At the risk of being ridiculed, as someone with decently severe anxiety, headlines around Russia tend to unsettle me quite a bit these days. Is there any community in the fediverse akin to r/UkraineAnxiety where particularly inflammatory or dramatic-sounding news headlines are put into context and relativized? Appreciate any pointers…
I enjoy Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube. He is soft-spoken and respectful, even if opinions don’t agree. His comments are measured, informed and he will take a mea culpa. He’s mostly US politics, but will cover other topic, including Russia.
Not ridiculing you, but if you have “decently severe anxiety” over this, what the hell are you doing here?
Seriously, why are you feeding the beast in your head? This information machine is made to continue that trend. Just stop it and look at something else. Go for a walk or something and close the browser or phone. Heres a hint, if you have any excuse other than “oh shit you’re right”, you are an addict to this, and ive heard enough excuses from junkies in my life. Do better for yourself.
I generally like to know what’s going on in the world, it’s just this particular topic where I struggle with how it’s portrayed in media. It’s also not been on my mind a lot recently but with today’s news I just thought I would seek out some other perspective to put these new events into context. I’ve also gotten a lot better over time at not letting it get to me, but I guess in your mind I have to be completely unfazed by everything before I can come back online.
I will not stop occasionally checking the news as I do now, because I do not want to completely isolate myself and become politically apathetic. Nevermind that you are in no place to tell me how often I do and should read them.
I’m not sure why you immediately jumped to calling me a “junkie”, but I suspect that if that is how you feel the need to respond to my message, you aren’t in a very good place either. Maybe you should take your own advice and step away from the internet for a while.
I understand your desire to stay informed but also grounded. I have actually fantasized about a newspaper exactly like that - tells the world as it is, but also helps the readers cope. My biggest thing is climate change and climate despair. I ended up googling how to deal with climate despair and came across a number of articles that were really helpful.
Hooe you find something similar for Russia/Ukraine.
to stay informed but also grounded
Yes thank you! That’s exactly what I mean.
I think even just a more grounded comment section would be enough for me. I only really look at comments to get different perspectives on what’s happening, but I rarely find actual contextualized discussion, instead usually there’s just highly upvoted fearmongering and making jokes about the world ending. It would be nice if there was a place where the top response is more like “here’s what this means / here’s what this doesn’t mean”.
I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I wrestled a lot with dealing with despair/fear from upheaval as well. Mostly climate like I said, but I used to cry for days thinking about kids starving in Venezuela, for example (that’s a crisis from many many years back).
Studying history actually helped me cope. Just learning about the past like 5000 years of human history and how much upheavals and famine and war and civilization collapses there have been.
I kind of realized that feeling like the world is ending (as we know it) is the NORM rather than the exception for most of human existence.
We’ve been exceptionally lucky in Western countries for the past 300ish years. But that caused us to believe that’s what’s to be expected. It’s not.
It just helped me understand that humans have survived through lots of things. And the turmoil comes with being alive.
Not much in the way of pointers here, but I’m putting out good vibes. I’ve been having trouble with news and how it affects my mental health.
Maybe check out TLDR News on YouTube. They do a sort of tiring amount of Ukraine videos, but it’s usually couched with language like “now, it’s important not to overstate xyz,” and some context why this or that event is probably not world shattering.
Edit: omg I just realized they said theyre on holiday yesterday, so nothing until next week or so. Funny timing on that lol
I’ll take a look, thanks!
npr my man, npr.
This is not good. Wagner Group are literal nazis.
Isn’t that what Putin wanted? To rid Ukraine of nazis?
Im pretty shure that the Russian ministry of defense and the Wagners are basically the same level below the surface… I just hope they kill each other so Russia can rebuild itself.
(this reminds me of WW1 Germany… But it was left wing not right wing)
On the other hand, if Moscow and Wagner are busy killing each other, it’ll make it a lot easier for Ukraine to put the border back where it belongs.
