Politics Is it time for the west to assemble an army and kick Putin out of Ukraine?

[zorq]

I'm proudly intolerant of murder, rape, pillaging, and all abuse of the innocent. Barbos isn't. He's proud of his murdering, pillaging, raping abusive soldiers. Tolerate that? Fuck no.

Barbos is clearly a bad person. There are good people in Russia. We have all seen the Russian protests and Putin's crackdowns. I personally have a friend who fled from Russia with his wife earlier this year. But that's not Barbos. He's the opposite. He's complicit. And he has no excuse. He's not ignorant. The evidence has been presented to him. He's bad. And bad people deserve to feel bad lest they start to think that being bad is actually good. I can't put him in a time out but I can point out what a hypocritical scumbag he presents himself to be every chance I get. If that makes me a bully, then fine. But I don't think I'm the bully here. I'm standing against the abusive world power, while he stands with it.

 

[Elixir]

Who is your audience?

Uh, those who are not ignoring me?
Any other dumb questions?

Then you are just a bully. It's not a behaviour of a person who believes in their own story. Why do you think you are so insecure about your own beliefs?

I thought you were a Doctor of political science, Z.
Turns out you’re a shrink?
My insecurity is obviously a manifestation of middle child syndrome. As a psychiatrist you should have ascertained that.
What compulsion drives you to to armchair psychology? Is it fear of addressing points where you might be shown wrong? Surely a Doctor of your esteem has spent countless hours of introspection in preparation for answering this kind of question, right?

 

[TV and credit cards]

In Russia, nationalists and imperialists control the entire Duma and the government.

Barbos is kept in the dark, is told what to say and has no access to the truth. If he had any idea of the realities that are apparent to those outside Putler’s propaganda bubble, he’d likely die of embarrassment.

I don't like this attitude. Barbos obviously has access to the same information we are. How exactly is he kept in the dark?

Your subtext is, "I am too lazy to come up with an argument, but I have access to more information than you, so just trust me".

1) nobody will be convinced by that
2) it's condescending

Like it or not, if you want to convince Barbos of anything you will need to meet him as an equal and respect his opinions.

Pro-war Russians don't support Putin out of a lack of alternative information

And he has been presented with a mountain of evidence for months now.
At what point in time should one give up trying to “convince” a person and start to wonder if they’re just dealing with a troll?
I don’t disagree with your comment but the “respect” thing died off pages ago. For the half dozen people or so that still wish to engage, he gets what he deserves.

If that's how you feel then stop engaging with him. Put him on ignore if he bothers you that much.

One thing that is absolute poison on any forum is the inability to accept that other people disagree with you or don't share your values. It is ok that Barbos thinks what he thinks.

It is the attitude we must have if we ever want to learn anything. I personally find it quite enlightening to try to understand those I disagree with. I like to switch the story in my head and pretend I agree with the idea and then try to genuinely argue for it in my head. Before just disregarding it

Konstantin Kisin unlocked it for me. Russians live in a den of unlimitless corruption, where nobody with power can be trusted and where other people's power always is a potential threat. In the west, we don't think like that. Our democratic institutions control the army and have effectively neutered the corrupting force of big business (yes, we have, if you don't agree you need to travel more). So we don't think like the Russians. On a fundamental level. It's not that they think might makes right. It's more that anyone will exploit their power, so it might as well be my side.

This explains why Russia thinks NATO is a threat. This explains why Russians are so cool about bullying their neighbors. In the Russian mind and mentality USA and Europe is doing the same thing as Russia.

So I don't think Barbos is trolling. He might be. I just see him as a product of growing up and living in an extremely corrupt kleptocracy. And by listening to him we can learn about how that experience warps his lens about world events.

It's super important, for everyone, to realize that we all have a warped and twisted view of the world. We all have a story that justifies the actions of ourselves or our teams. Everyone!

You really don't address my point. I shared the same opinion of barbos early on. I wanted to understand his perspective. See what sources of information he was drawing from. Wondered how Russian propaganda affected the average Russian young and old. Because of barbos I took to finding non-US news sources in this pursuit. As I've stated, this was a mountain of evidence ago that no rational person would ignore. At what point in time do you give up? He is either incapable of rational thought or a troll.
If he were arguing some innocuous point on a topic of no great significance, I'd let it go. Just move on without giving it another thought. But that is not the case here, is it? We're talking about the destruction of a nation. State terrorism in the targeting of civilians. Crimes against humanity in scale. If you are still, after all these months giving this individual the benefit of the doubt, trying to find some understanding in what he says, I would suggest you ask yourself why and at what point do you throw in the towel. For my part, I threw it in weeks ago. Not only does he bring nothing of value to the conversation, I find his posts offensive.

