5 ms·

Now compare that to what the USA did in the same time frame. Pay special attention to people killed (either directly, or indirectly) outside of their own border

Now compare that to what the USA did in the same time frame. Pay special attention to people killed (either directly, or indirectly) outside of their own borders. Who should you be worried about?

vector_spaces 3mo ago
For a concrete example, consider e.g. Operation Condor which displaced my own family > Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor; Portuguese: Operação Condor) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America. Operation Condor formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. The operation was backed by the United States, which financed the covert operations. France is alleged to have collaborated but has denied involvement. The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
vlovich123 3mo ago
Whataboutism isn’t a useful game. The claim was that they don’t interfere with politics of external countries. They do. The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Believing it’ll stay there is naive. Playing the moral superiority game is uninteresting in either direction. Games of power inherently are devoid of morality.
- darkwater 3mo ago
  Ok, let's follow your rules then. If we remove morality, we are left with what? Pure numbers? If you want to be technically correct China foreign interventions are > 0, indeed. But the scale of US actions is, I would dare to say, at least one magnitude bigger. An empire should be judged for how they treat their own citizens, their allies and their enemies. And if we do that, maybe China and the US are not so different.
  - vlovich123 3mo ago
    I’m confused. You start off like you’re going to disagree and then end with the same conclusion I was trying to suggest. Keep in mind I was replying to subvenir who said “eh China not bad - they’ve file nothing wrong to me”
    - darkwater 3mo ago
      I read your previous message as implying "US is good", rather than "China is bad too". I'm glad I misunderstood you and that we agree then.
- nswango 3mo ago
  Whataboutism is a very useful game to reveal whether people are being honest or not. If someone is vocally complaining about country A doing some oppressive activity, while ignoring country B doing 100x the same activity, the comparison does not forgive or excuse country A, or make them right or admirable. But it does allow us to conclude that the person complaining is biased. Either they don't care about the oppressive activity and want to attack country A for some other reason. Or they have a particular fondness for country B and will never accept that it does wrong. Or some variation on these.
  - vlovich123 3mo ago
    Except it’s op posting whataboutism not me - their claim is that China has done nothing wrong to them with the implication that the USA has. I was highlighting that China indeed likely has done the things they’re complaining about.
- randunel 3mo ago
  I'd like you to familiarise yourself with a legal and societal principle we use in civil law countries: > de minimis non curat praetor Which basically means judges are not interested in minor disputes. When you add the USA to the mix, China's actions pale in comparison to the point of being negligible, no point in discussing them given the scale of USA's warmongering, overseas and local crimes. "They never interfered in [...]" is an exaggeration which shows the lack of importance of China's crimes when compared to the USA's, that's all. The "whataboutism" here isn't a deflection strategy, it shows the hypocrisy and correctly minimises the scale of China's actions in comparison to the hypocrites'.
- Cookingboy 3mo ago
  >The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Come on, are you seriously equating hacking to literally bombing and killing people? That's just arguing in very bad faith. Calling hacking "warfare" is just intellectually dishonest, if not downright disgusting toward the actual victims of American wars.
teiferer 3mo ago
> Who should you be worried about? For Americans the answer is obvious since they are biased in this. For everybody else, your question is valid.
- Gud 3mo ago
  The American government has caused the death of a lot more Americans than China has.
  - clarionbell 3mo ago
    Cultural revolution?
    - Gud 3mo ago
      How many Americans were killed during the Cultural revolution?
  - cebert 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Gud 3mo ago
      Ironically funded by US taxes, if you believe this hypothesis to be true.
      - austinthetaco 3mo ago
        What does that have to do with anything? If I pay the salary of a driver and they decide to drink and run over a family it's in no way my fault.
        Gud 3mo ago
        If you pay a researcher to do gain of function research on dangerous viruses, and that research end up causing a global pandemic, you are absolutely to blame.
isoprophlex 3mo ago
Both of them.
minraws 3mo ago
Two evils just means there are two evils. We don't have to value one more than the other. Wrongs don't negate each other.
- guax 3mo ago
  Correct, but people are not wrong in being more concerned about the evil biting than the one keeping it chill.
  - minraws 3mo ago
    Given it's an internet forum, and people here can be anyone around the world, I understand your intent but people over index on the threat that ofc feels closer, rather than the threat that's significantly farther away. But in general if you ask folks in south east Asia you will find they are likely to be more concerned with China than US except this maddening Oil Crisis. Although I think people now are very afraid/wary of both evils. The US govt should think why people in all parts of the world including US itself feel just if not more threatened by them, than China and other evils we have floating around. I would like to hope my American friends didn't vote for this madness or maybe they did I have read DHH's tweets.
  - rob74 3mo ago
    Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. As the saying goes: "better the devil you know". China can at least so far be relied upon to not shoot itself in the foot (and take the whole word with it). The same cannot be said of other great powers like the US (under Trump, for more reasons than I'm willing to list here) and Russia (with Putin's completely harebrained invasion of Ukraine). China can prove me wrong any time by invading Taiwan, but I still hope they don't. Of course, if we try to keep them away from advanced chip technology, that would be further motivation to invade (although TSMC is unlikely to survive an invasion - even if it did survive the actual conflict, it would probably be destroyed or evacuated to avoid it falling into Chinese hands? But I don't want to see the hardware prices after such an event).
    - p2detar 3mo ago
jb1991 3mo ago
“China is evil.” —- “But look at the United States! What about that?” Is this not just whataboutism? It never adds much to the discussion.
- Doch88 3mo ago
  It would be whataboutism if it was a random Joe saying "China is evil" not literally a company that 1) is in the US 2) has a strong influence in the government and legislations affecting them and their competition. In this case it's just pointing out the propaganda and the contradiction.
cmpxchg8b 3mo ago
Whataboutism is juvenile.
- tempfile 3mo ago
  This is not whataboutism.
stogot 3mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
dominotw 3mo ago
how is this not a non sequitur in your head. genuine question.

