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Comment by anticodon | Hacker News Reader

> everyone is siloed into their own information bubbles, and can't agree on a common reality

It has already happened. I was born in USSR and live in Russia, and when I hear or read anything about USSR or Russia in Western media, it makes my hair stand on end.

But if I try to explain what it was really like or what it is like now, I only get insults in response: "Putin bot", "Kremlin shill", "as dumb as Trump's followers", etc. So I gave up and stop trying.

But it's clear that there're several "versions" of the reality, some of them are very far from "real" reality. And the divide will become only deeper. I also notice that comments on social networks and youtube became so weaponized that I simply cannot read them and stopped trying. I actively avoid reading any comments on any website with only 3 or 4 exceptions (like HN).

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When it comes to hair standing on end, you are contributing to the problem.

Looking at your history, I found your claim from three months ago, that the Baltic States, cite:

Since becoming "independent" they're only degrading with ever-increasing speed.

First, they are really independent countries. No need for scare quotes. Of course that small countries in general can't act with the same sort of impunity like big countries, but compared to their previous subordinated status as parts of the USSR, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are now independent countries with their own power structure and laws.

Seconds, the "degradation" claim is bullshit. I have visited all those countries several times since the 1990s and the general improvement of living standards from the depressing Soviet shabbiness to where they are today is nothing short of miraculous. The Baltics, together with Poland, belong to a set of countries that took to modern social market economy like ducklings to water.

The only thing that doesn't go up in the Baltics is demography, but, literally, all the nearby regions of Russia (Kaliningrad, Pskov, StPetersburg, Karelia) are much worse off when it comes to fertility. Doctor, heal thyself.

Would like to hear your take on the discrepancies in perception, if you are willing to put yourself out there again.

I no longer see the point. It is difficult to explain. After many internet and real life discussions I made a single conclusion: intensive propaganda creates an impenetrable partition in minds. And we live in times of the most intensive propaganda ever. You can't hide from it anywhere. If you open video about cats on YouTube, open comments section, you'll read something like: "Cute cats, but did you know that every morning Putin eats kitten for breakfast?" (I exaggerate, but only a little). Even when I read contemporary science fiction, there's always some piece of current propaganda like if it is obligatory in order to be published.

It is difficult to gather and analyze facts and present them in easy to understand fashion. Some things are really difficult to explain, especially historical and cultural things. You waste lots of time and energy to research and to present facts in support of your point of view. But time is not limitless, I have work to do and life to live. Also, amount of facts is limitless. You can always fight one set of facts against another, with carefully constructed set of arguments you can prove almost anything. It's not math, where it's kind of possible to prove or debunk any theory without a doubt. Real life if more complex, and real life is not entirely rational or logical.

Also, it's like fighting with windmills in Don Quixote. I know, we all know, that all governments finance paid commenters. E.g. several months ago there was a leak that Washington finance troll factories managed by Russian "opposition". First they tried to deny it, but then had to admit that it is true.

And it was only one leak about one trolls factory. So here I am trying to write a few comments for free in my precious free time, while there're powerful organizations employing hundreds of paid commenters with salaries and KPI and clear guidelines on what to write. How can I fight alone against huge and well paid apparatus of propaganda and commenters employing millions of people to put everywhere version of truth contradicting to mine and to put me and my country in extremely bad light? It's a futile battle, and I give up on it.

Scroll through this account's history. It is clearly posting Russian propaganda interspersed with just enough "curious conversation" to pass dang's surface-level scans.

Once again, proof that you can post literally anything you like on HN as long as it appears to fit the zeitgeist. HN is all about performative adherence to the image that HN staff want to cultivate.

> I actively avoid reading any comments on any website with only 3 or 4 exceptions (like HN).

Son if you don't think HN isn't full of shill-bots then I've got a bridge to sell you. Hell, that's half the point: y-combinator isn't paying for this because they love discussion.

The problem with posts like the one above is that these exact "i'm exhausted" posts are known to bots, too, and could be manufactured with reasonably good verisimilitude; easily done pre-GPT-3. So are you just exhausted by the spam, or is this just another facet of the Russian Propaganda Firehose?

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