>What are your assumptions, those that would enable a scenario in which the invader decided to retreat? It seems like a scenario that cannot just spawn from the current chessboard.
You mean, the chessboard on which we gave up our nuclear weapons under the promise from the US, the UK, and Russia that our territorial integrity will be respected?[1]
The "chess move" that directly led to this invasion, according to the US president that pushed for it?[2]
Dare I suggest, the scenario in which Russia retreats is the US holding up to its own promises, for once. For nuclear-non-proliferation's sake, if anything.
Even setting that aside, the war is not sustainable for Russia.
Russia is begging Iran and North Korea for help, getting both ammo, weapons, and people to fight the war with from them. Russia relied on NK artillery for a year, Iranian drones for two years. 10K North Korean soldiers are already on the battlefield, 100K more to come.
Ask yourself what price Russia is paying for that.
Realize that Russia ran out of resources to get that ammo and cannon fodder (and cannons) in Russia.
So, one assumption that enables the scenario is actual, real, enforced SANCTIONS on Russia.
- Cut off Gazprom from SWIFT. The share of Russian gas in the EU dropped to as low as 8% last year, the EU doesn't need Russian gas specifically. That share has since doubled. Put a stop to it.
- Make anyone who's helping Russia pay more than what they can get from Russia in exchange for it.
Iran is sending rockets and drones? Iran gets its nuclear weapon research facilities destroyed. Israel is gladly doing that task already. Would be neat if the West got its head out of its collective ass and stopped dunking on Israel in the UN for its own survival's sake.
NK is sending soldiers? Oops they're all dead (getting within Tomahawk range was unwise). Also NK gets a blockade, and any entity that helps them break it gets sanctioned to hell and back. China can feed them at that price.
Speaking of China, any entity that deals with Russia or NK there should be eliminated from participating in global markets. Simple as.
The West has one leverage over that Dictators Anonymous club: ECONOMIC OUTPUT. They have more people, and they don't care about lives. They have more nukes, together, and they make more artillery shells, together.
But on their own, they don't have the resources to fight that war. All the resources went into sustaining autocracies.
The CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, NK) are waging a war because they got fat on beneficial relationships with the West, that they've been rewarded with on the expectation that they would appreciate access to the global economy and the benefits that come with it, and don't do anything to risk losing it -
- like invading a European nation, say.
The expectation didn't pay off. The solution is simple: take that access back.
Stop rewarding bad actors. The West paid them upfront, they didn't hold up their end of the deal.
Russia can go back to its Iron Curtain planned economy. The West was fine without Russia then, it will be fine now.
China can go back to its Cultural Revolution planned economy. The West was fine without China then, the West can manage now. Doesn't need to happen in a day either. Start with cutting off any individual entities in China that touch Russia or NK.
North Korea can go back to figuring out how to feed its own population, rather than making ammo and meat waves for Russia.
Iran can go back to pre-Trump-presidency days. They're the only ones in the club that were pre-emptively punished, which gave the Ayatollahs all the excuses. Bring Obama's deal back, on the condition that all ties with Russia and Arab proxies are cut. Should they reject it, more FO will be delivered as a consequence of the many instances of FA they committed in the past years (including their role in Oct 7th attack).
So, that's some thoughts, for a start.
That's before we get to getting Ukraine some real military assistance. Not even talking "boots on the ground".
Look at what Poland got since 2022. Now imagine what Ukraine could do if it was able to put orders for thousands of HIMARS launchers instead of a dozen it got in 2022. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of F-35 jets instead of a dozen of F-16. What Ukraine could do with hundreds of ATACMS rockets.
What Ukraine could do with the thousands of Abrams tanks, designed to fight the Russian tanks, that the US has rusting in storage and will, in all likelihood, never use, nor have a need for - instead of the dozen it eventually got.
Ukraine could have had all of that in 2022. And if it did, the war would've stopped then.
