[emodendroket]

I can’t downvote your replies (I’m pretty sure in general you can’t downvote any replies to yourself on HN) so you’ll have to take that complaint up with someone else. Anyway, what, I’m “more than welcome” to add these points but in some other, unspecified way than I did that you would have preferred? I’m not really sure what your issue is. I think it’s encouraging complacency to say these things happened in the Orient decades ago and not they’re happening right now, every day, in our own backyards.

[splendor_spoon]

Ooof. Well that is rather uncalled for.

https://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/whats_the_ma...

Moving on…

The GP quoted the article and found interesting anecdotes of said quote in history and brought them into the discussion with background information backing up the anecdotes. That’s interesting and additive to the discussion! Your comment did none of that except to slander another side of the world. This is not to say that there are not examples that would support your point, you just apparently don’t feel the need to add anything more!

Working with you on being a better citizen of society (please update your terminology…) is also not interesting or additive to this thread. So I am going to leave it at that. Have a nice day.

[emodendroket]

I'm familiar with the connotations of the term "Orient," but that was kind of the point of using it in this instance -- I think having Maoist struggle sessions be the first thing that comes to mind is the same kind of thinking about how something is exotic and foreign when it isn't. Maybe you would have gotten my point better if I put the term in scare quotes. I think the attacks on me as "not a decent member of society" are just kind of personal attacks that aren't very germane to the discussion.

I think the whole charge of "whataboutism" is pretty bankrupt for reasons I think this article pretty accurately sums up: https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whatab...

> Try to imagine the following world: the Chinese Communist Party accuses the U.S. of crimes against humanity in the Middle East, and Washington does not turn around and say something like, “What are you talking about! You have one million people in re-education camps in the Xinjiang Province!” In this imaginary world, I guess, US officials would respect the fact that China is only talking about the Middle East right now, and out of politeness refuse to talk about anything else. To do so would be crude whataboutism.

> Can you imagine that happening? Of course not. English-language commentators would contest the right of Xi Jinping to set the terms of the debate, and they’d use the opportunity to draw attention to human rights violations in China, which would be a good thing. Because, I think, it’s good when we expose and condemn any crimes against humanity, no matter the motivations for the revelation.

> Let’s try an arena much smaller than the geopolitical. What if a man comes home, and says to his wife:

> “Susan, you didn’t take out the trash!” he says.

> “Brad, you have never taken out the trash once in your life,” she replies.

> Would it be fair for him to turn, smugly clutching a copy of The Economist, and say, “Susan, this is not about me. I can’t believe you are doing whataboutism”?

[anonymouskimmer]

The problem with whataboutism is when it's used by an abusive party to try to get the other abusive party to jointly agree that each party's abuse is okay.

Other than that, yes, it's good to expose abuses (as long as over-exposure isn't being used to swamp out public awareness or caring of other abuses).

[tacocataco]

Downvoting has a high positive karma requirement IIRC.

[anonymouskimmer]

It's 500. You'll get there eventually. If you click on emodendroket's name you'll see that they have over 20 thousand.

[emodendroket]

I'm allowed to downvote comments that aren't replies to me all I want.