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Comment by lostwords | Hacker News Reader

It's the first action against Russia that made me angry. It's so stupid and wrong at the same time.

So, in Russia all the cards will work, nothing is changed here (despite the statements of Visa and Mastercard). Cards issued by Russian banks would stop work abroad. The same is true for any foreign cards in Russia. So, foreigners in Russia are fucked. People who left Russia in a hurry because they didn't want to be part of this craziness or because it's dangerous for them to stay (i.e. they are known protesters against the regime) are fucked.

Nice move. Simply genius.

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A little background on why the cards won't stop working in Russia.

After first sanctions due to Crimean & Donbass conflict started rolling out in 2014, Russian gvt saw the writing on the wall and gradually strong-armed Visa & MC to move all the local transaction processing to НСПК (National System for Payment Cards).

Here's some more info on this (you can use Google Translate):

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE...

People paying servers to selfhost are also fucked. This makes absolutely no sense since we all know the oligarchs etc will have oversea bankings and stay float. It's the average people who get punished, all for something they have no control over.

No control over? Not with that attitude, I guess.

Seen protests in Belarus?

Disclaimer I'm not Russian but watching the roll out of the war, I am again fascinated by westerner's imagination of that an inidividual could achieve in a oppressive regime. People literally get arrested by holding a blank paper as a one-man demonstration on the street. People lose source of income and housing semi-permanently because of speaking out anything against the propaganda. The secret police can force mothers to knee down and beg their children to not being vocal. Tell me what I can do without losing my and my family's fucking lives if you think there's a way out of all this.

I do not deny the possibility of revolution of any form, but there is tons of things one fears worse than death, even a violent one. I really hope you guys get the chances to do the right thing under these circumstances. The wall between daily norm and hell is thinner than a piece of paper.

That's an instance of the prisoner's dilemma though. They can't really arrest every single person who is against the war. They can't even arrest 1% of population - detention system can't handle that.

Let's say 2 million people are on the streets protesting. What's next?

That's easy - block highways, train tracks, etc. Anything that is used to wage the war.

a bit of extrene violence, then nothing. after that the police starts imprisoning active people, threatening them via families etc. belarus scenario

>They can't even arrest 1% of population - detention system can't handle that.

Why can't they? In free and democratic USA 5% of the population is incarcerated.

Building more detention facilities will take time. Hiring more people to work there might not be feasible due to dissent.

That'd be one out of twenty? Doesn't sound plausible to me. Do you have any source?

Maybe they meant something else.

Data from the US Department of Justice for 2019: https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/docu...

> By the end of 2019, the incarceration rate had dropped to the same rate as 1995 (810 per 100,000 adult U.S. residents).

Which is about 1 in 123.

> About 1 in 40 adult U.S. residents (2.5%) were under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2019. This represented a drop from 1 in 32 (3.1%) a decade earlier.

The above includes people on probation or parole.

This is always true, and yet dictators have existed since the dawn of humanity. I don't know why people expect Russians to function like a hivemind, rather than humans that disagree and have instincts for self preservation

Sanctions make inaction less and less attractive.

There's more efficient way to silence 1% than arrests. More efficient and permanent. Russians lived through it just a couple generations ago.

Let me rephrase it for you: sure, even if it's "only" 30% of the population VS the government, the regime is fucked. However, the dilema is that they _will_ arrest some percentage, so, are you willing to be in that bucket, having no idea of whether the protest will turn out to be anything? If you don't, how can you ask (a very large number of) other people to make up their mind and get fucked in your favor? People and crowds do not act as a hivemind. Humans are not built for this.

I was in that 30% before leaving Russia permanently in 2012. Them others not joining for various reasons is the reason we are in that fucked situation in the first place. I have a word or two to say about inaction, and how it is an excuse.

The writing about authoritarianism has already been on the wall by 2010. The anti-ukranian fascism turned out to be a surprise though.

It's especially funny because when pressed on war crimes committed by their governments with their tax dollars, they will day "well listen it's not my fault our army did that, I'm not in charge! There's nothing I can do to stop our (democratically elected) leaders". But then they'll turn around and insist people in a dictatorship should be able to oust their dictator. I'm totally against Russia, but it's insane to me how people can think this way. It borders on cruel to have such unrealistic demands from people who aren't responsible

Russians have a shared responsibility. If my country would do something like that, I would also feel responsible.

Let's say you feel responsible. I believe a lot of Russians feel awful to their stomach, too. What now? Are you willing to risk your job, housing, wellbeing and the wellbeing of your families to protest, knowing that protesting will not change anything at all? IIRC in this round the Russian government are drafting the people who were arrested in the anti-war protests.

Why would they be able to arrest them? Have you ever seen riots where people throw rocks at the police? For 10 years in jail, you better make sure you give them a reason for 10 years.

When you see those Russian protesters, they are all so compliant it blows my mind.

Throw rocks and get the fuck out. It ain't a crime if you don't get caught.

Arrest? Arrests are still mild. For more, they could be entitled to arrest their families as well. Let's say you throw a rock. All of a sudden, there is a possibility that the riot police are entitled to shot you or something - they will cite that they were attacked.

People throw stuff in riots where they have somehow figured out that the police won't open fire, or intentionally shot a rubber bullet in a way so that it'll do permanent damage (e.g. aiming the eyes), or use water canon with the intention of permanent damage (e.g. aiming at head & neck). If a crowd appear to be calm and compliant, or if people are enraged but can't bring themselves onto the street to protest - that is because of fear and really nothing else.

