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This is whataboutism and it is so tired. A good propaganda tactic though, and the Russians are using it as an attack vector. Westerners seem really vulnerable t

This is whataboutism and it is so tired. A good propaganda tactic though, and the Russians are using it as an attack vector. Westerners seem really vulnerable to this form of propaganda, possibly due to the success of previous information warfare led by Russia. Bringing up some other terrible thing for comparison does not change in any way whatsoever the severity of what is happening in Ukraine. Whataboutism propaganda is designed to muddy the waters around that indisputable fact.

fit2rule 5y ago
sudosysgen 5y ago
This is not whataboutism and it is so tired. It's about the fact that this isn't about the human suffering caused by Russia, it's a conflict between major power - case in point, all of the previous instances of similar behaviour from multiple countries that went unpunished. When evidence fly in the face of a narrative, whataboutism isn't a defense. Whataboutism would be if they said it's fine for Putin to commit atrocities in Ukraine because the US commits atrocities in various countries. That's not what was pointed out. It was pointed out that the narrative doesn't follow past precedent.
- all_factz 5y ago
  Many people in the US were very opposed to the Iraq war (the war in Afghanistan, though stupid, had a more real precedent). It would have been good had the US suffered sanctions for invading Iraq, but sadly the geopolitical reality didn’t support that at the time. Does that mean we should just roll over and accept deeply unethical and wrongheaded behavior from a different country? (It’s also worth pointing out that the invasion of Iraq, while by no means justified, was at least targeted towards a brutal dictatorship, whereas Ukraine is a functional democracy with a free press.) Interestingly, the political party in the US which most favors Putin - the GOP - is also the most comfortable with the US committing atrocities on foreign soil (and at home TBH). Not a coincidence if you ask me. Looks like there can be messed up people in more than one country! You claim “this isn’t about the human suffering caused by Russia”. You sure about that? I think most people feel like a primary issue with invading another country is the amount of human suffering it causes.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    I'm sure many people in the US were opposed to it. Did they have a choice though? Both of those wars were essentially unanimous amongst the ruling class. There is nothing the average citizen can do at that point. You claim “this isn’t about the human suffering caused by Russia”. You sure about that? I think most people feel like a primary issue with invading another country is the amount of human suffering it causes. Oh people most definitely do, an I am sure you and I both do. But clearly the countries imposing sanctions, almost every single one of which engaged in a bloody war of agression in the recent past, don't. Actions speak louder than words. >
    - all_factz 5y ago
      I think you’re still oversimplifying. NATO countries may have been involved in bloody wars, wars which were varying degrees of bad idea, but at least those wars were fought against regimes which were terrible - brutal and repressive towards their own population. Ukraine is a mostly liberal democracy, which makes invading it even harder to justify. But sure, US citizens might not have had much say in whether the US invaded Iraq. That doesn’t mean that sanctions wouldn’t have created political pressure which could in turn have made an invasion less appealing to the neocons in power at that time. So while I’m sorry to see average Russians (or at least those opposed to the war) suffer as a result of these sanctions, I can also acknowledge that sanctions may actually put pressure on Putin to de-escalate this conflict, and also warn him of the consequences of future aggression. It’s possible Putin will ignore these sanctions, but doing so risks improving the position of his opponents within Russia.
      - darebak 5y ago
        >I think you’re still oversimplifying. NATO countries may have been involved in bloody wars, wars which were varying degrees of bad idea, but at least those wars were fought against regimes which were terrible - brutal and repressive towards their own population. Ukraine is a mostly liberal democracy, which makes invading it even harder to justify. And the point is that you got this information from the ruling class who were for those wars. Or their allies abroad. And as for Ukrainan democracy, from the Freedom house report in 2019 it sits between Burkina Faso and the Philippines.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Whataboutism would be if they said it's fine for Putin to commit atrocities in Ukraine because the US commits atrocities in various countries. That's not what was pointed out. It was pointed out that the narrative doesn't follow past precedent. That's just a somewhat deniable -- i.e. more chickenshit -- way of saying the exact same thing. Ergo: Yes, it's whataboutism.
gattilorenz 5y ago
This is not whataboutism. I am in favor of strong sanctions again Russia, but saying that "Russian companies paid for death and destruction in Ukraine. I feel no empathy. This country should pay for every war crime they committed. There are no innocence in war. Silent complacency what brought it on." is blatantly false, and it becomes apparent when you reverse the narrative. Are all American companies responsible for/complacent with US war crimes? Not all Russian companies wanted the war, not all companies are complacent, and they only financed it by contributing to the GDP of the country. Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now.
