[HN Gopher] Red Hat is discontinuing sales and services in Russi...
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Red Hat is discontinuing sales and services in Russia and Belarus
Author : toppy
Score : 212 points
Date : 2022-03-08 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.redhat.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.redhat.com)
| lgbrandon wrote:
| [deleted]
| rossmohax wrote:
| I wonder if OSS projects start to reject PRs from Russian
| developers. Since it is a global effort to cancel Russia, I wont
| be surprised if it actually happens.
| egamirorrim wrote:
| I probably wouldn't let the guy torturing my neighbours help
| paint my fence, even if he's really good at fence painting.
| kamma wrote:
| Would you let another guy to paint your fence if that other
| guy just happened to rent a flat from the torturer and having
| no means to move out? Because that's the correct analogy, if
| you just cancel Russian that can't affect government in any
| significant way and stand against war (and de-facto most
| likely go to the prison if they are brave enough to just
| mention that).
|
| Or how do you feel about being canceled out yourself because
| you live next to the torturer and not preventing him from
| torturing your neighbours at your own expense?
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I would be surprised.
|
| This is a protest against the Russian governement, because
| there is no alternative anymore at this point.
| jafoi wrote:
| I've read so many people in this forum of all places that
| seem very content screwing over regular Russians.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This is unsurprising. Everyone is watching mass murder live
| on the internet. A lot of us want our nations to step in
| and start shooting which is complicated by the potential
| for nuclear armageddon thus the Russian people are a proxy
| for russia soldiers they would gladly see met in battle.
|
| If you look at present day Germany redemption is certainly
| possible even if it takes 50 years or so.
| jafoi wrote:
| This is a very American point of view. I don't think
| anybody here in Europe in the last decades has looked at
| Germans with contempt for what Nazis did. It's absolutely
| ridiculous.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| How would you call Putin's "clan"?
|
| Most people here realize we are talking about "Putin's
| Russians" and not ordinary Russians.
|
| But ordinary Russians are aiding Putin too and I know
| some try to protest under harsh conditions ( jail) or are
| fleeing Russia.
|
| Eg. I don't consider Russian people living abroad the
| same as the one that are aiding Putin. And most
| definitely not the elite that are doing it with knowledge
| of the complete situation.
|
| But one of the problems is that there's not really a word
| to describe that 'group' or any of those above mentioned
| groups.
|
| PS. To share a POV, I asked a Russian friend how she is
| doing and if she had troubles in 'her social environment'
| here in Belgium. She said there wasn't an issue. I don't
| know if I can generalize that though.
| definataly wrote:
| how about 'nomenklatura' by analogy to the soviet times?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Yes its been 77 years now. I wouldn't expect
| normalization after mass murder and threatening to nuke
| everyone next year or in the next 10.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| I don't think he's talking about something 77 years ago
| vs. now.
|
| He want's to describe the association to the
| generalization. Eg. Nazi vs Germans. And Russians vs.
| 'Putin's Russians?'. I don't know how to describe it
| better.
|
| The description of the problem at hand could have been
| better, but I do agree it's an issue.
|
| I know the difference between the groups. But it could be
| confusing for someone else who is eg. Russian and they
| could feel offended.
| [deleted]
| jotm wrote:
| On the one hand, more than half of Russians support or are
| indifferent to the war. On the other hand, a government
| change is the only thing that Ukraine, and the world needs.
| All the warmongering idiots will pretty much fall in line,
| just like the Trumpists (US) and antivaxxers (worldwide)
| do.
| gruturo wrote:
| I _hate_ that this is hurting regular Russians. But I don
| 't have an alternative suggestion which hits only the
| oligarchs [1], and I understand the cruel logic of making
| regular Russians so unhappy they overthrow that shitshow
| they have in place of a government.
|
| [1] Actually I do, cut all russian gas and oil imports
| right now, no matter how painful, and apply sanctions to
| anyone who continues trading russian gas and oil, no matter
| if friend or foe, big or small. Soften the financial blow
| to the lower and middle class with some progressive tax,
| offer large incentives to build wind, solar, EV chargers,
| heat pumps, better thermal insulation of homes, etc. I'm
| oversimplifying, and sharper minds would be needed to
| improve the basic idea and close exploitable loopholes, but
| it would be doable if we really, really wanted. The killing
| of innocent Ukrainians must be stopped.
| definataly wrote:
| > The killing of innocent Ukrainians must be stopped.
|
| Were were you when the killing of innocent Russians was
| taking place in 2014? https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-
| forgotten-victims-of-donba...
|
| What would you think if a region in Europe belonging to a
| larger country clamored for independence but was crushed
| by the military and by sanctioned militias which are
| antisemitic and right wing radicals? https://civic-
| nation.org/ukraine/society/radical_right-wing_...
|
| How much do you really know about May 2nd 2014?
| https://www.dw.com/en/the-odessa-file-what-happened-on-
| may-2...
|
| About the ties between radical anti-democratic para-
| military groups, the US and Ukraine?
| https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/06/04/how-and-why-the-u-
| s-go...
|
| I don't know much, but would be surprised if it's as
| simple as: Russia = BAD, Ukraine = GOOD.
|
| note that I'm not saying Russia is innocent or justified.
| Their war is unjustified and an atrocity. But Ukraine is
| not a beacon of democracy, respect and peace either. They
| are a country whose government has supported radical and
| violent tactics against some of its own ethnic groups.
|
| Neither Russian nor Ukrainian civilians deserve any of
| this. In my opinion, protests, and sanctions should be
| very targeted (at leaders, companies and groups
| participating in these violent attacks: Now Russians
| ones, a few years ago Ukrainian ones).
| type0 wrote:
| > Were were you when the killing of innocent Russians was
| taking place in 2014?
|
| These people were Ukranian citizens, Putin funded the
| separatists and tried to start a civil war. Since that
| didn't succeed plan B was to invade the country as we are
| seeing now
| dymk wrote:
| Why do you call it "cancel"?
| herpderperator wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture
| dymk wrote:
| My point is that it's called "sanctions". Calling it
| "cancel culture" just makes it clear you're trying to
| reframe Russia as some poor victim of an internet mob.
|
| They're the aggressor in a war.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Distinction between targeted sanctions decreed by our
| government, and coordinated private decisions to stop
| doing business with any Russian. You need a word for the
| latter.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Due to the invasion. However, Russia legalized software piracy
| recently. If the war and sanctions ended tomorrow, what would big
| tech do in response to such a law?
| jotm wrote:
| Same thing as before, marketing and making purchase easier than
| piracy.
|
| It's not like the Russian government went after pirates much,
| despite having the laws in place.
| BaconPackets wrote:
| That is interesting. Red Hat is a major player within the telecom
| industry. I do wonder how support will work for Russian Telcos
| running VNF on Openstack.
|
| I assume that all contracts have some force majeure actions baked
| in.
| tssva wrote:
| Canonical self-submitted one of their blog posts the other day
| proclaiming that OpenStack isn't dead. One of their examples
| was the deployment of Canonical's OpenStack version by the
| Russian telco MTS. I heard a peep from them regarding their
| plans to continue operations in Russia.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Deutsche Telekom's public cloud is running it also...
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| That would presuppose that a NATO sanctioned company could sue
| companies that no longer due business in their country due to
| war, which I'm sure is probably a decent reason to terminate a
| contract.
|
| In other words: Russian businesses are just f**ed. The only
| option is - build your own tools, or use only russian based
| tools, services, etc - or go back to doing things in excel
| spreadsheets and paper/pen.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| They can lobby their government to stop invading their
| neighbors.
| agul29 wrote:
| Saudis, Americans etc. don't have to. Why should they?
| brandmeyer wrote:
| Americans regularly protest warfare without fear of
| prosecution. American companies and individuals regularly
| avoid selling products to US-DOD and/or ICE. Witness the
| controversy surrounding Panantir, or DOD's JEDI project,
| for two recent examples. American companies and
| individuals regularly sanction Israel for its behavior in
| Palestine despite being one of our closest allies:
| witness the BDS movement.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| They don't need to build their own tools in this case, they
| can just use https://almalinux.org/ which is the new CentOS,
| the redhat equivalent of open source. As for the need for
| tech support, these are local Russians so they should be ok.
| adenner wrote:
| I think Microsoft also pulled out of Russia as well so Excel
| is off the table as well.