For the record, I appreciate the opinions of people from different cultural backgrounds very much. And I have traveled, mostly Asia. And there are "corrupting forces of big business" that can and do put lives at risk for money. I've witnessed it in the form of expedited contracting through emergency acquisition in the DoD.

 

[bilby]

Christianity introduced the one single story and narrative. If you don't agree with my way to see the world you are WRONG. People outside the Christian/Islamic hemisphere don't think like that. Not even Jews do.

People who are culturaly Christian have an extremely intolerant way of communicating. It's not normal and not healthy. It does not lead to a healthy and mutually respectful exchange of beliefs and ideas.

An exchange of ideas is only healthy if those ideas are not stupidly wrong.

I don’t want my primary care team in ICU to engage in respectful debate with fuckwits who think prayer, essential oils, or homeopathy might be a better treatment than evidence based medicine.

If you have a different way to see reality then I do, that’s all well and good; But if you have an opinion that contradicts reality, it is not deserving of the slightest respect.

Respect for nonsensical ideas is one of the things holding the developing world back from becoming the technological and financial peers of the developed world.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ukraine hasn't gotten any of our air power and are only getting a little bit of our naval power and I do not believe they have gotten any of our armored power--you're facing pretty much only infantry weapons. We've only been sending the stuff that can be operated with little training. It looks like we are going to be sending ground-launch versions of the AMRAAM and Harpoon missiles but I do not think your forces have faced either yet.

Harpoon may have been used to sink the Vasily Bekh supply ship, and possibly also to hit an oil rig in the black sea.

Yeah, my post definitely got overtaken by events.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Who is your audience?

Uh, those who are not ignoring me?
Any other dumb questions?

Then you are just a bully. It's not a behaviour of a person who believes in their own story. Why do you think you are so insecure about your own beliefs?

I thought you were a Doctor of political science, Z.
Turns out you’re a shrink?
My insecurity is obviously a manifestation of middle child syndrome. As a psychiatrist you should have ascertained that.
What compulsion drives you to to armchair psychology? Is it fear of addressing points where you might be shown wrong? Surely a Doctor of your esteem has spent countless hours of introspection in preparation for answering this kind of question, right?

I think your problem is your rim flappe is mated to the bungus of your fuccbone. You need to get your pootsack realigned to your horngus. It's a common problem with your species.

 

[DrZoidberg]

In Russia, nationalists and imperialists control the entire Duma and the government.

Barbos is kept in the dark, is told what to say and has no access to the truth. If he had any idea of the realities that are apparent to those outside Putler’s propaganda bubble, he’d likely die of embarrassment.

I don't like this attitude. Barbos obviously has access to the same information we are. How exactly is he kept in the dark?

Your subtext is, "I am too lazy to come up with an argument, but I have access to more information than you, so just trust me".

1) nobody will be convinced by that
2) it's condescending

Like it or not, if you want to convince Barbos of anything you will need to meet him as an equal and respect his opinions.

Pro-war Russians don't support Putin out of a lack of alternative information

And he has been presented with a mountain of evidence for months now.
At what point in time should one give up trying to “convince” a person and start to wonder if they’re just dealing with a troll?
I don’t disagree with your comment but the “respect” thing died off pages ago. For the half dozen people or so that still wish to engage, he gets what he deserves.

If that's how you feel then stop engaging with him. Put him on ignore if he bothers you that much.

One thing that is absolute poison on any forum is the inability to accept that other people disagree with you or don't share your values. It is ok that Barbos thinks what he thinks.

It is the attitude we must have if we ever want to learn anything. I personally find it quite enlightening to try to understand those I disagree with. I like to switch the story in my head and pretend I agree with the idea and then try to genuinely argue for it in my head. Before just disregarding it

Konstantin Kisin unlocked it for me. Russians live in a den of unlimitless corruption, where nobody with power can be trusted and where other people's power always is a potential threat. In the west, we don't think like that. Our democratic institutions control the army and have effectively neutered the corrupting force of big business (yes, we have, if you don't agree you need to travel more). So we don't think like the Russians. On a fundamental level. It's not that they think might makes right. It's more that anyone will exploit their power, so it might as well be my side.