- darebak 5y ago
  >Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now. As someone who was from a country where sanctions were supposed to destabilize our leader, it doesn't work, never did, never will. In the tough times people rally behind their leaders, just look at Zelensky or Boris Johnson right now.
  - ardit33 5y ago
    Not true. When people get hungry, they eat their leaders.... Look at what happened to Ceaușescu... Putin risks to end up like him.
    - darebak 5y ago
      Not true. Tell me, if Google banned you from all their services because you only lived somewhere and you were a "soft liberal", would you support Google in their decision or would you dig in and go the other way? Or in more simpler terms, take football fans, are they hungry at their ultras when they get fined for something or are they angry at UEFA? All Europe is doing by these discrimination measures is creating a siege mentality among Russian citizens.
      - gattilorenz 5y ago
darebak 5y ago
But it is not whataboutism when you are comparing two comparable things. You can't call any inconvinient information whataboutism...
kome 5y ago
it's not whataboutism. It's a very valid point. American power is imperial. Putin is imperial too. The amount of harm that the US committed cannot be forgotten. As I won't forget Putin.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  imperial means empire. please tell me, what is the extent of the American Empire?
  - kome 5y ago
    - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_in_the_Middle_East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_i...
leto_ii 5y ago
> This is whataboutism and it is so tired. It really isn't. It's a short of counterfactual and it's actually quite useful in checking if you are morally/intellectually consistent. This strategy even has a name (some Bostrom thing that I can't remember right now).
throw202203 5y ago
As many have said, this is not whataboutism. Western companies also paid (and keep paying) for death and destruction in Ukraine. It’s not a wild stretch to say that the whole thing was financed through selling gas and oil to the West. Google and Apple removed Russian opposition apps from their app stores and Facebook censored groups that they used to coordinate because, you know, “we have to comply with the laws of the country we operate in”. They also pay taxes in Russia. Are you trying to hold Russian IT companies to a higher standard than SV giants?..
- ytpete 5y ago
  And Western companies are increasingly falling in line with sanctions by ceasing to do business with Russian customers or partners. So they are also being cut off from business as usual that benefits the Russian government – it's just that since they aren't based in Russia themselves it looks a little different. Energy prices may soar soon for Western consumers and companies. BP and Shell may need to write off multi-billion-valued stakes in Russian gas companies. Air travel routes between Europe and Asia may be about to get a lot crappier. So there are many ways that companies and individuals outside Russia will also be paying a price to put the squeeze on Putin and his military in response to what they've done.
namecheapTA 5y ago
Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing. People are getting very emotional about this entire situation, which is understandable. But then they are getting on their internet soap boxes and saying things that don't make any real sense and they don't really believe. I was simply trying to make OP realize that his extremely harsh comments are just platitudes, by reminding OP that in very similar situations he basically did nothing.
- alangibson 5y ago
  > Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing. That's not what you're doing. Whataboutism is a method of _stopping_ interrogation via deflection and redirection. I think a lot of people that engage in whataboutism do actually think they're trying to start a discussion or analyze the situation more deeply. They just fail to see what their actually doing due to not being particularly skilled analysts (trying to be nice here...). > he basically did nothing. Unwarranted assumption
  - namecheapTA 5y ago
    I don't even see how what I said applies to what you're saying. Stopping interrogation? I nor anyone else was not being interrogated. I did not deflect or redirect. I asked him if he felt the same way about what America did. Not to deflect, but to get him to realize that (unless he is the 0.01% that tried to do something real about Americas many weird wars) when countries went to crazy wars previously, he did not feel the same. Hopefully that makes him wonder why.... either he is a terrible person, or his main point is wrong.
    - kaishiro 5y ago
      I don't really have a dog in this particular fight, but you seem to be making a lot of assumptions off of a single emotional posting by this person.
- Closi 5y ago
  > “People are getting very emotional” People are reacting appropriately given the situation. NameCheap operate an office in Kharkiv, a city which currently finds itself under Russian rocket attacks and indiscriminate shelling with cluster bombs, and you create an account to criticise the company for stopping operations in Russia and then imply people are overly emotional and foolish about this issue? If I operated a business which had staff and operated in Kharkiv I would do exactly the same thing.
einpoklum 5y ago
[flagged]

