Yet again this week: this needs upvoting for visibility and downvoting for their experience.
Many in the UK and the USA in particular (but in Europe as well) can relate to this kind of experience of talking to someone who exists in an irrational belief bubble concerning one or two other topics.
But in most cases it doesn't have anywhere near the stark awfulness of this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60600487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30555692
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The 25-year-old has been speaking regularly to her mother, who lives in Moscow. But in these conversations, and even after sending videos from her heavily bombarded hometown, Oleksandra is unable to convince her mother about the danger she is in.
"I didn't want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying," she says.
"But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people."
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He was surprised not to have heard from his father, who works at a monastery near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He called his father and described what was happening. His father replied that this wasn't true; there was no war and - in fact - Russians were saving Ukraine from Nazis.
Mykhailo said he felt he knew the power of Russian propaganda, but when he heard it from his father, he was devastated.
"My own father does not believe me, knowing that I'm here and see everything with my own eyes. And my mum, his ex-wife, is going through this too," he says.
"She is hiding with my grandmother in the bathroom, because of the bombardment."
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"I called my mum again. I told her I was scared. 'Don't worry', she said, reassuringly. 'They [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv'."
But they are already doing it, Anastasiya replied.
"I told her there were casualties among civilians. 'But that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas!', she said, laughing. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Hearing my mum say this with such cruelty just broke my heart."
Anastasiya believes the image Russian media has created is one of the "glorified Russian army" ridding Ukraine from Nazis. For years she avoided political arguments with her parents, but this time she slammed the phone down on her mum.
We spoke to Anastasiya when she was travelling away from Kyiv after four nights in a bomb shelter. Her mind was on an uncertain future.
Not at all hard to believe that a significant proportion of Russian people believe this lie.
Are you actually claiming that the scale of absurdity between believing election fraud (something members of both parties claim, every losing election, going back decades[1]) and that Ukrainians are killing themselves, en masse, are remotely the same?
1. Here's Hilary Clinton continuing to make claims about 2016 in mainstream media: https://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-electi...
If people with a free press believe propaganda and lies, what do you expect of people who only have a state-run propaganda machine?
This is your error. They don't "only" have state-run propaganda, and these aren't a backwards, brainwashed, uneducated people.
I'm not in Russia, obviously, but from what I can gather from social media, although outside media is "banned", it's still easy enough to find. Similarly to how easy I can still find RT (or worse).
"A significant proportion of Americans believe the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen. And that’s with free press in America. Not at all hard to believe that a significant proportion of Russian people believe this lie."
Believing in election fraud and believing that a population are coincidentally killing themselves during a military incursion are not remotely analogous.
But for fun, once again, your statement appears to be: "if Americans can believe the 2020 election was stolen (the first sentence), then it's not a stretch to think Russians will believe the Ukrainians are killing themselves (the third sentence)."
It's right there for everyone to read. So what are you actually arguing?
I remember a very suspicious suicide in Argentina, and how some media were theorizing that he killed himself to make the government look bad.
You believe that the Russians believe this about the Ukrainians? A people with whom they share much culture?
>Propaganda could say they are killing themselves to make Russia look bad.
Yeah, it could say anything. How about demonstrating it does say?
Part of the issue is it isn’t free. So many people were banned. News stories banned. Companies banned and dropped.
When you get that level of censorship it creates a massive level of distrust. Further, what’s “truth” when the facts can’t be debated...
The internet press is more “free as in beer” than ever. It costs nothing. It is probably about as “free as in speech” as it ever was, the variety is a testament to that. But it is not free from influence. It is tied to a profit feedback motive more than it ever has been. Put words on a screen, optimize for profit yield. Until the “press” regains its freedom from this, it will not be free. It will be profit constrained.
In a similar vein, I think it is silly we have social media. It’s profit media more than it is social.
