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Comment by hackuser | Hacker News Reader

I agree with a lot of what you say, but to take the following a little out of context ...

> I would emphasize that "truth" is not a binary thing but a highly contextual and multidimensional device.

That can be taken too far and become the words of propaganda (whether or not the commenter intends it). Truth is not simple or always easy, but it's a real thing. The liar (not calling the parent a liar, but for purposes of example) says, 'the truth is complicated; we just have different opinions; look at all sides'; they say 'I lie, you lie, what's the difference?' No, there is truth, it's something to strive for, and it makes all the difference.

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> I lie, you lie, what's the difference?

Definitely not what I'm trying to say.

> No, there is truth, it's something to strive for, and it makes all the difference.

Absolutely. This requires that one does not take any propaganda position to be wholeistically true including those of your home country.

The search for truth comes not from authority or consensus, but from experiential reality. No authority and no consensus has a monopoly on experiential reality including the American domestic and international propaganda programmes and the consensus that they create or the Russian domestic and international propaganda programmes and the consensus that they create.

Propaganda is influence.

Facts are facts.

>> I lie, you lie, what's the difference?

> Definitely not what I'm trying to say.

To be clear, I did say that I was taking it out of context and that my objection is to when it's taken too far.

> Propaganda is influence.

> Facts are facts.

Very well said.

However, I do think that comparing American and Russian propaganda is a false equivalency; they are not similar at all - that is what I'm referring to when I object to saying 'it's all the same'. I'm not naive; I don't at all trust everything the American government says, but there are many, many major differences between American news and information and Russian.

Yup.

Regarding the differences it's important to both compare and contrast.

The US likes to try to color Russian propaganda as "evil" or "illegitimate" or "propaganda based on lies" or some such other nonsense. There are a great many ways to contrast the propaganda programmes, but doing it moralistically is counterproductive and ineffective.

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