Ukraine was given none of that gear over the fears that it would push Russia to use nukes. The reality shows that bullies are emboldened by appeasement, and reconsider when met with strength. Military assistance to Ukraine, even in modest amounts, kept the Russian nuclear threat at bay.
So, plenty of scenarios.
The collective will to make them happen isn't plentiful though.
Sure, Romwell. But of course, the various proposals made in order to have some part retreat are not (what was in context) answer to the original (possible interpretation) "Oh well, they could just retreat". In the current chessboard, proposing the idea that some part "just retreated", defining «a scenario in which the invader [spontaneously] decided to retreat», requires quite some justification. It is not the framework in which you are, but it seems to be that of the original poster. (For clarity.)
Look at the root post I replied to...
Edit: again for clarity: consider if somebody came and said "Well, Beijing could just forget about Taiwan". It does not stand up alone, right? The poster should be requested what assumptions made such expression seem plausible.
You are correct, my interpretation of "they could just retreat" is overly generous.
Being: "they have a choice to stop the bulk of ongoing costs of the war to Russian Federation at any moment, a choice that Ukraine does not have" - with the implicit assumption that the costs of the war to Russia are understood by everyone, and that the cost of withdrawal is significantly smaller.
Of course this ignores the cost of withdrawal to Putin, whose citizens (80% of whom want the war to continue) will have a lot of questions in that case.
Like, what did all the people die for. And why did you withdraw when we were winning, when 4 out 5 of us wanted the fight to go on.
Putin, like any dictator, is beholden to the overall vibe of his populace, because that's the only mandate to power that he actually has.
Democratically elected leaders have the power to decree "do as I say, that's the will of the people; elect someone else next time if you disagree".
Putin can't say that, because there are no elections in the social contract.
Russian leaders only leave the throne by abdication, coup, or death.
The only exception in their 850-year history was Nikita Khruschev, who was officially removed from power after he, himself, dismantled Stalin's cult of personality and brought on reforms that made such removal possible.
We need, first and foremost, a guarantee that if the war stops today, that Russia will not launch an invasion for the third time in a few years.
This war didn't start in 2022. They invaded in 2014, and "peace" was negotiated in Minsk. Worked out swimmingly.
There are several ways we can get this guarantee:
-A complete withdrawal and de-nuclearization of Russia, plus referendums held in Chechnya, Tatarstan, Syberia, Yakutia and other Moscow-controlled Republics in the Federation on whether the people there want to continue being a part on Moscow's imperial ambitions, or choose independence.
Side note: Tatarstan had such a referendum in 1992. It would be great if its results were, at last, honored.
Return of occupied territories is a means to an end. The end is peace. If Russia gets rewarded in any way for its invasion with acceptance of its territorial gains, they WILL do it again; the calculus is that simple.
-Alternatively, NATO and EU membership and/or any sort of multilateral security agreement (not a promise) that would guarantee us boots-on-the-ground assistance in case of another invasion, backed by something more than a piece of paper.
Say, NATO stations ammo depots, rockets, warplanes in Ukraine in sealed warehouses, and we promise not to take and use any of that stuff as long as NATO holds up to its own promises.
-Ukraine develops nuclear weapons
That's about all I can think of. Everything else has been tried before. The war started in 2014, and the invasion in 2022 took place after all the nuke-fearing pearl-clutchers suggested was already done.
Funny thing, the only thing that makes Russia use nuclear weapons more likely is impunity, which is exactly what that sort of people is asking for. They are bringing their own doom, and are pulling us along with it.
Trying to, in any case. We won't go. With or without them.
>You never count on the successor of a strongman to be rational. S/he is the successor of a strongman for a reason. And that reason is probably not rationality.
Stalin's successor was Khruschev, who dismantled Stalin's cult of personality, and reformed Stalin's system to an extent that Khruschev was removed from power without an incident by his own system, and lived happily ever after in retirement as the power transitioned to the next ruler.
