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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

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.
  - enkid 4y ago
    Why are you trying to change the subject from Russia aggression to US aggression? Something's aren't about the US, and viewing this war in that lens completely takes agency away from Ukraine and Russia. Instead, let's talk about Russia and Ukraine. Russia has nuclear weapons and promised to guarantee Ukraine's borders in exchange for them giving up theirs. Instead, Russia invaded and took territory from them in 2014. When that wasn't enough, they did it again a year ago. Before 2014, Ukraine barely had a military and posed no threat to anyone. What possible reason could Russia have to invade Ukraine that would justify this?
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Usa is a super power. Pretty much every geopolitical conflict is going to have at least something to do with usa. That is kind of implicit in the definition of super power.
      - enkid 4y ago
        "Having something to do with" doesn't mean explains, and only talking about the US still takes all agency away from other actors.
        bawolff 4y ago
        Sure USA isn't the only actor here, but pretending they aren't a factor in this conflict and the geopolitical situation, is the same level of misleading as pretending they are the only factor.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      I'm sure you know what happened in 2014. Let's think about it for a moment from the Russian perspective: A violent revolution in which the democratically elected pro-Russian President was driven out, followed by "pro-Russian unrest"[1] and civil war between the new government of Ukraine and separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine who support the old government (and Russia)[2]. That war had been ongoing for eight years when the Russians justified the invasion of Ukraine by recognizing the separatists as independent states calling for Russian aid.[3] And historically, the US has considered intervention in a civil war to be sufficient justification for invasion. It's hypocritical to argue that it's ok for us but not for Russia. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukr... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%9320... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_concerning_the_events_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_concerning_the_events_...
- d0mine 4y ago
  Consider OpenAI vs Google in the chat AI stand off (who is David who is Goliath here). Then consider does it makes sense to talk about it without considering Microsoft vs Google?
- xyzelement 4y ago
  // That is "biased" but it's biased toward truth The point of the comment that started this thread is: how would you know? All you know is that in war, propaganda is ubiquitous, and that the way propaganda "feels" when it has worked is that 'oh, I know what's true." Now given that you are likely far removed from the conflict and are fairly limited in sources of information about it - what are the odds that you stumbled on the truth, vs you had consumed/bought into propaganda? They'd feel the same way, which is more likely. And I say that independently of what your actual views are.
- danielheath 4y ago
  The only evidence I have that these countries even exist is hearsay; I’ve never seen them. For all I know it could be an elaborate prank (unlikely as that seems). The human sense of reality boils down to “this input seems real enough to accept as fact”, and internalising that idea really helped me to stop and listen to the people in my life.
- lazyeye 4y ago
  "None of these search engines promote sources which could be seen as relatively neutral like Al Jazeera or Chinese news or whatever." I had to read this twice to check this is what had actually been written..
loudmax 4y ago
None of this is strictly incorrect, but it's a mistake to conclude that since all sides are biased the truth is unknowable and you might as well throw up your hands and retreat entirely. In fact, the goal of disinformation isn't necessarily to make you believe things that are wrong, the goal is to create enough confusion to make you believe that you simply can't know what's going on. If you assign equal weight to NASA and flat earth websites you might as well conclude that apparently there is controversy among so-called "experts", so who knows, maybe the earth is round and maybe it isn't. You can think this way, but it's clearly bullshit. While NASA isn't magic and they have made mistakes and have lost spacecraft, their level of credibility isn't equal to flat-earthers. The governments of the United States (and the European and Asian democracies) and Russia both have agendas and both push narratives they want you to believe. This is true. But if you think the democratic and totalitarian governments are equally trustworthy you're deluding yourself.
- d0mine 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more on "it is a mistake to conclude...the truth is unknowable" Just ask yourself: who benefits? (aka follow the money). For example, short term: where the increase in military spendings go? On basic facts: you could compare economic military power of various countries (order of magnitude is enough), the number of countries bombed (order of magnitude is enough), the number of military bases (order of magnitude is enough), etc. Then make your own conclusions.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  I get what you are saying but I think the analogy of NASA and flat earth is not appropriate. To entertain that example: I've been to the southern hemisphere and I've seen the toilet flush the other way. I've seen the curvature of the earth from an airplane. Perhaps more importantly, there's consensus among many disconnected and conflicting parties (eg: Soviet and US space programs) And even most importantly - I don't see the motive to lie. NASA's funding isn't contingent on the earth being spherical. That's totally different than a hot war going on right now, where the belligerents disagree on everything from what led up to it to how many casualties there are on each side. That's probably the most difficult situation for you as an outsider to suss out - your own information is low and there's a big reward for making you see one narrative or the other.