Now compare that to what the USA did in the same time frame. Pay special attention to people killed (either directly, or indirectly) outside of their own borders. Who should you be worried about?

vector_spaces 3mo ago

For a concrete example, consider e.g. Operation Condor which displaced my own family > Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor; Portuguese: Operação Condor) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America. Operation Condor formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. The operation was backed by the United States, which financed the covert operations. France is alleged to have collaborated but has denied involvement. The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

vlovich123 3mo ago

Whataboutism isn’t a useful game. The claim was that they don’t interfere with politics of external countries. They do. The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Believing it’ll stay there is naive. Playing the moral superiority game is uninteresting in either direction. Games of power inherently are devoid of morality.

darkwater 3mo ago
Ok, let's follow your rules then. If we remove morality, we are left with what? Pure numbers? If you want to be technically correct China foreign interventions are > 0, indeed. But the scale of US actions is, I would dare to say, at least one magnitude bigger. An empire should be judged for how they treat their own citizens, their allies and their enemies. And if we do that, maybe China and the US are not so different.
- vlovich123 3mo ago
  I’m confused. You start off like you’re going to disagree and then end with the same conclusion I was trying to suggest. Keep in mind I was replying to subvenir who said “eh China not bad - they’ve file nothing wrong to me”
  - darkwater 3mo ago
    I read your previous message as implying "US is good", rather than "China is bad too". I'm glad I misunderstood you and that we agree then.
nswango 3mo ago
Whataboutism is a very useful game to reveal whether people are being honest or not. If someone is vocally complaining about country A doing some oppressive activity, while ignoring country B doing 100x the same activity, the comparison does not forgive or excuse country A, or make them right or admirable. But it does allow us to conclude that the person complaining is biased. Either they don't care about the oppressive activity and want to attack country A for some other reason. Or they have a particular fondness for country B and will never accept that it does wrong. Or some variation on these.
- vlovich123 3mo ago
  Except it’s op posting whataboutism not me - their claim is that China has done nothing wrong to them with the implication that the USA has. I was highlighting that China indeed likely has done the things they’re complaining about.
randunel 3mo ago
I'd like you to familiarise yourself with a legal and societal principle we use in civil law countries: > de minimis non curat praetor Which basically means judges are not interested in minor disputes. When you add the USA to the mix, China's actions pale in comparison to the point of being negligible, no point in discussing them given the scale of USA's warmongering, overseas and local crimes. "They never interfered in [...]" is an exaggeration which shows the lack of importance of China's crimes when compared to the USA's, that's all. The "whataboutism" here isn't a deflection strategy, it shows the hypocrisy and correctly minimises the scale of China's actions in comparison to the hypocrites'.
Cookingboy 3mo ago
>The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Come on, are you seriously equating hacking to literally bombing and killing people? That's just arguing in very bad faith. Calling hacking "warfare" is just intellectually dishonest, if not downright disgusting toward the actual victims of American wars.

