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Whataboutism is the noises fair-minded people make when hysteria is whipped up over an average example of a problem that should be addressed far more globally.

by EGreg 4y ago

Whataboutism is the noises fair-minded people make when hysteria is whipped up over an average example of a problem that should be addressed far more globally. How can one call out flaming hypocrisy without engaging in “whataboutism”? Answer me that. Now to your political points. All your apologetics for US aggression sound just like some Russian’s apologetics for Russian aggression in Chechnya, Georgia, Afghanistan etc. A justification can always be found, however flimsy. Noam Chomsky says Iraq invasion by USA was far more unprovoked than Ukraine invasion by Russia. I happen to agree. Ukraine has a lot of Anti-Russian leaders (who may very well have good reason to be) and they happily collaborated with NATO and US to keep gradually ripping their population away from Russia’s economy, language, cultural, familial and other ties. 11 million people in Russia have relatives in Ukraine and vice versa! Many people objected. They were attacked, millions in the East were simply disenfranchised completely. Look, you can hear it in their own words… here is Arestovich in 2019 perfectly predicting “a big war with Russia” in 2022 “with 99.9% certainty” with all the details including the attacks from Belarus, the new referendums etc. He says Ukraine MUST have this war, in order to join NATO. The alternative, he says, is that Ukraine will be too integrated with Russia in 10 years. And that is an outcome he simply cannot bear. So since he became an advisor to Zelensky he is ready to sacrifice Ukrainian civilians in a war (of course he himself is not anywhere near the front lines, neither the other politicians, the age of kings going into battle is over). And he even says it would be really “cool” to come out on the other side and join NATO! And the war with Russia would be the price of entry. And Arestovich is one of many who felt it is better to have a war with many civilians killed, than be “absorbed” by Russia… seems that multiculturalism and free trade with EU and Russia wasn’t in the cards. The right wing (such as Svoboda voters, and many Western Ukrainians) had historical grievances with Russia (eg Holodomor) and would gladly try to rip the rest of Ukraine away from Russia if they could. Enter NATO promises and weapons and training since 2014… and many of the weapons fell into the hands of the militias, who were even against Minsk I and II agreements, so all diplomatic solutions deteriorated thanks to USA and NATO promises and weapons. Hear it in his OWN words before any invasion: https://intellinews.com/former-ukrainian-presidential-advisor-perfectly-predicted-russian-invasion-in-2019-238183/ https://intellinews.com/former-ukrainian-presidential-adviso... This is like Dick Cheney in 1994 perfectly predicting the horribke outcomes of the Iraq invasion but then later going for it anyway. And profiting from the Halliburton profits, too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY This is the guy who said we’d be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq. Look, everyone always invokes “genocide” as a justification for invading. Putin did it. USA did it in Libya — back then I fell for it, but later the Pentagon admitted that the claims of Gadaffi bombing his own people from helicopters were unsubstantiated rumors. The overthrow was done, already, and Libya is a failed state for almost a decade. And USA only cared about four statesmen in Benghazi, not millions of Libyans. Just like when it comes to Saudi Arabia, USA govt only cared about Kashoggi and not millions of Yemenites. Look, USA promised stuff all the time. To Kurds, they promised that they’d get their own country if they helped USA in the Gulf War. Then they abandoned them. Trump did it again recently in Turkey. To Mujahideen, they promised the same thing as Ukrainians, and gave them weapons to fight USSR … ONE MILLION civilians died in that war. How is this any different than Ukraine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0 Here is Nigel Farage warning the EU and Brussels just like many warned Washington and US: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqE7UTptgGg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqE7UTptgGg Russia’s red lines were clearly and repeatedly stated for over 10 years: no Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. Now, do I hate Russia’s imperialism? Yes, and China’s and USA’s. USA’s Monroe doctrine is far more expansive than Russia’s. The entire western third of USA is land they took from Mexico. But if, say, China offered Mexico to join a military alliance and house nukes, USA would blow a lid. In fact that’s what happened in Cuba (nevermind that Cuba asked USSR to protect itself after the Bay of Pigs invasion a year earlier… and nevermind that USA did the same thing to USSR earlier in Turkey, which it declassified decades later). Look, I could say that the pot is calling the kettle black. I could say you have to compare apples to apples. I could quote Jesus about taking the log out of your own eye first. I could use all kinds of expressions people have developed to combat flaming hypocrisy and double standards. But you’d just laugh it off with the word “whataboutism”. There is literally no way to criticize hypocrisy these days once the self righteous momentum gets going. The “trap” you think I fell into, Jesus was fond of using. “You hypocrites!”

