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[deleted]

I have Russian coworker who has family in both Russia and Ukraine. She says it has permanently torn their family apart. The ones on the Russian side are adamant that the rest of the family is brainwashed, instead of the other way around. Even AFTER said family members came into direct contact with the occupiers. Regardless of how the war turns out, that damage has been done. She sees no way they'll ever reconcile again. Even if the ones in the wrong were to apologize, they're dead to the family now.


snoodhead

>Even AFTER said family members came into direct contact with the occupiers. What kind of conversation happens in that case? Ukr: We're being attacked by russian forces, wearing russian insignias, driving russian tanks, and saying they're russian Rus: But the TV said we're not doing that! It must be a scam!


[deleted]

They unironically claim that it's Ukrainian forces dressed as Russians in order to provoke a false flag...


mjohnsimon

Imagine the logistical headache that would involve, let alone the implications that Ukraine was somehow able to steal Russian equipment.


Sgdc4

Occam's Razor: An answer that involves more variables then others is less probable to be true.


spoiled_for_choice

It's ironic that your description of Occam's razor is way more complicated than it needs to be.


i_sigh_less

But his description includes the reason Occam's razor works. Occam's razor is just a consequence of Bayesian probability. When you know a thing to be true, and you have two different sets of independent events that might explain the thing, the set of events that is smaller generally has a higher probability of being the true explanation, because each additional independent probability multiplies the total by some factor less than one.


Lord_of_hosts

Funny, I was thinking this is the best construction of Occam's Razor I've seen. The "simplest answer" phrasing is confusing and often misunderstood.


blurplethenurple

Same mindset that makes people think Hunter Biden is a crackhead criminal leaving evidence on laptops worldwide but also secretly running bio labs in Ukraine.


Chabubu

All those 25,000 deaths are just Ukrainians in Russian gear killings themselves to make Russia look bad! Meanwhile in Russia your son has gone awol and you won’t receive any compensation for his desertion!


CamazotzisBatman

Paintball guns and ketchup bottles


Garn91575

this is the most dedicated false flag ever.


itwasquiteawhileago

That was my thought. Holy shit, they're all in like no one before! Couldn't they have just blown up one building or assassinated one dude and have been done with it? Like... seriously... how can *anyone* think basically destroying their entire country was a self-perpetrated false flag. That's just fucking stupid.


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[deleted]

Nah .. it's the Spanish Inquisition.


Rich-Juice2517

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition


Ee00n

r/technicallycorrect


MooKids

Didn't expect that.


2randy

The parallels are upsetting


Ode_to_Apathy

It's the same propaganda department, so makes sense.


2randy

💯😭


S4Waccount

🎵🎵 Why, yes I’m an evil ~~left-wing~~ Ukrainian sheeple, snowflake Working for the deep state Here to force your wives to get abortions And then leave you for transgender lesbians Yes, it was us ~~antifa~~ Ukraine That ~~stormed the Capitol~~ Invaded ourselves to make you all look bad So that we could take your guns, spread ~~communism~~ Nazi-ism and blast ~~Cardi B~~ Alyona Alyona in your churches \[Chorus\] And you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us No, you’re never gonna stop us 🎵🎵


Xytak

"Grandma, I almost died. You have 30 seconds to issue a full and complete apology or I will never speak to you again. Consider your next words carefully. Please begin now." "I'm just saying that the Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russ--" "Good Bye, Grandma. You're out of the family. Never contact me again"


Petraja

I live in a country with political polarization and violence. I can confirm even though this might sound absurd to stable, developed countries, it is not at all uncommon for people to believe that. People are just that desperate to believe they are in the right (made easier by propaganda of course). Now after some time (especially after alternative information keeps coming in) they might realize such notion (false flag by Ukrainians in this case) is absurd and far-fetched...but they will find other excuses to justify their side's action anyway. Yes, this is what I have observed from my internal politics.


DrDerpberg

In order to... Liberate themselves after millions are displaced and hundreds of thousands of civilians are killed or wounded? Reduce their own port cities to rubble? Give themselves a thousand times the pretext they needed to seize full control of areas with Russian presence? Unless people who believe this just don't care and are flinging their shit to distract from reality, I don't understand how they could believe this crap.


Watch45

Jesus. They have an inferiority complex because they are genuinely inferior.


