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Comment by impostor313131 | Hacker News Reader

I am 36 and I have been thinking about suicide a tiny bit lately. But I will share my perspective with you, hopefully to draw a picture how different circumstances can be. I live in Ukraine and my optionality in life collapsed the day the war started. I had a good life, good income and traveled a lot. I used to dream of a career in big tech and life in different countries just to give it a taste. Now I am not able to leave the country because I am a male of conscription age. My city is being attacked by drones daily, and ballistic rockets a few times a month. Witnessing your country getting wrecked with rockets and drones is hell of an experience. Businesses, electricity plants, infrastructure, gas stations becoming rubble. There is also little hope in a resolution of this soon. I have to work on a job which provides a reservation from military service if I don’t want to fight, otherwise I will be picked up on the street to join the military.

I have it so much better than a lot of my countrymen, but holy shit does this suck and it is not getting better anytime soon. The hopelessness gets you.

Software engineering is one of my last remaining pillars of life remaining more or less intact. At least I get to write some code and make computers do things.

Life is a strange thing.

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18. same ass of a country (to outsiders, have a look at all the countless debacles concerning corruption to understand why "ass"), except that I have 7 mostly worry-free years left to live and the market for juniors (and thus, me) is closed. if I get drafted, I'm waiting out for an opportunity to shoot my head.

honestly, having a decently paying blue-collar job made me think whether tech is worth it at all, given that I'll lose all the extra benefits (from canteen to proper bomb shelter to gym to commute) and cut my already tight paycheck by 20-25%. for what? for "tech"? where I have to be able to wake up at 3AM when the client's LLM took down their prod, commute to a vulnerable office in Kyiv (and pay for expensive AND equally vulnerable housing there), live under a threat of getting fired because I was "not AI enough" or whatever management wants, or because I don't have gigabit Wi-Fi in the shelter? fuck it, I'll rather be a night-shift loader and idk, learn embedded at home.

the world devolving into proompting has ruined tech for me. prolly I'll get a Cat. C driver's license and spend little what I have remaining of life on the road. if I get lucky, I may eventually reach CE and Euro 95 certs, and that in turn gives me some sort of safety against mobilization.

if the war ends before I become 25, I'll likely end up a stereotypical himbo truck driver. I'm tired of having to perform the smartness.

You have my sympathy. I can't offer you any advice, but I was just thinking earlier about how awful I feel for younger people working in this industry, and that didn't even include being Ukrainian.

Thank you, and one in the above comment, for sharing this. I feel comments like these need to be seen more frequently by people not in your situation. Hard claim I can even imagine what it feels like.

> if I get drafted, I'm waiting out for an opportunity to shoot my head

Huh?

> surrender to the other side (Russia I believe?) and spend 1-2 years [...] citizenship proceedings [...]

I almost read it as an insult, but I'll assume that you either forgot or didn't know one peculiar fact: Russian army almost never keeps their POWs alive, and even if it does, it absolutely never lets them out of the army into Russia - only back into Ukraine, through the battlefield.

this would be a valid option if I was a Russian who does not want to fight Ukraine, sure. Ukraine is ± alright with Russian POWs, partly because we have Europe watching over our shoulders. the reasoning behind your idea is sound, assuming that both sides wage an honest and Geneva-accurate war, except that Russia prefers to utilize the Genevan convention as a piece of toilet paper.

so, your idea effectively becomes suicidal, but you also get a great deal of suffering. why not cut the suffering while I can?

I hope more than anything Ukrainians will stay strong and persevere. Perhaps not even for themselves or their country, but just to witness the enemy collapse when it all ends. The mere fact that you are Ukrainian and live in Ukraine invokes a certain level of respect.

> Perhaps not even for themselves or their country, but just to witness the enemy collapse when it all ends.

I hope more than anything that Ukraine (and Russia, and Israel, and Palestine, and all the war-torn regions of the world) can one day be free of this ghoulish mindset, that world leaders will choose life instead of worshipping death

Yeah wishing to see people who tried to torture and kill you dead is ghoulish.

It’s not ghoulish but it also perpuates a never ending cycle unfortunately- we as in each culture, man, woman are all wronged in so many ways and most have legitimate grievances and are skilled in restarting and kindling those grievances with the next batch of children..ironically religion and nationalism kindles that even further while also providing a base identity to create fellowship between its adherents

But is the only way out further death and destruction?

