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.
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.
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.
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 others
I 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.
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.
