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Comment by overthemoon | Hacker News Reader

I'm an American, living in the US, and for situations like Ukraine specifically, I don't believe anything right away. War is chaotic, and social media makes it more so. It costs me nothing to reserve judgement, because nothing depends on me except that I might accidentally share false info. Better to stay quiet, think, and wait. The truth may come out eventually. No one cares if I personally think it's true, but there is some tiny bit of culpability for sharing stories that aren't true.

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I agree, this is probably the best approach. Stop, breathe, apply critical thinking and give it some time to process the information and see how it fits into the big picture. You need to detach yourself emotionally from the issue you're trying to observe and evaluate (aka don't choose sides, it's not a football match). And as ever; if in doubt, go against the majority. That's your safest bet. The average person is more or less an idiot (I don't mean this as an insult, I'm not sure how to explain it in just a few words).

> The average person is more or less an idiot

No insult taken. Upon observing this same phenomenon, I am forced to conclude that I must also be more or less an idiot.

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

I am also an idiot.

I am not an idiot. I may occasionally be ill informed resulting in sub optimal decisions or advice. Which is kind of the point of the question. How do you evaluate information? Do you trust Big Media? Do you trust grainy videos from the war zones? So you trust the declaration of the leaders at war?

I don't think there's a clear cut answer to any of these questions. Your truth will be a mix of your prejudices and the incoming information.

There’s also the feel of being played and deceived when something you had strong emotional reaction (i.e. Ukrainian father saying goodbye to his daughters) turns out to be propaganda and part of information warfare.

Absolutely, that one specifically got me. Didn't that turn out to be a Russian soldier or something? Regardless, the firehose of social media content isn't tuned for accuracy, it's tuned for volume.

Yes. I have two daughters, and my eyes get wet and my throat closes every time I remember that scene. But then, it turns out that most likely I'm manipulated. I say most likely, because I'm not sure anymore, and I don't want to get invested anymore and research what is true and what is not.

It is a tough feeling if you make yourself aware that to emphasize might mean you are taken advantage off. Probably not too healthy to experience that too often.

This works only to a degree. Reserving judgment can't entirely stop emotional reaction which is the target of many of these info nuggets. Also, it can be really hard to notice that you are in an echo chamber, when e.g. you see a highly liked tweet claiming X, then some reputable newspaper reports X, then someone you personally know and respect says "have you heard that X", and X is also generally consistent with your worldview, it is very hard to reserve judgment.

That sums it up for me.

I remember, a number of years ago, an Australian eMag, called Crikey, did a series on "Half of all news is spin"[0-1].

I doubt things have improved with age.

[0] https://www.crikey.com.au/topic/spinning-the-media/

[1] https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/18/spinning-the-media-repo...

This is good advice in my opionion. If you're trying to stay informed and perhaps to shape your opinion then I feel it's important to aknowledge aspects and arguments you haven't considered before. Weighing their importance is often out of scope with the information available but knowing there's another reason, perspective or argument can help.

> costs me nothing to reserve judgement

i sorta disagree, the other day I told one of my neighbours I didnt follow a piece of news that was local and was waiting for it to blow over so people would let me forget about it. They got aggressive about how one of the 2 sides was definitely wrong. this is to say that sometimes people will get angry with you for having no opinion

The similar people in my life are going to get bent out of shape regardless. They are the same people who end up saying, "if you aren't with me, you're part of the problem". IMO If no action is still an action, a reserved opinion is still an opinion.

This is absolutely right. It will take time for the truth to filter out of all the fake information being spread out there. The best we can do as rational individuals is to wait for a few weeks before jumping to conclusions. This obviously doesn't mean to ignore the situation, providing help to civilians is still something that should be done right away.

Speaking of social media usefulness, but unrelated, but I found it strange/funny/sad/depressing, I signed up last night on Twitter and one of the posts about Ukraine at the top was like

"Like for Zelensky, RT for Putin, who do you prefer" With some thousands interactions

Does humanity really need social media? Why politicians keep posting their communications there, why they feel they need to expose citizens to such brain damaging content just to be able to see what they say

Twitter is also a source of claims that civilian objects are out of bounds for the conflict. Well it proved to be an evidence of not being the case.

RT / Like is a blatant manipulation and Twitter should ban it.

> Twitter is also a source of claims that civilian objects are out of bounds for the conflict. Well it proved to be an evidence of not being the case.

This claim could be true, but outdated.

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