9 ms·

The article makes a big deal about the craft of persuasion (tailoring speeches and memes to foreigners to take account of local history, culture, and sensibilit

The article makes a big deal about the craft of persuasion (tailoring speeches and memes to foreigners to take account of local history, culture, and sensibilities) and trying to give Ukraine credit for doing such a good job at it. To me, the real answer is that the Western establishments have been fighting a proxy conflict against Russia for years, Western Media got their marching orders about what side to tell people to support, and a public that was bored with Season 2 of Covid seamlessly adopted The Next Current Thing they were told to support without skipping a beat.

GoToRO 4y ago
Yeah, no. There is no need to listen to what the media tells us, we can ask our still living grandparents about the attrocities the russians did in the second world war. They were worse than the nazis.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  Random people never cared about Russia's past attacks of Ukraine or Georgia until they were instructed/programmed to care about it this time.
  - GoToRO 4y ago
    I get the sense that you are just a russian troll. I clearly stated that the atrocities happent in WW2.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Western media in most western countries isn’t state controlled, and so heavily influenced by public sentiment, not the other way around. Russia never really had a chance in the war of public opinion in the west: whenever they attack other countries they are just assumed to be the bad guys. But really, being the aggressor in most of their incidents is not a good look.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  - jonnybgood 4y ago
    “The algorithms that decide…” You’re sounding conspiratorial. You need to provide some evidence for your claims.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      That is literally what algorithms do: they decide what items are selected or not based on whatever criteria are selected.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    I get it, Russians really believe as you do about western societies, that somehow Biden controls FoxNews from behind the shadows, or that somehow Trump banned himself on Twitter. But if you think about the cases where government, social media, and traditional media have come into conflict, centralized government control really doesn’t add up.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Being run by two dueling oligarchical camps (US) vying for control and imperial expansion is arguably not much better than being run by one (Russia). In spite of your sly misimplication, both systems are far more alike than they are similar to, say, an egalitarian swiss style direct democracy.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        But which one runs which? Democrats get as angry at twitter as much as republicans do. It seems like Twitter is run for…profit alone rather than catering to either one of those parties. > Either way neither one runs an egalitarian swiss style direct democracy. Having lived in Switzerland before, that sounds like a bit of an exaggeration.
kramerger 4y ago
> marching orders ... and a public that was bored Who knew that when the Russians actually start attacking the west, some of the people who prided themselves in fighting communism are suddenly doing their best to undermine anyone who opposes Russia.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  It's not pro-Russia to aspire towards de-escalating a situation that could lead into nuclear war. If you want to talk about stereotypical priorities, you have about 90% of HackerNews in a constant state of panic about the existential threat of the planet maybe getting a couple of degrees warmer over a century but seem to reject nothing but escalation into full nuclear war. How good is nuclear war for the environment?
  - kramerger 4y ago
    De-escalation is just a fake narrative for "let's surrender our motherland to our new russian overlords because they invoked the A word" Or, it's just pro-russia talk masqueraded as "peace talk".
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
patrick451 4y ago
kmos17 4y ago
Russia thinks the cold war never ended and is extremely bitter about losing their empire. All western nations would have been content continuing to buy their oil and gas and couldn’t care less about Russia otherwise. This idea that the west is in a grand conspiracy and proxy war against Russia is completely missing the mark. This is one of the most pointless and unnecessary war, fully instigated by a dying imperial power. They are very good at propaganda and sowing dissension in western countries who are very vulnerable to it due to their openness. This particular war just exposed what a sand castle the whole thing is, looks like Putin just believed his own propaganda too much.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > This is one of the most pointless and unnecessary war, fully instigated by a dying imperial power. Agree with dying imperial power. But the war was not "pointless". Putin saw an opening. The way out of "dying imperial power" was to reconstitute the former Russian Empire (temporarily known under the name of Soviet Union). Bismark made Germany great by conquest. Germany fought 3 wars during his time (vs Austria, Denmark and France) and won all of them. All of them were instigated by Bismark, none was a defensive war. After these 3 wars, Germany was more than double in population. If Putin could have conquered Ukraine in a matter of days/weeks, then all the other former Soviet republics would have folded in a matter of a few short years, and with this Russia would have doubled its population. Putin's big blunder was to not know how inept (and corrupt) his own military was. All the talk about NATO aggression was just a pretext. He was simply hoping to quickly finish the job and present the West a new "fait accompli", just like what he did with Crimea. We are actually very lucky that Putin let corruption fester inside his military.
  - Mlller 4y ago
    For the benefit of future authoritarian, empire-hungry leaders, letʼs correct the historical lesson Bismarck & Co. can provide: - The first of the three wars was a reaction against Denmarkʼs attempt at annexing Schleswig. Prussia and Austria won the war on behalf of the so-called “Deutscher Bund” ‘German Federation’, a rather loose federation of states. It actually was a defensive war: against an on-going forced annexation. - The second war was Prussia against Austria – not Germany against Austria; in fact, the majority of the German Federation was on Austriaʼs side, which lost the war. - The third war was declared and started by the French emperor (after a public outcry in France over an alleged insult by the Prussian king, it was a ridiculous matter) with the objective to annex more of the German regions to the left of the Rhine. So it certainly was a defensive one. This is often misunderstood because the wars were of use to Bismarckʼs policy. But he was not able to telepathically force the Danish king or the French emperor to their aggressive policies. He just had an uncanny ability to foresee peopleʼs actions, especially their stupid ones, and to align his policy with what he had foreseen. And of course it was necessary that the wars then were won, which was mainly Moltkeʼs work as far as the mere military matters were concerned. But the victories, especially in the first and third war, depended also on allies and benevolently neutral parties Bismarck won for his side. So the lesson here would be: Donʼt start a war, you have to wait until you can credibly claim to be attacked; wage war from the position of the defender. (Besides: “After these 3 wars, Germany was more than double in population” doesnʼt make sense: Before the war, the Germany that was after the war didnʼt exist in the first place; and the Germany after the war was rather “little–Germany”: the realization of the “kleindeutsche Lösung” ‘little-German solution’ because Austria was out.)
THENATHE 4y ago
Also to add that most people (or maybe just a significant portion) in Russian don’t even support the invasion. IMO it has nothing to do with social media tactics, but rather that the invasion is just not popular with anyone besides Russian bureaucrats

