This was a particularly interested/relevant excerpt from Wells. I think of the open source ethos as one small example of what he's calling for in the second paragraph:
I object to this simplified classification of mankind into poor and rich. Of course there is a category of people which strive only for profit. But are not... people in the West for whom profit is not an end, who own a certain amount of wealth, who want to invest and obtain a profit from this investment, but who do not regard this as the main object?...
During the past few years I have been much engaged in and have thought of the need for conducting propaganda in favour of Socialism and cosmopolitanism among wide circles of engineers, airmen, military technical people, etc. It is useless to approach these circles with two-track class-war propaganda. These people understand the condition of the world. They understand that it is a bloody muddle, but they regard your simple class-war antagonism as nonsense.
The Bolsheviks cultivated celebrity visitors from the Western left. It wouldn't have worked to shoot them.
(Edit: Originally this comment had a moderation bit in it as well, but someone rightly pointed out to me that it isn't helpful to wear the moderator hat and make a regular-user comment in the same post. So I've edited that out. I considered restricting myself to only making moderator comments, but (a) that's never been how HN worked, (b) I was a user long before a moderator, and (c) I'd burn out from boredom.)
For what it's worth, I apologise, mostly for the initial comment I made that mentioned the Ukraine - it looked very much like a partisan comment intented to reference the current conflict and, in all honesty, it wasn't.
Sorry for any grief caused and keep up the good work.
[I promise to engage more brain cells when posting on obviously highly emotive topics in future and, if I have any doubt, to not post].
1. Has anyone suggested making yourself a new moderator account? eg dang_mod for all mod-related comments. It might ease the mental burden for the reader (at the cost of increased mental burden and user-switching for you - so maybe not worth it).
2. As a simpler variant of the above, why not make two separate comments? I expect readers are capable of telling apart your user comment from the moderation if they're cleanly separated.
Edit: The first option would also have the benefit of a user id with its own comment history.
True, but didn't Zhukov (perhaps the greatest general of WW2) come perilously close to being tried in the aftermath of WW2 - largely due to his personal reputation and international standing?
What happened to Fred Hampton when he disagreed with how blacks were being treated like second-class citizens in Chicago? The Kent State students who protested the US invasion of Cambodia? The Jackson State students who protested the US invasion of Cambodia? And so on...
I object to this simplified classification of mankind into poor and rich. Of course there is a category of people which strive only for profit. But are not... people in the West for whom profit is not an end, who own a certain amount of wealth, who want to invest and obtain a profit from this investment, but who do not regard this as the main object?...
During the past few years I have been much engaged in and have thought of the need for conducting propaganda in favour of Socialism and cosmopolitanism among wide circles of engineers, airmen, military technical people, etc. It is useless to approach these circles with two-track class-war propaganda. These people understand the condition of the world. They understand that it is a bloody muddle, but they regard your simple class-war antagonism as nonsense.