“History is one long laundry list of how you can’t kill ideas with brute force.
What you can do is introduce better ideas.”
I've been thinking about this statement by HRF's nostr:nprofile1qqs9336p4f3sctdrtft2wlqaq5upjz9azpgylhfd3dplwf005mfrr9spzamhxue69uhkummnw3ezuendwsh8w6t69e3xj7spz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wcq3qamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wwa5kueg6g89xw for a few weeks. Notably, HRF as an organization is strictly "non-violent" – they're only willing to support diplomatic and educational efforts to stop tyranny. If you're using force, they want nothing to do with you.
This week Russian finally took full control of the Shevchenko Lithium Ore Field in Ukraine. Yet another in a long list of minerals resources they've stolen.
That one ore deposit is estimated to have $141 billion dollars worth of lithium in it: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/ukraine-s-lithium-wealth-diminishes-as-key-deposits-fall-to The total value of land and resources Russia has stolen is in the trillions of dollars.
Now ask yourself, is invading Ukraine a good idea for Russian? Can you convince Russians a better idea would be not invading Ukraine?
You're not going to do it by appealing to their rational self interest: stealing trillions of dollars is incredibly profitable. You're not going to do it by appealing to their humanity: they're a nation of monsters who have no qualms murdering Ukrainians in their sleep.
What you can do is change the incentives. At the moment, Russia has stolen something like $10 trillion worth of Ukrainian resources, at a cost of about 1 million casualties. That's $10 million of loot per casualty. That's a good deal, and it's precisely why they can pay soldiers enough to convince them to volunteer. If Russian gets a ceasefire now, they've profited enormously from their invasion.
Taking that property back and killing a lot more Russians will make that a much worse deal. That's exactly what needs to happen.
As for HRF, they're no different than the "defund the police" activists who tried to get incentives replaced with "dialogue". Just like those activists, HRF is a fraudulent organization whose non-profit status should be revoked. Furthermore, their connections to Russian imperialists and controlled opposition – who are literally on their board of directors – should be investigated thoroughly by the court system.
In the meanwhile, if you want to actually help stop tyranny, donate money to one of the many Ukrainian military organizations who are defeating Russia by killing Russians more effectively. Most of them even accept Bitcoin, e.g. https://wildhornets.com/en/ and https://savelife.in.ua/en/
