[jimbohn]

>Of course. You're allowed to choose your narrative and favorite scapegoat

No, that's not it. You are operating under the assumption that every culture is equal; it is not.

>I have much more in common with them than I do with any geopolitical warrior

Since this isn't your first ad hominem, let's get some facts straight. Apparently, you have: 1) Baltic and Ukrainian friends and colleagues, 2) Russian and Belarusian friends and colleagues. "Same with Israelis and Palestinians".

This isn't an attempt at doxxing or anything (you linked to some papers you co-author), you are a Serbian researcher working in Germany. None of your co-authors apparently have these origins, nor any manager/high level people in the company you are working for. I am sorry, but I struggle to believe you have these kind of colleagues, especially in such a nice area like ontologies, protege, etc. AND that happened to discuss with them in depth the russian situation.

I have a similar experience when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians, Belarusians, but not russians, I am sorry. The Ukrainians I know hate russians with a passion.

>Aside from the fact that this is a company, not a country, and there's no discussion of hiring let alone getting anyone

I agree, didn't imply that.

>If that's true, why wouldn't these apparently openly hostile Russians join their preferred army? Or do you think they are a fifth column in your country?

It's very simple, life in the west is better. That doesn't mean they believe in its values. Also, once the 3-day SMO got a bit too real a lot of moscow/peter russians decided to bail out. Would they have left if the 3-day SMO succeeded? I don't think so, they would have been happily chanting "russia strong". Yes, some of them are fifth columnists.

If you are still in doubt if the level of infiltration in Europe is through the roof, I don't know what to tell you. But the issue is that, even the majority of the non-fifth columnists harbor pro-imperialist russia values and resentment towards the so-called west. You'll never get a straight answer from them when it comes to these issues, in my experience.

>Be open about your conclusions

Please don't imply things. I am already open about my conclusions. My conclusion is that russia and russians are culturally unfit for being accepted into democratic societies en-masse due to centuries of brutal regimes known for their hybrid warfare and espionage. I think we should re-vet all "refugee" russian visas we have in europe, and reconsider the influence we allow oligarchs to have because they bring some blood money with them.

>How do you feel about people from Saudi Arabia [...] >Their governments and/or minority groups have certainly been controversial in various countries and centuries, to say the least. >It's not an abstract subject, it's a question of principles and nuance.

Nothing against them, not sure why you ask. It's you who decided to bring the abstraction up a notch in your previous comment, when saying "'Enough of them' really applies to any minority". And here's my disagreement. Russians aren't ANY minority, nor for their history, not for their culture, not for the implications of having a russian minority in your country. A minority is NOT fungible, because culture is NOT fungible, and history is NOT fungible.

>My country has been subject to plenty foreign conquerors, adversaries (real or not) and undue influence, including that of various Russian governments. Yet I don't see how the members of those other countries are guilty for that, nor how my hatred for them gets any justice for the pain of my ancestors (or the pain that my ancestors caused).

Serbia has never been under russian rule. Like other countries, it has its foreign invaders, adversaries, etc. But, again, NOT all adversaries are the same, because what they did during their history, what they promoted, and for how long, is not the same. Russia is likely in a unique position when it comes to the integral of applied brutality over time/people. It's not putin, it's not "the government", it has been like this forever.

>And you don't seem like you have personal grievances that would at least explain your views.

If by looking at past data (history, books, etc.) and current data (current state of russian society, their behaviour towards conquered Ukrainians, their nuclear-bomb threats every 3 days) you conclude that everything is fine and dandy with the russian people, so be it. That is not my conclusion. I do have personal grievances because the future of the values (and countries) that I believe in is at stake here, for real. I dislike people who are morally "flexible".

I've written a lot in this HN thread. I'll summarize my opinion:

- Culture and civilization are not fungible, thus not all cultures and civilizations are equal.

- I do not separate the responsibility of the russian people from its government. It has been too long.

- Vast majority of russians that live in the west harbor anti-west resentment and hold imperialist values. Those that left after the 3-SMO fiasco left because they risked their skin, not for any political reason. Will likely move back once this is over.

- I think Kagi having a Serbian HQ and working with Yandex is a signal about its moral compass. In hindsight, the latter is worse than the former.

