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Are you saying that the information about Russia's war is unduly biased? I ask because all communication is biased, obviously to very different degrees, and for

Are you saying that the information about Russia's war is unduly biased? I ask because all communication is biased, obviously to very different degrees, and for very different reasons. I try to be as open and honest as possible about my biases, and constantly reexamine my current and past beliefs.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
What do you mean by unduly biased. Bias, at least for me, means erroneous or misleading. I think all people are biased and imperfect, but that doesn't mean that all communication is biased. Unbiased communication takes a lot more work, but isn't impossible.
- pharrington 4y ago
  Our definitions of bias in this context seem, mine aligns with the first Merriam Webster definition - 1 a : an inclination of temperament or outlook especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice b : an instance of such prejudice I consider undue bias to basically be deliberate deception about the information itself or the biases of the source. This is important because, as another commenter in this thread said, we always have an imperative to act amid imperfect information. edit: Obviously you can choose to not act, but inaction seems like the opposite of empowerment to me.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    When you talk about bias as an adjective, you can have a biased person or biased communication . Humans are vastly complex so you can't have unbiased humans without omniscience. Language and data however are different. You can have unbiased communication and data. The statement 2 + 2 = 4 in the base 10 number system is unbiased. To say unbiased language does not exist is saying that truth does not exist.
    - pharrington 4y ago
      I'll clarify myself - all communication of imperfect knowledge is biased. I'm afraid we're falling into a overly pedantic semantic quibble though. The context we're talking about is how much we can understand about a war. I understand that Russia invaded Ukraine, and that nothing Ukraine's done even begins justifies a full on, bloody invasion.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Sorry if you saw my point is off track. I was commenting more on the nature of bias given the topic of the submission. I do think understanding biases important in determining how you act. Both in this crisis in future ones, and hopefully hopeful and avoiding future ones. When it comes to the Ukrainian crisis, I think a major bias in the common understanding is neglecting the choices the US made that let us do the current state. That's not to say that it is the US's fault, but I think it is reasonable to ask how we got here and could it have been avoided with different choices. Should it have been avoided if it could have been? So far, the war has been one of the best things to ever happen to US geopolitics since the Cold War ended
faeriechangling 4y ago
Yeah it’s a war, there isn’t much more bias information you’re going to see. I looked into half the stories Google promoted me when I did a random search about an Ukraine topic and it was basically all US MSM which cited “experts” that were former US intelligence. This also held true for Bing because appearantly US MSM is the place to get unbiased reputable information about the war in Ukraine (???) The only place I could get a different view was Yandex who rigged their search results to show a bunch of small anti-US bloggers since the Ruskies run Yandex. Also RT right near the top. So I have to choose between a bunch of shills the US and it’s MSM puppets promoted, or a bunch of shills the Russians promoted plus some bloggers who would believe the US is responsible for cancer and heart disease. None of these search engines promote sources which could be seen as relatively neutral like Al Jazeera or Chinese news or whatever. I never see people promote random substacks of independent media. Almost everything I read about this war is planted by government shills of one sort or another that are boosting search results and so on. I was around for the Iraq war and yeah that war made it incredibly obvious how THROUGHLY untrustworthy the mainstream media is regarding war reporting and their love of killing the innocent with lies. I’ve fallen for propaganda before because it’s impossible not to because there’s such a freaking torrent of it.
- enkid 4y ago
  But no matter the bias, you can get some facts that should allow you to make some judgements like Russia invaded Ukraine to "defend" breakaway republics it propped up itself by trying to blockade Ukraine's two largest cities. Russia is the aggressor and is shooting rockets at civilians and doing generally bad stuff like torturing people. That is "biased" but it's biased toward truth. Seeing anything anti-Russian as a government shill is going to lead you to seeing conspiracy theories everywhere because Russia legitimately is the bad guy here.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    It's entirely possible for both sides of a war to be the bad guys. I don't know how many, if any, of the charges that have been levied against Ukraine are true, but given the history of the US, we should know better than to assume that we are on the right side, or that we are being told the whole truth. And we obviously aren't being told the real reason for the war. If torturing people, invading another country, and firing missiles at civilians were sufficient reason to oppose another country, we wouldn't support the Saudis.
georgeburdell 4y ago
I haven’t been following the news lately but early on in the war it was obvious to me that the U.S. media was at least minimizing reports of Ukranian casualties, and possibly inflating those of Russia. This is “expected” since we are aligned with the former
bawolff 4y ago
It should go without saying that any coverage of a war is going to be extremely biased, doubly so from places that are participating in it (including usa, because they clearly have a strong geopolitical interest in the outcome) That is just how war works.
xyzelement 4y ago
It took me a while to parse your comment, but I am glad I did. I don't know about "unduly" but I'd say that out of all situations, war is probably the one where we can except the most extreme bias. War literally means "we are willing to kill and die to win this" - so obviously "lie and spin" is going to happen whenever possible.
- davidgay 4y ago
  > War literally means "we are willing to kill and die to win this" I think you are overly equating the aggressor with the victim. The victim is more "we are willing to kill and die to avoid having <something> forced on us".
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    Sure, "winning" is just short-hand for "avoid having..." you're using. The point is, either way - if you're willing to fight and die for it, you're going to be willing to lie for it. So as someone far away, I have to assume that everything I am seeing is someone's preferred spin on it, and that I have no way to decide what's what.
    - pharrington 4y ago
      Before the full scale invasion started, Ukraine was repeatedly saying "hey I think Russia's going wage war with us really soon, can you keep an eye on this?" The US and others agreed. Russia said "we're absolutely not going to start a war, and the people saying we're going to war are lying." Then Russia started a war. While there are degrees of uncertainty, we must not, in turn, ignore facts.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

