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0 pointsphotonthug1y ago0 comments

> I don't see a need (and a meaningful way) to develop a scale of maliciousness.

I’m constantly amazed by how easily even smart people will retreat into whataboutism, and this is the most polite way I’ve ever seen to call them on it.

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drdaeman1y ago· 1 in thread

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I can see how my poor choice of words possibly led to this interpretation.

I wanted to say that I believe it doesn’t matter who does something, only what they’re doing. So the same standards should be applied uniformly, irregardless of the actors’ identity.

Ideally, by no means entity X doing something we consider negative should absolve or justify entity Y’s negative (similarly or different) actions.

photonthugOP1y ago

Certainly. I get that, I'm just saying you are remarkably patient to be willing to actually explain this to other people. Maybe you're not familiar with the term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Personally I'm inclined to be more blunt and impatient. Whataboutism is intellectually lazy in the best case, in the worst case it means the interlocuter is manipulative or just actually operating at the emotional level of a 5 year old. Good people just don't like bad behaviour.. they won't wait around to find out which team committed the bad behaviour, and they won't refuse to fix 1 evil until another 2nd evil is addressed first, etc. Also relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow

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