I slightly know how this all works, and I still love HN. In any case, I hope everyone who flagged this [0] feels better now after squelching the discussion. It was already pushed far off the frontpage and it was only on /active. I guess that wasn't enough. The crazy thing is that I bet we would all get along over beers, vodka, or tea.
[0] доброе утро
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBG3Gdt5OGs
Please note that this anti-Putin/anit-imperialist Russian language music video has >185M views just on YouTube.
This Russian language 2-piece band has Mr. Beast level views while being banned in Putin's Russia. Don't believe their dictator's weak af propaganda. Russians also yearn to be free.
Russia's dictator is so weak that he just had to ask the USA for help, openly. The entire Russian imperialist mirage is crumbling.
If we can get our shit together in the EU, Russia will finally join us as a modern country. The biggest beneficiary of this will be the Russian people, well aside from all the Ukrainians their old system is currently murdering.
Only a couple generations ago, all of us in the EU were killing each other by the millions. We did better, and so can they.
More recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqohApD6Ng8 - 69M views, the prediction of the full scale invasion of Ukraine in hardcore music video form
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCljI3cIObU - 24M views, today in Ukraine :'(
Turn CC=on for all of these videos. The translation is perfect.
My entire point with this wall of text comment is that we need to stop buying imperialist Russia's extremely effective, yet paper-thin propaganda. If we stop buying this bullshit, it will free Russia and thereby stop their slaughter of Ukraine.
I call bullshit. Stop buying Putin's propaganda. Take away the fragile imperialist leadership, and Russians are just as normal as the rest of us. You probably work with some very nice and smart Russians. Take away RT, and they would be even nicer :)
Every single EU country was just as bad as today's imperialist Russia at one point. Then, each of us lost our final imperial war, we each sent our imperialist/authoritarian moron leaders off to the scrap heap of history... and we all became normal countries.
Russia losing their final imperial war, aka the insane invasion of Ukraine, is what they need to finally lose. The only way to make this happen is for the EU to support Ukraine more than ever. This is what will finally give not only Ukraine peace, but all of us peace: especially the Russian people. (see the first song above from 7yrs ago "Death no more", with >157M views!)
The reason that I am posting extremely popular Russian songs is that the second to last authoritarian leader in the EU to be deposed was in Portugal, via Fado songs being played on the radio. "The Carnation Revolution" - one of the most beautiful events in European history.
> "E Depois do Adeus" was aired by the Emissores Associados de Lisboa at 22:55, on 24 April 1974. "Grândola, Vila Morena" was afterwards aired by Rádio Renascença, at 00:20 on 25 April 1974. None of the radio hosts involved were aware that there was a plan for a coup d'état.
> After the broadcasts, strategic points in Portugal were occupied by the MFA troops. The military coup operation was successful and resulted in the Carnation Revolution, which overthrew the dictatorship of the Estado Novo regime and marked the beginning of the transition to democracy in Portugal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A2ndola,_Vila_Morena
Portugal deposing their dictator in 1974 heavily influenced the end of the final dictatorship in Europe, in Spain one year later. Ffs, Spain only ratified their democratic constitution in 1978! As the EU, we need to stop being all high and mighty about "Russians cannot learn democracy." We just barely learned it ourselves.
I'm not one of those, for the fact is that tech and politics has become more intertwined. It is becoming increasingly difficult to talk about the companies, founders, products of top tech companies without acknowledging that the very same things are entangled in the political landscape.
But, it is an explanation as to why people just flag these sort of posts. It's "too political" for their taste.
(But I never flag those posts.)
But frankly I’m calling bullshit on the “sensitive ears” explanation. There seems to be a focus on flagging articles that have discussions critical of the tech-billionaire/MAGA nexus. Also some of the loudest voices rallying to the defense of said nexus are accounts only a few months old with an unusually large amount of karma for the age of the account.