I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I should consider emigrating to another country (currently I’m in Russia). I’m not involved in politics or the military action, but I can’t help but feel implicated by my government’s actions as a citizen here. Specifically, the increasing authoritarianism and human rights issues worry me. On the other hand, I have family and (very few) friends in Russia, plus clearer studying opportunities, and I’m not sure if I want to leave that behind; also, Russia is my home—I’m unsure whether this might be important.
I’m a software engineer in my 20s living in Moscow, with self-employment and quite stable income. I’m interested in building global startups, so I’m worried about the reputation of my future company(ies) in the context of remaining in Russia for so long. Meanwhile, I’d prefer to continue cooperating with my (small) Russian social circle. But I’m unsure they have my better interests in mind (so I’d also like advice on how to determine that, if possible).
I’m looking for perspectives from this community on the moral and other considerations and responsibilities I have as an individual. Mainly I worry about global reputation of myself and my (future) companies. Should I continue my life here as usual? Should I keep contacts and cooperation with acquaintances/friends (some of whom might be potential business partners) who remain? (Btw, I somewhat worry that I could absorb some of their differing beliefs which could make me less effective.) Is there anything constructive I can do if I stay? Or is leaving the country and minimizing contacts the only ethical choice?
Curious to hear thoughts. I’m especially interested in advice on how to weigh all this from those with more experience in similar situations.
I don’t have strong opinions yet, so please share a variety of perspectives. Mostly looking for help in thinking this through in a thoughtful way during a confusing time.
Maybe more practical than moral, but nations around the world have put sanctions on Russia. This would theoretically hamper Russia’s economic growth relative to other nations over time. (Although the Russian kleptocracy was already doing that to some degree.) Are you sure it’s wise to try to build a global startup in such a country?
Russia is in a state of demographic decline with an aging population due to insufficient birth rates in recent decades. Labor shortages were projected as early as next year. Each worker will have to support more and more retirees.
Russia’s strategy in war (if you can call it that) seems to be to throw more young men into the meat grinder. Because the soldiers are also working-age men, this will exacerbate the problem, not just due to the direct warfighter casualties, but due to the resulting brain drain and human capital flight that causes as the best and brightest rightly fear conscription and flee. This is not speculation; it is already happening. How much longer will you have the option of leaving? Borders can be closed to emigrants, especially in times of war. The risk of that seems high, so you’d probably keep your options more open by leaving now. It’s probably easier to get back in than out.
Probably the only feasible way of fixing the demography is mass immigration. But who would want to move into a sanctioned pariah state that might conscript you for war? This is probably not happening any time soon.
On the question of repute, consider TikTok, a social media app with overwhelming popularity in the younger generation. Despite this, the United States, although famous for granting broad freedom to do things, is seriously considering banning it, due to the perceived influence of the Chinese Communist Party. It’s already banned in India and in Montana (although not yet enforced pending litigation), and much more widely banned on government devices, not just in the U.S., but in Australia, Canada, and much of Europe. Being based in China has been bad for its business, due to China’s poor reputation.
Similarly, Kaspersky Lab (Лаборатория Касперского), though well-regarded internationally for years, has been facing similar government bans due to allegations of ties with the Russian Federal Security Service (since 2017 in the U.S., at least). Any tech startup in Russia potentially faces similar hurdles for international adoption.
Morally, it’s tricky, but there is a sense in which anyone living in Russia and at least paying taxes is complicit in the war and human rights abuses. However, everyone has to live somewhere and touching the international economy at all is going to be connected to some negative consequences somewhere. The global economy has a lot of abuses. I don’t think this justifies becoming a hermit, which has a different set of moral problems, but one can do relatively better or worse here.
It’s not clear to me that minimizing contacts with friends and family in Russia would be a net good. Breaking up family seems bad to me on its face. You seem concerned they might be a bad influence. But influence goes both ways; you can be a positive influence on them. Still, those you interact with most will influence your thinking. Choose friends wisely.
You might be surprised at how desperate some people are.
Hah! I’ll not dispute that some circumstances might be even worse (nor do I claim that Russia has literally zero recent immigrants), but are there enough of them to compensate for Russia’s population loss? I think not, but maybe you have data?
I don’t, no. I doubt it, but suspect that’s not due to a lack of people willing to immigrate to Russia.
Banning birth control would be another feasible way in my estimation for any government that can survive the resentment caused by the ban—and the Kremlin probably could survive it.
I’ve been wondering for a while if China will try that. I would not have guessed Russia would, but maybe I’m not that informed? Have the Russians actually suggested it?
It still takes decades for any new babies to grow up to working age. That might not be soon enough to save Russia. The right time to try something like that was probably 20 years ago. Immigration would be faster, in theory. Seems to be working for Canada.
My guess is that banning birth control is not in the Overton window in Russia.
You make a good point. I think however that these demographic factors aren’t as important to a country’s long-term fate as many recent commentators say it is.
One of the reasons I think demographic factors aren’t as important over the long term as some say they are is that an estimated 50% of the population of Europe died (from the plague) from 1346 to 1353 and yet not long afterwards Europe started pulling ahead the rest of the world, with Gutenberg inventing movable type in 1450 and the Renaissance having spread throughout Europe by 1500. Admittedly the Renaissance’s beginning (in Italy) predate the plague, but the point is that the loss of about 50% of the population did not prevent those beginnings from spreading to the rest of the Europe and did not prevent Europe from becoming the most influential region of the world (with the European discovery of the New World in 1492, with the European Magellan making the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522 and with the scientific and political advances, e.g., the empirical method and liberalism, of the European Renaissance having tremendous global influence to the present day).