This explains why Russia thinks NATO is a threat. This explains why Russians are so cool about bullying their neighbors. In the Russian mind and mentality USA and Europe is doing the same thing as Russia.

So I don't think Barbos is trolling. He might be. I just see him as a product of growing up and living in an extremely corrupt kleptocracy. And by listening to him we can learn about how that experience warps his lens about world events.

It's super important, for everyone, to realize that we all have a warped and twisted view of the world. We all have a story that justifies the actions of ourselves or our teams. Everyone!

You really don't address my point. I shared the same opinion of barbos early on. I wanted to understand his perspective. See what sources of information he was drawing from. Wondered how Russian propaganda affected the average Russian young and old. Because of barbos I took to finding non-US news sources in this pursuit. As I've stated, this was a mountain of evidence ago that no rational person would ignore. At what point in time do you give up? He is either incapable of rational thought or a troll.
If he were arguing some innocuous point on a topic of no great significance, I'd let it go. Just move on without giving it another thought. But that is not the case here, is it? We're talking about the destruction of a nation. State terrorism in the targeting of civilians. Crimes against humanity in scale. If you are still, after all these months giving this individual the benefit of the doubt, trying to find some understanding in what he says, I would suggest you ask yourself why and at what point do you throw in the towel. For my part, I threw it in weeks ago. Not only does he bring nothing of value to the conversation, I find his posts offensive.

For the record, I appreciate the opinions of people from different cultural backgrounds very much. And I have traveled, mostly Asia. And there are "corrupting forces of big business" that can and do put lives at risk for money. I've witnessed it in the form of expedited contracting through emergency acquisition in the DoD.

Sure. But it's ok to offend and ok to be offended.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Christianity introduced the one single story and narrative. If you don't agree with my way to see the world you are WRONG. People outside the Christian/Islamic hemisphere don't think like that. Not even Jews do.

People who are culturaly Christian have an extremely intolerant way of communicating. It's not normal and not healthy. It does not lead to a healthy and mutually respectful exchange of beliefs and ideas.

An exchange of ideas is only healthy if those ideas are not stupidly wrong.

I don’t want my primary care team in ICU to engage in respectful debate with fuckwits who think prayer, essential oils, or homeopathy might be a better treatment than evidence based medicine.

We're a bunch of unpaid anonymous amateurs spouting off badly supported opinions on a web forum. We're not in an ICU. The bar couldn't be higher for what's ok to say here.

If you have a different way to see reality then I do, that’s all well and good; But if you have an opinion that contradicts reality, it is not deserving of the slightest respect.

It's ok to be delusional.

Respect for nonsensical ideas is one of the things holding the developing world back from becoming the technological and financial peers of the developed world.

I don't think it is. I think the exact opposite is true. If you give stupid people enough rope, they will hang themselves. That's what happens when you respect nonsensical ideas. Stupid ideas only die if we allow them to be tested. I think that's the secret sauce behind science and the success of free market capitalism and western democracy.

 

[Elixir]

It's ok to be delusional.

It’s delusional to think that’s ok.
Delusional gave us Trump, and now, The Big Lie.
Maybe okay with you …

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's ok to be delusional.

It’s delusional to think that’s ok.
Delusional gave us Trump, and now, The Big Lie.
Maybe okay with you …

If other people are delusional, what are you going to do about it? You can't control the inside of other people's heads. All you can do is make your case. If they don't buy it, the ONLY thing you can do is to accept.

 

[Elixir]

You can't control the inside of other people's heads.

I have no aspiration to do that.

All you can do is make your case.

Part of my “case” is that a certain party is delusional.

If they don't buy it

They wouldn’t be delusional if they “bought” it. As previously stated, they are not my intended audience.

the ONLY thing you can do is to accept.

No, you can also declare them delusional and cite evidence to support that assertion.
One can accept the humanity of say, a barbos, without accepting their delusions.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You can't control the inside of other people's heads.

I have no aspiration to do that.

All you can do is make your case.