Protesting and rioting is absolutely different under dictatorships. It might be a right or a minor misdemeanor in the western world. I can assure you that it is a crime, worse than felony because this enters the lawless realm, in a lot of places.

To all those armchair heroes lecturing the Russians about protesting, I advise to go to Russia (borders are still open) and try to demonstrate on the street. BTW there is currently a law punishing "fake news" with 15 years in gulag.

Or go fight for Ukraine (they accept anyone).

So you suggest we keep the economy of Russia going? That way the common Russians don't feel any consequences. Too bad we will all still fund the bombs that are dropping on Ukrainian houses and apartments.

Ukrainians can also end a lot of suffering by just agreeing with what Russia is requesting. It seems they decided not to.

You're suggesting that common Russians feeling "consequences" will change the war and I would like to disagree. They can do next to nothing, with a high stake. Most of the sanctions, especially the ones that certainly would not affect oligarchs or government personels, are purely psyops and a political gesture of the west.

> You're suggesting that common Russians feeling "consequences" will change the war and I would like to disagree

You misread my comment: I said that you want to save the impact on normal Russian and keep feeding the war economy. I suggest to stop feeding them money for their army, and the consequences on the common Russian is something that can't be avoided.

This is another reason why people are interested in Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc. It's sickening to have arbitrary governments and entities decide on a whim to freeze or steal your hard earned money.

Political/humanitarian circumstances aside, this is a good reminder to all of us, everywhere, that 100% reliance on centralized electronic payment systems is risky because they have rare but total failure modes.

ALWAYS carry and travel with cash, no matter what.

ALWAYS keep enough cash hidden in your home to cover a month or more of expenses.

> ALWAYS carry and travel with cash, no matter what.

Funny, that's the exact opposite of the advice I hear to only travel with only petty-cash and rely on cards instead, so if you're mugged/robbed or simply misplace your wallet you won't be SOL far from home.

Exactly. Never mind that as you cross borders, there are legal limits to the amounts you can carry as well as the potential to be searched. If you've ever been through corrupt border crossings (hello Moc Bai), the last thing you want is to be carrying cash.

Also it remains to be seen what will happen with online payments to orgs

How one should pay for VPN or VPS, for example

Almost all VPNs accept crypto. As do some VPS providers.

And how are you supposed to buy crypto in this case? :-)

In-country.

The main goal of this action is sound - cut off Russian economy from outside and it achieves it. There're undesirable side effects that you listed, but the main objective is still achieved. And we should keep prospective and direct the anger at right target, these inconveniences are not comparable to the terror millions of Ukrainians are under now.

I understand this logic, but in this particular case I don't think it's a good move. I can't see any really good effects here. People in Russia won't notice this change (I don't believe they're able to do with their government something right now, but even this argument is irrelevant, they wouldn't be triggered at all). For all the Russian business it's rather a gift, because if Russian isn't able to pay for something outside, he will pay to someone inside for the similar service. And all these Russian companies will pay taxes after that. There also will be new companies to collect money and roubles from clients so these clients could pay for some services outside of Russia via proxy et cetera.

I'm not against inconveniences per se. But this just doesn't really make sense. It's an inconvenience for a small minority of Russians outside the country and foreigners inside. But I don't understand what the main objective that was achieved here (except the beautiful press release).

I'd understand if they blocked all Russian cards, but it's technically impossible, and this measure looks like a PR move without any real meaning behind it.

>The main goal of this action is sound - cut off Russian economy from outside and it achieves it.

It doesn't achieve that. Their economy is only cut off from the west. China, for example, still is find to trade with them. The west is still buying their oil too.

Although I strongly despise Russia's (Putin's) war and agree that they need to be punished, I feel sorry for the non-oligarch Russians abroad in foreign countries who will suddenly be unable to pay with their Russian cards, as well as foreigners in Russia who can no longer use their credit cards.

Ultimately the legitimacy of these sanctions come down to how effective they will be in influencing a favorable outcome - ie. pressuring Putin to end the war. Unfortunately Russia is not a democracy - it's a country where you get arrested for protesting, and practically a dictatorship where Putin has been running the country for the last 20+ years. Thus I'm not sure how effective these blanket sanctions will be in changing things, and Putin has so far showed no signs of backing down. But I sure hope I'm wrong. This invasion is completely unjustified, and Putin must be stopped (without escalating to WWIII).

If they don't work they are one big, tragic fuckup that have pushed Russia and Russians further away from us and set us up for war

And they'll probably continue increasing the debt in their balances due to interests, and sueing people that don't pay.

The West is erroneously acting from a viewpoint that the majority of Russians support democracy. Thus they think that actions like this will cause popular discontent with Putin. In reality, this reckless action will only strengthen Putin's support.

> West is erroneously acting from a viewpoint that the majority of Russians support democracy.

Sanctions have nothing to do beliefs about the presence or support for democracy.

> Thus they think that actions like this will cause popular discontent with Putin.

No, the West believes that the sanctions limit the productive capacity of the Russian economy, and thereby Putin’s capacity to maintain and expand the war, constraining his practical options

(They also think that targeted sanctions on oligarchs put pressure on their support of the regime, which may alter Putin’s choices and prospects, but that even more clearly has nothing to do with democracy.)

The Russian military has been extremely insular, and has insisted for a long time to produce everything they need domestically. It is unlikely Russia's warmaking potential will be halted long-term.

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