GoToRO 4y ago

Yeah, no. There is no need to listen to what the media tells us, we can ask our still living grandparents about the attrocities the russians did in the second world war. They were worse than the nazis.

logicalmonster 4y ago
Random people never cared about Russia's past attacks of Ukraine or Georgia until they were instructed/programmed to care about it this time.
- GoToRO 4y ago
  I get the sense that you are just a russian troll. I clearly stated that the atrocities happent in WW2.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

Western media in most western countries isn’t state controlled, and so heavily influenced by public sentiment, not the other way around. Russia never really had a chance in the war of public opinion in the west: whenever they attack other countries they are just assumed to be the bad guys. But really, being the aggressor in most of their incidents is not a good look.

logicalmonster 4y ago
- jonnybgood 4y ago
  “The algorithms that decide…” You’re sounding conspiratorial. You need to provide some evidence for your claims.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    That is literally what algorithms do: they decide what items are selected or not based on whatever criteria are selected.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  I get it, Russians really believe as you do about western societies, that somehow Biden controls FoxNews from behind the shadows, or that somehow Trump banned himself on Twitter. But if you think about the cases where government, social media, and traditional media have come into conflict, centralized government control really doesn’t add up.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Being run by two dueling oligarchical camps (US) vying for control and imperial expansion is arguably not much better than being run by one (Russia). In spite of your sly misimplication, both systems are far more alike than they are similar to, say, an egalitarian swiss style direct democracy.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      But which one runs which? Democrats get as angry at twitter as much as republicans do. It seems like Twitter is run for…profit alone rather than catering to either one of those parties. > Either way neither one runs an egalitarian swiss style direct democracy. Having lived in Switzerland before, that sounds like a bit of an exaggeration.

