hotbathenthusiast

China has risen way less in terms of GDP per capita, even using power purchasing parity estimates. Japan is at 52k $, China only at 23k (Wikipedia).

I cannot ultimately judge this but the common wisdom about the Chinese social contract seems to be that the citizens get comparatively high economic security for comparatively low civil liberties. And while China’s pro-poor growth has certainly been more than impressive historically, I am not sure that the comparatively still low incomes especially in the inner parts of China are sufficient to maintain this social contract if growth does really slow down significantly.

Edit: I agree in general though that the state of Japan is probably not be as bad as it is made out to be in the article.

I think you misunderstood my point. You seem to mainly be insisting on the point that Russia is doing terrible shit, perhaps even more terrible than what other countries have done in recent history. I am not saying that Russia’s invasion is in any way excusable or that it doesn’t commit extremely terrible war crimes or anything. That much is obvious to anyone with eyes and internet access and there is certainly no disagreement.

My point about the atrocities in other countries that you partially quoted was not to engage in whataboutism (although I do in fact think that death tolls of many other atrocities are comparable and the death toll of WW II and the Nazi regime in general of course much exceeds that of the Russian invasion). It was just to say that we do historically not see a lot of full-scale revolutionising against atrocities committed by governments in authoritarian or even democratic states where it should be much easier (-> Afghanistan and Iraq wars). And what this shows, I think, is that under the right (or wrong …) circumstances the majority in any given society will remain silent if their own life or their freedom or that of their loved ones is on the line.

Therefore it does not make sense to me to dehumanise people like the guy from the article (who did in fact run away in order to not murder anymore). Because to be quiet and mainly look out for yourself seems in fact like the human thing to do, however cowardly that might seem.

You could of course argue that he should join the resistance and do everything in his power to fight against the regime – and I agree that this would be be the morally correct action. But the upshot of the dehumanising line of thinking would be that you will have to view a majority of the people around you as potential “maggots” as well, as I already wrote in the other post. And I don’t think that is a healthy view. Rather, I think, we should focus on criticising bad structures and people in the positions of power who built these structures. And we should celebrate the Russians who actually do try all they can to stop the war and establish a better regime and hope that this will inspire the people who don’t do that yet.

But you’re right of course that I might think differently about these things if someone I knew had been killed by Russian soldiers or something like that. Being German of course shapes my views as well because the ancestors of most of the people around me were probably in some way complicit in the Nazi regime. And they do/did not seem like monsters but like normal old people that you would find in other countries as well who were not/less complicit in WW II.

I’m not sure you are arguing in good faith because you seem to construct some strawmen there, like claiming I was only judging one side while I clearly called the draftee a “stupid asshole” and didn’t even judge the original commenter’s character but just said his wording was bad.

Anyhow, to the general point: I think it is almost always the wrong take to call out the little guys. Which country hasn’t committed atrocities at some point? Is every US-American who didn’t do everything to prevent the war in Afghanistan a maggot? Every Chinese who did not revolt because of Tiananmen? And yes, every German who did not die fighting Hitler? I think, no. The ones that did might be heroes, but I think those that did not are definitely not all “maggots” but just normal folks who didn’t know what was going on, were afraid for themselves and their loved ones and so on. Which seems pretty human to me.

If you answer yes to the questions above, that is probably a defensible position, but I think the mindset that 95% of your fellow humans are potential maggots rather than just humans that have their weaknesses, like you and I probably do as well, is not very healthy. To me, it is mostly only the people in powerful positions who are pressuring ‘their’ people into committing atrocities who are the maggots. And yes, that would include Putin.

And lastly, to the concrete case: The guy did leave Russia and is not fighting anymore, so he might be a particularly bad example for you. I guess he mainly did it to save himself but from the article it does seem to me that his opposition to the war is at least a partial motivation as well. To use your line of argument: I think one should rather focus criticism on the political apparatus and the men on the front who are ardent supporters of the war rather than this guy.

There is still a line between criticizing someone for being an asshole and dehumanizing them.

From reading the article it seems pretty clear to me that this guy is not a “maggot” but an idiot and someone who puts his own well-being over some principles that might be somewhere in the back of his head. So yeah, maybe a stupid asshole but probably not much more than many other people in any given society.

Does anyone know of an estimation of the net progressiveness (or regressiveness, I guess)? I only found this neat overview of the tax regime changes by EY.