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Comment by QuadmasterXLII | Hacker News Reader

I suspect that some people are knowingly playing along with the Ukrainian social media strategy. Perhaps that is even the right thing to do.

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> Perhaps that is even the right thing to do.

Interesting discussion, I personally don't think so. Truth is important. If one claims some kind of moral high ground, it is important to base one's actions on accurate information whenever possible and encourage others to do the same, otherwise it will only lead to some kind of "are we the baddies" moment down the line.

It has been very disheartening to see some of vocal propaganda critics on my twitter timeline turn into unabashed propaganda machines for the content that they like.

>Truth is important

I love truth with all my heart. Though I'm not flawless, I'm sometimes honest to a fault.

But the question, I think, is whether you save any lives by gathering popular support and foreign political will, if that translates to an extra influx of money and equipment.

Would you lie to save a life? A hundred? Zero?

Consequentialism upsets me very much, because I really wish 'doing the ethical thing' actually meant doing the right thing, every time.

All philosophy has given me is more questions. I would like to be told this is all wrong and propaganda is bad, if you please.

Look to the history of the world. Nearly every single awful tragedy in our world has been motivated by (from the perspective of the person doing such actions) good intentions. The grand utopia said villains had in mind when carrying out their misdeeds never came to pass, but the horrible actions done in the name of it most certainly did.

You cannot predict the future; your actions will often have consequences far outside that which you intend. And there's an extremely good chance that what you intend to happen will never happen anyhow! This ultimately makes Machiavellianism somewhat of a non-starter. The ends cannot logically justify the means when you cannot even truly know what the ends ever will be. All you can be certain of is that we will experience the "means."

Make the world as you would have others make it for you.

I don’t think enough Russians have enough self reflection to ask themselves the question.

Well that's just chauvinism.

I've been following the development of this war closely on Reddit and Twitter, and even if it's clear there's a ton of Western and Ukrainian propaganda, I wholeheartedly welcome it. The more it seems Ukraine is doing well, the more it'll help the Ukrainian morale and it's going to spread in Russia and possibly lead to the toppling of Putin and his sycophants. Maybe even leading to a democratic Russia.

Because the only chance for Ukraine and possibly NATO is for the Russian regime to crash and destroy itself. Putin won't become any saner than this, and the worse case is a war with NATO, which is unthinkable.

So I welcome the Ghost of Kyiv, the Snake Island 13, the Sunflower Babka and the Zelensky gigachad memes. The videos of Russian kids surrendering, normal people making molotovs and fighting for their liberty. May these memes spare us any more bloodshed. There's not much more us Western civilians can do.

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