Ask HN: How to combat propaganda?
54 comments
You need to first notice how propaganda works on you yourself. If you're not aware of that, then you're probably not trying to combat propaganda at all, you're just trying to replace the other side's propaganda with your side's propaganda.
Once you do notice how propaganda works on you yourself, you can start to track little movements of deviation from it. But this looks and feels a lot more like questioning your own beliefs than it does like trying to persuade others of the truth.
Once you do notice how propaganda works on you yourself, you can start to track little movements of deviation from it. But this looks and feels a lot more like questioning your own beliefs than it does like trying to persuade others of the truth.
*you're just trying to replace the other side's propaganda with your side's propaganda*
Words of wisdom
Words of wisdom
Exposure to and physical experience of different cultures makes it more difficult to ostracise them. Thinking of actually meeting and casual talking of "other" people. The more and longer, the better. Also, important is the capability of rational thinking, which allows to detect the lies and inconsistencies. Not sure how much of it can be taught at school. Some people are predisposed to blindly follow the authority whatever that authority is, hopefully not malicious. Thinking that maybe an empathy should be important too, but no, quite the opposite. The propaganda feeds on the feelings while the critical thought is its biggest enemy.
> How can you establish at least doubt in the other person's mind?
Someone must be open to this in the first place. You can't change a closed mind, and there are many reasons why a mind might be closed. They kind of have to arrive at their doubt on their own, at least in my personal non-expert opinion. The most you can do is express your opinion in a relatively non judgmental way (because if you're too harsh they won't return to you later to discuss) and be available if they want to discuss.
Someone must be open to this in the first place. You can't change a closed mind, and there are many reasons why a mind might be closed. They kind of have to arrive at their doubt on their own, at least in my personal non-expert opinion. The most you can do is express your opinion in a relatively non judgmental way (because if you're too harsh they won't return to you later to discuss) and be available if they want to discuss.
The western media also runs rampant propaganda. The director of policy for reddit is an ex-nato person (no one know why reddit hired a non tech person for it) and one reason why reddit is extremely inundated with russia-ukraine war with heavy tilt for how awesome nato is.
Note that even Jeremy Corbyn was a target of heavy propaganda by the media and especially reddit since he is anti-war.
Anyone anti-war in the western media is quickly character assassinated. There is a reason why someone who is a real people person and how is really best suited to be president: bernie sanders lost against a rambling senile dude.
TLDR: it's impossible to have an anti-war mindset or politician in the west. The propaganda will quickly destroy them.
Note that even Jeremy Corbyn was a target of heavy propaganda by the media and especially reddit since he is anti-war.
Anyone anti-war in the western media is quickly character assassinated. There is a reason why someone who is a real people person and how is really best suited to be president: bernie sanders lost against a rambling senile dude.
TLDR: it's impossible to have an anti-war mindset or politician in the west. The propaganda will quickly destroy them.
I think that you can be "anti-war" to the extent of saying that NATO should not directly be at war with Russia (if possible). I think you can get away with that position without being cancelled.
If you're "anti-war" to the extent of saying "we shouldn't supply Ukraine with arms", or even worse, "Ukraine should just surrender", I think that most people rightly find those positions to be abhorrent. That looks far too much like Neville Chamberlain's politics (and morals) for most of our taste.
And if you're "anti-war" in the sense of "this is all NATO's fault; Russia was right to invade", you get cancelled very quickly, because you have become indistinguishable from a Russian propagandist, and we know that there are plenty of Russian propagandists trying to influence the west's cultural mindset.
If you have a thoughtful, considered reason to hold one of the positions I labeled problematic, you can probably express it on HN. You'll get argued with, you may get yelled at and downvoted, but you probably won't get banned. In the wider culture... no guarantees.
If you're "anti-war" to the extent of saying "we shouldn't supply Ukraine with arms", or even worse, "Ukraine should just surrender", I think that most people rightly find those positions to be abhorrent. That looks far too much like Neville Chamberlain's politics (and morals) for most of our taste.
And if you're "anti-war" in the sense of "this is all NATO's fault; Russia was right to invade", you get cancelled very quickly, because you have become indistinguishable from a Russian propagandist, and we know that there are plenty of Russian propagandists trying to influence the west's cultural mindset.
If you have a thoughtful, considered reason to hold one of the positions I labeled problematic, you can probably express it on HN. You'll get argued with, you may get yelled at and downvoted, but you probably won't get banned. In the wider culture... no guarantees.
> I think that you can be "anti-war" to the extent of saying that NATO should not directly be at war with Russia (if possible). I think you can get away with that position without being cancelled.
This is pretty much the official position of NATO and the Western governments. It might be a controversial position in the sense of "we're not doing enough", but I don't see who would cancel anyone for that.
> And if you're "anti-war" in the sense of "this is all NATO's fault; Russia was right to invade", you get cancelled very quickly, because you have become indistinguishable from a Russian propagandist, and we know that there are plenty of Russian propagandists trying to influence the west's cultural mindset.
I hope there'll eventually be room for a position along "We should investigate whether the West's methods actually match their values - but Russia still lost all legitimacy the moment they attacked a sovereign nation".
I do believe there is a lot of hypocrisy in the current rethoric and in the rebuttals of russian claims. Of course the USA has a sphere of influence - it's commonly called "the West". And we (as in "the West") seem to have our fair share of propaganda outlets as well, such as Radio Free Europe or the National Endowment for Democracy. I'd like if this stuff was discussed more openly. (For my own sanity as well. My knowledge here is also not more than some bits and pieces and discussions with relatives. I'd absolutely be interested in arguments from both sides)
What also worries me is that the term "misinformation" and "propaganda" now seems to be assigned solely based on where a claim comes from, without needing to present any arguments that actually contradict the claim. I can't see how that squares with the values of free speech and press freedom. I wonder if the Snowden leaks would also be labelled "misinformation" if they were released in today's climate.
