Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

4bars said:
They are not random civilians. They are civilians entitled enough to go to an occupied region from a country that they are in a war that their government started. They knew were they were going, and they had little regard (bordering insult) for the Ukranian Crimean's that they don't want them there. I don't want them any harm but distress and kharma? all the way
Click to expand...

Yeah looking at the videos, I'm sure the kids know what the feck is going on and adults are all collectively guilty of russian imperialist policies. I'm also sure there were absolutely no locals in those videos, 100% of the people are evil russians who moved in 2014 to steal from ukranians and insult them.

You see, that's how generalizations work, and because I know jack shit about the individual circumstances of people, I prefer not to cheer their misfortune and distress. I would definitely not turn them into memes on social media.

I want russia to lose and be embarassed, but in a general way, with their military and political forces being pushed back to russia, but I take no joy in looking at individual civilians and turn their suffering (big or small, deserved or not) into twitter entertainment.

Even if I can recognize the karma that's falling on some people who might deserve it, and I don't feel any sympathy for them, my main point is that taking these individual incidents and use them to make memes, viral videos, and jokes turns war into something you'd follow online like a reality show. I don't like it and I find it distasteful.

I've donated to help ukraine, I've been in front of the russian embassy in lisbon with ukranian protesters, I am happy when I read news ukraine is gaining ground and my eyes water when I see the news and ukranian civilian suffering. But I won't dehumanize the other side and turn them into jokes and someone you can use to go viral with a funny clip on instagram.

If this is what passes for being holier than thou in this thread, than so be it.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I think it's a bit weird that when a poster straight out comes out saying that it's ok to celebrate dead civilians as long as they're Russians
Click to expand...
Again, will you show us those posters or just continue inventing your stories and convince yourself it’s true? Just quote, shouldn’t be that hard unless you imagined it in your head.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
I seriously believe this thread is in need of maintenance before we can carry on.
Click to expand...
Really does. We are in the loop. Someone can't stop talking about Iraq and the US, someone creating their stories in the head about people celebrating the deaths of Russian civilians ("future civilians potentially dying because no one has died yet"), a few others who cannot handle seeing a random video which happens to show 5 seconds of some explosions of a military base in the distance while people are sunbathing basically on the frontlines of the biggest military conflict in decades, and then you have a few like me who are wasting their time here replying to those. Need a reset.
 
maniak said:
Yeah looking at the videos, I'm sure the kids know what the feck is going on and adults are all collectively guilty of russian imperialist policies. I'm also sure there were absolutely no locals in those videos, 100% of the people are evil russians who moved in 2014 to steal from ukranians and insult them.

You see, that's how generalizations work, and because I know jack shit about the individual circumstances of people, I prefer not to cheer their misfortune and distress. I would definitely not turn them into memes on social media.

I want russia to lose and be embarassed, but in a general way, with their military and political forces being pushed back to russia, but I take no joy in looking at individual civilians and turn their suffering (big or small, deserved or not) into twitter entertainment.

Even if I can recognize the karma that's falling on some people who might deserve it, and I don't feel any sympathy for them, my main point is that taking these individual incidents and use them to make memes, viral videos, and jokes turns war into something you'd follow online like a reality show. I don't like it and I find it distasteful.

I've donated to help ukraine, I've been in front of the russian embassy in lisbon with ukranian protesters, I am happy when I read news ukraine is gaining ground and my eyes water when I see the news and ukranian civilian suffering. But I won't dehumanize the other side and turn them into jokes and someone you can use to go viral with a funny clip on instagram.

If this is what passes for being holier than thou in this thread, than so be it.
Click to expand...

So be it
 
dove said:
Again, will you show us those posters or just continue inventing your stories and convince yourself it’s true? Just quote, shouldn’t be that hard unless you imagined it in your head.
Click to expand...

There was a poster who confirmed it was okay to celebrate dead Russia civilians briefly before his post
 
NotThatSoph said:
This tweet is about the consequences for civilians in Crimea. Not just from the recent attack, but from the ones that haven't happened yet. It's not hitting the military targets that's being celebrated and ridiculed, it's the civilians running for their lives.

You can celebrate hitting the air base if you want, that's not what this video is about. This is celebrating the fates of German civilians in Dresden 1945 rather than celebrating the strategically important military victory it was.
Click to expand...

When no civilians died I think its really really difficult to draw parallels to the bombing of dresden in this case. Dresden was horrific. This wasn't not in anyway in terms of scale and essentially no warcrime in a conventional sense was committed.
 
Last edited:
Gehrman said:
There was a poster who confirmed it was okay to celebrate dead Russia civilians briefly before his post
Click to expand...
Any proof of this? Sure as hell it isn't there now, and unless it was deleted by mod in less than 15mins I doubt it happened at all. And even if there was 1 poster doing that, she was generalising way beyond it involving only 1 poster. And given zero Russian civilians died or injured or were even in any sort of danger, it is totally disingenuous comment in relation to the tweet by dove, that started the whole conversation. But that is what she does, we knew that already.
 
