Butschi

Yep, that is basically the blueprint for a lot of disinformation campaigns we are seeing today. Build up your own "experts" by providing them with a serious looking background (some "institute" or foundation) or simply corrupt some actual scientists. Undermine the integrity of real experts. Then exploit media who try to hear all sides and present them equally. You don't actually have to convince people, it is sufficient to sow enough doubt in the truth.

True but that doesn't mean every journalist is equally bad. There are those who try to be objective. There are those who try to portray the truth - or as close to the truth as they can get - and those who lie intentionally. This talk about all the journalists, news outlets, etc. being biased or having their own agenda is often spread by factions who indeed have an agenda, who want us to be confused and not trust journalists or others who check facts. So they can manipulate us better.

I don't think you can explain the phenomenon with only one cause, although social media are certainly a huge amplifier of nothing else. Just a few thoughts that come to mind in no specific order: * Someone mentioned recently in a German article that (quality) media have to stop treating every position as equally valid. That's a hard thing to do because a hallmark of quality journalism has always been to hear both sides in an argument and report that in a neutral way. During the last two decades or so populists, climate "sceptics", etc. have learned to exploit this. One side uses actual facts, the other side completely makes things up but both are reported as two valid statements about a topic. The reader/listener makes of this that at best this is a topic that's still very much under discussion without established facts. * Strongly related: Erosion of trust in experts. With the effect from above, recipients see that expert A says X, "expert" B says Y, both contradict each other, so you either believe noone or the one who's position you like better. My favorite example was during my time at CERN prior to switching on the LHC. A not entirely invalid concern was the LHC would produce black holes that eventually would gobble up the earth. There were actual particle physicists who said and could argue with facts that the machine is safe. And then media jazzed up one guy who was a professor (which is enough to know everything about everything, of course). Not in physics but medicine or so and was self declared chaos theorist. He told everyone we would destroy the world. * It's all about clicks. This is true for social media but isn't exclusive to it. The root cause is that with the upcoming of the internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s we have learned that everything has to be free, actually charging money is greedy and evil. Free means ads, of course, and those are tracked and traded much faster and more precise than it was possible with paper or TV ads. So, an article is measured in the number of clicks it generates - and, as we've leaned from social media, the more an article emotionalizes and polarizes the more clicks it generates. * Again related: Of course even quality newspapers had sensationalistic headlines. But that was more or less the title page. Plus newspapers relied a lot on long term subscription models which dampened the need for sensations and enforced building up trust over a longer time period. * Quality journalism has actually declined over the years. That is due to a mixture of ads vs subscription (less stable money) and the need to report about everything in detail 5 mins after it happened. Of course people derive from that, that they can just as well get their news from telegram. * There has been a lot of campaigning against "mainstream" media over the years (happily assisted by politicians on all sides when it fit their narrative) that increasingly comes to fruition. * AI deep fakes erode trust even further. * This point may be more exclusive to Germany: Prime time TV news are increasingly... "boulevardized"(?): E.g. when watching the daily news you should get a general understanding about what is going on in Ukraine (not in detail but at least the larger developments). What we got was: "Russia has further increased its attacks in Ukraine" (over months), interviews with random civilians in Kiyv and phrases like "civilians suffers most in this war". * EDIT: As @The_Capt just wrote: most of this relates indeed to trust. I do hope we are just seeing a phase of transition from classical media to, well, I don't really know.

How is that even supposed to work? Ukraine can't force them, I guess we can't either and we won't, anyway. They'd have to volunteer and it is anyone's guess how likely that would be, given that they fled from the war in the first place. What's more, if Ukrainian drones were operated from our territory, that would technically make us a direct party in the war - not going to happen. Thirdly, let's assume we could get that to work somehow: Wouldn't it be detrimental to moral at the frontline when people who dodged being drafted get "rewarded" by giving them some of the better posts compared to having to sit in a trench?

Is the world we want really the same world the younger generations want, though? Usually you are the one to remind us of micro societies and all that. I feel that, especially when it comes to concepts like nations, the older and younger generations are not really on the same page. (Being 45 I sit in the middle and don't really know about either).

I think technically, i e. language-wise, you are right (though English isn't my mother tongue, either). My personal belief is simply that you should not call someone a coward for something that you yourself have never had to show your bravery, either. Ok, I think I made my point, I really don't want to derail the thread with this.

I have no intention to degrade anyone's service but I for one think that you can't call people cowards when you yourself were never in their situation (which is what @Aragorn2002 said himself). But that's really just my opinion.

I was about to make a snarky remark but seriously you must realize that doing your duty in peacetime (when the alternative was going to jail?) is a different kind "bravery" than when joining the army means to actually risk your life.

Make Trump Great Again (MTGA) simply doesn't sound all that great...

All true. My point is, just as with people here saying there should be peace negotiations because the dying and suffering in Ukraine should end (talking about those who actually mean well not the ones who want to do business with Russia again), it is simply not our call to make because it is not us who have to face the consequences. It is up to the Ukrainians to decide whether they want to fight or not.

Come on, now. I think we arm chair generals who have no real stakes in this whatsoever have no right to pass judgement on these people. There are people who generally like to live more than they like to die.

I think I could even live with a Russian who is genuinely interested in a discussion and who can be argued with. Not a die-hard pro Putin fanboy who thinks Bucha was a great idea (or it was the Ukrainian) and Ukraine is actually not a sovereign state - but doesn't have to be a resistance fighter, either. Nothing like getting outside the bubble, every now and then.

Not sure. He has a very distinctive pattern. 1. Post something, preferrably moralizing and provoking. 2. When challenged, ignore almost all the points the other one made. 3. (Optionally, say something like "It is strange" than quote something you wrote out of context.) 4. Shoot back a number of questions that are provoking/moralizing. 5. Say something like "I'm only interested in understanding your logic". 6. Repeat steps 2 thru 5. 7. If too heavily criticized, blame it on language issues. (Google Translate, etc.) 8. (Optionally post something meaningful, every once in a while so as to appear like you are actually interested in a meaningful discussion.) Zeleban, as far as I remember, posted differently. @Battlefront.com sorry, that back and forth about the graph with Finnish exports was of course totally meaningless (beyond my first slightly overzealus answer) and added nothing useful to the discussion. I simply wanted to find out how Eug85 reacts when being treated with his own strategy.

Still not answered a single one of my questions. You presented the graph, the burden of proof is on you. I don't have to prove anything to you. Btw. a lot of graphs have been questioned. How do I know that? I did it myself quite a few times. Is that a problem for you? Do you think we should discuss like in Russia where you are told by the government what is true and you agree or else end up in jail or dead? Also, you still haven't answered my question: Should bars in a plot be called smaller when they are not if that supports your narrative?

Again, you did not react to any of my points. So, are you not interested in a meaningful discussion? Do you think we should simply distribute graphs and repeat the author's opinion without knowing what they mean and if they are real? Do you think larger bars in a graph should be called smaller when they otherwise don't fit the author's narrative? Do you think Western politicians should get to own their country's companies like Russian oligarchs, so they can directly order the companies where to sell what? How about a law against selling too many washing machines? Do you think we should send salesmen to jail when they increase their sales by 100%? No? 200%? Where is threshold? I am simply interested in your logic.