Inspector Spacetime
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You missed the point of my post, read it again please. I was explaining flaws of the source you posted and the negative consequences that follow from it (the replies on the tweet). It makes people fear, distrust or even hate the opposite side of their own political opinions. I used the source as a mere example.
This is exactly the point I am trying to make. This is what polarization is. In the case of Turkey, polarization manifests itself most of the times like this. Some people refuse everything bad about AKP, that is correct. That is called cognitive dissonance. But other people are also very quick to refuse anything negative about their own political parties, or if a source claiming the opposite of their opinion they also refuse to believe it and label it as fake news (cognitive dissonance). This is coupled with that people are quick to believe, AKP are corrupt or CHP are traitors, etc. These are message that play into the cognitive biases of people. Making them go: 'see, I told you so' or 'I was right all along' or thoughts like this.
For instance, you were all doom and gloom about the Turkish economy. But I have seen people claiming that everything is awesome when it comes to the economy. The people that have these opinions live in the same country/economy yet their opinions are like night and day? Why, because of polarization. This is due to the propaganda techniques involved. One side of the media and politics focuses and exaggerates the empty part of the glass and try to manipulate us that way. While the other side of the media and politics focus on the half full part of the glass claiming everything is awesome and try to manipulate us that way. The truth is that it's neither very good, neither very bad either. I have had discussions with people from both sides of the political spectrum, and both of them say (about the other side of the political spectrum) 'they aren't able to see the truth'. This is because of the exaggerations, but the fact of the matter is that the truth, judging form my experience fact checking, usually lies somewhere in between.
In other words, the very pro-AKP guy and the very anti-AKP guy are the different sides of the same coin. Both have fallen victim to the manipulation techniques by politicians and media (manufacturing consent).
The youtube videos that you posted (yes, I know Ilave tv). No, those people aren't lieing because they believe what they say at that moment in time, but there is manipulation involved, here's how:
The guy with the microphone from the youtube videos asks suggestive questions or form questions with out of context quotes. The guy asks the question in such a way that, if you deviate from the expected answer, then it makes you look bad. This is also coupled with the people being put on the spot. I'm sure we all experienced this, where we give an answer but later when you are at home you think of a better answer and regret that we didn't give that answer to begin with. There are occasionally people giving a rational answer, or at the very least non-judgemental answer, but the majority fall into the techniques of the reporter. Another thing is, they ask these questions to a lot of people but edit the video and only put those answers in that are favorable with their own opinions.
To elaborate for instance, I can go on the street and ask "there is this dude on a forum called Mr.Niceguy, and he wrote "you son of tayyip, you son of apo" to some other guy on the forum, according to you is this how a respectable person should behave?"
It is most likely that those answering this question will be negative, because the question itself is quite suggestive (those saying yes, will fear they will be perceived as disrespectful themself) and it is really out of context. I am just quoting a (part of a) sentence without showing the rest of your post and without giving context as to why and in what situation the post was written.
This is quite a bad example, but I hope you understand what I am trying to say here.
If you look at the youtube channel, it is clear that this channel has an anti-AKP stance as almost all of their videos are negative towards AKP. Meaning they aren't objective and unbiased and therefore can't be trusted. I could go on youtube and find these types of videos but this time about Aksener, Kilicdaroglu, etc that shows people having negative attitudes about them. These youtube channels and videos would be exactly the same (same techniques and everything) as the videos you posted, though they look like they are opposites, they would be the two sides of the same coin. If we want to have factual and correct data regarding people's sentiment then credible sources like public opinion polls, other methods of measurement and academic research that give accurate and unbiased information regarding these topics. Yes, this is boring but that is the cost of not falling prey to manipulations I'm afraid.
Other propaganda technique is for instance, a factual piece of data, but the story they conjured up around it is manipulative. For instance, 2+2=4. One rhetoric goes: "4 is quite a big number, it's a lot." Another rhetoric goes: "4 is nothing, might as well be 0. It is quite useless.". The number 4 is correct and factual, but one story goes that 4 is good (glass half full), the other story claims 4 is bad (glass half empty). This is how they try to manipulate us. In actuality 4 is not a lot or very little, it is just...4.
