3 ms·

>> and which we should take their word for it Would you rather distrust the UK secret service and believe whatever the hell Putin is saying? My Russian parent

>> and which we should take their word for it Would you rather distrust the UK secret service and believe whatever the hell Putin is saying? My Russian parents are so happy to listen to Russian television it makes me sick (given the fact that they are Lithuanian citizens since 1991). The question is not whether you should trust UK secret service, but rather - which side are you on? Because the fact is that we'll probably never know anyway, and Russia is happy to monetise on the liberal distrust of the government. After all, Soviets did have a culture of managing the public opinion in their own state.

AllegedAlec 8y ago
Not pointing fingers, but aren't you trying to sow distrust towards the Russians as much as they are towards the UK?
jstanley 8y ago
> which side are you on? There is no need to take a side. It is possible to simultaneously distrust the British spies and the Russian spies.
- dpwm 8y ago
  The problem is that to be disbelieving the Russian spies requires believing the British spies. To believe the Russian spies (we didn't do it, somebody in the UK is killing Russians, they are liars!) requires disbelieving the British spies (the Russians did it, they're liars!). So it has the property of being believe the British government narrative or you're agreeing with the Russian government, which feels a lot like guilt by similarity of argument. The default position for those who believe in the rule of law is to not believe the British narrative, because they are the accusers and the burden of proof is theirs and they have publicly provided only circumstantial evidence. It's quite a clever trap that many educated people seem to have left unchallenged.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    > The problem is that to be disbelieving the Russian spies requires believing the British spies. No it doesn't. It is quite possible that they both lie.
    - dpwm 8y ago
      The Russians did it and the Russians didn't do it? The British narrative is the Russians did it. The Russian narrative is they had no part in it. If you disbelieve the Russian narrative, you believe they did have a part in it. It's possible to not believe the British narrative and not care about the Russian narrative because you don't believe they have anything to answer for, but that is altogether different from disbelieving both. For what it's worth I don't believe the British narrative on this because of it is inconsistent with previous versions of itself and the evidence I have personally seen is circumstantial.
kushti 8y ago
Your "logic", basically "choose your side and believe without questioning" is not appropriate for any more or less educated person, I need to say.
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  You choose a side based on the environment you support. The fact is that those "educated people" make uneducated disappointed in their own government, and Russia is happy to take advantage of that fact. The problem isn't the truth, the problem is the platform where that truth is practically used against your own system of values.
  - kushti 8y ago
    "truth is practically used against your own system of values" - if truth is against the system of "values", the problem is in the system, not the truth.
  - azangru 8y ago
    This is a really interesting proposition. So what you are saying is, if your values do not agree with the truth (whatever that might be; I am not sure what you mean here), then so much the worse for the truth? It is not your values that need revising, it is the truth that needs to be ignored?
  - megous 8y ago
    Your argument is suffering from being too abstract, I guess. It would help if you used more examples. Many people here are probably not aware of modus operandi of the Putin regime's propaganda and I'm only semi-aware as well. I can see one example of what you're talking about and that is how Putin co-opted some prominent western anti-US-imperialists in service of his own agenda and his own imperial ambitions (setting up permanent bases in other countries, exploiting natural resources by means of war, killing innocent people by thousands, pretty much anything anti-imperialists abhor about the US). Enemy of my enemy... I guess. These people then talk about how Russia was invited by Bashar, or whatever and that makes it ok for it to bomb people there for years - but this is usually unstated, you just sense the implied sense of legitimacy and lack of criticism for Russia. Many of these people have some followers that then repeats their talking points, or defer to their authority.
keyme 8y ago
"which side are you on" == exactly what the guy above said about people like you reviving the cold war. What sides?
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  The sides where Russia is happily occupying and destabilizing the regions which were previously under their area of influence. And the fact is that most of the Russian people feel quite nationalistic about their previous "glory", so they'll eat up whatever Putin is doing to them indirectly through NATO sanctions.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The sides where Russia is happily occupying and destabilizing the regions which were previously under their area of influence So, the sides where Russia has been surrounded by ever closer NATO bases (post cold-war), and those countries are used to put pressure on it, while the news constantly bombard western audiences with "enemy du jour" coverage? Where foreign countries constantly meddle with its internal goings-on (with embargoes, sanctions, supporting opposition parties, funding NGOs and "independent" organizations, and good old "Voice of America" style efforts), to establish friendly lackeys in power like Yeltsin, to sell the country's assets wholesale to them?
TomMckenny 8y ago
His post and the spam of others like it are to invite enough controversy that this story disappears from the front page. And since I was obliged to post to point that out, I'll continue... The UK is _not_ central. So now we instantly distrust the Swiss and Dutch secret services too. Who, we're to believe, framed these fellows yet punished them with nothing more than sending them back to Russia. If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over. But now that this story is obviously being killed by abusing the controversy penalty algorithm, I hope the admins use it as a honey pot for locating shills.
- dpwm 8y ago
  > I hope the admins use it as a honey pot for locating shills. There are shills on all sides.[0] Many of the people you are calling shills are actually doubtful of the narrative put forward by a security cabal involved in one of the most pervasive and under-handed spying programmes [1]. Part of the reason for this is because that narrative is actually inconsistent with earlier versions of itself. Those who disagree with that narrative are most likely not Russian shills, they may just be able to spot an inconsistent narrative based on evidence drip-fed to the media and refuse to believe it. There are two Russian citizens who are now effectively limited to countries with no extradition treaty with the UK or its allies unless they are willing to face a trial that has no reasonable prospect of being fair. [2] > If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over. If Westerners are going to support trial by lynch mob and trial by media with carefully-controlled evidence and a strong hint of xenophobic nationalism and a trust-our-state-sanctioned-murderers attitude then we will be the ones to suffer the consequences as the farce of the "superiority" of "western values" is truly exposed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intelligence_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora [2] They have had a trial by media and been found guilty.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    "Many" genuine people are doubtful of the Swiss and Dutch arrests of Russian spies because the US unethically monitors the Internet? Arrests done solely because Switzerland really wants to start the cold war again? No, actually the pattern generally is to sow such much confusion that people no longer believe anything and end up believing all sides are the same. The pattern here specifically is to get the story of the front page which was successful.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