(To be clear - we're still better than Russia in that regard. At least, you only get cancelled for that stuff here and not jailed for 15 years. But I still think it's a worrying development)
This is pretty much the official position of NATO and the Western governments. It might be a controversial position in the sense of "we're not doing enough", but I don't see who would cancel anyone for that.
> And if you're "anti-war" in the sense of "this is all NATO's fault; Russia was right to invade", you get cancelled very quickly, because you have become indistinguishable from a Russian propagandist, and we know that there are plenty of Russian propagandists trying to influence the west's cultural mindset.
I hope there'll eventually be room for a position along "We should investigate whether the West's methods actually match their values - but Russia still lost all legitimacy the moment they attacked a sovereign nation".
I do believe there is a lot of hypocrisy in the current rethoric and in the rebuttals of russian claims. Of course the USA has a sphere of influence - it's commonly called "the West". And we (as in "the West") seem to have our fair share of propaganda outlets as well, such as Radio Free Europe or the National Endowment for Democracy. I'd like if this stuff was discussed more openly. (For my own sanity as well. My knowledge here is also not more than some bits and pieces and discussions with relatives. I'd absolutely be interested in arguments from both sides)
What also worries me is that the term "misinformation" and "propaganda" now seems to be assigned solely based on where a claim comes from, without needing to present any arguments that actually contradict the claim. I can't see how that squares with the values of free speech and press freedom. I wonder if the Snowden leaks would also be labelled "misinformation" if they were released in today's climate.
(To be clear - we're still better than Russia in that regard. At least, you only get cancelled for that stuff here and not jailed for 15 years. But I still think it's a worrying development)
> I hope there'll eventually be room for a position along "We should investigate whether the West's methods actually match their values - but Russia still lost all legitimacy the moment they attacked a sovereign nation".
Sure, I can agree with that. No need to wait - I can agree today.
Sure, I can agree with that. No need to wait - I can agree today.
"we know that there are plenty of Russian propagandists trying to influence the west's cultural mindset."
The interesting thing about this claim is the question of whether this is also propaganda.
There have been an enormous number of high profile claims of Russian propaganda or interference in western affairs in the past decade, as far as I'm aware they always ended up collapsing, though sometimes people aren't aware of that.
Hunter Biden's laptop story was claimed to be Russian propaganda and the New York Post's Twitter account was frozen for it. Nobody could even reshare it or link to it privately. The rest of the media united in claiming it was Russian propaganda. Now, years later the NYT admits that the contents are authenticated.
For years people claimed Trump's election was due to Russian propaganda and electoral interference. A massive investigation followed, in which it turned out the primary evidence for this was made up.
Then they tried the same tactic with Brexit. Nobody ever found any proof for this; the idea was absurd on its face and was quickly abandoned outside of only the most loony Remainer establishments.
Then there were the claims of Russian hacking of electrical grids. Wrong. Russian servers being pinged by Trump's campaigns. Wrong. Dozens of other claims about Russian propaganda that I'd have to look up, but I know they've been made, always wrong.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, claiming it needs to be de-Nazified. Immediately described as Russian propaganda, until people start remembering about the unquestionably neo-Nazis battalions that have been fighting as an official part of the Ukrainian military for years and that, uh, this is actually true. The Russian soldiers actually are fighting Nazis. That doesn't mean the invasion was right! It does raise interesting historical/moral questions though, given the mention of Chamberlain. Would the Allies have been morally right to invade Germany and take out the Nazis before they invaded anywhere else? Or were the Allies correct to wait for them to make the first strike? I don't know and the question only just occurred to me to ask, but it seems relevant here.
Now in fairness you made a weaker claim above, about "Russian propagandists" trying to "influence the cultural mindset", a claim worded sufficiently vaguely that it could mean almost anything. But this impression of pervasive Russian propaganda has come from somewhere. If not the endless run of false claims about the prevalence of Russian propaganda then from where?
The interesting thing about this claim is the question of whether this is also propaganda.
There have been an enormous number of high profile claims of Russian propaganda or interference in western affairs in the past decade, as far as I'm aware they always ended up collapsing, though sometimes people aren't aware of that.
Hunter Biden's laptop story was claimed to be Russian propaganda and the New York Post's Twitter account was frozen for it. Nobody could even reshare it or link to it privately. The rest of the media united in claiming it was Russian propaganda. Now, years later the NYT admits that the contents are authenticated.
For years people claimed Trump's election was due to Russian propaganda and electoral interference. A massive investigation followed, in which it turned out the primary evidence for this was made up.
Then they tried the same tactic with Brexit. Nobody ever found any proof for this; the idea was absurd on its face and was quickly abandoned outside of only the most loony Remainer establishments.
Then there were the claims of Russian hacking of electrical grids. Wrong. Russian servers being pinged by Trump's campaigns. Wrong. Dozens of other claims about Russian propaganda that I'd have to look up, but I know they've been made, always wrong.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, claiming it needs to be de-Nazified. Immediately described as Russian propaganda, until people start remembering about the unquestionably neo-Nazis battalions that have been fighting as an official part of the Ukrainian military for years and that, uh, this is actually true. The Russian soldiers actually are fighting Nazis. That doesn't mean the invasion was right! It does raise interesting historical/moral questions though, given the mention of Chamberlain. Would the Allies have been morally right to invade Germany and take out the Nazis before they invaded anywhere else? Or were the Allies correct to wait for them to make the first strike? I don't know and the question only just occurred to me to ask, but it seems relevant here.
Now in fairness you made a weaker claim above, about "Russian propagandists" trying to "influence the cultural mindset", a claim worded sufficiently vaguely that it could mean almost anything. But this impression of pervasive Russian propaganda has come from somewhere. If not the endless run of false claims about the prevalence of Russian propaganda then from where?
Russia and Putin should and will die for what's it worth. However my opinion has always been of cowardice: There is nothing more valuable than human life. There is no "courage" in fighting an idiotic war especially since all russia wanted was nato out and more especially since ukraine and russia are almost the same people. Holding on to donbas and similar russian territories have absolutely zero value.
