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If anyone else had written this, would it be significant? Wouldn't it just be written off as a conspiracy theory that provides little to no evidence for its cl

If anyone else had written this, would it be significant? Wouldn't it just be written off as a conspiracy theory that provides little to no evidence for its claims? If the only thing that gets this on HN is Seymour Hersh's reputation (which has lately become somewhat questionable) then you might want to reconsider. Plus, the quality of the comments has not been very good so far.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
I think it's worthwhile that a reputation is able to garner attention for someone, and it may be worth examining why his reputation is coming into question. If it has something to do with "he likes to tout conspiracy theories" I would start to wonder who would gain from this reporting being discredited in such a manner.
PonySoldier 4y ago
This gatekeeping is ridiculous. This is the same guy who unveiled the atrocities that occured during the My Lai massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which painted the US Gov/military in a terrible light. This is an actual case of speaking truth to power. He clearly (and rightfully IMO) does not trust the US government and his "somewhat questionable" and recent work has continued that trend. Is it any surprise that the same institutions/people that continuously carry water for the government now rush to label him a conspiracy theorist?
- twblalock 4y ago
  That’s not good enough. No level of reputation or historical track record should exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of providing evidence for claims they make.
  - super256 4y ago
    > No level of reputation or historical track record should exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of providing evidence for claims they make. I'm not sure. Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who regularly release information while only citing anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence. Just posting proofster.png [1] doesn't undo America's long history of doing weird stuff to achieve its goals. Thinking about funding terrorism in Cuba, backdooring all electronic communication ever or saying that your President did not have a stroke. Also, someone posted further down in the comments that the White House has a history of discrediting witnesses and questioning motives. [2] Interestingly enough, it appears to me that this tactic engages citizens to follow the ad hominem attacks of their policymakers, although they don't gain anything from doing so. Maybe this dynamic is even more interesting than the article itself because the causes of this crime are only for history books. America got what it wanted anyway, and nothing will change that. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/proofster https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/proofster [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709596
    - Analemma_ 4y ago
      > Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who regularly release information while only citing anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence. It's bad when they do it too. That's what Bloomberg did with their Supermicro Chinese chip story and it was a disaster (and one for which they still haven't apologized or really even acknowledged). Huge allegations require evidence. Your name is not good enough, no matter what you've exposed in that past.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      >Bloomberg And that worked great on that "all server motherboards are compromised" article right?
    - mzs 4y ago
      >If we cite anonymous sources in a story, say how these people are in a position to know the information, without compromising their identities. Any anonymously sourced story must be reviewed by senior managers. p. 112; The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Journalists; John Micklethwait, Paul Addison, Jennifer Sondag, Bill Grueskin; John Wiley & Sons; 2017 ed.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >That’s not good enough. For you. But maybe, just maybe, other people are willing to to accept claims backed by reputation. I mean, do you have any idea how difficult some of these stories, throughout history, would be to bring to light with "hard evidence"? What would "hard evidence" even entail? A whistleblower?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    I don't think Hersh's reputation is evidence, as such, although it has some persuasive value. However, evidence is not the only valid form of claim-making. Predictive power also has value: if someone can assert something unlikely without evidence, but with sufficient specificity that it describes a subsequent development very accurately, then it's fair to presume that person probably has insight into the issue. So while I am somewhat skeptical of Hersh's claims, they're also detailed enough that corroboration could be sought for.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > the same guy who unveiled the atrocities that occured during the My Lai massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which painted the US Gov/military in a terrible light Both were corroborated with evidence. I'm scanning this post for new evidence and coming up empty. The fact that American action was technically plausible has always been known. One might twist Hersh claiming he has an anonymous source as new information. But that's the closest we get. On its own, that's not sufficient to advance the discussion in a meaningful way because it presents no new facts.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    He has the code name of the operation and a ton of alleged operational details, attributed to his sources in the Intel community.
