[HN Gopher] Information Sovereignty
___________________________________________________________________
Information Sovereignty
Author : prostoalex
Score : 30 points
Date : 2021-07-21 01:02 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk)
| pphysch wrote:
| The author of this blog post, Peter Pomerantsev, is a NATO-
| aligned professional propagandist, so it is hardly surprising
| that he finds the concept of Russian "information sovereignty"
| appalling.
|
| It's analogous to a Mongol invader finding the concept of
| "territorial sovereignty" in the Great Wall of China appalling.
|
| Insert `garfield_i_wonder_who_thats_for.jpeg`.
| flipbrad wrote:
| Please could you clarify - what does he stand to gain here? In
| your Mongol analogy, motive is clear. Here, not so much.
| pphysch wrote:
| Sure. Information sovereignty was pioneered on a national
| scale by China's Great Firewall, upon which Bill Clinton
| famously commented, "There's no question China has been
| trying to crack down on the internet. Good luck! That's sort
| of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall."
|
| A Russian GFW would make Pomerantsev's job--spreading anti-
| Kremlin disinformation to benefit NATO's geopolitical goals
| in the region--very very difficult. He would have to work
| harder for fewer results. Like the Mongol raider, this is bad
| for his job security and quality of life.
| slg wrote:
| You could write a very similar article from the Russian
| perspective looking at the West.
|
| Just like you can dismiss the Russian ideologies of collectivism
| as a retroactive justification for authoritarian control, you
| could argue that the West's ideology of freedom is a retroactive
| justification for oligarchy of the affluent. Even going back to
| the colonial days "freedom" meant freedom for white protestant
| land-owning men so was it ever really about freedom?
|
| I'm not sure either side of that argument is completely right or
| completely wrong.
| pphysch wrote:
| It's actually not even an ideological or moral issue. Modern
| Russia is not particularly collectivist; influences of
| liberalism and Christianity are strong, if not stronger than
| the Communist collectivism of Soviet times.
|
| It's purely an issue of sovereignty. For NATO/Washington, it
| does not matter how a country is run as long as it is run with
| significant influence from Western interests.
|
| Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that brutally limits
| freedoms and butchers dissidents, yet it gets to be in the
| "democracy" club, because it does not attempt to defend its
| sovereignty (i.e. it lets Washington build military bases and
| control private industry on Saudi soil).
|
| Russia, Syria, et al. are democracies, yet are in the
| "authoritarian" club because they _do_ attempt to defend their
| sovereignty.
| FredPret wrote:
| Syria defends their democracy by bombing the opposition
| voters though
| pphysch wrote:
| ...according to the "democracy" club. Syria in the last
| decade has been the target of one of the most ambitious
| disinformation campaigns involving NATO governments and
| media (including Reuters, BBC, Bellingcat)[1], so I would
| exercise extreme scrutiny with regards to these claims.
|
| [1] - https://telegra.ph/OP-HMG-Trojan-Horse-
| Part-4-Undermining-Ru...
| pitaj wrote:
| I'll believe Russia is a democracy when Putin is no longer in
| control.
| pphysch wrote:
| Democracy means the people fundamentally have the power; it
| does not mean "X year term limits" or "/u/pitaj is the
| supreme leader".
| argomo wrote:
| Yeah, but the people are not exactly "fundamentally in
| control" if opposition candidates and critics keep
| mysteriously falling out of windows, drinking plutonium
| tea, and accidentally getting jailed.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > Traditional Russian ... values are under active attack from the
| USA and its allies, as well as from transnational corporations
| and foreign NGOs,' ... It defines 'Russian values' as 'life,
| dignity, rights, freedoms' as well as 'high ethical ideals, a
| strong family, prioritising the spiritual over the material,
| humanism, kindness, justice, collectivism and patriotism'.
|
| I cannot disagree with much of what is said here (even that I
| guess that strong family is just a short hand for anti-gay, so
| maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes'). But, to reduce corruption
| would be the first step. As 'prioritising the spiritual over the
| material' is not compatible with corruption. Life, freedom and
| dignity are not compatible either with executing journalists and
| opositors.
|
| I can understand the will for information sovereignty. But it
| just seems an excuse to avoid international accountability.
|
| Facebook is not cited in the article, I guess that USA
| corporations are not so bad if they are willing to share data
| with the Russian government.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > even that I guess that strong family is just a short hand for
| anti-gay, so maybe I am missing other 'eufemismes'
|
| Pro-family is _anti-LGBT_ only incidentally as a conceptual
| consequence. It is not as if pro-family was some invention
| confected just to stick it to the gays. According to natural
| law theory, the family (traditionally understood) is the basic
| unit of society, the rest of society and the human race
| functioning as the extended family ( "natural" here means
| entailed by human nature; we can do all sorts of unnatural
| things, but they are harmful to us and do not help us in
| genuinely flourishing as human beings as conformity with nature
| does). The only reason something like "pro-family" has become a
| term is because the natural family has become the target of
| ideological attack.