Blessed be the peacemakers, as they say

While the attack on you is ongoing, yes, fighting back is the only way out. Giving up and dying is not peacemaking.

Fighting back to protect yourself is one thing, but exacting revenge leads to a cycle of violence. Especially when it is on an entire nationality or ethnicity.

Honestly, who are you talking to and what are you reading? Most Ukrainians I've met, my parents, their friends, refugees we've met: just want the Russians to go home.

From a few levels up in this thread:

> Perhaps not even for themselves or their country, but just to witness the enemy collapse when it all ends

To me this sounds like a desire for retribution, not just an end to hostilities. And that is what I am replying to.

I have no reason to believe that is an attitude commonly held by Ukrainians. And it seems like that post wasn't even written by a Ukranian.

on a serious note, it really is. death/execution as a punishment makes no sense. there are fates worse than death for those whose offenses we'd love to spill the blood for. Alcatraz is one such place where those fates are served.

and for crimes that are not enough to execute for, bog-standard prisons are enough. they are imperfect, but those willing to change prove themselves there, and a good one should give enough opportunities for a criminal to re-educate, reconsider some of their life choices, and rehabilitate.

punishment by death is never the right fit.

We're not talking a finished crime where "peaceful" punishment is an option. It is an ongoing war, missiles destroy cities and lives. When someone is doing that to you, killing them is usually the only way to stop it. Surrendering is not an option, see Bucha.

agree. yet, most of the time, most people have enforcement infra, and having an intent to kill, and not resisting it, is ghoulish. that way, one is perpetuating the very cycle that Europe attempted to stop within itself through coal and steel

You're probably was lucky to be born in war-free region, so it is easy to label things as ghoulish from a position of morally concerned outsider. You was never forced to leave your homeland and become a refugee, you was not separated from your loved ones by the border of warring countries, your friends and loved ones were not killed or imprisoned by invading nazi army. And it's a good thing for yourself, but you are not in a suitable position to judge Ukrainians or Syrians or other peoples who have been through it.

Yes, I am lucky enough to not have experienced mass violence, and also I don't wish it on anyone else. I empathize (though I do not agree) with people who have experienced it, have had their souls worn down by the evil done to them, and who adopt these sorts of attitudes because of that. But there are also people who have had lives just as easy as mine, and yet, from their place of safety and comfort, they egg on war, and cheer when others get killed. I have nothing but contempt for this last group

You are right. Warmongers that never set foot in battlefields deserve nothing more than contempt.

I lived close to Donetsk until 2022 and I totally support the "ghoulish" label. we GOTTA find the way to stop this cycle of violence and unify around something. so far, practical everyday matters such as coal and steel, or silicon, have been pretty successful at keeping another world war at bay.

Interesting! I am from Donetsk myself, but left in 2014. I am pretty much united with my Russian friends on the topic of destroying putin's regime. Not sure if any other unity makes sense now.

putin has objectively caused a lot of harm, and desire for carnage is understandable, yet if we are to break this cycle, we should make the format of Nuremberg trials the new norm and make it so that even if we want to, we can't start a new war. unity around hatred is fleeting, temporary, and often leads to overcorrection, such as me being harassed for talking to my mother in Russian (I also fluently speak in Ukrainian and tell them go fuck themselves using all the regional swears I collected all over Ukraine) or Israeli having to apologize themselves for Netanyahu's decisions.

and everyday matters? they are boring and important, and if someone dares to touch the supply chain, they should face all the economic repercussions imaginable. ideally, this will make punishment for war immediate, inherent, and structural. and if we take it further into pony land, we may deprecate the military because its purpose will be carried by Brenda sitting behind a desk with Excel (or LibreOffice Calc) before her. :)

Just saw your comment, thanks, not sure if putins regime can be met with anything but hatred, and not only because of its treatment of Ukrainians, but also many Russians are as well victims of nazi kgb regime in direct or indirect way. For many people born in Russia, overthrow of that regime might be the only way to achieve better future for their family and their native region. Ukraine can achieve peace, forget about Russia existence for a while, and have minimum hatred for russians going forward, like Finland did, but for those people who were unlucky to be born in Russia, destroying kgb nazi is the only possible way forward, apart from the alternative of life in exile (like many did in 20th century during the original kgb regime). Same goes for Belarus as well. The most "Russophobe" people (in terms of kgb propaganda ofc) I've ever met were Russians born in Russia.

