Say your government invades Greenland, and I see you in my country after that, would sending you back to your country and banning you from returning make you stand up to your government? Or are you going to be like “they can hate all they want: they are wrong.”?
Edit:
Actually, if you would stand up to your government, what would you do? And don’t give me some “guns blazing” shit - we both know risking your life like that is both very ineffective and something you’d never do.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry, nor that they shouldn’t face repercussions for what has been done, but here we’re talking about banning tourists, i.e. people who travel out of Russia and presents a golden opportunity for two things: Perspective shift and escape. Does it help further the goal of our sanctions by saying “I hate you so I don’t want you around”? What that’s effectively going to do is deny them yet another avenue of perspective, and they will remain in a country full of propaganda reenforcing beliefs that their country and people are doing a fair thing.
And besides, it’s not like they aren’t facing prejudice in the aforementioned countries, and that they’ll have a nice time. Russian speakers are not liked over here, let me assure you.
And let me be very clear: Russian soldiers raping moms and stealing their kids is not what I’m saying you shouldn’t hate. They deserve every gram of hatred. But like it or not, we’re not able to directly impose consequences nor deterrents onto the perpetrators from our position, unless we want to go in by force (that means war). So our next best thing is consequences to those who may influence them in one way or another, i.e. the general population. But is hating them a consequence? They don’t see that hatred if all they see are the walls inside their country.
The general population are still to be held responsible for what they directly or indirectly support, even by just being of the same nation. But is preventing tourism something that will make them think “this is my government’s fault”? That’s the question, and your (and many other people’s) hatred is making you blind.
And where does this cycle of hatred end? Do you think the “normal” Russians (soldiers, prisoners, mercenaries) would do these things, like rape, if they didn’t believe either that you deserved it, or that you are not worthy of compassion? Where does this come from, you think?
And how does this translate to tourists? Do they share this perspective? Why do they travel to countries which they know support “the enemy”?
And you feel good inheriting that hatred? There’s a big difference between the general Russian population (those who will be affected by this ban) and Kremlin.
Let’s be better than our ancestors.
I think we’ll unfortunately see a degradation over time of capable programmers, as it’s with most other things: Humans learn poorly from seeing things being done for them, rather than doing it themselves. AI can be a good resource for iteration and a sort of rubber duck, and even for explaining things (with external confirmation). But as it currently stands, people find it much more attractive to just let AI do the work for them. That’s the most prominent work culture after all, based on capitalistic values: Economic growth above all.
I see it in schools as well, unfortunately: Students find it much more appealing to get good grades than to actually learn. Not everyone, of course, but still way too many.
And I do understand many of the students: The bar for junior programmers has now increased, as a lot of employers simply think “why hire a human that is on the same level as AI?”.
I can vouch for that: As a programmer, I can generally see both programming AI and general LLM use if it was copy-pasted. I know a guy who isn’t a programmer who’ve used Claude Code to make an app, and things are working, but it’s sooo clear even to a junior SE that it’s vibe-coded. There’s a clear lack of consistency, architecture, maintainability, and general human readability.
However, if the code/text was reviewed and edited by a capable human programmer, it’s incredibly difficult to single out what is a product of AI and not.
Actual programmers who understand and can write code themselves who use AI simply as a tool, NOT a shortcut, will produce indistinguishable code. Linus is an incredibly smart and capable guy, and for specific uses, I’m confident in him using this tool responsibly.
(The ethics of AI use is a different topic however…)
You probably have been asked this many times already, but I’ll ask anyways, in case the answer has changed/mutated: When you look at other similar projects like TREK, GeoPulse, and Reitti (Reitti dev make appearances here on the fediverse also), what makes you feel like your projects stands out with? And are there specific things that you’d want to adapt from others’ solutions?
Sidenote: I didn’t realize there were so many alternatives…!
Keep up the good work anyhow! Competition is good, and it’s cool to see the progress in these update posts!
The US government is becoming more and more like the governments that they once (maybe still?) argued were evil in the Middle East…
That’s the same issue everyone has/had, including me. You’d be surprised how alright it works to use SMS and phone calls once you get used to it. It’s honestly refreshing. You don’t have to go that far, necessarily, as there are other messaging services out there that I’m sure your circles find better than SMS.
Sure, you might miss out on some events and stuff due to others needing to remember that you’re no longer on Meta platforms, but just be a little persistent and they’ll remember to include you, just like they did me ;-)