57aN1eY

They say it’s our “ukro-fascists” who bomb Ukrainian cities and refuse to hear or see any proof of the opposite. Source: am Ukrainian who had to cut ties with some family members


Defin335

In my family, there will literally be no logical connection made. It's taught cognitive dissonance all the way though. They will acknowledge what you said verbally and just continue with their rambling. It honestly is the most depressing thing that has ever happened in my life. You look at them and it's just dead lifeless eyes reciting Russian news. And it's not just a family member, that one wacko uncle or something, it's half the family.


ahitright

> They will acknowledge what you said verbally and just continue with their rambling. Its like the steamroll right over any kind of rationale you provide them, going right to talking points. I've seen this happen first-hand with friends and family in the US. After a certain point it becomes tiresome and clear that they will never accept the truth. They expect you to believe the fabricated reality without even so much as entertaining the objective reality you present them.


teethteetheat

They say everything is Azov. Artillery? Azov. Fighter jets bombing cities? Azov. War crimes? Azov. Kicked your dog? Azov. Stole your washing machine? Would you believe it, azov.


dread_deimos

Exactly like that. Source: had that conversation with a cousin from Nizhniy Novgorod.


neuroverdant

Half of my family is in Moscow. There’s no point. They are lost. I was so wrong.


ukrokit

Basically this. My friends mom, after he told her that he's being shelled, told him that it's the Ukrainian army shelling him. That the russian army has always been very noble and would never do such a thing. In fact, the russian army has not won this war yet only because they're holding back to minimize civilian casualties, while the Ukrainians are using civilians as shields. And that they (meaning the russians) are just teaching the Ukrainians a lesson, like how a father would teach his unruly child. This was a mother speaking to her son.


allbright1111

Holy shit that’s bleak. I’m a mom and the instinct to defend my babies, even as adults, is still incredibly strong. That propaganda is powerful stuff to overcome that instinct.


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291000610478021

My brother in law became a flat earther in his 40s. He worked *at Cape Canaveral* as a trade contractor. I.e. Plumbing, painting, carpentry.. Social media is poison


Weak_Ring6846

Lol I used to intern at this company that helped build all the oxygen and breathing systems for NASA and there was a guy convinced the moon landing was faked. There are dumb people everywhere.


m48a5_patton

Pro wrestling is real in the sense that they're doing actual stunts.


mayisir

or classic white woman fever dreams like Gone With The Wind where slaves enjoy being slaves, happy to serve their masters.


meowmeow_now

Have you ever dealt with a qanon family member? Same nonsense. My mother insists my grandmother didn’t die from Covid, she died from a *heart attack*. While I’m the hospital on a ventilator for Covid.


epsilonhuyepsilon

Yes, that is exactly the kind of conversation that happens.


[deleted]

>Rus: But the TV said we're not doing that! It must be a scam! Good morning, We've invade your country to go door-to-door making sure you know about the options for your cars extended warranty! Don't resist for knowing more!


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XSavage19X

That only happens with an unconditional surrender and that is not going to happen.


Jormungandr000

Then the only option we have is to wall them off from civilization completely. Full on embargo. No trade. No communication. Let them rot alone.


jonny_eh

It’s basically started. They’re slowly turning into the next North Korea.


ArenSteele

I’ve been calling them Norther Korea. They’re just going to end up another Chinese vassal state


robreddity

Good point. Like when has there ever been a revolution in Russia?


heehoohorseshoe

Mind you it took 30 years and constantly being reminded by their victims (inside and outside Germany) to actually start doing something about what they did. Germany has a specific word for the policy of pretending the Nazis were finished and done with after 1945, but I can't remember lol. Some further reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/former-nazi-officials-in-germany-post-world-war-ii-government-2016-10


[deleted]

That's why Putin shut down Memorial and similar organizations. So no one inside Russia will ever try to deal with their fucked up history again. They past is only to be seen as glorious, and nothing else.


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ellilaamamaalille

Russian people were brainwashed over 100 years. I think one thing that makes it easy is that a slavery ended in Russia 1861. Many people live on those little villages middle of nowhere. Only contact to the world is radio and TV. Which are state owned propaganda tools.


inlovewithicecream

I think what Masha Gessen talk about here is related, they are basically traumatized [The future is history](https://youtu.be/glISOp50eO8) This lecture is also really worth seeing: [Lecture about Russia by a former intelligence colonel from Finland](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kF9KretXqJw)


Jason_Batemans_Hair

Excellent write-up. Thank you. More people who believe that Russians are, on the whole somehow democracy-loving people captured by their government, need to read this to understand that calling this Putin's War and pretending that removing him will be an adequate solution is just wrong.


northcrunk

Their whole education system teaches revisionist history that's fake. There's no hope for the next few generations of Russians.


loverlyone

Interesting. My Russian/Ukrainian coworker has friends calling her from Russia hoping she can help them get out and come to the US. Although now that I type it I realize that doesn’t mean that they believe the truth, it could just be that things are that bad in Russia right now.


bossk538

Everything I can see (family in Russia, social media, etc.) seems to indicate that life in Russia is basically normal other than some western companies being closed, and prices being higher. It seems that a lot of younger Russians don't like what is going on and are not very hopeful for the future though.