Gehrman said:
When no civilians died I think its really really difficult to draw parallels to the bombing of dresden in this case. Dresden was horrific. This wasn't not in anyway in terms of scale and essentially no warcrime in a conventional sense was committed.
Click to expand...

I was trying to illustrate the mechanism of cheering the military achievement vs cheering the consequences for civilians, and I wanted an example where the Russians are compared to the Nazis because people here are so incredibly quick to baselessly label people as Russian propagandists.

But yes, I of course agree that there's no comparison between this and Dresden in magnitude, and I guess the example might have been counterproductive. The attack itself was perfectly legitimate and in no way a war crime, I have no criticism of that. I also don't think Dresden was a war crime.

I don't think the fact that no civilians died makes this not about celebrating death, though. The meme is not just about this attack, it's about all the coming ones as well. They say that Russians shouldn't come to Crimea because of the danger, but the attack already happened so they're obviously not in danger from that anymore. The coming attacks will also be dangerous, and as (if, but that's the promise here) the likelyhood of civilian deaths increases, and it's all part of the meme.

This is also released at a time when Zelensky has started talking about how this war isn't won before Crimea is back in Ukrainian control, and when we're talking about a promised invasion (or re-invasion, or whatever else you want to call a large scale offensive against a huge geographical territory, once again to walk on egg shells I'm not saying that this would be illegitimate), then the number of civilian deaths will inevitably be substantial. In the Donbas conflict, thousands of civilians have died so far. This is of course partly a consequence of the fact that the conflict has lasted for eight years, but also because of the sad inevitable fact that civilians die in wars. That, for me personally, is not something to celebrate. It doesn't really matter to me if the victims are Ukrainian or evil corrupted monsters as the Russian apparently are with the whole orc thing, and it doesn't really matter to me if they're unfortunate victims of legitimate attacks.

Also, though, even though I find it distasteful and wrong, it's not really about that for me. People do things I find distasteful and wrong all the time, and of course in the context of this war it's pretty irrelevant. What gets me, or interests me, is how weird it is. And what it says about us as a society that we're watching this stuff as a form of entertainment. Several people in here are talking about this being holier than thou or high horsy or whatever, which makes sense because of how extremely defensive people are here, but it's really not about that. I'm not immune to it myself, not here or in general, and e.g. on the Syrian civil war I took it way too far, and I don't particularly care about the morality of some people I don't know on an internet forum.

I've taken up enough space, though. I'll let the future memification pass with no comment.
 
Gehrman said:
There was a poster who confirmed it was okay to celebrate dead Russia civilians briefly before his post
Click to expand...

I think some are confusing 'orcs' with Russian civilians, that is not what the term is meant for, though I expect it has been used also for those Russian civilians that fervently support the war.
 
massi83 said:
Any proof of this? Sure as hell it isn't there now, and unless it was deleted by mod in less than 15mins I doubt it happened at all. And even if there was 1 poster doing that, she was generalising way beyond it involving only 1 poster. And given zero Russian civilians died or injured or were even in any sort of danger, it is totally disingenuous comment in relation to the tweet by dove, that started the whole conversation. But that is what she does, we knew that already.
Click to expand...

Post 34,206 I think.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I was trying to illustrate the mechanism of cheering the military achievement vs cheering the consequences for civilians, and I wanted an example where the Russians are compared to the Nazis because people here are so incredibly quick to baselessly label people as Russian propagandists.

But yes, I of course agree that there's no comparison between this and Dresden in magnitude, and I guess the example might have been counterproductive. The attack itself was perfectly legitimate and in no way a war crime, I have no criticism of that. I also don't think Dresden was a war crime.

I don't think the fact that no civilians died makes this not about celebrating death, though. The meme is not just about this attack, it's about all the coming ones as well. They say that Russians shouldn't come to Crimea because of the danger, but the attack already happened so they're obviously not in danger from that anymore. The coming attacks will also be dangerous, and as (if, but that's the promise here) the likelyhood of civilian deaths increases, and it's all part of the meme.

This is also released at a time when Zelensky has started talking about how this war isn't won before Crimea is back in Ukrainian control, and when we're talking about a promised invasion (or re-invasion, or whatever else you want to call a large scale offensive against a huge geographical territory, once again to walk on egg shells I'm not saying that this would be illegitimate), then the number of civilian deaths will inevitably be substantial. In the Donbas conflict, thousands of civilians have died so far. This is of course partly a consequence of the fact that the conflict has lasted for eight years, but also because of the sad inevitable fact that civilians die in wars. That, for me personally, is not something to celebrate. It doesn't really matter to me if the victims are Ukrainian or evil corrupted monsters as the Russian apparently are with the whole orc thing, and it doesn't really matter to me if they're unfortunate victims of legitimate attacks.

