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Comment by wolfrom | Hacker News Reader

I think "black and white" is a problem here... I see no reason why Arrington can't be right while McClure can honestly believe that there was nothing wrong with the meeting.

Conspiracy theories grow on the basis of black and white, good vs. evil, etc. Outside of programming, aren't we all used to varying shades of gray?

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> Outside of programming, aren't we all used to varying shades of gray?

There are even more colours.

If Arrington is right McClure is wrong, regardless of what he believes. Just because you believe it's legal and moral doesn't make it so. (More so on the former than the latter.)

wolfrom said Arrington right and McClure honestly believe.

Believe is very different to wrong. If Arrington is right, McClure is wrong in his belief. He can still honestly believe it though.

One, or all, of Christians, Muslims and Atheists are wrong in their belief, but they can all honestly believe.

I'm not being pedantic here, if you read wolfrom's statement with the correct meanings you'll see how wrong your comment is, even if you honestly believed it.

I honestly believe you and you are right

I think you misunderstand Sprout's meaning, and that Sprout precisely understands Wolfrom's. Sprout is actually saying just what you say: honest belief can be independent of truth or legality, but Sprout also emphasizes that from a legal point of view the statements of Arr. and McClure are mutual contradictory. An action can be ethically grey, but not legally gray (i.e., there's no such thing as bending the rules without breaking them).

I agree and I think the best approach here is to assume that you should never "trust" Arrington or any other business person (especially media) but that you should constantly read, listen, compare, and assume that you will have to make an educated guess. Chomsky, a staunch critic of the media, is very good at explaining how trust vs. conspiracy theories is never the choice when looking at the media. The issues is that the media may believe what they say but that they may not see the whole truth. It's for you to make your own best educated judgments. And best judgments are usually made by listening to all possible angles, doubting everything you hear, and staying positive in believing that this process will produce good educated actions in your own life, business, etc. That is if you have time to read it all ;-)

If you don't have time to read more than Arrington's TC posts, I would strongly advise against making TechCrunch your only source of info. It's good but it is very opinionated, like Arrington is.

The law isn't black & white either (despite what engineers would like to believe).

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