[shadow4play]

Don't let Mobilism became a Nazi Site!!!

I'd say, rather, don't let Mobilism become a political site. This is coming from someone who, mistakenly at the beginning of my time in this community, thought this was yet another place online to post about my political thoughts, albeit one that was focused on books. In a Show Me Yours contest thread of all places. I learned quickly from one of the mods that it is not.

I want to thank that mod, though I won't dig back through my messages to find their name, for the things their message helped me learn. This site since then became my absolute haven away from the all-encompassing storm that is online political discussion. I'm someone who enjoys a good discussion online, even sometimes a heated arguement, about politics, world events, and history. Blame it on my age, early Internet BBS influenced me badly. But it hurts to see the place I came to for books, reading-centered community, and fun contests devolve into /pol/ or reddit politics.

I'm not saying we should as a community ignore the pain and suffering going on today. That's ignorant and useless. But I'm alarmed at the breaks I see here in our community. They hurt me to see them. I can't be the only one. I don't want anybody to believe I've posted this in support of one side or another. My position is simple, "No More Brother Wars" and if you ask me who is my brother I'll tell you, "My brother is who I choose is my brother" and I hope you would all believe the same.

I think of you often, my Ukrainian brothers and sisters, just as often as I think of you, my Russian brothers and sisters.

As I said, I've been on this sea of piracy, friendship, and information we call the Internet for long time. In the immortal words of Roy Batty, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...". Lately, I've seen young Ukrainian and Russian men trolling each other with battle helmet and drone cam videos of their respective soldiers dying. This is alarming. I don't believe I've ever seen this on such a wide scale. And, of course, I'm not saying it's being done here. But we use our words to the same affect.

Please think, my Mobilism family. When you say "Fuck Putin" or "Ukraine Is Nazis", do you think about how this feels to the man or woman you've just downloaded a book from who's just learned their brother, mother, father, sister has died fighting on one side or another?

I send my love to all of you, my Mobilism friends and family, regardless of what country you are from. Disk4mat, you're a real one and I'll never be able to give back to you what you've given to me through this site. But for me, this place is about asking each other one simple (compound) question and the discussions that it leads to:
What book are you reading and is it good?

[NovaPhoenix]

Very nice words, I hope they make you feel good. In my opinion, though, neutrality is not possible: you are either with the invaders or with the invaded, not both. Enjoy your books.

[Godwod]

Very nice words, I hope they make you feel good. In my opinion, though, neutrality is not possible: you are either with the invaders or with the invaded, not both. Enjoy your books.

Seconded

[shadow4play]

Very nice words, I hope they make you feel good. In my opinion, though, neutrality is not possible: you are either with the invaders or with the invaded, not both. Enjoy your books.

I would ask which side you feel like you're helping while you post online, but I can't pretzel my brain into believing it helps anybody to type things and send prayers through characters. If you've pictures of yourself on one side or the other actually with them with a rifle, medical equipment, or even running construction equipment during cleanup of you or your neighbor's demolished home, then you're helping and not neutral. Post them or even PM then. Until then, in my opinion, you're neutral also but it hurts your feelings so you type about it to soothe them or "make you feel good".

[NovaPhoenix]

I would ask which side you feel like you're helping while you post online, but I can't pretzel my brain into believing it helps anybody to type things and send prayers through characters. If you've pictures of yourself on one side or the other actually with them with a rifle, medical equipment, or even running construction equipment during cleanup of you or your neighbor's demolished home, then you're helping and not neutral. Post them or even PM then. Until then, in my opinion, you're neutral also but it hurts your feelings so you type about it to soothe them or "make you feel good".

I understand the rhetoric but I'm sure you don't really expect me, or anyone, to post online the times we have helped refugees or the amounts of money we have donated to NGOs to help Ukraine so you can justify those do-gooder comments about the suffering on both sides. I said very clearly that we can't be individual 'switzerlands', so if you don't side with the people whose country was invaded and their lives destroyed, you are automatically siding with the people who invaded and destroyed those lives. Paraphrasing George Orwell (Pacifism and the War, 1942): "If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other."

