Most of the misinformation communities are easy to spot, but !collapse@lemm.ee falls into a slightly different category, and it presents itself in an unusual way. It seems like one of the main mods flavors his postings with a consistent sprinkling of posts that say that Europe not buying fossil fuels from Russia is a catastrophe for Europe, and they must reverse course as soon as possible and stop trying to depend on renewable energy, since it doesn’t work.
Here are some examples from a most recent post. It’s far from the only post that includes this general shape and character, but it’s particularly on the nose. From https://lemm.ee/post/49292464:
That will leave Europe with expensive LNG from Qatar and the US, as well as some pipeline gas from Norway and through Turkiye, which is Russian gas in a roundabout, third-party way. As always: higher complexity comes at a higher price — a direct consequence of the EU’s economic war on its largest energy supplier.
With the predictable unpredictability of wind and solar, however, and with a massive reliance on natural gas fired power plants to balance electricity demand, Europe has just saw the fastest drop in natural gas storage in years. Yes, the weather was cold in the past couple of weeks, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it could get in the dead of winter. Wind on the other hand stopped blowing, which not only resulted in lower electricity generation from wind turbines, but also in thicker clouds and more persistent fog… Leading to a much diminished solar power generation. Welcome to the good old Dunkelflaute (or the dark doldrums) so common this time of year, and by the way sometimes throughout the entire winter… Who could have thought that “renewables” produce much less electricity during wintertime…?
Whenever a large solar farm returns production it sends a shock wave through the grid, damaging sensitive equipment nearby. Similarly, when a cloud suddenly blocks the Sun a micro-blackout could occur (lasting a few milliseconds) till back up capacity comes online. These fluctuations in the supply of electricity has forced many companies with sensitive manufacturing equipment to install surge protectors and uninterruptible power supply units costing tens or hundreds of thousands of Euros (depending on size) or outright buying a natural gas powered generation unit to produce their own stable electricity supply.
In the meantime, and just for the record, the IMF has just named Russia the 4th largest economy of the world, surpassing Japan and Germany; after the World Bank classified it as a high income country. Despite all protestations, sanctions actually helped Russia rein in its worst oligarchs and encouraged investments to replace lost imports. Contrary to what Europe’s ruling elite had in mind, their policy has lead to a huge economic boom in Russia, driven by internal consumption and powered by an abundant supply of fossil fuels.
I asked the mod about what was up with this, on an earlier post, and they didn’t seem to have much of a response other than an appeal to authority. (https://lemm.ee/post/49069993)
Obviously, I could be right or wrong, and no one’s obligated to answer my questions about anything, but at that point I was looking at it as “You may be unintentionally posting misinformation” and warning the person, and their response didn’t line up for me with someone who is innocently posting informative content because they believe it to be true.
Primary contributor is a single user with mod status, and extremely limited engagement via comments. Looks susceptible to bias based on metadata alone.
It nearly 100% is.
They link to loads of russian propaganda websites.
Could you be more specific?
The two links in my post are two examples.
Okay? You did not provide any proof of those examples being Russian propaganda websites though? Just because someone shares Russian talking points, does not make the website a Russian propaganda site. I asked for actual proof of that statement that makes them near 100% confident, because that would require substantial proof. But it seems it’s just feelings and “I don’t like their opinion” based instead, which is a sad metric for being nearly 100% convinced.
Edit: You all really love disinformation, huh? At least it feeds your confirmation bias instead of telling the truth, that’s the most important thing.
You caught me. I don’t like their opinion that solar panels cause micro-blackouts which damage equipment whenever a cloud passes across the sun, and all across Europe people are buying their own gas mini-power-plants because the power grid is ruining their factory equipment, and just based on my feelings, I felt like that statement made me really sad, and I lashed out by accusing it of being hilariously incompetent propaganda instead of the informative iconoclasty that it really is.
Well, feel free to provide proof that those sites are Russian propaganda websites then.
I never said I had proof. I actually specifically said that I could be right or wrong about this, but was just presenting what I think about it. Why would I have proof? I am not an intelligence agency or anything.
Because you’re replying to this comment chain where I’m inquiring about proof regarding the claim that those websites are Russian propaganda websites.
Trying to dismiss someone who is asking for proof & sources of a claim is certainly part of the Russian propaganda playbook, so I’m not sure how believable you peeps are with what you’re saying.
Removed by mod
If you think I can’t use translators, you’re wrong. But aside from your homophobic insult, it’s quite ironic that you call me that when you’re the one who has no interest in the truth, which is quite the Putin trait. They made a claim without it being backed by any sort of evidence and you just eat it up because you want to believe it. Don’t be a sucker.
example?