| MrDisposable wrote:
| LibreOffice is a decent replacement.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| RedHat (IBM) doesn't make money directly by contributing to open
| source software development (although they do this). They make
| money from service and support contracts. So when we see a
| headline like this that means that RedHat won't maintain systems
| in Russia and Belarus. Which means that this is a bigger step
| than this is being downplayed in the comments. Redhat even bought
| out / absorbed CentOS also.
| hnov wrote:
| I think when we see a headline like this, it means RedHat is
| not sure how they'd take payment for the support contracts now
| that avenues of moving money from Russia are all but closed
| off. They look at how much they've been making over the past
| years, the trend, the potential losses from fallout in case
| someone decides to name and shame them as enabling a fascist
| state and by their estimation it's just not worth it. If a
| significant portion of their income was coming from those two
| countries, they'd quietly condemn the invasion for an internal
| audience and keep doing business.
| chizhik-pyzhik wrote:
| As more and more providers cut off Russia, we see the points of
| centralization in the system. For software, this is anything
| closed-source or licensed- open source can't be blocked. Similar
| story for cryptocurrency, the centralized offramps like Coinbase
| cut users off but smart contracts don't.
|
| In a way it's good - people in these situations will flock to
| more resilient systems.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| This will backfire on the US. They're making Russia anti-
| fragile and not dependant on America's dollar or big companies
| products. It can also trade with China to survive and Europe
| still needs its gaz. If Iran and North Korea could survive
| sanctions for decades, I have hard time seeing Russia falling
| because of these sanctions, and Russia is in a better position
| than both Iran and North Korea. Russia already started using
| China's payment card system so now they don't rely on
| visa/mastercard, another great loss for the US. Not sure who
| will end up losing more here to be honnest.
| sofixa wrote:
| It's debatable. Iran and NK weren't as developed as Russia
| was. Sure, there are many alternatives to things such as
| payment providers, but regular Russians are basically cut off
| from many services they used to use until recently ( Netflix,
| YouTube) and can no longer but stuff they could before (
| iPhones, computers, etc.). This will hurt drastically more
| the average Russian than the average North Korean who has
| never had the privilege to use any of those things ( if
| they've even heard of them). The damage to the Russian
| economy from sanctions is also enormous and it will take
| years to recover.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| > It's debatable. Iran and NK weren't as developed as
| Russia was.
|
| Russia GDP is like Spain, it's not that developed either.
| It's mostly gaz and wheat, this can be diverted to China,
| though at a discount of course. Still enough to survive.
| sofixa wrote:
| Developed as developed, not GDP. Monaco's GDP is
| miniscule compared to Morocco ( 7 vs 119 billion USD),
| but you can safely say Monaco is more developed.
| bonzini wrote:
| Russia's GDP is like Spain's with (going by memory) 4-5
| times the population.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| And Spain is 30 times smaller in size than Russia
| nitwit005 wrote:
| > I have hard time seeing Russia falling because of these
| sanctions
|
| That wasn't the goal, so this isn't terribly surprising.
| jotm wrote:
| Russia was pretty independent on a world stage. When it's in
| China's shadow, the US will have one less country to worry
| about (not that they worried much, I think). They can just
| focus on China.
| brabel wrote:
| China together with Russia can be an enormous challenger to
| US hegemony. Russia has military might, while China has
| economical might... together, they're probably a match for
| the USA in every aspect.
| avar wrote:
| > Russia has military might.
|
| Haven't the past weeks revised everyone's opinion on that
| point? They're having tremendous logistical issues within
| a relatively short driving distance from their own
| borders.
|
| They've got a lot of old Soviet hardware they can sell
| designs for, and already have e.g. in the case of China
| and their first aircraft carrier. But that won't last,
| and China's already ahead of them in some areas
| (including carriers).
| rurp wrote:
| It's also worth emphasizing that we're basically seeing
| the best version of Russia's military. They've spent
| years preparing for this current war and had total
| control over when and where the fighting would start.
|
| Having to scramble for an unexpected war is 10x harder
| and more complicated.
|
| Large militaries are also very expensive. Right now it's
| looking like Russia is going to have a very hard time
| funding their current apparratus.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > They're making Russia anti-fragile
|
| > It can also trade with China to survive
|
| These statements are at very much at odds with each other.
| They might be able to squeeze some money out of Europe now,
| but if the relationship isn't mended with blinding speed then
| Europe is going to move away from Russian energy permanently.
| This situation would turn Russia into a Chinese vassal state.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| > This situation would turn Russia into a Chinese vassal
| state.
|
| It's a bipolar world though, you're either a vassal of the
| US or China. I don't know of any country which isn't a
| vassal to any of these too, except for Syria and Iran who
| are vassal states of Russia. And Cuba to some extent. Still
| being able to survive without the US is pretty anti-
| fragile.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Putin's whole ambition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fou
| ndations_of_Geopolitics) is to expand to and beyond the
| Russian Empire.
|
| Becoming a Chinese client state would be a massive
| failure for him.
| jotm wrote:
| Not when there's easier alternatives. They'll flock to Chinese
| systems, instead.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Open source _can_ be blocked with sanctions, though that 's
| fairly meaningless if the sanctioned entity's host country
| doesn't care about Berne/TRIPS anymore. Indeed, Russia is
| making moves to legitimize software piracy[0] because they're
| so cut-off from the rest of the world that you can't sanction
| them _more_ for disrespecting basic copyright.
|
| For those wondering this would also mean that Russia doesn't
| have to care about GPL anymore, obviously.
|
| [0] Which is something I'd be actually optimistic about if this
| wasn't happening in, well... Russia.
| iso1210 wrote:
| > Open source can be blocked with sanctions
|
| How?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Sanctions can apply to copyright or patent licenses, which
| means you can't grant them and any existing licenses are
| nullified. When Huawei got sanctioned, they were cut off
| from any technology invented by Americans, including things
| like most ARM chip designs, Google Play, and even Android
| itself[0]. This also meant that any remaining licensees of
| such technologies couldn't sublicense to Huawei.
|
| Now, you might wonder why that matters - surely, China is
| the one enforcing copyright and patent law, right? They
| could just pretend America didn't say that. Except if they
| do that, then they're in violation of WIPO/TRIPS, and every
| country in the world is going to ban their exports.
|
| FOSS relies entirely on copyright law in order to work and
| be legal, and Americans and Europeans write a _lot_ of
| FOSS, so the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and the EU 27
| collectively pull the strings here. If you don 't have
| those licenses in place, not only could any contributor go
| rogue and start suing; the US itself would have standing to
| sue on behalf of it's citizens (i.e. to get products banned
| from international trade).
|
| As a practical example of this, GitHub had to fight tooth-
| and-nail just to get a sanctions exemption so that Iranian
| software developers could rejoin the rest of the world.
|
| [0] AFAIK Huawei is shipping their own AOSP fork now, and
| that's currently allowed; but I still maintain that the US
| could have banned them from that, too.
| tjr225 wrote:
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-
| coun...
| avar wrote:
| Read up on crypto export controls as they were implemented
| in the 90s, and still are today for anything that falls
| under e.g. ITAR.
|
| It's not a perfect way to block open source, but in
| practice it could be done and would mostly "work". The
| chilling effect and collateral damage would be massive
| though.
| siskiyou wrote:
| If software vendors want to really turn the screws on Russian
| aggression, I have a suggestion: break license checks from
| Russia. Microsoft Windows, Office, Sharepoint, looking at you in
| particular. Delicense existing installations.
| teeray wrote:
| > Delicense existing installations.
|
| This is tantamount to theft. Yes, I'm sure there's plenty of
| weasel words in agreements. But at the end of the day, if you
| traded X for Y and end up with both X & Y, you have stolen from
| someone else.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| If it's subscription based software and you kick them out at
| the end of their subscription period it's sort of legit.
| dymk wrote:
| > This is tantamount to theft
|
| Wanna know what Russia has been doing to the Ukraine?
| iso1210 wrote:
| If you stole $50 from a mob boss, would that be OK?
| istjohn wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_Uni
| ted...
| gambiting wrote:
| To exaggerate massively - if you were running an
| authentication server for your software and found actual
| Nazis were using it, I think you'd be justified to boot them
| from it, even if they paid you.
| mvc wrote:
| That is not an exageration IMO. Many people are making
| comparisons between Putin's actions and those of Hitler in
| the run up to WW2.
|
| Russia is firmly in Nazi territory right now.
