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The whataboutism is right on cue today as always. Surely you're not suggesting a moral equivalency between Guantanamo Bay and the Uhygur concentration camps in

The whataboutism is right on cue today as always. Surely you're not suggesting a moral equivalency between Guantanamo Bay and the Uhygur concentration camps in Xinjiang?

ecdouvhr 5y ago
It's not really whataboutism; plenty of countries and businesses commit terrible crimes without ever facing actual concequences. The Twitter mob won't actually do anything, and in the real world business goes on as usual.
dylan604 5y ago
Why do they have to be the same? Both are vile, just in differing/varying ways. "Don't judge a man for a spec in his eye while you have a plank in yours", "those in glass houses..." etc etc. I'm not saying that condemnation isn't deserved in either direction, I'm agreeing that it is deserved in both directions simultaneously. For country A to tell country B they shouldn't do anything, they should absolutely expect country B to say what about X that you country A are doing.
- RomanAlexander 5y ago
  It's ironic the cliche you use is contextually moral equivalency, the plank being more morally evil than the spec. Why do you absolutely think no one should be a recipient of moral condemnation given that no one is an angel? Do you think we should never hold people accountable?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    The whole point of the parable is that if you aren't faultless yourself, don't go pointing out faults in others. That's why I used it. It seems self-evident that it's making fun of those that acuse others of doing the very things (or similar) themselves. The man was making fun of gaslighting 2000 years ago. Where do you get that I'm suggesting otherwise?
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  Because there are differences in scale and severity. As an analogy, let's say I'm arguing with my neighbor over the loud parties he throw every night. My neighbor counters with the fact that he can hear my dog barking every morning when I take him out for a walk. My neighbor might be correct here. But he isn't engaging in good faith whatsoever -- instead, he's trying to conflate issues of very different scale to purposefully muddle the conversation. This is the problem of "whataboutism" and it's more complicated than just throwing stones in glass houses. Part of the issue is that it's a problem that only exists in context. If I'm playing golf with my neighbor and he brings up my dog barking first, it's different than if he brings it up as a counterargument to my complaint about his loud parties. e.g. if someone on hacker news is bringing up criticisms of the US (e.g. Guantanamo Bay) in an unrelated topic, there's nothing wrong with that. Whenever there is discussion of Guantanamo online, Xinjiang is almost never brought up. Here's a few (I promise not cherry picked, they're the first 3 results on google search for "hacker news Guantanamo" with more than a handful of replies) hacker news threads on Guantanamo to show this point: [0], [1], [2]. Not one mention of Chinese war crimes. There are debates over how bad they are, sure, but no whataboutism saying "Guantanamo is bad, but what about X issue in Y country?" In contrast, there's not a single large thread about the Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang on hacker news (or any other major site) that isn't filled with comparisons to the United States of America and its current and historical problems (and thankfully people calling them out for whataboutism). It's a pattern, and it's a real problem, and I won't hesitate to call it out when I see it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500597 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28195746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28195746 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986757
  - dylan604 5y ago
    >Because there are differences in scale and severity. Is what has been said at the start of every slippery slope. "What I'm doing is okay because it's not nearly as bad as what someone else is doing." It's a weak person's answer. Call it what it is, and it's just wrong regardless of "level" or reason.
    - 5y ago

The whataboutism is right on cue today as always. Surely you're not suggesting a moral equivalency between Guantanamo Bay and the Uhygur concentration camps in Xinjiang?

ecdouvhr 5y ago

It's not really whataboutism; plenty of countries and businesses commit terrible crimes without ever facing actual concequences. The Twitter mob won't actually do anything, and in the real world business goes on as usual.

dylan604 5y ago

Why do they have to be the same? Both are vile, just in differing/varying ways. "Don't judge a man for a spec in his eye while you have a plank in yours", "those in glass houses..." etc etc. I'm not saying that condemnation isn't deserved in either direction, I'm agreeing that it is deserved in both directions simultaneously. For country A to tell country B they shouldn't do anything, they should absolutely expect country B to say what about X that you country A are doing.

RomanAlexander 5y ago
It's ironic the cliche you use is contextually moral equivalency, the plank being more morally evil than the spec. Why do you absolutely think no one should be a recipient of moral condemnation given that no one is an angel? Do you think we should never hold people accountable?
- dylan604 5y ago
  The whole point of the parable is that if you aren't faultless yourself, don't go pointing out faults in others. That's why I used it. It seems self-evident that it's making fun of those that acuse others of doing the very things (or similar) themselves. The man was making fun of gaslighting 2000 years ago. Where do you get that I'm suggesting otherwise?
harpersealtako 5y ago
Because there are differences in scale and severity. As an analogy, let's say I'm arguing with my neighbor over the loud parties he throw every night. My neighbor counters with the fact that he can hear my dog barking every morning when I take him out for a walk. My neighbor might be correct here. But he isn't engaging in good faith whatsoever -- instead, he's trying to conflate issues of very different scale to purposefully muddle the conversation. This is the problem of "whataboutism" and it's more complicated than just throwing stones in glass houses. Part of the issue is that it's a problem that only exists in context. If I'm playing golf with my neighbor and he brings up my dog barking first, it's different than if he brings it up as a counterargument to my complaint about his loud parties. e.g. if someone on hacker news is bringing up criticisms of the US (e.g. Guantanamo Bay) in an unrelated topic, there's nothing wrong with that. Whenever there is discussion of Guantanamo online, Xinjiang is almost never brought up. Here's a few (I promise not cherry picked, they're the first 3 results on google search for "hacker news Guantanamo" with more than a handful of replies) hacker news threads on Guantanamo to show this point: [0], [1], [2]. Not one mention of Chinese war crimes. There are debates over how bad they are, sure, but no whataboutism saying "Guantanamo is bad, but what about X issue in Y country?" In contrast, there's not a single large thread about the Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang on hacker news (or any other major site) that isn't filled with comparisons to the United States of America and its current and historical problems (and thankfully people calling them out for whataboutism). It's a pattern, and it's a real problem, and I won't hesitate to call it out when I see it. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500597 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28195746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28195746 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986757 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986757
- dylan604 5y ago
  >Because there are differences in scale and severity. Is what has been said at the start of every slippery slope. "What I'm doing is okay because it's not nearly as bad as what someone else is doing." It's a weak person's answer. Call it what it is, and it's just wrong regardless of "level" or reason.
  - 5y ago