End the suffering, agree to what Russia wants, get NATO out and end the war. Zelenksy is a master actor and he played the role well. It's time he stopped crying on global platform 24x7 and drag the rest of the world into his war.
End the suffering, agree to what Russia wants, get NATO out and end the war. Zelenksy is a master actor and he played the role well. It's time he stopped crying on global platform 24x7 and drag the rest of the world into his war.
The big difference between Ukrainians and Russians is that the former live in an internationally recognized democracy that has been improving its government and the rule of law, and the latter is a thoroughly corrupt mafia state.
Kowtowing to the corrupt state is to condemn one’s children and grandchildren to suffer through insecurity, cruelty, retribution, and poverty. The action you promote might reduce your own risk of personal injury, but only by transferring it to future generations. It is selfish, short-sighted, and destructive to progress.
But at least you admit cowardice drives your decision-making. It is not, by the way, something you should claim with pride.
Kowtowing to the corrupt state is to condemn one’s children and grandchildren to suffer through insecurity, cruelty, retribution, and poverty. The action you promote might reduce your own risk of personal injury, but only by transferring it to future generations. It is selfish, short-sighted, and destructive to progress.
But at least you admit cowardice drives your decision-making. It is not, by the way, something you should claim with pride.
>The big difference between Ukrainians and Russians is that the former live in an internationally recognized democracy that has been improving its government and the rule of law, and the latter is a thoroughly corrupt mafia state.
You are thoroughly mistaken if you think Ukraine is any better than Russia. In the Panama papers, Ukraine exceeds Russia and in terms of far right wing violence Ukraine far exceeds Russia.
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/25906/politicians-pandora-pap... Ukraine has twice as many politicians in panama papers as Russia.
This war is not black and white. There are millions of shades of gray in between regardless of the constant nauseating fellatio of everything Ukrainian by the western media.
You are thoroughly mistaken if you think Ukraine is any better than Russia. In the Panama papers, Ukraine exceeds Russia and in terms of far right wing violence Ukraine far exceeds Russia.
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/25906/politicians-pandora-pap... Ukraine has twice as many politicians in panama papers as Russia.
This war is not black and white. There are millions of shades of gray in between regardless of the constant nauseating fellatio of everything Ukrainian by the western media.
> You are thoroughly mistaken if you think Ukraine is any better than Russia
One is a democracy improving itself, the other is a goddamn dictatorship. Don’t be stupid.
One is a democracy improving itself, the other is a goddamn dictatorship. Don’t be stupid.
I am not sure which one is which. Both are cut from the same cloth.
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Wanted to explain you how wrong you are, but read your other comments and realized that it's a waste of time. The disgusting words you are writing is not an opinion, it's a standard well-packaged russian narrative for western world. The same you can see on RT, Sputnik and other russian propagandist channels. I just hope that people understands how many of this kind of infected retranslators over there.
Vomit.
Look, if Ukraine decides to end the war (on whatever terms), that's their choice to make. It's sure not our place to tell them that they ought to surrender, though. If they decide that being under Russia is worse than all the suffering, that's their choice. (And they may have more data than you and I do...)
There's a line from the Bible: "those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives". This isn't exactly the way the Bible meant that phrase, but... If your position is that preserving life is the most important thing, and I can credibly threaten to kill you, then you become my slave. You'll do whatever I tell you, to try to save your life. That's a horrible way to live. It's even more horrible when the one doing the threatening is a sociopath.
I think some things are worse than death. "Live free or die" isn't just a propaganda slogan. A free life is far better than a life as someone's slave.
There's a line from the Bible: "those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives". This isn't exactly the way the Bible meant that phrase, but... If your position is that preserving life is the most important thing, and I can credibly threaten to kill you, then you become my slave. You'll do whatever I tell you, to try to save your life. That's a horrible way to live. It's even more horrible when the one doing the threatening is a sociopath.
I think some things are worse than death. "Live free or die" isn't just a propaganda slogan. A free life is far better than a life as someone's slave.
The traditional method seen in philosophical writing is to not address Plato's cave directly, but rather to present an esoteric puzzle that interested minds can only solve by overcoming their own core beliefs. When facts are laid against other facts directly in a way that decoheres a belief, the tendency is simply to go find a scapegoat that will, if defeated, set things right, which plays into the hands of propagandists who will supply an endless number of such scapegoats to an audience desperately craving such, and willful misinterpretations of media to make it say an opposite meaning. The use of esotericism combats this by presenting a text that is nonsense - presenting easy conclusions contrary to facts - until it is analyzed and deduced, at which point it's too late and the contrary thought has been had.
The core beliefs themselves tend to be set during adolescence, and the will of the individual to hold onto them or let them go involves a confluence of factors since they are often absorbed into identity. While you can present the puzzle, you can't stop people from gripping onto what they have as tightly as possible and sacrificing the rest of their life to do so. It's a strategy that appeals mostly towards development of elite thinking, rather than trying to sway the masses(who will continually look for easy beliefs to latch onto).
For more on the topic of esoteric writing I suggest Arthur Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines".
The core beliefs themselves tend to be set during adolescence, and the will of the individual to hold onto them or let them go involves a confluence of factors since they are often absorbed into identity. While you can present the puzzle, you can't stop people from gripping onto what they have as tightly as possible and sacrificing the rest of their life to do so. It's a strategy that appeals mostly towards development of elite thinking, rather than trying to sway the masses(who will continually look for easy beliefs to latch onto).
For more on the topic of esoteric writing I suggest Arthur Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines".
A related but more fundamental existential question is "Can you stop of a loved one from self destructing."
And, as sad as it is, I'm afraid the answer is a solid "No." on every level of analysis.
And, as sad as it is, I'm afraid the answer is a solid "No." on every level of analysis.
More emphasis on videos and interviews. While it's still possible to dismiss them as also being set up it's a lot easier to dismiss news articles and text interviews as fakes with no physical proof behind them. In general more things that you can verify yourself so it becomes harder to dismiss things as propaganda.
