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Complaining that most people find interesting something that you see as banal, and demanding they protest what you deem significant is not having a contrarian o

Complaining that most people find interesting something that you see as banal, and demanding they protest what you deem significant is not having a contrarian opinion. It's just being innapropiate to this conversation. Posting about the Marinaka Mine Massacre on HN would be more constructive. Now, blaming all of this on the "western media narrative", a mindset relic of the hawkest hawks of the Cold War, who exaggerate a simple incident of "vandalism" in order to discredit the democratic government of Putin... Yeah, that's a contrarian opinion. Which just happens to be false. Western media simply does not give that much of a fuck now about Rusia. Past protests in Russia about the legitimacy of the elections? Here covered, at most, in passing. The law banning reunions? Don't care. The Pussy Riot incident? It's only on HN's front page because Kasparov was arrested.

mladenkovacevic 14y ago
I am not demanding that anyone find my observations important or central to the discussion of the pussy riot events. If you want to express condemnation of the sentence or the Russian government in general there are plenty of places for you to do so (including in this HN thread). It just so happens that my post reached enough upvotes that it made it to the top of this thread (democracy and free speech at work, ironically) so it must be something that HN is interested in as well. You replying to me by telling me that my opinion is inappropriate to the conversation (which I started by the way... there are other conversations below you can express your approval of) is an attempt to censor me. Calling my thought process a relic of the cold war is either an intentional distraction or just naivete on your part. If you disagree with my opinion about the double standards with which western media handles events from countries whose regimes it approves of and those that it doesn't that's completely fine. But I'd like you to consider a hypothetical incident which I've mentioned below: a few guys walk into a Manhattan synagogue, put Balaklavas over their heads and scream out profanities against Israel and capitalism. Would you really be as outraged if they were carted off to jail and put on some terrorist watch-list.

mladenkovacevic 14y ago

I am not demanding that anyone find my observations important or central to the discussion of the pussy riot events. If you want to express condemnation of the sentence or the Russian government in general there are plenty of places for you to do so (including in this HN thread). It just so happens that my post reached enough upvotes that it made it to the top of this thread (democracy and free speech at work, ironically) so it must be something that HN is interested in as well. You replying to me by telling me that my opinion is inappropriate to the conversation (which I started by the way... there are other conversations below you can express your approval of) is an attempt to censor me. Calling my thought process a relic of the cold war is either an intentional distraction or just naivete on your part. If you disagree with my opinion about the double standards with which western media handles events from countries whose regimes it approves of and those that it doesn't that's completely fine. But I'd like you to consider a hypothetical incident which I've mentioned below: a few guys walk into a Manhattan synagogue, put Balaklavas over their heads and scream out profanities against Israel and capitalism. Would you really be as outraged if they were carted off to jail and put on some terrorist watch-list.