The entire continent was basically in a constant state of flux (and perpetual wars) through most of its history, ending with WWII in the West, with the fall of the USSR in most of the Central and Eastern Europe, and then continuing with some regional score-settling in the Balkans.
And even this is a bit reductionist: Spain was a dictatorship until about 1975! How crazy is that. This is basically the recent past of the EU.
For the misery of Central and Eastern Europe specifically, "Bloodlands" by Snyder is a good book. And this gets me to my second point: I think you're veering too far into relativism. Yes, every country did some shitty things - that's the history of the world for ya - but the Russian Empire and the German / Austrian / Prussian Empire can be singled out as especially awful when you look at the past 300-500 years. Even just by the simplest metric of the number of people displaced and killed, it's many orders of magnitude worse than what anyone else has done. This distinction is important because the legacy of bloody imperialism continues on the Russian side today - beyond Ukraine - and it's most certainly not excused by the fact that, dunno, Poland occupied Moscow once.
No, that's not what I say. My argument is that once the Torment Nexus is built, it is stupid to argue that they used it to torment people, when someone else would have tormented people with it anyway. If one wants to argue something, it's that the Nexus should not have been built.
And I honestly have no idea what Tao wanted to happen. How could you ensure that the AI "empowers" scientists and doesn't replace them. Intelligence is intelligence. If it's powerful enough, it will replace other intelligence.
> Even if you couldn't have predicted the lengths to which it would go.
Not obviously? In the US, there are some crimes of strict liability (you're guilty if it happened), but most require intent or at least the ability to foresee consequences (i.e., it must be shown that you neglected to take due care).
For example, you're generally not liable for freak accidents, like if a tire comes off your vehicle and kills a pedestrian, even though you're the one who set the vehicle in motion and therefore are the one most directly responsible for creating the circumstances that led to the outcome. Now, if you knew the tire had issues and you secured it with zip ties, that's another story.
I think this will get litigated to figure out where "you could not have seen this coming" ends and negligence or deliberate malice starts, but it's not black and white right now. Normally, I would say you don't want to be patient zero, but with the attitudes shown by frontier labs, I guess YOLO is the way.
> Now, if you knew the tire had issues and you secured it with zip ties, that's another story.
Securing your tires with zip ties and telling an AI to go off and do whatever it takes to achieve its task without knowing or caring what it’ll do are the same: negligent. It needs to be socially and colloquially unacceptable to do this.
Most crimes require intent. Some do not, but without intent, still tend to be lesser crimes. For example, killing someone through negligence (the zip tie example) is still a crime, but manslaughter, and not murder.
Digital trespass, intent is generally required, but the definition of "intent" varies by circuit in rather interesting ways. I don't think OpenAI could be prosecuted criminally under current US laws due to those wrinkles (which is a problem with current US laws).
You're talking only about legal responsibility. That is about negligence and recklessness, and is tangled up with legal interpretation and things, and is separate from moral responsibility. If your kid breaks something, it's your responsibility (whether or not it was your fault). Same with your bot.
> Normally, I would say you don't want to be patient zero, but with the attitudes shown by frontier labs, I guess YOLO is the way.
In practice, yes. That's exactly how it's playing out.
OK, so let me get this straight: Microsoft replaces junior SWEs with AI... and this presumably doesn't really let the company execute any faster, because bottlenecks at MSFT are mostly unrelated to kLOC/hour. But okay. And then they establish a parallel program for people who are kept on Microsoft payroll... while coding in an academic setting... so that they can progress through the rungs of the SWE ladder and eventually be the ones supervising the AI.
This is really what we're doing? This makes sense? Am I taking crazy pills?
The bigger issue is that undergrad students learning in the era of AI is really a terrible environment for actually learning the fundamental theory that gives someone a long and productive career. And the workplace has never been a good place to learn that stuff. The talent pipeline from colleges has always been a steady trickle despite eras when signups into computer science was a flood. With AI, that trickle has become a scant drip.
Yes, I believe programs like this aim to address this issue too. The traditional ways of learning might no longer be sufficient or reliable enough to produce appropriately skilled workers in the era of AI. Maybe something like this program or other apprenticeship programs would bridge that gap by focusing on juniors who are truly interested in the field.
