Jumping to a completely different edge in the graph of human relationships seems like a poor way to get through anything, be it a conversation or an actual social challenge.
Networks are local. Speaking and making negating cases based on far-away, low-connectivity areas makes little sense and serves no one except those favouring inaction or an abundance of caution (for whatever reasons).
Anyhow, I'm saying the above respectfully. Not attacking you as a person, but your way of seeking perspective i feel quite opposed to. I'm content to be in amicable disagreement though, and have no sense that you're compelled to agree with me
What in the world? This is the most out of place reply I've ever received. I can't begin to understand what you think you read and the volumes of strange assumption you made about me
I honestly don't know if this reply represents sanity at all. Literally nothing in the reply even appears to relate to a single word I said. The entire reply appears to be based on a completely different post?
haha oookie dokie. i do ok, thanks[1]. i feel you're reacting to a gentle yet eccentric message in a pretty uncharitable way, and so this interaction would maybe not be productive for either of us
EDIT: ok, against my better judgement, i'll engage and try to communicate better -- the leap where i may have jumped off your train of thought (and it was a jump, but is always very evident to me) is this: i disagree that it's productive to use a relationship between men in china (compared to women in America?) as some sort of measure with which to determine actions that those in other countries should take. I mean this in regards to repairing relationships with women (in the "network of relationships" sense). It's a trap and a red herring to think that way with those comparisons. To continue with that way of rationalizing: if there's some minimum trough of ethics anywhere, we'd always lose energy to do better elsewhere (outside that minimum) until we somehow drag that far-removed minimum up. And since that minimum is likely far away, non-local and hard to affect, then operating this way is a recipe for the least productive mode of using our limited energies for change. This isn't a "women's rights" point I'm making, but about anyone affecting change on anything.
Comparison of how women are treated in their local communities [elsewhere] with how men are treated in China is completely irrelevant and counterproductive imho. Unless someone doesn't want to do anything about it or have responsibility put on them, and wishes to paint a blanket rationale for that -- in which case it's a helpful framing. (Ps, it's totally ok to not work on these things. Life is busy. But it feels particularly unhelpful to rationalize it with weird intentional logic.)
I'm a very network-centric thinker, so this is how I speak and process (at least on HN, if not in real life)
Again, despite you not receiving my message well before, I state again: I say the above kindly, and not with any sort of "argumentative" or "gotcha" style of engagement. I tried to state these as my beliefs, and not some truth of the universe, though maybe i slipped in my language a few times * shrug * Anyhow, hope you're well
I feel almost entirely the opposite as you. Ignoring inconvenient comparisons because of political borders or because it is difficult to enact change is the actual red herring and trap.
I would charge that your "network centricism" is a buzzword to help you rationalize ignoring bad things in our world. I would charge that it appears to be nothing more than "Completely ignore things you can't change", which is a honestly horrific ethos to live by.
"Comparison of how women are treated in their local communities [elsewhere] with how men are treated in China is completely irrelevant and counterproductive imho"
It's only irrelevant if Chinese people are irrelevant. Sorry to state hard facts, but this comparison is only irrelevant if the plight of the Chinese person is irrelevant.
To you, maybe.
I don't take offense to how you write, I think you use 100 words where 15 would work, and I think you enjoy the concept of ideas more than thinking them through to their endpoints. I amount all of this response to nothing more than justifying not giving even 1% of thought to the plight of people who are oppressed in the world. The highest IQ "Out of sight, out of mind" I've ever witnessed.
I think you're clearly smarter than me, but I think you have some very immoral ideas. I don't mean to offend, I just think it's shocking how one can compartmentalize so efficiently that you think it's a "red herring" to bring up real oppression in the world because, basically, you can't do anything about it. Reality isn't a red herring and to even suggest that real situations happening right here today right now are "red herrings" is just such a feat of smart stupidity to me.
Thanks for replying. But I fear your opinion is why it's so easy for genocide's like the one happening there to happen. Out of sight out of mind, it's a red herring and trap to think about it!
What an outrageous example of a straw man, I never suggested anything of the sort.
Women here can run for president, own newspapers, vote and own guns and property. That's more free than most people these days.
We should celebrate that best of all time freedom for women. Never in history have women been as equal and empowered as right now and right here.
We should care more about our chinese and other brothers and sisters who live an oppressed life of authoritarian rule.
All people deserve what american women have, and all Americans deserve more than we've achieved, and american women deserve more. All of these can be true.
I'm not trying to leave the USA, but suggesting it's not fubar is a willful denial of reality.
'It could always be worse' is an agent of the status-quo.
This place maybe the least-worst, but we can still strive for actually good.
Edit: you're completely right that we should balance our efforts domestically with our efforts universally. The latter is unfortunately a much more intricate web to unweave than the relatively simple issues we've got here. It sucks.
It certainly feels like false equivalence to suggest "you win some and lose some" when comparing free speech and political rights to gender representation in some fields.
But I'll take your word for it, perhaps there are american women who would trade their right to vote and speak freely in exchange for more of their gender at work with them
you are right it is, i did say those are not really comparable. i was only trying to point out that there are positive aspects and negative aspects to both societies. not that those are equivalent.
