What I have learned:
- Russia has already won the Ukraine war
- Which NATO started
- A lot of people in the West think that Ukraine should surrender
- Also Ukraine was the world’s main provider of CSAM
- Also Ukraine is exploited by the West but if they can unite with Russia then their economy and everything else will finally be alright
It’s literally like a bizarro world and everyone is over there agreeing with it. I’m genuinely confused by, who even are these people (what is the mixture of Russian bots / Russian-aligned ordinary people / confused Westerners / some other explanation.)
There are some Americans, who upon learning that the US is not the mythological good guy it’s propaganda portrayed it as, are dealt such severe psychic damage that the only way their fractured mind is able to cope is to just assume the opposite worldview must be true.
The key takeaway is that they’re not capable of thinking for themselves. They require others to tell them what to think, and that’s either going to be US or Russian propaganda.
It seems that tankies support Putin.
Hexbears can’t answer the question “is it ok to kill civilians” without asking “Palestinian or Ukrainian?”
Somehow, if you say that killing children is bad regardless of religion, country or skin color, you’re a racist and a Nazi.
They don’t care too much for Uyghur people either.
Had one guy claim the Uyghur concentration camps didn’t exist. He posted a wall of random articles claiming there was a lack of evidence.
When asked why China is not allowing journalists near these camps and they locked it all down I got no response.
And then they—the ones who claim to be so socially enlightened—say that the idea of cultural genocide is fake and doesn’t exist and that erasing a culture by forcibly assimilating it is Good Actually.
Yeah, I have seen mostly claims that the camps don’t exist and there is nothing going on.
This is just plain not true. Cool strawmanning.
As with every single time this comes up. “Hexbear would TOTALLY say this” “Oh really, any examples?” “NO BUT THEY WOULD I BET PROBABLY”
I have long blocked the instance due to that behavior, didn’t need that toxicity in my life.
Cool cries though
This thread makes me laugh.
They’re getting their knickers in a twist thinking that Biden is escalating and would be the cause for a nuclear war, conveniently forgetting that:
- Russia invaded Ukraine
- Russia has been constantly making threats to use nuclear weapons against western nations since the invasion started
- Russia attacks Ukraine from within their own borders
Trying to make tankies make sense is a losing vocation mate. bizarro world is right.
These takes are pretty hot with QAnon conservatives in America too. Wonder why. 🤔
That is the power of an echo chamber. My favorite post by a hex was when he tried to convince me that the Tiananmen Square massare was fake. He had a comprehensive list of over 20 links prepared, with bangers like “Actually, the massacre wasn’t happening on Tiananmen Square, but next to it. Checkmate globalists”. I’d love to link it here, but shame on @goat for deleting that post and sending them to the Tankie corner, because now I can’t find it anymore, not even in the mod log.
Oh god yeah, all the freaking time. I feel my brain turn to Jello when someone goes all-in on the “massacre was fake” bullshit, often insisting that no pictures exist, pretending it’s just the Tank Guy pic. Someone references the notorious bike pic, they pretend you’re talking about a similar bike pic that’s a LITTLE less clear about tank treads crushing human bodies. You link them the actual bike pic, they either pretend they don’t see the slaughter (best I heard was “they’re not dead or run over, they’re just taking a nap”) or they start saying “well those were the violent people and China saved the peaceful protestors from them”
It makes me want to vomit
Reality is a team sport, to some people.
These people are not socialists. It’s all just right wing agitprop. It’s extremely obvious.
Hexbear is generally confused by everything, so it makes sense that nothing they say makes sense.
It’s best to think of them like this:
Imagine The_Donald, but instead of it being a cesspit of right-wing ignorance, it’s a cesspit of communist ignorance.
There is no rhyme or reason. Misinformation preys on what it can, it is an opportunist. The beliefs do not have to agree with each other so long as they affirm one’s bias.
It’s just so… weird.