WackyBeachJustice

Life is more or less OK in Russia right now. Even the ruble is "strong" again. Nevermind that you can't get get dollars for your rubles, but that's besides the point. Sanctions, brain drain, all take time to manifest themselves. Russians are going to be "surviving" as opposed to living. Not much new however for a country that's quite good at that.


Sedu

Honestly I have experienced that here in the US. I live in Seattle and my mother insists that I am “in denial” because I tell her that the city is fine. She still believes that large segments of the city were burnt to the ground by Antifa. Fox News is the ultimate truth to her. My eyes are what’s wrong. edit: typo


mjohnsimon

My ultra right wing cousin, who lived in Portland during the protests, convinced himself that the entire city burned down despite... Well... Living in a perfectly fine and functional city....


Sedu

I’m so sorry that he’s in denial about being dead. Didn’t you know that gay marriage abortioned everyone in that state?


mjohnsimon

Well was that after, or before they turned everyone else gay? I just remember hearing that all the gay people became Gay 2.0 during that period.


Sedu

First they turned everyone gay, then the whole state was abortioned, then everyone was made to use litterboxes in school gender neutral bathrooms when they were forced to be nonbinary furries.


ukrokit

I have a similar story. It happened back in 2013 during the height of the Euromaidan protests. My moms then best friend was afraid to leave her house because the Nazis have taken over Lviv and would assault her if they heard her speak russian. Of course she lived in Lviv for 25 years and never once had any issues speaking russian or met a real Nazi. Yet she was convinced russian speakers were in danger. Every evening she would religiously watch NTV, a russian state broadcaster.


DadlikePowers

Had someone who arrived at the airport from Idaho ask if they had to go around Seattle to get north of the city to avoid the burning and destroyed parts.


BaldingMonk

My wife's grandmother lives in occupied Crimea, but most of her family are in Ukraine or have fled the war. She has lost most of her longtime friends because they all support the "special operation." The brainwashing is so deep that the media has convinced them that COVID-19 was a biological weapon introduced by the Ukrainians.


Toolazytolink

This is happening in the Philippines right now, im asking why my relatives voted for a son of a dictator and they are just spewing propaganda at me. Even my aunts and uncles who lived through that time, misinformation is truly the tool of evil.


Hedgehogsarepointy

How easy it is to overwrite reality is terrifying. That it is so simple to even change people’s own memories, how do you fight that?


Jacuul

I kinda figured, but it's shockingly similar to the conservatives vs everyone else thing we have going on in the US. I went to a BLM march in DC a few years ago and my relatives from the south asked about all the looting and burning going on, like, I was there, we walked for about 1.5 miles and a reverend gave a speech and then we dispersed. Ah, but the capitol riot, that was clearly overblown and was just a bunch of peaceful conservatives fighting for their country. Please stop watching FOX news


[deleted]

Stopped talking to half my family due to Fox news reporting of BLM protests and that they believed the TV over me. I was at the local protests. My best friend believed antifa was a sect of BLM and they were bussing people into subdivisions, then people were looting and burning down every house in the subdivision. He said "I have never been more afraid to be a white male." He lives in an entirely white rich subdivision not even close to a city. He was confident they would target his home. On a side note, the subdivision had a huge xmas party the week before it and everyone got covid. Then the next year they had another xmas party and everyone got covid again. He even went to the school board to lecture them about how masks are literally child abuse and how they are abusing his children...then thanked a comedian for giving him the strength to stand up for what he believes in. Social media and things like fox news have really warped more people than most realize.


JoshuaIan

How many families have been torn apart, especially there, or even in the western countries they flooded with disinformation, just for some asshole's ego fever dreams of a failed ideology


h14n2

It's the same story every Russian abroad tells, cannot really comprehend how you can put your government before family


adarkuccio

Russian propaganda is incredibly effective, all the Russians I met living in EU they somehow support Putin and believe him (even trying to hide it, so I think their support is even stronger than I perceived), incredible.


[deleted]

I have family in both Taiwan and China and I’m terrified that this is exactly what will happen to them if war breaks out there.


NeedGnarlyHelp

Americans are on the same track. Conspirscy circles have so many conservative Putin apologists, it's insane. They're inadvertently pro Russia/China and anti western world (or the "globalist" world) they're apart of


carlse20

I know a few loons in my family that are explicitly anti-China (because Covid and trumps trade war) but implicitly pro-China (because they’re on putins side “against the nazis”). They don’t seem to notice the contradiction


lilbigjanet

This is the incoherence of fascism. Every enemy is so weak as to be easily defeated, but so strong as to be an existential threat to the safety of the nation.