teiferer 3mo ago

> Who should you be worried about? For Americans the answer is obvious since they are biased in this. For everybody else, your question is valid.

Gud 3mo ago
The American government has caused the death of a lot more Americans than China has.
- clarionbell 3mo ago
  Cultural revolution?
  - Gud 3mo ago
    How many Americans were killed during the Cultural revolution?
- cebert 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Gud 3mo ago
    Ironically funded by US taxes, if you believe this hypothesis to be true.
    - austinthetaco 3mo ago
      What does that have to do with anything? If I pay the salary of a driver and they decide to drink and run over a family it's in no way my fault.
      - Gud 3mo ago
        If you pay a researcher to do gain of function research on dangerous viruses, and that research end up causing a global pandemic, you are absolutely to blame.

isoprophlex 3mo ago

Both of them.

minraws 3mo ago

Two evils just means there are two evils. We don't have to value one more than the other. Wrongs don't negate each other.

guax 3mo ago
Correct, but people are not wrong in being more concerned about the evil biting than the one keeping it chill.
- minraws 3mo ago
  Given it's an internet forum, and people here can be anyone around the world, I understand your intent but people over index on the threat that ofc feels closer, rather than the threat that's significantly farther away. But in general if you ask folks in south east Asia you will find they are likely to be more concerned with China than US except this maddening Oil Crisis. Although I think people now are very afraid/wary of both evils. The US govt should think why people in all parts of the world including US itself feel just if not more threatened by them, than China and other evils we have floating around. I would like to hope my American friends didn't vote for this madness or maybe they did I have read DHH's tweets.
- rob74 3mo ago
  Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. As the saying goes: "better the devil you know". China can at least so far be relied upon to not shoot itself in the foot (and take the whole word with it). The same cannot be said of other great powers like the US (under Trump, for more reasons than I'm willing to list here) and Russia (with Putin's completely harebrained invasion of Ukraine). China can prove me wrong any time by invading Taiwan, but I still hope they don't. Of course, if we try to keep them away from advanced chip technology, that would be further motivation to invade (although TSMC is unlikely to survive an invasion - even if it did survive the actual conflict, it would probably be destroyed or evacuated to avoid it falling into Chinese hands? But I don't want to see the hardware prices after such an event).
  - p2detar 3mo ago

jb1991 3mo ago

“China is evil.” —- “But look at the United States! What about that?” Is this not just whataboutism? It never adds much to the discussion.

Doch88 3mo ago
It would be whataboutism if it was a random Joe saying "China is evil" not literally a company that 1) is in the US 2) has a strong influence in the government and legislations affecting them and their competition. In this case it's just pointing out the propaganda and the contradiction.

cmpxchg8b 3mo ago

Whataboutism is juvenile.

tempfile 3mo ago
This is not whataboutism.

stogot 3mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

dominotw 3mo ago

how is this not a non sequitur in your head. genuine question.