3 ms·

I think you’ve totally missed the definition of “whataboutism”. When questioning the ethics of a specific firm in an industry, it’s relevant if they are behavin

by zaroth 8y ago

I think you’ve totally missed the definition of “whataboutism”. When questioning the ethics of a specific firm in an industry, it’s relevant if they are behaving exactly the same as everyone else in the same industry. “Perdue chickens are kept in cages!” is flimsy journalism if every large scale chicken farm also keeps their chicken in cages, and the article fails to explain why Perdue is being singled out. Reporting on air pollution by cars and how it’s changed over the years, and responding that coal power also pollutes, is whataboutism because there’s no expectation of why the pollution level of one would be relevant to the other. Singling out BMW and talking about how much pollution those specific cars produce because they are more likely to be driven by white collar workers, without explaining if those cars are actually producing more pollution per mile, it would not be “whataboutism” to question - what about the pollution from other brands? Is BMW actually worse or do the people who drive them just make a juicy target?

bogomipz 8y ago
>"I think you’ve totally missed the definition of “whataboutism”." Not at all. Whataboutism is a variation on "tu quoque", the idea being an attempt to establish an equivalence between two disparate actions. The disparate actions here being McKinsey's active role in the opioid epidemic - the focal point of this article and the consulting industry's questionable moral compass. PWC, Deloitte and KPMG are not "also" pushing opiods.
- zaroth 8y ago
  They are consulting on other projects that are equally shitty and immoral, whether it be how to structure some financial instrument to screw someone over, or how to implement software to variably price some product based on protected factors, or how to price pharmaceuticals to maximize subscriber copays, or how to design a product with better obsolescence, etc. etc. etc. Saying that McKinsey is uniquely shitty is perhaps a case study in missing the forest for the tree. If they could be found criminally liable for all these things that they help their customers

by zaroth 8y ago

bogomipz 8y ago

>"I think you’ve totally missed the definition of “whataboutism”." Not at all. Whataboutism is a variation on "tu quoque", the idea being an attempt to establish an equivalence between two disparate actions. The disparate actions here being McKinsey's active role in the opioid epidemic - the focal point of this article and the consulting industry's questionable moral compass. PWC, Deloitte and KPMG are not "also" pushing opiods.

zaroth 8y ago
They are consulting on other projects that are equally shitty and immoral, whether it be how to structure some financial instrument to screw someone over, or how to implement software to variably price some product based on protected factors, or how to price pharmaceuticals to maximize subscriber copays, or how to design a product with better obsolescence, etc. etc. etc. Saying that McKinsey is uniquely shitty is perhaps a case study in missing the forest for the tree. If they could be found criminally liable for all these things that they help their customers