| brabel wrote:
| In every war since WWII, the enemy is always painted in
| the image of Hitler. I am sure there's a lot of horror
| going on in Ukraine right now, as in every war (do you
| know of any war that's not pure destruction and
| horror?)... but to say it's close to the horrors Hitler
| committed is, in my opinion, grossly failing to see how
| the motivations, tactics and methods involved differ
| enormously.
|
| Until I see gas chambers being used to kill Ukrainian
| civilians in mass, and innocent people being rounded up
| and burned inside buildings like the Nazi did, I would
| say we're still luckily very far from the same level of
| cruelty. And I pray to God we'll never see that kind of
| event again.
|
| International organizations claim the number of dead
| civilians so far is around 400, which is in line with a
| full scale war where civilians are killed in the cross-
| fire, as horrific as that sounds.
|
| For comparison, the USA invasion of Iraq caused around
| 5,000 civilian deaths in the initial few months [1], so
| it was actually likely much worse than Ukraine! Would you
| compare that with Hitler as well?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project
| mvc wrote:
| Early days yet. If you check my comment, I said he's
| replicating the run up. It remains to be seen whether he
| will be allowed to commit genocide but he's written about
| restoring old Soviet borders and he cannot do that
| without going against the wishes of 10s of millions of
| people. Maybe 100s of millions.
| siskiyou wrote:
| Sounds good. When Russians suffer as much as people in
| Ukraine...
| gruez wrote:
| >Delicense existing installations.
|
| "WTF I love online activation DRM now!"
| jl6 wrote:
| Reminder that the goal is hinderance of aggression by the
| Russian government, not punishment of the Russian people.
|
| Having said that, I bet Microsoft knows which licenses are
| owned by the Russian government specifically.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| > Reminder that the goal is hinderance of aggression by the
| Russian government, not punishment of the Russian people.
|
| Is it? Or is the goal to turn the people of Russia against
| the Russian government for putting them into this position,
| perhaps even triggering regime change.
| brabel wrote:
| You know, it was pretty clear that Russia was willing to go
| to war to stop Ukraine joining NATO. They said so multiple
| times since the first time the objective was announced, in
| 2008 I think, which was followed by the Russian war on
| Georgia for the same reason... and the annexation of Krimea
| also had the same root cause... so I am convinced the war
| could have been stopped, but the West made absolutely no
| effort to do so. Do you remember when Russia sent the
| "ultimatum" to the USA and the answer was that none of the
| Russian demands even merited consideration? They knew then
| that this response would lead to a war.
|
| Therefore, I believe there's reason to believe the West
| willingly allowed Russia to enter this war, perhaps with
| exact this goal: causing Russia to go broke (similar to
| what happened to the USSR in Afghanistan, which was also
| assisted heavily by the West at the time) over a gigantic
| conflict (and sanctions), forcing a regime change in
| Russia, finally, at the cost of a totally destroyed
| Ukraine. Maybe the West thought the cost (thousands of
| Ukrainians and Russian dead, two destroyed economies,
| another generation of people who can't trust their
| neighbours anymore, increased military spending) was
| acceptable?
| nybble41 wrote:
| > ... so I am convinced the war could have been stopped,
| but the West made absolutely no effort to do so.
|
| Conspiracy theories aside, avoiding war at all costs by
| capitulating to the aggressor's demands without a fight
| is not a sustainable approach.
|
| Sure, Russia was strongly and publicly opposed to Ukraine
| joining NATO, to the point of threatening war over it...
| but that isn't their decision to make. Russia is still
| the unjustified invader here and the _only_ one at fault
| --not Ukraine for seeking NATO membership or the other
| NATO members for considering the application.
| brabel wrote:
| I disagree because I am not saying NATO should
| capitulate... just that when you don't compromise in any
| way even when it's in your own interest to do so just
| because you believe you have all leverage in the world,
| and then the strategy backfires, that you should take
| some responsibility as well.
| somethingwitty1 wrote:
| I'm really confused on what you are trying to make a
| point on. Your statement was NATO should have not allowed
| Ukraine membership based on the threats from Russia of
| war. NATO did not allow Ukraine membership and even
| stated as much that Ukraine likely could never be a
| member. Russia got what they wanted. So what compromise
| was NATO not willing to make?
|
| It feels like you are trying mental gymnastics to give a
| pass to a country starting a war. Russia is to blame,
| full stop. Russia should have no say in how Ukraine wants
| to move forward or the alliances they want to make.
| Russia is free to voice their concerns or better yet,
| provide better assurances and protection to Ukraine than
| what NATO could offer. Instead, they invaded. No one is
| at fault for that other than Russia.
| gary_0 wrote:
| Not to mention NATO blocking (or considering blocking)
| applicant countries due to arbitrary third-party
| threats/requests would weaken the entire purpose of the
| treaty. It would have left every current and prospective
| member questioning the treaty's actual effectiveness.
|
| Putin was basically asking NATO to harm itself, there was
| no way anyone was going to take that seriously.
| ciceryadam wrote:
| http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21598
|
| Vladimir Putin: I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine
| will not shy away from the processes of expanding
| interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole.
| Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the
| Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision
| is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for
| those two partners.
| jafoi wrote:
| What detonated the conflict was Zelensky threatening to
| leave the Budapest Memorandum. Of course you won't hear
| that anywhere :)
| LosWochosWeek wrote:
| I'm really curious how some people can bend their own
| minds in such a way that Russia invading a sovereign
| country is somehow the fault of "The West".
|
| With all due respect, there was nothing to negotiate.
| Practically every world leader came to Putin's virtual
| doorsteps and tried to negotiate. Olaf Scholz even hinted
| at the fact that Ukraine wont be able to join NATO
| anyways bc of various reasons. But none of that helped.
| Putin has nuclear bombs. If we were to bend to his will
| bc he threatened to invade Ukraine, then we might as well
| pack our stuff, bc he has bigger threats. I can already
| see the messages on our post-nuclear-winter internet
| "Well, Proto-Putin threatened to start a nuclear war. The
| West had every chance to just allow him to crown himself
| Godking of Earth. This was the West's fault!".
|
| I'm sorry but your worldview is cynical.
|
| > so I am convinced the war could have been stopped,
|
| Yes, by Putin. But he didnt. And that's somehow the fault
| of the West, I guess?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The Russian people are the only ones who can stop Putin
| without triggering a nuclear conflict with NATO.
|
| So far, they're not doing their job. Maybe we haven't
| incentivized them sufficiently.
| brimble wrote:
| > Reminder that the goal is hinderance of aggression by the
| Russian government, not punishment of the Russian people.
|
| Hindrance of aggression by the Russian government.... by
| wrecking their economy. Yes, the Russian people, being the
| economy, are the target, unavoidably.
| lottin wrote:
| The goal is to cripple the Russian economy, which in turn
| will hinder their war efforts.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Their sons and daughters are in a foreign country murdering
| children and shooting fleeing civilians. We aren't talking
| about dropping cluster munitions on them like they are on
| Ukrainians. They are a perfectly legitimate target for
| economic actions.
| vkou wrote:
| > Reminder that the goal is hinderance of aggression by the
| Russian government, not punishment of the Russian people.
|
| The goal is both. You can't meaningfully punish a government
| without also punishing its people. The current sanctions are
| absolutely crippling to the Russian domestic economy. Their
| exporting businesses are dead in the water. What remains of
| their industry completely depends on imports, which have no
| stopped.
|
| In their personal lives, they are accustomed to buying
| foreign goods, as basic as furniture. Russia currently
| doesn't manufacture enough furniture to meet its domestic
| needs... And doesn't manufacture enough manufacturing
| machinery to build said furniture factories, even if it
| wanted to.
|
| So, you tell me, does mass unemployment, inability to buy
| basic consumer goods, and a collapse in purchasing power do -
| does it punish a government, its people, or both?
| siskiyou wrote:
| The entire Russian economy needs to be punished as much as
| possible in as short a time as possible. This unavoidably
| hurts everyone.
| ralfd wrote:
| > The entire Russian economy needs to be punished as much
| as possible in as short a time as possible. This
| unavoidably hurts everyone.
|
| Sanctions can work too well. After the US embargoed all oil
| to imperial Japan their navy calculated they only had fuel
| left for two years, which led to the attack of Pearl
| Harbor.
| zo1 wrote:
| That sounds great, till the union dissolves and nukes start
| being divided up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch" mini
| states and all the corruption that will ensue. Either that
| or the nukes and tanks start flying out of Russia in
| retaliation. I honestly don't see how the west thinks this
| will go well, unless that's what they want.
| mistermann wrote:
| > That sounds great, till the union dissolves and nukes
| start being divided up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch"
| mini states and all the corruption that will ensue.
|
| My read of the hivemind sentiments on that would be
| "Russia has _no justification_ to do that! " Whether
| popular memes are substantial protection from nuclear
| weapons seems questionable, but it seems to be
| overwhelming consensus opinion that this is the way to
| think about such things so who knows.
|
| What's that saying, when everyone's thinking the same,
| nobody's thinking?