How can you group Ukraine and Palestine in with Russia and Israel?

Russia and Israel are the countries causing the regions to be war torn. They are mass murdering invaders, no better than Nazi Germany.

The mass murdering invaders in October 2023 were Hamas.

This consistent oversimplification and allergy to reading actual history and being an informed citizen is what ensures these types of wars will continue

It is my one sincere wish in life that the suffering of Ukrainians is not for naught and that the people of Europe support you until victory.

But Europe isn’t really supporting Ukraine, they’re just providing enough supplies to keep them in the fight. No state seems willing to provide enough assistance to allow for Ukrainian victory, because of the costs and risks associated with that aid. Even countries at little risk of reprisal from Russia are reluctant to do much at all.

As such, all of us doing nothing more than “voicing support” on the internet and some far-away rally, should offer our empathy, and not presume to tell them how much we’re “helping”.

> But Europe isn’t really supporting Ukraine, they’re just providing enough supplies to keep them in the fight

What is your definition of "supporting", if "providing support" doesn't count?

A lot of European countries (especially those closest to Russia) are doing a fuckton relative to their economies.

The US is the despicable laggard, even when accounting for our distance from the action.

(And especially when accounting for the fact we promised them our protection of their sovereignty)

None of the European countries are doing much relative to their economies. Russia's GDP is about the same as Italy's. The rest of the EU and NATO countries together have an economy that is enormously larger than Russia's. So why do they allow Russia to push them around?

Here are the aid allocations to Ukraine as a share of GDP of the top contributors (all approximate from 2022 through to 2026):

Denmark: 3%

Estonia: 3%

Lithuania: 2.5%

Norway: 2.5%

Latvia: 2%

Sweden: 2%

Finland: 1.5%

...

UK [†]: 0.75%

...

United States [†]: 0.5%

[†]: These countries signed an agreement that they would protect Ukraine's sovereignty.

For context, the US's entire national defense budget is about 3% of our GDP. Or alternatively, Medicare is 3% of our GDP.

This statement is false: "None of the European countries are doing much relative to their economies."

Ya, that's basically nothing. None of those European countries have asked their citizens to sacrifice. The welfare state continues uninterrupted. They were still buying Russian fossil fuels instead of telling people to put on a sweater.

As a US citizen I think that our country should also do more to assist Ukraine. But fundamentally this is a European problem. They need to find a solution instead of expecting the US to bail them out again.

If 3% of GDP is basically nothing (US defense budget or Medicare), then why isn’t the expectation that the US puts in “basically nothing” (3%) as a token gesture towards its promise to guarantee their sovereignty?

Again, I think the US should do more but it's really not our problem. We never guaranteed Ukraine's sovereignty. If you're referring to the Budapest Memorandum, it contains no such promise.

The other states under the US nuclear umbrella find no comfort in the legalesing the difference between "a guarantee" and "an assurance."

If we want nuclear proliferation, breaking our promises is the way to do it.

The idea that a marauding steppe warlord succeeding in Ukraine and taking control of by far the most advanced and experienced near-peer military on the planet, with aspirations to advance further into Europe, is "not our problem" is laughable.

Ukraine was never under the US nuclear umbrella. Where are you getting these crazy ideas?

"Nuclear umbrella" is not a well-defined term. It is the set of promises the US made to non-nuclear states. It made a set of guarantees to some set of nations (e.g. NATO++), and a set of assurances to other states, like Ukraine.

Our reneging on our assurances indicates weakness in our guarantees, which risks a proliferation spiral.

For example, NATO's Article 5 can be legalesed the same exact way you're trying to legalese the Budapest Memorandum.

Budapest Memorandum:

> The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.

NATO Article 5:

> The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Both agreements promise assistance. Do you think the US's view that your position of "not our problem" qualifies as assistance under the Budapest memorandum, but that somehow "not our problem" would not qualify as assistance under Article 5?