The traditional pedagogy still works for those students who could be disciplined enough to not use AI on problem sets and projects. But that's not a realistic expectation. You can learn how to use AI on the job. It is very rare someone gains the baseline knowledge of algorithms on the job.
Programs are swapping capstone projects and courses for comprehensive oral examinations and that's partly from input from industry that there's been a skill drop. But that feels like a panic stopgap and we really are going to struggle with this for a while.
Yes, that dynamic is essentially what this is proposing to solve. Microsoft is acknowledging that junior engineers will be less in demand due to AI (and presumably it is experiencing that itself) because economics, i.e. when supervised by senior engineers, AI is way cheaper and faster than junior engineers.
These economics would choke off the pipeline that turns junior engineers into senior engineers, which would still presumably needed to supervise the AI.
I don't see the irrationality here?
And yes, bottlenecks at MSFT (or any large corporation) are unrelated to kLOC/hour, which I would argue are primarily because of human factors... which also AI threatens to obviate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121996
You're replacing juniors with AI to save money (because again, I doubt there are velocity gains to be had at MSFT), and then you're spending money to keep junior SWEs on payroll and train them in a parallel program.
There's no way this is cheaper than just letting some junior SWEs actually do the coding on the actual projects you're building, right? And gain experience that way?
It makes perfect sense when you accept that the LLM hype was mostly delusional. Nobody invested in that lie can admit it just yet because there's still some juice left. Never mind all the "I told you so"s ever since 2022 market dip.
Because these companies have large legal departments essentially in charge of minimizing regulatory and reputational risk. It's the same reason they've been progressively cracking down on firearm accessories, BB guns, knives, fireworks, laboratory chemicals, erotica, pill presses, and a bunch of other things over the past 20 years. All of that is generally legal in the US but makes lawyers and PR people queasy. It's not just marketplaces, Paypal has asinine rules on what you can and cannot pay for. So does Google Pay, Zelle, Venmo, and so on.
I don't think it's useful to point out inconsistencies; the bottom line is that lasers will be on the chopping block within our lifetime too.
You can't buy firearms parts or tooling on eBay in the UK because quite frankly if you're a gunsmith you're probably not buying stuff on eBay, and it's unlikely that anyone who isn't a qualified gunsmith is buying them for anything legit. Similarly, there are age restrictions on buying bladed items, just as there are on buying bladed items in shops. Turns out that all those 13-year-olds buying 14" butcher knives weren't actually filleting venison with them, who would have thought it?
Yer cheapy Chinese radios though? Baofengs are currently about £19 each on eBay, with a discount for quantity.
The amateur gunsmith scene in the UK is pretty small and if you're buying and selling parts and tools, you probably already know who you're buying from or selling to.
It's easier just to speak to someone, bank transfer some money over, and they'll stick it in the post.
Yeah, but you can't in the UK, because the laws are different.
You can, however, buy cheap Chinese HTs (Baofengs are less than 20 quid these days) which are illegal in the US, test equipment that's illegal in the US, and even Tonka beans which are illegal in the US (although honestly if you're buying a poisonous bean to add flavour to a dish you're better buying it from a reputable supplier - a bit like yer gun parts).
Interesting thing about gun laws in the UK vs the US too - apparently if you buy something like a tank with a really massive gun, in the UK "deactivating" it is really just a case of cutting one part off the mechanism. But if you try to ship that to the UK, you've got to basically gas axe off the entire breech and plate up both ends of the barrel, or fill it with concrete or something similar. A "deactivated" weapon in the UK is nowhere near deactivated enough for the US.
Over here, you can actually have a tank with a fully-functioning gun in private ownership. It's expensive to get the right paperwork for it, but it can be done.
I want to say something mean and sarcastic, but I will tell you that for gunsmithing eBay was (is?) very useful, at least for the gunsmiths I know. It was the best place to find a replacement 92S slide and a lot of second hand Tony Kidd parts before a rimfire carnival, but we live in the land of the free, and I don't need to get on my knees and beg for a loiscene like some people.
If someone wants a 14" blade, one can fetch some steel from a junkyard and apply an angle grinder to it. Best results with leaf springs. Then wrap one end with electrical tape and it'll chop an arm or a head off no problem. A bit more effort with the grinder and you get yourself something like a gladius.
Now, what is the point of those bans? So people feel safer while not being safer?
