Yeah taking “single dolphin shot repeatedly” to “but what about the fishing industry” isn’t a productive take, it’s whataboutism. They are independent issues, and trying to put focus on one removes the focus from the other
I don’t think this is whataboutism in its most deflective form; I think it’s, “Why are we concerned about a one-off incident but not looking at the elephant in the room?”
I guess I don’t consider things whtaaboutism if it’s pointing to something that encapsulates the original issue. These issues are not mutually-exclusive and signal the same problem: It’s just asking why people are inconsistent with their outrage. In other words, whataboutism in this context can be effective when pointing out hypocrisy and double-standards.
To contrast, whataboutism as a deflection tends to be a substitute for, “You did it, too! Thus ignore what I did / what I did wrong is justified.” Again, this is not that.
Except one (shooting a dolphin repeatedly) is an act of sport or maliciousness, while the slaughter of marine mammals is an issue of the fishing industry. It’s like someone locking someone up in their basement vs the unjust imprisonment for many inmates that happens in the US. One is personal, and specific, one is systemic, happens all the time, and needs to be approached with a broader scope. They are all wrong, but you can’t lump them together because you are generally upset
I think we can absolutely say that industrialized slaughter is objectively worse in terms of the scale of suffering for the victims. We abstract the moral suffering in the fishing farm; but whoa, if someone individually shoots an animal — totally different! At the end of the day, scale is what matters.
Personally I couldn’t care less about the assailant’s state of mind; what matters is the victim
