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Comment by waboremo | Hacker News Reader

> He was born there

That's enough to qualify someone as such. He is also a German citizen, he is free to claim both/either as he chooses but it's also not wrong for someone to call someone born in a country as being from that country. The wikipedia also cites the only reason they use "German" in his bio is because he responded on Reddit saying he was a naturalized German citizen. Nothing about a demand to exclusively wanting to be referenced as German.

Which by the way, his answer about being a German citizen was because people were attacking him for being born in Russia and claiming Mastodon was Russian spy tools and nonsense like that.

It would only be interesting if the blog writer was asked by Eugen Rochko to replace it with the nationality he prefers to claim, and refuses to do that.

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It's still interesting the blog author chose to go that way when it's the less obvious of two possible ways. Your response gives the impression you think I said it's bad or wrong. I did not.

My point is that it's not the less obvious way! It's been the norm for ages now to refer to people by their place of birth - NOT their chosen nationality.

It's only been a very recent move in social history to question this and instead ask why aren't we placing more importance on their environmental upbringing.

Okay. But essentially every news article ever calls him German except this one case here that seems innocent and the much larger portion of people trying to scaremonger. We're not speaking in the abstract here or talking about historical practice. There's a reality where one way is, in practice, the obvious way most people go for this person we're talking about, and the other is not so obvious.

So, yes, it is interesting that the blog author went this way and isn't doing it with the usual purpose. I don't know why this bothers you so much, but this thread has gotten tiresome.

Yes, and on Wikipedia it says he's born in Russia. So, someone who normally might label someone by their birth, would then claim he is Russian. See how that's an easier path than looking up "every news article"?

I am not bothered, and this thread is not tiresome. I am discussing why you feel the need to find this interesting, you brought it up. Blaming me for your stubbornness exhausting you will always render fruitless.

Is it the obvious way to say that Elon Musk is a South African?

He's labelled that quite often, yes.

I think nobody doubts that he is a US American. He was just born in South Africa.

It's funny how much importance we attach to someone's country of birth but not their state or canton or other administrative unit. If you were born in Texas but live in California, are you a Texan? Born in Boston but live in Los Angeles, are you a Bostonian or a Los Angeleno? Does it matter how old you were when you moved?

As an example, Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa. How many people think of him as South African? He has American, Canadian and South African citizenships. Is he Canadian?

Yes, it's one a lot of societies are questioning recently, identity and how much we attribute to parts that might not make any sense but stem from tradition or false beliefs. A lot of it isn't purely geographical either, things like views on race can have a huge impact on how we label/self-label.

Another part of the identity equation people are questioning are things like pride, where we claim people as [group] because it makes us feel better (even if the individual does not claim that identity, whether it be the school they attended or where they were born, etc).

It's a lot of good discussion, but I feel due to political circumstances recently a lot of people have become very antagonistic towards Russian labels even if the individual themselves distances from the Russian administration, in the same way you can still be American if you hate the Biden administration.

Imho what's more relevant is the current status. Nobody can choose where they are born.

It's considered malicious to call a trans person by their birth name, but if someone decides to leave their place of birth and publicly claim a different nationality that doesn't mean anything?

Plot twist: Rochko is a Ukrainian last name.

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