Hacker News Reader

Comment by execveat | Hacker News Reader

I love the project, but the whole premise is broken. People brainwashed into supporting Russia do not deny the scale of devastation and human tragedy. They just attribute it to the Ukrainian military.

So, while documenting the terror is a commendable thing to do, it will not change anyone's mind. Zombies will simply take it as evidence that their propaganda was right all along. "See for yourself how ruthless these Ukrainians neonazies are, killing their own people just to spite the big Russian brother."

View on HN

>People brainwashed into supporting Russia do not deny the scale of devastation and human tragedy. They just attribute it to the Ukrainian military.

So I completely disagree here, because it's not an either or. You're right that people brainwashed into supporting Russia will, in certain circumstances, accept that the destruction is real but attribute it to Ukraine. And I completely agree with your pessimism.

But the logic of propaganda, and of a brain consumed by propaganda, is a hall of mirrors full of contradictions. Where convenient, and where possible, the scale of destruction will be denied, and where it can't be denied, it will be explained away.

Propaganda can't be defeated by disputing individual one-off statements, the totality of the system of propaganda has to be shown to be so full of contradictions that it takes more effort to sustain than it does to accept the truth.

This guy absolutely gets it. However I'd just like to add a small detail:

It is not enough to try and fish one person out of propaganda because often on some deep level they know. They have lost trust in their friends, family, society, so they go along with the lie because they are sure everybody else will go along with the lie. So they pick the blue pill. They know.

How the USSR Collapsed on Soviet TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgT-wR29aIU

This is sort of my take on the Jan. 6 "Big Lie" folks. Deep down, they know.

That is why there has not been a repeat of Jan. 6, because when there are signs that the National Guard will be deployed, or just that security and police will offer proper resistence, the organizers tell everyone to stand down. They say that justice is worth dying for, but that is not how they behave.

Contrast with many other uprisings in the world where people have been oppressed for decades and are ready to die for the cause.

I would caution you to think that you are immune from what troubles these people and from falling into an us vs them mentality.

The big lie thing would not be possible if not for the many little lies, they weren't galvanized for no reason nor is there any guarantee it won't repeat if nothing changes.

> They just attribute it to the Ukrainian military

Not always, often they just say its an unfortunate consequence of the war.

I also think the use of "brainwashing" here is inappropriate. The issue here is divergent sources and selective sampling mostly, not some systematic rewriting of how they process evidence.

Give anyone access to just the information your average Russian is fed and they'll reach a similar conclusion.

I wish everyone was as rational as you. I see people constantly celebrating the death of Russian soldiers and it grosses me out. They're dumb 19 year olds who believe dumb, wrong shit for the same reason most Americans believe dumb, wrong shit. American interventions overseas since 2001 have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, including women and children, yet many Americans don't seem to ever think of our troops as problematic.

The headline on CNN right now is "Putin is scaring the world to distract from his problems". If anyone reads that and doesn't immediately recognize it as propaganda (or at best, not real journalism) then they're doing as poorly as the Russians who are pro-war.

The more killers are killed, the earlier they are killed, the fewer innocent victims there are. Why we should not celebrate saved lives?

Are you also onboard with celebrating the death of people in the American military?

Which American country you have in your mind and why? Americas have both democratic countries and dictatorships. It is hard to make a two-continent-wide generalization. Pick up a country, a war, and a side first, then I will tell you.

I feel like you're being pointlessly pedantic and clearly not discussing in good faith. And not even in a correct way - it's a defined and accepted usage of "American" as an adjective to specify things as being part of the US, and especially when "American" is used to describe a concept that clearly has a national origin (a military). No one says "the American military" to refer to the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. I'm going to disengage here but i hope you have a good day

Very few Russian soldiers will intentionally kill innocent people.

The same is true of US Army soldiers.

Very few Russians disobey order to kill innocent people, see for example: https://youtu.be/gcVws482J30?t=151 . They are doing that intentionally.

I for sure celebrate every single death of a russian invader and will not apologise for it.

> Zombies will simply take it as evidence that their propaganda was right all along.

Dehumanisation of enemies is as old as the propaganda, and you are doing here exactly that. But to your defense, at least you used the term Zombie instead of Ann officially blessed Orc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com