Talk:Moral equivalence

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Pathetic article

This article is pathetic. Sorry.^{— Unsigned, by: 188.223.66.117 / talk / contribs}

Feel free to edit it. IT'S A FUCKING WIKI. Scream!! (talk) 10:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I am missing some type of reference to when things ARE fair to compare. To say one can compare A and B, one must list how this comparison is made. A statement saying 'purely looking at the death toll, Stalin was worse than Hitler' seems fair enough to me. If you indeed compare eating meat to being hitler (and initiating the holocaust) that is not fair, until you perhaps say which part of hitlerism has certain reflections in meat eating. Sweeping statements are the enemy, but I see no problem drawing parallels if you specify where your comparison starts and ends.^{— Unsigned, by: 86.27.247.117 / talk / contribs}

I would agree that Stalin was worse than Hitler (at least in number of deaths caused), so that's a simple statement of fact (or opinion). But the point is that this is not any kind of justification for Hitler. I don't think for a moment that that was what you were trying to do, but that is the way this kind of argument is usually used.--Bob^{"I thought this was supposed to be "Rational" Wiki?."} 09:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

This article is great. There aren't really any rules for "moral equivalency", it's a free-for-all. But this is the first time I've seen the concept so well skewered. 178.38.63.108 (talk) 00:32, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I just want to note that in number of deaths caused (as opposed to executions ordered) Hitler was far worse than Stalin, given that he started the Second World War.--99.234.197.221 (talk) 12:41, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I just want to say that comparing who was worse via death tolls is a very simplistic and honestly incredibly stupid analysis. Marxism-Leninism is a very different beast from Nazism, even though both are authoritarian. One need only see which elements of society tended to support MLs vs Nazis. For the Nazis it was overwhelmingly the owning classes who supported Nazism, or at best saw it as preferable to socialism. MLs tended to derive their support from the more dispossessed elements of society and the intelligentsia, who tend to be persecuted under fascist regimes. This analysis also ignores that while Stalin and Hitler were both leaders of their respective authoritarian regimes, the crimes committed by those regimes were committed by and with popular complacency and participation. Carthage (talk) 16:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Removed content

http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Moral_equivalence&diff=1239178&oldid=1239167

Why was that removed? It's a clear example of moral equivalence. I added it without accusation and I can discuss this without accusation. –Aleksandr(a) Ehrenstein, Jewish Bolshevik 18:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

NAZI RAPE NAZI RAPE RAPE NAZI! Hipo^crite 18:25, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

wp:Ishi might differ. 'Fraid I'll have to side with Weaseloid—the edit could use a re-write in the least. Check also wp:Native Americans in the United States and wp:Population of Native California, the latter saying, "Estimates range from a low of 2.1 million to a high of 18 million (Dobyns 1983).[3][4][44][45] By 1800, the Native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s.[46] Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans (long after being introduced from Asia), often proved deadly to Native Americans.[47][48][49][50]" On the other hand, there might be more Native Mexicans in Mexico than ever before. (For music, there's Tribe called Red—Aboriginals do aboriginal chants and drums to Industrial.)Talk to Civic Cat 18:31, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

"people are annoyed with me, i think i should do the thing they hate and talk about the holocaust and how much it sucked"--Mikal | lakiM 18:33, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Ignoring blatant trolling, at least the part about lynching should stay. I should point out that the Native American estimate is still as low as 2 million, hardly approaching the Holocaust. –Aleksandr(a) Ehrenstein, Jewish Bolshevik 18:41, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Why are you arguing which genocide was worse?--Mikal | lakiM 18:43, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

First off, I get the feeling I'm in the middle of some kind of private trolling-joke: bullets flying around me, but fortunately I'm not hit yet. True, 6 million is 6 million, all recorded. Aboriginal deaths and what they died of is less certain—but could be as high. Similar to what went on with blacks. Keep in mind stats for America, i.e. the US, and that of the Americas. Also keep in mind that it's sort of going on, or was until recent history, such as wp:Category:Massacres in Guatemala. Disclosure, I've yet to read this article, will do so later.Talk to Civic Cat 18:56, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

You are. IE is unable to stop talking about NAZI RAPE. It's basically a joke at this point. Hipo^crite 18:58, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to generate controversy. I won't push for adding it back, unless someone else thinks it's going to be legitimate. –Aleksandr(a) Ehrenstein, Jewish Bolshevik 00:49, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

"I don't want to generate controversy." LIAR. You are incapable of going a week on this website without generating controversy. You fucking thrive on it. you love it. I have no idea what you added to the page in question, but I will bet you any sum of money that it had to do with Nazis. Or rape. Or Nazis getting raped. Or some other sick combination that's relevant to nobody else but you. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?. 02:31, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

A lot of these equivalences are just stupid

Palestine has been occupied and bombed for more than 50 years and Israel imposes a calorie count to keep them slightly above the starvation level, they've imposed race-based laws, and Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians in the name of the God of Israel. Attempting to compare the Holocaust to ongoing human rights abuses is a use of Godwin's law as a fallacy.