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Well, what's the alternative? Surrender everything to
| Russia and hope they decide not to nuke us anyway?
|
| The west has drawn the line in the sand at military
| intervention and at some point we have to draw this line.
| brabel wrote:
| > till the union dissolves and nukes start being divided
| up amongst a dozen Russian "oligarch" mini states and all
| the corruption that will ensue
|
| you've just described almost exactly Russia in the
| 1990's.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| During which time democracy became a dirty word and they
| were ready to embrace a strongman leader...
|
| So honestly yeah I'm not seeing an amazing end state with
| this "let's punish the Russian people so they overthrow
| their government" strategy. In 1917 they did and got a
| bloody civil war. In 1991 they did that and had years of
| civil instability and an economic crisis. What makes
| people think in 2022 it would be better?
| spoonjim wrote:
| That is grossly immoral if the software is paid for.
| rosndo wrote:
| I guess you think that all sanctions against Russia are also
| "grossly immoral", no?
|
| E: My reply to the now deleted child comment by "from" which
| suggested that the sanctions are pointless because they
| probably won't result in regime change.
|
| But why do you think the sanctions are about causing regime
| change? That'd be nice, but nothing anybody is betting on.
|
| It's all about discouraging such actions in the future.
| [deleted]
| pmalynin wrote:
| If a country doesn't want to operate within the confines of
| international law, does not honor international agreements,
| does not honor its word and commits war crimes -- then the
| word "immoral" does not apply to any action taken to punish
| and stop the aggressor. You cannot have it both ways. Either
| you operate as a Western country, with western contract law,
| and resolve conflicts in international courts or you go back
| to 1914.
|
| This narrative of "oh my would you think of the innocent
| Russian people" is tiring. They're all guilty, just like all
| of Germany was guilty in 1945.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| > If a country doesn't want to operate within the confines
| of international law, does not honor international
| agreements, does not honor its word and commits war crimes
| -- then the word "immoral" does not apply to any action
| taken to punish and stop the aggressor. You cannot have it
| both ways.
|
| You've just described the USA for the past 100 years here.
| The level of double standard here is reaching levels I've
| never expected before.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| We are talking about the crime that is going on right now
| as we speak. Make your own submission on a century of bad
| behavior by America and discuss that there instead of
| diluting this one with whataboutism.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Alternative: let people discuss what they like.
| rank0 wrote:
| Are you aware the US is facilitating the ongoing war in
| Yemen?
|
| It's all about strategic interests. The US commits war
| crimes when it suits our agenda...just like the Russians.
| It's kind of scary how much power the USG has over the
| world. We'll destroy the economies of our adversaries
| with almost ZERO resistance. Using the term
| "whataboutism" doesn't make OPs argument untrue.
|
| Nobody in the US actually gives a shit about the Ukraine.
| It's purely a strategic interest. We're using the country
| as a pawn in our global political game. It's fucked.
|
| If we really cared about war crimes we wouldn't
| constantly commit them. Why aren't US citizens outraged
| by the horrific warfare that occurs on a daily basis in
| our world?
| brabel wrote:
| > It's purely a strategic interest.
|
| The funny thing is that Ukraine is actually pretty low as
| far as american interests are concerned... That's why the
| USA will absolutely not fight in Ukraine, as it has said
| repeatedly before and after the war started. Which makes
| the whole reason for this conflict to have developed into
| a full scale war - Ukraine's prospect of joining NATO,
| causing Russia to feel itself existentially threatened as
| it couldn't defend itself against NATO if that happened -
| extremely futile. America would gain nothing by Ukraine
| joining NATO (assuming no desire to actually launch an
| attack on Russia), but Russia had a lot to lose as they
| absolutely expected NATO aggression (if we wanted them to
| believe we didn't mean to attack them, perhaps we
| shouldn't have continued to expand to their borders in
| the first place despite their extremely strongly worded
| protests?!).
| michaelmrose wrote:
| NATO has never been a force for unilateral aggression its
| a defensive pact. Russia was never been at risk from
| invasion from NATO for the same reason that nobody is
| attacking Russia right now they fear nuclear war. Russia
| being threatened is a lie. A pretext for expansion by
| mass murder.
|
| The entire phrase "expanding to their border" betrays a
| defective world view. Ukraine was considering joining a
| defensive pact to deter Russian aggression with obvious
| justification. The usage of "their border" somehow
| manages to imply ownership and violation. Nobody has a
| right to tell their neighbor they can't just a defensive
| pact or indeed any agreement whatsoever because of
| adjacency. Such deals don't take place by both parties
| standing on the dividing line and spitting onto Russian
| territory together. They take place within the respective
| countries capitals by their respective lawmakers.
|
| The murderer doesn't have a right to stop his victims
| from conspiring to resist him.
| brabel wrote:
| > The entire phrase "expanding to their border" betrays a
| defective world view.
|
| I've never read a sentence that so clearly ignores the
| meaning of the words it is rejecting. When NATO includes
| another country, it's expanding. This is the meaning of
| the word "expand", to grow - adding a new country to your
| territory makes you grow - or expand!!
|
| As Ukraine (as well as the Baltic states, which are
| already NATO) borders Russia, "expanding to the Russian
| borders" describes physically what it is that NATO is
| doing.
|
| I use words with their current meaning without trying to
| spin their meaning to express something that's
| occurring... if you think that's a "deffective world
| view" then you're way too far into the play of words of
| politics to be able to have a serious discussion about
| the topic.
| type0 wrote:
| > As Ukraine (as well as the Baltic states, which are
| already NATO) borders Russia
|
| There wouldn't be any Baltic states if they weren't
| members allready
| speeder wrote:
| > NATO has never been a force for unilateral aggression
|
| Tell that to people in Iraq... Or other countries NATO
| been fucking with for a while now.
|
| During cold war for example NATO-aligned countries
| happily went around doing coups, sometimes backed with
| force (for example a US aircraft carrier threatening to
| bomb Rio de Janeiro in case of Brazil), replacing
| democratically elected presidents with dictators that
| would do whatever NATO wanted, how that is NOT unilateral
| aggression? Libya is a special case even, they were doing
| everything NATO wanted for most part, trying to make
| amends and create a good relationship, and got fucked
| anyway, NATO even gave air cover to people commiting
| black genocide there, what Tawergha people did to NATO to
| justify its "defense"?
| istjohn wrote:
| I don't think Russia is actually afraid of NATO
| aggression. They are running out of accessible gas and
| oil reserves, so the undeveloped wells in Ukraine are too
| tempting to pass up.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| Could not have put it better. Doubt you will get any
| answer though.
| mvc wrote:
| The USA at least subjects itself to elections, free
| press, democracy. That is the crucial difference.
|
| Democratic systems get it wrong sometimes. No doubt.
|
| I'm a UK citizen and disagreed with the war in Iraq waged
| in my name. But at least I was permitted to go out on the
| street and protest it. And eventually Blair was gone. And
| soon, so will Blowjo. But Putin has been around for long
| enough now, that he's starting to cause a bad smell in
| the world.
|
| And it might seem unjust that Tony Blair and the rest
| never saw the Hague. I live in hope. But I see that what
| Russia is doing now is completely unacceptable regardless
| of how it sees the world evolving. It's democracy vs
| autocracy and democracy will win because if it doesn't,
| then what's the fucking point.
| wara23arish wrote:
| Im not sure how you protesting makes a difference to all
| of the victims of the US wars.
|
| You being a democracy makes no difference whatsoever.
|
| Compare US victims of war to Russias over the last 2
| decades. Tell me which seems more egregious.
|
| This isn't to say what russia is doing is good. But I
| just don't understand how you can cast stones when your
| house is made of glass.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| > The USA at least subjects itself to elections, free
| press, democracy.
|
| If you drink the kool aid and choose to believe that,
| sure.
| mvc wrote:
| As opposed to the crypto pipe you've been smoking.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| I'm an open source contributor to crypto, it's not a pipe
| I can tell you that.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| If anything does that not make the American people even
| more responsible and culpable of those war crimes since
| they actually have more power over their government's
| decisions?
