Comment by xster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xster | Hacker News Reader

There is no content here. It's just the rant of one person going on a crusade and venting that she didn't accept that academics can have opinions.

"It’s one thing to imagine a Russian store clerk believing in the story of genocide, it’s another to hear an academic who has published in English-language journals profess such views"

That is fair and well, but in the academic spirit, is there a counter-argument she wishes to offer? Is she suggesting that there is no conflict in Donbas for the last 8 years?

"who has published in English-language journals"

The gall of this statement too. Wouldn't someone with access to English language news be more entrenched than a store clerk considering all the falsehoods from Gaddafi feeding troops Viagra for rape rampages to the Nayirah testimony to the suppressed OPCW chemical attack reports in Syria to WMDs.

"the replies I have gotten have made me truly appreciate how polarized the Russian population is."

And there's no attempt to present data for this statement. There's no way to reproduce her sentiment from primary data. Is she stating we should accept her conclusion about the Russian population based on one person's opinions?

Yes, also useful fools share some guilt too. After all this is over, they will only lament as usual that they simply could't or didn't know, rather than being ashamed and atoning.

There is no "data", let alone primary data about these things.

The authoritarian nature of the governing system in Russia makes it nearly impossible to gather such data.

Is she suggesting that there is no conflict in Donbas for the last 8 years?

That is very clearly is not what she's saying.

She didn't accept that academics can have opinions.

Opinions are one thing. Her concern seems to be with the fact that otherwise intelligent and articulate colleagues can be so naïve -- and to some extent, willingly self-deluded -- about the utter insanity their government is currently perpetrating on a neighboring country.

> There is no "data", let alone primary data about these things. > The authoritarian nature of the governing system in Russia makes it nearly impossible to gather such data.

oh I'm just referring to her argument that academics in Russia are all brainwashed. Of course there can be data. That's the premise of this blog. That she's free to just email them and get responses back. But she was unwilling to accept that one of the responders was free to have their own opinions. If she decided that "Russian Academia" was brainwashed based on those responses, where is the data?

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