> If someone wants a 14" blade, one can fetch some steel from a junkyard and apply an angle grinder to it.
I'm sure that's what the average 13-year-old wannabe gangster is absolutely going to do, spend 50 quid on a budget angle grinder and traipse around scrapyards for a lorry spring.
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Is there any *legitimate* reason why a child needs to be able to buy chef's knives?
Maybe wind the misplaced sarcasm down several notches please, it's unseemly particularly as knife making is easily one of the more popular goto shop projects in high school (outside the STEM nerd and theatre kids circle, I know) and that "wannabe gangsters" even in their teens have easy access to stolen goods at a discount or often five finger their own.
UK (and Canadian, Australian, etc) weapon disposal schemes frequently land home made weapons eg: https://kk.org/streetuse/english-ownerbuilt-weapons/ from 2006 is barely a trickle of the flood that gets swept up by amnesty programs.
Why isn't a child allowed to practice cheffing on their own? Say kid in a halfway or foster facility where the place doesn't have the knives and no one will buy them for them.
What are you going to tell them? That they're allowed a boning knife that'll easily cut every artery in a human but not a chopper because ooooh those are super duper scary? That they're not allowed any "chef's knife" but the steak knives for dinner are fine?
You know the average 13-year-old wannabe gangster can shave a shank on the sidewalk just as well, right? That a perfectly-capable-of-murder-and-menace device can be manufactured from just about anything? That a common 2x4 or bat or shoestring will do? And that preventing their committing crime with a larger knife is easier to police than a smaller concealable, right?
> Why isn't a child allowed to practice cheffing on their own?
They are, they're just not allowed to go and buy chef's knives. My son is 6 and is actually pretty good at cooking - he can make pizza from scratch, but does still need his old dad to knead the dough, for now I guess, don't know how long that will last.
Can you think of anything you *wouldn't* want your teenager to just be able to go and buy without your permission? USians are pretty weird about alcohol and pornography but equally weirdly permissive about weapons, and I've never heard of anyone stabbing someone to death with a jazz mag or stabbing them with a double vodka.
>Can you think of anything you wouldn't want your teenager to just be able to go and buy without your permission?
Not really (outside of those things that are only dangerous and have no other legitimate use like drugs, guns outside hunting rifles), because I don't believe it is the role of the state to decide what my child should be allowed to purchase. It is my job to raise them such that they don't do dangerous shit; to show them that brandishing a machete in public isn't allowed for anyone, regardless of age, and that threatening someone with a bat is the same as threatening them with a knife.
If the specific concern is "might be used in menacing or as a weapon" a large rock will suffice. Or a baseball bat. Or a sufficiently weighted wooden dowel. Or a crochet needle sharpened for 30 minutes. Or a hammer. Or fishing line. Or twine. Or a sufficiently thick plastic bag. Or a sock full of rocks. Or pantyhose. Or a torn up blanket/towel. If the goal is to eliminate the use of props used in crimes committed by children, you'll need to outlaw their ability to purchase more than half the items in the store, but even that doesn't prevent them from actually having the items. Does the child now require a written note from me to carry their baseball bat with them to practice? So that I get in trouble when they commit a crime with it? Or must they now have two bats so that they have one at the field and one to practice at home to eliminate their need to transport it? Must they be locked up like firearms to prevent any accidental practicing? Because, you never know when they stop practicing ball and switch to practicing crime. Best be safe, surely? Of course, this means that the child cannot practice hardly any hobbies given the large assortment of items that can be used in crime and should be banned, unless they have a supportive parent or there's a community program, but we know 100% of kids have those, so I guess that's no concern.
And what of non-violent crimes and accidents? Matches? Candle starters? Candles? Sewing needles? multi-meters? Soldering irons? Chisels? A printer? A computer? A phone? Hell, paints can be lethal in a closed space. If we're giving the government the task of preventing all injury and damages resulting from children purchasing things, we'd be better off just forbidding children access to purchasing in general than trying to cobble together some list that slowly chips away at the goal.
My child shouldn't be legally barred from purchasing any of the above, including a chef's knife or machete, because they have legitimate uses if the child has particular hobbies.
And my child shouldn't recieve some extra priveledged access to these items because they have a supportive parent rather than an exploitative foster parent.
actually a probe from cheap shit chinese multimeter, an article from wikipedia and a swift stab kills. with some practice on a friendly stuffed animal.