kramerger 4y ago

> marching orders ... and a public that was bored Who knew that when the Russians actually start attacking the west, some of the people who prided themselves in fighting communism are suddenly doing their best to undermine anyone who opposes Russia.

logicalmonster 4y ago
It's not pro-Russia to aspire towards de-escalating a situation that could lead into nuclear war. If you want to talk about stereotypical priorities, you have about 90% of HackerNews in a constant state of panic about the existential threat of the planet maybe getting a couple of degrees warmer over a century but seem to reject nothing but escalation into full nuclear war. How good is nuclear war for the environment?
- kramerger 4y ago
  De-escalation is just a fake narrative for "let's surrender our motherland to our new russian overlords because they invoked the A word" Or, it's just pro-russia talk masqueraded as "peace talk".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

patrick451 4y ago

kmos17 4y ago

Russia thinks the cold war never ended and is extremely bitter about losing their empire. All western nations would have been content continuing to buy their oil and gas and couldn’t care less about Russia otherwise. This idea that the west is in a grand conspiracy and proxy war against Russia is completely missing the mark. This is one of the most pointless and unnecessary war, fully instigated by a dying imperial power. They are very good at propaganda and sowing dissension in western countries who are very vulnerable to it due to their openness. This particular war just exposed what a sand castle the whole thing is, looks like Putin just believed his own propaganda too much.

credit_guy 4y ago
> This is one of the most pointless and unnecessary war, fully instigated by a dying imperial power. Agree with dying imperial power. But the war was not "pointless". Putin saw an opening. The way out of "dying imperial power" was to reconstitute the former Russian Empire (temporarily known under the name of Soviet Union). Bismark made Germany great by conquest. Germany fought 3 wars during his time (vs Austria, Denmark and France) and won all of them. All of them were instigated by Bismark, none was a defensive war. After these 3 wars, Germany was more than double in population. If Putin could have conquered Ukraine in a matter of days/weeks, then all the other former Soviet republics would have folded in a matter of a few short years, and with this Russia would have doubled its population. Putin's big blunder was to not know how inept (and corrupt) his own military was. All the talk about NATO aggression was just a pretext. He was simply hoping to quickly finish the job and present the West a new "fait accompli", just like what he did with Crimea. We are actually very lucky that Putin let corruption fester inside his military.
- Mlller 4y ago
  For the benefit of future authoritarian, empire-hungry leaders, letʼs correct the historical lesson Bismarck & Co. can provide: - The first of the three wars was a reaction against Denmarkʼs attempt at annexing Schleswig. Prussia and Austria won the war on behalf of the so-called “Deutscher Bund” ‘German Federation’, a rather loose federation of states. It actually was a defensive war: against an on-going forced annexation. - The second war was Prussia against Austria – not Germany against Austria; in fact, the majority of the German Federation was on Austriaʼs side, which lost the war. - The third war was declared and started by the French emperor (after a public outcry in France over an alleged insult by the Prussian king, it was a ridiculous matter) with the objective to annex more of the German regions to the left of the Rhine. So it certainly was a defensive one. This is often misunderstood because the wars were of use to Bismarckʼs policy. But he was not able to telepathically force the Danish king or the French emperor to their aggressive policies. He just had an uncanny ability to foresee peopleʼs actions, especially their stupid ones, and to align his policy with what he had foreseen. And of course it was necessary that the wars then were won, which was mainly Moltkeʼs work as far as the mere military matters were concerned. But the victories, especially in the first and third war, depended also on allies and benevolently neutral parties Bismarck won for his side. So the lesson here would be: Donʼt start a war, you have to wait until you can credibly claim to be attacked; wage war from the position of the defender. (Besides: “After these 3 wars, Germany was more than double in population” doesnʼt make sense: Before the war, the Germany that was after the war didnʼt exist in the first place; and the Germany after the war was rather “little–Germany”: the realization of the “kleindeutsche Lösung” ‘little-German solution’ because Austria was out.)

THENATHE 4y ago

Also to add that most people (or maybe just a significant portion) in Russian don’t even support the invasion. IMO it has nothing to do with social media tactics, but rather that the invasion is just not popular with anyone besides Russian bureaucrats