Imagine going into a time machine and telling people that they shouldn't watch a documentary about some contemporary madman murderer such as pol pot or someone like that because it'll be bad for their mental health?

Maybe people are meant to face these things straight up and be hard about them

True. But it's also true that cognitive dissonance is a real thing. People actively feel discomfort when confronted with truth that conflicts with established belief, and some people just can't handle the truth - so they seek out more lies, and help to spread them as a coping mechanism. The lies are soothing. The truth is too hard.

If your preference to the truth is drinking boxes of lie juice that's on you. People acting like the media is somehow at fault here for telling it is just another box of juice to me.

Personally - I'm willing to fight tooth and nail for the truth, and I'm sick of people acting like there's some kind of ambiguity here. The world has enough genocide as is without people being wishy-washy about it while it's happening.

If you have a problem with mass murder predicated on bigotry, it's time to take a stand, just saying.

Imagine thinking that the only way to educate yourself is to watch a video that you agree could be bad for someones mental health.

Maybe people can learn in other ways that also don't subject them to harm.

If a documentary about current events is enough to wreck you somehow then you've got other issues

With 8 billion people in the world, even with the 4 billion when I was born, there's enough genuine evil[0] in the world to wreck anyone with even the slightest capacity for empathy. I have no idea if this documentary is or isn't at that level, because I have enough going on without wading into Indian politics.

Will this documentary cause its viewers to end whatever specific ills are shown within? I presume so, otherwise it wouldn't be getting censored.

Will it cause any specific person to effect that change? Probably not, most of us have no influence whatsoever over Indian politics or economics.

[0] or, if you don't like the word "evil", sadistic Machiavellian psychopathy

What's it like being okay with hurting people?

This is what you are advocating for.

Rather than present other means to learn about this, you insist that this is the ONLY way to learn about this.

It's not education of the topic you are promoting, but hurting people. You are, in many ways, supporting Modi's cause by actively working to limit the spread of the knowledge of a chilling and depressing story of how an Indian politician uses communal violence to further his career and promote religious fundamentalist fascist ideology in India.

Why are you protecting this?

> documentary about mass murder predicated on hate crimes

> mass murder predicated on hate crimes

choose one

Why are you working to protect and defend mass murder and hate crimes?

With self-censorship like this, who needs repressive government policies?

I'm sorry. I didn't know wanting to read something rather than watch a video is somehow self-censorship.

Tell me again how video is the ONLY means by which someone can educate themselves? Without using words.

Edit: In fact, by pretending that the ONLY means to watch this is a video which everyone in this thread admits is hard to watch, you are in fact helping to limit the knowledge that it shares.

In a way, you protecting Modi.

I can't tell you anything with all these words you put in my mouth.

Share links to reading material that informs the reader without harming them, or admit that by your tortured logic, you are also "protecting" Modi.

This is a valid point. Film as a media is a far more potent vector for propaganda than print. Increasingly this is being leveraged by bad actors or those who are more interested in persuasion or psychological effect than in presenting truth. That said I assume John Cusack isn’t trying to psy-op the public in this particular instance. But as a more general point, I agree people are increasingly being impacted in unproductive ways by inflammatory videos.

> Film as a media is a far more potent vector for propaganda than print.

I definitely agree with this, but in my perception the moving images themselves are secondary in effect to the audio. Tone of voice and emotive music in particular are very powerful methods of hacking emotions. When watching videos that I think are trying to be manipulative with music or tone of voice, I like to mute the audio and rely on subtitles. This is also one of the reasons that I read newspaper articles but avoid all radio and TV news broadcasts (the other reason being that newspapers hire better writers and provide more details and nuance. I read https://lite.cnn.com/ to stay in touch, but the writing there is abysmal.)

I’m converging on this myself. Very little interest in news tv, especially the highly partisan flavor which increasingly dominates. Sadly some of the better print journalism is paywalled. Sub stack is great but I’m used to free so probably not doing my part to support independent voices.

Imagine someone’s comment being voted down simply because you don’t agree with it, regardless how valid the arguments within are.

Which is expected behaviour on HN. As is not posting about downvotes.

So, where’s pvg to whine about that? Guess you’ve taken their place?

I absolutely agree with this policy, using downvotes as a sign of disagreement. There are other people who complain about, one could even say whine, about it in their profiles.

Do you watch uncensored videos of what is happening in American prisons and Guantanamo bay, of mexican mafia torturing people, of Wagner group military removing tescacles of a captive with pliers or smashing in the head of a deserting soldier with a sledge hammer?

Its all out there, and you' ve got to stay informed!

Heh, yes.

Some of those I turned off after a few seconds, but I think I got the gist.

I'm sorry, but I have no choice but to take this comment in extremely bad faith. The BBC isn't broadcasting stuff on that level with this documentary.

Its simply taking the OP's argument to the logical extreme. He demonstrated no respect for the other commenter's concern and no argument for why the bounderies defined were unreasonable, only mocked them..

I think it is only fair to question if he lives up to hos own standards

You can know Modi is a genocidal bigot without watching all the details.

if you care about individual liberty in the mid-term future, I would recommend to look into it, sure it'll be hard to watch.

The BJP party and ideology of RSS(Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) are just two sides of the same coin - hopefully India will survive this ethnofacism.

>If you care about your mental health,

One should be enough mentally stable learning something about reality.

You've learnt everything there is to know about paedophiles, cannivals and people that dimember their victims? .

Have you ever heard about hoa mental health is going for people that have to moderate social networks for this shit?

>people that dimember their victims

Yes i even eat beef for example.

> social networks

Yeah i don't do that, THATS not good for your health, not knowledge.

> Yes i even eat beef for example

Good one. Doesnt count if you've never been to a slaughterhouse and only ever see a steak wrapped a plastic at the supermarket shelf.

ah yes never watch documentaries about war either then? Masterpieces like The world at war etc?

True, i would say don't use social media if you care about your mental health, instead watch documentary's like "First Kill" or "Russia's way from the tsar to putin"..but who am i ;)

WARNING: First Kill is a deeply disturbing documentary about human nature in war (The Writer of Full Metal jacket speaks too about his memory's), it brutal and brutally honest, and the best explanation why you as a person should never ever go to war (if it's not absolutely necessary)...you have been warned.

Yeah, Indian judicial system is only fair and independent when it's time to bash modi for trying to undermine it.

Typical colonial westerner.

Not sure if I want to watch it, although -assuming it's all true- knowing to what extent a politician can screw his own people can be instructive even if we know that it could never happen in our backyard (/s).

I care about my mental health, and i will now watch it on principle, because of what you commented. I will also share the link more than i would have. Thanks for caring.

At this point I got used to that kind of story.