The mod and community were both on .ml until the mod’s account there got suspended, so it’s hardly a surprise that they’re taking up a pro-Russia position
Unfortunately it seems like the mod’s position on climate change in general, based on the discussion about the post that got them suspended, is that there is nothing we can do. Specifically because they think that the only solution would be population reduction and control, and that’s not politically viable. So I maybe wouldn’t bother listening to anything this persom says, because even if you think they are right there’s nothing useful to be done with the information
You’re spreading misinformation. We moved the community because some lemmy.ml instance admins started censoring the community content which obviously isn’t acceptable. Nobody was banned.
You also mistaken to think we believe there is a solution. A predicament has none. What you do with the information is up to you. If you think it is useless, just don’t engage.
I will not continue further in this thread and suggest you find something more suitable to do with your time. Have a nice day.
I’m not saying the linked post got you banned, I’m saying that the discussion about the post is on there. However I did misread the modlog - your .ml account was only suspended, not permanently banned, so I will edit that
You also mistaken to think we believe there is a solution
I specifically said you didn’t think there was a viable solution
If you think is useless, just don’t engage.
That was also what I said
You also mistaken to think we believe there is a solution
I specifically said you didn’t think there was a viable solution
One of the most reliable hallmarks, I’ve found, to the misinformation accounts is that they will lie about what you said, as part of why they’re arguing that you were wrong when you said it and so you’re a wrong person, when what you said is right there for anyone to read in the parent comment. They fill in both sides of the argument: The wrong thing they’re pretending you said, and then why it isn’t true, avoiding entirely the real basis for disagreement that was the previous topic of discussion.
I suspect the tactic is employed because it’s cheap and easy way to create a facade of legitimate conflict between two points of view, without having to spend the mental energy on creating a real counterargument or letting the dispute get into reality-based territory where the crazypants positions they stake out for themselves would be exposed.
you just described what you did in your post
Here’s where they said what I summarized as “Europe not buying fossil fuels from Russia is a catastrophe for Europe”:
Now, with the exclusion of Gazprombank, the bank handling most of the international transactions for Gazprom (the largest gas producing company in Russia) from the SWIFT inter-bank messaging system, and Ukraine unwilling to renew transit permits through its territories, the cheapest form of natural gas supplies to Europe will likely dwindle to a mere trickle. That will leave Europe with expensive LNG from Qatar and the US, as well as some pipeline gas from Norway and through Turkiye, which is Russian gas in a roundabout, third-party way. As always: higher complexity comes at a higher price — a direct consequence of the EU’s economic war on its largest energy supplier.
Will this lead to a repeat of the 2022 price rally then? Hardly. As one can see from the extent of layoffs cited above, Europe is deindustrializing fast. Half of the continent’s steel, glass and aluminum capacity, together with fertilizer and chemical plants have already left in the first wave (in late 2022 and early 2023). Now, it’s time for the automotive and machine manufacturing sector to go, together with the “renewables” and battery businesses. Well, energy is (still) the economy, it seems. As industrial demand recedes, however, so does consumer demand. With mass layoffs, and in response to a huge drop in the purchasing power of their money, people started to buy less and less products made with expensive energy, and turned down the heating in their homes even further.
Here’s what they said that I summarized as “they must reverse course as soon as possible and stop trying to depend on renewable energy”:
In light of the above it’s even harder to understand how European elites could be so irresponsible. Instead of revising their energy / foreign policy, they have doubled down on “renewables” even as they severed all vital links to their primary source of cheap fossil fuels. Contrary to its vital economic interests, Europe has tied its import dependent economy to a fast sinking “rules based world order”, together with LNG supplies from the U.S. with diminishing reserves and a soon to be peaking production. Instead of doing everything to prevent a war with their biggest neighbor, and to find a cooperative coping mechanism to deal with the coming long decline in world energy production, the EU and NATO remained hell bent on expansion and sabotaged every deal along the way — together with the many opportunities for peace. Even as the war is being lost as we speak, there are still no talks about building a lasting peace taking both side’s security considerations into account. Instead, we hear more ‘peace through strength’, ‘deterrence’ and sending European troops into Ukraine to freeze the conflict… Only to prepare the country for a renewed offensive few years later. Just like many times before in the old continent’s battered history confrontation was chosen over cooperation, ultimately leaving Europe in ruins and in a deep economic turmoil. Only this time, in the absence of a cheap and abundant new energy source, the downturn could all too easily become permanent.
That also covers some of “since it doesn’t work,” as well does what I already included and satirized at some length, the accusation that connecting solar panels to your grid will destroy equipment because when a cloud goes across the sun, the whole equipment suffers some kind of catastrophe.
I’m comfortable with my summary, in other words. The whole thing is so long-winded that it’s hard to boil down to simple statements, but it’s actually uncommonly direct in what it’s saying for this type of propaganda.
In the meantime, and just for the record, the IMF has just named Russia the 4th largest economy of the world, surpassing Japan and Germany; after the World Bank classified it as a high income country.
