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Comment by knzhou | Hacker News Reader

Sigh. Each dumb conspiracy theory in Chinese social media has an equal and opposite dumb conspiracy theory in American social media.

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Look I know this is dumb and all. Other Chinese relatives/friends (usually oversea) are trying to combat all these fake news. But 2 things-

1. WeChat is heavily patrolled and monitored by the PRC censors. If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour (or seconds. It's very enlightening to see the sensitive terms get filtered in real time.)

In fact, in the last week or so, I've been getting more conspiracy forwards. The spread of rumors on this topic on WeChat is speeding up.

2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.

> If the PRC doesn't want these rumors to circulate, these rumors would not last more than a hour

Reddit tries to stop conspiracy theories with quarantines and bans. But they're rapidly spreading anyway.

> 2. I don't see US' Secretary of State accusing China of intentionally creating the virus.

It really is symmetric: Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas, has been on Fox saying exactly this.

Fox also has other people on saying it was a joint North Korean and Chinese bioweapon, made solely to attack America, but released initially in China as a decoy. Fox is the most watched cable news channel in America.

Disingenuous comparison. Ministers of foreign affairs in China is similar to Secretary of State in US. A senator is nowhere near equivalent.

Senators are within the top 100 most powerful people in the US. They represent millions of people.

I think you're just grasping at straws because you've already decided what narrative you want. In which case there's nothing more for me to say here.

Senators are from the legislative branch and have no executive power, however. Their power stems from what they can vote on, eg what justices they can confirm. China for all effective purposes lacks an independent judicial or legislative branch, so it is difficult to compare the two governments.

  Senators are within the top 100 most powerful people in the US.

Since there are exactly 100 Senators, you place every Senator over the President, the Speaker of the House, House party leaders, and all Supreme Court justices. And Oprah.

Okay, whatever, 150. This is an order of magnitude thing.

In an ordinary US government, that's true.

But in the current one, who gets on Fox seems to be a more reliable indicator of the thinking of the ruling clique than official pronouncements. Stuff that gets repeated on Fox enough tends to end up coming out of the President's mouth eventually. Official pronouncements from Secretaries of Suchandsuch get countermanded by tweet. One of the President's closest advisors broadcasts on Fox nightly.

"Blame China" is a simple message and it would not be rational to think it is not going to be tweet-official policy soon enough.

The CIA rumour is no less raised by the CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY spokesman https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-official-says-us-arm...

...on Twitter.

Which is the main medium that US president uses for communication with public.

And the equal and opposite rumor is being raised by an American Senator: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-bioweapon-tom-co...

Why does every criticism of China have to have a corollary accompanying US criticism? Can we not just talk about one issue at a time instead of muddling up the waters?

Classic Chinese / Soviet tactic. Every action can be justified because someone else did something bad at some point in time.

Sorry if you're that nostalgic, but the cold war ended decades ago.

You're right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Use of the phrases like these, exemplifying the tu quoque logical fallacy, was an attempt to deflect criticism of the Soviet Union by referring to racial discrimination and lynching in the United States.

Look at it from the other angle. If you are to blame someone for doing XYZ I assume that you are sparkling clean. If however you are doing the same thing simply get lost. You have no moral right to blame someone for doing exactly the same thing you do.

It is not "Classic Chinese / Soviet tactic (TM)". It is a friggin natural sense of justice that normal people possess.

In modern parlance, a respect for fairness and basic logical coherence is called "whataboutism".

Do as I say, not as I do. Hear hear.

In an ideal world, everyone criticizes things they know the most about and can do the most about, which is whatever is happening in their own country. When this is inverted, there is usually some ulterior psychological need and the criticism ends up not being anything genuine or actionable but a pissing contest. Anything goes in a pissing contest. Why are you surprised?

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