Putin isn’t the only actor that could make bad judgments. We currently have people talking about establishing a no-fly zone within the Overton window.
Given how the information landscape works, there are pressures for people do adopt more extremist positions over time. With COVID we saw both sides of the spectrum adopting more extreme positions over time
In the coming weeks, we will have constant news of Russian attacks. Likely, including attacks on civilians. At the same time, Ukrainian refugees will meet other Westerns and shift opinion to be more demanding of the Western leaders taking stronger steps. Unfortunately, the forces that push for more extreme reactions toward Russia are stronger than those that favor deescalation.
John Robb does generally good analysis of how those network effects work
Besides Western radicalization pushing for a bigger Western military response, cyberwar is also problematic. Last year we saw a cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline that was likely done by private hackers that are tolerated by the Russian state. There’s a good chance that we will likely see similar attacks in the future and there’s a lot more pressure for Western governments to retaliate against Russia.
On the other side, Western cyberattacks on Russia are also going up and might lead to events where Russia feels the need to retaliate.
At the moment 45% of Americans support a no-fly zone while only 20% oppose it. That doesn’t automatically result in it becoming public policy, but the strong public support for the no-fly zone pushes it in the realm of the possible.
I don’t think that China’s assessment will change drastically. The West could essentially sanction Russia because it’s willing to bear the limited economic damage and sizeable African starvation the sanctions produce. Sanctioning China would be much more expensive for the West and not possible to the same extent.
That is a very important point. We don’t know how stable or instable the (first) Cold War would have been with social media. How would have been the West’s reaction to Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968 with Twitter and Facebook?
Absolutely. The no-fly zone idea is outrageous, but of course it’s harder to remain reasonable when people are dying with absolutely no necessity. I think this war has specially shocked people because most of us thought that the first world had become more cosmopolite so that we wouldn’t see a new big war in it. Also the fact that it has one of the most cruel motives since Hitler invaded Poland—it’s not driven by unenlightened populaces like ultra-nationalists or religious extremists, but by the erratic whims of probably a single person. All this has made people shocked, and therefore irrational. I think also very irrational is protesting in Russia and risking up to 15 years in jail.
News came that Russia has made its demands to Ukraine to stop the war: change its constitution to become neutral, reduce the military, pledge to never join NATO, and accept the Russian separatists in the East. I think Ukraine should immediately accept it, because, what’s the use of all that if not for avoiding a full scale Russian invasion? If it has already happened, then they no longer have anything to lose by making those concessions to Russia. If they don’t accept this I foresee a huge conflict with tens or hundreds of thousands dying, not to mention the real possibilities of escalation. (They would return to a puppet regime like pre-2014, which in practice, for the average person, isn’t too different from what they are today, and which is also the least bad that will happen if they don’t surrender if we are realistic about military power).
Conclusion: excess nationalism is and has always been our downfall. And, to make a connection to our most pressing issue, it might also be our downfall regarding AI safety, because we necessarily have to turn the world into a very strong union to tackle that issue.
I think this war has specially shocked people because most of us thought that the first world had become more cosmopolite so that we wouldn’t see a new big war in it.
Economically, the development of Ukraine is not that dissimilar to Iraq and Iran. Seeing Ukraine as first-world but not either of those seems to be either driven by racism or lack of information.
by the erratic whims of probably a single person.
There’s little evidence that this is the case. Putin has strong support of his population and inside the Kremlin.
News came that Russia has made its demands to Ukraine to stop the war: change its constitution to become neutral, reduce the military, pledge to never join NATO, and accept the Russian separatists in the East. I think Ukraine should immediately accept it, because, what’s the use of all that if not for avoiding a full scale Russian invasion?
From our perspective, it would be great if Ukraine would immediately accept it.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainians seem to think they are in a position where they can ask for more. Before the war, they thought that they don’t have to give Donbas and Luhansk independence before getting full control of the territory.
Well, I should have said the West, not the first world. It’s natural that people care more about countries more culturally related, and specially closer to home, in regard that what happens to them is much more likely to have consequences to us.
“There’s little evidence that this is the case. Putin has strong support of his population and inside the Kremlin.”
It’s hard to distinguish between real and forced support in a dictatorship. The populace are brainwashed and afraid to get punished for speaking their mind, and the oligarchs are either also afraid or corrupted. If you remove all that, to get to the real support (i.e. genuine and uncorrupted) then I don’t think it would be anything substantial.
In what sense is Ukraine culturally related? I’m not sure of anything in the Western cultural canon that comes from Ukraine.
The populace are brainwashed and afraid to get punished for speaking their mind, and the oligarchs are either also afraid or corrupted.
Have you spoken to actual Russians? The Russian government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way it’s governed.