Part of my “case” is that a certain party is delusional.

If they don't buy it

They wouldn’t be delusional if they “bought” it. As previously stated, they are not my intended audience.

the ONLY thing you can do is to accept.

No, you can also declare them delusional and cite evidence to support that assertion.
One can accept the humanity of say, a barbos, without accepting their delusions.

You are making no sense. Accepting that other people have other opinions than you doesn't mean you agree with them.

You are coming across as incredibly arrogant. It makes me wonder if you have a mindset that allows you to grow and change. You seem incredibly set in your ways.

When was the last time you changed your opinion on something? Something you felt strongly about, which you thought was important that you switched opinions on?

 

[TV and credit cards]

People struggle to change their long held opinions. It doesn’t help when one has a government feeding lies to the them. But as long as people have access to and are willing to consider evidence, these opinions can and do change. Tobacco use is a good example where evidence has changed opinion/behavior of millions of people. And this with the added burden of the evidence having to overcome the force of addiction. A cult of personality is not an addiction. There is a Russia without Putin. Many Russians know this. Many Russians seek the truth. Downloading of VPNs has increased 2500 percent since the invasion of Ukraine and the BBC in Russian website audience tripled before it was shutdown. Dissent still exists in Russia. It, out of necessity has become more subtle but it is there. Images on social media of Swan Lake ballerinas call for the death of Putin. Images that are heavy in blue and yellow indicate support for Ukraine. Anti-war chants at concerts and bits of news left on supermarket store shelves are a couple others I’ve read about.
The point is, Russians who have made the effort to find the truth do not support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They do not deny the overwhelming evidence coming from not just the US but from much of Europe. They do not dismiss the economic pain European nations are willing to suffer or the shunning of Russian athletes. Unless a person suffers an acute Putin addiction or is a troll, those armed with this knowledge do not at a minimum publicly supported Putin’s atrocities.

 

[DrZoidberg]

People struggle to change their long held opinions. It doesn’t help when one has a government feeding lies to the them. But as long as people have access to and are willing to consider evidence, these opinions can and do change. Tobacco use is a good example where evidence has changed opinion/behavior of millions of people. And this with the added burden of the evidence having to overcome the force of addiction. A cult of personality is not an addiction. There is a Russia without Putin. Many Russians know this. Many Russians seek the truth. Downloading of VPNs has increased 2500 percent since the invasion of Ukraine and the BBC in Russian website audience tripled before it was shutdown. Dissent still exists in Russia. It, out of necessity has become more subtle but it is there. Images on social media of Swan Lake ballerinas call for the death of Putin. Images that are heavy in blue and yellow indicate support for Ukraine. Anti-war chants at concerts and bits of news left on supermarket store shelves are a couple others I’ve read about.

How aren't you too arrogant. What makes you think the Russians are just a bunch of sheeple and you in Singapore, or the Americans have figured it all out?

I get slammed all the time by our forum Americans for not understanding the intricacies of American domestic politics. But the same people, slamming me for that, have no problems talking about Russian internal politics as if they knew everything.

I don't think Russians are being lied to by their government, while we in the west aren't. We're all being lied to. Every country and politician has self aggrandizing justifications for their actions. That's not the same thing as every story being is on equal footing, or that western media lies as much as Russian media. I don't think that at all.

But we can all do with a little humility here. Putin has since his takeover in Russia, been treated like cartoonish movie villain. The fact that Putin nowadays really is just as bad as Hitler doesn't make every story about him true. But the wests earlier treatment of Putin can help explain why Russians today can get defensive when Putin is accused of stuff.

Konstantin Kisin (of Triggernometry) explained that Russians have free access to the Internet, and that it's easy to circumvent the censorship. Most Russians still get their news from the heavily biased state propaganda news. Because they freely chose to do that. They're not being forced into this. So who exactly is being manipulated into what?

I don't think there's a cult of personality around Putin. Not anywhere near the degree of Mao, Hitler or Kim Jong Il. To a Scandinavian Americans seem to have a cult of personality around business leaders, politicians and celebrities. We don't revere anybody to that degree. It's not part of our culture. My point is that things can look a lot different from a distance, and we should be mindful of that.