We can, and do, abhor war and human loss, but the truth is that only one of the two sides involved did not choose this horror.

[shadow4play]

I would ask which side you feel like you're helping while you post online, but I can't pretzel my brain into believing it helps anybody to type things and send prayers through characters. If you've pictures of yourself on one side or the other actually with them with a rifle, medical equipment, or even running construction equipment during cleanup of you or your neighbor's demolished home, then you're helping and not neutral. Post them or even PM then. Until then, in my opinion, you're neutral also but it hurts your feelings so you type about it to soothe them or "make you feel good".

I understand the rhetoric but I'm sure you don't really expect me, or anyone, to post online the times we have helped refugees or the amounts of money we have donated to NGOs to help Ukraine so you can justify those do-gooder comments about the suffering on both sides. I said very clearly that we can't be individual 'switzerlands', so if you don't side with the people whose country was invaded and their lives destroyed, you are automatically siding with the people who invaded and destroyed those lives. Paraphrasing George Orwell (Pacifism and the War, 1942): "If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other."

We can, and do, abhor war and human loss, but the truth is that only one of the two sides involved did not choose this horror.

You are correct. I don't expect you or anybody else to post about the things you've sent. My original post was about hoping this site would stay apolitical so you're able to continue sending things, including thoughts and prayers, in private or through private means and we wouldn't have long comment chains about who's taking what side or who's wrong or right. But here we are.

It's wonderful you're here to call me a "do-gooder" when you have no real idea about my personal beliefs. You have no idea what I believe besides the belief I shared in my original comment which was "think of those people you've shared this community with for years before posting in a divisive manner". What about that makes me a "do-gooder" or shows me to be picking a side I don't know. But I also don't have a mind that operates like a light switch with zero room for nuance.

And when I use my mind to think on this situation, I don't think of George Orwell, a novelist and critic, but of a man who was deeply involved in actual situations like the one we're speaking on, Henry Kissinger, a politician and diplomat who said, "To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal."

To you, I say good day. I had hoped to avoid conflict here over conflicting beliefs, and so I spoke in hopes others would feel the same. I can see clearly now that some others yearn for conflict where there doesn't need to be one. I would only ask that you refrain from catagorizing me based on what you think you know, because you honestly have no clue when it comes to what I believe or which "side" I'm "on". I'll offer you the same courtesy.

[Disk4mat]

Don't let Mobilism became a Nazi Site!!!

I'd say, rather, don't let Mobilism become a political site.
...
I'm not saying we should as a community ignore the pain and suffering going on today. That's ignorant and useless. But I'm alarmed at the breaks I see here in our community. They hurt me to see them. I can't be the only one. I don't want anybody to believe I've posted this in support of one side or another. My position is simple, "No More Brother Wars" and if you ask me who is my brother I'll tell you, "My brother is who I choose is my brother" and I hope you would all believe the same.

I think of you often, my Ukrainian brothers and sisters, just as often as I think of you, my Russian brothers and sisters.

As I said, I've been on this sea of piracy, friendship, and information we call the Internet for long time. In the immortal words of Roy Batty, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...". Lately, I've seen young Ukrainian and Russian men trolling each other with battle helmet and drone cam videos of their respective soldiers dying. This is alarming. I don't believe I've ever seen this on such a wide scale. And, of course, I'm not saying it's being done here. But we use our words to the same affect.

Please think, my Mobilism family. When you say "Fuck Putin" or "Ukraine Is Nazis", do you think about how this feels to the man or woman you've just downloaded a book from who's just learned their brother, mother, father, sister has died fighting on one side or another?

