[kirso]

Thanks for the kind words!

Precisely. Imagine your area of knowledge is like a circle, you think you kind of get 80% of it in terms of worldview and subjective opinions. Now some random people come in and saying you are wrong and there is this other big circle which is in order of magnitude 100x bigger which shrinks your knowledge and understanding. Its very difficult to recognise that we might not be understanding all the things. But just being open for trying to get the other side helps tremendously. Even understanding the root cause of why perhaps people even think that way?

It's kind of scary... and we tend to block the scary things. Because well... its easier.

The issue in the conflict such as this is that it's never black and white. And if someone is telling you that you are pro-putin by just not condemning Russia without hearing your reasons or just blatantly attacking you - thats very short-sighted and personally I just end the debate right there, because its not up to my standards of rationality.

There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc. And again, what is right and what is wrong? Never that easy to say - all depends on your personal context.

I wish we could have a conversation something like that: - Ok lets look at the claims: - Claim X - Claim Y - Claim Z

Alright, claim Y is not that simple, because remember what happened was A, B, C.

Ok valid point, but B is also not so certain because of G.

I feel like our world really needs more education on critical-thinking and meta-learning.

[newby]

> There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc.

However strongly I am angered and scared by the current attack on Ukraine, I am also deeply shaken by questioning my own views. If one nation can be brainwashed into thinking that they are saving Ukraine from fascists, and they do not know they are brainwashed and think the other side is brainwashed... what am I brainwashed into? I already know I was also deceived big time (I totally believed that lie about WMDs in Iraq), what else is there? And I know that it can be argued that "western media" is more open and pluralistic, but don't Russians think the same about their media?

After seeing Brexit, Donald Trump, Covid, now Ukraine... we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.

Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on the views from someone closer to Russia.

[NoOn3]

Western media has almost the same amount of propaganda unfortunately. And in Russian media is a small amount of truth...

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Western media has nowhere near the same amount of propaganda. It is diverse and not controlled by the state. The west has many problems, and protecting democracy is a full time job.

With Ukraine, hundreds of countries are all seeing the same thing, independent journalists are watching.

There is no justification for escalating to a war which is what Putin has done. If he had sent troops into the regions already contested you could maybe argue that (even then it would be tenuous).

[netsharc]

Western media people fall into groupthink though. On the eve of the 2016 elections the liberal media were all certain that Hillary was going to take it, because all the liberal journalists only had liberal friends and they all hated Trump, so in their echo chamber, Trump was toast. On the reverse, in November 2012 Romney's loss came to a shock to his inner circle, because they were listening to their own echo chamber. Although to be honest, I don't remember now what Fox News was predicting in 2016.

We all have our biases, I wonder if journalists are so diligent to be thorough and re-evaluate things they assume to be X to make sure it's really X, but I doubt it.

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I remember. I was in the US, in Mountain View, on election night for work. I went to get dinner as the election was being counted. Between that and the next day, there was just shock.

[alsetmusic]

> It is diverse and not controlled by the state.

Western media isn’t controlled by the state but frequently acts in service to it. See Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

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I haven't read that book and will add it to my reading list.

I'm not naive (but far from an expert). There are all kinds of problems with western democracy, capitalism and the media (in no particular order).

There is a vast difference between the 'western media problems' and the propaganda coming out of Russia though.

The narratives around refugees in Australia are a very good example at least one of the problems with western media. Referring to refugees as 'Illegal' has led to them being locked up off-shore for extended periods of time (6+ years in some cases).

[prirun]

> we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.

It's a good idea, but people with power and money have an agenda, and their agenda is often not in sync with current reality. They want their agenda to be future reality, and suppress current reality to get there. Just my opinion.