mobilize 300 000 people[0]. So what happened to them? It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization
  - lukan 2y ago
    "the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise" Not the ones I read. "It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war." They can guard other borders (russia has lots of them) and replace the professional soldiers there, who then can be send instead to Ukraine. And 140 000 of those 300 000 you cite seem to be Ukrainians. And they do have to fight indeed. But russia really avoided forcefully drafting ethnic russians and sending them into the war zone - the few times it did - it created too much unrest.