Would they feel safe voicing any other opinion? If not there may not be anything further to say.
I have read that propaganda can reach the point where it's about power, not truth. "We can lie to you, and you can know that it's a lie, and you still have to pretend to believe it." That's what it's like when it's about power, not truth.
I wonder if Russia is at that point, or rather, if many Russian citizens are at that point.
I wonder if Russia is at that point, or rather, if many Russian citizens are at that point.
See the work of George Lakoff and specifically his concept of the truth sandwich.
If you want to bring someone around to your position, you need to have an actual conversation.
First of all, you need to listen, with your mouth closed, while the other person explains their position--without being forced to defend it. You can ask probing questions, of course (They think that Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis? Have them elaborate about the Nazi problem.), but avoid becoming adversarial or contrarian. Investigate their beliefs, trace them down to their foundations, and then undermine said foundations. The belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" may be based on some article claiming that Zelenski is a Nazi.
Once you understand the foundations of a belief, you're in business. If you're objectively correct, you should be able to provide incontrovertible evidence that you are correct. If your evidence is not acceptable (because, for example, it comes from a source the other guy doesn't trust), then find other proof. If you can't, ask yourself what that means.
After you've undermined one of these foundations, (perhaps, by proving that Zelenski is very unlikely to be a Nazi) remind the other party that their belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" was based on this fact, and ask if they still believe it. They will, of course, and they'll present some new justification.
Rinse and repeat.
It goes without saying that this process almost never plays out. It requires that both parties be interested in having the conversation, both parties participate in good faith, and both parties are committed to Truth more than to their on cognitive comfort.
After all, how many hours of your life would you spend in conversation with a Russian relative who wanted to convince you that your worldview is based on lies?
First of all, you need to listen, with your mouth closed, while the other person explains their position--without being forced to defend it. You can ask probing questions, of course (They think that Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis? Have them elaborate about the Nazi problem.), but avoid becoming adversarial or contrarian. Investigate their beliefs, trace them down to their foundations, and then undermine said foundations. The belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" may be based on some article claiming that Zelenski is a Nazi.
Once you understand the foundations of a belief, you're in business. If you're objectively correct, you should be able to provide incontrovertible evidence that you are correct. If your evidence is not acceptable (because, for example, it comes from a source the other guy doesn't trust), then find other proof. If you can't, ask yourself what that means.
After you've undermined one of these foundations, (perhaps, by proving that Zelenski is very unlikely to be a Nazi) remind the other party that their belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" was based on this fact, and ask if they still believe it. They will, of course, and they'll present some new justification.
Rinse and repeat.
It goes without saying that this process almost never plays out. It requires that both parties be interested in having the conversation, both parties participate in good faith, and both parties are committed to Truth more than to their on cognitive comfort.
After all, how many hours of your life would you spend in conversation with a Russian relative who wanted to convince you that your worldview is based on lies?
The difficulty with this approach is that whilst it can work, it requires a high degree of intellectual honesty, meaning that you have to go in open to the possibility that the person you're talking to is correct and it's you yourself who is wrong. Because the person you're talking to, of course, believes they are right and you are wrong. If you aren't open to that possibility at all why would they bother trying to persuade you of what they believe? It's only by trying to explain that, and then losing an honest debate, that the truth can be revealed.
The belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" comes from the fact that whilst Zelensky himself may not himself be a Nazi, he employs people who definitely are Nazis in his military and relies on them apparently quite heavily. Apparently he doesn't have a problem with this. This has been true for many years, i.e. the Ukrainian government has been sending Nazis to kill the "pro Russian separatists" in the east (whoever they truly are or who supports them doesn't matter much for whether this claim is true or not).
So if you try and stop a Russian person believing the Ukrainian government is allied with Nazis you'll probably fail, because the claim is true on its face. The better angle is probably to go with arguments like these?
a. Is it ever morally right to start a pre-emptive war against a potential future adversary? Here you'll probably get something about the Iraq wars and it may be required to admit the US was at fault here, if you want to take that angle, or at least not morally superior.
b. Are the fighters in the Russian military of the same level of threat as the original Nazis, just because they wear the same symbols etc? Or is this comparison overblown, for domestic propaganda purposes?
c. Is this Putin's real motivation or just a handy excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway?
The belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" comes from the fact that whilst Zelensky himself may not himself be a Nazi, he employs people who definitely are Nazis in his military and relies on them apparently quite heavily. Apparently he doesn't have a problem with this. This has been true for many years, i.e. the Ukrainian government has been sending Nazis to kill the "pro Russian separatists" in the east (whoever they truly are or who supports them doesn't matter much for whether this claim is true or not).
So if you try and stop a Russian person believing the Ukrainian government is allied with Nazis you'll probably fail, because the claim is true on its face. The better angle is probably to go with arguments like these?
a. Is it ever morally right to start a pre-emptive war against a potential future adversary? Here you'll probably get something about the Iraq wars and it may be required to admit the US was at fault here, if you want to take that angle, or at least not morally superior.
b. Are the fighters in the Russian military of the same level of threat as the original Nazis, just because they wear the same symbols etc? Or is this comparison overblown, for domestic propaganda purposes?
c. Is this Putin's real motivation or just a handy excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway?
I think we are generally on the same page, but your arguments seem problematic in that they are neutral and abstract enough that, even if you chased that line of argument down to bedrock, you might find yourself having a discussion about philosophical opinions, which are not subject to the undermining attack I’ve got in mind.
If my ‘opponent’ responded in the way you suggested, I’d be in good shape. I would observe that employing a single militia of people with abhorrent views hardly makes Ukraine at large in need of liberation. Since there is an implied expectation that Ukraine should spurn the help of these Nazis, I would ask whether, when the US found itself at war with the Nazis, it had a moral obligation to spurn the aid of the Soviets, who themselves had quite an evil record on matters of human rights. And, of course, I would ask to be educated on the nature of these Nazi militias. Are they members of a party? Is the militia exclusively made up of Nazis? What proportion of the armed forces are they? I’d be interested to learn more, because an officially Nazi institution is quite difference than an institution which has a few known skinheads in its membership, and the difference seems material.