eveningcoffee 4y ago
If find that this comment of your is an excellent example of the reason why whataboutism does not have any merit. It does not advocate for world peace. It does not advocate for the protection and rights of the victim. Instead it advocates for the rights and interests of the aggressor. Please study your comment carefully to understand how. But your comment is even worse because it lowers to the victim blaming. Before there is any change to even have any meaningful conversation you have to agree on the following. Russia is the aggressor. It has no rights over Ukraine or over its decisions about its alliances. Ukraine is acting in its best interests how it sees possible given its own situation and international (geopolitical) realities. If you can't come to agree with this, it is pointless to advance the discussion any further because you are then not participating in it in good faith. Still, I would like to address something to what you have referred already twice under this post. The interview with Arestovich in 2019. Your conclusion is very peculiar. Instead of commending his wisdom, you use it as a solid proof that shows how Ukraine is accomplice in this invasion. Is this your original idea or you have picked it up from somewhere? Think hard. People who understand Russia knew that it is not question of if but when. Arestovich predicts that it will happen soon and he, having for sure thought about all the possibilities, proposes also how it will take place. Let me help you to put it into perspective that is perhaps a little more relatable. Imagine you are living in a country where rule of law is not very strong. You have a daughter who is engaged. On one evening two local thugs appear at your doorstep. One of them demands to "borrow" your daughter for one night. You manage to send them away but you know the following. They will come back. It will happen before your daughter gets married. One of them will probably break in from the front door while another one tries to enter from one window in the back of the house. I would like to continue this discussion but you have to understand your fallacies first.
- EGreg 4y ago
  You have to understand your fallacies, namely hypocrisy and double standards for what you focus on or advocate. It’s bad enough you do it in your own thinking, but expecting others to be swayed by, say, guilt-tripping them based on total hypocrisy, should not work with rational or fair-minded people. It’s like a guy who’s been beating kids up and then one time he’s punched and he implores everyone to see the injustice and says they’re terrible people if they support it. However, that analogy is unfair, because YOU didn’t invade Iraq. And this is the core of many of your disagreements with libertarians like me. The other fallacy you commit is a category error of conflating individuals, countries and their governments, when applying moral reasoning, which I go into below. Allow me to illustrate it with direct questions, that I expect you to actually answwr. Is there any point at which you’d readily admit funneling MORE weapons into Ukraine is harmful to its civilians, since they all explode in Ukraine and according to the UN investigations they are the #1 source of civilian casualties? In Afghanistan, one MILLION civilian casualties was the price for USSR withdrawing, as US and Saudi fought “to the last Afghan”. Ask yourself whether you’d just as readily support a million of YOUR countrymen and families being killed for a flag. Do a time lapse on youtube of European flags and see how quickly they change — is it moral to volunteer other people’s families to die for a political outcome you yourself arent willing to have your family killed for? Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy. To see this, answer my direct question: how can one point out hypocrisy and flaming double standards, no matter how serious, without engaging in “whataboutism”? You are also wrong that I don’t advocate for more peace and cooperation. I have been screaming from the rooftops what needs to happen, for years. I even wrote some of it in a sibling comment. The difference is that I advocate solutions consistently and everywhere. And not just hypocritical one sided solutions. The victims here are the Ukrainian people. When I criticize politicians for not doing their job (of preventing pandemics or wars) you only think I am engaging in victim blaminng because you have a very widespread “statist” mentality. You identify Zelensky’s government and Arestovich with Ukrainian civilians. You identify Putin with Russia. And so on. You speak of countries as if they are people, when in fact they are composed of many PEOPLE, who think very differently, and who are pushed around by coercive forces and bullied into what to think, what to say and who to fight. But the reality is that the Ukrainian civilians do not want this war and were not ready for it as much as Arestovich was, just as US Americans were not as ready for the pandemic-related market crash as members of Congress (greatest traders ever, amirite?) And the US public did not want to invade Iraq and the Russian public did not want to invade Ukraine, but the mass media and social media gradually radicalized them just as democrats vs republicans do here. The politicians could have allowed trade with BOTH Russia and EU, implemented something like Minsk II, NATI members could have heard Russia’s red lines and security concerns and taken them seriously, Zelensky’s government could have met with the separatists and taken them seriously, Erdogan could have met with the PKK instead of threatening to invade Syria as he does now. The CCP could take the concerns of Tibetans or Falun Dafa or Hong Kong residents seriously, etc. The reason these normal statements that most regular people agree with, are considered unrealistic and laughable, is EXACTLY because politicians and imperialists are given a free pass when they escalate to wars where civilians pay the price. It is like crypto investors shrugging when they get rekt in rugpulls. This is the 21st century and we can do better. But we won’t as long as they have us at each other’s throats, talking past each other and engaging in total hypocrisy rather than asking our own government and industry to do better. I have advocated actual solutions for years… go back on https://magarshak.com/blog https://magarshak.com/blog and read since 2014 when I was writing about Gaza and Ukraine. But I don’t just write about it. I build the solutions, which are by the people and not just for the people: https://intercoin.org/overview.pdf https://intercoin.org/overview.pdf I have put more effort and invested more of my work life than most people in solving these problems bottom-up instead of trying to “change the system” by being a single voice in a top-down statist environment everyone is used to . So you could not be more wrong that “it does not advocate for world peace”. The sooner you understand that we have to hold the system and politicians to account instead of blaming individuals for not recycling or getting obese or engaging in whataboutism, the sooner YOU can make real change. Like Steve Jobs and Mark Z and many other tech pioneers and CEOs have done. They do more to improve the world and communication than any politicians do. But even more good is done by founders of open source projects, like Linus Torvalds with Linux, Igor Sysoev with NGinX, the teams behind MySQL and Postgres and Jimmy Wales founding Wikipedia etc. I don’t care if I become a celebrity, I care about getting real solutions adopted and building tech that lets people on the ground organize positive things to collaborate instead of being held captive by a system of statist politicians and media.