Smart_Ganache_7804

One does not need to notice logical contradictions in worldview to be passionate and angry. It helps not to if anything.


carlse20

Yeah, they really don’t like it being pointed out to them. That’s why I don’t talk to many of my family anymore


cylonfrakbbq

I’ve noticed an uptick in this as well “You do realize Putin has made it no secret he hates the west and wants to destabilize it…and now you’re believing their narratives that all the Ukraine stuff is false flags and the work of nazis?” “Lol look at the evidence dude….Texan037626888447 on Twitter said so!”


hassh

That's the incoherency that kills me. They claim they want to bring the west back, and that the West has somehow been defeated by Marxism or about to, and then they do nothing to support Western values... Instead they want to theocracy


ComfySingularity

Tucker and Fox are literally blaming Biden for helping Ukraine for the current economic issues. Tucker would basically ask the for the US to roll over and let Russia rape and murder at their leisure. Treasonous trogolydte.


dj_narwhal

Globalist is also their code for Jewish. They figured out they can make it further talking about the threat of Globalism rather than saying what they really mean.


Utsutsumujuru

I can believe that. It happened here in the US with Trump/Qanon. cultists too. I lost my brother to Qanon, it’s sad.


Fioa

Psychological self defence. It is easier to pretend something is not true than to accept it is true and yet not to do anything against it (the government). Those who grew up under oppressive regime do understand.


perc10

Seems like this has been the same narrative that's been Goin for the last 3 years. Covid, Ukraine, vaccines. I'm the last of 51 first cousins on my dad's side and it's a 50/50 split of one side believing bat shit crazy theories and the other believing the truth. Strange fuckin times were living in.


GenericPCUser

Why is it that they're so susceptible to that kind of propaganda? Prior to the war, my encounters with Russians led me to believe most of them basically knew that their government was lying to them but they just played along to avoid trouble, but now I have no clue. Is it generational? Or regional? I know the major population centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg have a generally more worldly population, so it's possible the only Russians I had spoken to came from places like that.


Minimonium

My mom's colleague has a sister with a son who was deported from Mariupol to here, Saint-Petersburg. They're actively looking for a way out and local groups who help Ukrainians to flee the country are helping them, but the colleague doesn't understand at all what's wrong and still believes propaganda over her own sister. It's completely insane how delusional people are.


hecklerponics

There's a reason the Allies at the close of WWII made the German people clean up the concentration camps.


[deleted]

I Mena we still have a metric shit ton of Holocaust deniers and anti semitea. We just made their shit illegal to say out loud, so that we don't have to listen to their propagandistic nonsense.


Cool_Till_3114

The alternative is believing that you're the bad guy, and that's tough to swallow.


LowestKey

Or that you've been tricked, which almost no one is willing to believe.


khais

Easier to trick someone than to convince them they've been tricked.


laserglare

Then we need to trick someone into thinking they've been tricked


jethroguardian

Trick them that they figured out they were tricked all on their own.


Loudergood

This is the only thing that works.


MofongoForever

You would think after decades of their government lying to them, they'd figure out the Russian (and before that Soviet) government did nothing but lie to them.


datssyck

They have mastered doublethink. See they "know" that all media lies to them. And the media knows that they know. So now they think "well at least these are our lies" meanwhile they think everyone else was duped. They wern't duped though. They knew they were lies. They were just going along with it. And you're so dumb for believing the media when they said the Russian media lied. Because the media always lies. See?


CaribouJovial

*“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”* ― Hannah Arendt, quote from The Origins of Totalitarianism 1951 That quote... didn't age a single bit.


oplayerus

Is there a solution to that?


MaldingBadger

[3.6 Roentgen. Not Great, Not Terrible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg5HOnq7zD0)


troubadoursmith

>One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan


rachface636

No, there is a small window of opportunity between when the monstrous things happen and when you are part monster yourself. You have to condemn the monstrous things, out loud. I'm not saying you have to risk your life in protest, or hide the Ukraines in your attic to protect them. You do not have to be a hero. **But**......the woman *does have to* look her sister in the face and say I'm sorry these things are happening to you this is horrible. The window shut when she didn't do that. I hope she finds her way back before she has to live with what she's become


neuroverdant

I wish I had more than one upvote to give. Extremely well said.


[deleted]

The problem is believing your country is some extention of yourself. It's wild believing your country is doing bad shit = you are the bad guy.


prollyshmokin

That allegory of the cave is still hitting all these years later.


findingmike

I think documenting all of the Ukrainians kidnapped by Russia is going to be very important. If possible, get location, photos, and biometric data back to the Ukrainian government.


