This video talks about the war in Ukraine. This is FREAKING FUNNY, and it might be brilliant!
A letter from a viewer:
Hi Prof. Gerdes,
I saw your last video about Encouragement, and I thought it would be good to let you know what is going on with the “other side”.
I am hanging out around on various pro-Russian telegram channels with the intention of demoralising and demotivating the enemy as much as possible. Let me be clear, what I am doing I would normally consider to be highly immoral. Even though it is legal, it is highly manipulative. Nevertheless, as Russia has been inflicting an info war against the west for years, I consider what I am doing to be the right thing and fully justified.
What has surprised me about this project was the fact that it is so easy to divide people on social media and drive discontent. The way the media talk about Russian bot farms created an image in my mind that they are extremely sophisticated systems that require lots of effort and management.
What I have found as a single user working on my own is that it is exceptionally easy to do and I am fairly new to social media.
To achieve my goals I first adopt a profoundly anti-western / anti-European and anti-American stance and I pretend to believe all the Kremlin propaganda such as Ukrainian Nazis, biolabs etc. and I pretend to cheer for Russian expansion.
My discourse in the beginning is so anti-west & anti-Ukraine that I don’t ever get suspected of actually waging an info war against Russia.
My avatar uses a mix of anti-western rhetoric on one hand and a depressingly cynical approach to bad news from the Russian perspective on the other. So in summary my avatar is a Z patriot who worries excessively and repeatedly about Russian setbacks and can’t shut up about them.
I note in one of your previous videos you touched on the subject of encouragement and the fact that some people in the west are feeling a little bit more negative than usual. There is no need to feel this way based on my personal experience, let me explain why.
The Russians are now very demoralised, much more so than anyone in the west. They have greater and greater trouble pushing back against my moaning and negativity. If things are not going great for Ukraine at the moment then they are an absolute travesty for the Russians and I want to point this out from my avatars pro-Russian stance.
There is a lot of pain around the current status of the black sea fleet & I keep banging on that it is an embarrassment to “our Russia” that so-called Ukraine has had over 100 commercial ships importing weapons from the west and “we” are doing nothing about it while “our” black sea fleet cowers east of Crimea. (I turn their own propaganda against them by using their own choice of language)
Then there is the unfolding tragedy of the left bank of the Dnipro where Ukraine is gaining ground and where the Russians tried to dismiss it as an issue in the beginning
(and now I get to say “See! I knew this would happen, I said so a month ago but would you believe me? Oh no! You knew better didn’t you? Now look where we are…….I knew this would happen…….I knew it!!). This allows me to introduce a new level of toxic cynicism that they cannot push back against.
As you pointed out the big hope for Russians was that the west would get tired and indeed the Russians are still hoping for this along with a mutiny on the Ukrainian side for some strange reason!
To hear more, watch the video…
🇺🇦 To support my effort providing you Ukraine war news, you can BUY ME A COFFEE: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dr.gerdes
or
PAYPAL directly: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/professorgerdes
Either way, thanks for the encouragement.
🇺🇸 Purchase “A Complete Collection of Vladimir Putin’s Truth About Ukraine” ($2.99 blank gag book). All proceeds go to Ukrainian relief: https://amzn.to/3wW5ou8
🇺🇦 I wrote a book about Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy which I have updated for the first 4-5 months of the war in Ukraine: It is free if you have Amazon Kindle Unlimited or $3.99 otherwise: https://amzn.to/3Q2wnyE
🇺🇸 Want to make a difference in one Ukrainian’s life? Purchase a Ukrainian themed shirt, mug, etc. from this online store to help him provide for himself during the war: https://uasupporter.com/gerdes
🇺🇸 This is the absolute cheapest thing you can do to support Ukraine (This is not my store) https://amzn.to/3NWRG2a – Just support the war effort somehow.
🇺🇦 If you wish to donate to Ukrainian humanitarian relief, please donate to a reputable organization. I would urge you to give to Samaritan’s Purse:
https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/ukraine-response/
If you wish to support the Ukrainian Army. give directly to United 24. Follow this link: https://u24.gov.ua/
