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Comment by nozzlegear | Hacker News Reader

How can you say the Uyghur genocide isn't "equivalent" to the things you listed? What math are you using to compare them? How do you compare regime change in South America to Uyghur genocide, for example? Is there a spreadsheet somewhere that lists the value you're placing on lives, war and geopolitical actions, in order to make a fair comparison?

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The UN has released a report on human rights abuses in China, but has not called these a genocide. The more credible accusations of genocide came from a handful of political bodies in Western countries, but crucially the acting governments have not defined it as such.

There’s absolutely no consensus that the legal definition is met, in contrast with another ongoing situation which enjoys wide recognition.

It feels that this is more a geopolitical cudgel, pulled out when the discourse against the US becomes negative. But given the events in the last years, this seems like a lost cause even in the West, never-mind the rest of the world.

Surely that's only because China has a permanent position on the security council and wouldn't allow such a report to be made. Israel does not sit on that council, and while the current admin is quite cozy with them, the Biden admin became fed up with Netanyahu and his treatment of Palestinians, culminating in the US ambassador to the UN abstaining from votes against Israel rather than voting to protect it.

But that's beside my point. It's too late to edit my post, so pretend I used the word "culling" instead of "genocide." How does one weigh a Uyghur culling against a South American regime change? What's the exchange rate?

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