These manipulations are very subtle. They don't just go up to a person and say Individual A is evil. No one would believe that. They micro manipulate on a daily basis. They say, individual A didn't stop for a red light. Individual A didn't greet the room as he walked in. Individual A didn't shake hands. Individual A insulted some guy. etc. These are obvious examples but in real life media outlets that do this can be both subtle and obvious. Eventually all this negative sentiment grows (damla damla gol olur), so the next time someone says "Individual A is evil" we tend to believe it more easily. This works in the opposite way as well "Individual A is the best person in the world". This is how media outlets and even terrorist organizations work.
This is an observation and please don't take it the wrong way but judging from your latest post, the rhetoric that you are using, it just shows that you are also a victim of these propaganda techniques. For instance, you say that AKP and their supporters are traitors. This is quite an extreme opinion and it shows that you are in too deep here.
It is really easy to fall for these techniques as well. Even if people are aware of these techniques they can still be fooled and manipulated by them.
I used to be exactly like this as well, I used to think that 80% of the Turkish people were traitors because the political party I supported at the time only got 20% of the votes. This is what they do, they manipulate us so much that we hate our own brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, countrymen.
It is our own responsibility to not fall for these manipulation and provocation techniques. One of the easiest ways is to fact check those we hear and read, instead of just believing everything because it falls in line with our current opinions or reject anything that goes against our opinions.
The Turkish economy is neither terrible nor great. It is in a correction period after the currency crises. It is picking up steam (judging from the last quarter), but I think a global recession is coming. It's due for a few years now. Historically a recession comes about every 8 years (small cycle). It has been 12 years since the last recession in the US, but the FED has lowered interests and introduced quantitative easing which could be the reason why we haven't seen a recession or a major crash yet. The last depression was back in the 30's. We could be in for a major cycle, so the next market crash could be a depression (let's hope not).
Turkey is a developing economy as opposed to a developed economy, so it is more prone to major shocks. Like the currency crisis the country experienced. We seem to have recovered from it for now, as opposed to Argentina who seem to still be struggling with it (I wish them the best). I don't know how the Turkish economy will react in the next crisis (it will be negative for all the economies in the world for sure), but I hope it doesn't do too bad relatively speaking. What Turkish economy needs is to clear it's account deficit even in economic growth periods. To achieve this Turkey needs to focus on producing so they don't have to import and can in turn export goods out of the country. This is achieved by R&D. Turkish military industry is a good example of this, if Turkey can recreate this in all other sectors then it will clear it's account deficit and maybe even give an account surplus. Or even better, a trade surplus (this would mean more exports than imports, and every income from tourism goes to account surplus). Turkey is taking steps regarding this according to my research. Turkey's R&D spending has increased every year:
Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/turkey/research-and-development-expenditure-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html
This isn't where we want to be, 1% isn't enough. According to what's written below, if the current trend in R&D continues then it will be 1.8% of GDP by 2023. However, the goal is to reach 3% by 2023 (see the same source). To put into context, the OECD average for R&D is 2.5%. So if we reach 3% then we are doing pretty well regarding this, only a handful of countries have over 3%. 2023 is only 3 years away, I don't know if they can reach that, but over 2 or 2.5% by 2023 I am happy with that. But 3% and above should still be a goal to strive for in my opinion. I'm fine with delays but as long as we get there.
https://www.tubitak.gov.tr/tubitak_content_files/BTYPD/BTYK/btyk23/2011_101.pdf
One might ask himself, "why not just allocate extra money towards R&D?". It's not that easy, that money needs to go somewhere right? Like R&D centers and universities, etc. There are developments regarding this as well, I am not able to find a source currently but the number of R&D centers are in an uptrend as well as the people working in R&D projects. We need to keep this momentum going and even increasing it in the coming years if we wish to get to 3% R&D to GDP expenditure by 2023.
You said something about suicides in Turkey, here you can find some statistics regarding that:
https://tr.euronews.com/2020/01/05/...ar-ediyor-avrupa-ulkelerinde-intihar-orani-ne
The implied meaning from your post is that suicides were tied to the economy. But if you look at the chart in the source, there were more suicides 2012 and 2013 where the Turkish economy reached a peaked (2011 was the lowest). 2018, the year in which the currency crisis happened, was a little less than 2017. According to TUIK, 246 out of 3161 had 'gecim sikintisi'. For the majority it is unknown. According to the statistics, Turkey has the lowest suicide rate in Europe.
That being said, the statistics for 2019 aren't published yet so a claim that suicides increased or decreased due to economy or any other reason can't be proven or disproven as of yet.
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