fit2rule 5y ago

sudosysgen 5y ago

This is not whataboutism and it is so tired. It's about the fact that this isn't about the human suffering caused by Russia, it's a conflict between major power - case in point, all of the previous instances of similar behaviour from multiple countries that went unpunished. When evidence fly in the face of a narrative, whataboutism isn't a defense. Whataboutism would be if they said it's fine for Putin to commit atrocities in Ukraine because the US commits atrocities in various countries. That's not what was pointed out. It was pointed out that the narrative doesn't follow past precedent.

all_factz 5y ago
Many people in the US were very opposed to the Iraq war (the war in Afghanistan, though stupid, had a more real precedent). It would have been good had the US suffered sanctions for invading Iraq, but sadly the geopolitical reality didn’t support that at the time. Does that mean we should just roll over and accept deeply unethical and wrongheaded behavior from a different country? (It’s also worth pointing out that the invasion of Iraq, while by no means justified, was at least targeted towards a brutal dictatorship, whereas Ukraine is a functional democracy with a free press.) Interestingly, the political party in the US which most favors Putin - the GOP - is also the most comfortable with the US committing atrocities on foreign soil (and at home TBH). Not a coincidence if you ask me. Looks like there can be messed up people in more than one country! You claim “this isn’t about the human suffering caused by Russia”. You sure about that? I think most people feel like a primary issue with invading another country is the amount of human suffering it causes.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  I'm sure many people in the US were opposed to it. Did they have a choice though? Both of those wars were essentially unanimous amongst the ruling class. There is nothing the average citizen can do at that point. You claim “this isn’t about the human suffering caused by Russia”. You sure about that? I think most people feel like a primary issue with invading another country is the amount of human suffering it causes. Oh people most definitely do, an I am sure you and I both do. But clearly the countries imposing sanctions, almost every single one of which engaged in a bloody war of agression in the recent past, don't. Actions speak louder than words. >
  - all_factz 5y ago
    I think you’re still oversimplifying. NATO countries may have been involved in bloody wars, wars which were varying degrees of bad idea, but at least those wars were fought against regimes which were terrible - brutal and repressive towards their own population. Ukraine is a mostly liberal democracy, which makes invading it even harder to justify. But sure, US citizens might not have had much say in whether the US invaded Iraq. That doesn’t mean that sanctions wouldn’t have created political pressure which could in turn have made an invasion less appealing to the neocons in power at that time. So while I’m sorry to see average Russians (or at least those opposed to the war) suffer as a result of these sanctions, I can also acknowledge that sanctions may actually put pressure on Putin to de-escalate this conflict, and also warn him of the consequences of future aggression. It’s possible Putin will ignore these sanctions, but doing so risks improving the position of his opponents within Russia.
    - darebak 5y ago
      >I think you’re still oversimplifying. NATO countries may have been involved in bloody wars, wars which were varying degrees of bad idea, but at least those wars were fought against regimes which were terrible - brutal and repressive towards their own population. Ukraine is a mostly liberal democracy, which makes invading it even harder to justify. And the point is that you got this information from the ruling class who were for those wars. Or their allies abroad. And as for Ukrainan democracy, from the Freedom house report in 2019 it sits between Burkina Faso and the Philippines.
CRConrad 5y ago
> Whataboutism would be if they said it's fine for Putin to commit atrocities in Ukraine because the US commits atrocities in various countries. That's not what was pointed out. It was pointed out that the narrative doesn't follow past precedent. That's just a somewhat deniable -- i.e. more chickenshit -- way of saying the exact same thing. Ergo: Yes, it's whataboutism.

gattilorenz 5y ago

This is not whataboutism. I am in favor of strong sanctions again Russia, but saying that "Russian companies paid for death and destruction in Ukraine. I feel no empathy. This country should pay for every war crime they committed. There are no innocence in war. Silent complacency what brought it on." is blatantly false, and it becomes apparent when you reverse the narrative. Are all American companies responsible for/complacent with US war crimes? Not all Russian companies wanted the war, not all companies are complacent, and they only financed it by contributing to the GDP of the country. Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now.

