> Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you?

This is a strawman. The parent was saying that in order to have an effect and convince people, you shouldnt alienate them. You can do this without lying or ignoring things that are happening. In fact, the people you're most likely able to convince are people in the middle and by alienating them you're actually causing the trend that you're denouncing.

> What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?

This is just a straight ad hominem. I thought we were supposed to be above these sorts of things on hn.

Republicans have been trying to hold Democrats to a higher standard for 40 years, all the while playing low ball ... it has been a GREAT strategy for them that is nearing end game (courts stacked, gerrymandering, control of state houses, etc)

The "other side" has ZERO capacity/will/desire to ACTUALLY engage in meaningful dialog , but sole goal is to "win" no matter what the cost.

There is no logical appeal that can sway the state-level propaganda and brainwashing that billions have been spent on over the last 40 years.

Anyone who thinks only one of the two sides refuses to engage in meaningful dialog makes me think they have drunk far too much Kol-Aid from on side or the other. The fact of the matter is that nether side has tried to engage in reasonable dialog and exploration of the other sides views because it's apparently not good politics to due so. Both side's take a few random snapshots from extremists on twitter and try to paint the entire other side with that brush despite there being much more common ground between voters of the two camps. A significant proportion of "politically engaged" democrats think that half our country are literally Nazis and many "politically engaged" republicans have equally ridiculous caricatures about the average dem voter.

But that's what he's asking, why is it okay to avoid alienating people at the cost of the truth?

Thank You! As a younger person it is so difficult to comprehend the massive amount of wisdom and intelligence in this community, who actively converse almost exclusively in logical fallacies, and it is never referenced! Your comment made me feel like this is not a crazy observation.

We don’t live in a binary world where our only two choices are:

1. Respond one single way to events

2. Ignore events

There are lots of ways to express concern that are less alienating.

> Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you?

There are plenty of trends happening on the "other side" which are also veritably nuts, so I don't find this to be a very compelling argument. The ad hominem doesn't help, either.

This is called “whataboutism”.

All these "your side/my side" sideism stuff is going to destroy everything.

No one can have any nuanced opinion without all of their individuality being discarded and all weight being given to the party they vote for. It seems to me that the party they vote for is just an ephemeral label and really doesn't suffice in extrapolating much. We should stop contextualizing all conversations on the political affiliation of people.

I'll take your snowflake of nuanced positions on every issue, and bet on tribalism and dumbed-down sound bytes to win every time

"Whataboutism" is an informal fallacy that most non-technical folks (as in, not logicians) mis-invoke, like almost all other informal fallacies. My argument is not even remotely whataboutism. In fact, it can be even formulated without addressing the "other side" at all: you're making a category error by going from general (party trends) to particular (individual voters).

It's simply a bad argument. I only brought up the "other side" to help analogize it, my apologies if it confused things.

I can’t reply with emojis, so imagine this comment is just the eye roll emoji.

I'm trying to be as charitable, polite, and thoughtful as possible with my replies. It's a real shame that HN is slowly devolving into reddit.

So polite but still ready to insinuate other people are incapable of making a correct assertion because they are non-technical.

To me it’s just painfully obvious you think very highly of yourself.

> Do you expect people to pretend the trend isn't happening in order to comfort you? What does it say about your own values that they are so loosely held that you'd sacrifice them out of contempt like this?

And now we’ve come full circle. Using “whataboutism” to avoid conversations about topics is a problem. Whether you’re using it to deflect to a different topic or using it as an excuse to avoid talking about a topic altogether. Someone could argue your comment is the latter and is just as harmful.

But I think most of that is a limitation of text/internet communication that people don’t consciously notice. It’s much easier to have nuance in an in-person conversation.

Yes, I was very impressed by the nuance exhibited through in-person communication on January 6th

I don’t follow the logic. Saying something is whataboutism isn’t recursive.

There are two parties and you have to pick one. If the argument is that trends on the republican side are so insane you must vote democrat, it's certainly not whataboutism to argue there are also similarly insane trends on the democratic side... you can disagree but you can't honestly call it whataboutism.

> There are two parties and you have to pick one.

Well that’s certainly a dishonest premise.

Just a note: right-wing conservatives don't see "whataboutism" to be a fallacy.