kravietz 🦇 @kravietz@social.privacytools.io

@dump_stack

> Force them to limit exposure

Oh, I see now - I wasn't clear and I see the potential for misunderstanding here - I mean limiting exposure to disinformation by teaching people how to be critical of their read, rather than banning them from reading news completely.

@dump_stack

Fascist?! No way - fascism relied entirely on emotions and populism which is the very opposite of informed choice.

Teaching people critical thinking is not any different from teaching them "do not drink bleach because it will harm you", which I believe only die-hard US social darwinists would call "fascist".

@dump_stack

> I don't think he would do it if he had no support in society

In short term he doesn't need support in any other social groups than law enforcement, military and public sector to preserver the status quo.

The problem is that this kind of thinking was precisely what prevented strategic reforms in Russia in 1900 and 1970, with well-known outcomes.

@dump_stack

The best results was seen in countries that followed "ABC" approach - "B" was for "be faithful" if I remember correctly - because each of these approaches had different efficacy in different social groups and combined they worked best in all society.

There was a great book by epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani "Wisdom of whores" which was an eye opener for me on that topic as I had quite conservative views back then.

But that's just a digression.

@dump_stack

It's been a classic debate in the epidemiology for decades, especially sexually transmitted diseases - Roman-Catholic church argued the only way to stop spread of HIV was abstinence ("A", correct but utopian solution) while medical community recommended condoms ("C", pragmatic solution). Of course, the countries that dogmatically followed the "A" approach saw HIV rates rising while countries following "C" saw them slowing down.

@dump_stack

Ok, in my *personal* case this largely already applies because I'm barely reading any portals, not watching TV etc. Just don't have time to.

However, I'm still exposed to news from the social media I follow and it would be counterproductive to limit exposure even further *this way.*

But that's me.

But the fact is that 90% of population does follow "the news" so they just won't limit their exposure by mere avoidance. They need to be taught to limit exposure while being exposed.

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@dump_stack

Well, but that's the point here. As with radiation, you simply can't eliminate it as background radiation is everywhere - it's not practically possible and it would be an utopia.

What you want is to limit exposure below a threshold where it actually can be a problem, and right now we have people living in areas with natural background radiation of ~200 mSv per year and no negative biological effects.

Same with exposure to lies - we've actually evolved with lies for ~1m years.

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But then you can do more research, and you actually see there were some things that USSR did well and even better than say US or UK. If you're still impermeable, you will simply reject these facts.

If you are honest to yourself, you can draw a lesson from these things done well, even though your overall judgement - taken all the arguments you learned - is that the Soviet system sucked in general.

@dump_stack

So I don't think it's always your brain being "contaminated" with small doses of disinformation, you might just as well listen to arguments and critically process them.

First-hand example is anti-communism. You start from a position where your experience indicates the Soviet system sucked, because it sucked for you personally. You could stick to the position till you die, and many people indeed do. You're impermeable.

@dump_stack

It's good we can actually change our opinion and I'd say it's actually more of a problem when your brain goes into a full defensive mode and is completely impermeable to arguments - extreme anti-vaxxers are a classic example of this attitude.*

* although research indicates most anti-vaxxers aren't really impermeable, they do listen to arguments, and those who apparently don't just have a financial motive (e.g. they own "natural remedy" shops).

@dump_stack

I don't think Putin would unroll this new wave of repressions if he actually had popular support in society.

What they're doing now is disaster recovery mode when they know losing power is inevitable in long term, they're just trying to minimize the harm.

Assuming Putin is not 100% autocratic ruler (and I believe he's not), and the ultimate goal of the clan is to preserve their privileges, they'll come up with a reasonable solution by the next presidential term.

@dump_stack

That's an interesting result, as we're clearly moving from that 65% down to 40% in this question, and then there's that 27% in "who do you trust".

I would say this question is also quite a closed one, and the additional effect here is the famous "but there's no alternatives" argument so carefully constructed by Putin over the last 20 years.

Oh, also note 28% "do NOT trust Putin" in the WCIOM poll.

@dump_stack

And then, the effect depends on a number of mental shortcuts our brain makes - for example, we can be prepared for the main part of the story (say "Navalny was a nazi already in 1980") to be false, but have our defenses lowered for all the side threads (say "and after school Alexei had this fantastic plombir that was so much better back then").

This is once again a natural cognitive bias, but you can train to avoid the implicit trust - auditors do this all the time.

@dump_stack

Yes, that's precisely why I used the example. If you see that claim repeated over and over in different sources, and especially if it's implied rather than the main story, then the effect you describe can be surely real.

We have seen the changing attitudes towards USSR over the last decade or so as result of propaganda and the "пломбир" belief is a textbook example.

What I say is that you actually can develop skills to read such news in a way that will prevent it from happening.

@dump_stack

> What we have right now is both public debate and politics.

We don't really. We're having a debate on epistemology. Last time we had a political debate on Russia you said I have no idea about life in Russia and that was really it 😂 (and then the new wave of arrests happened again)

@dump_stack

Variable speed of light in different materials is much more relevant to our daily life as we don't live in vacuum. I can read this text thanks to the effect of light slowing down in the lens of my glasses. So yes, it's actually a good example of an use case when setting the context is actually important.

In case of 2+2=4 it's the opposite as we're used to decimal system but the case of 1+1=10 would clearly need setting the context.

@dump_stack

And even with unprotected audience some level of immunity develops naturally, as seen in the nosedivind trust in state media in Russia.