[TomasBM]

It is doxxing, but whatever floats your boat. I'm not going to post the names of anyone, so if you don't believe me, up to you. Like I said, I can't know if you're genuine or not either. But if you are, there's some chance you could rethink these views, or at least be open about your conclusions.

But yes, these are discussions you can have when you meet people offline. If you live anywhere professionally attractive - like Germany - you'll get to talk with a lot of people. They're mostly not long in-depth discussions, but when you ask or express genuine concern about the situation, you get some responses. It could be a lie, or well-hidden hatred, or a skewed sample, up to you to decide.

If you're happy to spread this narrative - which you seem to be - then I think you fit the bill of a geopolitical warrior. You think it's right to treat all members of an adversarial country as adversaries before they did anything, and I think it's wrong/counterproductive/bad to do so, especially if you're not a member of your country's military or security apparatus or have a personal grievance which explains it. Currently it's Russians for you, tomorrow it'll be the Chinese, Americans, whomever, based on where you live and who now is the adversary.

Serbia has had plenty of experience with "undue Russian influence" and conquerors of similar profiles, but sure, it's not the same. I think the Russian government isn't very different from other imperial powers, which are notoriously not representative of their people, and problematic for neighboring states and their people. If this wasn't the case, Russians wouldn't be on your radar. Simple as that. You don't have to equivocate cultures to notice a general pattern in geopolitics, and you don't have to tolerate adversaries to treat normal people normally.

As far as those other examples go, ask an LLM of your choice, preferably in Incognito mode: "What has $COUNTRY done that would explain why others hate $COUNTRY_MEMBERS?" See what comes out.

[jimbohn]

>It is doxxing, but whatever floats your boat

It's not; it's information you willingly shared and I haven't added to it in any way, I just mentioned that the information available online doesn't fit with what you are telling me. In fact, you have now conveniently shifted to the fact that you do not really have in-depth discussions, but you got some responses from "people".

FYI, Germany isn't really that attractive for high-paying jobs. I have lived in different, more attractive countries, and I wouldn't touch Germany bureaucracy-wise or salary-wise, maybe it's good for public sector jobs, I don't know. I can assure you, I am more traveled than you (visiting a random city for a couple of days conference doesn't really count as traveling, sorry). I happened to be in Berlin right after the war started, and the only russian I met was ECSTATIC, literally "we are back" vibes.

>If you're happy to spread this narrative - which you seem to be - then I think you fit the bill of a geopolitical warrior.

I've yet to see a counter-argument from you. You keep saying I am a "geopolitical warrior" and that I am spreading a "narrative".

>Currently it's Russians for you, tomorrow it'll be the Chinese, Americans, whomever, based on where you live and who now is the adversary

Again, pushing this kind of "hater" narrative. Please just f*** stop, it feels like I am talking to a sophomore doing classroom debate.

> I think the Russian government isn't very different from other imperial powers, which are notoriously not representative of their people

You pass this as a fact, but it is not. Not in the case of russians, sorry.

>If this wasn't the case, Russians wouldn't be on your radar. Simple as that.

Not sure I understand the implication here.

Your argument is just an abstract straw man about the fact that, since hating is wrong (it is), and you classify my opinion as hate (it's not), you conclude that my opinion is wrong. This shows up again when you propose to use variables in place of a country, because countries are somehow interchangeable.

Another irony is that you live in Germany, a country that was dismembered and re-educated from the ground up after their atrocities in WW2, in an effort to correct/roll-back the cultural/societal rot that had taken place due to nazism. This succeeded, and German people are, generally speaking, very nice. Had it been 70 years ago, I guess you would have told me that it's just Hitler or the government. In hindsight, we have evidence it wasn't.

I think the gist of it is that I do not separate the responsibilities of the russian people from their government(s), you do. We have different interpretations of the history of russian society, but you must admit that it's quite a coincidence for there to not be any correlation between the russian people/culture and the outcome of their nation, for centuries? Don't we have ample evidence that deresponsabilization is NOT working?

In my experience, the less one is read about their history and/or the further they are from the blast zone for when they go for the next genocidal war, the more they're willing to look the other way, because doing the opposite is, of course, more tiring.