Being the only ruler of Russia, over the past ~1000 or so years, to achieve that, namely:
1. Being removed from power (by term ending, elections lost, etc - not by their own will)
2. The removal happening procedurally, and not by disorder/coup/murder
3. Leaving the former ruler to live a decent life in retirement
Let's find out! Would you please answer three simple questions below:
1. Whose is Crimea?
2. Whose is Chechnya?
3. Whose is Tatarstan?
As a bonus, the fourth one:
4. Should Russia continue having nuclear weapons?
>We need @dang here to address this racism here.
That's not racism, that's just the reasonable assumption that the actions of your democratically elected government reflect the will of the population.
The actions are problematic, see. And the population is on board, as far as polls (not just elections) can tell.
>Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of nation.
My apologies, dang, but we're discussing an actual war here, and you're out of your depth.
I'm telling this to you as a Ukrainian, and as a moderator of /r/ukraina, a community of 100,000 people.
I urge you to read what follows, learn, and for once, stop siding with bigotry.
I'm writing this for you personally, for your education. Others will learn too.
----
These questions aren't about "nationalistic" "flame" wars.
I'm from Ukraine, where there's a real war going on, and I'm eligible for the draft. As of May, 2024, I'm required to register even as someone living in the US.
We're discussing this very war. Real war. In which I have a chance to die, unlike you, so I hope you can at least listen.
The person I asked these three questions is from Russia, and is asking what's wrong with them, personally.
Their answers, should they provide them, would help illustrate the issue, either by pointing out how people who answer that way their contributed to current situation, or observing that most Russians would have answered differently.
These aren't "provoking" questions — including the phrasing. The phrasing comes from Russia.
----
See, Russia has annexed Crimea in 2014 using the slogan "Crimea is ours"[1], to the extent that it became a catch phrase, a neologism.
The first question is a litmus test that exhibits a problem with many so-called "good", liberal Russians who absolutely oppose Putin, while agreeing with Putin's expansionist politics.
This includes the martyred (now dead, killed in prison after repeated assassination attempts) opposition leader Navalny, whose wife is claiming the title of Russia's president in absentia.
Navalny famously quipped that "Crimea isn't a sandwich to be passed back and forth"[2], indicating that no matter what, what Russia takes won't ever be given back.
This question is how one can easily dismantle Myth #1: that liberal Russians who oppose Putin are necessarily anti-war. The question conclusively demonstrates that many are anti-losing, not anti-war per se.
2014 annexation met virtually no opposition from Russians. There are notable exceptions, like Valeriya Novodvorskaya.
If this name tells nothing to you, please look her up — and note, in that case, that you're in no position to be moderating a conversation about Russian aggression, as your assumptions are coming from a place of ignorance — and are insulting to both Russians and Ukrainians.
Unlike you, Valeriya Novodvorskaya didn't see question #1 as something to "flame" about. There was no question to her, as a self-respecting Russian citizen: she said, without doubt or fear, that annexing land of another, sovereign nation by force is unacceptable; and Russia's only sane and saving grace is unilaterally ceding it back to Ukraine.
Crimea is internationally recognized as Ukraine's territory. That's an impersonal, clear and dry answer. This is not a provocative or ambiguous question to anyone who thinks that having international laws is important. The fact that you think there's an issue with the question (but not the answer — which the OP didn't provide in any case) is, in itself, problematic.
As is the stance of over 80% of Russians who see no issue with armed annexation[3] — which, by the way, Russia openly lied about, saying that Russia has no idea where the so-called "little green men"[4] — as the invaders in unmarked uniforms were known — came from. The fact that it violated Geneva convention on the account of unmarked uniforms alone didn't bother 4 out of 5 Russians, many of whom, 10 years later, are asking the same question — what's my role in this?.
Let's go further. Question #2, whose is Chechnya. The phrasing is chosen to mirror the first question.
Again, from the point of view of international law, this is not provocative in any way. Chechnya is Russian territory.
