[thow-58d4e8b]

Good faith communication is maladaptive on large scale

Imagine the war scenario. The honest, good-faith communication would be like: If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that happens is paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces on TV news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway, please go and die to prevent that from happening, while the people who have the most at stake hide in safety

It's not difficult to see why bad-faith war propaganda beats that every time

[m12k]

We're seeing the opposite play out in real time in Ukraine though. One side tells its soldiers that they are fighting a desperate battle to repel an invading dictator. The other side tells its soldiers that they are going on a training exercise in Belarus, then shoves them across the border telling them they will be welcomed as liberators, then finally switches to some handwavy explanation about nazis. The latter has massively worse morale and battlefield performance than the former.

And not only that, the bad-faith communication goes back decades, and the equipment the invaders are fighting with is in disrepair because local administrators and subcontractors have been lying to those in charge while pocketing maintenance funds. We're seeing, in a massive way, the havoc that a culture of deceit wreaks on any organization or society's ability to function coherently.

[Cthulhu_]

Ukraine was morally indefensible from the start, as was the Nazi invasion of Europe; with the latter though, they had captured the "hearts and minds" of their own people thanks to over a decade of increasing propaganda. Hitler pulled Germany from an economic downturn post-WW2, and the showy militaristic theming really got people excited. And it still does, but for a much smaller demographic - current-day nazis like the combat boots and flags too.

[daedalus_f]

> The honest, good-faith communication would be like…

Perhaps I don’t understand your point, but the experiences of people in the states annexed by the Soviet Union would beg to differ.

[watwut]

> If we capitulate outright, the worst thing that happens is paying taxes to somewhere else, and the set of faces on TV news will change to a different set of faces. Anyway, please go and die to prevent that from happening, while the people who have the most at stake hide in safety

Is that actual truth? It seems to me that in quite a lot of wars, there is a lot more in stake then just where you pay taxes or who is on TV. This is not a good faith communication - this is flat out lie.

And also, civilian casualties in wars outnumber military ones. Soldiers do die a lot ... but causalities and suffering in wars are not limited to them.