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Russians do similar stuff, the most famous case is probably this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy They

Russians do similar stuff, the most famous case is probably this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy They incited war this way, still ongoing.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Serious question. Why is there so much "whataboutism" whenever anyone brings up these issues? Sure Russia has rights violations. China has censorship and Uighurs. The US has all kinds of toddlers in internment camps. Etc etc etc. Lots of bad things happening in lots of other places. But right now we're talking about the number they're doing on the Rohingya. Sheez. If you want to talk about Russia, or Brazilian death squads, or immigrant toddlers, or whatever submit a link and we can talk about it.
- grecy 8y ago
  You question is valid, ignore the downvotes. I think it comes about as a way for people to "explain away" or "brush off" things that happen in our modern world that we are just too lazy/busy/preoccupied or otherwise can't be bothered to fix. It doesn't really matter what the thing that happens is, someone will always chime in with "yeah, that's just like when xyz happened" - which is a completely useless thing to say, but I think it helps people feel better that the world is not utter chaos, and things are not entirely isolated or have no precedent. Of course, as you say, it would be much more productive to spend time trying to solve or eliminate said things, but gossip and media and reality TV aren't about that.
  - toyg 8y ago
    No, it’s that human rights have long been used as instruments of aggressive foreign policy by some countries; so now, when issues are raised, there is an instinctive reaction from some quarters that basically means “oh no, you will not use that to bully Country X, because you are no saint either”. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?”
- viraptor 8y ago
  Why do you read that as whataboutism? It's just added context and related information. Whataboutism usually means "X is also bad / worse because they do Y". This was just "here's a similar situation, have a read". I was interested in the link because it provides more interesting information on the topic. It lacks any comparison / judgement as far as I can tell.
  - pc86 8y ago
    I'll be honest the downvotes confuse me. HN has a very prevalent habit of whenever something is posted - a newsworthy item, a new startup, or whatever - many of the top-level comments are people just listing off things that may be tangentially related. Especially if the article is about some obscure tool or product you'll fine a dozen top-level comments just linking to other obscure tools or products in the same niche, or completely unrelated ones with the same homepage design, or completely unrelated ones that use the same tech stack, or something to that effect. The article is about Myanmar so unless there is something interesting about the fact that Russia is doing sort-of-the-same-thing-but-not-really things, it's not really relevant, is it?
    - addicted 8y ago
      I’ve drastically reduced my wandering into HN comments precisely because of this. Someone posts a Show HN about something they’ve worked on, and the top comment is usually something that is mildly related but completely tangential to the actual posting. It should be easy enough to ignore, but it has been happening so often I’ve started having a visceral negative reaction that makes me not want to even open the comments anymore. Which is disappointing because the HN comments are usually a treasure trove of information.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      > many of the top-level comments are people just listing off things that may be tangentially related. That's half the reason I come to HN :-) > The article is about Myanmar Is it? I read it as an article about the role of social networks in spreading information about groups of people via channels that collect diverse viewers. Essentially what happens when you gather random people on the street and shout something polarising. The specific case of it this time is Myanmar and FB, but I'd like to understand more about it as a general phenomenon. The link was interesting because it shows an example of news reporting leading to that situation and links to interesting papers in references.
- neolefty 8y ago
  I welcome it because I came to the HN discussion primarily to discuss the broader topics. Note the parent comment's lack of "It's okay because ..." It's not okay. And it's not whataboutism.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  This isn't whataboutism: Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Bringing up related incidents isn't, per se, a dismissal of the issue.
- Const-me 8y ago
  > so much "whataboutism" It’s not whataboutism, it’s basically the same story. Rogue state actors abuse free speech to spread fakes in media, the fakes cause terrible things like genocides or wars. There’re many visitors here on HN who live in Europe, myself included. I’ve wrote that comment to remind people the problem is not local to some distant location 10 hours flight away. Unfortunately, the problem is global, and is much closer than Myanmar. I understand why media behave this way. They’re selling advertisements and don’t care much about global issues, at least when it takes resources to combat these rogue states. They’re private businesses, strictly speaking it’s not their responsibility to do anything besides making money for their shareholders, and they probably have good legal departments and are not breaking any laws of their jurisdictions. But just because I understand that doesn’t mean I like that. The more people will care about the problem, the more likely we’ll be able to come up with a solution.
- megous 8y ago
  Brain is a pattern matching organ. People just come up with something more interesting to them that is similar. It's how many real life conversations go about, too.
- LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
  >> Why is there so much "whataboutism" whenever anyone brings up these issues? It's not just these types of threads either. Any thread that has Apple, Microsoft, Google, or pretty much everything eventually devolves into these types of threads. It used to bother me a lot more than it does now, because I just accepted that once I hit the inevitable whatabout post I just go do something else. Its a good sign that there's nothing left in the thread.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Russians do similar stuff, the most famous case is probably this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucified_Boy They incited war this way, still ongoing.