It wasn't that clear cut in early 1990s, when Chechnya declared independence. It's Russian territory because Chechen independence movement, led by Dzhokhar Dudayev, was fiercely crushed in two Chechen wars. The first one was lef by Boris Yeltsin — and it was a was which Russia has lost, losing any control over what became known as Ichkeria Republic. While it didn't get much recognition, Russia's control over that territory only existed on paper.
But as devastating the loss was to Russia, the war was, effectively, over. The fighting has stopped. The obvious path forward was recognition of the independent Republic, and peace.
That's not what happened. Putin has infamously faked apartment bombings[4] (as in, all evidence points to FSB, the succesor agency to KGB from which Putin comes, planting the bombs) to get a pretext to start an absolutely brutal Second Chechen War.
Many people died. Grozny was leveled. But Putin got a collaborator on the inside — imam Kadyrov who turned on his people, and in doing so, became Chechnya's vassal king. After his assassination, his son, Kadyrov Junior, inherited the throne, and rules Chechnya with an iron fist, entertaining himself with activities such as exterminating gay people in Chechnya (by killing, torturing, and all but hunting them for sport).
Hunting us for sport, that is. People like me[6]. I felt safe in Kyiv last year. You get used to air raid sirens. That means air defense is working. Where Russia took hold, people like me live in constant fear of death. Not everyone had the means to get out.
That gives me a reason to support my country in this fight, but so far, we haven't talked about what this has to do with bigotry or responsibility for the war.
After all, Russia won, and according to international law, that land has been Russian since 1991, and civil wars like that are Russia's internal affairs.
Well here's how it factors into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. See, the invasion started in 2014, and not just in Crimea, which was annexed outright, but also in Donbas, where Russia instigated and supported armed rebellions against Ukraine's government, covertly aided by Russian armed forces[7].
Russia lied blatantly about that, too. When Russian regular soldiers were taken as POWs in Ukraine, Russia said they were simply there "on vacation", having crossed the border "by accident"[8].
Russia lies because the war was posed to be a separarist movement. Two fledgling "republics" were formed, LNR and DNR (Luhansk/Donetsk people's republic). In 2022, Russia dropped the pretenses, and annexed them too. But for 8 years — through the sham Minsk ceasefire agreements — Russia maintained that they were merely supporting a righteous independence movement, which Ukrainian government had no right to fight.
Fighting LNR/DNR was the excuse Russia used to label Ukrainian government a "Nazi regime".
And that's where Question #2 shines. Millions of Russians justify the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by the "need" to back what they called LNR/DNR separatists, because the separatists have the right to self-determination.
In the same breath, they are 100% behind crushing the "terrorists" in Chechnya (as Putin said, quote, "whacking them in the shitters").
Those people — the people who vehemently support separatists who want to join Russia (self-determination!), while equally vehemently supporting brutally crushing those who want to break away from Russia (territorial integrity!) are bigots.
Not all Russians, of course.
But about 80% of Russians oppose Chechnya's independence[9], and 80% support Russian intervention in Ukraine to "protect" LNR/DNR "independence"[10]. These variables aren't independent.
When the USSR was breaking apart, various parts of it held a referendum on whether to become independent, stay with what's left of the Union, or something else.
Tatarstan held such a referendum in 1992, and 3 out of 5 people have clearly and unambiguously chosen independence. Tatarstan was to become a sovereign state (as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan did).
This didn't happen. The results of the referendum were ignored. Russia has considered Tatarstan its territory ever since.
That highlights another form of bigotry: Russia's infamous referenda, held at gunpoint [12], that are used to give its annexations an air of legitimacy.
That includes Crimea[13]. "Anti-war" Russians are still prone to deferring to that sweet 95% "secede" vote. Even if that referendum were legitimate, curiously, Russians don't have the same overwhelming support of the results of the beyond shadow-of-a-doubt legitimate[14] referendum in Tatarstan.
As Putin's regime slowly eroded Tatarstan's sovereignty to zero, Russians did not object [15].
The question "Whose is Tatarstan" is not controversial by any measure either. It surely belongs to the Tatars, the people who live in Tatarstan.
