I’ve been seeing this sort of thing in a few threads now since the federation and im a bit confused by it. Showing that China is doing similar things to the US doesn’t seem like a strong argument if the thing the US is doing (in this case indefinite detention without trial in a horrible prison) is bad. Is the idea that post-federation there’s users who don’t view the US as doing bad things?
Showing that China is doing similar things to the US doesn’t seem like a strong argument if the thing the US is doing (in this case indefinite detention without trial in a horrible prison) is bad. Is the idea that post-federation there’s users who don’t view the US as doing bad things?
The problem is that liberals are operating on “Our country (the US, UK, a European country, etc) is better than China because of these reasons, China bad, 100 million dead” and so the idea is to first go “Actually, China isn’t doing anything worse than the United States is doing” and then later on go “…and, in fact, the United States is the one that’s by far the worst.” Basically to cushion the blow of having their worldview swept out from under them.
So the first step is to go “Oh, is China bad because they imprison people for revealing state secrets? Then look at all these people in your own countries that have done the same.”
And then the second step is to go “And, in fact, China has a lower number of incarcerated people than the United States despite having almost five times more people.”
of course, then they start blubbering about “buh buh buh, they’re lying and a-actually have trillions in prison and they’re killing them and xi is personally beating them because he’s evil and a monster and the CCP they’re bad and they–” but the seed of doubt has still been established
Nice, reasonable explanation comrade! Just in case anyone didn’t know, TheDeprogram has a good wiki page on whataboutism that covers this nicely as well.
But yeah, people will find that we communists do criticize socialist governments, past and present, and do find flaws in China’s system. You just have to come to the communist subs and read around, or ask honest questions. But on platforms like this, where obvious lies, biases, and if nothing else, just one-sided reporting is rampant, we need to balance out the rhetoric. Of course capitalist countries (past and previous) have jailed journalists and those that have pushed back against American imperialism. Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Mexico, are just a short list of those that we constantly oppress.
China keeps making the news because western media keeps putting them in the news, even if it is for things that the USA or western Europe is also currently doing (You don’t think the USA and Europe don’t ban websites, do you? Have they ever forcefully sterilized people? Yes. Have they ever taken journalists prisoners… obviously yes… Oppressed religions? Duh… The list goes on and on). Calling out these non-western nations for doing these things is simply adding fuel to the fire to create a monolithic opinion that the USA or Europe is the best place on earth.
If you are on Elysium, things looks pretty great, and you can look down upon the others and judge them easily, while extracting their resources and causing their struggles in the first place. Being taken out of your bubble feels really uncomfortable, but it’s the first step in learning.
I checked hexbear before the federation and found it to be mostly an awfully friendly and kinda cool place, so I was excited. But now I see so many paranoid hexbear users talking about “the federation” as if it were some kind of historical event with great significance; almost like how Palestinians talk about the Nakba. Why is that?
Showing that China is doing similar things to the US doesn’t seem like a strong argument if the thing the US is doing (in this case indefinite detention without trial in a horrible prison) is bad.
I don’t really understand what you mean. Even the best liberal super-democracy (let’s say Switzerland) will detain you if they suspect that you have given out state secrets to foreign countries. Literally every country will. That was kinda the point of my comment.
Secondly, I was not trying to show anything; I was just wondering what those people were missing during their (not indefinite) imprisonment. They’re all free now, including the ones with data missing. And I didn’t research the reasons for their imprisonment, use a search engine if you want to know more.
Is the idea that post-federation there’s users who don’t view the US as doing bad things?
You know that there have always been and that there always will be users with that view, so why even ask that question; and why ask it with “post-federation”? it honestly gives the impression you’re in a cult, no offense.
Re: hexbear stalking about “the federation” in heavy tones.
we’ve been bitten by linking up with other communities before, (r/vegancirclejerk) and the moment before federation we were preemptively defederated from lemmy.world
Quiet shire no more, now there are liberals at the gates and ominous tidings (I’m joking, but there’s change in the air is what I mean)
To be honest, I think .world kind of long-term fucked themselves on that one. They were one of the only instances big enough to act as any kind of counterweight to our posting power, and by sealing themselves off from us, and because our lack of downvotes results in more and higher rated comments, they’ve pretty much ceded rhetorical dominance of much of the rest of the verse to us and our lemmygrad friends.
But now I see so many paranoid hexbear users talking about “the federation” as if it were some kind of historical event with great significance; almost like how Palestinians talk about the Nakba. Why is that?
It’s tongue in cheek, mocking the hysterical libs who can’t process actually sharing an online space with leftists.
Oh, I hope it is! But even if it is, I think there are much better ways to approach that. But yea, what happened to lemmy.world, is indeed super unfortunate.
A bigger question is whether or not this is necessary to be a super power. There has never been a super power that did not do this. We can argue good or bad till we are blue in the face, but if it’s a necessity, then it’s going to happen. Even if the necessity is just to become a global dominant power.
An easier example to understand is selling military equipment that will absolutely be used in genocides. You can’t be a super power if you don’t sell advanced military equipment. Inevitably, some of those you sell to will be using it to murder journalists for reporting about the line.
So, yeah selling them those weapons is bad. But if you don’t do it, someone else will. That someone else will gain inordinate amounts of power making sure your country will never be in power. So we sell, we sell it as we watch Palestinians burn.
