9 ms·

This whole Ukraine war teached me a thing I haven't noticed before: I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. It's a sad state

This whole Ukraine war teached me a thing I haven't noticed before: I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. It's a sad state of affairs, but since the invasion started my only source of "news" related to the war is a few, and I a said a FEW, Youtube channels. I'm brazilian and one channel I recommend is Fernando Ulrich's channel. He interviewed (in english) a lot people (ukrainians, russians), commented on the geopolitical causes for the war a month before it started for real etc. Through his channel I found the lectures by John J Mearsheimer, and that's the only reason I can say that I "understand" what the hell is happening over there. It's a real shame that a financial advice channel, from a 3rd world country, is the last bastion of thrust I can find in order to get informed about the most important geopolitical event of the last decade. The mainstream media/tech oligopoly are a disgrace to mankind.

atlantas 5y ago
I replaced mainstream media with Breaking Points (https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints). I've found them to be far more reliable.
- PromKwing 5y ago
  Yikes. Imagine replacing media outlets with a right-wing youtuber and thinking that's far more reliable.
  - atlantas 5y ago
    Yikes. Imagine thinking Breaking Points is right-wing.
- bavell 5y ago
  A fellow breaker! :) My go-to news source for context and perspective.
verisimi 5y ago
> I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. No, you can't. It really comes down to a choice of which unhinged violent group of psychopaths do you want to believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKfSbhm6yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKfSbhm6yo This is a great explanation of the anarchist perspective. Great quote: "Ukraine has been this mess for many many many years of people arguing about which of authoritarian control freaks should get violently dominate everybody. That is a question that doesn't have a right answer."
- orestarod 5y ago
  Choosing who sociopath to believe is way down the road (and in my opinion not necessary in the end to "believe" anyone, you ideally have your judgement to filter out the noise and get the however little information). The step we still have not gotten past is to be able to listen to all the psychopaths in the first place. At this moment, the psychopath with the most strength near you prohibits other psychopaths from being heard at all.
  - JakeAl 5y ago
    As the X-Files used to say, Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate
ameetgaitonde 5y ago
Can you please explain it, because I'm very curious what you believe is the truth.
typon 5y ago
Liberals are trying to cancel Mearsheimer for his views on the causes of this war and his geopolitics in general. So fret not, soon you won't have ANY voice opposing American mainstream opinion.
mopsi 5y ago
> I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. It's one of the key goals of Russian information warfare: to create a feeling that you can't tell truth apart from fiction, and to force you into apathy and paralyze you, so you become unable to act and protect your interests. Russians are among the largest pushers of conspiracy theories from Covid to QAnon, and have been for a very long time, because it is cheap and very effective way to divide free societies into infighting groups. NYC station chief of Russian foreign intelligence used to visit public libraries to post conspiracy theories on Geocities in 1990s -- that's how important it was and remains. They flood all available channels with utter nonsense to make people turn their brains off. Just today a general and the spokesperson for Russians Ministry of Defense tried to justify the war by saying that the United States was training migratory birds in secret Ukrainian laboratories to carry dangerous pathogens into Russia: https://redd.it/tb6sn8 https://redd.it/tb6sn8 Antivaxx groups have already switched to parroting such crap, because many of them are seeded by Russia. By the way, Mearsheimer is an idiot and nobody takes him seriously in Eastern Europe. You might as well read books by Nazis explaining why Germans had the right to Lebensraum in the East. Instead of precompiled knowledge provided by TV talking heads or authoritative-appearing "experts", I recommend building up knowledge from basic building blocks. Start by reading general histories of the regions you are interested in to understand historic difficulties that people in those places have faced over the past several centuries and what their current goals and motivations are. Then you don't need Mearsheimers to tell you what's going on, you can derive it from your knowledge. This applies to everything else too. If you know a thing or two about basic statistics, then you're much less likely to fall for bullshit narratives like Covid conspiracy theories from people who look trustworthy. Knowledge is power.
- maratc 5y ago
  > Mearsheimer is an idiot and nobody takes him seriously in Eastern Europe Maybe they should have listened to that idiot when he suggested in 1993 that Ukraine retains some of its nuclear weapons to deter Russia from attacking it in the future.
  - sidibe 5y ago
    And then what? Or do you mean the Americans should have listened to him? Eastern Europeans can't do anything but react to the USA's prodding in Mearsheimer and the like's view, they're just pawns to be played by the USA vs. the if-then AI known as Russia. The world is a 1 player game, everything that happens is ultimately due to the right or wrong decisions of the Americans
smoe 5y ago
A very related problem is, that people often want to have information that simple doesn't exists or is not obtainable at this moment. When I worked at a large news site, every time there was a significant event, people flocked to the usual sources immediately demanding answers NOW. Whoever gives any answer first or gives the most spectacular answer, wins. Be that traditional media, social networks, bloggers, politicians etc. Almost nobody cares about the veracity of the information if they feel good about themselves being informed and what they hear sounds right. There is a ton a valid issues to be talked about when it comes about trustworthiness of different media. But I think also as societies we need to get better at living with ambiguity instead of basically asking to be click-baited constantly.

atlantas 5y ago

I replaced mainstream media with Breaking Points (https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints https://www.youtube.com/c/breakingpoints). I've found them to be far more reliable.

