Interesting development in the last 30 minutes or so, Ukrainian backed Russian separatists have been shelling a military barracks/checkpoint in Belgorod & have now rolled in a couple of tanks.

Russia has so far this year recruited 117,000 volunteers alongside the close to a million conscripts it's called up. this is what I mean about Crimea becoming an absolute fortress & how it's going to take something quite remarkable from Ukraine to push into the above.

Britain is no longer considered a Tier 1 military & would need the help of NATO to defend the mainland.
What the Tories & our military leaders have done to our military is treason.

Interesting development in the last 30 minutes or so, Ukrainian backed Russian separatists have been shelling a military barracks/checkpoint in Belgorod & have now rolled in a couple of tanks.

Russia has so far this year recruited 117,000 volunteers alongside the close to a million conscripts it's called up. this is what I mean about Crimea becoming an absolute fortress & how it's going to take something quite remarkable from Ukraine to push into the above.

Britain is no longer considered a Tier 1 military & would need the help of NATO to defend the mainland.
What the Tories & our military leaders have done to our military is treason.

100%. It's disturbing as essentially people can be gradually nudged towards the most maligant and warped places and individuals, which they absolutely would not have done from a point of being reasonably involved in a wider actual community. Often maladjusted, they are suckered in and given meaning by 'virtual communities' (apt wording) where the trade-in is basically their own likely more nuanced throught of before, and a near total blind spot to the more abhorrent or dangerous views of their new in-group. Group polarisation, 'purity' of view. Echo chambers come to give meaning to their day. It's their crack.

You're bang on with the distorted image point. I've always found that to be the silent unsaid admission within nuts social media echo chambers. That being that if their particular world view is so right, why does it then need to become one big carefully curated circle jerk ommitting or including thoughts of facts based solely on what they already choose to believe. The reality is that life is far more complex and nuanced and that this behaviour is as much a relentless mantra in denial of that than is it the presentation of truth. Opting for an approach to life that gravitates towards extremes or damage seem not to be a great option for an individual or those around them.

The irony with these fringes is that they both use one another's extremes as fuel to gee up and further their own. They are appropropriate bed fellows with very similar mental processes, when the vast majority of people are always more thoughtful and respectful (as is often the way of interaction in the real world, rather than a life online). As you rightly say, most people (or 'normies' as some of these groups use as an insult for normal people) can only look on bemused and retain reasoned and fair minded views, while attributing a basic, default humanity to others that these types, left and right, manage to snuff as result if their blinkered self indulgence.

Edited by footythoughts (22 May 2023 11.54am)

Agree. It really is two sides of the same coin. As you say they almost use one another as justification for their existence and increasingly extreme world views, continually raising the stakes on their respective sides.

I feel as though the longer any given individual exists or dwells within these environments the further inclined they are to succumb to the 'distorted reality' and drift towards one side or t'other as though it is the only available course of action.

I still maintain leaving the house, talking to others and general socialising is the antidote for all this. I find it genuinely bizarre how so many of people on either of these sides often report a detachment and estrangement from their families and friends, or ex-friends, and do not see this as indicative of their situation or utilise it for a review of their thinking and actions.

I'm also of the opinion that those on the extreme of either side are often very angry and incorrectly want to focus the drivers for this externally, theorising the cure is to control others as they are the problem. The truth however is almost certainly a dissatisfaction with themselves and anger at their inability to identify and implement solutions to rectify this.

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Seems what's going on in Belgorod is escalating, it would be madness for Kyiv to be directly involved in this.

Surely a suicide mission for those involved?

Absolutely. I'm sure people see it as some kind of grand awakening over time, and of course for those at the top of the tree on either social media or traditional media offshoots there is most often a financial imperative. I would wager that more often than not they are far more shrewd, calculating and less ideologically driven than their audience. More akin to an algorithym knowing what will go down well. And that's what social media comes down to also really; tailored to maximise interaction and eyeballs on screens and it's easier to do that by presenting more of the same, more extreme versions of the same and to get people riled up.

Above all it's sad that people get so pulled into it. A life well lived with family and friends has a whole range of views and perspectives and itself most often brings about a level of mutual respect and sensible discourse between individuals. All of that is lost online, and as you say when people damage their relationships with family and friends due to their conduct, they then either wake up to their behaviour, or it's grievance central in their new online life, with a typically scatter gun rage pointed at just about anything that doesn't resemble a mirror.