Also, though, even though I find it distasteful and wrong, it's not really about that for me. People do things I find distasteful and wrong all the time, and of course in the context of this war it's pretty irrelevant. What gets me, or interests me, is how weird it is. And what it says about us as a society that we're watching this stuff as a form of entertainment. Several people in here are talking about this being holier than thou or high horsy or whatever, which makes sense because of how extremely defensive people are here, but it's really not about that. I'm not immune to it myself, not here or in general, and e.g. on the Syrian civil war I took it way too far, and I don't particularly care about the morality of some people I don't know on an internet forum.

I've taken up enough space, though. I'll let the future memification pass with no comment.
Click to expand...

No I agree that there is something distasteful about turning wars into entertainment, but I think in the case of this war its the least polemic war in my lifetime in terms of people in the west rooting for the good guys and cheering any demise of the bad guys. But in any case war always makes well a lot of people fecked up in the sense that a lot people have a inner warmonger inside them. My half-brother served in the 1st gulf War and he essentially doesn't even feel the west should supply arms to Ukraine for the fear of escalation into a nuclear war. Having witnessed his best friends being blown to bits I doubt veterans who have kept their moral compass intact can find any entertainment in war at all. I presume most of us havnt witnessed war 1st hand and find it easier to have a more lax approach to well for instance the meme of Crimea. In some ways it's to be expected on essentially a social media site with keyboard warriors including myself. But yeah I don't disagree with anything in the post I'm responding to.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I was trying to illustrate the mechanism of cheering the military achievement vs cheering the consequences for civilians, and I wanted an example where the Russians are compared to the Nazis because people here are so incredibly quick to baselessly label people as Russian propagandists.

But yes, I of course agree that there's no comparison between this and Dresden in magnitude, and I guess the example might have been counterproductive. The attack itself was perfectly legitimate and in no way a war crime, I have no criticism of that. I also don't think Dresden was a war crime.

I don't think the fact that no civilians died makes this not about celebrating death, though. The meme is not just about this attack, it's about all the coming ones as well. They say that Russians shouldn't come to Crimea because of the danger, but the attack already happened so they're obviously not in danger from that anymore. The coming attacks will also be dangerous, and as (if, but that's the promise here) the likelyhood of civilian deaths increases, and it's all part of the meme.

This is also released at a time when Zelensky has started talking about how this war isn't won before Crimea is back in Ukrainian control, and when we're talking about a promised invasion (or re-invasion, or whatever else you want to call a large scale offensive against a huge geographical territory, once again to walk on egg shells I'm not saying that this would be illegitimate), then the number of civilian deaths will inevitably be substantial. In the Donbas conflict, thousands of civilians have died so far. This is of course partly a consequence of the fact that the conflict has lasted for eight years, but also because of the sad inevitable fact that civilians die in wars. That, for me personally, is not something to celebrate. It doesn't really matter to me if the victims are Ukrainian or evil corrupted monsters as the Russian apparently are with the whole orc thing, and it doesn't really matter to me if they're unfortunate victims of legitimate attacks.

Also, though, even though I find it distasteful and wrong, it's not really about that for me. People do things I find distasteful and wrong all the time, and of course in the context of this war it's pretty irrelevant. What gets me, or interests me, is how weird it is. And what it says about us as a society that we're watching this stuff as a form of entertainment. Several people in here are talking about this being holier than thou or high horsy or whatever, which makes sense because of how extremely defensive people are here, but it's really not about that. I'm not immune to it myself, not here or in general, and e.g. on the Syrian civil war I took it way too far, and I don't particularly care about the morality of some people I don't know on an internet forum.

I've taken up enough space, though. I'll let the future memification pass with no comment.
Click to expand...

I don't get how someone can get so upset by the music choice of a propaganda video that doesn't show any crimes or anything particularly upsetting in it that they are willing to write this many words in the subject. What does that say about us as a society?
 
Gehrman said:
No I agree that there is something distasteful about turning wars into entertainment, but I think in the case of this war its the least polemic war in my lifetime in terms of people in the west rooting for the good guys and cheering any demise of the bad guys. But in any case war always makes well a lot of people fecked up in the sense that a lot people have a inner warmonger inside them. My half-brother served in the 1st gulf War and he essentially doesn't even feel the west should supply arms to Ukraine for the fear of escalation into a nuclear war. Having witnessed his best friends being blown to bits I doubt veterans who have kept their moral compass intact can find any entertainment in war at all. I presume most of us havnt witnessed war 1st hand and find it easier to have a more lax approach to well for instance the meme of Crimea. In some ways it's to be expected on essentially a social media site with keyboard warriors including myself. But yeah I don't disagree with anything in the post I'm responding to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they say that people who have served in active wars and become prime ministers or presidents are far less likely to start wars or risk escalation. They’ve seen the human cost, they’ve probably met the wives and young children of soldiers who they knew and saw killed in graphic and horrible ways. But you’re right, it’s only a proportion. So many ex-soldiersgo into private armies (Wagner etc) after serving, so maybe they enjoy the violence, or maybe it’s the camaraderie and adrenaline. Difficult to pinpoint a single reason.
 