PromKwing 5y ago
Yikes. Imagine replacing media outlets with a right-wing youtuber and thinking that's far more reliable.
- atlantas 5y ago
  Yikes. Imagine thinking Breaking Points is right-wing.
bavell 5y ago
A fellow breaker! :) My go-to news source for context and perspective.

verisimi 5y ago

> I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. No, you can't. It really comes down to a choice of which unhinged violent group of psychopaths do you want to believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKfSbhm6yo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKfSbhm6yo This is a great explanation of the anarchist perspective. Great quote: "Ukraine has been this mess for many many many years of people arguing about which of authoritarian control freaks should get violently dominate everybody. That is a question that doesn't have a right answer."

orestarod 5y ago
Choosing who sociopath to believe is way down the road (and in my opinion not necessary in the end to "believe" anyone, you ideally have your judgement to filter out the noise and get the however little information). The step we still have not gotten past is to be able to listen to all the psychopaths in the first place. At this moment, the psychopath with the most strength near you prohibits other psychopaths from being heard at all.
- JakeAl 5y ago
  As the X-Files used to say, Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate

ameetgaitonde 5y ago

Can you please explain it, because I'm very curious what you believe is the truth.

typon 5y ago

Liberals are trying to cancel Mearsheimer for his views on the causes of this war and his geopolitics in general. So fret not, soon you won't have ANY voice opposing American mainstream opinion.

mopsi 5y ago

> I simply can't trust ANY media, search engine, or social network anymore. It's one of the key goals of Russian information warfare: to create a feeling that you can't tell truth apart from fiction, and to force you into apathy and paralyze you, so you become unable to act and protect your interests. Russians are among the largest pushers of conspiracy theories from Covid to QAnon, and have been for a very long time, because it is cheap and very effective way to divide free societies into infighting groups. NYC station chief of Russian foreign intelligence used to visit public libraries to post conspiracy theories on Geocities in 1990s -- that's how important it was and remains. They flood all available channels with utter nonsense to make people turn their brains off. Just today a general and the spokesperson for Russians Ministry of Defense tried to justify the war by saying that the United States was training migratory birds in secret Ukrainian laboratories to carry dangerous pathogens into Russia: https://redd.it/tb6sn8 https://redd.it/tb6sn8 Antivaxx groups have already switched to parroting such crap, because many of them are seeded by Russia. By the way, Mearsheimer is an idiot and nobody takes him seriously in Eastern Europe. You might as well read books by Nazis explaining why Germans had the right to Lebensraum in the East. Instead of precompiled knowledge provided by TV talking heads or authoritative-appearing "experts", I recommend building up knowledge from basic building blocks. Start by reading general histories of the regions you are interested in to understand historic difficulties that people in those places have faced over the past several centuries and what their current goals and motivations are. Then you don't need Mearsheimers to tell you what's going on, you can derive it from your knowledge. This applies to everything else too. If you know a thing or two about basic statistics, then you're much less likely to fall for bullshit narratives like Covid conspiracy theories from people who look trustworthy. Knowledge is power.

maratc 5y ago
> Mearsheimer is an idiot and nobody takes him seriously in Eastern Europe Maybe they should have listened to that idiot when he suggested in 1993 that Ukraine retains some of its nuclear weapons to deter Russia from attacking it in the future.
- sidibe 5y ago
  And then what? Or do you mean the Americans should have listened to him? Eastern Europeans can't do anything but react to the USA's prodding in Mearsheimer and the like's view, they're just pawns to be played by the USA vs. the if-then AI known as Russia. The world is a 1 player game, everything that happens is ultimately due to the right or wrong decisions of the Americans

smoe 5y ago

A very related problem is, that people often want to have information that simple doesn't exists or is not obtainable at this moment. When I worked at a large news site, every time there was a significant event, people flocked to the usual sources immediately demanding answers NOW. Whoever gives any answer first or gives the most spectacular answer, wins. Be that traditional media, social networks, bloggers, politicians etc. Almost nobody cares about the veracity of the information if they feel good about themselves being informed and what they hear sounds right. There is a ton a valid issues to be talked about when it comes about trustworthiness of different media. But I think also as societies we need to get better at living with ambiguity instead of basically asking to be click-baited constantly.