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TallSilhouette on 01 April 2022
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GoOnKid said:

Now here's something that I would like to get off my chest. My uncle watches russian TV and he believes all the propaganda. Lately he shared a video of some old dude who was stopped by the police and complained about being stopped. He wore a jacket with the russian and german flag on the back along with the phrase 'friends' and the letter z on the back. The police told him that he should remove it and stop showing this in public otherwse he would face further consequences. Now this man complains how - for no reason at all, supposedly - you're not allowed to show a simple random letter from the alphabet anymore without being labeled a criminal. My uncle believes shit like this. We had a familiy meeting lately and he tried to justify the attack and how this conflict started back in 2014 when the Crimea was having a true and fair poll on where it wanted to belong to. Now when I intervend that the Crimea was stolen and there never had been a fair election at all, the topic stopped and we both knew that we wouldn't advance in this topic either way. Meanwhile my brother responded to this video of this old man and told how some of my brothers' coworkers painted the letter z on their helmets and, surprise surprise, they all faced trouble from HR and were told to remove it immediately. And for good reason, because in this same logic, if you wear a swastika publically, you will face consequences as well. If you show the middle finger to a person, you will face consequences as well.  But but but, it's just a random letter. But but but, it's just a symbol. But but but, it's just a finger. No, it's not. It has a meaning behind it, and this meaning is very well known.

Point is, I don't know how to get him back anymore. I fear he is lost to Putins propaganda just like those russian people that can't believe their own relatives in the Ukraine anymore are lost.

It's sadly common these days for families to lose one or more members to any of a number of misinformation rabbit holes. I haven't had to deal with it personally yet, but some of my family have lost friends to them. Many people are beyond the help of anyone but a trained professional in a controlled environment that they will never consent to, but short of that the best/only solution I know of is to try and Socratic method them out of their train of thought. No amount of facts and figures lectured at them will convince them. You can lead them with the right questions but it only sticks when they come to the conclusions themselves. Deprogramming is less about showing them the right way than getting them to recognize the contradictions in their own worldview and earnestly start to reassess it. This is also unfortunately very difficult and demanding and you may not know enough about a topic or the right questions to ask to be effective. It sucks.