It's interesting to contrast comments like this in this thread, with the amount of hatred and abuse heaped upon Russians on the day of Russia's invasion - not just the Russian state, but a big chunk of comments that made it clear that they held all Russians responsible for it and would like to see their lives destroyed. And had relatively little pushback against them.
I agree with the sentiment of your second paragraph, but I wish that thought applied in general, and not just to some special case countries. Especially considering the widely differing levels of democratic power people have in these different countries.
The Russian war on Ukraine is a WILDLY different case. There was no border dispute of any kind between these countries, no terror, no threats, just the Russian desire to own Ukraine.
> There was no border dispute of any kind between these countries
That is such a perfect representation of the level of public discourse around this, that I can only thank you for providing a sample. It's not even hard to learn about the Donetsk region's conflicts and the destruction there long before the invasion, but flooding the media and Internet with convenient narratives like "just the Russian desire to own Ukraine" has worked and continues to work very effectively on the general public (likely even more than the censorship does).
And all of this is quite orthogonal to the main fact here, which is that it makes very little sense to blame the population living under an authoritarian government and want them destroyed for that government's actions, and then turn around and give people in a democratic country a pass on their government's actions.
> It's not even hard to learn about the Donetsk region's conflicts and the destruction there long before the invasion, but flooding the media and Internet with convenient narratives like "just the Russian desire to own Ukraine" has worked and continues to work very effectively on the general public (likely even more than the censorship does).
There was none. The conflict in Donetsk was entirely manufactured during the initial stages of the 2014 invasion. When the European Court of Human Rights reviewed a case concerning the downed Malaysian airliner, the Russian side argued that Russia was not involved, claiming that it was the work of "Donetsk rebels". The court found that there was no genuine separatist movement and no rebels of any kind, only unmarked troops operating under direct Russian control from the start.
If anything, the media has been flooded with misrepresentations that promote a "generic ethnic conflict" narrative to mask a straightforward and unprovoked invasion of one country by another country. And the reasons indeed do boil down to one single person, his unchecked power, and unhealthy obsessions - as has been the case with many dictators throughout the history.
And yet far less attention than those in Ukraine got even at a time when the destruction and killing there was less than 1% of what Palestine has gone through. Within one week of the first attack, Ukraine got more mainstream support, on-air time, and geopolitical response, than Palestine got over a year of suffering through civilian murders and other clear war crimes.
There has always been a significant section of the US public that's anti-science, and would have posed a strong obstruction to funding any of the space achievements of the 20th century - if not for the fact that the Soviet Union demonstrated space supremacy first. Because of that, space research and technology was made palatable to this demographic by making it a "let's show them commies" thing.
The momentum from that kept things going for a while after the Soviet Union fell, but the inertia has been running out and anti-science sentiment has been raising to the surface in its full form again. The sad truth is that it will most likely be at least another decade to swing things around again, if it's possible at all.
Imagine if this was a male journalist snooping through newly appointed young, female engineers' histories, e-stalking them the same way and writing an article of his findings. You can justify it as "it's technically still reporting", but it's very creepy that they thought of this and then continued to think this was a good idea throughout the process.
Not necessarily a culture shift - assuming you mean IRL culture, not HN culture - but rather a sign of HN's much increased popularity in recent years, outside the thoughtful nerd circle.
I did mean HN culture, but you make a really good point either way. Maybe I need to find a yet-more-secluded corner, where the rest of the world can’t encroach so easily
The moderation team does a good enough job already; they will and should continue to stick to their guns about "good faith" discussions and that will be enough of a frustration to people repeatedly posting thoughtless or incurious comments that most discussions will continue to be reasonable and sensible. There are still pockets of that here. I think the other commenter nailed it about this being a result of increased popularity but I also think that will cool down as the less curious learn to prefer different communities.
> In the early 2010s, the CIA ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad, offering free Hepatitis B vaccines to children in an attempt to collect DNA evidence linking Osama bin Laden to the compound where he was suspected of residing. It is unclear how samples were to be collected or how they would lead to bin Laden, but when news of this scheme broke, it added proof to existing conspiracy theories about vaccinations. As a consequence, many local leaders began urging people not to vaccinate their kids, various districts banned vaccination teams, and the Taliban issued a fatwa against vaccination programs. To this day, local leaders rail against vaccines as Western spying programs.
> Given how many activists have used it in overthrowing dictatorial governments
How many? There's some news about it being recommended for use by BLM protesters, and about it being blocked in China, Iran, etc. Where is this info about it being used in "overthrowing dictatorial governments"?
> The mailing lists are censored and the inner circle cannot be criticized.
Well, HN isn't censored in this regard (unless you believe their influence extends here too). What specific criticisms do you have against "the inner circle"? And what evidence can you show for them?
I agree with the sentiment of your second paragraph, but I wish that thought applied in general, and not just to some special case countries. Especially considering the widely differing levels of democratic power people have in these different countries.