If my ‘opponent’ responded in the way you suggested, I’d be in good shape. I would observe that employing a single militia of people with abhorrent views hardly makes Ukraine at large in need of liberation. Since there is an implied expectation that Ukraine should spurn the help of these Nazis, I would ask whether, when the US found itself at war with the Nazis, it had a moral obligation to spurn the aid of the Soviets, who themselves had quite an evil record on matters of human rights. And, of course, I would ask to be educated on the nature of these Nazi militias. Are they members of a party? Is the militia exclusively made up of Nazis? What proportion of the armed forces are they? I’d be interested to learn more, because an officially Nazi institution is quite difference than an institution which has a few known skinheads in its membership, and the difference seems material.
"I would observe that employing a single militia of people with abhorrent views hardly makes Ukraine at large in need of liberation."
My guess is they would then respond by observing that it's not a single group, there is at minimum Azov, Svoboda, and Right Sector, probably more. Azov has rather notoriously been officially integrated into the Ukrainian military so it's unclear if it even makes sense to talk about it as if it were an entirely separate group now. And they would argue that if you indeed thought it was only a single militia then it'd be you under the influence of propaganda, not them, so this would probably backfire.
Now, does this justify 'liberation'. That's indeed a more fruitful ground for discussion. Highlighting the USA/Soviet alliance is maybe a good tactic, albeit it may backfire (perhaps this Russian hated the Soviet Union, a lot did). And it takes you down the more philosophical road, which I recommend, because the actual details of Ukraine are so messy that debating it may not result in the clean outcome you seek.
"I would ask to be educated on the nature of these Nazi militias. Are they members of a party? Is the militia exclusively made up of Nazis? What proportion of the armed forces are they?"
I'm not an expert, have just read a few articles about this (pre 2020). But to answer your questions:
1. Yes, it's called Svoboda. Also, after the 2014 revolution/coup/whatever it was, many were directly appointed to the government by the new president.
"After the coup, the neo-Nazis were awarded for their effectiveness. When "Yats" took power with US support, he appointed neo-Nazis to 4 ministries in his govt. Andriy Parubiy, a founder of Svoboda, and a commandant of the 2014 coup’s "self-defense forces," became the national security chief. Right Sektor and the Azov Battalion were incorporated into the National Guard of the military. Poroshenko, who succeeded Yatsenyuk, praised them as "great warriors" and dispatched them to fight the ethnic Russians and separatists in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine."
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/03/27/msm-cover-up-of-neo-...
2. Militias like Azov are entirely Nazi, it seems, but are an integrated component of the wider Ukrainian military, which is not. Though I suppose we may wonder how non-Nazi they really are if they fight alongside them.
3. This I'm not sure about. A relatively small overall part of the military but their most effective and motivated fighters by far, seems to be the general consensus.
My guess is they would then respond by observing that it's not a single group, there is at minimum Azov, Svoboda, and Right Sector, probably more. Azov has rather notoriously been officially integrated into the Ukrainian military so it's unclear if it even makes sense to talk about it as if it were an entirely separate group now. And they would argue that if you indeed thought it was only a single militia then it'd be you under the influence of propaganda, not them, so this would probably backfire.
Now, does this justify 'liberation'. That's indeed a more fruitful ground for discussion. Highlighting the USA/Soviet alliance is maybe a good tactic, albeit it may backfire (perhaps this Russian hated the Soviet Union, a lot did). And it takes you down the more philosophical road, which I recommend, because the actual details of Ukraine are so messy that debating it may not result in the clean outcome you seek.
"I would ask to be educated on the nature of these Nazi militias. Are they members of a party? Is the militia exclusively made up of Nazis? What proportion of the armed forces are they?"
I'm not an expert, have just read a few articles about this (pre 2020). But to answer your questions:
1. Yes, it's called Svoboda. Also, after the 2014 revolution/coup/whatever it was, many were directly appointed to the government by the new president.
"After the coup, the neo-Nazis were awarded for their effectiveness. When "Yats" took power with US support, he appointed neo-Nazis to 4 ministries in his govt. Andriy Parubiy, a founder of Svoboda, and a commandant of the 2014 coup’s "self-defense forces," became the national security chief. Right Sektor and the Azov Battalion were incorporated into the National Guard of the military. Poroshenko, who succeeded Yatsenyuk, praised them as "great warriors" and dispatched them to fight the ethnic Russians and separatists in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine."
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/03/27/msm-cover-up-of-neo-...
2. Militias like Azov are entirely Nazi, it seems, but are an integrated component of the wider Ukrainian military, which is not. Though I suppose we may wonder how non-Nazi they really are if they fight alongside them.
3. This I'm not sure about. A relatively small overall part of the military but their most effective and motivated fighters by far, seems to be the general consensus.
It's not that they don't know the truth.They lived for a very long time believing o lie that now is hard to admit that they were wrong. People don't like to admit that they are / were wrong.
You can't control what other people think, so let go of the anxiety.
Yes. To see past propaganda, separate in your mind the concepts of a government and the people. A governments and its leaders are to the people, as you are to the earth you walk on: temporary, fickle, selfish, often destructive but ultimately irrelevant.
[deleted]
I'd find something else to talk to my relatives about rather than cutting them off beacuse we disagree on a topic neither of us has any influence over.
As a Chinese, I feel exactly the same way as your friend does.
The Chinese government thinks they can lie however they want to its people and to the outside world, because there are language and internet barriers.
For example, they claimed to be neutral regarding the ongoing war, but they are spreading pro-war misinformation via state owned media, and teaching pro-war ideologies at school.
People now are trying to translate their lies through the big translation movement To expose their evil doings . https://twitter.com/tgtm_official
And it worked, they winded down the pro-war education plan, at least publicly.
The Chinese government thinks they can lie however they want to its people and to the outside world, because there are language and internet barriers.
