3 ms·

I know we're supposed to all pretend they don't exist and never talk about them, per the site "guidelines", but there is no doubt in my mind that Monsanto / Bay

I know we're supposed to all pretend they don't exist and never talk about them, per the site "guidelines", but there is no doubt in my mind that Monsanto / Bayer / Roundup / Glyphosate goons are all over this right now. They swarm over stories like this. They gaslight and toxify, flag and bait. They're going to hit this one especially hard, because it's so important.

whalesalad 3y ago
The unfortunate overlap between hackers and monsanto is that the climate corporation (owned by them) is actually a pretty big user of the Clojure language.
- qup 3y ago
  ...why is that important? They probably use javascript, too. And a half-dozen other languages.
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    HN is the main watering hole for anyone doing lisp development.
parineum 3y ago
Is there no possibility that you're misinformed? No room for self reflection?
- mandmandam 3y ago
  I supposed you could prove me wrong: Try to find a HN thread about glyphosate where no one gaslights, deflects, toxifies or baits. Any time, in the whole history of HN. One single story, where no one tries to pretend or insinuate that Roundup / glyphosate is perfectly safe, or attack people / studies / lawsuits that suggest otherwise. The only rule is that it must have at least a dozen comments - there's no need to FUD on stories with no traction. Bonne chance!
  - kirrent 3y ago
    If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. I can't speak for other people but I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads simply because I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general and the specific stories we're discussing are often even weaker, with the comments sections drawing massive conclusions from equivocal evidence. Take this article as an example, people are drawing some quite radical conclusions from it when if you read the original paper, the data isn't strong and the stats are incredibly weak. The authors are hypothesising a quite long pathway from glyphosate in a country with a ban to water contamination to glyphosate-metal complex to kidney disease. Given the lack of existing compelling literature for this chain (and kidney disease in Sri Lanka has seen a lot of study), I'd want to see some compelling evidence, but this paper isn't it. I'm sure you don't want to argue over one specific case but it does bother me how they brush off the far more significant fluorine so easily, treat glyphosate differently in the analysis to all other contaminants, and didn't consider a dose response calculation over all wells between glyphosate and kidney disease. This isn't me deflecting or gaslighting. Just disagreeing and trying to do it as intellectually honestly as I can on a subject which is massively important to the modern world.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. Some people can’t detect astroturf - that’s why it works. Consider that you may be one of them. > I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads Can I see an example? Google couldn't find your name + glyphosate, or + roundup together anywhere. > I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general Respectfully, I don't have any idea who you are. I’ve seen compelling evidence. So have many judges, and respected scientists, and health groups. > This isn't me deflecting or gaslighting. The way you blow off the link between glyphosate and kidney disease is concerning, tbh, but let's say you’re on the level. That does nothing, absolutely nothing, to dispel the notion that a giant corporation with a long history of evil and greed might employ PR goons to spread FUD and manipulate votes to warp a narrative and protect profits.

whalesalad 3y ago

The unfortunate overlap between hackers and monsanto is that the climate corporation (owned by them) is actually a pretty big user of the Clojure language.

qup 3y ago
...why is that important? They probably use javascript, too. And a half-dozen other languages.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  HN is the main watering hole for anyone doing lisp development.

parineum 3y ago

Is there no possibility that you're misinformed? No room for self reflection?

mandmandam 3y ago
I supposed you could prove me wrong: Try to find a HN thread about glyphosate where no one gaslights, deflects, toxifies or baits. Any time, in the whole history of HN. One single story, where no one tries to pretend or insinuate that Roundup / glyphosate is perfectly safe, or attack people / studies / lawsuits that suggest otherwise. The only rule is that it must have at least a dozen comments - there's no need to FUD on stories with no traction. Bonne chance!
- kirrent 3y ago
  If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. I can't speak for other people but I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads simply because I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general and the specific stories we're discussing are often even weaker, with the comments sections drawing massive conclusions from equivocal evidence. Take this article as an example, people are drawing some quite radical conclusions from it when if you read the original paper, the data isn't strong and the stats are incredibly weak. The authors are hypothesising a quite long pathway from glyphosate in a country with a ban to water contamination to glyphosate-metal complex to kidney disease. Given the lack of existing compelling literature for this chain (and kidney disease in Sri Lanka has seen a lot of study), I'd want to see some compelling evidence, but this paper isn't it. I'm sure you don't want to argue over one specific case but it does bother me how they brush off the far more significant fluorine so easily, treat glyphosate differently in the analysis to all other contaminants, and didn't consider a dose response calculation over all wells between glyphosate and kidney disease. This isn't me deflecting or gaslighting. Just disagreeing and trying to do it as intellectually honestly as I can on a subject which is massively important to the modern world.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    > If you think that people saying that glyphosate is safe are arguing in bad faith I can see why you'd think there's a lot of disingenuousness around here. Some people can’t detect astroturf - that’s why it works. Consider that you may be one of them. > I've defended glyphosate in plenty of threads Can I see an example? Google couldn't find your name + glyphosate, or + roundup together anywhere. > I've seen no compelling evidence of any significant danger from it in general Respectfully, I don't have any idea who you are. I’ve seen compelling evidence. So have many judges, and respected scientists, and health groups. > This isn't me deflecting or gaslighting. The way you blow off the link between glyphosate and kidney disease is concerning, tbh, but let's say you’re on the level. That does nothing, absolutely nothing, to dispel the notion that a giant corporation with a long history of evil and greed might employ PR goons to spread FUD and manipulate votes to warp a narrative and protect profits.