>there is talk of martial law in Russia

I want to highlight this, because I think it illustrates my point about propaganda. I dug around for a source on that statement, and this appears the most reliable source[0]. An anonymous EU official picking up on "signs". Again, this also may be totally true, but it's presented in such a flimsy way, how can a reasonable person be expected to believe it at face value?

Am I saying the quiet part out loud? Should I not question the propaganda if it is something that I think helps the situation? It's not my nature, but it seems like that's what people are doing.

0. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-says-it-is-picking-u...

Historically, if the news wasn't good or the situation needed a larger boot to step on people then martial law was taken out of the cupboard to control the population. With 8000+ Russian protestors arrested, a ban on factual news, lots of other restrictions put in place and so on talk of martial law is not all that strange.

Maybe for you it is strange, but for me it is a fairly logical next step in a series of domestic escalations. The same happened in Poland in the 80's in response to the Solidarity movement, authorities used it to be able to use the military against their own civilians. Not that that worked, but that's besides the point, they did in fact try.

And just like with the invasion being a total fabrication of the West right up to the point that it was a fact you could of course do the same thing with martial law.

But some elements of martial law are already present today, some more may follow and who is to say when it becomes enough to say that it actually happened? Would you be satisfied with 8000 people jailed and a ban on the media to report the facts or will it take a Russian army battalion shooting at protestors? Maybe some kids protesting the war jailed? Oh, sorry, that already happened. Or do you believe that is Western propaganda?

That makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is why it is presented in such a duplicitous way. It's one thing to say "When a country has this kind of internal turmoil, martial law is something that we need to watch out for." It's another thing to say "Unnamed official sees 'signs' on social media about martial law."

One way is transparent, re-enforces critical thinking, while the other way is "believe this because we told you."

I see the same signs, I am thinking in the exact same direction as that unnamed official. Mostly because I lived under official 'martial law' for a while to understand what it means and when dictatorial governments reach for it: when they can no longer control the narrative. As soon as that becomes the danger martial law is on the menu, because it allows the government to crack down on the second order effects (since they can't do anything about the root cause, bad news is bad news).

The main thing that right now seems to keep martial law at bay in Russia is because, besides being a tacit admission that not all is well and that there is an internal problem in Russia that that would require Putin to give the military more power, something that he is absolutely loathe to do because that very same power could be used against him. But if not for that I am pretty sure we'd already be there.

Rumours are not propaganda.

No you haven't discovered a vast EU-wide conspiracy or someone 'saying the quiet part out loud'. Nobody knows what is going on and naturally there is lots of speculation to fill the void.

Rumours are not official propaganda; but they can certainly be a psy-op.

(Not suggesting that that’s the case here; just that you shouldn’t forget how e.g. the US CIA engineers coups in other countries, when thinking about how other large states work.)

Rumors is how politics gets done in my backwards country. You start a rumor about the opposition, they start rumors about you. You start rumors about great projects, the opposition starts rumors about how bad it is. The opposition shits on your project, you start rumors about their vested interests in stopping it. Before elections you start rumors about anything and everything and then back again.

Someone in your way? Start a rumor that they do X and then attack them for not stepping down from power. Want to check if people agree or disagree with something? Start a rumor on Friday, monitor for responses, fight in rumors during the week-end and next week, if the rumors align, maybe start that something.

I don't see how rumors are never propaganda.

I didn’t use the word never. I said they are not, i.e. the two words are not equivalent.

Yes there are rumours, are they propaganda? I don’t think so in this case - young male Russians are being questioned at the border, flights are being stopped, and the idea has been floated of forced conscription of anti-war protesters. Even mentioning the word war is a crime. Russia is very close to martial law already and I’m not surprised there is speculation about it.

Also, quite frankly no one in the west cares much if Putin imposes martial law, it’s already a pariah state and a dictatorship. As propaganda this rumour would be pretty useless.

Rumors can absolutely be propaganda.