Like it seems like they genuinely believe it. I can’t see that it’s useful to have a whole server of propaganda-bots all just talking to each other; it seems like probably some decent number of them are real actual people.
I feel like I have a pretty good handle at this point on why people hold weird political opinions on the internet, but the whole “Russia’s the best, Russia’s totally winning the war, anything and everything in the Western media is lies, RT and SCMP are the only things you can trust” viewpoint is still a mystery to me. The best thing that I can come up with is that it’s a sort of little self strengthening propaganda-box like some authoritarian religions – like “every source that doesn’t agree with me is lying, don’t believe them” and a few other key principles that make it hard to break your way out of once you’re in it. But I don’t know. Like I say I can’t figure it out.
They do genuinely believe it until and unless they are challenged on it in a way they cannot refute and also simultaneously does not anger them.
If it angers them, they all become screaming sarcastic trolls.
If you manage to do it politely they will act as if they have an extremely nuanced opinion and well we basically believe the same thing with minor differences.
In short, they basically have late stage irony poisoning which has legitimately caused many of them to become delusional and extremely aggressive if correctly agitated.
If you are enough of a leftist to know their more grounded ideas and the lingo / meme culture, you can fit in well until you trigger them with a verboten question or idea.
You are correct that many of the psychological traits are basically the same seen in other cults of personality. Self reinforcing bubble.
Also lets be real, a whole lot of these people are also chronic weed smokers. Sure, in moderation that shit is fine, but use it consistently to the point that you need it to cope with reality and … well long term hallucinogen use kind of warps most people’s sense of reality.
Yeah. There’s this culture of lemmy.ml, too, that’s elevated arguing in bad faith to this sort of “this is the way” status. Like if you’re calmly citing sources and asking questions, that is “sealioning” which is a bad thing to do, but hurling abuse at someone who you don’t agree with is fine. Also, I’ve noticed a common thread of behavior which is telling other people what those people believe and then disagreeing with it. Like hey, you disagreed with some ludicrous thing that I said, so that means you’re a “centrist” and you support establishment Democrats and Israel, and so now I’m gonna go HAM about telling you how wrong you are for supporting the Democrats and Israel even though you never said those things or anything even roughly similar to them. It’s like a little one-man band of internet debate. The other person doesn’t even really need to be involved in the process at all beyond showing up and saying a couple things enough to be branded as the enemy.
At one point I thought it was bots. Like they’re programmed with this pattern of general hostility pushing a certain viewpoint, that doesn’t even need to have anything to do with what the person they’re talking to is saying, and that’s why it’s so bizarre in the flow of conversation. But now I’m not real sure about that. IDK. Maybe it’s not worth time trying to figure out, but it is a mystery to me that I wish I could know the answer to.
My pet theory/explanation is that, the more people see things go wrong in society (or, rather, believe them to), the more they tend to become contrarians. They look for views and beliefs that are opposite to what people in authority say. It seems to be built into us, like a tribe of stone age people will question their leaders’ methods and decisions after a row of bad hunts and then desire to hunt in a new place, at a different time, using different techniques.
Modern information warfare appears to use that idea centrally. The far right has been indoctrinated to believe that the “establishment” they rebel against is left wing and that a hard turn towards right wing politics is needed. After Trump won in 2016 and they were officially in power, they splintered a bit until they found a new lore: “actually, we’re still being ruled by the left, they’re the deep state, the cabal, etc.” to rekindle the contrarian / siege mentality and come together again.
I see all that in tankies, too. Society feels like it’s going wrong, so they sponge up any reason they see to hate the “establishment,” which is where the already running information warfare provides them ample facts to blame liberals and hate western powers, etc.
Also, on the hostility… yeah. These echo chambers seem to almost intentionally breed a nastiness that shuts down any useful discussion. Try to defuse anger and you’re “whiteknighting,” try to point out that something decent is good and you’re “virtue signaling.” When these communities erupt into other spaces, they quickly drive out anyone discussing in good faith. Survival of the nastiest.
