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You need to drop North Korea from that to make any sense at all. Not only do they incarcerate far more people per capita than the US, but the conditions make US

by eloff 5y ago

You need to drop North Korea from that to make any sense at all. Not only do they incarcerate far more people per capita than the US, but the conditions make US prison seem like paradise. No exaggeration. Prison in North Korea is much closer in spirit and implementation to Nazi concentration camps during the second World War, or the Soviet gulags. Many people die within months of being sent there.

minikites 5y ago
>Many people die within months of being sent there. I take your overall point, but here in the US police just execute people on the streets and then face no consequences for doing so. I continue to think the comparison fits.
- eloff 5y ago
  No. Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism, it's insulting to the US and demeaning to survivors of North Korea. I know the US is not perfect, but you can't just go saying it's like North Korea.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism Which is another name for "putting things in perspective" and "addressing all bad actors, not singling out one for the benefit of the other".
    - eloff 5y ago
      No. It's another name for tu quoque, a logical fallacy by attempting to deflect criticism through pointing out hypocrisy. The Soviets used it as their go-to defense for their hideous system by pointing to racism, prisons, lynching, etc in the US. As if that made their shortcomings acceptable. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism You can criticize some party or entity all you want, just make a logical argument free of fallacies. I don't abide using whataboutism to make false equivalencies. The US is nothing like North Korea. To compare the two, unless done extremely carefully, is insulting to people in the US, and demeaning the experience of people in North Korea. To think of it another way, if you compare working in McDonald's to slavery, you're insulting the people that work for McDonald's and demeaning the experience of survivors of actual slavery.
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        TFA does not mention DPRK, and this is the only subthread on this page that does. So, bringing this totally different nation into the discussion is itself fallacious. ps. this is a better "whataboutism" link: https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whataboutism-cold-war-trump https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whatab...

by eloff 5y ago

minikites 5y ago

>Many people die within months of being sent there. I take your overall point, but here in the US police just execute people on the streets and then face no consequences for doing so. I continue to think the comparison fits.

eloff 5y ago
No. Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism, it's insulting to the US and demeaning to survivors of North Korea. I know the US is not perfect, but you can't just go saying it's like North Korea.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Trying to say they're somehow equivalent is whataboutism Which is another name for "putting things in perspective" and "addressing all bad actors, not singling out one for the benefit of the other".
  - eloff 5y ago
    No. It's another name for tu quoque, a logical fallacy by attempting to deflect criticism through pointing out hypocrisy. The Soviets used it as their go-to defense for their hideous system by pointing to racism, prisons, lynching, etc in the US. As if that made their shortcomings acceptable. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism You can criticize some party or entity all you want, just make a logical argument free of fallacies. I don't abide using whataboutism to make false equivalencies. The US is nothing like North Korea. To compare the two, unless done extremely carefully, is insulting to people in the US, and demeaning the experience of people in North Korea. To think of it another way, if you compare working in McDonald's to slavery, you're insulting the people that work for McDonald's and demeaning the experience of survivors of actual slavery.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      TFA does not mention DPRK, and this is the only subthread on this page that does. So, bringing this totally different nation into the discussion is itself fallacious. ps. this is a better "whataboutism" link: https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whataboutism-cold-war-trump https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whatab...