> Am I saying the quiet part out loud?

Yes, in some sense. This is your own internal process of turning all the information into a picture of what is really going on.

When you start projecting it on other people and making judgements about whether they are “reasonable”, you’re going find out that they have a very different picture from you. There are a lot of people who have lived or worked in that part of the world, speak the local languages, and have a much higher ability to filter the news stream into an accurate picture of what’s actually happening on the ground.

Well, this was coming straight from Russian officials: https://tass.ru/politika/13873997

Ah found it - it denies they will institute martial law, but that definitely qualifies as it being talked about

https://tass.ru/politika/13980355

(Clearly very a pro-Russia site fyi)

Does anyone understand what this means: “Russia is considering the decriminalization of economic crimes, especially damages”?

Very interesting site to read! Perhaps you linked the wrong article though, that one is about Russia being kicked out of some EU groups and them saying they don’t care.

they essentially allow software/etc piracy, companies instead of paying back $$ loans taken abroad can pay them out in rubles to local accounts. also looks like they are going to steal all leased planes

I mean, does it even matter what the Russian government claims or denies at this point? They were clearly dishonest about Ukraine in the months leading up to the invasion. The West was clearly sharing good intel on the Russians' intentions. There is obviously propaganda on both sides, but that does not make the information from our respective governments equally worthless. I think the government that just shut out most foreign and independent press, spins insane stories about Jewish Nazis and make it illegal to even print "war" is probably the less credible propaganda maker in this situation. The truth may be the first victim in war but that does not mean it's dead.

I thought you need a schengen visa to enter finland, and there would not have been time to get one from the time the war started. I would like to hear more details on this news.

A lot of Russians do have visas they obtained for tourism.

I think you missed the parent's comment.

FTA: "Buses travelling from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga are also fully booked."

How do I prove:

- This is true without actually seeing the data that buses are fully booked

- Yle is a trustworthy media outlet and what they are saying is true

- The Finnish government isn't booking the buses and then telling the media that buses are booked

For the record - I believe that Russians are trying to do exactly what you said and what the article says. I trust this.

However, this is precisely the issue - what outlets do you really trust? Stuff that comes from BBC? CNN? New age "influencers" on YT/TikTok? This is the problem.

You can estimate the trustworthiness by analyzing the motives of the source. YLE is the Finnish equivalent of BBC. They have a record of being extremely trustworthy (this can be analysed retrospectively). Do they have a significant enough incentive to lie about this subject to throw that trust away? I see no such motive here, thus it's highly probable that the source is not intentionally lying. The same is true when it comes to the Finnish Government.

I don't actually care what your personal threshold for believing something is, I care about mine, and mine is more than satisfied.

People say the same stuff about the number of Russian dead claimed by the Ukrainian defense forces. Are they exaggerating? Probably yes. Is it with a factor that changes the facts in a meaningful way? Probably not, given the portion that has been independently verified. Even if that's all there is then it is already enough to count as fact, and it very, very likely isn't all there is.

Something similar is happening here: the amount of evidence that Russian cosmopolitans are reading the writing on the wall is ample, it is reflected in the restrictions in how much capital Russians can take with them abroad, it is reflected in the number of trains running (those things are pretty hard to fake) and it is reflected in all of the personal stories and cries for help from Russians to try to get settled where ever they arrived.

Personally I won't give them quarter until the last of the Ukrainian refugees has been settled, but I do believe the fact that many Russians are fleeing Russia while they can. But they are fleeing for economic reasons, Ukrainians are fleeing so they can stay alive.

>However, this is precisely the issue - what outlets do you really trust? Stuff that comes from BBC? CNN? New age "influencers" on YT/TikTok? This is the problem.

see: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust

Or applying your comment to a domestic news event. Suppose fox news say there's a school shooting. How do you prove:

- This is true without actually going to the school to see the dead bodies

- The US government isn't hiring crisis actors and then telling the media that there's a shooting