| rlpb wrote:
| If economic sanctions, or even supplying arms to Ukraine to
| support them were considered moral, then I fail to see how
| merely remotely disabling software is suddenly immoral. At
| worst, it would merely be use of another type of weapon.
| brimble wrote:
| I have some bad news about war, for you.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Move out of an authoritarian dictatorship or demand your
| leaders stop killing innocent civilians as they try to escape
| during a ceasefire agreement, and end an illegal invasion
| that shouldn't even be a thing.
|
| Do immoral things, let your leaders do them in your name, and
| well live with the consequences of a failed country/state.
| siskiyou wrote:
| It's no worse than sanctioning the banking industry. I'm all
| for it.
| madengr wrote:
| dtech wrote:
| afaik piracy is already rampant. I expect if this is done the
| government would just officially stop respecting copyright of
| companies that do this.
| siskiyou wrote:
| Even so, delicensing existing installations would still have
| a significant effect. The blockade doesn't have to work
| perfectly to cause more economic disruption.
| akulbe wrote:
| Not only is it rampant, Russia is looking at making it
| _legal_ , so I'm not sure how much effect breaking the
| license checks would have.
| vasachi wrote:
| No, currently there is no public plan to do that.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| https://gizmodo.com/russia-looks-at-legalizing-software-
| pira...
| rosndo wrote:
| Good luck managing updates for your entirely pirated
| software stack.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, will Windows and Mac users in Russia
| stop receiving OS updates as part of the sanctions?
|
| That would definitely expose them to hacking and malware
| and hurt them big time.
|
| Then again, that could probably push every user in Russia
| to use a VPN to get their updates.
| detaro wrote:
| Given that some countries still seem to run on XP mostly
| I'm not sure it hurts _that_ much.
| rosndo wrote:
| If such sanctions are imposed, then yes. Such sanctions
| have not been imposed yet.
|
| If software companies decide to suspend sales to Russia,
| then they might have to resort to piracy and possibly
| miss out on OS updates.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Such sanctions have not been imposed yet._
|
| Is there a reason why not?
| rosndo wrote:
| Most sanctions that could be imposed have not been
| imposed yet. The indirect effects of current banking
| sanctions have made it almost impossible to do business
| with Russia though.
|
| I have many Russian customers, but neither my Chinese nor
| UAE banks will accept any transfers from Russia (not to
| even mention western banks). My business is not directly
| affected by sanctions, the banks just don't have
| sufficient risk appetite to touch Russian money.
|
| Best offer I've seen was from a partner which offered to
| take Russian transfers to a Kyrgyzstani bank account and
| send me USDT.
|
| Perhaps such sanctions would be unnecessary? Perhaps
| they're just on the way.
| jotm wrote:
| 1. It's not that hard.
|
| 2. Updates are way overhyped.
| rosndo wrote:
| It's really that hard if you care about not getting
| hacked with 1days all the time.
| jotm wrote:
| Eh, all the time = maybe once a year. Still no
| Spectre/Meltdown exploits in the wild. Most Windows XP
| users don't even know about Reddit and shit.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I'm curious at what point do we decide to continue to serve
| Russians because the citizenry are still people.
|
| They still need food, energy, shelter, and security.
|
| Just thinking about how far the pendulum can swing before it
| becomes immoral for other reasons.
| DerArzt wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of sanctions to make the citizenry upset
| with the current state of affairs, and put pressure (protest or
| even revolution) if things get to bad?
| mfDjB wrote:
| Is there a historical precedent for this outcome?
| speed_spread wrote:
| Sanctions can also make the citizens even more vulnerable to
| abuse from their own government. The power structure in
| Russia does not allow for much pushback, if at all.
| jopsen wrote:
| Or maybe the point is to make Russia poor... Or maybe just do
| something, because doing nothing is the alternative.
| aaplok wrote:
| That doesn't really address OP's question. There is still a
| point where the goal of the sanctions is not worth the harm
| they cause to people.
| jopsen wrote:
| > at what point do we decide to continue to serve Russians
| because the citizenry are still people.
|
| Hmm, lets ask the North Koreans!
|
| Sanctions don't make a better world, but it's better than
| bombs.
|
| We can also try another "Russian Reset", I think both Bush and
| Obama did a "Russian Reset" with Putin.
|
| If we don't want Russia to have a powerful military, sanctions
| is the least evil tool we have.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I'm not sure your whole point. But there's a line of ethical
| thinking that says there are certain lines I won't cross,
| regardless of how bad you treat me.
|
| For me one of those would be to deny someone food and water
| from my own surplus.
|
| I understand that RedHat consulting is not the same, but as I
| see more and more companies pull out I wonder how long it
| will be until it's wheat, insulin, medical devices etc? The
| russian citizenry are not (directly) responsible for Putins
| insanity, nor for being brainwashed by state media.
| type0 wrote:
| > The russian citizenry are not (directly) responsible for
| Putins insanity
|
| they are and alot of them still support both Putin and this
| "special operation"
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| While you might attribute this to them being terrible
| wastes of humanity. I'd suggest it's probably no specific
| flaw on the Russian people besides their indiscriminate
| exposure to brainwashing state propaganda.
|
| I have a hard time blaming people for doing exactly what
| their environment programs them to.
| type0 wrote:
| > While you might attribute this to them being terrible
| wastes of humanity
|
| Your words not mine, I do love Russian people and the
| culture but Putin cult of personality is sick it makes
| the whole of society rotten. Russian people are not naive
| they need to understand they are being brainwashed and
| stand up for themselves, they could in the times of
| Perestrojka and can do it now.
| jopsen wrote:
| My point is that things are pretty bad in North Korea (they
| used to have famines not long ago).
|
| Yet, that didn't make us ease sanctions significantly. Did
| it?
|
| My point being: things can probably get very bad in Russia
| before we ease sanctions due to humanitarian concerns.
|
| Yes, it's a tragedy. Hopefully, all of this ends before it
| gets that far.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > Yet, that didn't make us ease sanctions significantly.
| Did it?
|
| One could equally flip that. Did famines and sanctions
| make them our allies? No, it hasn't.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| So many companies are making these decisions very quickly. So
| many that I don't think it has anything to do directly with the
| war. They are pulling out because their money people, the only
| people who really matter in a large corporation, are in a panic.
| Nobody knows whether it will even be _possible_ let alone moral
| to do business in Russian. How do you get money out when the
| banks are delisted? How do you get money into Russia without
| violating sanctions? How many of your Russian "business
| partners" are the subject of sanctions? Is paying tax in Russia a
| sanctions violation? As the Russian government struggles for
| cash, will any of your corporate assets be seized? If they are,
| will insurance cover such seizures? (No.) The money people also
| look at the dramatic fall in the value of Russian currency.
| Therefor, setting aside all the moral debates about wars and
| violence, from a purely financial perspective these are all
| prudent financial decisions. The PR statements on twitter about
| supporting Ukraine are just window dressing.
| lmkg wrote:
| Yes, but so what?
|
| What you're basically saying is that companies are _acting_ in
| accordance with certain moral values, even though they don 't
| _intrinsically_ have those moral values. That 's great news!
| That's downright fantastic! Instilling "true" morality is a
| difficult problem. We have bypassed that problem and gotten the
| same observable results by replacing it with a much simpler
| one.
|
| Corporations are supposed to be automata that optimize an
| objective function. External pressure was applied, via both
| sanctions and public sentiment, and behold! Their behavior
| changed. The sanctions had the effect that was intended. That's
| better than you could say for many other policies.
| et-al wrote:
| Yes. This is a perfect argument why society needs government
| regulations.
|
| Without sanctions, corporations could be competing over who
| would supply the Russian army with uniforms if the ROI was
| there.
| gary_0 wrote:
| > Corporations are supposed to be automata that optimize an
| objective function.
|
| Paperclips Inc will now extract the iron in your blood in
| order to maximize the number of paperclips it can produce. No
| hard feelings.
| slibhb wrote:
| If you don't actually have moral values then you're merely
| acting according to various pressures.
|
| I don't think this decision is good (not selling to Russians)
| but we can imagine much worse decisions that follow from
| companies yielding to, say, social pressure.