For example, they claimed to be neutral regarding the ongoing war, but they are spreading pro-war misinformation via state owned media, and teaching pro-war ideologies at school.
People now are trying to translate their lies through the big translation movement To expose their evil doings . https://twitter.com/tgtm_official
And it worked, they winded down the pro-war education plan, at least publicly.
I've noticed lots of commentators who seemingly couldn't point to Ukraine on a map before February have suggested that Ukraine's Nazi links are fabricated, when even mainstream media was reporting this before 2022.
It includes things such as Ukraine's police departments providing operational support to Nazi groups, and the groups' history of arming themselves with heavy weapons including missiles. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ukraine has a long history of directly supporting these groups. Implying either the Nazi groups don't exist or that they're not intertwined with government is opportunistic historical revisionism.
The West not only ignores the problem, but directly supports the Nazi groups through weapons shipments, propaganda lines and protection from censorship. [5] [6]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/world/europe/italy-neo-na...
[3] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/09/04/the...
[4] https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraines-anti-russia-azov-batt...
[5] https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba...
[6] https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1501171543371665408
It includes things such as Ukraine's police departments providing operational support to Nazi groups, and the groups' history of arming themselves with heavy weapons including missiles. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ukraine has a long history of directly supporting these groups. Implying either the Nazi groups don't exist or that they're not intertwined with government is opportunistic historical revisionism.
The West not only ignores the problem, but directly supports the Nazi groups through weapons shipments, propaganda lines and protection from censorship. [5] [6]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/world/europe/italy-neo-na...
[3] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/09/04/the...
[4] https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraines-anti-russia-azov-batt...
[5] https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba...
[6] https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1501171543371665408
Another way to fight propaganda is to fight those who spread false narratives and lies. Ideally by giving them a fair trial, then attaching them to a chair and forcing them to watch their creations till the end of the days. Think Orange Clockwork. Though better it would be to let them work in rebuilding the cities that their propaganda destroyed. Unfortunately these people are uncapable of creation so it's a vain idea.
Except just declaring something as a "lie" will not solve the problem. You have to at least explain why it is a lie.
> Another way to fight propaganda is to fight those who spread false narratives and lies.
Good luck with that. They are mostly powerful rich people with an agenda, and they're a lot better than us at being nasty.
As for the victims, it's not going to work. The pandemic revealed us how deep some people are detached from reality.
There still are people dying of Covid who spend their very last breath yelling at doctors and nurses, refusing treatment and calling it a hoax although it is evidently killing them. An ex friend of mine had both his unvaccinated parents hospitalized for symptomatic Covid and lost another unvaccinated relative; still he's a very active anti vaxxer. I'm becoming extremely racist against these people; I know it's not right and if there was a god she would punish me, but I can't consider them on the same level of other humans; if learning from mistakes is the basis behind intelligence, they're clearly far far behind everyone else.
Good luck with that. They are mostly powerful rich people with an agenda, and they're a lot better than us at being nasty.
As for the victims, it's not going to work. The pandemic revealed us how deep some people are detached from reality.
There still are people dying of Covid who spend their very last breath yelling at doctors and nurses, refusing treatment and calling it a hoax although it is evidently killing them. An ex friend of mine had both his unvaccinated parents hospitalized for symptomatic Covid and lost another unvaccinated relative; still he's a very active anti vaxxer. I'm becoming extremely racist against these people; I know it's not right and if there was a god she would punish me, but I can't consider them on the same level of other humans; if learning from mistakes is the basis behind intelligence, they're clearly far far behind everyone else.
That is unfortunately true. It seems to me, at some level, the whole problem is less about knowledge than about which sources someone regards as trustworthy and which not.
We can only experience very little of the world directly. For most of our knowledge, we have to rely on intermediaries which tell us about the world. If some of those intermediaries offer contradictory information or offer information that contradict with your own experiences or discredit other intermediaries then things get problematic and you have to pick side about which intermediaries to trust.
I think psychologically, this is a hard problem to solve.
We can only experience very little of the world directly. For most of our knowledge, we have to rely on intermediaries which tell us about the world. If some of those intermediaries offer contradictory information or offer information that contradict with your own experiences or discredit other intermediaries then things get problematic and you have to pick side about which intermediaries to trust.
I think psychologically, this is a hard problem to solve.
There are also people who now live with crippling injuries, or who died, because they took the vaccines, despite being at statistically ~no risk from COVID. They took them because they were told, wrongly, that the shots were perfectly safe. Detached from reality, it seems.
BTW, you probably shouldn't admit that you're nasty and "racist" whilst also claiming to be more intelligent than other people who made different decisions to you. It's a nonsensical claim: refusing shots is not a race, and black Americans refuse shots at a much higher rate than whites do anyway. Hating anti-vaxxers is just ordinary hatred, pure and simple. You don't need to abuse unrelated words for it.
BTW, you probably shouldn't admit that you're nasty and "racist" whilst also claiming to be more intelligent than other people who made different decisions to you. It's a nonsensical claim: refusing shots is not a race, and black Americans refuse shots at a much higher rate than whites do anyway. Hating anti-vaxxers is just ordinary hatred, pure and simple. You don't need to abuse unrelated words for it.
Every medicine has its own risks and contraindications, whoever tells the opposite is lying. We however keep taking medicines when prescribed because the balance of risks vs benefits strongly leans towards the benefits, right now in my country over 95% of hospitalized Covid patients are either not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated; those are solid numbers that anti vaxxers are free to ignore until it hits them directly. I take Aspirine every day, although every year people die because of it, but how many people would die if there was no Aspirine around?
Sorry for the slow response.
"Every medicine has its own risks and contraindications, whoever tells the opposite is lying"
Correct. Yet here's Bill Gates' GAVI saying "Vaccines are safe. Here's why" and of course there are hundreds of thousands more cases where people are told things like that by trusted authorities:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/covid-19-vaccines-are-safe...
