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I'm honestly really shocked by your stance on this. Regardless of whether or not this information is credible, this seems like text book flame war kindling. In

I'm honestly really shocked by your stance on this. Regardless of whether or not this information is credible, this seems like text book flame war kindling. In the past, I've thought HN's policy of "you can discuss things like this in other forums" was wise and I've been corrected by it myself many times. Why wouldn't that apply in this case?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
One thing that makes this distinct from much of said kindling is that it hasn't been reported on before. This isn't someone coming into an unrelated comment thread and commenting "9/11 was an inside job!" I would encourage any who disagree to consider truly why this reporting upsets them.
- Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
  I get really upset when claims are made without evidence to support them. It might be a moral failing of mine, but for some reason I really loathe when assertions are made without evidence.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence. > Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.” "This is ... complete fiction." is a claim that the story was fabricated. I think it's worth examining who would be doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain, especially considering who is making the counter-claim and what they would have to gain from that.
    - Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
      >One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence. Are you familiar with Christopher Hitchens? That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Until the author provides evidence of their claims, there's nothing required to dismiss them.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        Maybe it's because I see a distinction between "dismiss" and "deny". Where someone might dismiss ("There is no evidence to back up these claims") there are instead denials ("They made this up"). Anyway, I don't mean to change your mind, just to provide a different perspective.
        Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
        I think there's a trivial semantic difference between the two terms. The assertion that someone made up a story is the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no evidence to back up their claims.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        I don't see the difference as so trivial. Using my previous statements, "There is no evidence to back up these claims" is an observation which allows for the listener to draw their own conclusion and "They made this up" is a conclusion that's being asserted. > The assertion that someone made up a story is the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no evidence to back up their claims. It is a logical conclusion. One might still arrive at a different logical conclusion.
        Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
        I see. For instance, it might not have been them who made it up, it could have been someone else. However, given all of the information known at the time, there's little evidence to suggest that anyone aside from them was responsible for the assertions without evidence, which again leads to the same logical conclusion.
    - nawgz 4y ago
      > I think it's worth examining who would be doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain Sure. Russia and geopolitical destabilization > who is making the counter-claim and what they would have to gain from that This part doesn't make sense to me - the accused party naturally is the one making the "counter-claim", and naturally they will make "counter assertions" without evidence - how do you disprove an unfalsifiable claim? I overall don't think your comments really align. "The US has done bad things in the past" doesn't mean "all accusations of bad things pointed at the US should be treated with credibility and have to be disproved with an ironclad case by the US to not garner further suspicion"
    - vinaypai 4y ago
      I assert that you are a Russian agent personally appointed by Vladimir Putin, paid $250,000 through a bank in the Cayman Islands, tasked with sowing discord in the US by posting fictitious stories on Hacker News. Care to comment?
      - hef19898 4y ago
        You are obviously wrong, because I have a source saying it was bitcoin and to cover it up the agent conspiered with other exchanges to take down FTX.
- davesque 4y ago