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| fwiw I find this moral outrage quite selective. The Saudi's
| bomb civilians in yemen but everyone is good with that. I
| really can't imagine what the Ukranians are going through
| right now sitting at my cushy desk. But that's a horror all
| victims of war face. A few years ago there was a Hungarian
| journalist tripping fleeing Syrians and other victims of
| war and there was this huge debate as to why those refugees
| were not welcome. No debate now obviously.
| jelling wrote:
| Making people comply with moral values they wouldn't
| otherwise comply with is the super-glue holding society
| together. One can wish all day long that someone like Putin
| would be a decent human being, but otherwise social and
| financial pressures are the only non-lethal option for
| dealing with him. This extends down to your neighborhood or
| office level criminal as well.
| [deleted]
| lmkg wrote:
| A corporation is a legal simulacrum of a person. Personally
| I think the best you can hope for is a simulacrum of
| morality. I really do view them as automata, without an
| "internal personhood," and I think that influencing their
| behavior with external influences is a desirable and
| achievable goal.
|
| Government sanctions are applied by a democratically-
| elected government, which has a variety of checks and
| balances in it. I agree that social pressure can go off the
| rails. In this particular case my gut is that social
| pressure is encouraging them to go along with the sanctions
| quickly and enthusiastically.
| slibhb wrote:
| > Government sanctions are applied by a democratically-
| elected government, which has a variety of checks and
| balances in it. I agree that social pressure can go off
| the rails. In this particular case my gut is that social
| pressure is encouraging them to go along with the
| sanctions quickly and enthusiastically.
|
| Is Red Hat responding to sanctions? I don't think so:
|
| > (from the link) While relevant sanctions must guide
| many of our actions, we've taken additional measures as a
| company. Effective immediately, Red Hat is discontinuing
| sales and services in Russia and Belarus (for both
| organizations located in or headquartered in Russia or
| Belarus). This includes discontinuing partner
| relationships with organizations based in or
| headquartered in Russia or Belarus.
|
| What we're seeing is the social outrage machine taking
| its turn at geopolitics. We'll see how that goes but I am
| not optimistic.
|
| I don't think any of this helps Ukraine but I'm more
| worried about the precedent it sets.
| staticassertion wrote:
| So, for starters, they explicitly say that sanctions
| guide their actions, and they're also doing things _in
| addition_. As was already explained, it 's the obvious
| play - why would you continue to pursue business in
| Russia right now? How are you going to get paid?
|
| Second, "social outrage machine" is a pretty ridiculous
| characterization. You're painting this as if it's some
| Twitter mob upset about a minor grievance as opposed to
| the reality that a hostile country is committing war
| crimes.
| slibhb wrote:
| > why would you continue to pursue business in Russia
| right now? How are you going to get paid?
|
| Even if this is true, is it a good thing? Do we want
| sanctions that make it impossible to do business with a
| Russian citizen or company? Do we want companies to go
| beyond government sanctions?
|
| > Second, "social outrage machine" is a pretty ridiculous
| characterization. You're painting this as if it's some
| Twitter mob upset about a minor grievance as opposed to
| the reality that a hostile country is committing war
| crimes.
|
| It has not been established that Russia has committed war
| crimes. The social pressure brought to bear has the
| character of a twitter mob, it's as thoughtful, and I
| worry the consequences will be similar (bad).
|
| There's something to be said for ratcheting up sanctions
| slowly. If you go all-in at once, the country being
| sanctioned has no incentive to change their behavior.
| There's also something undeniably weird about companies
| interfering in international relations.
| rurp wrote:
| > There's something to be said for ratcheting up
| sanctions slowly. If you go all-in at once, the country
| being sanctioned has no incentive to change their
| behavior.
|
| I couldn't disagree more strongly. Russia is murdering
| thousands of people per day. Every day, including today.
| This is not the time for plodding deliberation. Quick
| action has the possibility of saving millions of homes
| and thousands of lives.
|
| The cause of the sanctions is crystal clear. If Russia
| wants the sanctions to end they need to stop invading
| another country and murdering its citizens.
|
| > There's also something undeniably weird about companies
| interfering in international relations.
|
| Cutting off business relations is exactly how sanctions
| work. This happens both through explicit rules and
| implicit ones. Companies err on the side of leaving the
| sanctioned country to avoid compliance headaches, the
| risk of accidentally violating sanctions, and to avoid
| funding a murderous dictator.
|
| All of this is a normal and expected part of how
| sanctions work.
| timkam wrote:
| This is a very interesting comment, but this statement is
| concerning: "Corporations are supposed to be automata that
| optimize an objective function."
|
| Of course, from the perspective of neoclassical economics, it
| is true, and of course, there are obligations to
| shareholders. But generally, I think it is great that
| corporations are _not_ automata that optimize an objective
| function. Corporations are social organizations, and I think
| it roughly holds that the harder the problem is that a
| corporation is solving for some business purpose, the more
| space it needs to give for social aspects. It 's not that all
| of management thinks about profit optimization from morning
| to evening.
| adamrezich wrote:
| corporations flip between being agents of morality and
| automata that optimize an objective function depending on
| what is currently politically and financially convenient
| for them.
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| I think that while anti-Russian sentiment was building to a
| frenzy in the US since the 2016 election, a lot of companies
| gradually untangled themselves from Russia or put it at arms
| length to avoid any extreme nationalistic outporing erupting
| into a serious PR problem.
|
| The real panic would be about China. On the surface, it seems
| like they're getting a break from being painted as the evil
| force bent on destroying our heroes, but companies that are
| there can't give up being there. I look forward to the furious
| PR wave from industry trying to separate China from Russia, and
| the fake insider stories about how Chinese officials are
| _worried_ about Russia 's latest move. Just recently, Maduro
| got promoted to being president again*, so there's a lot to be
| gained while the US PR hate cannon is fully pointed at Russia.
|
| * https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220307-us-envoys-
| hel...
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| So you're saying the sanctions are working? That's great I
| guess?
| squarefoot wrote:
| They're working, but their harder effects will come with
| time. Unfortunately Ukraine doesn't have the same amount of
| time, which is the reason we should help them as much as we
| can to build an effective resistance. Time works against
| Russia, and Putin knows that, to the point that he allows
| fake negotiations while continuing to bomb indiscriminately
| everyone, including civilians.
| sebow wrote:
| I don't know if you ask these questions rhetorically. Not
| caring about the ethics of were you put your money and your
| actions it's "your"(i mean the entity doing that, obviously)
| problem, nobody else's[because not everyone cares about ethics
| & morals]. So yes, whether you stop doing business in Russia
| and that affects both russia and your business, everybody
| should think twice before doing any business with anybody. It's
| easy to hide under the umbrella of "just making money" without
| taking into account ethical and moral concerns. Because ethics
| and morals rarely come after-the-fact, whereas people who truly
| think about those things preoccupy themselves with those issues
| since day one.
|
| By the way,this is not a "bug" of capitalism, it's a bug of
| people mindlessly not caring about the ramifications of their
| own choices and decisions, which is nowadays everything and
| every action being subjected to pay for/sell.
|
| Also, I hate virtue signalling, but at the same time one could
| argue getting rich, making money throughout all means, it's
| also a "signalling" of some sorts, especially in US. Now
| whether or not making money is considered a virtue, that's a
| more complicated subject.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| So the sanctions are working?
| zhengiszen wrote:
| How ironic that sanctions and boycotting seems to be used in
| the case of Russia and we were always told to be not helpful in
| the case of Israeli oppression and war crimes against
| Palestinians.... Hypocrisy ? Racism because we empathize with
| Ukrainian more than with Arabs ?
| hnov wrote:
| Yeah exactly, people get emotional and forget that a lot of
| times private interests feed people by the thousand into a
| meatgrinder for profit. If someone stops doing business in
| Russia, it's because they did some math and figured out it
| wasn't worth it.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I completely agree, and I was already wondering why this wasn't
| brought before. Obviously all these corporations will have
| tremendous difficulty doing business in Russia at all: you
| simply can't get your money out.
|
| I consider these companies backing out of Russia just
| pragmatic: by getting out, at the very least you'll save
| yourself a lot of headaches in the near future, avoid the risk
| of any negative publicity "because you're still doing business
| with Russia!", and also generate some positive publicity around
| all this.
| luciusdomitius wrote:
| Well. What do you expect. Since 2008 Fed has more or less been
| determining who wins and loses and now ESG is just an
| equivalent to China's Social Score, but for companies. Sad
| truth is that we are more of a planned economy than the bald
| midget's wannabe reich. Really sickens me.
| blihp wrote:
| This is exactly the effect economic sanctions are supposed to
| have. It's no secret that businesses respond to fear and greed
| rather than calls for moral courage.
