[EugeneOZ]

My words are true. Our (russians) colloquial lexicon have tremendous amount of words from thieves jargon. Constitution in Russia have less meaning than thieves' laws. Our users, even programmers/hackers are trying to get free any software - it's kind of snobbery to use paid software in Russia. Maybe it's something wild for you, but it's reality in Russia.

[nbaksalyar]

I don't get your point. Why generalize over 140M people with your assumptions about illegal software usage and "thieve laws" in Russia in the topic about reverse engineering the Skype client? How does it even relate to Russia?

[semi-extrinsic]

Generalizations are useful, because they allow us to efficiently reason about the world. Eschewing them because of the content-free statement that "everyone is unique" leads us to a worse, not better, situation. Of course, this does not mean we should allow blatant racism, but in the real world it is useful to say things that are true but not necessarily nice.

Or, if you want, you can stay in Katie-land:

https://youtu.be/b47wP_yMCf4

[EugeneOZ]

My reply was to comment about hacking culture. And it's not "assumptions" but experience.

[babuskov]

> it's kind of snobbery to use paid software in Russia

Perhaps there's a big percentage of people who feel the same, but there are also many people who pay for software:

http://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-steams-succ...

[EugeneOZ]

I'm not saying it's good, of course, I regret about such level of evolution. I use paid licenses :)