The point is, Russians who have made the effort to find the truth do not support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They do not deny the overwhelming evidence coming from not just the US but from much of Europe. They do not dismiss the economic pain European nations are willing to suffer or the shunning of Russian athletes. Unless a person suffers an acute Putin addiction or is a troll, those armed with this knowledge do not at a minimum publicly supported Putin’s atrocities.

I think that is an incredibly simplistic way to look at it. Using that logic nobody should still be believing in Intelligent Design. Yet, here we are.

 

[Jayjay]

For some insight into Russian thinking, I recommend watching this documentary:



It's about families being torn apart by the Ukraine war. It's in Russian, but has English subtitles.

 

[Elixir]

You are making no sense. Accepting that other people have other opinions than you doesn't mean you agree with them.

What makes you think I don't accept the reality of varying opinions?

You are coming across as incredibly arrogant. It makes me wonder if you have a mindset that allows you to grow and change. You seem incredibly set in your ways.

I consider my opinions on some things to be well grounded in study and experience (of which I have an abundance). I see no honest way to simply change my "ways" (opinions) based solely on the fact that your ossified opinions differ from my own.
But I am not the subject of this thread, nor are my opinions or yours, regardless of how "wrong" each of our opinions may seem to the other.
Yeah, I'm fucking arrogant as hell when it comes to respecting willful ignorance, political trolling and spreading blatant falsehoods.
So sue me.
You seem to want me to "grow out of that". I suggest that perhaps it is you who needs to grow, change, and accept the harsh reality that some people's ideas are too misguided and dangerous to accept like a good little pacifist.

 

[TV and credit cards]

People struggle to change their long held opinions. It doesn’t help when one has a government feeding lies to the them. But as long as people have access to and are willing to consider evidence, these opinions can and do change. Tobacco use is a good example where evidence has changed opinion/behavior of millions of people. And this with the added burden of the evidence having to overcome the force of addiction. A cult of personality is not an addiction. There is a Russia without Putin. Many Russians know this. Many Russians seek the truth. Downloading of VPNs has increased 2500 percent since the invasion of Ukraine and the BBC in Russian website audience tripled before it was shutdown. Dissent still exists in Russia. It, out of necessity has become more subtle but it is there. Images on social media of Swan Lake ballerinas call for the death of Putin. Images that are heavy in blue and yellow indicate support for Ukraine. Anti-war chants at concerts and bits of news left on supermarket store shelves are a couple others I’ve read about.

How aren't you too arrogant. What makes you think the Russians are just a bunch of sheeple and you in Singapore, or the Americans have figured it all out?

I get slammed all the time by our forum Americans for not understanding the intricacies of American domestic politics. But the same people, slamming me for that, have no problems talking about Russian internal politics as if they knew everything.

I don't think Russians are being lied to by their government, while we in the west aren't. We're all being lied to. Every country and politician has self aggrandizing justifications for their actions. That's not the same thing as every story being is on equal footing, or that western media lies as much as Russian media. I don't think that at all.

But we can all do with a little humility here. Putin has since his takeover in Russia, been treated like cartoonish movie villain. The fact that Putin nowadays really is just as bad as Hitler doesn't make every story about him true. But the wests earlier treatment of Putin can help explain why Russians today can get defensive when Putin is accused of stuff.

Konstantin Kisin (of Triggernometry) explained that Russians have free access to the Internet, and that it's easy to circumvent the censorship. Most Russians still get their news from the heavily biased state propaganda news. Because they freely chose to do that. They're not being forced into this. So who exactly is being manipulated into what?

I don't think there's a cult of personality around Putin. Not anywhere near the degree of Mao, Hitler or Kim Jong Il. To a Scandinavian Americans seem to have a cult of personality around business leaders, politicians and celebrities. We don't revere anybody to that degree. It's not part of our culture. My point is that things can look a lot different from a distance, and we should be mindful of that.

The point is, Russians who have made the effort to find the truth do not support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They do not deny the overwhelming evidence coming from not just the US but from much of Europe. They do not dismiss the economic pain European nations are willing to suffer or the shunning of Russian athletes. Unless a person suffers an acute Putin addiction or is a troll, those armed with this knowledge do not at a minimum publicly supported Putin’s atrocities.

I think that is an incredibly simplistic way to look at it. Using that logic nobody should still be believing in Intelligent Design. Yet, here we are.