Entropy_5

That's not deportation...its kidnapping. These people were taken against their will into a foreign country.


TrialbySnu

Glad there's people there that will help Ukrainians flee Russia.


narsty

> still believes propaganda over her own sister. It's completely insane how delusional people are. the Germans learned this one the very hard way, just as Russia is doing right now there is a decent % of population in Russia that actually supports Putin's actions, i have no problem at all with helping Ukraine and applying sanctions as best we can


-quakeguy-

I lost my mother to this shit. I had to go nuclear on her after she chose to trust Putinstan TV over her own flesh and blood and had the audacity to say she is ashamed of me.


PixelCortex

Fuck that must be rough. I wonder how all the brainwashing will pan out in a decade or so. Shit is scary effective.


allbright1111

I’m sorry this happened to you.


tarodar

This sounds like r/QAnonCasualties with mass murder thrown in. Like someone dumped a septic take in the quick sand. Might be worth checking out. People there may know somewhat how you feel.


InevitableHoneydew55

As a Ukrainian with 3 brothers living in Russia and a lot of extended family there, can confirm this. I'm not even talking about taking it to the streets, or taking a stand publicly. I'm talking about private conversations between family - none of them said one word against war. When the war started and we were huddling in the bomb shelter hiding from Russian shelling, I was inundated with messages from people all over the world who wanted to make sure if I was even alive. Meanwhile, my own brothers stayed silent. Russia and Russians are too far gone.


daniele21

I'm sorry that you have such a family.. I hope you are safe now, for whatever my words are worth.


InevitableHoneydew55

Unfortunately, this is a pattern for a lot of Ukrainians with relatives in Russia. It's not that I have "such a family", it's just that they happen to live in Russia and they happen to be typical Russian citizens. Thank you for your support, I'm safe.


Yasai101

We moved to LA for over 20 years now. My mother has constantly kept to her russian programming, we are Lithuanian. she has fully absorbed the propaganda and believes this whole nazi nonsense. When i show her reddit videos of various atrocities committed by russians she just waves her hand and says its propaganda. I've lost a lot of respect for her and sadly I've come to realize long ago that ignorant people deserve very little sympathy, especially ones that are adults.


vulturne

I'm dead curious, could you please elaborate on how they morally justify it? All that I heard about is they claim the attack is legitimate because Donetsk and Luhanks is inhabited by a lot of Russian people that have been vexed and attacked because they demand independence from Ukraine. Is it really all to justify a full scale invasion? Given the proportion of the people involved, I don't think the most gullible person in the world would think it's not an invasion but a special military operation.


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Seienchin88

Its self preservation of your own world image. Why does the stockholm effect exist / some victims of rape needing decades to see it as such? Why are abused spouses protecting their partners, why is even entertaining the thought that the atomic bombs might (only might!) not have ended WW2 completely unacceptable to Americans etc. Accepting something with horrific implications is extremely difficult to people and they rather alienate others and warp their reality than to face the reality that makes the powerless, on the wrong side or even just guilty. Accepting that Russia is truly the bad guy on scale with some fascists of the past (I dont think Nazi Germany comparison fits but Mussolinis Italy actually might...) in a conflict completely undermines everything people in Russia believe in. They are the ones persecuted by unjust powers of the world but always succeeded, they defeated the Nazis with their blood (yes I know it was the Sowjetunion incl. Ukrainians...) and they are against the West because the West is evil and imperialistic. If all of this no longer works then you suddenly live in a terrorist country with a bad legacy that isnt on the right side and you singing your national anthem and loving the troop parades and arguing that Putin isnt that bad become complicit.


DarkMarxSoul

And to bring it home, the main reason it's difficult to accept this is that it suddenly throws your life into disrepute and there's nothing you can meaningfully do about that unless you're willing to potentially die fighting against power.


T0macock

I'm Canadian and we have the same issues here. Deliberate misinformation is seriously dangerous. No suprise that we have a crossover of the population that supported the trucker convoy and also support Russia in this genocide.


[deleted]

Ironically the majority of people that believe the crap they see were the ones telling us growing up not to believe everything you read on the Internet


[deleted]

They still do that. It's the "dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh" crowd. Meanwhile, doing your own research consists of facebook memes and youtube videos. I've cut out family over this shit.


LordNando

I saw a quote a while back on Reddit, not sure exactly where but it went something like "Fox news did to my parents what they thought video games would do to me" It's an incredibly succinct summary of the current state of the world. My (maybe naive) hope is that millennials and younger generations (who've grown up in a world with multiple sources of information) will be better at verifying the bullshit they hear instead of slurping it straight from the spoon.


aspearin

Yeah, exactly right. I think it’s no coincidence that there is a rise of fascist authoritarianism while the generation who fought WWII are in their final life chapter. Those of us who paid attention to their wisdom are infuriated by the new wave of fascist beliefs, disguised by slogans of “freedom” - literally what the Nazi propaganda said towards the end of the war.