One can argue that Tatarstan being a part of Russia, in reality, reflects what people of Tatarstan wanted: autonomy, not necessarily independence, secession, sovereignty. And if they did want this, then the current state of things is an acceptable, workable compromise.
It's a valid argument. And it's also valid for Crimea being a part of Ukraine, where it enjoyed an autonomy far stronger than that of Tatarstan today.
It also removes the "not a sandwich" objection, as well as the nonsense about "protecting the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities" in Ukraine that was used as a pretext for the 2022 invasion.
Aside from Russian being under no threat in Ukraine (as half the country still speaks it), surely Russian has never been threatened in Crimea as much as local languages in Tatarstan were outright suppressed.
That's before you realize that Crimea was never Russian in the first place, and today's 90%-ethnic Russian population is the result of the ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars, the natives of the peninsula (and, like people of Tatarstan, also Tatars), who were subject to mass deportations during the USSR time, as well as persecution under Russian occupation today.
Crimean Tatars — those who have returned after the deportations and their descendants — aren't big supporters of the annexation.
Tatarstan and Crimea can't be both Russian unless you have double standards on whose votes actually count in Russia.
Or, as Stalin said — who counts the votes.
----
Question #4 is the cherry on top of a pie.
By now, I hope most people are aware that Ukraine was left with one of the largest nuclear weapons stockpiles in the world after its split from the USSR.
The weapons, the planes, and rockets that Ukraine helped build. These weren't "gifts" or "inheritance", as Russian sources like to label this asset.
More of a property you get in a divorce.
Russia wanted it all. And the US — in what Clinton admits was a huge mistake [17] — pushed Ukraine to unilaterally disarm and send its nuclear weapons to Russia [18].
The logic was: the fewer nuclear-armed states, the better; the more stable and safe the world is.
All Ukraine got for its nukes was a security assurance that its sovereignty and territorial integrity will be respected. An assurance signed by the US, the UK — and Russia.
We all know by now that Russia's assurance wasn't worth the paper it's written on. Fewer people take time to think about what it means for the US to give such a promise, and then provide lackluster support that is always on the verge of being withdrawn (and, as far as we can tell, will be). What it means for the world, and nuclear proliferation.
But the real interesting part, to me, is how most Russians see the issue. Regardless of how the war goes, Russians think that of course Russia SHOULD have nuclear weapons.
And equally strongly they feel that Ukraine had NO RIGHT to retain its nuclear weapons, and SHOULD NOT have them going forward either.
It's not a contentious question either. Russians simply don't see Russia without nuclear weapons. They're absolutely essential to its security, even though they have what (was) seen as 2nd strongest army in the world.
Reasoning beyond this point is where things get interesting.
----
Above, I have provided extensive, well sourced explanations of why these for particular questions are important, and what they have to do the the current war that Russia is waging in Ukraine.
These four particular questions were posed by Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian politician and a former advisor in Zelenskyy's cabinet (now in exile) to Yulia Latynina, a Russian opposition journalist and commentator (also in exile) during one of their semi-regular joint live streams [19].
The subject of the discussion was exactly the question raised by the Russian person we're responding to: to which extent is the average Russian responsible for the invasion their country is perpetrating?
The argument goes, the average Russian never wanted anything bad to happen, why are they seen as a problem? It's their bad government, Putin, whatever! Not them!
The four questions beautifully bring us to reality, in which Putin is actually doing what his citizens want him to do. At least 4 out of 5 on each question.
And when you ask all 4 questions, you'll be hard pressed to find a Russian whose answers would NOT indicate that Russia is still a country that's a threat to its neighbors, and WILL REMAIN ONE for the foreseeable future, because THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Russians support Russia's expansion by means of force.
In my experience, the discussion hardly gets past Question #1. Their thinking doesn't proceed past "well it's ours now, so...".
And the questions aren't about any new borders that may or may not be agreed on in the negotiations to come.