This is standard - either claim the issue is black/white, or claim that whilst vaccines might have bad side effects in theory, in practice they basically never do (which is not the case). This is deceptive misinformation, but it's not being spread by randoms on the internet, it's being spread by governments and health authorities.
Consider the following:
1. The stat you quoted is meaningless (and almost certainly wrong but we'll get to that in a second). To understand the costs/benefits you have to understand the absolute risk of injury or death from vaccines vs the absolute risk of injury or death from COVID. Authorities never present such stats because the true absolute risk of COVID death or even hospitalization for most age groups is so low that it'd just cause people to wonder why they'd bother taking a vaccine at all.
2. Even if they do present such comparisons, vaccine injuries are being systematically ignored or misclassified by the medical system so there's no way to do an accurate comparison anyway.
As such nobody can truly make an informed decision on this topic.
Now the 95% stat is almost certainly wrong anyway. I don't mean you're quoting it wrong, I mean it's not being calculated correctly. For quite some time, observers outside the health system have been pointing out that there are methodological errors in the way vaccine efficacy stats are being calculated, all of which significantly inflate the apparent effectiveness.
The problem comes from two places:
1. The vaccines have an immunosuppressive effect. From the start, sceptics like Berenson noticed that there were non-seasonal COVID waves happening that appeared to always line up perfectly with the start of vaccine rollout. Some speculated that this was due to people gathering together in vaccination centers, others that the vaccines themselves were temporarily suppressing the immune system. Seems like the latter explanation was more correct. As part of the Pfizer document releases just a few days ago, a document came out that showed the vaccines do in fact reduce immune system operation due to lymphocyte migration and that Pfizer knew this after the stage 1 trials.
So vaccine programmes actually make people more susceptible to COVID, temporarily. This was also confirmed by data accidentally released by the Albertan health authority that showed this in action:
https://dailydose19.substack.com/p/government-of-alberta-can...
That's clearly a major issue if you repeatedly vaccinate people during a pandemic. However this effect is hidden by a statistical trick - they only count someone has vaccinated starting from two weeks after their second dose. Until that point every infection or death counts as unvaccinated, even though that isn't true.
So what happens if you give someone an immunosuppressant and then allocate all the resulting infections to the "did not take" bucket? You make it look like the vaccines are far more effective than they really are.
2. Second problem; the claims vaccines are highly effective against infection (which is strongly related to hospitalization stats given how they're derived) are broken by two sub-problems:
2a. Some countries like the USA and Germany count people as unvaccinated if they couldn't locate proof of vaccination. They conflate unknown status with unvaccinated, which is wrong (a lie, really).
2b. They aren't comparing case rates as you'd expect but deltas in test positivity ratios. This isn't valid because the methodology assumes no differences in test behavior between groups i.e. that the patient doesn't control whether they get tested or not. Clearly not true with COVID.
End result - all claims like yours, even when made earnestly and with the best intentions, rest on a completely and deliberately corrupted set of stats. We actually cannot tell whether vaccines are effective or not, but given that raw case rates in the few places that report them (like the UK) show vaccinated people getting COVID at quadruple the rate of unvaccinated people, it seems unlikely. The cause is probably OAS/priming effects.
"Every medicine has its own risks and contraindications, whoever tells the opposite is lying"
Correct. Yet here's Bill Gates' GAVI saying "Vaccines are safe. Here's why" and of course there are hundreds of thousands more cases where people are told things like that by trusted authorities:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/covid-19-vaccines-are-safe...
This is standard - either claim the issue is black/white, or claim that whilst vaccines might have bad side effects in theory, in practice they basically never do (which is not the case). This is deceptive misinformation, but it's not being spread by randoms on the internet, it's being spread by governments and health authorities.
Consider the following:
1. The stat you quoted is meaningless (and almost certainly wrong but we'll get to that in a second). To understand the costs/benefits you have to understand the absolute risk of injury or death from vaccines vs the absolute risk of injury or death from COVID. Authorities never present such stats because the true absolute risk of COVID death or even hospitalization for most age groups is so low that it'd just cause people to wonder why they'd bother taking a vaccine at all.
2. Even if they do present such comparisons, vaccine injuries are being systematically ignored or misclassified by the medical system so there's no way to do an accurate comparison anyway.
As such nobody can truly make an informed decision on this topic.
Now the 95% stat is almost certainly wrong anyway. I don't mean you're quoting it wrong, I mean it's not being calculated correctly. For quite some time, observers outside the health system have been pointing out that there are methodological errors in the way vaccine efficacy stats are being calculated, all of which significantly inflate the apparent effectiveness.
The problem comes from two places:
1. The vaccines have an immunosuppressive effect. From the start, sceptics like Berenson noticed that there were non-seasonal COVID waves happening that appeared to always line up perfectly with the start of vaccine rollout. Some speculated that this was due to people gathering together in vaccination centers, others that the vaccines themselves were temporarily suppressing the immune system. Seems like the latter explanation was more correct. As part of the Pfizer document releases just a few days ago, a document came out that showed the vaccines do in fact reduce immune system operation due to lymphocyte migration and that Pfizer knew this after the stage 1 trials.
So vaccine programmes actually make people more susceptible to COVID, temporarily. This was also confirmed by data accidentally released by the Albertan health authority that showed this in action:
https://dailydose19.substack.com/p/government-of-alberta-can...
That's clearly a major issue if you repeatedly vaccinate people during a pandemic. However this effect is hidden by a statistical trick - they only count someone has vaccinated starting from two weeks after their second dose. Until that point every infection or death counts as unvaccinated, even though that isn't true.
So what happens if you give someone an immunosuppressant and then allocate all the resulting infections to the "did not take" bucket? You make it look like the vaccines are far more effective than they really are.
2. Second problem; the claims vaccines are highly effective against infection (which is strongly related to hospitalization stats given how they're derived) are broken by two sub-problems:
2a. Some countries like the USA and Germany count people as unvaccinated if they couldn't locate proof of vaccination. They conflate unknown status with unvaccinated, which is wrong (a lie, really).