The US imposed sanctions that killed 500,000 Iraqi civilians - most of them were children as young as five years of age. Pointing this out isn't "justifying" 9/11, it's pointing out the failings of the US government that led to terrorism which resulted in the deaths of approximately 3000 innocent Americans. We can easily make distinctions between US policies that result in atrocities and the fact the US public are not the ones implementing or promoting such atrocities. JarinJove (talk) 18:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Someone has been listening to the Salafis too much. The sanctions on Iraq did NOT restrict the import of food; in fact, we had the Oil for Food program (which Saddam was stealing from to support his dozen or so palaces). If people were starving, it wasn't the fault of the US. As for Palestine, I am unaware of any restrictions by 'calorie count'. Unless by that you mean "Israel is distributing food to the Palestinians". CorruptUser (talk) 18:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Just a little of whataboutism: What about the Rafah border crossing? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 21:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

That is wrong. The UN was found guilty of stealing from that program just as much as Saddam. The oil-for-food program was called largely ineffective as a result. Clinton could have changed the sanctions - was called to change the sanctions - and chose not to do it. You need to get your facts in order, I'm also curious as to why you ignore the race laws that I mentioned about Israel. Either use factual evidence or don't bother. To say bombing innocent people isn't morally equivalent to bombing innocent people is facetious and shows a total apathy to the lives of children who have died from bombings in Iraq and the other five Middle Eastern countries that the US has bombed. All I see as a defense here is mere jingoism and not rationality. JarinJove (talk) 21:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Why all this focus on Israel, one can't help but wonder? Is it because its Red Sea coastline is so short? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 21:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

"Race laws"?! What in the flying fuck are you smoking??--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 21:55, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Well that's another way of putting it ;-) 141.30.210.129 (talk) 21:57, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Plus the bombing of innocent people...which no one mentioned at all till the rant about someone saying it's not morally equivalent to itself. It would be nice if people listen to others instead of the voices in their heads. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 22:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Read the facts, this is a rationality based website, so let's be rational about this:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/19/israel-security-forces-abuse-palestinian-children

Human Rights Watch's evidence of Israel's human rights abuses.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.530993

Jewish world news highlighting the crimes of Israeli soldiers upon Palestinian children.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/CERD.C.ISR.CO.14-16.pdf

International discrimination league overseeing and highlighting the race laws of Israel.

I am not saying this to be insulting or to somehow justify terrorism - an erroneous and irrational claim that disingenuously misrepresents detractors - I'm pointing out policies that the US government takes which results in terrorism and causes US civilians to be in danger. JarinJove (talk) 22:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah... It's so easy to bash the US and Israel... How about bashing Belgium for once? Five words: Democratic Republic of the Congo. There at least the crimes are real and every bit as horrible (and than some) as some of the imagined crimes of the US and Israel... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 13:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That's not a currently or recently perpetrated offence, though. And there are plenty of real atrocious or inhumane acts committed by the US and Israel; please don't be so denialist. Also "then". 142.124.55.236 (talk) 22:37, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

The tale of the ugly listicle

Once there was an ugly listicle. It got trimmed. The end. Seriously what purpose does this serve? It's bloated and mostly serves as editors' personal opinions. I think we can, if we have to keep it, make it a lot more streamlined and less bloated and ugly. Another problem is that most of it is uncited. Who seriously says smoking isn't as bad as climate change? Carthage (talk) 17:29, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I think there is some use in having examples of of this fallacy out in the wild, so readers can know how to recognize it. With that said, this is the worst way to implement it. It's uncited and too vague to be useful. In particular, the one about "RationalWiki contributors from more liberal countries" is rather gratuitous. I don't think Brendan Rizzo (who added that example) intended for it to come across this way, but it feels like an airing of personal grievances. DietMondrian (talk) 00:48, 27 September 2023 (UTC)