I'm curious for your opinion, though it doesn't matter much. The reality is that all of this is destroying the umbrella and its civilization-protecting purpose: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/nuclear-proliferation-defens...

What a weird non sequitur. Unlike the North Atlantic Treaty which established NATO, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was explicitly not a mutual defense treaty (or even a treaty at all). It merely required the USA to bring violations to the UN Security Council, which we did in 2022. Promises made, promises kept.

Again, in a legalistic sense, sure.

But again, in a legalistic sense, even NATO Article 5 also doesn't obligate the US to do anything.

No document (Budapest memoranda or NATO treaty) can require the US to do anything, so all that matters is whether the US is signaling itself as a country that defends its partners.

If you believe that Article 5 obligates the US to do anything more than what we've done so far in Ukraine, please explain why.

If you don't believe that Article 5 does that, then I'm not sure why you seem dismissive of the idea that we're creating conditions for a nuclear proliferation spiral.

If you don't understand the basics of how NATO operates then I really can't help you. All of the signatories clearly understand that it's a mutual defense treaty, requiring more than just diplomatic or economic assistance. Which is why the US threatened to withdraw from the treaty after repeated failures of many other members to meet their defense spending targets while freeloading on US security guarantees. If the US government didn't believe that the North Atlantic Treaty obligated us to do anything then they wouldn't have bothered to threaten to withdraw in the first place.

You should go listen to some international law experts talk about it. No, Article 5 does not obligate the US to more than "assistance." We can send them a dollar and call it done.

"All of the signatories clearly understand..." just like all of the signatories of Budapest understood that it meant that each side would prevent each other side from invading Ukraine.

Good luck getting anyone else to give up their nukes, now that the world has seen what the US is made of. We, yourself included, are less safe because of Trump's treachery.

The Trump administration has made numerous foreign policy errors but when it comes to nuclear proliferation there is plenty of blame to go around. The Budapest Memorandum was signed under the Clinton administration, and it specifically didn't require the USA to defend Ukraine. Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and the Obama administration didn't do much about it (and other EU/NATO countries also did effectively nothing). Russia then re-invaded Ukraine in 2022 and the Biden administration provided a little support but still the Ukrainians were largely left to fend for themselves. I'd like to see the Trump administration do more (short of direct military involvement) but still this is primarily a European issue. Why have the other European countries been so lazy and passive instead of asking their citizens to accept the risks and sacrifices necessary to defeat Russian aggression?

We'll probably see more nuclear proliferation going forward, regardless of who sits in the White House. No way to stop it now.

Ukraine is provided with tech, weapons intelligence, and all kinds of equipment. You are spewing nonsense.

Europe is divided by propaganda and the situation is quite volatile at the moment. Some European countries do support Ukraine more than others..

>No state seems willing to provide enough assistance to allow for Ukrainian victory

Because Putin will never back down, by definition a Ukrainian "victory" would require the fall of Russia. Which would likely require a world war.

Ukraine recieves 80B EUR in aid each year from various international partners. There is plenty of support.

You can learn more from a German, independent, non-profit research institute (Kiel) here: https://www.kielinstitut.de/research/topics/war-against-ukra...

I'm extremely sorry to hear about your life and honestly I don't want to be someone who is provides faux comfort saying everything will be alright. However, I am trying to imagine myself in your shoes and if it ever came to a point where I thought it my life is better off taken out, I would be willing to explore my absolute last options, no matter how miniscule the probability may be. Maybe some variant of high-risk emmigration? Maybe there's a waterway or a boat route or underground passage or forest or something.If I was anyway planning to take my life away without giving these extremely low probability options a chance, might as well go down with a fight. Probably this is naive, but that's only because I have personally never been in such a situation ever to even be able to provide a decent enough advice. I am completely baffled and very sorry you are going through this. You're not the first one to share this experience and probably won't be the last and at times like this it irritates me the feminist organizations all over the world have been dead silent on this matter. Equality only when it benefits them, I guess. I wish you good luck and hopefully get to meet you in person to learn of your amazing story of survival.

Good luck!

Necessity is the mother of invention and I can only imagine the volume of necessity that your environment demands. If fighting is not an option, can you use your skills to make some lemonade out of a giant bowl of lemons?

Hang in there. This, too, shall pass.

Life is strange. And circumstance even stranger.

