[dx87]

They're saying that your comment is irrelevant because you're comparing current issues between the USA and China with issues between the USA and Native Americans in a completely different time period. Today's morals aren't the same as they were hundreds of years ago, so it doesn't make sense to excuse current IP theft in China by pointing out historical theft of land by the USA.

[gretagretagreta]

If A criticizes B's behavior on moral grounds, with the hope of, say, "making the world a better place", then it would be logical mistake to respond to the criticism by pointing to bad behavior on A's own part.

If, however, A's criticism of B is not an attempt to "make the world a better place" but to prove one's own relative moral superiority, then not only is it highly pertinent to point out A's own moral failings, but also there need be nothing relativistic about it, since ex hypothesi the conversation no longer concerns the morality of this or that action but only whether one party has a legitimate claim to feel superior to the other.

It's not always easy to tell whether one is in the one or the other situation.

[DoreenMichele]

From what I gather, Natives don't see that theft as historical. They see it as still ongoing.

[dirtyid]

It makes sense when your view is that morals correlate to development which is time invariant. Developing nations steal IP to establish orphan industries, burn cheap and dirty coal to rapidly build industrial base, repress minorities to establish stable cultural hegemony. There are no other proven models to development, especially one on large country scales, and pretending it can be done ethically and insisting on those standards are possible when it has yet to be demonstrated is just ladder kicking hypocrisy. At some point we just have to accept that development is a dirty business full of hard moral calculus and judge progress and methods accordingly.