In general, it’s always easy to call people who hold other political opinions than oneself brainwashed. Even in the US, many people hold their political opinions because of social pressure from their environment.
When the US attacked Iraq, Bush had the majority of its population behind it. Yes, that’s partly because of US media propaganda but it’s difficult to speak about the opinion as detached from that.
Ukraine is part of the West. Maybe it hasn’t always clearly been, but as of late it definitely wants to, and so does the West. But this is irrelevant. It’s enough that we care about countries closer to home and to our mindsets (liberal democracy).
“Have you spoken to actual Russians? The Russian government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way it’s governed.”
Are you serious? The parliament just passed a law that proposed up to 15 years in jail to those who contest the government’s official narrative regarding the “invasion”. Independent papers are being pressured to never use the word war. And of course, the many journalists and activists who’ve been arrested and killed along the years for pure political dissidence.
(Unless you’ll say something like “A-ha, wait, I only said that the government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way they are being governed, doesn’t include actually voicing a contrarian view.” That would be a poor gotcha for obvious reasons.)
Both issues are just common sense really.
“In general, it’s always easy to call people who hold other political opinions than oneself brainwashed. Even in the US, many people hold their political opinions because of social pressure from their environment.”
True, but to a (very) different degree. As with everything in life.
“When the US attacked Iraq, Bush had the majority of its population behind it. Yes, that’s partly because of US media propaganda but it’s difficult to speak about the opinion as detached from that.”
There had always been a very vocal community anti Iraq war, specially among Democrats and alternative media. In Russia that’s way harder to manifest, regardless of people’s opinions.
Most importantly, I enterily agree that it’s difficult to speak of opinion as detached from external pressures, like you say. That’s why I spoke of a probability (I said that the war is an erratic whim of probably a single person). Only you spoke of certainties (“Putin has strong support”, aka we can neither be sure of that).
Are you serious? The parliament just passed a law that proposed up to 15 years in jail to those who contest the government’s official narrative regarding the “invasion”.
In that environment where that’s the line, there’s still nobody forced to express support of Putin.
The media environment of Russia is less free than that of the US and even less free than the UK (where you are comically not really free to criticize Russian oligarchs) but it’s not totalitarian.
We know that Russia is very nationalistic from the success of companies like Yandex or VK. Supporting Putin fits very well with nationalist sentiment. If you think that kind of nationalistic sentiment that leads to supporting strongmen can only happen in an unfree media environment, support for Erdogan is a good counterexample. In Germany, a majority of those with Turkish heritage support Erdogan despite German society disliking Erdogan.
Putin isn’t the only actor that could make bad judgments. We currently have people talking about establishing a no-fly zone within the Overton window.
Given how the information landscape works, there are pressures for people do adopt more extremist positions over time. With COVID we saw both sides of the spectrum adopting more extreme positions over time
In the coming weeks, we will have constant news of Russian attacks. Likely, including attacks on civilians. At the same time, Ukrainian refugees will meet other Westerns and shift opinion to be more demanding of the Western leaders taking stronger steps. Unfortunately, the forces that push for more extreme reactions toward Russia are stronger than those that favor deescalation.
John Robb does generally good analysis of how those network effects work
Besides Western radicalization pushing for a bigger Western military response, cyberwar is also problematic. Last year we saw a cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline that was likely done by private hackers that are tolerated by the Russian state. There’s a good chance that we will likely see similar attacks in the future and there’s a lot more pressure for Western governments to retaliate against Russia.
On the other side, Western cyberattacks on Russia are also going up and might lead to events where Russia feels the need to retaliate.
At the moment 45% of Americans support a no-fly zone while only 20% oppose it. That doesn’t automatically result in it becoming public policy, but the strong public support for the no-fly zone pushes it in the realm of the possible.
I don’t think that China’s assessment will change drastically. The West could essentially sanction Russia because it’s willing to bear the limited economic damage and sizeable African starvation the sanctions produce. Sanctioning China would be much more expensive for the West and not possible to the same extent.
That is a very important point. We don’t know how stable or instable the (first) Cold War would have been with social media. How would have been the West’s reaction to Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968 with Twitter and Facebook?
Absolutely. The no-fly zone idea is outrageous, but of course it’s harder to remain reasonable when people are dying with absolutely no necessity. I think this war has specially shocked people because most of us thought that the first world had become more cosmopolite so that we wouldn’t see a new big war in it. Also the fact that it has one of the most cruel motives since Hitler invaded Poland—it’s not driven by unenlightened populaces like ultra-nationalists or religious extremists, but by the erratic whims of probably a single person. All this has made people shocked, and therefore irrational. I think also very irrational is protesting in Russia and risking up to 15 years in jail.