by EGreg 4y ago

eveningcoffee 4y ago

If find that this comment of your is an excellent example of the reason why whataboutism does not have any merit. It does not advocate for world peace. It does not advocate for the protection and rights of the victim. Instead it advocates for the rights and interests of the aggressor. Please study your comment carefully to understand how. But your comment is even worse because it lowers to the victim blaming. Before there is any change to even have any meaningful conversation you have to agree on the following. Russia is the aggressor. It has no rights over Ukraine or over its decisions about its alliances. Ukraine is acting in its best interests how it sees possible given its own situation and international (geopolitical) realities. If you can't come to agree with this, it is pointless to advance the discussion any further because you are then not participating in it in good faith. Still, I would like to address something to what you have referred already twice under this post. The interview with Arestovich in 2019. Your conclusion is very peculiar. Instead of commending his wisdom, you use it as a solid proof that shows how Ukraine is accomplice in this invasion. Is this your original idea or you have picked it up from somewhere? Think hard. People who understand Russia knew that it is not question of if but when. Arestovich predicts that it will happen soon and he, having for sure thought about all the possibilities, proposes also how it will take place. Let me help you to put it into perspective that is perhaps a little more relatable. Imagine you are living in a country where rule of law is not very strong. You have a daughter who is engaged. On one evening two local thugs appear at your doorstep. One of them demands to "borrow" your daughter for one night. You manage to send them away but you know the following. They will come back. It will happen before your daughter gets married. One of them will probably break in from the front door while another one tries to enter from one window in the back of the house. I would like to continue this discussion but you have to understand your fallacies first.