The specific use of the bans is to provide a law that allows the questioning of people carrying knives and the seizing of those knives from those that appear to have no legitimate reason to be waving them about in public.
Like seatbelts they're not foolproof in making people safer, but they do act as a damper on knife crime.
Eh. I don't like these bans, but I think there are at least two good-faith arguments you can make:
1. People who decide to go on murder sprees are usually not high-functioning individuals, so even modest barriers can improve outcomes.
2. Fewer weapons in homes means fewer heat-of-the-moment acts involving these weapons. For example, there are very few firearm suicides in the EU, compared to the US.
Naturally there are less suicides via firearms when firearms are verboten. Firearms may be more fatal than hanging (the most popular method in the EU), but we’re comparing a death rate of 14/100,000 to 10/100,000 which really isn’t that different (and in fact some EU countries like Hungary and Belgium outpace the US avg dramatically, Idk what is happening in Hungary but it’s comparable to our ‘Suicide Belt’). From what I read, hanging has a 70% mortality rate while firearms have a 90% rate, so when adjusted for failed attempts (since I cannot find the actual numbers of attempted suicides) we get 15.5 in USA vs 14.3 in EU per capita. As for other acts such as domestic disputes, fists are far more prevalent because the intent is rarely to kill, and all households have knives if the intent is to kill, so I’m not sure if firearms are a major factor in the actual rate of disputes.
As such, we see little raw change in human behavior. Firearms do not increase suicidal ideation nor intention, they merely provide a more fatal means to do so (although, given the health complications of a failed hanging I question whether the ethics of this outcome are truly superior). So I really don’t consider the argument that restricting a population from firearms is good just due to that, when the method of suicide is independent of the reasons for suicide.
As for #1, cars are still widely accessible, and those who go on murder sprees would have far worse chances if more people carried weapons for self-defense.
As parent stated, these bans do not meaningfully change human nature, they simply give an air of safety. In fact, I would further say they create bad habits within society that criminals can and do exploit. Do you have a meaningful way to protect yourself if you were attacked? You should, your safety is a God-given right that only you can properly defend in the heat of the moment. Does your place of residence not allow for self-defense? Then that is a flaw in governance that must be addressed.
> but we’re comparing a death rate of 14/100,000 to 10/100,000 which really isn’t that different
Its 40% more.
> As for other acts such as domestic disputes, fists are far more prevalent because the intent is rarely to kill, and all households have knives if the intent is to kill, so I’m not sure if firearms are a major factor in the actual rate of disputes.
It wouldn't be a factor in the rate of disputes, it would be a factor in a dispute that turned into deadly one as opposed to not.
> Firearms do not increase suicidal ideation nor intention, they merely provide a more fatal means to do so
They are also extremely convenient and instant.
> So I really don’t consider the argument that restricting a population from firearms is good just due to that
I don't think people are making that argument.
> As for #1, cars are still widely accessible,
Cars are only practical for killing more than a few people when there are large, condensed crowds with road access into them.
> and those who go on murder sprees would have far worse chances if more people carried weapons for self-defense.
"But armed bystanders shooting attackers was not common in the data — 22 cases out of 433. In 10 of those, the “good guy” was a security guard or an off-duty police officer."
"It was twice as common for bystanders to physically subdue the attackers, often by tackling or striking them."
> Do you have a meaningful way to protect yourself if you were attacked? You should, your safety is a God-given right that only you can properly defend in the heat of the moment.
That is not a strong argument for anyone who doesn't feel that they will be likely in a situation which requires them to kill someone for their own safety.
Good job; you can do math. Care to interface with the rest of my argument that you ignored, discussing what that disparity actually means?
> It wouldn't be a factor in the rate of disputes
That was my central point. There is nuance to the way gun legalization could take place in Europe that can help offset fatalities like this, rather than a blanket ban.
> They are also extremely convenient and instant.
Hence the “more fatal means to do so” that you quoted.
> I don't think people are making that argument.
That’s quite literally the entire discussion. “Good-faith” arguments for banning firearms. If you need a refresher of the context, I suggest starting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50125399
> Cars are only practical for killing more than a few people when there are large, condensed crowds with road access into them.