AllegedAlec 8y ago

Not pointing fingers, but aren't you trying to sow distrust towards the Russians as much as they are towards the UK?

jstanley 8y ago

> which side are you on? There is no need to take a side. It is possible to simultaneously distrust the British spies and the Russian spies.

dpwm 8y ago
The problem is that to be disbelieving the Russian spies requires believing the British spies. To believe the Russian spies (we didn't do it, somebody in the UK is killing Russians, they are liars!) requires disbelieving the British spies (the Russians did it, they're liars!). So it has the property of being believe the British government narrative or you're agreeing with the Russian government, which feels a lot like guilt by similarity of argument. The default position for those who believe in the rule of law is to not believe the British narrative, because they are the accusers and the burden of proof is theirs and they have publicly provided only circumstantial evidence. It's quite a clever trap that many educated people seem to have left unchallenged.
- jstanley 8y ago
  > The problem is that to be disbelieving the Russian spies requires believing the British spies. No it doesn't. It is quite possible that they both lie.
  - dpwm 8y ago
    The Russians did it and the Russians didn't do it? The British narrative is the Russians did it. The Russian narrative is they had no part in it. If you disbelieve the Russian narrative, you believe they did have a part in it. It's possible to not believe the British narrative and not care about the Russian narrative because you don't believe they have anything to answer for, but that is altogether different from disbelieving both. For what it's worth I don't believe the British narrative on this because of it is inconsistent with previous versions of itself and the evidence I have personally seen is circumstantial.

kushti 8y ago

Your "logic", basically "choose your side and believe without questioning" is not appropriate for any more or less educated person, I need to say.