I send my love to all of you, my Mobilism friends and family, regardless of what country you are from. Disk4mat, you're a real one and I'll never be able to give back to you what you've given to me through this site. But for me, this place is about asking each other one simple (compound) question and the discussions that it leads to:
What book are you reading and is it good?

There are no breaks in this community. There is a tiny minority (~5 people out of 576 replies) that have objected to anything I posted in regards to Ukraine. You can read some of their posts here: viewtopic.php?p=10004033#10004033

Your preference for being apolitical and treating Mobilism as your safe space belies reality; Mobilism does not exist within a vacuum. There are real people running it. One of our moderators is from Bucha, the same Bucha from which, after Russian troops fled, over 1300 bodies of civilians were recovered. Many of them were tortured and shot execution-style, with hands still tied behind their backs. Many women reported being raped by Russian troops. This was not an outlier. When Izyum was liberated we discovered a mass grave of 440 people. Again, most of them were civilians, including women and children — once again many tortured before death. It is estimated that tens of thousands of civilians were killed in Mariupol, which remains occupied by Russia. Ukrainian children in occupied territories who are separated from their families or with dead parents are routinely deported to Russia; orphaned into Russian families to be assimilated. An estimated 260,000 to 700,000 Ukrainian children have been deported so far.

These acts of terror shouldn’t surprise anyone. In Syria, Georgia, and Chechnya Russia did the same: there too, it bombed, tortured, and raped, as the world watched in horror -- but did little. Fortunately the world is no longer standing idly, and topics like this serve to inform those who may otherwise ignore what is happening in a distant land. They also provide a relatable reference point; a person who you might have interacted with for years, who is now fighting for the lives of his or her loved ones, sharing first-hand experience.

So when someone says Fuck Putin, the last thing on their mind is what you feel while downloading a book, or what Russians feel. Russians should feel shame for having been apolitical all these years and enabling their government to become what it is now.

I hope that if you ever found yourself in a horrible situation, the response from people around you will not be to request that you stay quiet because your suffering could hurt someone's feelings, especially the feelings of the people responsible for your suffering.

[Jimking]

@shadow4play I can understand your point of view, but you can't deny that war is one of the worst situations that affects all people around the globe with one way or another and it should concern all of us. I know that Mobilism is a file sharing site, but it's also a community running from real people and the freedom of speech it's always something good. For me watching 5 years old kids in Russia forced to wear military uniforms to schools and teach them how to handle a gun and how to kill, instead of educate them, it's so sad and inhuman. Raise killers and f#ck their souls!
So yes it's good keep sharing files but we can't close our eyes to what is going on..

Slava Ukraini!
Слава Україні!

I suspect that any views supporting russia (I'm using a small 'r' for a country now forever diminished by the deplorable actions of its criminal dictator) could indicate that this forum is not immune from the reach of their propaganda machine. Long live Ukraine!

Those can-do Lithuanians are at it again. First they crowd-funded a Bayraktar drone and now they're crowd-funding Israeli radar systems to protect people and utilities. It's very easy to send them 5 Euro but I'm not in Europe so I sent it by paypal. It's such a simple way to be part of something solid and immediately helpful and completely direct.
Slava Ukraini!
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/1 ... e-used-for

Very nice words, I hope they make you feel good. In my opinion, though, neutrality is not possible: you are either with the invaders or with the invaded, not both. Enjoy your books.

Thirded. One country was living peacefully and the other invaded it with tanks, bombing, raping, kidnapping, torturing, killing.

Death to all nazis, and glory to Russia. ZOV

[xSamH]

Stay strong ❤️

Idiots in Europa, States and on are fighting but don´t knowing ´about, the real fight is happening in Africa against russia.
Because the western world exploited the Africans and the new beginning was and is supported by Russia.
China also has more than one leg there and is not only securing economic goods, but a country with economic sales.
In Europe everyone has everything...
So we start our independence and invest again in local industry and
still cooperate with Russia and China, or we eat the atomic bomb, for example.