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> proclaiming to the world that you intend to be and are proudly taking the mantle of "warcriminal" Well, Russia's been attacking hospitals and having their fo

by csense 5y ago

> proclaiming to the world that you intend to be and are proudly taking the mantle of "warcriminal" Well, Russia's been attacking hospitals and having their forces dress in enemy uniforms or peacekeeping symbols. So they don't exactly care about not committing war crimes. I don't really understand very well why countries do so much shady stuff, gaslighting and propaganda. To me, it's a binary choice; either (a) you're not evil, so you don't do evil things, or (b) you are evil, so you do evil things. Whereas for a lot of countries (Russia particularly right now, but also China, and some of the shadier stuff the US has done in the past) there seems to be a lot of instances of (c) you know what's right and wrong, but you do the wrong thing anyway and try to hide it. To me this just seems irrational, a logical fallacy of the form "I simultaneously believe both P and not P" -- You simultaneously recognize that morality is important (because you try to actively cover up or lie about your immoral actions), and you spit on it at the same time (because you do the immoral actions when you have an alternative course of not doing them).

ModernMech 5y ago
> You simultaneously recognize that morality is important (because you try to actively cover up or lie about your immoral actions), and you spit on it at the same time (because you do the immoral actions when you have an alternative course of not doing them). I think what you're missing is that Putin does not give a pretext for his actions because he believes they are immoral, he does it because it muddies the discourse. Think of it this way: look at what happened when Putin said he was sending "peacekeepers" into Ukraine in order to stop a "genocide". American politicians called him "shrewd". Praise for him ping ponged around right-wing media, and it was reflected back onto RT to the Russian people, who were treated with looping reels of American media personalities heaping praises onto Putin. If Putin is overt about his goals, he doesn't get the benefit of everyone spreading a message that he's stopping a genocide, or that he's being very clever by fooling everyone with his ruse -- even though he's not and didn't fool anyone who wasn't already fooled by him before. It benefits Putin that the world is calling him clever and shrewd, even though they're simultaneously calling him a murderous tyrant. His hope is that back home, he will repel the tyrant talk as much as possible and allow Russians to only hear that he's a master technician who stopped a genocide.

by csense 5y ago

ModernMech 5y ago

> You simultaneously recognize that morality is important (because you try to actively cover up or lie about your immoral actions), and you spit on it at the same time (because you do the immoral actions when you have an alternative course of not doing them). I think what you're missing is that Putin does not give a pretext for his actions because he believes they are immoral, he does it because it muddies the discourse. Think of it this way: look at what happened when Putin said he was sending "peacekeepers" into Ukraine in order to stop a "genocide". American politicians called him "shrewd". Praise for him ping ponged around right-wing media, and it was reflected back onto RT to the Russian people, who were treated with looping reels of American media personalities heaping praises onto Putin. If Putin is overt about his goals, he doesn't get the benefit of everyone spreading a message that he's stopping a genocide, or that he's being very clever by fooling everyone with his ruse -- even though he's not and didn't fool anyone who wasn't already fooled by him before. It benefits Putin that the world is calling him clever and shrewd, even though they're simultaneously calling him a murderous tyrant. His hope is that back home, he will repel the tyrant talk as much as possible and allow Russians to only hear that he's a master technician who stopped a genocide.