I do not think Russians are a bunch of "sheeple". I think they are inundated with an incredible volume of propaganda disseminated on the internet, social media, television, and radio. These sources present various arguments that all come to the same desired conclusion. They do not have to be quality arguments, just a large number of them. As long as they all point to the same conclusion. The variety of arguments makes the one conclusion highly persuasive. After all, all these different perspectives make the desired conclusion much more worthy of consideration, does it not? People will have their favorites they draw information from and discuss with their friends who may have other favorites but everyone is still reinforcing everyone else. That is key. Further, one does not have to worry about the validity of an argument, the high number of viewers brings a public trust aspect to the particular argument. The large viewership itself validates the argument.

Russian propaganda also has the advantage of being on the story first with their desired narrative. Hey, when you're unencumbered by a need to gather facts, it's easy to be on top of current events. And first impressions are lasting one. People tend to accept the first information received and favor it when conflicting messages come around.

Russian people are no worse than anyone else in these regards. We can all be lazy about validating what we agree with and forgetful when inundated with information. They are however disadvantaged by a huge Russian government propaganda machine the likes no western government possesses. It's a matter of volume, multiple formats, continuous, rapid, and repetitive information.

But I believe our friend has seen more than enough of the truthier side of things now.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You are making no sense. Accepting that other people have other opinions than you doesn't mean you agree with them.

What makes you think I don't accept the reality of varying opinions?

You did say this:

It's ok to be delusional.

It’s delusional to think that’s ok.
Delusional gave us Trump, and now, The Big Lie.
Maybe okay with you …

You are coming across as incredibly arrogant. It makes me wonder if you have a mindset that allows you to grow and change. You seem incredibly set in your ways.

I consider my opinions on some things to be well grounded in study and experience (of which I have an abundance). I see no honest way to simply change my "ways" (opinions) based solely on the fact that your ossified opinions differ from my own.
But I am not the subject of this thread, nor are my opinions or yours, regardless of how "wrong" each of our opinions may seem to the other.
Yeah, I'm fucking arrogant as hell when it comes to respecting willful ignorance, political trolling and spreading blatant falsehoods.
So sue me.
You seem to want me to "grow out of that". I suggest that perhaps it is you who needs to grow, change, and accept the harsh reality that some people's ideas are too misguided and dangerous to accept like a good little pacifist.

I disagree. I'm not going to sue you. But I think this is an interesting conversation. I think we should keep this to be about you. I'd be very grateful if you indulged me.

Do you have any examples of you changing your opinions on anything major? I have several. I can go first.

1) I was a climate change skeptic until the IPCC report. And then I changed my position 180.

2) I was a frothing-at-the-mouth militant atheist thinking all evil stems from religion. Around 2012 my opinions on that started changing. And now I think religion is the tits and very much necessary in the world. I'm still just as much an atheist. I just don't think religion is solely a force for evil anymore.

3) I was all for very permissive immigration until 2015 and I saw how the Afghani refugee's radically changed the Stockholm nightlife from peaceful to violent and dangerous. Now making it highly inadvisable to wear a fancy watch at night. Not to mention when the, now Swedish, children of the 2001-2003 Somali refugees turns to a life of crime, pressured into it by their parents, turning the suburbs of all major Swedish cities into gangland maffia territories. Today Sweden has lots of Salafist Islamic schools (yes, for children) where girls are covered and where evolution isn't taught. This didn't have to happen. We could have taken in these refugees and made it work out just fine. If we'd done the right thing. But the political establishment is caught up in the mantra saying that everybody is the same and equal, but also if brown people come here they will keep their mouth shut and obey their bleeding heart caring white Swedish superiors. It turns out that it doesn't matter how generous you are, if you are racist, black people aren't going to like you. Go figure. So because people are fucking idiots, it's probably best to restrict immigration. It's a much harder policy to fuck that up. Structural racism is a bitch and very hard to fix, especially if the people in charge to fix it are clueless about it and criminally naive.

4) I thought I had my shit together until my ex girlfriend made me realize that I have a fearful avoidant attachment style and that expressing emotions to loved one's terrifies me. To the point where I'd manage to hide this fact even from myself. Quite the rude awakening. The good news is that I have lots to talk to my therapist about.

5) Nuclear power is the way to go. Renewables is nice, but will never be the prime source of power. Environmentalists don't care about the environment. They're just a Mao'ist-style sect against anybody having fun.