A lot of minor social media sites got created by groups unwelcome to larger sites. Lemmy in general has a tankie pedigree. At least tankies aren’t fascist, but they can still be insufferable.
They’re extremely authoritarian. Like they prefer authoritarianism to leftist economics. What is the practical difference between their brand of authoritarianism and fascism? They want nominally leftist authoritarianism with selectively harsh law enforcement.
Yeah, they are extremely authoritarian against people they don’t like. They just don’t punch down.
I’m just comparing them to fascists.
Fascists and “red” fascists are so similar in practice that even though they’re adjacent, own ideologies, it just usually doesn’t matter a lot
That’s about the size of it.
World defederated from them months ago. Save yourself the psychic damage and block the instance if your instance hasn’t defederated.
Or have fun and ask exactly what NATO’s end game was after they “encircled” Russia and when exactly they planned to invade. Or how if Russia’s goal was to prevent nato expansion, why are there 2 more NATO countries than before the war started. Or ask them to explain how the holodomor was actually not that bad and the millions of people that died deserved it.
Tankies are a mess.
Yeah, the holodomor lol.
I had a hex person once tell me that actually the holodomor happened because of Nazi agents sabotaging agricultural production in Ukraine.
You know, in 1932 and 33. When the Nazis were putting all their resources into street fighting, barely eeking out a substantial amount of electoral power, Hitler becoming chancellor due to a compromise… you know largely before they had large numbers of party members or massive control of the state… yep they just secretly managed to sabotage the agricultural system of another state.
This person’s source was literally ‘I heard that…’.
I asked them for an actual source and they retreated into “Wow, way to ruin my good faith conversation attempt.”
Its like they’d never actually been responsible for anything in their life, and just assumed that gossip and hear-say are totally on par with like… an actual idea with any kind of evidence.
It’s like a sore tooth, I can’t keep from poking at it.
I also learned just now that the collapse of the USSR and and its former constituent countries in the 1990s is an example of how great communism is, because when the communism went away, everything got worse. It’s flawless logic; I can see no counter argument.
Oh the worst part you may have noticed is they’ll use US atrocities to excuse other atrocities. Like they did it so why don’t you care about that instead of tens of millions dead under stalin/Mao etc.? While failing to realize the actual correct position is all of that was bad. Best of luck in your adventures.
Or “you think CHINA’s justice system is bad, have you heard about the police in AMERICA?”
You clearly don’t have a good handle if you can’t even work out the very obvious fact that nobody there thinks “Russia is the best”.
So, everyone has to have the same opinion? Is that how the world should be ?. Wtf
Reading comprehension really isn’t your thing, is it? Or are you just intentionally misstating OPs position to push a different narrative?
So much hate!
So little actual discussion from you!
Would it make sense to have one? :)
I see why you talk in circles with your vague platitudes;
If you spoke in a straight line you’d actually get to the fucking point and we would all see your true motives.
Hexbear: Literally the most insane and aggressive disagreement with literally everything and everyone, including yelling and cursing and deleting comments and banning people who disagree with their insane viewpoint
Me: I think your opinions are not correct
Hexbear: Why are you SILENCING MY DISSENT this is unfair
If the opinions are “killing civilians is bad” and “land grabs are shitty”…
Yes, everyone should hold those as truth.
If you don’t, then you support all sorts of bad shit like genocides and civilian displacement.
If that’s the case, you deserve to have the entirety of this platform openly mock you wherever you go.
There is no coherent ideology over there besides “America/the West/capitalism should be destroyed.” Dudes would rather Pol Pot be in charge than Joe Biden.
Last part is true and even more insane/sad because these people are all terminally online gossip mongers that Pol Pot would have immediately executed.
You own a computer? You don’t work in the fields? You wear glasses?
Yep, literally executed.
This is satire, right? Nobody over there glorifies or likes Pol Pot.