What would even be #3 if Japan and Germany are out? The IMF’s October numbers (the most recent) list Russia’s economy as just over and under half as large as Japan’s and Germany’s, respectively, as a note.
They may be talking about the PPP-adjusted numbers:
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/CHN/USA/JPN
That’s a metric that’s tailor-made, though, for exaggerating the health of an economy that has a large internal industrial base, but does minimal trade with the outside and whose currency has absolutely cratered with respect to the rest of the world.
Also, they’re classed as a high income country because their national income per capita has risen to $14,250 US.
PPP makes sense, but you definitely have to specify that when talking about it (assuming your intent is not misinformation). “Largest economy” is not a specific thing, obviously, but googling it brings back exclusively GDP results. Given the super misleading statistic from a reputable source, I would have to agree that this is intentional.
This is the the spinoff community where the mods straight up left because they as the near singular uploaders got pushback for some of the content they were sharing was false or problematic and they made such a tantrum they basically got thrown out and told everyone else that we needed to follow them because they were what’s best for community?
Yeah I wouldn’t exactly trust them and I didn’t hold much weight to their posts previously either. A lot of blog opinion posts masquerading as intelligent discussion.
This is also the same group that prior to the migration I saw saying that the earth had a hard 1 billion human cap and would often say that we needed to reduce our population down to that amount naturally or by not protecting people during catastrophe and even worse if you pushed them a little on it they would say 3rd world countries could give up the most people as the most polluting and fastest growing countries they should all take their different colored skin and die to leave more space for the rest of them.
TL;DR:
Yeah I would stay clear of that place. Honestly all the “collapse” adjacent communities on Lemmy are pretty conspiracy first and deeply problematic wish fulfilment at best, too desperately searching for the end of their suffering through the suffering of othersI notice the nihilism is always selectively applied, too.
It’s never the case that Russia’s economy is going to be affected in the upcoming global collapse. Russia is always doing great. It’s every other country that’s so hopelessly on a death-course that there’s no point in even reversing anything, and so they might as well go back to buying Russian oil again, to stave off the inevitable before they all die.
Also, food crops are never a big issue. Sustainability of energy, specifically fossil fuel energy, is a huge issue underpinning the economy. But having stuff to eat isn’t important, and no particular issues might arise that anyone might want to pay attention to as regards it.
Contrapoints: “'That’s what happens when the snowflake / shitpost tension collapses into pure shitposting. It’s boring. And immature. Like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire.”
They have an idea of how they want the world to collapse in their mind and want to search for the evidence of exactly that.
Most people have that bias. Searching for evidence that makes them correct. Look at all those mom blogs which the collapse community is often closer too than not.
I’d prefer it if it was just a place to observe things basic to modern society breaking, regressionist acts or actions, and pre-emptive scientific flags of upcoming climate changes but that’s not what most people want out of their self confirmation bias.
show what you are talking about with link to source
nonsense. Link sources to demonstrate you aren’t just making stuff up
While that article does look as if its author has bought into some propaganda originating in Russia, that’s really only revealed in the final paragraph, not the part you quoted. You seem to be reacting more to the “fossil fuels power everything” and “this latest rise in the price of oil and gas means that the final collapse of global industrial civilization is now underway” attitudes, both of which which are fine American traditions.
Darn, we need Collapse on here. Last thing we needed is for the mod to be compromised.
That’s not the main collapse comm.
The major one is on .ml, which obviously has its own problems but at least isn’t a single person.
Could it be that the GRU are looking beyond the usual tankie and neo-Nazi milieus and cultivating assets amongst the very online doomers?
“Could”??
the answer is “yes, of course.”
If Russia were half as competent as you people hallucinate them to be, you’d be speaking Russian right now.
Are you literally saying that flooding all possible channels with lies requires some kind of special competency?
I think they had a lot to do with getting Trump elected, last time and this time. Does that count?
Which appears to be back firing now lol
The same way the invention of tv did? Sure.
I blocked that com a while ago, I don’t need depressing doomerposting in my feed
Yeah the copy paste comments from different instances here are showing how guilty that instance is
I agree that it’s odd that a collapse community (presumably pro-environment?) post would argue for using more fossil fuels instead of renewables, but looking at it from a strictly economic perspective, my understanding is that Europe not buying natural gas from Russia is indeed severely affecting their economy.
That part is completely accurate, yes. What I was referring to was more the idea that they need to go back to buying Russian fuel, because solar panels are destroying their electrical grid, and the Russian economy is doing great because sanctions actually helped it enormously. That, and also the mod’s total disinterest in discussing the topic when I pointed out some of the suspect elements of the stuff he was posting.
What I was referring to was more the idea that they need to go back to buying Russian fuel, because solar panels are destroying their electrical grid, and the Russian economy is doing great because sanctions actually helped it enormously.