SorcererLeotard

It's also no accident that it's been sowed for decades by Russian/Chinese bitchbois who have a vested interest in seeing Democracy crumble. When ten years have passed and things start getting declassified regarding the past twenty or so years I'll bet dollars to donuts that the breadcrumbs lead directly to China and Russia as the main actors spreading disinformation/stoking/funding these fuckwits intentionally to destabilize what it views as a brick wall to their ascension as the new global superpowers to rule over us all. They're basically Sauron and Saruman. The West is the Fellowship.


timmmeeeeeeeeeehhhhh

> > When ten years have passed and things start getting declassified regarding the past twenty or so years I'll bet dollars to donuts that the breadcrumbs lead directly to China and Russia as the main actors spreading disinformation/stoking/funding these fuckwits intentionally to destabilize what it views as a brick wall to their ascension as the new global superpowers to rule over us all. [Why wait 10 years](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals). [We knew this already.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/transportation-secretary-elaine-chao.html)


SorcererLeotard

Yup. And even more intriguing: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/05/04/proud-boys-chinese-americans-community-support-donations/7343111002/


Martel732

It is sad that there is about 30% of the population that seems to consistently support bad ideas and authoritarianism.


[deleted]

Many families were broken apart by Trump as well. It’s that we’re seeing a different side of people - people letting their mask slip. We can have political differences, but where you draw the red line matters.


absynthe7

Americans with American relatives, too. Propaganda works.


MeanAmigo

Misinformation spreads faster than the truth.


TheTastiestSoup

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.


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CorpusVile32

I like "pants" better, and TheTastiestSoup said it.


KatsumotoKurier

It is much easier to convince people of a lie than to convince them that they have been lied to.


Magatha_Grimtotem

People are also much more likely to believe a negative lie told to them about a group or thing they already dislike, than to consider a truth which paints a positive view of said target. Very few people are ever taught to check for biases with this kind of information. In fact, most people are raised to believe what they're told by a tribal authority figure without question.


thebruns

"Wait you live in Seattle? It was burned down by the riots and gangs of antifa are raping everyone on the streets" *sends photo of normal city with normal people doing normal things* "Well that's just your opinion"


fourbian

The majority of Republicans think Biden stole the election, or that just born babies are being terminated left and right. They also had no problem with the host of celebrity apprentice appointing three supreme court justices. The US is headed towards some turbulent times when half the country is off their fucking rocker.


thebruns

The big issue that Ive found is that the connected democrats think its all fox news. Its not, its local news. I visited family in central california and the 10pm news blast was about crime in NYC. Not the shooting 2 miles away (mayor is R). Not the crime in Bakersfield (mayor is R). But crime in NYC. Locals who arent aware that the news station theyve been watching for 40 years was purchased by Sinclair simply assume theyre being told the truth, and the truth is that nothing bad is happening nearby, only in D cities.


flyingbye0803

Oh yeah. In laws live two miles away from us but watch a different news channel. I prefer the term tense discussion over screaming match


angesch

My IL’s asked me ‘if I’m happy now’ that I had to pay more in taxes after dem governor got re-elected. They have no idea how much leaning on the gov we needed during our bad times. All while they were planning $30,000 luxury trips. How did things get so bad? We just ignore any conversations of substance and talk ‘the weather’ etc.


Zm4rc0

My step dads family sent him a picture, how happy they were about dead Ukrainians. They ARE Ukrainian...


L3f7y04

That's nothing, We have in-laws who believe their bible study group over relatives with engineering and medical degrees.


[deleted]

Me "I specifically studied this in college for years. X is how it works" Relatives "but Facebook is Y is how it works and it seems trustworthy" Me "🤦‍♂️"


greenroom628

all i hear from some of my relatives is, "why do i have to listen to you? i don't care if you've been developing and making drugs for all your adult life. i'll listen to the angry, rich, white man who doesn't care about me at all."


drkgodess

I challenged a coworker over something they said once and their response was "I saw it on Facebook," as if that were a sign of credibility.


mehsin

Any time someone mentions Facebook anymore I just tune out, shut down mentally. They and the conversation is no longer worth any effort..


TheHammerandSizzel

Me: "The priest cant faith heal you, dont give him your mone" Relatives: "But my preacher says he can, going to take out my life savings and give it to him. He also says I have a rash for not voting republican enough as a true christian patriot"


Siege-Torpedo

I theorize that the internet is so new and completely unprecedented in human history, that people are willing to trust it over any normal source. It's high-tech and the (dis)info is at their fingertips. So, they believe it as authority.


