#2: My impression is that something like 2%-10% of Ukrainian population believed that a month ago (would you consider that worrying enough?). My evidence for that is very shacky and it is indeed quite possible that I am overestimating it by an order of magnitude (still kind of worrying, though I might be overestimating even more).
First, my aunt is among them. Second, over last few years I’ve seen multiple (something like 5-10, concentrated around present date?) discussions on social media where friends of friends (all Russians) said that they believe in nazi-controlled Ukraine since their relatives in Ukraine in some or another way confirmed it (perhaps such relatives are predominantly from occupied territories?).
Third, a lot of Russian families have close relatives in Ukraine (I can’t find any statistics, but by eyeballing families of my friends, I’d say something like 1⁄3 in Moscow). If a lot of such relatives believed in Russian propaganda, that would explain so many Russians believe it as well (there are rumors that some are choosing to believe tv over their relatives, but I haven’t personally witnessed any of that). And this “a lot of such relatives” don’t need to be implausibly big, since “Ukrainians believing in Russian propaganda” are likely overrepresented among close relatives of Russians.
On #3 I would very much expect the opposite. People at LW are very good vs. such tactics in general, and are high-information, and have access to Western sources, and this stuff is optimized to appeal to people in the former USSR.
I agree with all your points, but I don’t think that it is opposite of what I meant to say. When I was talking about being at disadvantage, I didn’t mean that western lesswrongers that will visit this site will be more affected by it then average Russians. I meant that western lesswronger will have not only obvious advantages (that you listed), but also some disadvantages, perhaps less obvious to westerners (is “disadvantage” a wrong word to use here?). That’s why I was talking about “underestimating danger” (another part of that was an attempt to make people even more cautious).
Yes, sure, the danger is not that big, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll noticeably negatively affect at least 0.1% of lesswrongers who visit such site (obviously conditioned on a lot of them visiting such site), and I absolutely won’t risk something like that just for curiosity.
Strangely, this site seems like it’s an attempt to be a sane Russian-slanted source
I am following my own advice and haven’t read their articles since like 2013 when they lost their independence (and haven’t been a regular reader before that). But my not very educated guess would be that if your observation is correct, then it is one of news sources that initially were independent, then became government-controlled, and are still posing as mostly-inependent, e.g. lie only when it is important. Kind of optimized for highly educated opposition-leaning people in the former USSR.
#2: My impression is that something like 2%-10% of Ukrainian population believed that a month ago (would you consider that worrying enough?). My evidence for that is very shacky and it is indeed quite possible that I am overestimating it by an order of magnitude (still kind of worrying, though I might be overestimating even more).
First, my aunt is among them. Second, over last few years I’ve seen multiple (something like 5-10, concentrated around present date?) discussions on social media where friends of friends (all Russians) said that they believe in nazi-controlled Ukraine since their relatives in Ukraine in some or another way confirmed it (perhaps such relatives are predominantly from occupied territories?).
Third, a lot of Russian families have close relatives in Ukraine (I can’t find any statistics, but by eyeballing families of my friends, I’d say something like 1⁄3 in Moscow). If a lot of such relatives believed in Russian propaganda, that would explain so many Russians believe it as well (there are rumors that some are choosing to believe tv over their relatives, but I haven’t personally witnessed any of that). And this “a lot of such relatives” don’t need to be implausibly big, since “Ukrainians believing in Russian propaganda” are likely overrepresented among close relatives of Russians.
I agree with all your points, but I don’t think that it is opposite of what I meant to say. When I was talking about being at disadvantage, I didn’t mean that western lesswrongers that will visit this site will be more affected by it then average Russians. I meant that western lesswronger will have not only obvious advantages (that you listed), but also some disadvantages, perhaps less obvious to westerners (is “disadvantage” a wrong word to use here?). That’s why I was talking about “underestimating danger” (another part of that was an attempt to make people even more cautious).
Yes, sure, the danger is not that big, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll noticeably negatively affect at least 0.1% of lesswrongers who visit such site (obviously conditioned on a lot of them visiting such site), and I absolutely won’t risk something like that just for curiosity.
I am following my own advice and haven’t read their articles since like 2013 when they lost their independence (and haven’t been a regular reader before that). But my not very educated guess would be that if your observation is correct, then it is one of news sources that initially were independent, then became government-controlled, and are still posing as mostly-inependent, e.g. lie only when it is important. Kind of optimized for highly educated opposition-leaning people in the former USSR.