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Comment by friedman23 | Hacker News Reader

Whataboutism.

edit: If someone is using whataboutism (as the person I'm responding to is) there is no real argument to respond to.

Any modern day atrocity can be justified by saying that it was done in the past by a different nation. Saying that the US had done something in the past to justify a different countries' present day actions is intellectually lazy and dishonest and is meant to shut down discussion. I was just not trying to waste my time typing this entire statement out but apparently some of you don't understand why `whatabout x` isn't a real argument.

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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18076906 and marked it off-topic.

Invoking whataboutism is not a defense against hypocrisy.

Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy is not a defense of bad behavior.

It does delegitimize the complaint

It is a proof that the behavior in question isn't "bad" in the first place.

The tu quoque fallacy [1] is not proof.

Stealing IP without contributing to creation costs is bad behavior on several levels.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque#The_fallacy

You assume that "IP" is a real thing. It is an invented concept. Those who insist on its reality do so for their own benefit. Those who deny it, do so for their own. How are disinterested parties to decide? Well, they might examine how genuine the two positions are...

There is a difference between "I can do this bad thing, because you have already done it" and "this thing is not bad, otherwise you wouldn't have done it". Tu quoque addresses the former situation, not the latter.

Whether or not IP is "real" is a red herring from hypocrisy being a valid defense for bad behavior. You can split hairs on the definition of IP, but the general consensus in economics is that you need to ensure coverage of the fixed creation costs of intellectual property to ensure robust investment in your society.

And no, tu quoque definitively intends to discredit the opponent's argument by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with its conclusion.

This applies to whataboutism, and exactly what we're talking about in this thread of deflecting back to the U.S.'s inconsistent behavior in the past.

Invoking whataboutism is an attempt to shut down conversation.

Well I was never trying to defend against hypocrisy and no hypocrisy is present in the actions of the US considering these international norms were developed by the US more than a century after the supposed IP theft by the US took place.

Using the argument that some country did the same thing 100 or 200 years before is a child's argument and holds no weight. The Chinese government by taking advantage of the international order developed by the US has sown the seeds for the trade retaliation that is taking place today (to the detriment of everyone).

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