
Mikhail Gorbachev: 'It All Looks as If the World Is Preparing for War' - wrongc0ntinent
http://time.com/4645442/gorbachev-putin-trump/
======
nickgrosvenor
You wonder how the world can sink into war and then you start to understand
how it works when you study today's political climate.

It seems like a slow motion inevitability.

People's opinions are just so strong.

To make matters worse, seems like the smartphone revolution has provided quick
communication channels that magnify the rhetoric.

Forget more information at your finger tips, smartphones and the internet
provide easier means of finding like-minded people to raise pitchforks with.

~~~
cmurf
It's not the speed that's the problem, it's that they aren't as well vetted,
nor are they diverse. It's easy to avoid uncomfortable facts and opinions. It
is necessary to get variety in order to triangulate and assess.

~~~
steego
The Balkanization of news and opinions is a minor facet of the overall
situation that's unfolding.

The biggest thing going on is opinion shapers and propagandists have been
given powerful tools the 20th century PR men could have only dreamed about.
Growth hacking, sentiment analysis, personal network analysis, and deep
learning are all things that allow cunning people to do extraordinary things.

Messages can be tested and fine tuned to see which ideas resonate.
Communication channels can be established directly to the recipient of your
message by creating Facebook groups and the like.

People simply haven't developed this critical thinking skills to defend
themselves from this new onslaught of opinion shaping tech whose efficacy is
based on very timely data.

I imagine Boyd's Law of Iteration is going to be a huge factor in deciding who
wins the new propaganda wars. [https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-
iteration/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/)

Updated: Minor edits for clarity

------
ak39
Scary prospect for us all.

I read a Pilger article last year that sent chills down my back:

[http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-
break-t...](http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-
silence-)

~~~
dgudkov
His view of the world is very skewed. I wouldn't take him as an authority.

------
kosherbeefcake
While I'm not discounting the current geo-political climate, but every so
often you'll see reports that some calamitous event will occur. When it
invariably doesn't occur, no one follows up and says "why did you say that,
nothing happened". If it does happen though, they can say "See, I told you
so!"

------
nspassov
Clickbait-y title from Time magazine. No easier way to actually start a war
than to talk about it and how the "others" are somehow more prepared.

Very sad to see such article from one of the few still supposedly reputable
publishers.

------
Dk241
Oh no, they are concentrating weapons in Europe!

Maybe we should stop shelling the east of Ukraine and get out of its south
(Crimea)?

------
general_ai
As a former Soviet citizen, I fail to see why anyone would care what this
clown has to say. No one in Russia cares, for example. He basically ran a
superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space shuttle to hunger and
abject poverty for most of the population. Not even a CIA puppet regime would
be able to do a better job.

~~~
aphextron
I wish people wouldn't downvote someone for an alternate opinion. It's
interesting to see the Russian view point on these things. I think the parent
poster is indoctrinated with the typical anti-western mindset, but it's still
valid and adds to the discussion.

> He basically ran a superpower into the ground in 6 years flat, from space
> shuttle to hunger and abject poverty

The Soviet Union was in free fall economically long before Gorbachev. It was a
systemic failure. To pile the genocidal failings of 3 generations of communist
rule onto the first leader to free his people from that oppression is a
terrible perversion of history.

~~~
throwaway122916
I lived in Soviet Union as well during the collapse. I think there is a lot of
propaganda from the west that makes you think it wasn't Gorbachev's fault.

People were happy, had children and believed in their country and made
progress in art and science. Then one person who possibly had good intentions
"gave everyone freedom". You can't just do that without consequences. It
should have been a very gradual transition similar to how it is in China.
Instead the country got completely destroyed. Every single thriving industry
collapsed and people's savings were worth nothing basically overnight. Police
stopped enforcing laws, gangs appeared all over the place, everyone started
doing drugs. It was a disaster.

Gorbachev was almost immediately hated throughout the country.

If USSR economy was in free fall, how come GDP per capita was about 2x smaller
in Soviet Union compared to USA in 1989 while income distribution was much
more even?

Edit: If you believe propaganda in US doesn't exist, look at this law
[https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-
propaganda-...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-
ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/)

~~~
viljar
> People were happy

Russians - may be, All the other oppressed and occupied nations - no. Cant
vouch for other but almost every Estonian secretly hoped for freedom and
despised Russians. When our chance came we acted swiftly. Soviet Union was
just another form of Russian Empire and a way to try to control the world.

~~~
WeaselNo7
This is a similar tale told by friends from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech
Republic and Slovakia.

~~~
egman_ekki
However, for people in these countries it wasn't a tale. It was a harsh
reality...

------
Intimatik
Never made this old schizophrenic, he's always keen to get attention