For serious? Yikes. Out of the frying pan…
Since their leader has no sway with the oligarchic class that effectively holds power in Russia, it seems unlikely he would be able to consolidate power. If somehow he offed Putin it would be more likely to end in civil war IMO than in Prigozhin as head of Russia.
Does the Russian upper class have access to sufficient military power to oppose the Wagner group?
Probably not. But Wagner group doesn’t have the manpower to subjugate the entirety of Russia either.
Russia doesn’t have the manpower to subjugate the entirety of Russia either.
The Russian national guard is supposed to be fairly large, and you would think that the air force can operate inside the borders of Russia (for now).
Do I think they can march on Moscow? No. But I’m also not convinced that this can be outright stopped without compromising the war.
I mean if he puts a gun to their head they either leave or comply…
You’re absolutely right. It will lead to nothing other than civil war. Which is how Putin will spin it - he’ll try to say that since Wagner are nazis, that they were actually working WITH the Ukrainian Nazis and NATO against Russia etc. blah blah blah
As much as I’d love these monsters to go to war with each other, it would mean civil war in the country with the most nuclear warheads, and that makes the prospect something I can’t celebrate.
This seems so accurate
to be fair: i don’t know that ideologically they differ that heavily from the Russian ruling class. all of the legal parties are varying degrees of nationalist, with most of them being explicitly ultranationalist. if you want to escape from people who can be analogized as or just are functionally Nazis, i think you’re generally going to have to look to the opposition to find any (and even then it’s not a guarantee–Navalny has well-publicized and suspect comments in this regard).
People are cheering for them, and I get it - somebody agains Putin, but I can not imagine that someone that forcefully changed Putin will be better for Russians and even more for the rest of the world.
We truly love in interesting times. Fuck, I wish we didn’t.
I’m relearning every day why the phrase “may you live in interesting times” is co soldered a curse :/
Looking at comments on the bird site, I am pleasantly surprised at the number of submersible experts who are also Kremlinologists.
yeah dude people having opinions is gross
The problem is that many of those same people think their opinions are fact.
N
Will Russia enter its Balkanization arc?
Fingers crossed!
The Collapse of the Soviet Union 2: Electric Boogaloo
Winnie the Pooh: sweating intensifies
My heart aches for all the citizens living in Russia who have to live in fear because they’re ruled by a tyrant dictator. If this news is true, things will only get worse for them. I hope the people can escape, or better: live in a better Russia with leaders who treat them like human beings.
It’s wishful thinking, I know. Please stay strong, my Russian friends! Justice will be served one day!
Justice will be served one day!
Only if they stand up and serve it.
Oh yes, here we go! They are finally starting to turn on each other. The sooner Russia balkanizes, the better for everyone around them. Just wall them in and let the rats eat each other alive.
I had that done to my Buick’s tires once.
I hope they both lose, but Putin lose first!
Oh man that is some big news. The arrival seems like he is saying “im coming for Putin” without saying “I’m coming for Putin”. Hahaha
I wish them all the luck in the world, but man, if they’re caught… it’s not going to be six years in the hoosegow like it was for the Capitol rioters. They’re getting massacred.
This is a “Let them fight” situation if I ever saw one.
As the man Sun Tzu himself once said,
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
This would be more entertaining if control of nuclear weapons wasn’t in play.
yes, even if they attack themselves, they’ll also destroy the countries around them.
Wagner is a mercenary company, I don’t think they are interested in antagonising all nations at once. They want to continue making money and getting contracts. Therefore they won’t use the weapons and will surrender them somehow.
They are already in the control of a genocidal psychopath. It doesnt matter too much. Any use of them results in russian annihilation anyway.
He may be trying to give Pootin a way to blame the ministry of defense for providing Pootin, Wagner and the Russian people false information. A way for Pootin to blame someone not named prigozhin. Sadly with the ministry of defense making public statements against prigozhin they are trying to force Pootin to pick between the two. Either way it is a win for us.
