by harscoat on 3/8/22, 2:50 PM with 215 comments
by tpoacher on 3/8/22, 4:13 PM
You are a US citizen, and your phone randomly rings. On the other line, there is a guy speaking English with a heavy russian accent:
"Hello. I call from Russia. This website I find ask me to call and inform you of real happenings in Ukraine. Your media full of lies. Trust me. Look. I have pen."
Yeah I can totally see Americans taking up arms against their government after a couple of spam calls like this.
by rini17 on 3/8/22, 4:24 PM
Shortwave radio station that is possible to tune to in Moscow and beyond, where they can listen to people they have known before, would have much bigger impact. Like Radio Free Europe did.
by josephwegner on 3/8/22, 3:57 PM
A random phone call from a U.S. citizen might look suspicious, and I don't imagine Russian police are giving much benefit of the doubt right now.
by asats on 3/8/22, 4:23 PM
Calling random people, messing with the russian internet, targeting the russian opposition/journalists escaping the country who just had all their cards turned off because of the visa/masterkard decisions is simply counterproductive.
by dav_Oz on 3/8/22, 4:37 PM
I'm partial toward the people who got invaded but I cannot even verify the stories and sources to a reliable degree. Simply because I lack the resources.
Having a clear bias (support for one side) makes it cognitively even worse.
So I have two choices:
1. Risking telling "noble" lies because in the grand scheme of things Russia (bad actor) has invaded Ukraine (good actor) so even if I'm wrong in some things my intentions are good.
2. Calling Russians and trying also to hear their side of the story and with an open mind figure out together how to bring this war to an quick end.
I believe the vast majority of Russians and Ukrainians have good intentions and want peace.
But borrowing from the proverb "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" one has to have a way of self-correcting i.e. hearing the other side.
So call Russians and tell them your side of the story but don't pretend to know "better".
by zyphr on 3/8/22, 4:06 PM
by geoka9 on 3/8/22, 4:36 PM
Consider interacting with them by replying with links to the videos.
If somebody from Youtube is reading this, I understand that you need to curb spammers who post a lot. But if you could somehow help with this effort, it might actually help change the public opinion in Russia.
by drno123 on 3/8/22, 5:20 PM
by nirui on 3/8/22, 4:46 PM
Just a thought: I been viewing the evidences of Russian war crimes (photograph, video) that people posted on Twitter since the very beginning of the invasion. A lot's of them are real and fact-checked.
Maybe it could be a good idea to setup some sort of online and physical memorial to show the timelines of how each single innocent people lost their life in the invasion, completely neutrally and uncensored, only tell the story, no decoration.
My rational is this: it is just impossible to convert the entire Russian population to be peace-loving, let's just face it, it won't happen as long as the regime needs brainless tools. But for the curious ones who really wants to understand, the memorial can plant the seed in their head. Every 0.0000001% counts.
by alkonaut on 3/8/22, 4:31 PM
Russia isn't North Korea. Yes there has been a tightening lately and all easily accessible media has been propaganda for a long time. But that doesn't mean any Russian can't - with some effort - consume a wide selection of news. And that's their damn responsibility to do so. For example, if you are a soldier asked to go fight in a country, it's your responsibility to read news from other countries before you leave. Otherwise, how can you be sure you know whether the orders are even legal?
We need to stop giving a pass to russians because they have an authoritarian leadership and strict media control. It's very easy to say this from an armchair in a liberal democracy but I'm still going to say it: Russians have a responsibility to protest the regime now, carrying the personal risk despite perhaps having little to no personal responsibility. Else they have the blood of Ukrainians on their hands.
And the same applies to anyone else in an armchair whose armchair is in room temperature because of russian oil or gas.
by decremental on 3/8/22, 4:15 PM
by throwaway290 on 3/8/22, 4:10 PM
If you are a citizen of a European country, call your government and ask to help Ukraine instead. Drop humanitarian supplies, people experience food shortages. Send in troops, the more losses Russia suffers the harder it is for the government to maintain the pretense of normalcy. No one likes fighting a losing war.
by thriftwy on 3/8/22, 4:49 PM
You are supposed to relay stories about bombed hospitals and shelled houses that you've either picked up from the media a day ago, or just from the web site's caption text. Are you ready to answer the question "what were you doing in the last 8 years"? Are you ready to even understand it? What about Alley of Angels, are you ready to talk about it?
I would expect there would be some "weaponized" facts at a minimum, or you may be losing in that artillery duel quite fast. Because Russian TV and state media does supply a lot of weaponized facts of its own.
Consider telling your counterparty that Russia prevents civilians from getting out from besieged cities, and they respond "I've just saw on the TV that Ukrainian far-right batallions are not letting their civilians out to use them as human shield". How are you going to reason from that point? I'm honestly interested because I don't know whose truth is there.
by Zvez on 3/8/22, 9:31 PM
by philliphaydon on 3/8/22, 4:54 PM
Donno if it helps tho. Saw a tweet about it and lots of people were saying they were sending texts and getting replies.
by w_t_payne on 3/8/22, 2:52 PM
by dmix on 3/8/22, 4:06 PM
So self-censor certain keywords... as you normally would on the internet.
by BrBone on 3/14/22, 9:27 AM
by tananaev on 3/8/22, 4:10 PM
I called a lot of my friends in Russia and they are mostly aware of what's going on. But they all live in big cities. The problem is large rural population and smaller towns, which is majority of the population in Russia. They still seem to support Putin no matter what.
by efitz on 3/8/22, 5:58 PM
How does it impact Ukrainians if a cat competition bans the breed “Russian Blue”[1]?
As others on this thread have pointed out, an anonymous call from a foreign stranger is extremely unlikely to change minds on a political issue (we can’t even change the political opinions of family members at Thanksgiving Dinner). Seems like a waste of effort.
Doing something meaningful is HARD. You can’t just make a phone call or a tweet or TikTok or put a Ukrainian flag emoji in your social media profile. Acting out like pouring out Russian vodka may actually be harming people who support your cause; maybe the CEO of the vodka company is a Putin opponent. Maybe the vodka isn’t even from Russia [2](most isn’t). You don’t know. You can’t know how your virtue signaling is going to harm people, but I promise you it’s not going accomplish your stated goals (prove me wrong with a counter-example showing how this stopped a war). At best, it will make already like minded people like you more.
You have to obtain political power which is mostly done by organizing other like minded people and/or donations to influencable people with power. You have to amass enough power to make the change you want effected. Then you have to wield that power effectively, and hope that your opponents aren’t more successful in their opposing activities.
There’s no short cut.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinas-social-media-obses... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/officials-pour-out-vodka-protest-wa...
by therusskiy on 3/8/22, 5:20 PM
by miked85 on 3/8/22, 5:14 PM
by citboin on 3/8/22, 5:59 PM
by thway15269037 on 3/8/22, 5:31 PM
Like, really?
What is this thing doing on HN?
by w_t_payne on 3/8/22, 4:31 PM
They've only got so much bandwidth - money, personnel and time - to deal with all of the myriad security issues which keep popping up.
The more people we can reach out to, the more 'leads' the security services will have to investigate, then the less effective they will be at propping up Putin's empire of fear.
Putin holds power because everyone is so afraid. As soon as the security services stop being effective, and people learn that they don't need to be afraid any longer ... then the only thing keeping him in power will begin to evaporate.
by dncornholio on 3/8/22, 4:14 PM