I guess a die is rolled somewhere in the universe and we are born—who knew where, who knew when.

And there are many who are even less fortunate than ourselves.

Whatever I'm about to say may sound hollow, given that I've not been in your shoes.

At my previous (well known tech) company, we had a number of older Romanians who grew up in the Communist era. I became close with one of them. And the stories he told me were just harrowing. They were not at war, but the government simply couldn't provide for the people (other than giving them a good education). The struggle for basic necessities in the 80's became real. He had a wife and a newborn, and the wife was sick, and they couldn't afford any furniture. There was real concern the baby would die because the mother couldn't get even basic rest (no mattress, no bed, sleeping on concrete floor, etc).

The stuff he had to do to ensure she got a bed was crazy.

And then later there were food shortages, etc. Dodging bullets, etc.

But they all somehow persevered and focused on surviving. And then got out of the country as soon as the borders opened up. Eventually, because of their skills, they got great jobs. Very senior and well respected in the company.

But of course, they know people who did lose hope and ultimately committed suicide.

Living in the US, I've encountered lots of former refugees from war zones. People like yourself with skills did well here. For sure they struggled, but eventually they all "made it".

If you have skills, I hope you can last long enough to get there too.

Did you consider voluteering with the Ukraine Army to be a drone pilot? There are many jobs that are far from the zero line, so very little risk of death/injury. Also, from everything that I read, most people cherish the friendships they build during time of war. There are few things that bring together men fighting a common enemy.

Can you suggest some things foreigners could do to help the situation in Ukraine?

You can actually make donations for various causes including sending batches of drones for the Ukrainian on the frontline. Look up Jake Broe for example, he does organize such campaigns.

There’s also https://savelife.in.ua/en/

Can you avoid conscription by volunteering your SW engineering talents for the defense sector? That was an option in many 20th-century wars but I don't know if it's relevant these days.

As an American, I'd like to say I'm as horrified by our faithless leadership as you are frightened by the circumstances you're facing, but that just sounds pointlessly shallow. All of Western civilization has a stake in keeping Putin at bay, but only your country is being forced to confront that fact right now. We should feel grateful to Ukraine, and in fact many of us do.

Suffice it to say we aren't all aligned with Musk and Trump, and many of us fervently wish we could do more to help in a meaningful capacity. Trouble is, about a third of our eligible voters have decided to put a single party decisively in charge of all of our branches of government, and the way our system is structured, that leaves the rest of us more or less powerless. That will hopefully change soon, but we'll see. Try to stay strong, and we will try as well.

You can, but as usual the opportunities are limited as military don’t need that much full stack engineers.

On the other hand senior embedded/mechanical/electronics/AI engineers are of the very high demand.

What is a senior AI engineer? Genuinely interested.

Someone with experience in convnets, SLAM, motion planning, and a bunch of graph algorithms?

AI has been a thing for decades

And still I had never heard of "AI engineer". I learned AI as part of CS, back when it wasn't quite "intelligence" and we didn't call prompting "engineering".

Go and fight back against the people invading your country.

I have non-Ukrainian family members who flew thousands of km over to fight for you right now; you should be 'ahead of them in line' for the cause.

When the war is over you can build things with software; it won't be as fulfilling.

This is one of the densest comments here yet.

It's the only sane comment because nobody else seems to face the 'Elephant in the Room', obviously that the situation is existential for everyone, the nation is under assault and that his contemporaries are fighting an invader.

It's distasteful for people to wallow in the lost hope of their own self-serving concerns and complain about their personal 'career trifles' when their community is facing violence and annihilation.

Acting in the service of others, standing up for one's own dignity is the most deeply fulfilling and transformative actions one could ever take.

Many of my own family members volunteered to help Europe - literally across generations - then and even now.

The best thing that person can do is stop wallowing in self pity and take action, for others and also themselves.

There are a thousand ways for someone to engaging in helping.

Jeezus christ.

Lost for words fella, lost for words.

If you're going to kill yourself anyway, why not just acquiesce? (To Russia.) This question may be stupid depending on the reader but I'm asking sincerely.

Not OP, but i've seen footage from that war, and sometimes you can't decide how to go out. I've seen someone grasping for air like 30 minutes, while their face is half blown out. A death is a mercy on them.

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