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This is exactly the argument that was used to dismiss evidence of the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge genocides.

sudosysgen 6y ago
This is true. However, it is also a hard fact that defectors often lie and exaggerate.
matt-attack 6y ago
And it would have been just as valid to question. The reason we all now know the Holocaust was real isn’t because we just decided to believe 2nd hand personal accounts, but because we have massive amounts of physical evidence.
- philwelch 6y ago
  If the Allies had accepted the first-hand intelligence reports they received during the war rather than dismissing them because they seemed outrageous and improbable, they could have saved lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilecki%27s_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilecki%27s_Report
  - MathiasPius 6y ago
    And if the international community had been more critical of the US claims on the alleged weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein, 2 decades of war and the deaths of millions could likely have been avoided. It's not as black and white as that, and I believe some measure of restraint is valuable when making decisions that can have unbounded consequences. Sometimes making the right decision eventually is better than making the wrong decision immediately.
the_af 6y ago
But there was evidence afterwards of both atrocities, from multiple sources. And some things about the Holocaust turned out to be myths, for example that the Nazis regularly made soap out of the body fat of their Jewish victims, and similarly regularly made lampshades out of their skin. It sounds plausible, because the Nazis engaged in so many horrific acts that why not this, but this alone doesn't make it true (and it turns out, historians today don't think this was true -- not a regular practice, anyway). In order to criticize a dictatorship you don't need to uncritically believe everything bad said about them. Some of it will be false. Always be wary of particularly outrageous claims.
- philwelch 6y ago
  > Always be wary of particularly outrageous claims. There is almost no detail of the Holocaust that couldn't be described as an "outrageous claim", and yet these things actually happened. What is far more pernicious is for people to engage in ideologically motivated skepticism and denial towards these atrocities, which I think Cambodia provides a much better example of: https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-cambodia-and-the-academic-left/ https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-camb... > Refugee testimonies were not be dismissed, Chomsky argued, but nor were they to be trusted. “Refugees,” he wrote, “are frightened and defenceless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocutors wish to hear.”4 > Many other Western intellectuals summarily dismissed Barron and Paul’s conclusion of a “monstrous dark age that has engulfed the people of Cambodia.” The aforementioned Gareth Porter called refugee testimony the “least reliable kind of documentation,” and derided the refugees themselves as merely the wealthy elite of Cambodian society who had lost out in the collectivisation process. When Porter testified before U.S Congress he stated, “I cannot accept the premise … that one million people have been murdered systematically or that the Government of Cambodia is systematically slaughtering its people.”5 Believe me, when I say that you sound like a Cambodian genocide denier, it's because you sound a lot like a Cambodian genocide denier.
  - the_af 6y ago
    Well, what can I say? I'm neither a Cambodian genocide denier nor a Holocaust denier. I'm sorry that you believe I sound like one just because I asked about a specific story about North Korea. I believe North Korea is a harsh dictatorship and I certainly wouldn't want to live there, by the way. I share your disgust for genocide deniers.

This is true. However, it is also a hard fact that defectors often lie and exaggerate.

And it would have been just as valid to question. The reason we all now know the Holocaust was real isn’t because we just decided to believe 2nd hand personal accounts, but because we have massive amounts of physical evidence.

philwelch 6y ago
If the Allies had accepted the first-hand intelligence reports they received during the war rather than dismissing them because they seemed outrageous and improbable, they could have saved lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilecki%27s_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilecki%27s_Report
- MathiasPius 6y ago
  And if the international community had been more critical of the US claims on the alleged weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein, 2 decades of war and the deaths of millions could likely have been avoided. It's not as black and white as that, and I believe some measure of restraint is valuable when making decisions that can have unbounded consequences. Sometimes making the right decision eventually is better than making the wrong decision immediately.

the_af 6y ago

But there was evidence afterwards of both atrocities, from multiple sources. And some things about the Holocaust turned out to be myths, for example that the Nazis regularly made soap out of the body fat of their Jewish victims, and similarly regularly made lampshades out of their skin. It sounds plausible, because the Nazis engaged in so many horrific acts that why not this, but this alone doesn't make it true (and it turns out, historians today don't think this was true -- not a regular practice, anyway). In order to criticize a dictatorship you don't need to uncritically believe everything bad said about them. Some of it will be false. Always be wary of particularly outrageous claims.

philwelch 6y ago
> Always be wary of particularly outrageous claims. There is almost no detail of the Holocaust that couldn't be described as an "outrageous claim", and yet these things actually happened. What is far more pernicious is for people to engage in ideologically motivated skepticism and denial towards these atrocities, which I think Cambodia provides a much better example of: https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-cambodia-and-the-academic-left/ https://quillette.com/2018/07/15/devastation-and-denial-camb... > Refugee testimonies were not be dismissed, Chomsky argued, but nor were they to be trusted. “Refugees,” he wrote, “are frightened and defenceless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocutors wish to hear.”4 > Many other Western intellectuals summarily dismissed Barron and Paul’s conclusion of a “monstrous dark age that has engulfed the people of Cambodia.” The aforementioned Gareth Porter called refugee testimony the “least reliable kind of documentation,” and derided the refugees themselves as merely the wealthy elite of Cambodian society who had lost out in the collectivisation process. When Porter testified before U.S Congress he stated, “I cannot accept the premise … that one million people have been murdered systematically or that the Government of Cambodia is systematically slaughtering its people.”5 Believe me, when I say that you sound like a Cambodian genocide denier, it's because you sound a lot like a Cambodian genocide denier.
- the_af 6y ago
  Well, what can I say? I'm neither a Cambodian genocide denier nor a Holocaust denier. I'm sorry that you believe I sound like one just because I asked about a specific story about North Korea. I believe North Korea is a harsh dictatorship and I certainly wouldn't want to live there, by the way. I share your disgust for genocide deniers.