bilbo0s 8y ago

Serious question. Why is there so much "whataboutism" whenever anyone brings up these issues? Sure Russia has rights violations. China has censorship and Uighurs. The US has all kinds of toddlers in internment camps. Etc etc etc. Lots of bad things happening in lots of other places. But right now we're talking about the number they're doing on the Rohingya. Sheez. If you want to talk about Russia, or Brazilian death squads, or immigrant toddlers, or whatever submit a link and we can talk about it.

grecy 8y ago
You question is valid, ignore the downvotes. I think it comes about as a way for people to "explain away" or "brush off" things that happen in our modern world that we are just too lazy/busy/preoccupied or otherwise can't be bothered to fix. It doesn't really matter what the thing that happens is, someone will always chime in with "yeah, that's just like when xyz happened" - which is a completely useless thing to say, but I think it helps people feel better that the world is not utter chaos, and things are not entirely isolated or have no precedent. Of course, as you say, it would be much more productive to spend time trying to solve or eliminate said things, but gossip and media and reality TV aren't about that.
- toyg 8y ago
  No, it’s that human rights have long been used as instruments of aggressive foreign policy by some countries; so now, when issues are raised, there is an instinctive reaction from some quarters that basically means “oh no, you will not use that to bully Country X, because you are no saint either”. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?”
viraptor 8y ago
Why do you read that as whataboutism? It's just added context and related information. Whataboutism usually means "X is also bad / worse because they do Y". This was just "here's a similar situation, have a read". I was interested in the link because it provides more interesting information on the topic. It lacks any comparison / judgement as far as I can tell.
- pc86 8y ago
  I'll be honest the downvotes confuse me. HN has a very prevalent habit of whenever something is posted - a newsworthy item, a new startup, or whatever - many of the top-level comments are people just listing off things that may be tangentially related. Especially if the article is about some obscure tool or product you'll fine a dozen top-level comments just linking to other obscure tools or products in the same niche, or completely unrelated ones with the same homepage design, or completely unrelated ones that use the same tech stack, or something to that effect. The article is about Myanmar so unless there is something interesting about the fact that Russia is doing sort-of-the-same-thing-but-not-really things, it's not really relevant, is it?
  - addicted 8y ago
    I’ve drastically reduced my wandering into HN comments precisely because of this. Someone posts a Show HN about something they’ve worked on, and the top comment is usually something that is mildly related but completely tangential to the actual posting. It should be easy enough to ignore, but it has been happening so often I’ve started having a visceral negative reaction that makes me not want to even open the comments anymore. Which is disappointing because the HN comments are usually a treasure trove of information.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    > many of the top-level comments are people just listing off things that may be tangentially related. That's half the reason I come to HN :-) > The article is about Myanmar Is it? I read it as an article about the role of social networks in spreading information about groups of people via channels that collect diverse viewers. Essentially what happens when you gather random people on the street and shout something polarising. The specific case of it this time is Myanmar and FB, but I'd like to understand more about it as a general phenomenon. The link was interesting because it shows an example of news reporting leading to that situation and links to interesting papers in references.
neolefty 8y ago
I welcome it because I came to the HN discussion primarily to discuss the broader topics. Note the parent comment's lack of "It's okay because ..." It's not okay. And it's not whataboutism.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
This isn't whataboutism: Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Bringing up related incidents isn't, per se, a dismissal of the issue.
Const-me 8y ago
> so much "whataboutism" It’s not whataboutism, it’s basically the same story. Rogue state actors abuse free speech to spread fakes in media, the fakes cause terrible things like genocides or wars. There’re many visitors here on HN who live in Europe, myself included. I’ve wrote that comment to remind people the problem is not local to some distant location 10 hours flight away. Unfortunately, the problem is global, and is much closer than Myanmar. I understand why media behave this way. They’re selling advertisements and don’t care much about global issues, at least when it takes resources to combat these rogue states. They’re private businesses, strictly speaking it’s not their responsibility to do anything besides making money for their shareholders, and they probably have good legal departments and are not breaking any laws of their jurisdictions. But just because I understand that doesn’t mean I like that. The more people will care about the problem, the more likely we’ll be able to come up with a solution.
megous 8y ago
Brain is a pattern matching organ. People just come up with something more interesting to them that is similar. It's how many real life conversations go about, too.
LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
>> Why is there so much "whataboutism" whenever anyone brings up these issues? It's not just these types of threads either. Any thread that has Apple, Microsoft, Google, or pretty much everything eventually devolves into these types of threads. It used to bother me a lot more than it does now, because I just accepted that once I hit the inevitable whatabout post I just go do something else. Its a good sign that there's nothing left in the thread.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]