But from what I understand, those things you listed are all at least partly true, from a strictly economic perspective. I agree that it’s a poorly thought-out opinion from an environmental / climate perspective though.
Whenever a large solar farm returns production it sends a shock wave through the grid, damaging sensitive equipment nearby. Similarly, when a cloud suddenly blocks the Sun a micro-blackout could occur (lasting a few milliseconds) till back up capacity comes online. These fluctuations in the supply of electricity has forced many companies with sensitive manufacturing equipment to install surge protectors and uninterruptible power supply units costing tens or hundreds of thousands of Euros (depending on size) or outright buying a natural gas powered generation unit to produce their own stable electricity supply.
That’s not “at least partly true.” It’s the steamingest pile of pure bullshit I’ve seen all week. I don’t know why you would seize on some vaguely half-true things near the beginning of the article to take the jump of claiming that the pants-on-fire part of it is “at least partly true.”
I was referring to your list I quoted in general, not that paragraph from the original post. That paragraph seems to make some sloppy claims without providing evidence, but the general opinion they’re expressing doesn’t seem completely out of the question to me. I had read before that Germany was not doing their green energy transition right and it was causing them to have to increase coal burning, which I’m sure everyone can agree is a bad thing. I did a quick search and here’s what appears to be a decent article about the issues with Germany’s approach to green energy: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/so-much-german-efficiency-warning-green-policy-aspirations
“Sloppy claims without providing evidence”? “The general opinion they’re expressing”?
Lol, okay. You’re welcome to your opinion.
?
Thanks for the heads up
Why is it misinformation, just because it has a somewhat pro-russuan line? In your post / comments you don’t point out any falsehoods or anything misleading, just that it sounds Russian.
You can call them out as a putin-sympathizer if you think so and let people know about their bias, but that’s all this seems to be, biased opinions, not misinformation.
Whenever a large solar farm returns production it sends a shock wave through the grid, damaging sensitive equipment nearby. Similarly, when a cloud suddenly blocks the Sun a micro-blackout could occur (lasting a few milliseconds) till back up capacity comes online. These fluctuations in the supply of electricity has forced many companies with sensitive manufacturing equipment to install surge protectors and uninterruptible power supply units costing tens or hundreds of thousands of Euros (depending on size) or outright buying a natural gas powered generation unit to produce their own stable electricity supply.
If it’s misinformation it’s comically weak. Companies investing in surge protection and batteries? Tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars? The horror! Better get back to destroying the planet for cheap while propping up Putin. There’s surely no way electricity suppliers will ever overcome such difficulties by, you know, themselves buying batteries and surge suppressors.
I mean, yes, it’s betraying a little bit the mindset of the person writing it. I don’t think a person in a first world country would make the mistake of saying that the literal electricity supply coming over the wires in Europe is unreliable, thinking that’s realistic. Or thinking that tens of thousands of dollars on electrical equipment for the factory is some kind of crazy world-ending expenditure, even if that were happening. I think in a Russian frame of reference, both of those are perfectly reasonable things to say, but for a European they’d be weird and even someone making up nonsense would come up with different nonsense to come up with.
I do agree with your take on it, but also I was mostly making the point that they’re not just vaguely pro-Russian, they’re making up literal nonsense to try to get their point across.
Report on drama, don’t start it. If you disagree with a poster, debate them.
OP did, in https://lemm.ee/post/49069993
I read that and failed to find anything outside of that. One attempt to engage isn’t enough for me. But I’m neither a moderator nor an administrator for that community or instance.
Perhaps someone should tag the moderator so they can defend themselves in this Salem trial?
@eleitl@lemm.ee
Thanks, but I have better things to do with my time.
No other obvious place to put this jumped out at me. Is there maybe a better place to post it?
I linked to the place where I tried to discuss this with the mod in question. Discussing it with them directly was my first stop, yes, but if I’m seeing repeated postings of comically obvious Russian propaganda, and addressing it directly with the poster doesn’t go anywhere, I don’t think that discussion needs to be the end of the line in terms of discussing it.
I’ve been subscribed to the community from it was on ml. Admittedly I don’t read it all that often, but the goal of the community was to showcase how things are falling apart. From my perspective climate change is a part of that and capitalism is most of that. If I was to post regularly in that community, my posts would reflect that and have a significant anti-imperilism slant. To label a community as misinformation because you happen to disagree with the primary content creator doesn’t sit right with me.
To label a community as misinformation because
You need to reread what I wrote, and redo the last part of this sentence based on what I actually said.
There’s no point in engaging with a malicious actor, my guy. This is a report on observations, and I am here to report that these observations match my own.
Yeah. I do think it’s worth engaging once or twice and asking questions. But no one needs to spend indefinite time going back and forth with someone who’s posting nonsense.
Report on drama, don’t start it. If you disagree with a poster, debate them.