I’ve been seeing this sort of thing in a few threads now since the federation and im a bit confused by it. Showing that China is doing similar things to the US doesn’t seem like a strong argument if the thing the US is doing (in this case indefinite detention without trial in a horrible prison) is bad. Is the idea that post-federation there’s users who don’t view the US as doing bad things?
Seems she was imprisoned on espionage charges. Some people in gitmo don’t even have charges against them iirc.
The problem is that liberals are operating on “Our country (the US, UK, a European country, etc) is better than China because of these reasons, China bad, 100 million dead” and so the idea is to first go “Actually, China isn’t doing anything worse than the United States is doing” and then later on go “…and, in fact, the United States is the one that’s by far the worst.” Basically to cushion the blow of having their worldview swept out from under them.
So the first step is to go “Oh, is China bad because they imprison people for revealing state secrets? Then look at all these people in your own countries that have done the same.”
And then the second step is to go “And, in fact, China has a lower number of incarcerated people than the United States despite having almost five times more people.”
of course, then they start blubbering about “buh buh buh, they’re lying and a-actually have trillions in prison and they’re killing them and xi is personally beating them because he’s evil and a monster and the CCP they’re bad and they–” but the seed of doubt has still been established
Nice, reasonable explanation comrade! Just in case anyone didn’t know, TheDeprogram has a good wiki page on whataboutism that covers this nicely as well.
But yeah, people will find that we communists do criticize socialist governments, past and present, and do find flaws in China’s system. You just have to come to the communist subs and read around, or ask honest questions. But on platforms like this, where obvious lies, biases, and if nothing else, just one-sided reporting is rampant, we need to balance out the rhetoric. Of course capitalist countries (past and previous) have jailed journalists and those that have pushed back against American imperialism. Native Americans, Middle Easterners, Mexico, are just a short list of those that we constantly oppress.
China keeps making the news because western media keeps putting them in the news, even if it is for things that the USA or western Europe is also currently doing (You don’t think the USA and Europe don’t ban websites, do you? Have they ever forcefully sterilized people? Yes. Have they ever taken journalists prisoners… obviously yes… Oppressed religions? Duh… The list goes on and on). Calling out these non-western nations for doing these things is simply adding fuel to the fire to create a monolithic opinion that the USA or Europe is the best place on earth.
If you are on Elysium, things looks pretty great, and you can look down upon the others and judge them easily, while extracting their resources and causing their struggles in the first place. Being taken out of your bubble feels really uncomfortable, but it’s the first step in learning.
You’re confusing me a bit too tbh.
What sort of thing?
I checked hexbear before the federation and found it to be mostly an awfully friendly and kinda cool place, so I was excited. But now I see so many paranoid hexbear users talking about “the federation” as if it were some kind of historical event with great significance; almost like how Palestinians talk about the Nakba. Why is that?
I don’t really understand what you mean. Even the best liberal super-democracy (let’s say Switzerland) will detain you if they suspect that you have given out state secrets to foreign countries. Literally every country will. That was kinda the point of my comment.
Secondly, I was not trying to show anything; I was just wondering what those people were missing during their (not indefinite) imprisonment. They’re all free now, including the ones with data missing. And I didn’t research the reasons for their imprisonment, use a search engine if you want to know more.
You know that there have always been and that there always will be users with that view, so why even ask that question; and why ask it with “post-federation”? it honestly gives the impression you’re in a cult, no offense.
Re: hexbear stalking about “the federation” in heavy tones.
we’ve been bitten by linking up with other communities before, (r/vegancirclejerk) and the moment before federation we were preemptively defederated from lemmy.world
Quiet shire no more, now there are liberals at the gates and ominous tidings (I’m joking, but there’s change in the air is what I mean)
To be honest, I think .world kind of long-term fucked themselves on that one. They were one of the only instances big enough to act as any kind of counterweight to our posting power, and by sealing themselves off from us, and because our lack of downvotes results in more and higher rated comments, they’ve pretty much ceded rhetorical dominance of much of the rest of the verse to us and our lemmygrad friends.
It’s tongue in cheek, mocking the hysterical libs who can’t process actually sharing an online space with leftists.
Oh, I hope it is! But even if it is, I think there are much better ways to approach that. But yea, what happened to lemmy.world, is indeed super unfortunate.
What happened to Lemmy.world?
What you’re talking about … takeover by hysterical and authoritarian libs.
And btw, I’m not talking about a “critical mass takeover” it’s from the admin; sort the comments by top to see the disagreement.
Ah OK. Yeah that’s unfortunate, but I suppose all the reddit refugees who wanted another reddit have to go somewhere.
yea, but this is what will bring failure over the whole idea of “fediverse”. so just enjoy while it lasts and stop building cultlike echo chambers.
Hey, I don’t disagree.
A bigger question is whether or not this is necessary to be a super power. There has never been a super power that did not do this. We can argue good or bad till we are blue in the face, but if it’s a necessity, then it’s going to happen. Even if the necessity is just to become a global dominant power.
An easier example to understand is selling military equipment that will absolutely be used in genocides. You can’t be a super power if you don’t sell advanced military equipment. Inevitably, some of those you sell to will be using it to murder journalists for reporting about the line.
So, yeah selling them those weapons is bad. But if you don’t do it, someone else will. That someone else will gain inordinate amounts of power making sure your country will never be in power. So we sell, we sell it as we watch Palestinians burn.