Not even remotely satire, and you might notice I never said anyone over there “glorified or likes Pol Pot.” Back in my early Lemmy days I spent way too much time on Hexbear trying to understand, and repeatedly was told that any communist dictator, no matter how heinous, from any time in history would be preferable to any US president. They twisted in knots denying any atrocities by communists while at it. They were clear they don’t particularly like Putin, Xi, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc, but would prefer their leadership in every case over US leadership
I recently had a stray gradbear challenge me to show them any link that said Pol Pot was the shit (then he’d quit the fediverse)
They have this theorem on ‘actual real world communism’ where you’re the weakbear if you like book communism but dare to speak ill of said regimes
More than once I have seen the same person express both “America is evil and the whole system needs to be destroyed” and also “Joe Biden is bad for the country and I can’t support him”, and asked the person, well if you think America is bad and Biden is harming the country, doesn’t that mean you should support him being in charge, so he can do more damage to this evil thing?
No, they know that Donald is worse for the country. They want Donald in there so America collapses faster. They want China and Russia to expand.
I don’t even think they are accelerationists at this point. I think they are all either information warfare operatives or useful idiots. The hexbear admin has essentially admitted to this.
The hexbear admin has essentially admitted to this.
Source? I wanna see their exact words
Source: No source, because all this shit is always made the fuck up.
Boy that would sure be convenient for your narrative wouldn’t it?
And what’s the complete lack of a source for a notable claim do to yours, lol?
If this is a honest question I will try to give some honest context, I do not represent a Hexbear, so these are just some views that I have that make me sceptical of the narrative that currently exists.
After the cold war there were calls to establish a common security structure including Russia to try to ensure peace in Europe. Instead the US (with pressure from past satellite states of Moscow, Poland, Czechia, etc) chose to maintain NATO and on top of that invite everybody except Russia, many foreign policy experts already warned that this was a recipe for war, but wether it was malice or incompetence they were ignored.
Fast forward to 2008 the US suggests inviting Ukraine (and Georgia) to NATO, and Russia makes extremely clear that this would not happen, that this was a red line for them. Now you can disagree with Russias right to say anything about the military alliances of its neighbours, but the fact that Russia is a military regional power with nukes is something you need to deal with. Again wether it was incompetence or malice is hard to say but the next 14 years are basically a chain of escalatory actions by the US combined with a series of stronger and stronger warnings from Russia that this would lead to war.
During the events themselves it is hard to judge as a civilian what exactly is happening in geopolitics, the US has a very clear trackrecord of treat inflation or simply lying about its true intentions or the truth on the ground. It could of course be that this is one of those rare cases where the US are truly the Good Guys™️ or it could be that this is a ploy to weaken a rival with the only price being the destruction of a country they don’t care about and the death of hundreds of thousands of military age males they don’t care about.
these are just some views that I have
Where else other than hexbear or Russian state media were you able to find such egregiously biased views?
John Mearsheimer among others, were do you get your views from?
Who are the others?
I think John Mearshimer’s analysis of the situation is extremely accurate on the whole, but what he says is very different from what you’re saying.
- He describes the origin of the conflict as a misunderstanding between Russia and the West - where the West isn’t actually trying to provoke Russia, but their actions are interpreted as hostile. Actually Mearshimer’s analysis in this respect is a lot of where I got my own view on it.
- He says that Russia’s goal at this point is to simply smash Ukraine completely, to teach the world a lesson about what will happen to anyone who tries to make them feel unsafe. You might agree with that (it sounds like maybe you do), but certainly that’s not the consensus view on Hexbear from what I’ve seen - it would make you an outlier compared to them I think.
From which respected academic did you get the idea that the West was provoking Russia on purpose by expanding to include countries Russia was attacking or threatening (which presumably then weren’t themselves the driving force wanting NATO or EU membership)?
I’m not trying to represent all of Hexbear, my views differ from the norm (just as yours seems to differ from the lemmy.world norm).