heavenlyblue 8y ago
You choose a side based on the environment you support. The fact is that those "educated people" make uneducated disappointed in their own government, and Russia is happy to take advantage of that fact. The problem isn't the truth, the problem is the platform where that truth is practically used against your own system of values.
- kushti 8y ago
  "truth is practically used against your own system of values" - if truth is against the system of "values", the problem is in the system, not the truth.
- azangru 8y ago
  This is a really interesting proposition. So what you are saying is, if your values do not agree with the truth (whatever that might be; I am not sure what you mean here), then so much the worse for the truth? It is not your values that need revising, it is the truth that needs to be ignored?
- megous 8y ago
  Your argument is suffering from being too abstract, I guess. It would help if you used more examples. Many people here are probably not aware of modus operandi of the Putin regime's propaganda and I'm only semi-aware as well. I can see one example of what you're talking about and that is how Putin co-opted some prominent western anti-US-imperialists in service of his own agenda and his own imperial ambitions (setting up permanent bases in other countries, exploiting natural resources by means of war, killing innocent people by thousands, pretty much anything anti-imperialists abhor about the US). Enemy of my enemy... I guess. These people then talk about how Russia was invited by Bashar, or whatever and that makes it ok for it to bomb people there for years - but this is usually unstated, you just sense the implied sense of legitimacy and lack of criticism for Russia. Many of these people have some followers that then repeats their talking points, or defer to their authority.

keyme 8y ago

"which side are you on" == exactly what the guy above said about people like you reviving the cold war. What sides?

heavenlyblue 8y ago
The sides where Russia is happily occupying and destabilizing the regions which were previously under their area of influence. And the fact is that most of the Russian people feel quite nationalistic about their previous "glory", so they'll eat up whatever Putin is doing to them indirectly through NATO sanctions.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >The sides where Russia is happily occupying and destabilizing the regions which were previously under their area of influence So, the sides where Russia has been surrounded by ever closer NATO bases (post cold-war), and those countries are used to put pressure on it, while the news constantly bombard western audiences with "enemy du jour" coverage? Where foreign countries constantly meddle with its internal goings-on (with embargoes, sanctions, supporting opposition parties, funding NGOs and "independent" organizations, and good old "Voice of America" style efforts), to establish friendly lackeys in power like Yeltsin, to sell the country's assets wholesale to them?

TomMckenny 8y ago

His post and the spam of others like it are to invite enough controversy that this story disappears from the front page. And since I was obliged to post to point that out, I'll continue... The UK is _not_ central. So now we instantly distrust the Swiss and Dutch secret services too. Who, we're to believe, framed these fellows yet punished them with nothing more than sending them back to Russia. If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over. But now that this story is obviously being killed by abusing the controversy penalty algorithm, I hope the admins use it as a honey pot for locating shills.

dpwm 8y ago
> I hope the admins use it as a honey pot for locating shills. There are shills on all sides.[0] Many of the people you are calling shills are actually doubtful of the narrative put forward by a security cabal involved in one of the most pervasive and under-handed spying programmes [1]. Part of the reason for this is because that narrative is actually inconsistent with earlier versions of itself. Those who disagree with that narrative are most likely not Russian shills, they may just be able to spot an inconsistent narrative based on evidence drip-fed to the media and refuse to believe it. There are two Russian citizens who are now effectively limited to countries with no extradition treaty with the UK or its allies unless they are willing to face a trial that has no reasonable prospect of being fair. [2] > If Westerners are now going to consistently favor a conspicuously monstrous dictatorship over their own defense mechanisms then their story is over. If Westerners are going to support trial by lynch mob and trial by media with carefully-controlled evidence and a strong hint of xenophobic nationalism and a trust-our-state-sanctioned-murderers attitude then we will be the ones to suffer the consequences as the farce of the "superiority" of "western values" is truly exposed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intelligence_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora [2] They have had a trial by media and been found guilty.
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  "Many" genuine people are doubtful of the Swiss and Dutch arrests of Russian spies because the US unethically monitors the Internet? Arrests done solely because Switzerland really wants to start the cold war again? No, actually the pattern generally is to sow such much confusion that people no longer believe anything and end up believing all sides are the same. The pattern here specifically is to get the story of the front page which was successful.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]