EGreg 4y ago
You have to understand your fallacies, namely hypocrisy and double standards for what you focus on or advocate. It’s bad enough you do it in your own thinking, but expecting others to be swayed by, say, guilt-tripping them based on total hypocrisy, should not work with rational or fair-minded people. It’s like a guy who’s been beating kids up and then one time he’s punched and he implores everyone to see the injustice and says they’re terrible people if they support it. However, that analogy is unfair, because YOU didn’t invade Iraq. And this is the core of many of your disagreements with libertarians like me. The other fallacy you commit is a category error of conflating individuals, countries and their governments, when applying moral reasoning, which I go into below. Allow me to illustrate it with direct questions, that I expect you to actually answwr. Is there any point at which you’d readily admit funneling MORE weapons into Ukraine is harmful to its civilians, since they all explode in Ukraine and according to the UN investigations they are the #1 source of civilian casualties? In Afghanistan, one MILLION civilian casualties was the price for USSR withdrawing, as US and Saudi fought “to the last Afghan”. Ask yourself whether you’d just as readily support a million of YOUR countrymen and families being killed for a flag. Do a time lapse on youtube of European flags and see how quickly they change — is it moral to volunteer other people’s families to die for a political outcome you yourself arent willing to have your family killed for? Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy. To see this, answer my direct question: how can one point out hypocrisy and flaming double standards, no matter how serious, without engaging in “whataboutism”? You are also wrong that I don’t advocate for more peace and cooperation. I have been screaming from the rooftops what needs to happen, for years. I even wrote some of it in a sibling comment. The difference is that I advocate solutions consistently and everywhere. And not just hypocritical one sided solutions. The victims here are the Ukrainian people. When I criticize politicians for not doing their job (of preventing pandemics or wars) you only think I am engaging in victim blaminng because you have a very widespread “statist” mentality. You identify Zelensky’s government and Arestovich with Ukrainian civilians. You identify Putin with Russia. And so on. You speak of countries as if they are people, when in fact they are composed of many PEOPLE, who think very differently, and who are pushed around by coercive forces and bullied into what to think, what to say and who to fight. But the reality is that the Ukrainian civilians do not want this war and were not ready for it as much as Arestovich was, just as US Americans were not as ready for the pandemic-related market crash as members of Congress (greatest traders ever, amirite?) And the US public did not want to invade Iraq and the Russian public did not want to invade Ukraine, but the mass media and social media gradually radicalized them just as democrats vs republicans do here. The politicians could have allowed trade with BOTH Russia and EU, implemented something like Minsk II, NATI members could have heard Russia’s red lines and security concerns and taken them seriously, Zelensky’s government could have met with the separatists and taken them seriously, Erdogan could have met with the PKK instead of threatening to invade Syria as he does now. The CCP could take the concerns of Tibetans or Falun Dafa or Hong Kong residents seriously, etc. The reason these normal statements that most regular people agree with, are considered unrealistic and laughable, is EXACTLY because politicians and imperialists are given a free pass when they escalate to wars where civilians pay the price. It is like crypto investors shrugging when they get rekt in rugpulls. This is the 21st century and we can do better. But we won’t as long as they have us at each other’s throats, talking past each other and engaging in total hypocrisy rather than asking our own government and industry to do better. I have advocated actual solutions for years… go back on https://magarshak.com/blog https://magarshak.com/blog and read since 2014 when I was writing about Gaza and Ukraine. But I don’t just write about it. I build the solutions, which are by the people and not just for the people: https://intercoin.org/overview.pdf https://intercoin.org/overview.pdf I have put more effort and invested more of my work life than most people in solving these problems bottom-up instead of trying to “change the system” by being a single voice in a top-down statist environment everyone is used to . So you could not be more wrong that “it does not advocate for world peace”. The sooner you understand that we have to hold the system and politicians to account instead of blaming individuals for not recycling or getting obese or engaging in whataboutism, the sooner YOU can make real change. Like Steve Jobs and Mark Z and many other tech pioneers and CEOs have done. They do more to improve the world and communication than any politicians do. But even more good is done by founders of open source projects, like Linus Torvalds with Linux, Igor Sysoev with NGinX, the teams behind MySQL and Postgres and Jimmy Wales founding Wikipedia etc. I don’t care if I become a celebrity, I care about getting real solutions adopted and building tech that lets people on the ground organize positive things to collaborate instead of being held captive by a system of statist politicians and media.