darebak 5y ago
>Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now. As someone who was from a country where sanctions were supposed to destabilize our leader, it doesn't work, never did, never will. In the tough times people rally behind their leaders, just look at Zelensky or Boris Johnson right now.
- ardit33 5y ago
  Not true. When people get hungry, they eat their leaders.... Look at what happened to Ceaușescu... Putin risks to end up like him.
  - darebak 5y ago
    Not true. Tell me, if Google banned you from all their services because you only lived somewhere and you were a "soft liberal", would you support Google in their decision or would you dig in and go the other way? Or in more simpler terms, take football fans, are they hungry at their ultras when they get fined for something or are they angry at UEFA? All Europe is doing by these discrimination measures is creating a siege mentality among Russian citizens.
    - gattilorenz 5y ago

darebak 5y ago

But it is not whataboutism when you are comparing two comparable things. You can't call any inconvinient information whataboutism...

kome 5y ago

it's not whataboutism. It's a very valid point. American power is imperial. Putin is imperial too. The amount of harm that the US committed cannot be forgotten. As I won't forget Putin.

fsckboy 5y ago
imperial means empire. please tell me, what is the extent of the American Empire?
- kome 5y ago
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_in_the_Middle_East https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_policy_i...

leto_ii 5y ago

> This is whataboutism and it is so tired. It really isn't. It's a short of counterfactual and it's actually quite useful in checking if you are morally/intellectually consistent. This strategy even has a name (some Bostrom thing that I can't remember right now).

throw202203 5y ago

As many have said, this is not whataboutism. Western companies also paid (and keep paying) for death and destruction in Ukraine. It’s not a wild stretch to say that the whole thing was financed through selling gas and oil to the West. Google and Apple removed Russian opposition apps from their app stores and Facebook censored groups that they used to coordinate because, you know, “we have to comply with the laws of the country we operate in”. They also pay taxes in Russia. Are you trying to hold Russian IT companies to a higher standard than SV giants?..

ytpete 5y ago
And Western companies are increasingly falling in line with sanctions by ceasing to do business with Russian customers or partners. So they are also being cut off from business as usual that benefits the Russian government – it's just that since they aren't based in Russia themselves it looks a little different. Energy prices may soar soon for Western consumers and companies. BP and Shell may need to write off multi-billion-valued stakes in Russian gas companies. Air travel routes between Europe and Asia may be about to get a lot crappier. So there are many ways that companies and individuals outside Russia will also be paying a price to put the squeeze on Putin and his military in response to what they've done.

namecheapTA 5y ago

Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing. People are getting very emotional about this entire situation, which is understandable. But then they are getting on their internet soap boxes and saying things that don't make any real sense and they don't really believe. I was simply trying to make OP realize that his extremely harsh comments are just platitudes, by reminding OP that in very similar situations he basically did nothing.

alangibson 5y ago
> Using a tool to help someone see that their thoughts or words are foolish isn't a bad thing. That's not what you're doing. Whataboutism is a method of _stopping_ interrogation via deflection and redirection. I think a lot of people that engage in whataboutism do actually think they're trying to start a discussion or analyze the situation more deeply. They just fail to see what their actually doing due to not being particularly skilled analysts (trying to be nice here...). > he basically did nothing. Unwarranted assumption
- namecheapTA 5y ago
  I don't even see how what I said applies to what you're saying. Stopping interrogation? I nor anyone else was not being interrogated. I did not deflect or redirect. I asked him if he felt the same way about what America did. Not to deflect, but to get him to realize that (unless he is the 0.01% that tried to do something real about Americas many weird wars) when countries went to crazy wars previously, he did not feel the same. Hopefully that makes him wonder why.... either he is a terrible person, or his main point is wrong.
  - kaishiro 5y ago
    I don't really have a dog in this particular fight, but you seem to be making a lot of assumptions off of a single emotional posting by this person.
Closi 5y ago
> “People are getting very emotional” People are reacting appropriately given the situation. NameCheap operate an office in Kharkiv, a city which currently finds itself under Russian rocket attacks and indiscriminate shelling with cluster bombs, and you create an account to criticise the company for stopping operations in Russia and then imply people are overly emotional and foolish about this issue? If I operated a business which had staff and operated in Kharkiv I would do exactly the same thing.

einpoklum 5y ago

[flagged]