I think you misinterpreted what the parent poster meant about Ukrainian s killing themselves. It probably meant Ukrainians killing other Ukrainians in false flag operations and not suicides.
This is exactly what they believe. More then that , they are told that some of Ukrainians are “nazis” who kill ‘normal’ Ukrainians. They’ve been told that all horrible bombing scenes the world is witnessing are done not by rus. invader but by by those “nazis” Ukrainians. They are truly believe that and they are happy that rus. army is saving “normal” Ukrainians.
Talk to me about their IQ but it is impossible to convince them otherwise, and trust me I’ve tried and others tried they are complete zombies and would not trust even relatives. They would say that you are brain washed by western propaganda and only them are proud russians who know the truth. No logic can convince them because the source of their believes is not logically based but emotionally based.
Yes it’s that bad! And people in the west who do not understand that are too naive and have no idea with what they are dealing and how enormously dangerous it is. For many people this war came as big surprise. They still think that if russians only knew they would stop. Only force cam stop them now. Sanctions are too little too late and too slow and people in Ukraine are dying also due to the stupidity and naivety of those who can stop it.
If you think I am exaggerating, try to convince at least one russian, and share your experience here !!!
Does it give credibility to the allegation that there's still slavery in America?
Neither is the US. But you and me have seen during this pandemic, to people able to reason that pneumonia can kill, and covid can cause pneumonia, but unable to reason that covid can kill. Propaganda is like that.
You only have to take a look at what sects do to people to see the kind of gymnastics people can do in their reasoning because propaganda.
Or on the individual level -- I labour this point because I sadly see it in people I know -- at the kind of mental gymnastics an abused partner inevitably uses to explain away their situation and avoid challenging it.
The thing is, analysis paralysis happens even in situations without a malign actor.
Many malign actors have an instinctive, almost unknowing ability to exploit it.
Usually, it’s a strawman. People in favor of lockdowns, masks, and similar interventions ridicule those who aren’t by falsely claiming they “don’t believe in Covid”.
Whether it’s worth accepting X amount of suffering to increase average life expectancy by Y years depends on the values of X and Y. If someone argues it’s not worth it in a particular case, that doesn’t necessarily mean they think Y is zero.
But there are people who literally think the world is 4000 years old. There are people who believe evolution doesn't happen. There are even people who believe the earth is flat. And you find a strawman that there are people who think that nobody is dying of covid?
To clarify the belief that was cultivated through propaganda is that there are reckless Nazi groups in Ukraine who stop at nothing to hurt russians. They were striking at ethnically russian regions of Ukraine for last 8 years. When Russia invaded to fight these groups they positioned their forces in the hospitals and schools. As they strike back they are hitting their own schools and hospitals mostly from being sloppy, because that's what they are and the equipment is old. And in some cases maliciously, because they need gruesome content for the west. Russian forces are doing precision strikes and hurt no civilians.
I think you underestimate how massive and elaborate Russian propaganda is. These stories are fed in pieces over weeks, sometimes years. For example it took multiple years to establish and cement the idea of Nazi groups in Ukraine. Now if you start at this belief it's not that far fetched to believe these groups have no regard for human life whether it is their foreign or their own.
There are Nazi groups in the Ukraine, and they have a long history. Is this in dispute?
She’s a latvian citizen - but Russian speaking - so she consumes Russian TV and radio.
My wife had a tearful falling out with her a few days ago on the phone, as she’s absolutely drunk the Kool-aid - Ukrainians are all Nazis, we’re rescuing Russian prisoners, Biden is planning a nuclear first strike on St Petersburg, etc. etc.
A large swathe of the population grew up in a world where the state is the world, and everything external to the state is the enemy.
This sounds like Western meta-propaganda. Russia isn't some mysterious other-world filled with low IQ people. Are we really to believe that swaths of their population believes the Ukranians are merely offing themselves during an invasion? Is there anything we can read that points to this, even Fox News-type article making the claim? Colour me skpetical.