The problem is that 4 out 5 Russians don't see the rest of Ukraine any differently than Crimea, and it's just a matter of time before Kyiv will be "returned" to the fold.
And if Kyiv resists, Kyiv will get the Chechnya treatment, and 4 out 5 Russians want it that way.
Whatever elections or referenda happen in Ukraine (or occupied territories), 4 out 5 Russians will consider them legitimate if the results favors Russia, and and illegitimate otherwise.
And most importantly: Russia should always have nuclear weapons, so that it never has to follow any rules. That's the unspoken part, but it doesn't take long to get to.
This is why Ukraine sees Russians (not just the Russian state) as a threat.
This is also why the Russian I asked these questions downvoted me, and left without answering. All the context I told you above — all the links — is everyone's lived memory there.
And four simple questions make them have themselves. At the very least, it's hard for an intelligent person to lie to themselves.
I want to emphasize (again!) that there's nothing apriori contentious or inflammatory about these questions, nor "nationalistic". Here's an answer that shouldn't be hard to swallow:
—The land belongs to the people who live there, and it's to to them to decide. In all cases.
—After the war, Russia will be better off without nuclear weapons — as are Germany and Japan to this day. Taking away the trump card to blackmail the world leaves the next government with no choice but developing the country and its people, not wars and schemes. And if Ukraine could stand to to us without nuclear weapons, we can do that too, if needs be — and with far less sacrifice.
Sadly, that's not the answer I expect to hear.
On that note: dang, I hope you have reached this point in my writing — and I do expect to hear something from you.
Treating the questions I asked as "perpetuating nationalistic flame wars" was unwarranted, disrespectful, and demeaning.
As you can see, there's more depth to the questions than you perceived — and that the ultimate goal of posing them is reconciliation and understanding.
Nobody but Russians can fix Russia. But it's an uphill battle when, after centuries of indoctrination, we expect them to start seeing things differently, and don't even bother explaining what's wrong with that way they are now (that Russians are the problem was a sentiment expressed by others here — which prompted this thread in the first place!).
This thread can and will be helpful to that end. I know many Russians, and the truth is, they are often unaware of their biases, as most of us are. But as long as they have them, the Russian government will exploit them to wage war.
And so many are putting in effort to discover and grow.
Your remark is not helping. At the very least, you could've asked about the subject you can't be as well informed on as those of us whose lives are directly affected by it before judging. It includes the Russian person too —
— and not the random folks who decided to treat as quiz the question not posed to them that they didn't understand.
I expect a response from you. And, if not an apology, then at least a bit of human compassion.
You haven't lost it yet, have you? Asking as a mod.
> reasonable assumption that the actions of your democratically elected government reflect the will of the population
No, sorry, with this I will lose reticence: that above is plain insanity. NO, people are not "represented" by elected governments in their will in the way the user declares to have understood. It's not just that "spheroidal economic agents" cannot be accused of obesity - it is not just that gross models do not overlap reality: it is really a nonsensical model.
Sorry Dang, but that was not related to nationalistic flamewar - I do not see how. Edit: well, it could have kindled fire with a different public, but you did a good job in educating this one...
About Crimea, it seemed that the poster proposed a clear-cut situation, to which I replied with a prestigious example of disagreement: Gérard Chaliand. That has nothing to do with any nationalism. It just happen to be a position (an intellectual position) that some nationalists will appreciate more than others - but that is just a coincidence. The intellectual in question is French; the rebuttal from Aguaviva is appreciated.
The latter part of the post from Romwell, I honestly and not without some reason mistook for a statement that "if you are a citizen for nation N, democratic, then you are responsible for the actions of your governments". Being that a twisted idea, that Romwell in the end does not hold but as I also specified later some people do hold, I countered it. Again, this does not seem to be to be especially tied to nationalism.
It seems to me that we all discussed in very civilized manner - rhetoric aside. (From my post replying to Romwell on, I mean.)
If I am missing any detail (as I seem to be), please indicate.
