• Lightor@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      To clarify, what you’re doing is “what-aboutism”. Asking China to be more humane is not a comment on anything but China being more humane.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        1 day ago

        They weren’t just asking China to be more humane, though. They were suggesting that China doesn’t deserve our cooperation because they are inhumane, which implies we have the moral high ground and is explicitly hypocritical. It isn’t whataboutism to point out hypocrisy.

        • Lightor@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          There’s a lot of assuming, implying, and suggesting in that take. The original just said if they were more humane we would work with them.

          • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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            23 hours ago

            You don’t at all see how that implies moral superiority? Or are you just giving them the benefit of the doubt?

            The problem is holding China to a higher standard than we hold ourselves to.

            • Lightor@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              I mean I could see how you could get that but it’s not how I read it. I read it as they are not humane enough to effectively collaborate with.

              I mean, listen, America is a huge hypocrisy so I’m not saying people aren’t doing that, I guess I just read it more literally.

              • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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                1 hour ago

                It’s a bad take either way, and that interpretation makes way less sense. The reason we don’t collaborate with China is geopolitical, and has nothing to do with ethics or China being too inhumane to effectively collaborate with (whatever that means).

        • Lightor@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          You brought up other societies as compared them to us. It’s the definition of what-aboutism, just read up on it again to make sure.