Second, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m certain on everything. It just seems very clear to me that the current narrative is dangerous and risks leading to escalation beyond Ukraine and has already caused a lot of suffering, (I think in this I echo Mearsheimers views, see the recent interview on the Spectators Americano podcast). Wether it was intentional or accidental I purposely left open in my original comment because, like I said, it’s very hard to judge at this point. But given the US trackrecord it’s probably a healthy dosis of both overconfidence in their power as well as cynical intent.
To me it’s hard to imagine that after Russia put their army on the border and explicitly said, Ukraine stays neutral or war, that the US wasn’t aware of the consequences. Clearly Ukrainian lives were not on the forefront of their decision making process at that point. So then the question is what was.
But these are my personal opinions, and I’m happy to be convinced otherwise (but calling me a Russian bot is not very convincing I find).the current narrative is dangerous and risks leading to escalation beyond Ukraine and has already caused a lot of suffering
I would say it’s all the shelling and rocket attacks and bombings, not so much the narrative.
In general I think trying to talk and understand the world is not a hostile act. If you’re trying to deliberately distort honest conversation to justify something, then that’s a bad thing, but just saying that some sincere narrative right or wrong can be a dangerous thing all on its own, I don’t agree with.
To me it’s hard to imagine that after Russia put their army on the border and explicitly said, Ukraine stays neutral or war, that the US wasn’t aware of the consequences.
Bro
What if I put a couple of my friends on the border of your house, and explicitly said, hey if you try to do X Y or Z then I might have to kill you. What’s your reaction? What’s fair in that scenario? If you ask for some allies to come over because you plan on doing X Y and Z anyway and fuck the border-standers, does it all of a sudden become the allies’ fault that any of that happened? What you’re saying is just a very weird allocation of blame to me.
Like I say, what Mearsheimer says on this issue actually makes a good deal of sense to me, but what you’re saying here is very different from what he says about it, as far as I know. I think one of the critical issues is whether the whole thing was a “ploy” by the West – he definitely doesn’t think that, that I’m aware of. Where did you get that idea? It definitely doesn’t seem to me that fighting between Russia and various former-USSR states needed any additional help in order to develop, although I’m sure the US is happy it’s happening and happy to help it go badly for Russia.
Clearly Ukrainian lives were not on the forefront of their decision making process at that point.
I think it’s relevant what the Ukrainians think. Are you saying that rejecting Russia’s orders for what they were and were not allowed to do, knowing that Russia might attack them as a result, was not their decision but someone else’s? What do you think they think about it?
Here’s a little excerpt, somewhat related, from “Sky Above Kharkiv” by Serhiy Zhadan:
"And I’d like to make another point. I was rather skeptical of the current government. I was struck by one particular thing. The elections of 2019 brought a lot of young people to power – not my peers (I’m a far cry from being young) but a bunch of political youngsters who didn’t belong to dozens of parties or hadn’t worked for all kinds of shady cabinets of ministers. ‘But why do these young people,’ I thought, ‘act like old functionaries from the Kuchma era? Where did their childish urge to make a quick buck and flaunt it come from? Why aren’t they trying to be different?’ Thing is, I personally had the chance to do what I still consider rather constructive, useful things with a lot of them – everyone from ministers to mayors and governors. Nonetheless, I’d look toward the Parliament building and ask myself, ‘Why aren’t you trying to be different?’
“Now [in wartime] with the naked eye you can see them trying to be different. Advisers, speakers, ministers, negotiators, officers, mayors, and commanders – these forty-year-old boys and girls whose generation has been dealt the cruel lot of having to stand up for their country. And this applies no less (and possibly even more) to the millions of soliders, volunteer fighters, and just regular people pitching in, people shedding the swampy legacy of the twentieth century, like mud falling off new, yet well-chosen combat boots. Young Ukrainian men and women – that’s who this war of annihilation is being waged against. And then, in contrast, are the heads of Russia, Belarus, America, and Germany. The first two are old delusional geezers from the past century who look a lot like old Russian armored vehicles, but they’re old. And they’re Russian, which, in itself, does little to recommend a vehicle. Then there are the latter two – they’re cautious office clerks, retired capitulators who aren’t brave enough to admit that they, too, are involved in what’s going on.”