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.
- enkid 4y ago
  Why are you trying to change the subject from Russia aggression to US aggression? Something's aren't about the US, and viewing this war in that lens completely takes agency away from Ukraine and Russia. Instead, let's talk about Russia and Ukraine. Russia has nuclear weapons and promised to guarantee Ukraine's borders in exchange for them giving up theirs. Instead, Russia invaded and took territory from them in 2014. When that wasn't enough, they did it again a year ago. Before 2014, Ukraine barely had a military and posed no threat to anyone. What possible reason could Russia have to invade Ukraine that would justify this?
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Usa is a super power. Pretty much every geopolitical conflict is going to have at least something to do with usa. That is kind of implicit in the definition of super power.
    - enkid 4y ago
      "Having something to do with" doesn't mean explains, and only talking about the US still takes all agency away from other actors.
      - bawolff 4y ago
        Sure USA isn't the only actor here, but pretending they aren't a factor in this conflict and the geopolitical situation, is the same level of misleading as pretending they are the only factor.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    I'm sure you know what happened in 2014. Let's think about it for a moment from the Russian perspective: A violent revolution in which the democratically elected pro-Russian President was driven out, followed by "pro-Russian unrest"[1] and civil war between the new government of Ukraine and separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine who support the old government (and Russia)[2]. That war had been ongoing for eight years when the Russians justified the invasion of Ukraine by recognizing the separatists as independent states calling for Russian aid.[3] And historically, the US has considered intervention in a civil war to be sufficient justification for invasion. It's hypocritical to argue that it's ok for us but not for Russia. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_pro-Russian_unrest_in_Ukr... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%9320... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_concerning_the_events_in_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_concerning_the_events_...
d0mine 4y ago
Consider OpenAI vs Google in the chat AI stand off (who is David who is Goliath here). Then consider does it makes sense to talk about it without considering Microsoft vs Google?
xyzelement 4y ago
// That is "biased" but it's biased toward truth The point of the comment that started this thread is: how would you know? All you know is that in war, propaganda is ubiquitous, and that the way propaganda "feels" when it has worked is that 'oh, I know what's true." Now given that you are likely far removed from the conflict and are fairly limited in sources of information about it - what are the odds that you stumbled on the truth, vs you had consumed/bought into propaganda? They'd feel the same way, which is more likely. And I say that independently of what your actual views are.
danielheath 4y ago
The only evidence I have that these countries even exist is hearsay; I’ve never seen them. For all I know it could be an elaborate prank (unlikely as that seems). The human sense of reality boils down to “this input seems real enough to accept as fact”, and internalising that idea really helped me to stop and listen to the people in my life.
lazyeye 4y ago
"None of these search engines promote sources which could be seen as relatively neutral like Al Jazeera or Chinese news or whatever." I had to read this twice to check this is what had actually been written..

loudmax 4y ago

None of this is strictly incorrect, but it's a mistake to conclude that since all sides are biased the truth is unknowable and you might as well throw up your hands and retreat entirely. In fact, the goal of disinformation isn't necessarily to make you believe things that are wrong, the goal is to create enough confusion to make you believe that you simply can't know what's going on. If you assign equal weight to NASA and flat earth websites you might as well conclude that apparently there is controversy among so-called "experts", so who knows, maybe the earth is round and maybe it isn't. You can think this way, but it's clearly bullshit. While NASA isn't magic and they have made mistakes and have lost spacecraft, their level of credibility isn't equal to flat-earthers. The governments of the United States (and the European and Asian democracies) and Russia both have agendas and both push narratives they want you to believe. This is true. But if you think the democratic and totalitarian governments are equally trustworthy you're deluding yourself.

d0mine 4y ago
Couldn't agree more on "it is a mistake to conclude...the truth is unknowable" Just ask yourself: who benefits? (aka follow the money). For example, short term: where the increase in military spendings go? On basic facts: you could compare economic military power of various countries (order of magnitude is enough), the number of countries bombed (order of magnitude is enough), the number of military bases (order of magnitude is enough), etc. Then make your own conclusions.
xyzelement 4y ago
I get what you are saying but I think the analogy of NASA and flat earth is not appropriate. To entertain that example: I've been to the southern hemisphere and I've seen the toilet flush the other way. I've seen the curvature of the earth from an airplane. Perhaps more importantly, there's consensus among many disconnected and conflicting parties (eg: Soviet and US space programs) And even most importantly - I don't see the motive to lie. NASA's funding isn't contingent on the earth being spherical. That's totally different than a hot war going on right now, where the belligerents disagree on everything from what led up to it to how many casualties there are on each side. That's probably the most difficult situation for you as an outsider to suss out - your own information is low and there's a big reward for making you see one narrative or the other.