| mr_spothawk wrote:
| Courage is a characterization of one kind of response to
| fear. You can't have courage without possible negative
| consequences to be fearful of, and then to be courageous in
| the face of.
| [deleted]
| 02020202 wrote:
| keewee7 wrote:
| I see many claims here that the sanctions don't work or that they
| are targeting the wrong people.
|
| Ukrainians on social media are literally begging for more
| sanctions on Russia. They know Russia and they lived under a
| Russian-dominated USSR. These sanctions work and put pressure on
| Russia.
|
| Putin has already walked back from his plans to put a puppet
| regime in Kyiv.
| oefrha wrote:
| Don't copy paste your comment on this site, that's against the
| rules.
| pyreal wrote:
| This is the "ice-bucket challenge" war.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Somebody should make a list of companies that pull moves like
| this; Screwing over nongovernmental entities when governments
| make moves that they dislike.
|
| I understand people wanting to deter aggression, but this is not
| the way.
|
| What happens when it's your country on the other end of bad
| choices?
|
| Not every country can shrug it off like America did when invading
| Iraq.
| rytis wrote:
| > I understand people wanting to deter aggression, but this is
| not the way.
|
| What is the way in this particular situation? What would you
| do?
| madengr wrote:
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Not be a fucking hypocrite like the west is being.
|
| There are 125 armed conflicts happening right now in the
| world. Hell we just started bombing Somalia again. Nobody is
| saying a word about that.
| diordiderot wrote:
| If it weren't for nukes Russia would be getting bombed too
| mrits wrote:
| The nongovernmental entities often benefit from the barbaric
| behavior. If the people of Russia don't stand up to the
| aggression of their own country then they will live with the
| consequences. It's not like they are getting butchered in their
| homes like their neighbors.
| simiones wrote:
| Do you support the same sanctions for the population of all
| NATO countries after the illegal invasions of Afghanistan,
| Irak, Yugoslavia? For their support of allied invasions in
| Yemen, Palestine, etc.? I know my country (Romania) directly
| participated in these other horrible wars, but as a child at
| the time, I don't feel too directly responsible for not doing
| more to stop the warmongering of my leaders.
|
| In fact, the sanctions should be even worse by your logic,
| since the people had much more power to prevent these wars,
| unlike the people of Russia.
|
| Of course what Russia is doing is unacceptable, but it's
| hardly alone in the world in this type of behavior. Rather
| than getting on your high horse and condemning the people of
| Russia, it's better to send help to the people of Ukraine who
| are suffering in this brutal war, and maybe as well to the
| people of Yemen and Palestine and other invaded places.
|
| Also, see if you can lobby your leaders to advance
| negotiations for treaties to dismantle all nukes - a major
| weapon that enabled Russia to bully its neighbors.
| mrits wrote:
| I'm not sure why NATO would sanction NATO. If your country
| wants to sanction a NATO member then they certainly have
| that right to.
|
| If we actually eliminated nukes NATO influence would only
| expand.
| simiones wrote:
| > I'm not sure why NATO would sanction NATO. If your
| country wants to sanction a NATO member then they
| certainly have that right to.
|
| I was discussing the principle of it - would UN sanctions
| against NATO countries be justified, especially if they
| were to target the population of NATO countries?
|
| Note that my country is in fact a NATO member.
|
| > If we actually eliminated nukes NATO influence would
| only expand.
|
| My point was exactly that eliminating nuclear weapons
| entirely would in fact be a boon to NATO, since for
| example in the current situation it could have actually
| considered some limited military aid without risking
| nuclear Armageddon.
| mrits wrote:
| The last time NATO depended on nuclear as a deterrent was
| in the late 70s when we didn't think we could stop the
| advancement of soviet tanks. No one would like nuclear to
| not exist more than NATO. You might want to be on an
| Asian website if you are trying to lobby against nuclear
| weapons.
| jquery wrote:
| It's difficult to take your comment seriously when you
| start off with a falsehood. Afghanistan was not an illegal
| invasion, they were the aggressor country. To equivocate
| ukraine with afghanistan is to support Putin's invasion.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| Yugoslavia/Kosovo was illegal, Afghanistan was justified,
| Iraq was based on a tissue of lies.
| brandmeyer wrote:
| The intervention in Yugoslavia was possibly most well-
| justified military campaign in my lifetime, even more-so
| than the liberation of Kuwait.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| It was still illegal, if well justified. So illegal that
| Russia and Serbia have been pissed off about it for over
| 20 years.
| simiones wrote:
| I am not equivocating Ukraine with Afghanistan. The
| Ukrainian regime is NOT a quasi-terrorist,
| fundamentalist, sinister right-wing regime as the Taliban
| were, for one. Putin had no right to invade Ukraine.
|
| However, this does not mean that we should consider the
| invasion of Afghanistan as "defense" either. No state had
| been attacked by the state of Afghanistan. That a few
| afghan civilians conducted a terrorist attack in the USA
| doesn't mean that Afghanistan attacked the USA.
| Afghanistan even agreed to consider handing over Osama
| bin Laden to the USA, as long as they were provided with
| evidence of his guilt - like any state that is asked to
| extradite a resident. The USA decided that it didn't care
| to wait and produce such evidence, so they launched an
| invasion less than a month after the attack.
|
| It is true that this war in particular got acquiessence
| from the UN security council, so I will admit that it was
| not technically illegal (unlike the Iraq war).
| type0 wrote:
| _Two_ wrongs don 't do _another_ right
| adolph wrote:
| > Afghanistan was not an illegal invasion, they were the
| aggressor country.
|
| This is wrong. The country of Afghanistan did not conduct
| the WTC attacks. The nominally ruling clique in
| Afghanistan would not extradite OBL. If anything
| Afghanistan was an area of civil war in which the US
| intervened.
|
| _After the Taliban refused to turn over the mastermind
| of the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Operation Enduring
| Freedom officially began 7 October 2001 with American and
| British bombing strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban
| forces in Afghanistan._
|
| https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-
| conflicts-...
| mickotron wrote:
| They should have targeted the Saudis, not Afghanistan.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| NATO is with the good people tho so it can't do wrong.
| cmurf wrote:
| Even if all of that is true, it is still also true that
| turning Russia into a massively nuclear armed version of
| North Korea is bad for the world. Eventually the Russians who
| remain are going to get slowly butchered in their homes.
|
| There is significant risk of Russians blaming the West if
| NATO gets involved. Navalny's organization did a survey of
| Moscow's internet users, and nearly half think Russia is
| liberating Ukraine. It strongly suggests the vast majority of
| Russians do not see this as them having started an aggressive
| war.
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/PopovaProf/status/150105368420955.
| ..
|
| The nation-state system tends toward distributed blame (to
| the nationals) even when there isn't distribution of power
| (autocracy). For once, most of the world is blaming the
| autocrat rather than the nation. That's an improvement.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Think about results. Does it help or hurt the Russian
| resisters when they (and the people they need to persuade)
| lose most access to the free world?
|
| Sanctioning state organs and oligarchs is good and overdue,
| but the mob extending that to canceling all of Russian civil
| society seems stupid and evil to me.
| keewee7 wrote:
| Red Hat stopping its commercial services in Russia will not
| harm dissenters.
|
| Besides the majority of Russians support the war. The so-
| called "resisters" are a rounding error.
|
| Listen to Ukrainians on social media. They're all calling
| for total sanctions against Russia.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Yeah, a family of 4 evacuating and executed during a
| planned ceasefire in an agreed humanitarian corridor is the
| same level of sad as Russian citizens who don't even
| 'accept' there 'is' a 'war' not being able to play
| Minecraft.
|
| People are dying, many of these people are friends,
| relatives, and co-workers of people living in Russia. Many
| Russian soldiers are dying needlessly because one - ONE man
| is having a end-of-life mental break. One man's pride is
| the cause of all of this. Just one man.
|
| Period. One man. Blame Putin for Putin's war. If you don't
| like suffering for one man's tantrum -- call the Kremlin.
|
| I'm sure they'd love to hear your complaints.
| type0 wrote:
| > Blame Putin for Putin's war. If you don't like
| suffering for one man's tantrum -- call the Kremlin.
|
| This reminds me how people in Soviet Union wrote letters
| to Stalin to describe injustices and how much they love
| him because he is the best possible leader they could
| have. Putin isn't Stalin yet, but the Russian people are
| waiting patiently for him to become one.
