Honestly the sheer whiplash of going "caring about Palestine is virtue signaling only" and litterally in the same sentence going "Ukraine more important" is just perfect
To be fair (and balanced), for casualties as a whole, 10x is an accurate figure if you take western news sources at face value.
In the Russo-Ukrainian war, the amount of disinformation makes this staggeringly hard to know; Adding up the estimates gives ranges somewhere between 150,000 and 1,000,000 deaths. It's important context to note, though, that these deaths are overwhelmingly military.
In terms of just civilian casualties, Palestinian casualties are 2-3x higher, in less than a quarter of the time, with less then a tenth the population.
Civilian casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian war are very roughly estimated at 30k-50k, out of 37m over two years. Civilian casualties in Palestine are at a minimum of 110k out of 2,300k in 5 months. Even if the IDF's own numbers are to be believed, that means >90% of casualties are non-militant civilians.
If you believe western news sources, Ukraine does have about ten times the casualties. So in fairness I don't think it's a bald-faced lie by this guy in particular, more just western governments.
Civilian deaths 2 years into the Ukraine war stands at 10,000.
After 5 months, it's 30,000 deaths in Gaza. That means if Israel were bombing Ukraine, the would've killed 150,000 Ukrainian civilians instead of 10,000. And if Russian were bombing Gaza, they would've killed just 2,000 instead 30,000.
And I didn't even factor in population. Ukraine has 20x the population of Gaza. (40m to 2m). The impact of each innocent life lost is 20x more in Gaza than it is in Ukraine. It is 20x easier to wipe out an entire family, 20x easier to find someone who's lost someone, 20x to erase entire histories and subcultures (especially when you bomb universities, libraries, ancient monuments).
So, Russia is at least 14-15 TIMES more humane and caring about civilian life than Israel is. And if you factor in the impact of the difference in relative population (40m vs 2m) that shoots up to 280-300 TIMES more humane and caring than Israel. That's not 280%-380% - That would be just 2.8-3.8 times. No.
Russia respects Ukrainian civilains 28,000%-30,000% more than Israel respects Gazan civilians.
I get what you saying but I really don't like the "population size to population size metric so these deaths are worth even more" kinda discourse. It's how people get to "this was like 10 9/11s" or whatever. The facts are obvious already.
That's a blast from the past! Yeah, I used to get INTP all the time when I took the personality test yeeeears ago. I guess this makes them slightly more predictive than actual horoscopes lol.
No comparison between civilian casualties vs military, no comparison between population. You won't see children dying in hospitals due to lack of food in Ukraine.
This isn't to say that Ukraine isn't "poor". It is an extremely unequal country thanks to western actions.
I was on a crowded train in Tokyo and a foreigner (the only other one in the train, and the only person not wearing a mask) told me I was 'virtue signalling' and I was like whuuuuhhh?
If Ukraine is the deciding issue instead of Palestine, I'd still be asking everyone not to vote for Biden seeing as he opposed peace deals and oversaw the attack on Nordstream 2 to make it harder to negotiate.
But only them, no other bourgeoisie, and don't actually do anything more than give them a 6 month slap on the wrist term. We wouldn't want be authoritarian now, would we?
"I give such a little shit about an ongoing genocide that I literally cannot fathom another person genuinely caring if it doesn't immediately affect them."
I love how they decided this is a "single issue voooting" thing. Even if there weren't other reasons to hate Biden, that would still be ok because genocide is an obvious red line that most people don't have a problem crossing.
After the Ukraine war started I was getting into quite a few arguments with people about tankies apologizing for Stalin's "Holodomor" and Katyn Forest and Molotov-Ribbentrop which would be pretty ironic coming from American liberals for anybody here familiar with any of these events before Oct 7th. But after Oct 7th these arguments become actual doublespeak. We're arguing with liberals that will take contradictory positions on anything as long as they have a BBC article to point to but they will accuse YOU of taking contradictory positions while they do it.
everyone knows you can't physically care about anything that doesn't intimately affect yourself! look at these weirdos with concern for uh anyone outside their immediate household. How would our society even function if everyone did that?!?
"Virtue signalling" is such a funny idea. Signalling to whom? Literally nobody gives a shit. There are issues that crop up around in-groups, or using certain terms not as a way to communicate or educate, but as shibboleths. The problems of gate-keeping are well documented.
But "virtue signalling" doesn't exist. It's people who stand for nothing blaming others for their own cowardice. I hope something shifts for this person and they are able to regain their humanity. I am beginning to think that peoples subjective human experience has been replaced with internalized bourgeois values, and they can no longer see themselves as anything but a cog in a machine. Therefore that is the only way they can view others. It's deeply saddening
AS much as the term is poisoned as all hell I'd argue there is absolutely virtue signalling, albeit just for people with power. You know the whole "ah we care about [any number of social issues] here at Causing Those Social Issues Ltd."
it's so so fucking funny that libs will adopt these radical demands like "jail fossil fuel execs" and their plan for achieving them is literally just voote. like bud, the dems aren't going to jail their donors! that's not how that works! you're making a fundamentally revolutionary demand that requires revolutionary conditions to actually happen! you need to abandon your comforting illusions!
Just once I'd like to see what happens if one of these guys figures out what "virtue signalling" actually means.
Like, you're conceding that opposing the genocide in Gaza is the virtuous position to hold here, all you're questioning is the sincerity of some people who advocate for it.