Edit: Dang, are you simply afraid that people will "trigger"? If so, I think this branch proves otherwise... It seems to show that we are able to discuss quite rationally (well, with these members we have been lucky).
Seconding this, and wanted to emphasize that I see no issue with your responses or questions (and don't really understand why you've been downvoted either — advice on style appreciated).
As I wrote in the other comment, my point of asking those questions was to get answers from the Russian person who asked what's wrong with them specifically, not from other people (as the subject I wanted to discuss was, ultimately, why people could see well meaning Russians as a threat based on responses to those questions).
But I didn't make it clear (and again, corrections on style were very welcome!), and the points mdp2021 brought up were valid.
As far as I can tell, we didn't disagree on anything.
mdp2021 lacked some of the context, but so would most people, including me prior to the 2022 invasion.
What they will tell you is -- up until the genocide against the Tatars (and other groups), the majority of its population was always solidly non-Russian.
And that its prior ownership by whichever colonial powers is entirely irrelevant to its current legal jurisdiction.
And when he flatly says "the population became 80-85 percent Russian", he's referring to the time period after the 1944 genocide (which he's choosing not to mention for for some reason). Before which the Russian population was, as he knows, always a minority. Moreover, essentially all of the influx of non-indigenous groups after 1783 was as a result of settler-colonialist policies of the Russian and Soviet empires. Before which the population was 93 percent Tatar, about 7 percent other groups -- with no Russian population to speak of.
The people who did the research, and the editors of Nature - whose opinions on what matters and what doesn't (unlike yours) are qualified. At the very least, they have actual names attached to them; names of people and the publication. That sets the expectations, and actually answers the question who cares.
Given the success of Nature as a publication, one can say with reasonable confidence that people who read Nature, most likely, care about issues that the editors select. If that weren't the case, Nature would not have the status it does.
>If it's not provably written by a human but instead by an RNG, I'm not interested. Don't give me that crap about it being "indistinguishable" or better and that I couldn't tell the different in a blind test. That's completely irrelevant.
Interestingly, if I saw this in a blind test, I'd be inclined to think this sentence was produced by a broken AI, because it conveys zero information, while attempting to maintain the form of a well-formed sentence.
At best, the sum total of that string of words is "I'm not interested in AI-generated poetry", which is off-topic for the discussion at hand.
The study is about people more so than the technology, gauging the responses people have to AI-generated vs. non-AI-generated poetry. One could do the same study on, say, poems written by humans in English originally vs. poems translated into English, and it would still be of interest.
What's of zero interest to anyone is the information about how you feel about the concept of AI-generated poetry in general (not about any specific example, mind you).
The only thing it adds to the discussion is an example of what what a non-contribution to it is on this forum.
Here's a clear message for you then. I have zero interest in engaging with you further than this message you are reading now. Hopefully the feeling is extremely mutual.
>Here's a clear message for you then. I have zero interest in engaging with you further than this message you are reading now. Hopefully the feeling is extremely mutual
With sadness, I have to inform you that we're on a public forum, where I have just as much right to opine on issues as you do — and I, for one, am enjoying our conversation.
That said, instead of making a grand announcement of your lack of interest in engaging in the discussion further than this message, may I suggest not engaging in a discussion you don't want to be engaged in?
It would also do the trick, and spare you the effort.
Looking forward to your further insightful contributions on Hacker News.
I'm sufficiently happy with the number of upvotes I received on my original comment that I don't feel the slightest bit dead. The pedantic and point-missing response from the GP is somebody with an axe to grind from an earlier tasteless comment I made which I (somewhat) regret now. We have very different neurodivergence profiles and are unlikely to be able to have a healthy and productive conversation.
While the response may be "technically correct" (best kind), the upvotes received for my original comment highlight my point - the number of people interested in generative poetry is a tiny contingent compared to those who are pretty much disgusted by it - more specifically at those who would try to pass it off as written by a human saying "if you weren't told it was AI, you might like it and you wouldn't know the difference. Try pretending you don't know".