They are practical for killing whoever is in front of them, physics permitting. They are far more practical than firearms for killing tightly packed groups, but little stops a massive block of metal from killing say a lone cyclist. Everything is situational; it doesn’t make it any less of a threat.
> "But armed bystanders shooting attackers was not common in the data — 22 cases out of 433. In 10 of those, the “good guy” was a security guard or an off-duty police officer."
Firstly, defensive gun use is defensive gun use regardless of owning a badge. Secondly, this is not accounting for gun-free zones (bars, school campuses) where most mass shooters will target because of that power disparity.
“…while 36% of active shooting attacks have occurred in places where guns are allowed, almost half (42.3%) of those were stopped by people who legally carry concealed handguns.”
> That is not a strong argument for anyone who doesn't feel that they will be likely in a situation which requires them to kill someone for their own safety.
While I am happy you feel so secure, that is a privileged position. Just because you feel secure in your safety doesn’t mean those who don’t should be without self-defense, nor does it mean you should neglect your safety out of complacency.
It would be nice if you weren't dismissive and belittling. You know there are a lot of good conversations we could be having about the role of firearms in American life, but it seems like whenever the topic comes up, it turns into this debate where facts are pulled out and theories proclaimed and no one is convincing anyone of anything because we aren't talking about anything productive. Do you really, honestly think that that convenience isn't a huge factor when you know that any extra click in an payment process will lose a percentage of potential purchasers, or that a tool designed to be incredibly good at one thing isn't better at doing that thing than something designed for something completely different that can accomplish the same thing if someone is motivated enough? Of course not. Why are you acting as if they are ridiculous?
Let's sit down and have a productive discussion about how we can actually move forward and do practical things to reduce gun violence. I have some ideas:
1. Reporting for lost and stolen firearms: stolen firearms go into the illegal market and make everyone more unsafe. If personal responsibility is the crux of safety, isn't this a no brainer?
2. Training for concealed carry: have you driven on the road with other people? Would you want those people aiming a gun at a crowd of people in a panic situation trying to get a bead on a shooter if they have only fired their weapon twice in their life?
What do you think? Let's drop the patronizing tone and the made up 'what if' arguments and talk about this seriously.
> is pretty meaningless because the default install doesn't really do anything
Which is a good thing. An important thing. The reason you're stuck in a perpetual update cycle for most Linux distros and for Windows is that they ship with an insane number of things that most users have no need for. Yeah, every laptop definitely needs NetBIOS and iSCSI and UPnP turned on by default.
It's true that everything you add on top of the OpenBSD baseline increases your attack surface, but it's a saner approach than shipping with a gigantic attack surface and then forcing you to know about and disable the things you don't need.
> Classified workstations in National Security contexts? They run Windows.
Which is almost certainly a combination of the complexities of govt IT procurement, the needs of non-technical users who may only be familiar with Windows & MS Office, and the enterprise management features of Windows that aren't as good in most other OSes.
It's a tricky balance. I certainly don't want my devices to have a ton of cruft installed which I would never need. But I also certainly don't want to have to spend a month after getting a new device just getting it into usable shape so I can use it for whatever I got it for. I used to think the second concern is very small since I do not get new devices that often, but turns out it's not true, it's often enough that I really want the OS to contain a lot of things from the start. OK, maybe not NetBIOS but wide enough device support and other capabilities so it would be useful for me. And if it's not, I - and most other technically competent, but busy people - would move on to something that provides that service. Goes double for people that are not technical, obviously.
Sure, I don't disagree in principle with the idea that a smaller attack surface is better than a larger one, nor with the idea that explicitly enabling things is better than having to locate and disable services you didn't even know were running.
But saying "only two remote holes" gives the impression that all of OpenBSD is secure and that it's the most heavily scrutinized codebase in the world, it's bulletproof, etc.
It's not.
My toaster hasn't had a remote hole in a heck of a long time either, but then again it doesn't do anything other than make toast.
The default install of OpenBSD doesn't do anything, so the fact that it hasn't had a remote hole in forever isn't saying much.
I think one has to keep in mind where that slogan came from. A time where every OS tried to start a million services listening on the network, when OpenBSD ended up minimizing that, because it was aware of attack surface.