  I'm sure there are countless examples of "breaking" stories that were appropriately shot down by the flagging system. What I don't understand is why that flagging system should be short circuited in this case. HN users often flag stories like this because political discussions almost always devolve into useless flame wars. Again, I don't see why a conversation about this story would be any different. And I'm especially surprised to see this take by @dang, who seems to be forgetting his years of forum moderating experience in this case. HN is not in a position to determine the success of breaking news and this story fits the mold of things that are usually flagged. Let other credible media sources start picking up on the story if it turns out to amount to anything. Before then, let this one die just as the others like it do on HN.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > it hasn't been reported on before Wasn't the U.S. being behind the bombing a leading alternative hypothesis when the news broke?
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    I'm not even sure it's an "alternative" hypothesis - it's sort of the obvious conclusion, in terms of means, motive and opportunity, that the US sabotaged the pipeline. I bet a poll of US citizens would show a clear majority believe the US to be the culprit, but a minority have a problem with it. And so you get this situation where everyone kind of accepts the truth but different people have varying levels of enthusiasm for publicly arguing about it. Even extending to the international community (which is generally a reflection of American politics, much to the chagrin of Europeans who are unwilling to admit it), there is mixed levels of enthusiasm for getting to the truth. The countries are all anti-Russia, and so the pipeline sabotage is generally seen as a "good thing" except by the countries with direct profit motive for it. However, those countries aren't about to publicly accuse US intelligence of carrying out the operation, because their relationship with US intelligence is too important to lose, especially given all the weapons and intelligence they provide.
  - nullc 4y ago
    I was extremely mystified by a BBC world report on it a day after making no mention of the US but instead theorizing about russian sabotage. It just seemed inexplicable to me at the time because of Biden's prior remarks. In that light I can't see how anyone wouldn't immediately assume the US didn't do it-- the US hadn't even denied it at the time!
- BWStearns 4y ago
  Amusing you should say that given that the author is literally a 9/11 truther (truther light maybe, but still)[0]. Hersh has clearly become a gullible mark the past decade or so who lets otherwise justified skepticism of US policy curdle into useful idiocy. [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-interview-novichok-russian-hacking-9-11-nerve-agent-attack-a8459596.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-...
dang 4y ago
Because it's interesting. Hersh reporting on it is an interesting story in its own right. Is what he says true? I have no idea. We don't have a truth meter here.
- hef19898 4y ago
  But we do have a proofen and working mechanism: Flagging. If the submission doesn't get flagged, cool. If it does, it does. I don't see a reason to intervene here.
  - dang 4y ago
    Unfortunately it's not that simple. The flagging system works well, arguably better than the upvoting system does, but you can't just rely on these systems in an unsupervised way—it leads to suboptimal outcomes. Another way of putting this is that moderation is necessary to jig the software+community systems out of their failure modes. You can of course argue that I've made a wrong call in this case, but the point I'm making here is different: you need moderators who make judgment calls, including to override flags sometimes. And of course no one is ever going to get the calls 100% right; we have failure modes too.
    - dmatech 4y ago
      I see far more bickering over whether or not this article is appropriate than actual discussion of the article, which is unfortunate. Unsubstantiated claims can be dismissed, but there's no requirement to do so. The NS2 destruction itself is a notable story, and it's worth discussing as resource dependence is important.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  This is not just a story, but a news story. It is supposed to state facts, not juggle with hypothesis.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > Because it's interesting No. It's interesting to you.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago

One thing that makes this distinct from much of said kindling is that it hasn't been reported on before. This isn't someone coming into an unrelated comment thread and commenting "9/11 was an inside job!" I would encourage any who disagree to consider truly why this reporting upsets them.

Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
I get really upset when claims are made without evidence to support them. It might be a moral failing of mine, but for some reason I really loathe when assertions are made without evidence.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence. > Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, “This is false and complete fiction.” Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: “This claim is completely and utterly false.” "This is ... complete fiction." is a claim that the story was fabricated. I think it's worth examining who would be doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain, especially considering who is making the counter-claim and what they would have to gain from that.
  - Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
    >One thing to keep in mind is that counter assertions have been made without evidence. Are you familiar with Christopher Hitchens? That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Until the author provides evidence of their claims, there's nothing required to dismiss them.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
      Maybe it's because I see a distinction between "dismiss" and "deny". Where someone might dismiss ("There is no evidence to back up these claims") there are instead denials ("They made this up"). Anyway, I don't mean to change your mind, just to provide a different perspective.
      - Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
        I think there's a trivial semantic difference between the two terms. The assertion that someone made up a story is the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no evidence to back up their claims.
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        I don't see the difference as so trivial. Using my previous statements, "There is no evidence to back up these claims" is an observation which allows for the listener to draw their own conclusion and "They made this up" is a conclusion that's being asserted. > The assertion that someone made up a story is the logical conclusion to the assertion that there is no evidence to back up their claims. It is a logical conclusion. One might still arrive at a different logical conclusion.
        Haunted_Cabbage 4y ago
        I see. For instance, it might not have been them who made it up, it could have been someone else. However, given all of the information known at the time, there's little evidence to suggest that anyone aside from them was responsible for the assertions without evidence, which again leads to the same logical conclusion.
  - nawgz 4y ago
    > I think it's worth examining who would be doing that fabrication and what they would have to gain Sure. Russia and geopolitical destabilization > who is making the counter-claim and what they would have to gain from that This part doesn't make sense to me - the accused party naturally is the one making the "counter-claim", and naturally they will make "counter assertions" without evidence - how do you disprove an unfalsifiable claim? I overall don't think your comments really align. "The US has done bad things in the past" doesn't mean "all accusations of bad things pointed at the US should be treated with credibility and have to be disproved with an ironclad case by the US to not garner further suspicion"
  - vinaypai 4y ago
    I assert that you are a Russian agent personally appointed by Vladimir Putin, paid $250,000 through a bank in the Cayman Islands, tasked with sowing discord in the US by posting fictitious stories on Hacker News. Care to comment?
    - hef19898 4y ago
      You are obviously wrong, because I have a source saying it was bitcoin and to cover it up the agent conspiered with other exchanges to take down FTX.
davesque 4y ago
I'm sure there are countless examples of "breaking" stories that were appropriately shot down by the flagging system. What I don't understand is why that flagging system should be short circuited in this case. HN users often flag stories like this because political discussions almost always devolve into useless flame wars. Again, I don't see why a conversation about this story would be any different. And I'm especially surprised to see this take by @dang, who seems to be forgetting his years of forum moderating experience in this case. HN is not in a position to determine the success of breaking news and this story fits the mold of things that are usually flagged. Let other credible media sources start picking up on the story if it turns out to amount to anything. Before then, let this one die just as the others like it do on HN.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> it hasn't been reported on before Wasn't the U.S. being behind the bombing a leading alternative hypothesis when the news broke?
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  I'm not even sure it's an "alternative" hypothesis - it's sort of the obvious conclusion, in terms of means, motive and opportunity, that the US sabotaged the pipeline. I bet a poll of US citizens would show a clear majority believe the US to be the culprit, but a minority have a problem with it. And so you get this situation where everyone kind of accepts the truth but different people have varying levels of enthusiasm for publicly arguing about it. Even extending to the international community (which is generally a reflection of American politics, much to the chagrin of Europeans who are unwilling to admit it), there is mixed levels of enthusiasm for getting to the truth. The countries are all anti-Russia, and so the pipeline sabotage is generally seen as a "good thing" except by the countries with direct profit motive for it. However, those countries aren't about to publicly accuse US intelligence of carrying out the operation, because their relationship with US intelligence is too important to lose, especially given all the weapons and intelligence they provide.
- nullc 4y ago
  I was extremely mystified by a BBC world report on it a day after making no mention of the US but instead theorizing about russian sabotage. It just seemed inexplicable to me at the time because of Biden's prior remarks. In that light I can't see how anyone wouldn't immediately assume the US didn't do it-- the US hadn't even denied it at the time!
BWStearns 4y ago
Amusing you should say that given that the author is literally a 9/11 truther (truther light maybe, but still)[0]. Hersh has clearly become a gullible mark the past decade or so who lets otherwise justified skepticism of US policy curdle into useful idiocy. [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-interview-novichok-russian-hacking-9-11-nerve-agent-attack-a8459596.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/seymour-hersh-...

dang 4y ago

Because it's interesting. Hersh reporting on it is an interesting story in its own right. Is what he says true? I have no idea. We don't have a truth meter here.

hef19898 4y ago
But we do have a proofen and working mechanism: Flagging. If the submission doesn't get flagged, cool. If it does, it does. I don't see a reason to intervene here.
- dang 4y ago
  Unfortunately it's not that simple. The flagging system works well, arguably better than the upvoting system does, but you can't just rely on these systems in an unsupervised way—it leads to suboptimal outcomes. Another way of putting this is that moderation is necessary to jig the software+community systems out of their failure modes. You can of course argue that I've made a wrong call in this case, but the point I'm making here is different: you need moderators who make judgment calls, including to override flags sometimes. And of course no one is ever going to get the calls 100% right; we have failure modes too.
  - dmatech 4y ago
    I see far more bickering over whether or not this article is appropriate than actual discussion of the article, which is unfortunate. Unsubstantiated claims can be dismissed, but there's no requirement to do so. The NS2 destruction itself is a notable story, and it's worth discussing as resource dependence is important.
manuelabeledo 4y ago
This is not just a story, but a news story. It is supposed to state facts, not juggle with hypothesis.
threeseed 4y ago
> Because it's interesting No. It's interesting to you.