These were just the first major ones that popped into my head. If I keep going I can find lots of smaller ones.

Do you have similar examples?

 

[DrZoidberg]

People struggle to change their long held opinions. It doesn’t help when one has a government feeding lies to the them. But as long as people have access to and are willing to consider evidence, these opinions can and do change. Tobacco use is a good example where evidence has changed opinion/behavior of millions of people. And this with the added burden of the evidence having to overcome the force of addiction. A cult of personality is not an addiction. There is a Russia without Putin. Many Russians know this. Many Russians seek the truth. Downloading of VPNs has increased 2500 percent since the invasion of Ukraine and the BBC in Russian website audience tripled before it was shutdown. Dissent still exists in Russia. It, out of necessity has become more subtle but it is there. Images on social media of Swan Lake ballerinas call for the death of Putin. Images that are heavy in blue and yellow indicate support for Ukraine. Anti-war chants at concerts and bits of news left on supermarket store shelves are a couple others I’ve read about.

How aren't you too arrogant. What makes you think the Russians are just a bunch of sheeple and you in Singapore, or the Americans have figured it all out?

I get slammed all the time by our forum Americans for not understanding the intricacies of American domestic politics. But the same people, slamming me for that, have no problems talking about Russian internal politics as if they knew everything.

I don't think Russians are being lied to by their government, while we in the west aren't. We're all being lied to. Every country and politician has self aggrandizing justifications for their actions. That's not the same thing as every story being is on equal footing, or that western media lies as much as Russian media. I don't think that at all.

But we can all do with a little humility here. Putin has since his takeover in Russia, been treated like cartoonish movie villain. The fact that Putin nowadays really is just as bad as Hitler doesn't make every story about him true. But the wests earlier treatment of Putin can help explain why Russians today can get defensive when Putin is accused of stuff.

Konstantin Kisin (of Triggernometry) explained that Russians have free access to the Internet, and that it's easy to circumvent the censorship. Most Russians still get their news from the heavily biased state propaganda news. Because they freely chose to do that. They're not being forced into this. So who exactly is being manipulated into what?

I don't think there's a cult of personality around Putin. Not anywhere near the degree of Mao, Hitler or Kim Jong Il. To a Scandinavian Americans seem to have a cult of personality around business leaders, politicians and celebrities. We don't revere anybody to that degree. It's not part of our culture. My point is that things can look a lot different from a distance, and we should be mindful of that.

The point is, Russians who have made the effort to find the truth do not support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They do not deny the overwhelming evidence coming from not just the US but from much of Europe. They do not dismiss the economic pain European nations are willing to suffer or the shunning of Russian athletes. Unless a person suffers an acute Putin addiction or is a troll, those armed with this knowledge do not at a minimum publicly supported Putin’s atrocities.

I think that is an incredibly simplistic way to look at it. Using that logic nobody should still be believing in Intelligent Design. Yet, here we are.

I do not think Russians are a bunch of "sheeple". I think they are inundated with an incredible volume of propaganda disseminated on the internet, social media, television, and radio. These sources present various arguments that all come to the same desired conclusion. They do not have to be quality arguments, just a large number of them. As long as they all point to the same conclusion. The variety of arguments makes the one conclusion highly persuasive. After all, all these different perspectives make the desired conclusion much more worthy of consideration, does it not? People will have their favorites they draw information from and discuss with their friends who may have other favorites but everyone is still reinforcing everyone else. That is key. Further, one does not have to worry about the validity of an argument, the high number of viewers brings a public trust aspect to the particular argument. The large viewership itself validates the argument.

Russian propaganda also has the advantage of being on the story first with their desired narrative. Hey, when you're unencumbered by a need to gather facts, it's easy to be on top of current events. And first impressions are lasting one. People tend to accept the first information received and favor it when conflicting messages come around.

Russian people are no worse than anyone else in these regards. We can all be lazy about validating what we agree with and forgetful when inundated with information. They are however disadvantaged by a huge Russian government propaganda machine the likes no western government possesses. It's a matter of volume, multiple formats, continuous, rapid, and repetitive information.

But I believe our friend has seen more than enough of the truthier side of things now.

But that's also true for western media. CNN isn't going to sell advertising spots if Americans don't get their patriotic delusions validated.