What do you mean by unduly biased. Bias, at least for me, means erroneous or misleading. I think all people are biased and imperfect, but that doesn't mean that all communication is biased. Unbiased communication takes a lot more work, but isn't impossible.

pharrington 4y ago
Our definitions of bias in this context seem, mine aligns with the first Merriam Webster definition - 1 a : an inclination of temperament or outlook especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice b : an instance of such prejudice I consider undue bias to basically be deliberate deception about the information itself or the biases of the source. This is important because, as another commenter in this thread said, we always have an imperative to act amid imperfect information. edit: Obviously you can choose to not act, but inaction seems like the opposite of empowerment to me.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  When you talk about bias as an adjective, you can have a biased person or biased communication . Humans are vastly complex so you can't have unbiased humans without omniscience. Language and data however are different. You can have unbiased communication and data. The statement 2 + 2 = 4 in the base 10 number system is unbiased. To say unbiased language does not exist is saying that truth does not exist.
  - pharrington 4y ago
    I'll clarify myself - all communication of imperfect knowledge is biased. I'm afraid we're falling into a overly pedantic semantic quibble though. The context we're talking about is how much we can understand about a war. I understand that Russia invaded Ukraine, and that nothing Ukraine's done even begins justifies a full on, bloody invasion.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Sorry if you saw my point is off track. I was commenting more on the nature of bias given the topic of the submission. I do think understanding biases important in determining how you act. Both in this crisis in future ones, and hopefully hopeful and avoiding future ones. When it comes to the Ukrainian crisis, I think a major bias in the common understanding is neglecting the choices the US made that let us do the current state. That's not to say that it is the US's fault, but I think it is reasonable to ask how we got here and could it have been avoided with different choices. Should it have been avoided if it could have been? So far, the war has been one of the best things to ever happen to US geopolitics since the Cold War ended

faeriechangling 4y ago

Yeah it’s a war, there isn’t much more bias information you’re going to see. I looked into half the stories Google promoted me when I did a random search about an Ukraine topic and it was basically all US MSM which cited “experts” that were former US intelligence. This also held true for Bing because appearantly US MSM is the place to get unbiased reputable information about the war in Ukraine (???) The only place I could get a different view was Yandex who rigged their search results to show a bunch of small anti-US bloggers since the Ruskies run Yandex. Also RT right near the top. So I have to choose between a bunch of shills the US and it’s MSM puppets promoted, or a bunch of shills the Russians promoted plus some bloggers who would believe the US is responsible for cancer and heart disease. None of these search engines promote sources which could be seen as relatively neutral like Al Jazeera or Chinese news or whatever. I never see people promote random substacks of independent media. Almost everything I read about this war is planted by government shills of one sort or another that are boosting search results and so on. I was around for the Iraq war and yeah that war made it incredibly obvious how THROUGHLY untrustworthy the mainstream media is regarding war reporting and their love of killing the innocent with lies. I’ve fallen for propaganda before because it’s impossible not to because there’s such a freaking torrent of it.

enkid 4y ago
But no matter the bias, you can get some facts that should allow you to make some judgements like Russia invaded Ukraine to "defend" breakaway republics it propped up itself by trying to blockade Ukraine's two largest cities. Russia is the aggressor and is shooting rockets at civilians and doing generally bad stuff like torturing people. That is "biased" but it's biased toward truth. Seeing anything anti-Russian as a government shill is going to lead you to seeing conspiracy theories everywhere because Russia legitimately is the bad guy here.
- leereeves 4y ago
  It's entirely possible for both sides of a war to be the bad guys. I don't know how many, if any, of the charges that have been levied against Ukraine are true, but given the history of the US, we should know better than to assume that we are on the right side, or that we are being told the whole truth. And we obviously aren't being told the real reason for the war. If torturing people, invading another country, and firing missiles at civilians were sufficient reason to oppose another country, we wouldn't support the Saudis.

georgeburdell 4y ago

I haven’t been following the news lately but early on in the war it was obvious to me that the U.S. media was at least minimizing reports of Ukranian casualties, and possibly inflating those of Russia. This is “expected” since we are aligned with the former

bawolff 4y ago

It should go without saying that any coverage of a war is going to be extremely biased, doubly so from places that are participating in it (including usa, because they clearly have a strong geopolitical interest in the outcome) That is just how war works.

xyzelement 4y ago

It took me a while to parse your comment, but I am glad I did. I don't know about "unduly" but I'd say that out of all situations, war is probably the one where we can except the most extreme bias. War literally means "we are willing to kill and die to win this" - so obviously "lie and spin" is going to happen whenever possible.

davidgay 4y ago
> War literally means "we are willing to kill and die to win this" I think you are overly equating the aggressor with the victim. The victim is more "we are willing to kill and die to avoid having <something> forced on us".
- xyzelement 4y ago
  Sure, "winning" is just short-hand for "avoid having..." you're using. The point is, either way - if you're willing to fight and die for it, you're going to be willing to lie for it. So as someone far away, I have to assume that everything I am seeing is someone's preferred spin on it, and that I have no way to decide what's what.
  - pharrington 4y ago
    Before the full scale invasion started, Ukraine was repeatedly saying "hey I think Russia's going wage war with us really soon, can you keep an eye on this?" The US and others agreed. Russia said "we're absolutely not going to start a war, and the people saying we're going to war are lying." Then Russia started a war. While there are degrees of uncertainty, we must not, in turn, ignore facts.