4
points
disgrunt
Joined 638 karma
Fuck off.
- That comment was four months ago. And it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Guess that qualifies as "repeated" in your book? Seems like a stretch.
What name did I call the other poster? I remarked that he appears to have a Fauci bromance, but that was after the "Aw jeez" sarcastic / flame bait comments. Prior to that I was commenting in good faith. And frankly, pointing out someone has a bromance for someone else after they've lavished praise upon that person in two separate comments does not name calling make. It's an observation, one that wasn't refuted by the other poster. Furthermore, despite being accused of having not read a paper because of a typo, I stuck to good faith commenting by quoting directly from said paper.
Can't help but notice I'm being banned for largely benign comments in a thread where I speculate about Fauci's conflict of interest. Comments other commenters expressed agreement. But the poster making sarcastic / bad faith comments who is defending Fauci gets off with a warning.
This conduct is your political battle, dang. Which is both not cool and, in my opinion, actively hurting debate on HN. HN would benefit from more balanced moderation.
- > You've broken the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously in this thread. We ban accounts that do that.
What guidelines have I "repeatedly and egregiously" broken in this thread? Was it the pointing out that a monetary gain is not a requirement for a conflict of interest? Was it where I asked the other poster if they thought Fauci had a duty of care to disclose his involvement in activities that some might see as a conflict of interest? Was it pointing out the fact that Fauci is the highest paid government official in the federal government (with citation)? Was it referencing and quoting Fauci's paper from 2012? Or was it me pointing out the other poster's bad faith responses to my comments (with the "Aw jeez")?
I've read the HN guidelines and this decision is not inline with them.
- > It's still not clear to me what the conflict of interest is. The amount of money is kind of important, because it gives you an idea of the level of involvement. As I said, $600K over 5 years is very little money, it basically makes sure you get the results of whatever research is already being done.
Maybe he's covering his own ass? Maybe he's trying to protect gain of function research? He was, after all, the most vocal proponent that the risks with gain of function research were worth it. [0]
> The top scientist in the country, with several Ph.Ds, 50 years of experience in a both public leadership and an incredibly complicated branch of biology, is making roughly what a staff engineer at a FAANG company makes...and you are complaining? That's the bargain of the century. He's a sick fuck for actually sticking it out - he could have bailed and consulted on "return to the office" for all the big tech and entertainment companies. He is 80 years old, working insane hours, and probably would have made more money in 6 months than he has in his whole public career from a really nice beach. You will never convince me that THIS is the smoking gun that proves Dr. Fauci corrupt, finally, after 50 years in public service. It's too stupid.
Oh, ok. So before his only reward was his "public servant salary", but now that you know he's the most highly paid government official (including the President) his salary is now being compared to FAANGs and he's underpaid. What a sacrifice.
[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484390/
Edit: Fix typo.
- > It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know.
So it is not a conflict of interest because of the sum of money? Someone doesn't need to gain anything to be in conflict, by definition: "a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible."
Do you at least think he had a duty to disclose his involvement/investment in gain of function research? Specifically with the Wuhan lab at the center of this?
> As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the public. For this, his reward is a public servant's salary. Seriously, what's he getting here for his supposed "deception"?
Did you know he's the most highly paid government official? His measly public servant salary only paid him $417K. [0]
[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/01/25/dr-...
- > If you really want justice then you need a coherent statement of the offense, there should be a fair hearing with representatives of all sides, there should be impartial review whether that be trained judges or a selected jury of peers or whatever else, and so on.
Cool. Since China is the source of this virus, can they take the lead here? I'll wait.
- No, that's what the CIA is for. [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...
- I consider principal engineers / architects "astronauts". They've spent so much time floating around they've forgotten what solid ground feels like. They're both disoriented and atrophied when it comes to engineering. It's a trap. You'll eventually have to come back down to earth, and the longer you spend in this role the harder it will be.
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> Did you even read that paper? I doesn't say what you are claiming at all. It says they're going to hold a conference to determine if it's worth the risks, and says they should continue the moratorium while they do more research. Ah jeez.
A bad faith comment ("did you even read your link?") followed by a sarcastic "Aw jeez". Sure, two wrongs don't make a right, but only one wrong is being banned. For rthe record, I don't think the other poster should be banned, either.
> It doesn't change the ban, because that wasn't the reason for banning you. As I explained, we ban accounts that use HN primarily for political/ideological battle. Surely you're not arguing that your account hasn't been doing that? It plainly has.
I used HN for debate. It is difficult, if not impossible to avoid treading into political/ideological realms. I've gone through your comment history and have found numerous examples of you entering into the political/ideological yourself. If you need examples, I'd be happy to provide some recent ones. But I brought more than political/ideological debate to HN, I also submitted scientific papers, recently declassified documents and other materials that (at least to me) were of interest. But that's not the point, the banning of all "political/ideological battles" is a shortsighted policy that will eventually render HN a dead sea where nothing interesting is discussed because no ideas can be openly challenged.
> Everyone in this situation feels like we're only banning them because we secretly disagree with their politics, but the truth is that we do these bans regardless of what the account is battling for or against. We're trying to enforce the guidelines because the guidelines are the best blueprint we have for the kind of forum HN is supposed to be.
Well, you had to go back four months for a previous guideline violation and my account is only six months old. Two strikes and I'm out I guess, and the previous violation was a throwaway comment that wasn't targeting anyone. Seems like I was on a list (of sorts) and this was as good an excuse as any to ban me. But banning posters for expressing political/ideological viewpoints is itself a political/ideological battle. The political/ideological views that survive on HN (and they do) are nested firmly in your political/ideological blindspots. Which is why I suggest a more balanced approach to moderation would ensure that at least this poorly thought out policy is applied more evenly.
> If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means using HN for curious, thoughtful conversation, not getting into flamewars, not trying to smite enemies, and so on.
No, that's ok. I think I brought considerably more good faith debate to HN than anything else. It may not have aligned with your political/ideological sensibilities, but there's little I can proactively do about that minefield. The "rules" won't save me here.