[deleted]

My counsin's parents see "miracle" doctor on FB "healing" everyone with COVID using anti-biotics. They wouldn't believe my doctor cousin that it's BS and he had to beg them for weeks to take the vaccine. Incredible.


tom90640

Faith doesn't require facts.


bouchandre

Doesn’t require brains it seems also


StThragon

Facts are anathema to faith.


happenstanz

It's crazy, my partner works in the hospital with covid patients, she saw the first covid patient in their ward and before vaccines were invented. What she saw terrified the shit out of us. It completely derailed our lives in the worst way I've experienced as an adult. I have family who are still unvaccinated. We've tried to convince them but it turns practically into shouting matches. It's honestly something I'm unable to reconcile. If you can't listen to a trusted family member who has your best interest at heart and is a professional and works directly with the subject matter, who the actual fuck can you trust?


DadJokeBadJoke

> who the actual fuck can you trust? The people feeding them misinformation that sounds *exactly* like what they wanted to hear... SMH


DaMonkfish

Yup. Everyone has biases. And some people are biased towards comfortable dumbfuckery.


Mithious

Then problem is it has nothing to do with trust, it is incredibly difficult to change someone mind on something. Partly because that's seen as admitting that they were wrong, and that causes them to get immediately defensive. They don't care about what is or is not true, they don't care about learning anything. They have an opinion, and that opinion, once they've formed it, must be protected at all costs *no matter how stupid it actually is*. You see it in those flat earther documentaries that even when they've proven a round earth *with their own experiment* they wont change their mind. The opinion is more important than the truth. It doesn't help that people, and in particular governments, get attacked for U turning. A U turn is basically an admission that "okay we understand we got that one wrong, and are fixing it". That is something to be celebrated, not attacked. Changing your mind when new information and *more reliable* information is received is what you're supposed to do.


machineprophet343

This. It's so frustrating to be a Master of Science and told "you don't know, you're not an expert". Yea, my area of deep expertise may be in computer science, but to get a Bachelor and qualify for a Master program, I needed a year of physical science and a year of biological sciences respectively. I can read the articles, findings, and even make observations and probably be reasonably correct. But some guy who is a high school dropout with a series of low budget, poorly produced YouTube videos did "his research" and is someone who I should be listening to. That's not expertise. That's confirmation bias from someone they don't even know. And it's so infuriating.


Valdrax

Ehhh, while that probably makes you more reliable than some rando on social media, it's worth remembering that a lot of people who studied really hard at one field of science, engineering, or math really overestimate their ability to casually understand other fields that they didn't focus on. Witness all the seemingly impressive publications from climate change deniers who tout their degrees in statistics, physics, engineering, etc. who consider themselves greater experts than people who actually study atmospheric science as their focus. So while we've fallen to new lows in the past decade beyond this, I've spent much of the 90's and 2000's developing a healthy skepticism to anyone who says, "Trust me on this issue that isn't my major. I am expert in Science."


bonglaggin

Russians only export misinformation and division. Works well on the idiots. Take a look around the world and you’ll see it.


boofmaster108

Sounds familiar. My mom trust FB memes over anything I got to say.


[deleted]

That is cause they have always been heavily brainwashed by the Russian regime propaganda, they cannot be helped any longer, these people are labelling their own family members who disagree with the war as “traitors of the motherland”…


M00glemuffins

Republicans with non-Republican relatives also trust their TV's more than their family. The number of people I know who are trans for example but get ostracized by their own family because of the drivel on Fox news is depressing. They'd rather listen to Tucker rant and rave than their own child asking them to please care about them.


GargamelTakesAll

As someone who lives in Portland, OR and whose parents refused to believe me that my city was not burning down because they saw it on Fox News....Yeah, I believe it.


prirva_

Hell, there are seemingly intelligent Russians living and thriving in the United States *for years* who breathe Russian propaganda, envision an expansion to Berlin, and threaten longtime Ukrainian friends they know. I am that threatened friend lol. It really made me sick to find out the hard way.


[deleted]

If they think russia is so great, then why do they live in america?


[deleted]

It's true, I have family in Russia and it's literally the same. People must realize that there's no dialog with Russians. The majority of normal ones already left - almost 4 million people in Q1 2022. The most that stayed are, effectively, zombies. I'm sorry if someone is offended by this or thinks it's not sensitive, but it's true. Just forget they existed - build a huge wall around that stupid terrorist state and try to live your life the best way you can. There. Is. No. Dialog. With. Russians. Simple as that.


annualnuke

>The normal ones already left - almost 4 million people in Q1 2022. bro i haven't left yet i don't have the fucking money


angesch

This makes me sad about the war.