Nowadays it does the same with being very defensive of complexity and adding features just for the sake of it. They actively remove features and technically break standards to reduce surface. So while the phrase might be dated the whole idea of doing the minimal thing to provide minimal attack surface is something that some other projects could very much benefit from. Especially in times where people use LLMs that happily write ten classes instead of a simple five line function everyone can easily understand and verify.
Also I think it simply became a bit of a meme and like with the art and music it became a bit of a project culture thing. Don't overanalyze it. It's a joke like "days since last accident" and how Shodan is a video game reference and firewall probably came from some fantasy nerd. Hey, the term sharding came from a video game as well!
> Which is almost certainly a combination of the complexities of govt IT procurement, the needs of non-technical users who may only be familiar with Windows & MS Office, and the enterprise management features of Windows that aren't as good in most other OSes.
... and if I were to guess, there's definitely backroom deals between the US government and Microsoft. There's no way all the phone home stuff is even included in "Windows for SCIF".
if you mean as in Windows phoning home in normal installations, a Windows Enterprise install stripped of most unneeded components with Group policy won't really "phone home"
They clearly have some AI-generated write-ups, which I guess is fine for utilitarian stuff like that, but the post in question appears to be entirely human.
If it is, it's not very good. They provide the source for the exploit, great, but the explanation of the exploit is terrible: just seven pithy bullet points. It's not really clear what's going on without a lot more digging. The discussion of mitigations is better, though.
Context: I teach a college-level security class where undergrads do stack-smashing-like attacks (and every year a handful of talented students manage to pull off things like ROP attacks, analysis of entropy for a layout randomizers, or side-channel attacks). All of their writeups are much better than this one.
We're reaching levels of LLM dependency in the field where people just starting their careers in the last few years, now posting on HN, no longer have enough taste to judge writing or code quality.
If, in this era of constantly dealing with overly verbose verbal diarrhea from LLMs, your complaint is that a human write up is too terse... then may I offer a simple cure: you can ask an LLM to turn it into as many pages of slop as you like.
Well, the key thing is that I don't want slop, period. I think a human should take the time and write it up. Honestly, my impression was the opposite-- it seemed like classic AI overly-jargony bullet point stuff.
I'm glad that people are using whatever tools are effective to find bugs, but if you expect a human audience to read about your findings, then is it not unreasonable to ask a human to write it? Most of the time a bug reveals a flaw in logic, and in operating systems, sometimes those logical flaws are informative, and lead to new and better designs, not just bug fixes. So there are potentially missed opportunities here.
It’s not no-win. It’s not sufficient to be a human! Be a better writer! There are plenty of good writers. The main difference between the bad ones and the good ones is that the good ones TRY to write better.
> He tells spooky stories on the internet to make money.
I mean, yes, but so does the author of this article. It's literally his business. The article is, in part, an advertisement for what he sells.
I disagree with Yudkowsky on almost everything and I think the philosophical movement he co-founded is a pox on the SF Bay Area tech culture, but I don't think we can deny him credibility that's comparable to the credibility of the author of this article (who, as I understand, is a young guy who spent some time at OpenAI). They both know what they're talking about and both are motivated to reach specific conclusions.
Because people want to normalize their own backhanded use of AI-generated content. It gives you an edge over human content creators, simply because you can produce more with less effort, but that edge disappears if the content is shunned.
I see this sentiment a lot more recently and I don't understand it. Why is it "backhanded" if someone uses AI to create something. I don't see the connection with ease of creation either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJjhNVpSQzw
The entire continent was basically in a constant state of flux (and perpetual wars) through most of its history, ending with WWII in the West, with the fall of the USSR in most of the Central and Eastern Europe, and then continuing with some regional score-settling in the Balkans.
And even this is a bit reductionist: Spain was a dictatorship until about 1975! How crazy is that. This is basically the recent past of the EU.
For the misery of Central and Eastern Europe specifically, "Bloodlands" by Snyder is a good book. And this gets me to my second point: I think you're veering too far into relativism. Yes, every country did some shitty things - that's the history of the world for ya - but the Russian Empire and the German / Austrian / Prussian Empire can be singled out as especially awful when you look at the past 300-500 years. Even just by the simplest metric of the number of people displaced and killed, it's many orders of magnitude worse than what anyone else has done. This distinction is important because the legacy of bloody imperialism continues on the Russian side today - beyond Ukraine - and it's most certainly not excused by the fact that, dunno, Poland occupied Moscow once.