I mean if you are looking for a serious answer, it’s this. You may be able to find equivalences between US and Russian media, at the level of one instance for one instance. What you can’t find is an equivalence in magnitude. For every offense you find in the U.S., you can find the same in Russia but ten times as much, and ten times worse.

And to me, a test of whether you’re a serious person is whether you have the information literacy to understand that kind of distinction instead of whatabouting and Gish galloping it into the ground.

I think there’s a steelman version of that same argument that makes a legitimate point about how Russian disinformation does contribute to the escalation of tensions both in the United States and around the world, and I feel like not only are you not engaging with it, but you’re intentionally not doing so.

I say that because you appear to only be willing to address yourself to the completely watered-down version of the caricature argument, even when you’re in a thread that directly links to an article that makes some pretty direct points about the reality of actual Russian disinformation.

Like if you could just talk normal for a second, you might say something like, “oh in paragraph three of the article it says this. But actually that’s not true and here’s my source for refuting it.” Or even “well these are all true but I feel like it’s emphasizing the wrong things and here’s my argument for emphasizing a different thing.” Like just any signal, any signal at all, any whatsoever that shows that you’re in touch with the same set of facts. But you can’t go there, and so you’re chasing caricatures instead.

Woah, we even have auto TLDR! That’s how you know Lemmy is on the up and up. I was wondered how this worked in the years before Chat GPT, which I assume is still however it works now.

They are both carbon-based life forms. Which means that at a psychological level they’re probably identical. And there’s probably no difference whatsoever between the respective nations cultures, economic or political conditions, or their respective geopolitical interests.

If they’re living breathing creatures, and they both rely on carbon to form complex molecules that make up their bodies, it naturally follows that their countries have identical geopolitical alliances.

Agian I ask of Trudeau made the same claim, or the Prime Minister of New Zeeland, would you be making the same argument

Wouldn’t that depend on their particular geopolitical interests, which could be entirely different from those of Russia?

I feel like these questions are so absurd sometimes not because an answer is being sought but because it succeeds at the goal of degrading the quality of conversation.

Exactly. Putin is really concerned about student loan debt.

He says he wants blue team to win in 2024, but we are blue team and we hate him!

Well we’re off to an awfully bad start because this is about the shallowest bad faith caricature I could possibly imagine. Let’s put it this way:

• Putin absolutely has a propaganda strategy aimed toward the west that utilizes a number of tools and messaging strategies
• Among the strategies reported on, one has been to escalate existing divisions within the United States, with one example reported on being creating opposing conservative and liberal events and scheduling them at the same location
• Purin preferred Trump for his first term
• Putin preferring Biden can be politically damaging to Biden in the context of domestic politics
• a Trump victory could prove exceptionally destabilizing to domestic politics in the United States

I’m not even 100% saying I’m right, but every step of this is perfectly reasonable, it doesn’t rely on any outlandish assumptions, and communication about this isn’t helped by mocking people with bad faith caricatures and performative incredulity.

or escalate the war.

This seems to run contrary to everything I’ve read about Trump’s position. The first half of what you said is at least somewhat accurate. But the second half is contradicted by numerous reports from Trump that his approach would have been to “take a deal” and get out, implicitly with substantial land concessions from Ukraine. And then there’s the fact that both of them have profess to having positive relationships with one another and admiring one another.

It can be both - a terrible amoral system that concentrates wealth to the point that major world events are driven by wildcard personalities of rich idiots. And then, the rich idiots themselves.

I would understand if at least 20% of the Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel would be comprised of western volunteers talking about terrorists and no negotiations.

Now do Russia. There must be more western volunteers on that side, I take it?

If so, why isn’t it acceptable for the Donbas to fight a war of independence against Ukraine to join Russia?

Is that what you think this current conflict is?

“If you invade there will be sanctions.”

“We don’t care”

“It will make finances not as good”

“We don’t care”

“That means you can’t pay your debts”

“We don’t care”

“Ok then”

Invade

“Hey, why can’t we pay our debts?! Let’s make up an imaginary conversation that selectively excludes critical contextual details and absolves us of blame in the most adolescent way imaginable”

🙄

Of all the ways you could possibly interpret it, you deliberately chose the most most ridiculous interpretation.

A more reasonable interpretation is to note that internet atmosphere of highly censored political discourse, comments spreading fake news, comments encouraging warmongering and comments derisive of Ukraine have a place within political discourse on China’s internet.

That this is permitted a place on the spectrum of acceptable opinion is the point. It’s easier to caricature the point by exaggerating it and then disagreeing with the exaggeration.

You make dozens of comments on a daily basis attacking people over and over, you were catastrophically wrong about fundamental facts relating to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, evinced no willingness whatsoever to engage in self-examination about why you were wrong, and you can’t seem to express disagreement without antagonizing others, have an irritating inclination toward self-satisfied last-wordism which doesn’t make you right but just wrong in ways that are tedious to litigate, and your entire comment history is a history of you arguing with other people 24x7.

I can’t think of any thread on lemmy where you did anything that was contributing to building a positive community and I think the community would be more healthy without you here.

Uh-huh, thanks. Whataboutism remains a fallacious and frivolous tactic for derailing. There is no point made by whatabouting that couldn’t also be made the same without intentionally using it for a derail. So, nice try, but no.

What’s your next article?

Whataboutism ✔️

Can we set up a daily whataboutism counter for Lemmy?