> I'm just a normal person, I want to live a normal live with my wife and kids, I didn't choose any of that.
That's what 2000+ civilians who died since 24th of February felt and wanted. They didn't choose to die. But they died. And more will follow if you don't start acting (not you but you as a society, you as a group of normal people who want a normal life). And so this is why you have to risk
> Would you, personally, put your life at risk just to be one more protestor?
I could share you a video of unarmed Ukrainians protesting against russian invasion today in Kherson in front of russian tanks.
If I felt I was responsible for the country I live in, for the president I elected (and who decided to invade another country without any reason), I would put my life at 'risk' (realistically, would be fined or detained for a few days, not killed or jailed). And besides, the more people participate, the less risks are involved. So really it's up to them.
> honestly it’s a lot easier and likely more effective to do this outside of Russia
but you all see the enormous and unprecedented support that the whole world give to Ukraine, you see all of these gathering in every major city of every major Western country -- and yet it doesn't effect putin sadly. So easier - yes, but more effective - I doubt it...
This might be true (as horrible as it sounds - and many people in Ukraine think exactly this), but I still hope that a vocal minority acting together could start something new - and then we could see another, better Russia (Russia that returns Crimea, Donbass, and don't start new wars).
To the same degree that russians are responsible for the political regime they live under -- it's the result of their inactivity and tolerance of the horrific things that are happening right now, no?
Of course if you're in North Korea, it's much much harder (if possible at all) to do anything. But unless russians wake up soon, they're heading in the same direction as North Korea for sure.
So they should act before they become North Korea, act whilst they can
> if you’re an average Russian with few/no international ties, would you really risk protesting against a government with a demonstrated track record of murdering dissidents and imprisoning protestors?
I think one has to decide what's important for them -- if I think that my participation in collective action (protest) could somehow prevent or stop killing of other people, then I think I would try at least (and if I knew there were other people who I can rely on, who share the same feelings that I have). In this case, if nothing changes, at least I know I did all I could, but if it works (in best case scenario), then the war is over. Worth risking right?
This is how the Revolution of Dignity happened in Ukraine: you just knew you had to act -- and act as a group not as an individual -- when the president you elected have failed your nation (and before running away he also proposed fines and imprisonment for those who took part in protests, so there were risks obviously).
> I don’t disagree with the sanctions but we also shouldn’t pretend that it is a just or fair course of action. Sanctions are the best tool that we have, out of a selection of poor tools.
No one thinks that a regular Ivan from some russian city (on his own) is responsible for the war and should suffer. And I see how you could (and probably should, at some level) feel sorry for russians fleeing the country.
But this is the only way to tell them that they -- collective Ivans, Russian society as a whole -- should stand up and act: they should articulate their content, they should protest against putin's policy, and they should stop the war (an alternative would be to accept Ukraine to NATO and finish this war is a day, but that won't happen).
While they're suffering economically, the suffering of Ukrainians is just on another level -- it's not about restrictions (e.g. no ikea or facebook or apple products) or money (inflation), it's about flattened cities and destroyed lives.
I woke up as I heard bombs falling on my city, and I definitely haven't felt any sympathy for russians since then.
If they feel they don't support their country's aggression towards Ukraine, they should go protest and stop it -- even at risk of being fined or imprisoned. Otherwise they should just embrace all sanctions and become North Korea imho.
I started with R, but then switched to Python because all pipelines were already written in Python (web-scrapers, some data-processing scripts, REST APIs), so I just learned pandas and it's been fine, although I do think dplyr's syntax is great and I prefer it to pandas'.
That's what 2000+ civilians who died since 24th of February felt and wanted. They didn't choose to die. But they died. And more will follow if you don't start acting (not you but you as a society, you as a group of normal people who want a normal life). And so this is why you have to risk