If you mistakenly assume that all Ukrainian soldiers in this war are volunteers, it would mean that X people oppose the Russian invasion so much that they are literally willing to risk their lives to stop it. When you learn that actually most Ukrainian soldiers are drafted, you should decrease your estimate of X. (Yes, some of those soldiers really want to defend their homeland; and some of them kinda want their homeland to remain independent, but would prefer to increase the chances of their own survival; and finally some of them actually want to become a part of Russia, but are forced against their will to fight against.) Ukraine being a “hybrid regime” and Zelensky being not very popular right before the war is indirect evidence that many people might oppose the official policy of resisting Russia, and that Ukraine might be the kind of country that would send them to die by thousands regardless.
For an American reader, assuming that all Ukrainian soldiers are either professionals or volunteers would be an easy mistake to make. NYT is lying by omission by not mentioning this fact (frequently enough).
The expected reaction of a reader is probably something like: “I assumed, based on the number of soldiers, that opposing Russia is very popular among the Ukrainians… but now I realize that those soldiers were literally forced at gunpoint to go fighting, so this is actually not evidence of a popular support… now I have no strong evidence either way, and maybe the fact that NYT was manipulating me in a certain direction should make me update in the opposite direction… so the conclusion is somewhere between ‘Russia is right’ and ‘we actually don’t know who is right’, and in either case we should stop interfering.”
.
This of course works better if the reader has no other information about Russia and Ukraine. Then again, that might actually be the case for a typical NYT reader.
Steelman:
If you mistakenly assume that all Ukrainian soldiers in this war are volunteers, it would mean that X people oppose the Russian invasion so much that they are literally willing to risk their lives to stop it. When you learn that actually most Ukrainian soldiers are drafted, you should decrease your estimate of X. (Yes, some of those soldiers really want to defend their homeland; and some of them kinda want their homeland to remain independent, but would prefer to increase the chances of their own survival; and finally some of them actually want to become a part of Russia, but are forced against their will to fight against.) Ukraine being a “hybrid regime” and Zelensky being not very popular right before the war is indirect evidence that many people might oppose the official policy of resisting Russia, and that Ukraine might be the kind of country that would send them to die by thousands regardless.
For an American reader, assuming that all Ukrainian soldiers are either professionals or volunteers would be an easy mistake to make. NYT is lying by omission by not mentioning this fact (frequently enough).
The expected reaction of a reader is probably something like: “I assumed, based on the number of soldiers, that opposing Russia is very popular among the Ukrainians… but now I realize that those soldiers were literally forced at gunpoint to go fighting, so this is actually not evidence of a popular support… now I have no strong evidence either way, and maybe the fact that NYT was manipulating me in a certain direction should make me update in the opposite direction… so the conclusion is somewhere between ‘Russia is right’ and ‘we actually don’t know who is right’, and in either case we should stop interfering.”
.
This of course works better if the reader has no other information about Russia and Ukraine. Then again, that might actually be the case for a typical NYT reader.