Remove RubyRussia 2024

[joeldrapper]

I’m proposing the removal of RubyRussia from this list for two reasons:

First, encouraging people to bring commerce to Russia via ticket sales, hotel bookings, restaurants, etc. when attending this conference is unethical. These payments are taxed by Russia and directly fund Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.

Secondly, visiting Russia puts individuals at great risk, especially if they have ever posted anything online in support of Ukraine or donated to charities that help Ukraine. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/15/russian-court-jails-us-russian-woman-for-12-years-over-50-charity-donation

Note: this reverts a change that was introduced in #765.

[julik]

Visiting Russia puts individuals at great risk, especially if they have ever posted anything online in support of Ukraine or donated to charities that help Ukraine

As one such individual I can assure you that such individuals are more than perfectly aware of the risks traveling to Russia poses and will not go there out of their own volition. While I completely support the cause, doing a removal like this does not seem wise or well-weighted.

[biow0lf]

Visiting Russia puts individuals at great risk, especially if they have ever posted anything online in support of Ukraine or donated to charities that help Ukraine

As one such individual I can assure you that such individuals are more than perfectly aware of the risks traveling to Russia poses and will not go there out of their own volition. While I completely support the cause, doing a removal like this does not seem wise or well-weighted.

I lived in Mariupol, Ukraine before the war. I am completely support this decision.

Russians should go back to Russian and fix their country.

[eval]

How about not conflating a regime and its people? Especially when there's no democracy.

Obviously what Russia is doing is horrible, but how specifically is this conf harming people in Ukraine? How are the organizers and attendees complicit?

Looking at their website, the organizers are relieved to finally have a gathering of Ruby devs in person for the first time since 2019. Kudos to them and Russian Ruby devs: I reckon they don't have a lot of options these days.

visiting Russia puts individuals at great risk

No one will hop on a plane because they saw it on rubyconferences.org - you cannot travel there. Hence, this listing is not for non-Russians. But why deny Russian organizers to get the word out?

First, encouraging people to bring commerce to Russia via ticket sales, hotel bookings, restaurants, etc. when attending this conference is unethical. These payments are taxed by Russia and directly fund Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.

Let's apply this to our own western situation (that actually is democratic): do you support the military spending (funded by your income tax and the corporate tax of the company you work for), of your own government these days? What would be the logical conclusion for you or others that don't agree: move abroad?, stop hiring you? delist more confs?

Alternatively: how about we stop the cold war thinking of 'us good, them bad' (just because nationality) and instead show some humbleness and empathy ❤️ ✌🏻

[zverok]

Obviously what Russia is doing is horrible, but how specifically is this conf harming people in Ukraine? How are the organizers and attendees complicit?

As a Ukrainian, I have answers to that.

What has been going on since 2022 is a full-scale military invasion and not some “special operation” by personal Putin’s guard. An invasion of such length and scale requires a country working as a whole (its engineering, economy, information services, public opinion etc.); and repelling such an invasion requires, equally, stopping a country as a whole: not only on a battlefield in direct contact, but also on an economical, international, and ideological level. As a much smaller country, Ukraine relies on international support to achieve that.

So, answering your questions:

1. How specifically is this conf harming people in Ukraine? Not even this conf on itself (it is a different question that I’ll answer below), but Russians being represented on international platforms (even in as minuscule amounts as listing a Russian Ruby conference amidst other conferences) is part of the informational landscape where “Russia in general and its people are innocent and shouldn’t be harmed in any way”. Which affects sanctions, diplomatic relations, business relations (=economy), and the whole outlook on “how exactly we should (or shouldn’t) help Ukraine” between voters and policy-makers. Every time Russians are present internationally in “peaceful” contexts, there are chances that somebody will remember that later, tipping their mind to “well, in general, they are decent people, just like us, so we shouldn’t be too harsh on them.”
2. How are the organizers and attendees complicit? Besides the Russian army directly involved in hostilities, the war is made possible by such things as functioning economy, and population indifference. High-level Rubyists and public speakers who participate in the conference are directly helping to keep it afloat with their personal attitude and their personal taxes, as well as by supporting Russian IT infrastructure (which is highly integrated with the state). Just going through the list of speakers, you’ll see people developing portals for state procurements (ЭТП ГПБ), large delivery service (Купер nee СберМаркет, owned by state-owned bank СберБанк), an R&D company working on state contracts (RNDSOFT)—that’s just some of them. They know what they do and how they are complicit.

And that’s even without mentioning subject of the war being highly relying on technologies in general, in many ways and senses, and, therefore, the chance that speakers and attendees have no relation to the war whatsoever are... very low.

On a more philosophical note, the fact of your questions, the fact that what I said above (which seems to be pretty obvious after doing a small bit of thinking) is not so obvious, and there are many replies on Twitter about “not mixing tech and politics”—this fact alone demonstrates that they should be mixed, and people who don’t want to think about this should be made to.

Sorry.

[madoggi]

I think you're right, @joeldrapper.

As @zverok said, our life is political (if u care about ur rights and how u wanted be treated in daily life). People who say "let's keep politics out of this" are just uncomfortable because of reasons. But taking part in event they will normalize russian aggression and genocide.

[okolomoets]

How about not conflating a regime and its people?

It's not a regime killing my people, it's not a regime destroying the homes, villages, and even cities in my country. It's not a regime that rapes women, girls and even babies. Rissian people do all these awful things.

It's not Putin's war, it's russian's war. I didn't see any person from the regime in a front line of this criminal war, only so-called russian "people".

[weakish]

There are still RubyRussia events at this time, this is a fact. And listing them may be informational to rubyists, no matter they think this is a good, bad, or neutral thing. (Personally I am a bit surprised to know this. I assumed a lot of tech conferences in Russia would be suspended at this time.)

However, if RubyRussia 2024 will be listed, I suggest appending a travel warning and a disclaimer that the Ruby community standing with the Ukraine and against the war.

If RubyRussia 2024 will be removed, for consistency, I suggest also removing RubyRussia 2023 introduced in #541

[timlar]

I agree with every single word @zverok said.

The Russians have appropriated Ukrainian history. Russia has built a massive propaganda machine that constantly lies, distorts facts, and presents fiction as reality. Even Russians who identify as liberals and claim to oppose the war reveal their true colors at the first question: 'Whose Crimea?'—answering that it is not Ukrainian. Russians can be divided into two categories: those who openly support aggression against Ukraine and those who silently agree with their government’s actions. The latter group seeks various ways to justify themselves, their actions, and the actions of their government.

The war will only stop when Russia’s economy is no longer capable of producing weapons and sustaining its military. While indifferent Russians remain unaffected by the war, continue to work, pay taxes, and support the economy, thousands of Ukrainians are dying.

If Russians are truly against the war, they must prove it with actions, not empty words. So far, there is no evidence of any genuine desire among Russians to stop the war. They aren't even attempting to make a difference or initiate changes.

P.S. While I was writing this text, the Russian army launched yet another terrorist attack with ballistic weapons in the center of my city :(

[jonallured]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and feelings on this one. I especially wanted to recognize @zverok who has contributed much to this project over the years. ❤️

I'm going to merge this PR and that will remove this event from the Upcoming section of the site. Later, I'll come back and add the event which will land it on the Past section just for historical/correctness purposes.

[Kukunin]

should we start deleting Israels ruby conferences too, following the logic in the thread?

[XaveScor]

@Kukunin terpi brat. Sankcii tolko na polzu

[differencialx]

should we start deleting Israels ruby conferences too, following the logic in the thread?

I think you should come to Ukraine and experience couple of years under everyday missle attacts and sleeples nights to beat such thoughts out of your mind.