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People popping up out of the woodwork to argue passionately for an out-of-favor technology reeks of a dying industry trying to revive itself with public relatio

People popping up out of the woodwork to argue passionately for an out-of-favor technology reeks of a dying industry trying to revive itself with public relations. Is there any reason to believe that this isn’t just an industry group with a friendly, activist face?

CogentHedgehog 6y ago
> People popping up out of the woodwork to argue passionately for an out-of-favor technology reeks of a dying industry trying to revive itself with public relations. Yes. I'll probably get downvoted for saying it, but I want to get out in the open that the situation reeks of a PR/astroturfing campaign. There are a small number of ardent nuclear energy supporters acting in good faith, but a much larger army of paid trolls that have been active for the last few years. I mod on Reddit and have seen this happen daily. They post a pro-nuclear/anti-renewables talking point and then when you look at the account history, the account will be days old or have a clearly artificial history generated by karma farming (reposting old comment or short junk comments generated by computer). It follows much the same patterns we saw with accounts pushing climate change denial on social media. Research later showed this was driven by bots and paid trolls. > Is there any reason to believe that this isn’t just an industry group with a friendly, activist face I can almost guarantee this is the case. So-called environmentalist Micheal Shellenberger is another example (made more clear when he came out as a climate change minimizer recently). It uses the same playbook that fossil fuel companies used to create artificial climate change skepticism. At least one group of reporters is doing investigative research into this issue. One litmus test to use: most nuclear energy advocates that are acting in good faith see it as part of an all-of-the-above energy solution that includes nuclear, renewables, and storage. The shill accounts break from this by trying to trash renewables while pushing nuclear energy.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Do you see the same in hydrogen or "green" hydrogen?
  - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
    I don't have enough datapoints yet to tell if there's anything suspicious happening around hydrogen tech. The volume of discussion has only started to get high recently. I'll say that on technical merits there are pretty solid arguments both for and against green hydrogen. It's not like nuclear industry where the free market has already spoken and mostly said "yeah your product sucks, we don't want to buy any more."

CogentHedgehog 6y ago

> People popping up out of the woodwork to argue passionately for an out-of-favor technology reeks of a dying industry trying to revive itself with public relations. Yes. I'll probably get downvoted for saying it, but I want to get out in the open that the situation reeks of a PR/astroturfing campaign. There are a small number of ardent nuclear energy supporters acting in good faith, but a much larger army of paid trolls that have been active for the last few years. I mod on Reddit and have seen this happen daily. They post a pro-nuclear/anti-renewables talking point and then when you look at the account history, the account will be days old or have a clearly artificial history generated by karma farming (reposting old comment or short junk comments generated by computer). It follows much the same patterns we saw with accounts pushing climate change denial on social media. Research later showed this was driven by bots and paid trolls. > Is there any reason to believe that this isn’t just an industry group with a friendly, activist face I can almost guarantee this is the case. So-called environmentalist Micheal Shellenberger is another example (made more clear when he came out as a climate change minimizer recently). It uses the same playbook that fossil fuel companies used to create artificial climate change skepticism. At least one group of reporters is doing investigative research into this issue. One litmus test to use: most nuclear energy advocates that are acting in good faith see it as part of an all-of-the-above energy solution that includes nuclear, renewables, and storage. The shill accounts break from this by trying to trash renewables while pushing nuclear energy.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Do you see the same in hydrogen or "green" hydrogen?
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  I don't have enough datapoints yet to tell if there's anything suspicious happening around hydrogen tech. The volume of discussion has only started to get high recently. I'll say that on technical merits there are pretty solid arguments both for and against green hydrogen. It's not like nuclear industry where the free market has already spoken and mostly said "yeah your product sucks, we don't want to buy any more."