2b. They aren't comparing case rates as you'd expect but deltas in test positivity ratios. This isn't valid because the methodology assumes no differences in test behavior between groups i.e. that the patient doesn't control whether they get tested or not. Clearly not true with COVID.
End result - all claims like yours, even when made earnestly and with the best intentions, rest on a completely and deliberately corrupted set of stats. We actually cannot tell whether vaccines are effective or not, but given that raw case rates in the few places that report them (like the UK) show vaccinated people getting COVID at quadruple the rate of unvaccinated people, it seems unlikely. The cause is probably OAS/priming effects.
There's Nazis everywhere dude:
https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2022/opinion/russia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta_Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhoga
https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-german-neo-nazis-training-in-r...
I think you will find the stuff about Biological Weapons Labs is a load of nonsense too.
https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2022/opinion/russia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta_Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhoga
https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-german-neo-nazis-training-in-r...
I think you will find the stuff about Biological Weapons Labs is a load of nonsense too.
A quote from the first link:
> When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration, the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term.
Right wing militias in the context of constant ongoing military pressure from Russia and the forceful seizure of Crimea, also by Russia.
> When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration, the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term.
Right wing militias in the context of constant ongoing military pressure from Russia and the forceful seizure of Crimea, also by Russia.
Alright, but then have media at least acknowledge the existence of right-wing militas and put them into context.
As far as the public discussion (at least in Germany) went so far, the first media response to the "denazification" speech was more or less "wtf is that guy talking about?". There was no talk at all about any right-wing groups in Ukraine at all. After some time, at least existence of Azov had to be tacitly acknowledged, but only that so far.
That's not exactly trust-building.
As far as the public discussion (at least in Germany) went so far, the first media response to the "denazification" speech was more or less "wtf is that guy talking about?". There was no talk at all about any right-wing groups in Ukraine at all. After some time, at least existence of Azov had to be tacitly acknowledged, but only that so far.
That's not exactly trust-building.
[deleted]
Also note that until Trump, The US government had an embargo against arming Ukraine due to their extreme Neo Nazi movement.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms...
Obama was well aware of it and had 100% hands off approach to arming Ukraine. The process of arming Ukraine started with Trump and continued with Biden when the US government realized they can sell their weapons without hurting any of their lives (the exact same as arming Mujaheddin to fight the Russians)
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms...
Obama was well aware of it and had 100% hands off approach to arming Ukraine. The process of arming Ukraine started with Trump and continued with Biden when the US government realized they can sell their weapons without hurting any of their lives (the exact same as arming Mujaheddin to fight the Russians)
That link just says there was an embargo against arming that specific movement in Ukraine, not against arming Ukraine.
The sibling comment correctly explains why the article doesn't say what you thought it did, that the US had been giving aid to Ukraine since 2014 and only in 2018 specified that none of that aid should go to a particular militia.
The real reason the US didn't arm Ukraine was that it didn't want to provoke Putin into escalating the conflict: https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-russia-we...
The real reason the US didn't arm Ukraine was that it didn't want to provoke Putin into escalating the conflict: https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-russia-we...
It is quite likely that he told YOU that because he knows you would be brainwashed with western propaganda so there's not much he can tell you that will change your mind.
This is a strategy many foreigners have to adopt when living abroad, specially if they live in a country where nation states aren't fully aligned in propaganda matters.
Chinese people have to do this while living in most of the world outside China. Indians and Middle easterns have to do the same for most of the world. Americans have to do it in most of the world, including in Europe, specially if their politics isn't fully aligned with Hollywood liberalism.
There is very little likelyhood that he is totally onboard with US propaganda despite having most friends/family in Russia/Ukraine and himself living in the West. I mean he's exposed to conflicting state propaganda before for sure and knows all states use propaganda for their own benefits. He probably knows how to handle it without causing conflicts in personal relationships so he will say whatever needs to be said to keep the people in their bubble.
This is a strategy many foreigners have to adopt when living abroad, specially if they live in a country where nation states aren't fully aligned in propaganda matters.
Chinese people have to do this while living in most of the world outside China. Indians and Middle easterns have to do the same for most of the world. Americans have to do it in most of the world, including in Europe, specially if their politics isn't fully aligned with Hollywood liberalism.
There is very little likelyhood that he is totally onboard with US propaganda despite having most friends/family in Russia/Ukraine and himself living in the West. I mean he's exposed to conflicting state propaganda before for sure and knows all states use propaganda for their own benefits. He probably knows how to handle it without causing conflicts in personal relationships so he will say whatever needs to be said to keep the people in their bubble.
Make it worth their while to change their mind. Anti-vaxxers can be persuaded to get vaccinated by offering them rewards. Others follow the lead of celebrities they like and respect. It may not work on everyone but it works on the group-level.
the solution to countering propaganda is counter-propaganda?
how can a consumer of counter-propaganda be certain that the Truth expressed in said counter-propaganda is Genuine, when the same techniques as the ones that the opposing viewpoint is using are being deployed to propagate it?
surely, if you are certain that your viewpoint is the Genuine Truth, then it will not need to be propagated through propaganda?
how can a consumer of counter-propaganda be certain that the Truth expressed in said counter-propaganda is Genuine, when the same techniques as the ones that the opposing viewpoint is using are being deployed to propagate it?
surely, if you are certain that your viewpoint is the Genuine Truth, then it will not need to be propagated through propaganda?
Not propaganda, but you have to realize that people are opportunistic and acting in their own self-interests. Companies pulling out of Russia and people standing with Ukraine are doing so, while at the same time ignoring decades of Israeli aggression against Palestinians, are doing so because it is opportune. Not because they care about the Genuine Truth.
My friend told me he couldn't talk to his relatives back home anymore. He is sending them videos and images from the war in Ukraine, and nothing won't change their minds and conviction that Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis.
Now I wonder: Is there any clever way to combat Propaganda in such a situation? How can you establish at least doubt in the other person's mind?
EDIT: I didn’t want to discuss what’s right or wrong. I am interested to learn about effective ways / processes to combat propaganda.