6 ms·

Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War'

77 points by wrongc0ntinent 10y ago

nickgrosvenor 10y ago
You wonder how the world can sink into war and then you start to understand how it works when you study today's political climate. It seems like a slow motion inevitability. People's opinions are just so strong. To make matters worse, seems like the smartphone revolution has provided quick communication channels that magnify the rhetoric. Forget more information at your finger tips, smartphones and the internet provide easier means of finding like-minded people to raise pitchforks with.
- cmurf 10y ago
  It's not the speed that's the problem, it's that they aren't as well vetted, nor are they diverse. It's easy to avoid uncomfortable facts and opinions. It is necessary to get variety in order to triangulate and assess.
  - steego 10y ago
    The Balkanization of news and opinions is a minor facet of the overall situation that's unfolding. The biggest thing going on is opinion shapers and propagandists have been given powerful tools the 20th century PR men could have only dreamed about. Growth hacking, sentiment analysis, personal network analysis, and deep learning are all things that allow cunning people to do extraordinary things. Messages can be tested and fine tuned to see which ideas resonate. Communication channels can be established directly to the recipient of your message by creating Facebook groups and the like. People simply haven't developed this critical thinking skills to defend themselves from this new onslaught of opinion shaping tech whose efficacy is based on very timely data. I imagine Boyd's Law of Iteration is going to be a huge factor in deciding who wins the new propaganda wars. https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ Updated: Minor edits for clarity
ak39 10y ago
Scary prospect for us all. I read a Pilger article last year that sent chills down my back: http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-silence- http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-t...
- dgudkov 10y ago
  His view of the world is very skewed. I wouldn't take him as an authority.
general_ai 10y ago
As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would be able to do a better job.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  As I remember, the price of oil and the previous Soviet neglect of their oil field infrastructure figured in heavily, there.
  - tilt_error 10y ago
    Not to mention the tremendous cost of handling the Chernobyl catastrophy...
  - general_ai 10y ago
    You "remember" wrong. I actually _was_ there. Neglect and price of oil weren't in any way fatal to a largely self-sufficient country. Complete collapse of all branches of the government was.
    - jayjay71 10y ago
      I'd like to hear more. Can you be more specific about what you think led to the fall of the Soviet Union?
      - david38 10y ago
        It didn't help that the US did everything it could to drop the price of oil specifically to destroy the income source of the USSR. USSR is too dependent on that single income source and left itself open to attack.
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      The empire certainly wasn't self-sufficient, although the Russian center was richer. The empire depended on very large-scale oil exports, to subsidize the bloc. Even with those exports, the line-ups for basics was real in Russia, too. Russia's self-sufficiency isn't much in evidence today, either, as the economy shrinks year-on-year, and three-quarters of a million of the most capable people emigrate each year.
Intimatik 10y ago
Never made this old schizophrenic, he's always keen to get attention
nspassov 10y ago
Clickbait-y title from Time magazine. No easier way to actually start a war than to talk about it and how the "others" are somehow more prepared. Very sad to see such article from one of the few still supposedly reputable publishers.
Dk241 10y ago
Oh no, they are concentrating weapons in Europe! Maybe we should stop shelling the east of Ukraine and get out of its south (Crimea)?
kosherbeefcake 10y ago
While I'm not discounting the current geo-political climate, but every so often you'll see reports that some calamitous event will occur. When it invariably doesn't occur, no one follows up and says "why did you say that, nothing happened". If it does happen though, they can say "See, I told you so!"

You wonder how the world can sink into war and then you start to understand how it works when you study today's political climate. It seems like a slow motion inevitability. People's opinions are just so strong. To make matters worse, seems like the smartphone revolution has provided quick communication channels that magnify the rhetoric. Forget more information at your finger tips, smartphones and the internet provide easier means of finding like-minded people to raise pitchforks with.

cmurf 10y ago
It's not the speed that's the problem, it's that they aren't as well vetted, nor are they diverse. It's easy to avoid uncomfortable facts and opinions. It is necessary to get variety in order to triangulate and assess.
- steego 10y ago
  The Balkanization of news and opinions is a minor facet of the overall situation that's unfolding. The biggest thing going on is opinion shapers and propagandists have been given powerful tools the 20th century PR men could have only dreamed about. Growth hacking, sentiment analysis, personal network analysis, and deep learning are all things that allow cunning people to do extraordinary things. Messages can be tested and fine tuned to see which ideas resonate. Communication channels can be established directly to the recipient of your message by creating Facebook groups and the like. People simply haven't developed this critical thinking skills to defend themselves from this new onslaught of opinion shaping tech whose efficacy is based on very timely data. I imagine Boyd's Law of Iteration is going to be a huge factor in deciding who wins the new propaganda wars. https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ Updated: Minor edits for clarity

ak39 10y ago

Scary prospect for us all. I read a Pilger article last year that sent chills down my back: http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-silence- http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-t...

dgudkov 10y ago
His view of the world is very skewed. I wouldn't take him as an authority.

general_ai 10y ago

As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would be able to do a better job.

Nomentatus 10y ago
As I remember, the price of oil and the previous Soviet neglect of their oil field infrastructure figured in heavily, there.
- tilt_error 10y ago
  Not to mention the tremendous cost of handling the Chernobyl catastrophy...
- general_ai 10y ago
  You "remember" wrong. I actually _was_ there. Neglect and price of oil weren't in any way fatal to a largely self-sufficient country. Complete collapse of all branches of the government was.
  - jayjay71 10y ago
    I'd like to hear more. Can you be more specific about what you think led to the fall of the Soviet Union?
    - david38 10y ago
      It didn't help that the US did everything it could to drop the price of oil specifically to destroy the income source of the USSR. USSR is too dependent on that single income source and left itself open to attack.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    The empire certainly wasn't self-sufficient, although the Russian center was richer. The empire depended on very large-scale oil exports, to subsidize the bloc. Even with those exports, the line-ups for basics was real in Russia, too. Russia's self-sufficiency isn't much in evidence today, either, as the economy shrinks year-on-year, and three-quarters of a million of the most capable people emigrate each year.

Intimatik 10y ago

Never made this old schizophrenic, he's always keen to get attention

nspassov 10y ago

Clickbait-y title from Time magazine. No easier way to actually start a war than to talk about it and how the "others" are somehow more prepared. Very sad to see such article from one of the few still supposedly reputable publishers.

Dk241 10y ago

Oh no, they are concentrating weapons in Europe! Maybe we should stop shelling the east of Ukraine and get out of its south (Crimea)?

kosherbeefcake 10y ago

While I'm not discounting the current geo-political climate, but every so often you'll see reports that some calamitous event will occur. When it invariably doesn't occur, no one follows up and says "why did you say that, nothing happened". If it does happen though, they can say "See, I told you so!"