| bobthechef wrote:
| I don't much like talk of "values" because it reinforces the
| fact-value dichotomy, which is not a real dichotomy. That is, it
| reinforces the erroneous notion that there's this value-free
| reality and that we can superimpose value however we see fit like
| some existentialist. In politics, it therefore becomes the
| imposition of values promoted by the strong, even if they don't
| believe them themselves but only wish others do because it leads
| to behavior that serves them (which is already a view of what is
| valuable). But you can't invent value and if you could it would
| be an absurdly meaningless and futile excersize. Value is
| factual. Thus, what we have are disagreements about is what is
| valuable, and in this case, within the domain of politics. Below,
| I'll use the author's choice of words for convenience.
|
| This analysis distinguishes between universal and local values.
| The author accuses the Russian gov't of essentially engaging in
| bad faith promotion of "local values" that are rationalized to
| get it what it wants. But this can mean one of three things, I
| think. Either all values are local inventions, in which case
| there is no basis for attacking Russia on the basis of
| manufacturing self-serving values because after all, everyone is
| doing it and no universal values exist. Or Russia is merely
| disagreeing with the West today about what truly are universal
| values by ostensibly appealing to a traditionally Russian
| _understanding_ of what is valuable. Or Russia is rationalizing
| _actions_ under the guise of traditional values.
|
| To reconcile the second point with the idea of "playing by
| foreign rules", it suffices to note that overlap between the
| stated values and the stated values in the West. By framing
| things as Russian, they are reclaiming their authority to decide
| what is valuable instead of subjecting themselves to the
| authority of the West. But this doesn't entail localism. It could
| just as well mean that Russia will project moral authority of its
| own and propose its views as universal. Russia is more ambitious
| I think than just a country that wants to be left alone with its
| own views. I think they want the Russian view to spread around
| the world like the US does. Unless of course they believe in a
| kind of Talmudic division between Russian and non-Russian,
| Russian values for Russians, something else for the goyim.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Russia is just one example of a "turning inwards" Dark Ages.
|
| China tried walling themselves off from the world and xenophobia
| for 2000 years, but they lost the technological advantage.
|
| If anyone believes they can "go it alone," then they should look
| at North Korea.
| Kenji wrote:
| > There is, however, a catch. A system based on cynicism and
| paranoia means people end up distrusting everything. The Kremlin
| has, by most accounts, produced a decent vaccine for the
| coronavirus. But the government can't persuade the Russian people
| that they need to take it. People fear they are being used as
| guinea pigs, that there's something dishonest going on. In the
| same week the National Security Strategy came out, new figures
| (though it's hard to trust the figures) showed Covid-19 rates
| rising horribly throughout the country. Only 13 per cent are
| vaccinated, despite Putin's claim that the Sputnik V is 'just as
| reliable as Kalashnikov assault rifles'.
|
| Maybe if they stop treating everyone like idiot toddlers and come
| up with real, honest justifications for why e.g. a 25 year old
| should take the Covid vaccine even though death by Covid at that
| age is as likely as being struck by a lightning. For young
| people, the vaccine may be substantially more dangerous than the
| virus. People aren't stupid, you know? We can read academic
| papers, we can see numbers, we can calculate. Average age of
| Covid death: 80+, usually with one or multiple severe
| comorbidities like cancer. How fucking stupid do you think we
| are? Do you think you can control us with fear?
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| >The policy logic does not stem from a coherent set of
| ideological precepts that require censorship and control to
| protect them, but the other way round: you want to impose control
| and censorship, so you invent a sort of ideology in order to
| justify it.
|
| Obviously, only those evil Russians do this.
|
| edit: doh! sarcasm! I forgot about Poe's law.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
| justicezyx wrote:
| I find this particularly naive.
|
| There are lots of reasons why Russia becomes this since the
| collapse of USSR.
|
| If, imagine, somehow the privatization worked out wonderfully,
| every Russian is as happy as as their counterparts in US, UK
| etc. (In fact, that would not be sufficient...) Do you still
| think Russia would do this?
|
| If you think they still would do this, then it must be the free
| will of the country?
|
| Now given what's happening, should this be treated as a natural
| reaction to the fact that learning from a foreign system is not
| working, and the nation are trying something else?
|
| Remember, when you claim someone else is inventing certain
| ideology, that means there is a concept of ideology. The moment
| this concept is created, it naturally applies to the accuser,
| I.e., someone else inventing a different ideology than the
| accuser.
|
| Then, it's obvious that the foreign ideology was regarded by
| the ruling group as not suitable.
| [deleted]
| bobthechef wrote:
| Right. Not like Americans do this...
|
| Taken further: if some people can't get what they want because
| legitimate moral obstacles get in the way, then they
| rationalize their desires in an attempt to give them a patina
| of legitimacy. However, that desire already functions as a
| summum bonum. So there's the real religion behind the scenes
| and then there's the public facing ideological curtain that
| conceals it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-21 23:00 UTC)