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Well in general yes, these types of articles will have comments for, against and comparative in nature. Not to burst your bubble, but I don’t think my comment

Well in general yes, these types of articles will have comments for, against and comparative in nature. Not to burst your bubble, but I don’t think my comment is saying it’s just as bad here, only encouragement to do a comparative analysis of the two systems. Maybe one is worse/better in terms of scale but dystopian systems are dystopian systems notwithstanding the scale. Anyway you are obviously entitled to your opinion about my comment, but help me understand how you came to the conclusion my comment is “it’s worse here?”

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
I read your comment the same way: lazy whataboutism to handwave human rights abuses because “we’re just as bad”. You literally said “it’s just another way to skin the cat”, and implied that we should figure our stuff out before criticism of China here. Fortunately, people with influence don’t share your view, or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Gassing millions of people? Eh, we killed some people in targeted drone strikes, who are we to judge? Ridiculous.
- will_brown 8y ago
  >... or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Sounds like the same lazy whataboutism...ignoring our own human rights abuses to highlight others? Seems like calling a comparative analysis a lazy whataboutism, while using a whataboutism arguement is intellectually dishonest. But I think your point about gassing people is helpful here, because you are refernicing genocide. Wouldn’t you agree whether Sudan or the Holocaust, both are examples of genocide? That we don’t ignore Sudan simply because the scale isn’t the same, and it’s not whataboutism to discuss both in the context of genocide? I think the same applies to dystopian systems, you either are or aren’t, and scale is a different discussion or arguing better/worse is pretty silly at that point. Bringing one up in the context of the other isn’t whataboutism or handwaiving forgiveness, now if I brought up our system to forgive China’s system, then I think that is fairly called a whataboutism argument. But I think it’s clear I’m calling them both dystopian systems, and didn’t even touch on one being better/worse than the other.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    You’re making my point for me, by assuming that I’m “ignoring our own human rights abuses” because I called you out for bringing up our credit system to deflect from the discussion about China’s abuses. We’re not talking about the US, and these systems are extremely different even if we were.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      >to deflect from the discussion about China’s abuses. If that were true it would be whataboutism, but I didn’t do it to deflect China’s system. Many ways to skin a cat, inheriently means if I am decrying the US system as dystopian, I am doing the same with China’s (the opposite of deflection and whataboutism) while simultaneously acknowledging the difference in the mechanisms. Again in the context of the Holocaust, if I mention modern genocides such as Sudan, it’s not inheriently a whataboutism, but a call to consider and compare modern instances of genocide. People can be outraged all they want when another example of genocide is mentioned while discussing the Holocaust, but to call Sudan not a genocide because the holocaust was at a scale orders of magnitude becomes the whataboutism arguement. The real problem is your telling me “we are talking about China’s abuses”...no that’s what the article is talking about. Look at my very first comment, it’s in response to a top level comment comparing China’s credit system to a system from an episode of Black Mirror. By the OP bringing up another dystopian system (from the Black Mirror episode) did the OP engage in whataboutism? No! OP offered a comparison, same as I did, both of which are helpful to discussion and interesting. What you are doing is trying to chill speech (eg don’t talk about other dystopian systems while we are chiding China’s dystopian system). And I’m not sure you know what the definition of whataboutism arguements.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

I read your comment the same way: lazy whataboutism to handwave human rights abuses because “we’re just as bad”. You literally said “it’s just another way to skin the cat”, and implied that we should figure our stuff out before criticism of China here. Fortunately, people with influence don’t share your view, or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Gassing millions of people? Eh, we killed some people in targeted drone strikes, who are we to judge? Ridiculous.

will_brown 8y ago
>... or our lack of perfection would keep us from ever calling out authoritarian regimes for their abuses, no matter how horrific. Sounds like the same lazy whataboutism...ignoring our own human rights abuses to highlight others? Seems like calling a comparative analysis a lazy whataboutism, while using a whataboutism arguement is intellectually dishonest. But I think your point about gassing people is helpful here, because you are refernicing genocide. Wouldn’t you agree whether Sudan or the Holocaust, both are examples of genocide? That we don’t ignore Sudan simply because the scale isn’t the same, and it’s not whataboutism to discuss both in the context of genocide? I think the same applies to dystopian systems, you either are or aren’t, and scale is a different discussion or arguing better/worse is pretty silly at that point. Bringing one up in the context of the other isn’t whataboutism or handwaiving forgiveness, now if I brought up our system to forgive China’s system, then I think that is fairly called a whataboutism argument. But I think it’s clear I’m calling them both dystopian systems, and didn’t even touch on one being better/worse than the other.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  You’re making my point for me, by assuming that I’m “ignoring our own human rights abuses” because I called you out for bringing up our credit system to deflect from the discussion about China’s abuses. We’re not talking about the US, and these systems are extremely different even if we were.
  - will_brown 8y ago
    >to deflect from the discussion about China’s abuses. If that were true it would be whataboutism, but I didn’t do it to deflect China’s system. Many ways to skin a cat, inheriently means if I am decrying the US system as dystopian, I am doing the same with China’s (the opposite of deflection and whataboutism) while simultaneously acknowledging the difference in the mechanisms. Again in the context of the Holocaust, if I mention modern genocides such as Sudan, it’s not inheriently a whataboutism, but a call to consider and compare modern instances of genocide. People can be outraged all they want when another example of genocide is mentioned while discussing the Holocaust, but to call Sudan not a genocide because the holocaust was at a scale orders of magnitude becomes the whataboutism arguement. The real problem is your telling me “we are talking about China’s abuses”...no that’s what the article is talking about. Look at my very first comment, it’s in response to a top level comment comparing China’s credit system to a system from an episode of Black Mirror. By the OP bringing up another dystopian system (from the Black Mirror episode) did the OP engage in whataboutism? No! OP offered a comparison, same as I did, both of which are helpful to discussion and interesting. What you are doing is trying to chill speech (eg don’t talk about other dystopian systems while we are chiding China’s dystopian system). And I’m not sure you know what the definition of whataboutism arguements.