It's missing the point. The wider public does not consider generative art to be art, but more resembling misappropriation and deception even if a tiny majority in the "tech roolz all" crowd here disagree.
Very clever and impressive technology to be sure, but if it's not art made by a human, it's a synthetic deriviative and those that don't appreciate it have some very valid complaints. I can appreciate that some here are very impressed by the tech, I am too. It does not mean I want to be lied do about the provenance of a piece of art, fooled into believing it was made by a human with human emotions, when it wasn't.
Nobody is going to say "what a talented computer! i wonder what they were feeling when they created that" because we already know. Absolutely nothing.
You've got to give credit to the genius of McCartney's musicianship, that songs perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck in a nightmare you can't escape from.
As a musician, I sometimes make music that I don't like, but just have to get out of my head, feeling compelled to finish a track just to put that pesky musical idea to rest. Recording a track is akin to closing the lid on the coffin; there's nothing more to do, and you can move on.
I wonder if Paul had that experience with that song. The nightmarish chord line is catchy. So he got it out of his head by turning it into a track...
...and ended up getting it in our heads.
I wonder if he thinks "You complain? You can just turn it off. I had to live with that song!". We should be grateful for only being exposed to it once a year, along with the seasonal flu.
That's not at all what echolocation is. What you describe is locating the source of sound using binaural hearing (similar to how we can gauge distances using stereoscopic vision).
Echolocation is finding out distance to objects (not sound sources!) by sending a sound wave in a direction, and listening for echos that bounce back. Hence echolocation.
The only sound source is you.
It's a form of active sensing: literally how a submarine sonar works (or radar, for that matter). Bats do it, too.
This has very little to do with "locating things in headphones", as that is entirely missing the active part in the first place.
Then, locating sound sources using binaural hearing is not the same as analyzing the scattered echoes when the sound source is you (relative to yourself, you know where you are already!).
It's interesting that this is currently the top comment. I wonder how many people read the article before engaging in this discussion.
Interestingly, it took until after the invention of SONAR for the theory that bats navigate by echolocation to be accepted. The theory that bats use hearing for spatial awareness was first proposed in the late 18th century, with experimental evidence, but was rejected by the scientific establishment for more than a century. People didn't know marine mammals used echolocation until the 1950s.
I didn't know this, but the intuition that a tech example will be easier to grasp than an example from biology was why I mentioned sonar before bats in the first place.
Fascinating to find out that the scientific community had this kind of bias as well.
>The parent comment is obviously stupid and has already been down-voted, so HN is doing its job? There is no need to feed the troll.
It's visible, and from my experience, it's not obviously stupid to many people, while being actively harmful.
This is not a trolling comment either, so I don't feel like "feeding the troll" metaphor applies. The "do not feed the troll" advice is usually given to not create opportunities for the troll to come and engage with.
Bigots are not trolls. When countered and having nothing to say, they shut down. Unlike trolls (who say things to simply provoke emotions), bigots want to feel in the right, and will abandon the conversations (and spaces) where that isn't feasible.
To stop the troll, you stop feeding them. When met with no response, trolls move on to something else.
To stop the bigot, you stand up to them. When met with no response, bigots feel emboldened, and do more of the same.
There is no need to feed the trolls. There is a need to stand up to bigotry.
yeah- yikes I did not expect that to happen. My comment was extremely tangential and there were a good few comments already when I added it. I completely agree - it’s not about echo location
Wasting these people's time is a small gain; having others in the community see the lies debunked is valuable.
Especially when they are openly, blatantly, clearly lying.
We've had evidence since 2016, and we keep getting more of it.
We just don't act on it.
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/10/505072304...
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl
[2] https://www.rferl.org/a/election-russia-influence-internet-r...
[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-c...
[4] https://newrepublic.com/post/188284/vladimir-putin-donald-tr...
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/30/trump-russia...
[5a] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39931012
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/16/trump-cabine...