It's the literal opposite of whataboutism. In no way, shape, or form, did the comment try to use startups to make MLMs look less bad, and in fact it did the exact opposite.

You're on a site where a disproportionate number of people are involved in startups/startup culture, and are also disproportionately in socioeconomic positions further removed from the effects for an MLM than a random population sample*.

(* I hesitate to even say this since I don't trust you won't try and build an enormous strawman argument out of it, trying to paint this as a "oh well readers here are to rich to care?!". I'm from a 3rd world country, so no, that's not it either.)

-

Drawing parallels to a topic that's relatable to the reader is exactly what you'd expect in any half decent comment section.

At the end of the day you're saying you intentionally interpreted the comment in bad faith as a springboard to push your own take. A take which just repeats the literal contents of the article rather than interpreting it in a novel way.

I appreciate the feedback but it looks like we won't see eye-to-eye.

> did the comment try to use startups to make MLMs look less bad, and in fact it did the exact opposite.

So you read OP's comment and thought "Wow, MLMs are even worse because startups have toxic culture."?

I did not. I read that comment and thought "now the most upvoted thread will talk about startups" instead of MLMs and how they should be regulated like for profit schools.

> Drawing parallels to a topic that's relatable to the reader is exactly what you'd expect in any half decent comment section.

> At the end of the day you're saying you intentionally interpreted the comment in bad faith as a springboard to push your own take.

Again, agreed, I do take the comment in bad faith, which is why I voiced my disagreement and downvoted. Because the parent comment did exactly what you state, drew parallels to something that "people understand" here by trying to make startups and MLMs morally equivalent with the phrase "You could easily change that to:".

That surface deep parallelism detracts away how destructive MLMs are - hence my comment from personal experience.

> I hesitate to even say this since I don't trust you won't try and build an enormous strawman argument out of it, trying to paint this as a "oh well readers here are to rich to care?!"

Not sure what you're trying to preempt here, but quite a weird comment, sort of a strawman of strawman.

It's interesting because we're starting from the same position. What you're accusing me of - I'm agreeing with you because that's what I'm trying to do, but the conclusions end up being different - thus, never eye-to-eye.

I think you've misinterpreted broadening the conversation ("this was interesting, but what about this other topic?") with deflection ("are MLMs harmful? Well, other businesses are not angels either you know, what about the crimes of startup culture?").

Whataboutism is necessarily a deflection relying on a stated or implied moral equivalence between something under scrutiny and something irrelevant. Accepting the premise that something is problematic and asking whether that reflects a problem in other places is introducing a new topic of discussion to a conversation. You are free to criticize that, but whataboutism is a mischaracterization.

(And in a strange coincidence, this is the second time I've defined whataboutism today, in unrelated threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34919705)

> You are free to criticize that, but whataboutism is a mischaracterization.

I think this is the root of it. That the parent comment does the moral equivalence action with "You could easily change that to:" and then inserts startups.

The assertion that I'm rejecting is the mischaracterization of startups. There absolutely are predatory startups, 100%, but to say as-a-group/whole that they're anywhere near the moral equivalence is what I'm rejecting.

[edit]

I realize replying to the other comment is - I didn't want the most upvoted thread to be about how toxic, predatory startups are. I could see this forum would easily agree to that and discuss it at length. And that's why I called it "whataboutism" because it's focus shifting and you're right, probably less about mischaracterization.

May I offer you a piece of advice, which is to try not to let it bother you too much if the top thread is something other than what you'd prefer? I know how frustrating that is, I experience that all the time on this site. But it's outside of our control what people want to talk about. You can't push the river, but you can exhaust yourself trying.

Paradoxically, I personally believe that only by accepting this and giving up on trying to steer the conversation or convince anyone of anything can you engage in a way that might accomplish those things. Or at least, for myself personally, I find that when I get too invested my rhetoric gets too heated and I feel all sorts of perverse "someone is wrong on the internet" pressure, and I write dumb stuff that makes people angry but convinces no one of anything.

Thanks I appreciate the wisdom.