And curious Russians, just like curious westerners CAN find alternative news sources. Like this forum. The Internet truly has changed the world. Totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, USSR and Mao'ist China are long gone now. That kind of control over the media isn't possible (outside of North Korea) anymore.

I think Russians are less easy to fool than Westerners precisely because of their history regarding communist propaganda. I think they are highly skeptical of anything they hear and read. So I don't think brainwashing is the reason so many of them are cheering for Putin. It's something else.

 

[Elixir]

You are making no sense. Accepting that other people have other opinions than you doesn't mean you agree with them.

What makes you think I don't accept the reality of varying opinions?

You did say this:

It's ok to be delusional.

It’s delusional to think that’s ok.
Delusional gave us Trump, and now, The Big Lie.
Maybe okay with you …

You are coming across as incredibly arrogant. It makes me wonder if you have a mindset that allows you to grow and change. You seem incredibly set in your ways.

I consider my opinions on some things to be well grounded in study and experience (of which I have an abundance). I see no honest way to simply change my "ways" (opinions) based solely on the fact that your ossified opinions differ from my own.
But I am not the subject of this thread, nor are my opinions or yours, regardless of how "wrong" each of our opinions may seem to the other.
Yeah, I'm fucking arrogant as hell when it comes to respecting willful ignorance, political trolling and spreading blatant falsehoods.
So sue me.
You seem to want me to "grow out of that". I suggest that perhaps it is you who needs to grow, change, and accept the harsh reality that some people's ideas are too misguided and dangerous to accept like a good little pacifist.

I disagree. I'm not going to sue you. But I think this is an interesting conversation. I think we should keep this to be about you. I'd be very grateful if you indulged me.

Do you have any examples of you changing your opinions on anything major? I have several. I can go first.

1) I was a climate change skeptic until the IPCC report. And then I changed my position 180.

2) I was a frothing-at-the-mouth militant atheist thinking all evil stems from religion. Around 2012 my opinions on that started changing. And now I think religion is the tits and very much necessary in the world. I'm still just as much an atheist. I just don't think religion is solely a force for evil anymore.

3) I was all for very permissive immigration until 2015 and I saw how the Afghani refugee's radically changed the Stockholm nightlife from peaceful to violent and dangerous. Now making it highly inadvisable to wear a fancy watch at night. Not to mention when the, now Swedish, children of the 2001-2003 Somali refugees turns to a life of crime, pressured into it by their parents, turning the suburbs of all major Swedish cities into gangland maffia territories. Today Sweden has lots of Salafist Islamic schools (yes, for children) where girls are covered and where evolution isn't taught. This didn't have to happen. We could have taken in these refugees and made it work out just fine. If we'd done the right thing. But the political establishment is caught up in the mantra saying that everybody is the same and equal, but also if brown people come here they will keep their mouth shut and obey their bleeding heart caring white Swedish superiors. It turns out that it doesn't matter how generous you are, if you are racist, black people aren't going to like you. Go figure. So because people are fucking idiots, it's probably best to restrict immigration. It's a much harder policy to fuck that up. Structural racism is a bitch and very hard to fix, especially if the people in charge to fix it are clueless about it and criminally naive.

4) I thought I had my shit together until my ex girlfriend made me realize that I have a fearful avoidant attachment style and that expressing emotions to loved one's terrifies me. To the point where I'd manage to hide this fact even from myself. Quite the rude awakening. The good news is that I have lots to talk to my therapist about.

5) Nuclear power is the way to go. Renewables is nice, but will never be the prime source of power. Environmentalists don't care about the environment. They're just a Mao'ist-style sect against anybody having fun.

These were just the first major ones that popped into my head. If I keep going I can find lots of smaller ones.

Do you have similar examples?

Right away - I was anti- nuclear until a theoretical physicist explained the realities to me, regarding the disposal/storage/re-use of reactor waste. Changed my conviction entirely and almost instantly.

I had an epiphany when I was 17 that I attributed to “supernatural” causes that I later came to understand as a biological phenomenon.

I’ve had lots of changes of heart about other individuals, their intentions and the quality of their actions - both positive and negative.

Lots of other examples. I change, my ideas and opinions change but certain core values do not. How about you? Do you have an actual “center” that remains unaltered, or no?