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Comment by jokethrowaway | Hacker News Reader

> Would one accept a peace when it is an injustice in the way it is executed?

Yes, I would. If another country came to occupy my country I would bow down and hope I'll retain my life and my property. I don't particularly care whether my government is the current thieves I have or thieves from another country.

The balance between me and society is unchanged (assuming it's a pacific takeover and they just won't steal all my stuff or rape / kill me).

If the odds are stacked against my country, I think there is a higher chance of me surviving if I don't fight.

If we have a chance to win, then I'd fight to avoid having to suffer the potential looting. I don't think in modern days countries with similar firepower are likely to fight though.

I imagine future conflicts will stay on very uneven grounds with a large army attacking a small one - like USA vs Middle East, Russia vs Ukraine, China vs Taiwan.

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This is interesting. I feel like from a man’s standpoint the only thing we really fear , for ourselves, is either losing our lives or own property. At worse we’ll either be tortured or enslaved or whatever. For women however there are much worse horrors awaiting if the invaders don’t follow a strict moral code. If I were a woman I wouldn’t accept pacifism in any capacity as I would be the one more likely strip of bodily autonomy in a worse case scenario.

That's an odd viewpoint, considering that in every war ever, the majority of victims are men. Women are raped, absolutely and that's awful. Men are generally seen only as a threat so they are killed (if they're lucky), or tortured and then killed.

Your comment reminds me of the campaign a few years back to bring attention to the horrible fact that 1 in 4 homeless people were women. The irony of course being that nobody gave a shit about the other 75% since they were men.

I think from my perspective, I would rather be tortured and killed than raped and killed. To me it’s similar to walking on the street at night. Sure they’re are victims of all sexes in the night but, as a man, the most I have to fear averagely is being robbed and then shot. A woman has much more things to fear than a man does walking at night. But that doesn’t invalidate the victims of other crimes and of other sexes in the night.

The majority of violent crime victims are men though.

Also, your war comparison doesn't work since the percentages of men tortured and killed, to women rape and killed, isn't close. Very few women are killed compared to men in war, and on the street as well.

So sad. Your thougts do not sound as free person thoughts. On a countrary I would better be dead than a slave.

> If another country came to occupy my country I would bow down and hope I'll retain my life and my property. I don't particularly care whether my government is the current thieves I have or thieves from another country.

Sure, but if you're an Ukrainian, if you do this, you'll get raped and murdered by the Russians. "[Retaining your] life and my property" is kind of not an option if the invader has genocidal ambitions.

> I think there is a higher chance of me surviving if I don't fight.

This is a valid opinion to hold and I hope that you are right – it is very hard to tell what Russia plans to do next through all this fog of war though.

My point wasn't that pacifism is pointless (it isn't – I'd call myself a pacifist as well). But as someone who grew up learning his whole life about the attrocities my grandparents generation comitted (I grew up in Austria, my grandfather was a Nazi fighting on the eastern front) I have a hard time seeing e.g. how Europe would look today if our neighbouring countries didn't at some point decide to fight back. Not to call Russians Nazis, but they are certainly extremely authotarian fascists – and being a province to authotarian fascist empires has historically never been a good place to be in.

Aside from that, I do believe that Ukraine will have less casualties if it gets a ton of support and pushes strongly till it is in an position to negotiate a lasting peace. Of course one could imagine a scenario where Ukranians stopped fighting and Russia just be like: "Ok, now we are friends again if you just let us install a new president and do all these things on the list", but in practise this would very likely lead to decades of simmering conflict, of the type that can destabilize a region for good. If that would be more or less dead, more or less lifes destroyed is not something I am willing to bet on.

However I don't live there, and I don't have to fight, so it is all too easy to take that stance.

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