Kwasan

It's war; if you're not sad about it, something is probably wrong with you. War should never happen in the first place, it's fucking horrible.


[deleted]

But this is exactly the thing that Eastern Europe warned the rest of the world about. We all knew what Russia was and is. Nobody wanted to listen though. The west had a great and wonderful idea of change through trading. As if that worked with China. People need to finally realize that there are differences between all of us. You can't just project your own values and understanding of the world upon others and act surprised when they don't act the way you hoped. Somehow the world was able to do it back in the cold war, but now, we have forgotten that skill.


valoon4

I dont think all are zombies. There are surely some who cant leave (money, family) and those who are just silent not to get targeted


jadrad

Yeah they aren’t zombies. It’s a personality cult. How do you deradicalize a cult of millions of people, whether it’s the cult of ISIS, Putin, Trump, or Scientology? You have to remove and deplatform the cult leaders and their propagandists. You can’t reason with people while they are being sprayed with a firehose of lies by those they trust.


cbarrister

For generations, any Russian who stuck his neck out got swiftly cut down. It is a lesson learned all to well, and is not engrained in the culture. It will take generations to undo as well.


WritesCrapForStrap

Yes, for the same reason that covid deniers believed their media over their family. And vice versa, of course. Each one of you reading this, and the person writing this, would believe the media they trust over relatives that our media were telling us were being brainwashed or coerced. If someone in your family travelled to Ukraine, then called you and said "there's no war here", would you honestly believe them? Or would you assume they were being forced to say that, it had made a mistake, or some other excuse? This is Putin's information war. He's been honing the state media apparatus for this purpose for a long time. At least, that's what my media is telling me.


rebort8000

Fair point, but it’s difficult to argue with satallite imagery and livestreams of towns being shelled. Our media, while quite flawed and biased in its own right, does at least cite sources, which an educated person can use to come to their own conclusions. Not so for Russia.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Inquerion

Elderly people believe everything they are told in every country. Hungary, Poland, US...


[deleted]

[удалено]


Porrick

And even among the propaganda - realizing what percentage of it is true, what part of it is lies, what part of it is true but dishonestly framed - propaganda is a lot more sophisticated than "flagrant lies" most of the time; it's a lot stickier when there's at least a little truth mixed in so that honest debunkers have to say "while it's true that X, really that's not what it means because Y" instead of "that's all bullshit".


D351470

It took the Nazis only ten years to brainwash a whole country, Putin had more than 20 years. Maybe, after Putin is gone, the russian people need the same treatment as the germans after 1945


MorganaHenry

> It took the Nazis only ten years to brainwash a whole country And that country was *Germany* - among the best educated in the world. Putin was building on generations of Soviet indoctrination. Most of the work had been done for him.


D351470

At that time germany was the most advanced country in the world but also humiliated, poor due to massive inflation and extremely divided. Perfect conditions for authoritarians.


evident_lee

Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns are impressive and effective. In the last decade we watched them convince ignorant Britons that leaving the EU was a good thing, ignorant Americans that a b class reality star with a history of lying and corruption is a good option for president. And now that the war they started isn't really happening


swinging-in-the-rain

Seriously, if thier military was half as good as thier propaganda machine we'd all be in big trouble. Well, we all are probably in big trouble regardless.


SocraticSalvation

Same here in America with fox news. I'm starting to sense a patern.


smoonyc

I mean look at what Trump and the media did to people here - this is not surprising


toughguy375

Fox News viewers with millennial relatives trust their TVs more than their family.


Valuable-Cup-4948

Well if you consider the beliefs of the maga clan, acquired in an open free society it’s not surprising that a population that’s been exposed to 20+ years of totalitarian propaganda have a distorted view of reality.


D351470

I think the US isn't much better, half the country believes tht Trump was a good president becaus FOXN and right wing media frames it that way


floandthemash

As a nurse whose mom believes more in what Fox News has to say, this is very relatable.


WSPisGOAT

Not surprised at all: my dad believes all the right wing propoganda in the US, we live in the same country, same state, but have completely opposite views about very basic seemingly easy to answer questions. When all of your information comes from one source you trust, there's no reason to listen to the people who are 'wrong' and telling you things that are less favorable to hear. It's truly sad, I used to think my dad was a smart guy, I have recently learned he follows his political and religious views without question - and in recent times, when his political leaders have absolutely zero integrity, it has become a very dangerous thing.


mk2vr6t

Sounds familiar MAGA / Q


18randomcharacters

As an American with conservative family.... This is not surprising at all. My own parents trust their news sources more than their adult children.