5 ms·

I find it extremely interesting (and by that I mean suspicious) that the Siemens astroturf post "Why I am not worried about Japan's Nuclear Reactors" has been m

I find it extremely interesting (and by that I mean suspicious) that the Siemens astroturf post "Why I am not worried about Japan's Nuclear Reactors" has been migrated from a quote-unquote "personal" WordPress blog onto a quasi-official MIT website that was suspiciously purchased Sunday evening. Not only that, the text of the post has been so dramatically altered that it no longer says anything about not being worried, or how the concrete containment will prevent anything from possibly going wrong. This entire thing smells like a huge PR stunt from a company (Siemens) that recently donated money to MIT and has a huge economic interest in preventing any bad publicity about nuclear power from appearing in the media. I actually find it shameful that HN can be so easily duped by this obviously doctored information. See my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319278 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319278 when this "news" was posted Sunday.

guscost 16y ago
If you have reason to believe that the information is doctored, it would be a better idea to explain why. Attacking the messenger is fine for scoring points in a debate, but it isn't going to bring anything valuable to the discussion. We should be thinking about the people who are confused and scared right now, not Siemens and their bottom line.
- bhousel 16y ago
  He did explain why.
  - LunaCity 16y ago
    There is a direct link to mitnse.com from the MIT NSE main web page here: http://web.mit.edu/nse/ http://web.mit.edu/nse/
  - guscost 16y ago
    Because the guy made an incorrect assumption before he had the proper data, or something else? Most people did that, it's obviously not an unfixable problem. Also, can't we just ask some guy who was working at the plant if there is a third stage? How does this guy know that it hasn't been upgraded?

guscost 16y ago

If you have reason to believe that the information is doctored, it would be a better idea to explain why. Attacking the messenger is fine for scoring points in a debate, but it isn't going to bring anything valuable to the discussion. We should be thinking about the people who are confused and scared right now, not Siemens and their bottom line.

bhousel 16y ago
He did explain why.
- LunaCity 16y ago
  There is a direct link to mitnse.com from the MIT NSE main web page here: http://web.mit.edu/nse/ http://web.mit.edu/nse/
- guscost 16y ago
  Because the guy made an incorrect assumption before he had the proper data, or something else? Most people did that, it's obviously not an unfixable problem. Also, can't we just ask some guy who was working at the plant if there is a third stage? How does this guy know that it hasn't been upgraded?