News came that Russia has made its demands to Ukraine to stop the war: change its constitution to become neutral, reduce the military, pledge to never join NATO, and accept the Russian separatists in the East. I think Ukraine should immediately accept it, because, what’s the use of all that if not for avoiding a full scale Russian invasion? If it has already happened, then they no longer have anything to lose by making those concessions to Russia. If they don’t accept this I foresee a huge conflict with tens or hundreds of thousands dying, not to mention the real possibilities of escalation. (They would return to a puppet regime like pre-2014, which in practice, for the average person, isn’t too different from what they are today, and which is also the least bad that will happen if they don’t surrender if we are realistic about military power).
Conclusion: excess nationalism is and has always been our downfall. And, to make a connection to our most pressing issue, it might also be our downfall regarding AI safety, because we necessarily have to turn the world into a very strong union to tackle that issue.
Economically, the development of Ukraine is not that dissimilar to Iraq and Iran. Seeing Ukraine as first-world but not either of those seems to be either driven by racism or lack of information.
There’s little evidence that this is the case. Putin has strong support of his population and inside the Kremlin.
From our perspective, it would be great if Ukraine would immediately accept it.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainians seem to think they are in a position where they can ask for more. Before the war, they thought that they don’t have to give Donbas and Luhansk independence before getting full control of the territory.
Now it seems they believe that they can actually win the war on the battlefield. As one example see https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5BwPFu5qhkx2c3cue/help-ukraine (it includes the assumption that Ukraine will win the war sooner if it just gets all the donations it needs)
Well, I should have said the West, not the first world. It’s natural that people care more about countries more culturally related, and specially closer to home, in regard that what happens to them is much more likely to have consequences to us.
“There’s little evidence that this is the case. Putin has strong support of his population and inside the Kremlin.”
It’s hard to distinguish between real and forced support in a dictatorship. The populace are brainwashed and afraid to get punished for speaking their mind, and the oligarchs are either also afraid or corrupted. If you remove all that, to get to the real support (i.e. genuine and uncorrupted) then I don’t think it would be anything substantial.
In what sense is Ukraine culturally related? I’m not sure of anything in the Western cultural canon that comes from Ukraine.
Have you spoken to actual Russians? The Russian government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way it’s governed.
In general, it’s always easy to call people who hold other political opinions than oneself brainwashed. Even in the US, many people hold their political opinions because of social pressure from their environment.
When the US attacked Iraq, Bush had the majority of its population behind it. Yes, that’s partly because of US media propaganda but it’s difficult to speak about the opinion as detached from that.
Ukraine is part of the West. Maybe it hasn’t always clearly been, but as of late it definitely wants to, and so does the West. But this is irrelevant. It’s enough that we care about countries closer to home and to our mindsets (liberal democracy).
“Have you spoken to actual Russians? The Russian government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way it’s governed.”
Are you serious? The parliament just passed a law that proposed up to 15 years in jail to those who contest the government’s official narrative regarding the “invasion”. Independent papers are being pressured to never use the word war. And of course, the many journalists and activists who’ve been arrested and killed along the years for pure political dissidence.
(Unless you’ll say something like “A-ha, wait, I only said that the government doesn’t punish people just for saying that they dislike the way they are being governed, doesn’t include actually voicing a contrarian view.” That would be a poor gotcha for obvious reasons.)
Both issues are just common sense really.
“In general, it’s always easy to call people who hold other political opinions than oneself brainwashed. Even in the US, many people hold their political opinions because of social pressure from their environment.”
True, but to a (very) different degree. As with everything in life.
“When the US attacked Iraq, Bush had the majority of its population behind it. Yes, that’s partly because of US media propaganda but it’s difficult to speak about the opinion as detached from that.”
There had always been a very vocal community anti Iraq war, specially among Democrats and alternative media. In Russia that’s way harder to manifest, regardless of people’s opinions.
Most importantly, I enterily agree that it’s difficult to speak of opinion as detached from external pressures, like you say. That’s why I spoke of a probability (I said that the war is an erratic whim of probably a single person). Only you spoke of certainties (“Putin has strong support”, aka we can neither be sure of that).
In that environment where that’s the line, there’s still nobody forced to express support of Putin.
The media environment of Russia is less free than that of the US and even less free than the UK (where you are comically not really free to criticize Russian oligarchs) but it’s not totalitarian.
We know that Russia is very nationalistic from the success of companies like Yandex or VK. Supporting Putin fits very well with nationalist sentiment. If you think that kind of nationalistic sentiment that leads to supporting strongmen can only happen in an unfree media environment, support for Erdogan is a good counterexample. In Germany, a majority of those with Turkish heritage support Erdogan despite German society disliking Erdogan.