TwoSheds said:
I don't get how someone can get so upset by the music choice of a propaganda video that doesn't show any crimes or anything particularly upsetting in it that they are willing to write this many words in the subject. What does that say about us as a society?
Click to expand...

I don't know what it says about society, I didn't know I was so upset, and I didn't know it was about the music choice.
 
massi83 said:
She has a time machine? That is after her comment.

I always thought Hectic would be the one to invent it.
Click to expand...

I don't know what you mean. The poster replies its okay to celebrate the death of Russian civilians when it's going to happen.
 
Well I for one need some morale boosting after reading the last few pages of this thread.

More meme's please.
 
Gehrman said:
I don't know what you mean. The poster replies its okay to celebrate the death of Russian civilians when it's going to happen.
Click to expand...
And NTS's post happens before that.

Obviously that random poster should be banned.
 
dove said:
Really does. We are in the loop. Someone can't stop talking about Iraq and the US, someone creating their stories in the head about people celebrating the deaths of Russian civilians ("future civilians potentially dying because no one has died yet"), a few others who cannot handle seeing a random video which happens to show 5 seconds of some explosions of a military base in the distance while people are sunbathing basically on the frontlines of the biggest military conflict in decades, and then you have a few like me who are wasting their time here replying to those. Need a reset.
Click to expand...
the thread is fine. if people want to question the "entertainment" value of memes outside of ukraine where it serves a different purpose, they're entitled to do it. it's not off topic so a call for maintenance is just a call for censorship of things you don't like. but i think the discussion about war as entertainment has been had and is probably exhausted by now so don't see any need for a reset.
 
dove said:
a few others who cannot handle seeing a random video which happens to show 5 seconds of some explosions of a military base in the distance while people are sunbathing
Click to expand...

Mate, I gave my opinion on the video. I didn't even quote or attack anyone, I literally gave my opinion. Others replied to my post and it went from there. "cannot handle seeing a random video" is a really bizarre characterization of the point I've been making.
 
neverdie said:
the thread is fine. if people want to question the "entertainment" value of memes outside of ukraine where it serves a different purpose, they're entitled to do it. it's not off topic so a call for maintenance is just a call for censorship of things you don't like. but i think the discussion about war as entertainment has been had and is probably exhausted by now so don't see any need for a reset.
Click to expand...
Didn't call for any censorship, by reset I meant move on because we keep going in circles talking about same things over and over again. Here, discuss that:



Edit: crap, sorry, only realised it has some music after I posted. I don't understand the lyrics but I hope it won't offend anyone.
 
NotThatSoph said:
I'm very well aware of all the civilian deaths, and the seemingly endless line of Russian war crimes. Everyone (with one exception) in this thread is. If people were posting memes about those I'm sure people would object, and if they didn't I would.

At no point was that user's stance implied to stand for the rest of the thread. Not only that, the topic we're talking isn't even close to cover people's overall view on the conflict, it's about one small part of it. If you've actually read the comments over the last pages there's no reasonable way for you to interpret it like that, and you're a very reasonable person.
Click to expand...
No I wasn't accusing you of doing that, or anything, but another poster. Nothing you have written or even implied has been unreasonable.

Anyway, perhaps a lesson for me to use the ignore function and not post when annoyed.
 
TMDaines said:
FFS. Both Eddie Dempsey and Mick Lynch can feck right off.

Click to expand...


That’s disappointing - I honestly though Mick Lynch was more intelligent than an idiot like Corbyn., and we badly need a reasonable voice for unions In these dark times. The problem is that he may know about train driver pay and the RPI but he knows no more about modern Russia than about the dark side of the moon.
 
not the smartest move to reproduce western commentariat consensus prior to the war on lynch's behalf even though he did condemn the invasion. doing that now means you're spreading kremlin consensus these days. understandable but lynch would have been better off avoiding the issue because it's a wedge designed, in certain circumstances, to divide people external to the conflict.
 
Work is ongoing in Mariupol Philharmonic to build the cages for Azov's PoW to hold the sham trials as some kind of sick show, predicted to happen on 24th of August, Independence day of Ukraine. I don't know how such backward countries can be part of UN but here we are.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.