What do you think started, and kept WWI going, narrative. Every party believed or was sold that they could win this thing if they just kept climbing the escalation ladder. With the result that an entire generation of boys and men was gone for basically nothing.
What if I put a couple of my friends on the border of your house, and explicitly said, hey if you try to do X Y or Z then I might have to kill you.
For a start I would not do X, Y and Z, this is the whole idea of realism, accept the world as is. Threats work, I’m sorry. If your response is to call the police, there is no police in the world of international politics, you have to play the hand you’re dealt.
And in the case of Ukraine this was sadly a very bad hand, that is why I don’t blame Ukraine for much. You could of course blame Ukraine for being lured by the power of the US, and that they could thus safely ignore dire warnings from Russia. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, so I choose to put the blame at the hands of Russia and the US.
What do you think started, and kept WWI going
- An entanglement of defensive allegiances
- Increased industrialization meaning that nations could field an army undergoing massive attrition for years and years without suffering a crippling lack of production at home, and
- Lack of understanding on the part of political leaders of how the face of war had changed
narrative. Every party believed or was sold that they could win this thing if they just kept climbing the escalation ladder.
I mean… not really. Surely, at the time, the “dangerous” narrative was anything against the war. To me, allowing a freer flow of ideas would have helped to resolve the war sooner, and deciding that certain narratives were dangerous and should be stayed away from (leading to difficulty in understanding what was happening) was a factor that made things worse, not better. No?
For a start I would not do X, Y and Z, this is the whole idea of realism, accept the world as is. Threats work, I’m sorry.
I am glad that you are not involved in the foreign policy of either Ukraine or any country I care about. There is realism, sure; the world is not always a comic book where being righteous is enough. Then, also, there is cowardice, and then beyond that there is saying that someone else who is rejecting cowardice is to be blamed (along with anyone who gives them assistance in standing up) for danger they find themselves in as a result.
Ukraine seems likely to be able to hold on to a significant chunk of their territory and self determination, after deciding to pay a heavy heavy price for it, in homes and cities and money and lives and anything else. You can take your condescending stuff about realism and whose decision that was, and what kind of lives under Russian rule they should be resigning themselves to instead, and shove it up your ass.
For OP: This above is the Russian talking points light, presented as a reasonable timeline. It glances over so much important stuff.
Hexbear is a group of useful idiots steered by the Russian MOD. Anything that destabilized their adversaries is good. This als means feeding a wide array of victim blaming, feeding competing narratives and generally making people question if there actually is a truth.
This is such destructive rhetoric, everything you disagree with is Russian propaganda. Yes of course Russia is trying to influence western opinion with war propaganda, because that is what countries at war do. But the US has shown so clearly in the past that they can not be trusted to be the single source of truth, because spoiler alert: they are also a country (de facto) at war.
And about the NATO thing, what do you think would happen if Mexico and Canada tried to join a military alliance with China?
I’m not victim blaming, I’m blaming the US and Russia for playing cynical geopolitical games and destroying a country along the way.
It glances over so much important stuff
Sure does. Like the 8-year long shelling civilians campaign that Ukraine was undertaking on Donetsk and Luhansk, solely on the basis that it wanted to deny them a vote on their own autonomy.
The link you have provided with that title and thumbnail (written “Deal with it”) is no better than the Hexbear or Russian MOD propaganda you are belittling. Sounding cool or assertive while “shutting up” a (main) discussion point will only resonate with the same type of right-wing nationalist people in your own circle, while you are criticizing the same group albeit in another circle.
I wonder if you ever considered the same adjectives can be applied to you from others’ perspectives at a glance.
Note: Not implying any stance here on my part. Just pointing out what can be drowning the discussions while everyone points fingers at someone.
