There has to be some sort of law of the internet that on a long enough timeline the political conversation will converge on modern American politics.
As a non-American that's probably my biggest irritation with the internet. Beyond the inane Facebook arguments, beyond the cesspool of comments on modern news websites, hell even beyond the Youtubers hawking stupid services, I have to say the single most irritating thing about the internet is that someone somewhere is waiting with bated breath to turn the conversation into some diatribe on the state of modern American society and the historical context in which it arose.
The article is about Moscow, not America. If you don't anything to say about Moscow don't feel nervous and start talking about America the one thing you can talk about. Don't sweat it, just sit this one out and let other people talk about the subject at hand. Listen and think about what people are saying about Russia and then the next time there's a conversation about Russia you will have something relevant to say about it.
> There has to be some sort of law of the internet that on a long enough timeline the political conversation will converge on modern American politics.
This does seem to happen a lot, but one might also read it as putting international developments into a local perspective. That's a sensible thing to do, wouldn't you agree?
You are missing the point of the comment entirely. They are trying to bring the statement "everyone being in prison" to a realistic context to better understand what it actually means and what it feels like to live in a place where "everyone is in prison".
They are assuming the commenter is American or at least has an idea of what America is like, which is not a bad assumption to make on an English-language website run by an American company.
This tactic is used by trolls to distract from the real issue. It puts people on the defensive rather than discussing the actual topic. “Whataboutism” at its best.
Sometimes it's not even a troll distracting, sometimes it's a stupid American who can't not talk about his unique experience - you see this often on Reddit, someone from a country will complain about something specific there, and an American will show up to say "that's nothing, here at Whatever, TX, it's even worse/better/bigger/cooler/etc."
It's not always whataboutism, sometimes it's just a comparison.
Americans have this strange habit of expecting their "enemy of the day" to operate under a different standard than they do. These comparisons put things in perspective for people temporarily blinded by jingoism.
The term “whataboutism” is a tell for intellectual laziness at best. Considering multiple particular cases to draw general conclusions is basic ratiocination. You might as well just call the person you’re talking to a “chud” instead and be done with it.
More often than not when I've seen "whataboutism" used here it means "You can't say that (about me), I said it (about you) first!" which is in my opinion, intellectually lazy. There are times when a bad faith whatabout-ist argument is made as a diversionary tactic and they are frustrating, but the original comment[0] we are discussing does not feel like that to me. In fact the comment they were replying to is making the lazy and intellectually lacking argument.
As a non-American that's probably my biggest irritation with the internet. Beyond the inane Facebook arguments, beyond the cesspool of comments on modern news websites, hell even beyond the Youtubers hawking stupid services, I have to say the single most irritating thing about the internet is that someone somewhere is waiting with bated breath to turn the conversation into some diatribe on the state of modern American society and the historical context in which it arose.
The article is about Moscow, not America. If you don't anything to say about Moscow don't feel nervous and start talking about America the one thing you can talk about. Don't sweat it, just sit this one out and let other people talk about the subject at hand. Listen and think about what people are saying about Russia and then the next time there's a conversation about Russia you will have something relevant to say about it.