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Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

You do understand that anecdotal findings don’t mean anything, right? I’ve lived in russia for a decade; the three russians I still speak to are anti-war. That’s not how any of this works!

I’ve posted links and reference to various research works previously in this thread. You can start by looking at polling from Levada (lots of age group information), Russian Field and a paper by LSE that uses list experiments (URL in one of my comments in this thread).

Even qualitative research by russian academics is damning for russian society. They find that even among those who don’t actively support the invasion, a majority still want to see their army win (i.e. annexation Ukrainian territories, steal children, bomb children’s cancer hospitals). This was a recent project done in a small town (15K) in Siberian russia, released just last month.

A strong majority of russian are most definitely genocidal imperialists (including the 19-29 age group, although it may be more of a regular majority than a “strong majority”). You’re really ignorant (of practically all quantitative and qualitative researh as well as of history) and/or you are naive and not willing to ask yourself difficult questions.

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Omniraptor@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Could you post a link to the qualitative research in the Siberian town?

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- Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  meduza.io/…/a-kogda-uzhe-pobeda-to-nasha-budet
  
  The article is in russian. Very stuffy and verbose writing style.
  
  They’ve only released an in-depth preview news article. I believe the full paper (with an English translation) will be released later this month.
  
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phlegmy@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m willing to accept your claim, I’m just yet to see enough evidence to prove it.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment.
People who criticise Putin over there don’t seem to last very long.
Maybe the average Russian citizen won’t have to worry about that, but there’s still the implication that having different political beliefs is something that should be shunned.

Checking the Levada polling methods, it doesn’t sound like those who are polled are always able to answer anonymously.

Judging by that page, they seem to prioritise door-knocking and in-person interviews.
Are you going to tell the person interviewing you, without knowing if they work for your corrupt government or not, that you disagree with your government?

I’m not a statician, but I think this is called social desirability bias. And when there’s a potential risk to your safety, or even the slightest suspicion that your answers could negatively impact you, that bias increases.

Yes, I’ll admit anecdotal findings are essentially useless when discussing a population, but those statistics aren’t much better.

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- Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Considering the points that you raised, what are your critiques of list experiment methodology (e.g. the one by LSE that I referenced earlier) and their findings that preference falsification is just 10%. I will note that you are the one who brought up personal safety.
  
  If the vast majority of your country are genocidal imperialists, it really doesn’t matter that a tiny micro-minority are hiding their preferences does it? At the very least you can admit that this logic is consistent, no?
  
  Since you brought up Levada, they show that something like 84% of the Russian population supported the annexation of Crimea (i.e. at the very least they are committed imperialists). This data point has been consistent since 2014.
  
  In context of your critique of Levada, how is that list experiment research had a comparable level of support at 80% for the annexation of Crimea?
  
  The truth of the matter is that your have no evidence (quantitative or qualitative) or even a working theory to justify your view that the vast majority of russian are just poor souls who got stuck with putin.
  
  This is nothing new for me btw. On the English language internet, you constantly see comically dumb takes about russians being little angels and putin being solely responsible for all evils committed by the russians.
  
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  - phlegmy@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Read the conclusion of the study. The list experiment very clearly proved that there’s a lot of preference falsification happening, which was all they were testing for.
    The survey results are unlikely to be an accurate representation of the public’s support of the war, there are many factors which could raise or lower the true level of support. Getting an accurate percentage wasn’t the purpose of the study.
    
    And I don’t think Russians are innocent. Propaganda and local news may have a strong influence, but the genuine levels of support for their government’s actions is still seemingly much higher than it has any right to be.
    But I don’t think its fair to say the vast majority of Russians are genocidal imperialists without accurate figures to back it up.
    Those sort of blanket statements lead to racism, hate crimes, etc, against many innocent people.
    
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    Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    And what is their estimate of preference falsification? It’s just ~10%, no?
    
    What impact does this level of preference falsification have with respect to the % of russians who support the invasion of Ukraine, annexation of its territories and extermination of Ukrainian identity?
    
    We go from ~75% to ~65% with preference falsification w.r.t. support for the above, is that not the case?
    
    Do the numbers cited (less preference falsification) in support of the war not fall under the definition of “strong majority”? Is 65% not a strong majority?
    
    Don’t the authors clearly state that their methodology (even with weights) likely underestimates the true level of support?
    
    Their numbers (for support of the invasion of Ukraine) align with other polling methods; which is damning for the “innocent Russians just got played a bad hand, they are not really genocidal imperialists” narrative.
    
    Why did you leave out these numbers? I don’t understand. They clearly reference them. Why would you do this?
    
    But you would never accept any methodology or research that doesn’t show what you want to see. Be honest! It’s not about the research or the numbers for you.
    
    So why bring up “accurate figures”?
    
    White washing the genuine support for genocidal imperialism among a strong majority of russians leads to 100 of thousands of deaths, 10 of thousands people being tortured (UN stated that 95% of Ukrainian POWs were tortured, and that doesn’t include civilians) and millions having their livelihoods ruined.
    
    And I am just referencing Ukraine. There are many other examples. The russians killed 5% of the civilian population of Chechnya in the 90s. That would be equivalent to killing 7 million russian civilians.
    
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