Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

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This comment breaks the site guideline against insinuations of astroturfing. Please don't do that on HN. Also, please don't take HN threads further into flamewar generally, and nationalistic flamewar particularly.

On the astroturfing point, anyone who wants more explanation can find reams of it here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... In particular, here's a recent detailed explanation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485935

And here's a recent thread which clearly demonstrates why we have this rule:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19401961

Finally, please don't use the tired trope of "whataboutism" on HN. Clichés like that contain no information, and this one is merely a rhetorical device to exclude something the speaker dislikes. If somebody brings up a point which you don't think is relevant, explain why in specific terms, not by calling generic names.

I explicitly did not insinuate astroturfing. What are you smoking?

You said "agents", which is much the same thing. The whole comment was the sort of insinuation we're asking users not to do here.

I tried to explain this in the other comments I linked to. If you look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485935 in particular, this should be clear.

I literally said "I'm not accusing parent of being related".

That is orthogonal to Confucius Institute agents being trained to use the same tactic that happened to be the most upvoted comment.

I didn't insinuate parent is astroturfing or an 'agent'. I just pointed out that parent is repeating the same mindset that China wants to be repeated, it is literally in Xi's strategy outline. I am sure parent wholeheartedly holds that view and is not a shill or anything of the sort.

But at least I see where the misunderstanding came from.

The curious thing about insinuation is that negation doesn't negate it.

Consider a construct like, "I'm not saying you're a spy, but...". Saying I'm not saying something is a way of saying it.

You are outright failing or refusing to see that the narrative laid out in the comment made no insinuation, explicitly disavowed insinuation, and instead highlighted an alarming parallel. You seem to be the only one having this issue since the other replies to that comment did understand the narrative and din't read it as a shill accusation.

I hope this is in fact a misunderstanding on your part and not reflective of a broader bias.

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