And even if I were not able to cite the example I just cited, the track record of the class of experts (geographers, political scientists) who maintain that demographics is national destiny is that they are often wrong. Less Wrong does well in general, but could do better at resisting false information and information of unknown truth value that gets repeated over and over on by the internet.
I don’t feel like the results of the Black Death situation generalizes to Russia’s current demographics. Medieval Europe was near its carrying capacity given the technology of the day. The plague injected some slack into the system to allow for progress. That’s really not the situation in Russia, is it? Food isn’t the limiting factor.
Furthermore, Russia’s population is aging on net, and the war is exacerbating the problem. On the contrary compared to Medieval Europe, this would tend to remove slack from the system as the working age Russians have to spend more of their resources to support the elderly while at the same time they’re burning resources to fight the war and growing less than they could otherwise due to sanctions.
Did the Black Death have that effect? I couldn’t find any information on age demographics during that period, but on priors, I’d expect disease to affect the old as well, if not more, in most cases. (What I did find suggested that the poor were disproportionately affected due to their living conditions.)
I left in 2011. My advice is to leave soon. And not even for reasons of ethics, business, or comfort. More like, for the spirit. Even if Russia is quite comfortable now, in broad strokes the situation is this: you’re young, and the curtain is slowly closing. When you’re older, would you rather be the older person who stayed in, or the person who took a chance on the world?
You are not responsible in the slightest for the actions of those who rule you.
They take your money, yes, but that makes you a victim, not an accomplice.
I feel that doesn’t hold when at least leaving is an option. One can’t avoid rulers altogether, but one who is free to go could better choose from among the least bad ones available. Russia’s is not that.
I would say that it changes the moral angle from “You’re actively participating in evil, you have a responsibility to stop” to “You have an opportunity to reduce the badness. Taking it would be admirable; not taking it is morally equivalent to not donating to charity.”
I haven’t looked into the Russian tax code in detail, but a cursory look at this list suggests that Russia is among the least bad, beaten mostly by a few small islands, the Gulf monarchies, and Somalia (which, of course, have other problems).
I do approve of ranking countries’ goodness/badness according to what fraction of your money they take from you… But in this context, I think you would then want to multiply by “the average amount of evil that the country does per tax dollar”. (Of course, there is no widely accepted objective metric for that.)
Please consider the implications of not only being a citizen, but also taxpayer, and customer to other taxpayers. Through taxes, you work indirectly supports the Russian war effort.
If you succeed while still in Russia, what is stopping those with powerful connections from simply taking over from you? From what you say, it does not sound like you have connections of your own that would allow you to protect yourself?
You do not mention you eligibility for getting drafted, but unless you have strong reasons to believe you would not be (e.g. you are female), you also need to consider that possibility.
Chances are things in Russia will become worse before they become better. Have you considered how Putin’s next big stupid move might affect you? What happens next time something like the Prigozhin/Wagner rebellion is a bit less of a farse? Or how it might affect you if Putin dies and Kadyrov decides it’s his chance to take over?
Or even if you leave partway… See: Yandex.
As someone who left, I think it’s net-positive to leave even from selfish perspective: you would be able to use the internet and buy things like a normal human being. And you wouldn’t need to think and worry about ethics or possibility of being drafted. I don’t think I ever thought that it was rational to stay—it was mostly the inconvenience of moving things.
The main long-term costs are that Moscow is a decent city and, yes, friends and family. But you either can visit them, or things are so bad you’ll be glad you left anyway. And you can come back—the worst case is not much worse than a vocation.
You’re indirectly supporting war with taxes, especially as someone in relatively high-paid job. At least 35% of taxes you pay do go towards buying Iranian drones or paying salaries for soldiers raping civilians. The moral effect of this is worse than average citizen, as you’re in high paying job,
The Russian regime is not that bad. It has for example caused fewer civilian deaths in Ukraine since 2014 than the Israeli regime has caused in a few months in Gaza—and Ukraine has 74 times as many people as Gaza has.
If Texas left the United States and started accepting military aid from China, as an American, I would probably want my government to force Texas back into the United States even if that requires invading Texas and causing many casualties.
Also, even if the reputation of the Russian government remains poor, Westerners will continue to treat individual Russians okay because of the fairly strong ethic in the West and especially in the US under which every individual should be judged on their own merits, not by the group they belong to, particularly if they were born into the group. I cannot imagine for example your staying in Russia significantly reducing the probability of your winning a grant from a Western organization to work on AI safety or effective altruism with the one exception that the organization might be prohibited by sanctions imposed by Western governments from sending money into Russia.
On the other hand, Stockholm syndrome is a powerful cognitive bias which might bias you against emigrating.
It’s unlikely that you would be turned down in EA for being Russian but that’s not the same thing as being located in Russia.
When it comes to funding projects in Russia, both sanctions from Western governments and potential problems of governance with the Russian state matter. Putin understands that AI is very important so there’s Russian government interest in AI projects in Russia.