    - The_Colonel 4y ago
      I, too, can make up a code name and operational details. Still no evidence.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        The code name was "Gouda", it was established that it was the Swiss Vatican guard. Ementaler would have been too much into the face and the Vatican wanted to avoid problems with the Italians, so Parmesan was of the table.
        JTbane 4y ago
        The name "Wallace" kept coming up, supposedly connected to MI6.
        hef19898 4y ago
        And the support operation was called "Gromit"?
      - 4y ago
- threeseed 4y ago
  > This gatekeeping is ridiculous It is not gatekeeping to demand that extraordinary claims are backed up by evidence. And there is an absence of evidence here.
  - tanseydavid 4y ago
    It is nothing but gatekeeping if you are requesting the removal of a post that many consider interesting (the only threshhold it needs to cross).
    - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
      > (the only threshhold it needs to cross). Nope. The normal flagging rules are a sperate threshold.
dang 4y ago
No, I don't think it would be. Hersh is inevitably part of the story because of his historical significance and the network of government sources that he's cultivated for decades. It doesn't follow that his claims are true (even if he's accurately reporting, his sources must have their own agendas). That's why I added the question mark to the title above. The story being on HN doesn't imply anything about that—only that it's interesting. Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for counterargument. p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting. If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to already know (or feel one knows) the answer—and this is a site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of view.
- threeseed 4y ago
  a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in the tech world that aren't making the front page. b) There is a lack of evidence in the article. I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point. c) His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris. That is why we demand evidence.
  - haswell 4y ago
    > I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point. An established reputation is the difference between those claims. You making a claim without evidence is just that. Hersh making a claim without sharing his evidence is something different. That isn’t to say we don’t need evidence, but there’s a better reason to believe him than you, given the context of the situation. > His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris. And it’s also full of the opposite. The existence of hubris is not evidence of it. But even then, that claim doesn’t fit, unless you are implying that he made the whole thing up and concluded that it must be what happened. Another conclusion is that he has a source, and simply has not shared it yet. Maybe time will tell.
spoiler 4y ago
If you could you humor me: if he came out saying Russians blew up the pipeline, would you have the same stance? These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two powers. I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it seems like that's the only thing people are focusing on because it makes the situation simple for them, and it's easiest to have a single villain and the rest are the good guys. I assume most people offended by this submission here are American (or at least heavily support America) and want to think of their current government/country as the good guys. I don't think there's any good guys in this situation.
- twblalock 4y ago
  If there is no evidence my reaction will be the same no matter who gets blamed or who wrote the article.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > if he came out saying Russians blew up the pipeline, would you have the same stance? Of course. You don't think there are people claiming to have anonymous sources about Putin doing all manner of things?
- ohmaigad 4y ago
  > These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two powers. As a person from Eastern Europe this is literal Russian propaganda or in simple words - dogshit. You know why somebody like Baltic countries wanted to get in NATO? Because Russia was/is a genuine threat after these countries were deoccupied from the Soviet Union. Russia thinks that these former Soviet Union countries are still their own property, they can't imagine that these countries don't want to live "the Russian way".
  - cdelsolar 4y ago
    why is this downvoted/flagged?
pohl 4y ago
Hersh also tried to minimize the Skripal novichok poisoning story, didn't he?
trwhanh 4y ago
What else can you do with this article? We don't know if the source is correct, but it is clearly notable. Wasn't Watergate also reported relying on a single source (deep throat)?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago

I think it's worthwhile that a reputation is able to garner attention for someone, and it may be worth examining why his reputation is coming into question. If it has something to do with "he likes to tout conspiracy theories" I would start to wonder who would gain from this reporting being discredited in such a manner.

PonySoldier 4y ago

This gatekeeping is ridiculous. This is the same guy who unveiled the atrocities that occured during the My Lai massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which painted the US Gov/military in a terrible light. This is an actual case of speaking truth to power. He clearly (and rightfully IMO) does not trust the US government and his "somewhat questionable" and recent work has continued that trend. Is it any surprise that the same institutions/people that continuously carry water for the government now rush to label him a conspiracy theorist?

twblalock 4y ago
That’s not good enough. No level of reputation or historical track record should exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of providing evidence for claims they make.
- super256 4y ago
  > No level of reputation or historical track record should exempt anyone from the basic responsibility of providing evidence for claims they make. I'm not sure. Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who regularly release information while only citing anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence. Just posting proofster.png [1] doesn't undo America's long history of doing weird stuff to achieve its goals. Thinking about funding terrorism in Cuba, backdooring all electronic communication ever or saying that your President did not have a stroke. Also, someone posted further down in the comments that the White House has a history of discrediting witnesses and questioning motives. [2] Interestingly enough, it appears to me that this tactic engages citizens to follow the ad hominem attacks of their policymakers, although they don't gain anything from doing so. Maybe this dynamic is even more interesting than the article itself because the causes of this crime are only for history books. America got what it wanted anyway, and nothing will change that. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/proofster https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/proofster [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34709596
  - Analemma_ 4y ago
    > Bloomberg and Reuters are two media outlets who regularly release information while only citing anonymous sources and not releasing any evidence. It's bad when they do it too. That's what Bloomberg did with their Supermicro Chinese chip story and it was a disaster (and one for which they still haven't apologized or really even acknowledged). Huge allegations require evidence. Your name is not good enough, no matter what you've exposed in that past.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    >Bloomberg And that worked great on that "all server motherboards are compromised" article right?
  - mzs 4y ago
    >If we cite anonymous sources in a story, say how these people are in a position to know the information, without compromising their identities. Any anonymously sourced story must be reviewed by senior managers. p. 112; The Bloomberg Way: A Guide for Journalists; John Micklethwait, Paul Addison, Jennifer Sondag, Bill Grueskin; John Wiley & Sons; 2017 ed.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >That’s not good enough. For you. But maybe, just maybe, other people are willing to to accept claims backed by reputation. I mean, do you have any idea how difficult some of these stories, throughout history, would be to bring to light with "hard evidence"? What would "hard evidence" even entail? A whistleblower?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  I don't think Hersh's reputation is evidence, as such, although it has some persuasive value. However, evidence is not the only valid form of claim-making. Predictive power also has value: if someone can assert something unlikely without evidence, but with sufficient specificity that it describes a subsequent development very accurately, then it's fair to presume that person probably has insight into the issue. So while I am somewhat skeptical of Hersh's claims, they're also detailed enough that corroboration could be sought for.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> the same guy who unveiled the atrocities that occured during the My Lai massacre and at Abu Ghraib, both of which painted the US Gov/military in a terrible light Both were corroborated with evidence. I'm scanning this post for new evidence and coming up empty. The fact that American action was technically plausible has always been known. One might twist Hersh claiming he has an anonymous source as new information. But that's the closest we get. On its own, that's not sufficient to advance the discussion in a meaningful way because it presents no new facts.
- woooooo 4y ago
  He has the code name of the operation and a ton of alleged operational details, attributed to his sources in the Intel community.
  - The_Colonel 4y ago
    I, too, can make up a code name and operational details. Still no evidence.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      The code name was "Gouda", it was established that it was the Swiss Vatican guard. Ementaler would have been too much into the face and the Vatican wanted to avoid problems with the Italians, so Parmesan was of the table.
      - JTbane 4y ago
        The name "Wallace" kept coming up, supposedly connected to MI6.
        hef19898 4y ago
        And the support operation was called "Gromit"?
    - 4y ago
threeseed 4y ago
> This gatekeeping is ridiculous It is not gatekeeping to demand that extraordinary claims are backed up by evidence. And there is an absence of evidence here.
- tanseydavid 4y ago
  It is nothing but gatekeeping if you are requesting the removal of a post that many consider interesting (the only threshhold it needs to cross).
  - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    > (the only threshhold it needs to cross). Nope. The normal flagging rules are a sperate threshold.

dang 4y ago

No, I don't think it would be. Hersh is inevitably part of the story because of his historical significance and the network of government sources that he's cultivated for decades. It doesn't follow that his claims are true (even if he's accurately reporting, his sources must have their own agendas). That's why I added the question mark to the title above. The story being on HN doesn't imply anything about that—only that it's interesting. Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for counterargument. p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting. If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to already know (or feel one knows) the answer—and this is a site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of view.

threeseed 4y ago
a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in the tech world that aren't making the front page. b) There is a lack of evidence in the article. I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point. c) His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris. That is why we demand evidence.
- haswell 4y ago
  > I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point. An established reputation is the difference between those claims. You making a claim without evidence is just that. Hersh making a claim without sharing his evidence is something different. That isn’t to say we don’t need evidence, but there’s a better reason to believe him than you, given the context of the situation. > His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris. And it’s also full of the opposite. The existence of hubris is not evidence of it. But even then, that claim doesn’t fit, unless you are implying that he made the whole thing up and concluded that it must be what happened. Another conclusion is that he has a source, and simply has not shared it yet. Maybe time will tell.

spoiler 4y ago

If you could you humor me: if he came out saying Russians blew up the pipeline, would you have the same stance? These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two powers. I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it seems like that's the only thing people are focusing on because it makes the situation simple for them, and it's easiest to have a single villain and the rest are the good guys. I assume most people offended by this submission here are American (or at least heavily support America) and want to think of their current government/country as the good guys. I don't think there's any good guys in this situation.

twblalock 4y ago
If there is no evidence my reaction will be the same no matter who gets blamed or who wrote the article.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> if he came out saying Russians blew up the pipeline, would you have the same stance? Of course. You don't think there are people claiming to have anonymous sources about Putin doing all manner of things?
ohmaigad 4y ago
> These tensions have been brewing between NATO (mostly America) and Russia for at least a decade. It's unfortunate that the situation escalated in Ukraine though, which AFAIK is the victim in the scheming and plotting of those two powers. As a person from Eastern Europe this is literal Russian propaganda or in simple words - dogshit. You know why somebody like Baltic countries wanted to get in NATO? Because Russia was/is a genuine threat after these countries were deoccupied from the Soviet Union. Russia thinks that these former Soviet Union countries are still their own property, they can't imagine that these countries don't want to live "the Russian way".
- cdelsolar 4y ago
  why is this downvoted/flagged?

pohl 4y ago

Hersh also tried to minimize the Skripal novichok poisoning story, didn't he?

trwhanh 4y ago

What else can you do with this article? We don't know if the source is correct, but it is clearly notable. Wasn't Watergate also reported relying on a single source (deep throat)?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]