| gbear605 wrote:
| What I've heard from Russian resisters is that they support
| these moves because it radicalizes the people.
| jquery wrote:
| At a certain point we need to worry less about Russia's
| opinion regarding anything, and more about defanging them
| as a power in the world capable of projecting force until
| their leader is no longer a power-mad tyrant. Technology
| sanctions absolutely help us accomplish this goal.
| einarfd wrote:
| There is definitely an argument that boycotts is a blunt tool
| and have to be applied sparingly and with great care.
|
| But in the scope of this conflict, and as an European living in
| a country that borders Russia, I'm all for it. What is
| happening in Ukraine is horrific and it is happening because in
| the mind of the Russian leadership the country had aligned it
| self to close to the west. So they are in a sense attacked
| because they are to much like us.
|
| There is also the question about what happens next if Putin
| succeeds in Ukraine, where is next on the path to rebuild the
| Russian empire? Georgia and Moldovia are candidates, in
| addition both the Baltics and Finland used to be part of the
| Russian empire, then there are all of the old Warsaw pact
| countries as well.
|
| How can they and the rest of Europe ever be safe without a
| regime change or huge degradation of Russian military
| capabilities? One of the ways to accomplish this to thrash the
| Russian economy, while that is horrible to all the Russian that
| do not support the war, the alternative seems worse. Not that
| Redhat pulling out of Russia is going to have much of an impact
| on the Russian economy. But everyone's contributions helps a
| bit.
| pjdemers wrote:
| The difference here is nuclear weapons. We aren't able to use
| the normal military options against a country threatening
| nuclear first use. The normal military options are no-fly
| zones, embedded SOF and advisors, help with logistics and
| supply chains, etc.
| lottin wrote:
| Of course, it's the way. It's the _only_ way, other than
| entering into a direct armed confrontation with Russia.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| They have no choice without liquidity you can't pay your
| employees and you can't offer paid services. At the moment
| Russian YouTube is ad free because google wants to keep it open
| for information purposes but they don't make any money from it.
| For other services like McDonalds this is just not feasible.
| McDonalds and Coke kept their stores and production longer open
| because they had to get rid of their perishable goods.
| [deleted]
| mvc wrote:
| We're cancelling Russia.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/opinion/putin-ukraine-chi...
|
| Friedman is right that this is economic war. Which I think most
| people will agree is preferable to nuclear war. But the
| principle is the same. What democratic countries are attempting
| to do just now is demonstrate an economic force so great that
| the enemy sees they cannot win.
|
| These companies are doing it because of the strength of feeling
| of their customers, employees, and owners. There were dockers
| in the UK who collectively refused to unload Russian oil off a
| tanker. Didn't matter that the govt hadn't banned it yet.
|
| People _are_ making lists but they 're of the companies that
| continue to do business with Russia. And they don't seem to
| spend a lot of time on the list before caving into the demands.
| akulbe wrote:
| This concerns me, as well. I definitely want aggression
| deterred as well. But at what cost?
|
| It seems like there's too _much_ power in the hands of too
| _few_. It will bite us.
| mvc wrote:
| Who do you think has the power at the moment?
|
| IMO, this war has demonstrated where power really lies. And
| that is in the hands of the people. Do you think any
| politician West of Poland really wanted this economic war
| with Russia?
|
| Clearly, the lives of the rich and powerful would have been
| much easier had Zelenskeyy snuck off allowing Putin to annex
| a big chunk of South Eastern Ukraine like he did with Crimea.
| Energy bills go back down. No additional influx of refugees.
| Pandemic free. Peachy.
|
| So why is it happening? Because the free press is out there
| documenting the horrors for all to see. And it turns out that
| people _do_ care. And they _are_ fed up of the lies and the
| fake news. These sanctions are being made because people
| demand it. That is customers, individuals, employees. This is
| what is driving decision-making processes at the moment.
| laumars wrote:
| > It seems like there's too much power in the hands of too
| few. It will bite us.
|
| The balance of power has always been like that. If anything,
| the internet has diversified power more than it has ever been
| before in history.
| fourstar wrote:
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Not sure how sanctioning Russia is "woke", but okay.
| mrits wrote:
| An interesting possible long term consequence of this is having
| top tier free and open source commercial alternatives coming out
| of Russia. Nationalized piracy would also pour over into the West
| and we'd probably see people here getting software updates from
| Moscow.
| [deleted]
| jaynetics wrote:
| > we'd probably see people here getting software updates from
| Moscow
|
| That sounds very possible, but not very advisable.
| brabel wrote:
| It's not very advisable, but if anything, this crisis is
| showing that's not advisable to rely on any other country at
| all for your crucial infrastructure... if we go back to
| isolationism, one of the main deterrents to international
| conflicts, interdependence, will be weakened, which can't be
| good for peace in the coming decades.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > if we go back to isolationism, one of the main deterrents
| to international conflicts, interdependence, will be
| weakened, which can't be good for peace in the coming
| decades.
|
| On the other hand, if you completely ignore tensions and
| keep up the supply in the case of war, interdependence
| ceases to be a deterrent at all. The real problem here is
| that somebody started a war; the isolationism is just one
| of the many bad consequences.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Yeah, I love open source alternatives from an autocratic state
| with backdoors and all kind of nasty stuff inside, and no
| oversight or ability to sue, as well as possibility of
| sanctions by association.
| UberFly wrote:
| Wouldn't the fact that it's open source make the spiders in
| the code easy to see?
| jjice wrote:
| They'd be visible, if it was noticed. Bugs get introduced
| to OSS all the time just because sometimes it's hard to
| review code 100% accurately. Replace bugs with truly
| malicious code and the same applies.
|
| If you told me I use OSS on a daily basis that has some
| sort of malicious code that slipped though the cracks, I'd
| believe it just due to the shear amount of code running on
| any machine.
| post-it wrote:
| Only if someone looks at the code.
| uspec2 wrote:
| Yeah, I love the alternatives from pseudo-democratic States
| with backdoors like Dual_EC_DRBG, Crypto, Omnisec and the
| multitude of "trusted" American contributions to security.
| Righteous for America to do anything and everything to
| maintain power including urban warfare or sanctions that kill
| 100's of thousand of civilians but bad for anyone else to
| challenge the bullying sadistic hegemony of America.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| At least you still have a public outcry when backdoors are
| found out. Though whistleblowers tend to have a bad fate
| regardless of the side they're on I think they will at
| least not be point blank executed like the journalists
| executed on Putin's birthday. The west is heading in a bad
| direction too, no doubt about that, but Russia and China
| are already at an extremely dangerous level of
| totalitarianism and censorship.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| If submitting a bug report against Dual_EC_DRBG got you
| exiled to a gulag, your false-equivalence exercise might
| have some validity.
| trhway wrote:
| Funny idea, yet unrealistic. The capable Russians will make
| their way to the near by countries. The Russia will fall
| behind.
|
| To the comment below :
|
| >everyone becomes poorer it will slow as people simply won't be
| able to afford to leave
|
| the things have worked in opposite way - the brain drain of
| 199x slowed by ~2003/5 as economic situation improved until
| 2014/5 when it started to pickup again. Of course visa issues
| and potential "iron curtain", etc. will affect it.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Brain Drain in Russia is nothing new. I'd imagine there'll be
| an initial spike in the rate of it, but as sanctions take
| effect and everyone becomes poorer it will slow as people
| simply won't be able to afford to leave.
|
| Or are they even able to - are there increased visa
| restrictions yet?
| forinti wrote:
| I once attended a talk by a Cuban Linux user who said that free
| software didn't get much traction in Cuba because pirating was
| completely acceptable and widespread.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Piracy and open source are orthogonal concepts. If anything
| piracy removes the main driver for having open source: free
| stuff
| mrits wrote:
| There are various licensing models for open source. I'd
| consider piracy to be violating any of them.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| No top tier code when anyone with half a brain and sufficient
| resources is trying to escape that totalitarian hellhole.
| [deleted]
| dijonman2 wrote:
| kahrl wrote:
| US and Canada have issues, yes, but these issues are not in
| the same ballpark as Russia. Not even in the same league.
| This is such an insane false equivalence.
| mc32 wrote:
| True; still we had politicians advocating jail time and
| seizure of assets as well as declaration of emergency
| powers to quell what were peaceful protests.
| not2b wrote:
| You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you
| think it means.
| wpasc wrote:
| filibuster
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Yeah, having to wear a mask is definitely comparable to 15
| years of gulag for calling war a war. Wretched.
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