Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrandish | Hacker News Reader

While promising "gotcha" revelations there's really nothing surprising or even very controversial here. I'm at the end of a many decades long career in high tech ranging from founding multiple startups to spending the last decade reporting to the C-level at a major tech company in the valley. I've participated in the process of hiring high-end firms to do lobbying work.

Lobbyists are just another form of salesperson or relationship manager outside of conventional sales. Like hiring PR firms (another form of influence sales), they claim to have done shit they actually didn't do. They may have been there at the time it happened but their causal impact was nowhere near what they claim. Even when not exaggerating to get a job, these people wildly over-estimate their own impact.

The headline would more accurately be: "Candidate in competitive job interview for role in influence-sales exaggerates accomplishments and confidently over-promises future results."

(Edit to add: I was in a public company. There was no shortage of candidates (both people and firms) willing to at least imply they would or could do some fairly shady shit. We would thank them for their time and never call them back. While they may collect their fee or paycheck, my boss can go to jail and, at best, I'll only get insta-fired for even participating in the selection process, losing all my unvested options, no one-year severance/benefits.

The downside cost of even being near shady shit in a high-profile successful public company is personally catastrophic in the millions of dollars and a reputation hit to the company that wipes billions off our market cap overnight - and it only has to be the slightest bit true. Sure, you might get away with sleazy shit and get ahead one time. BUT it's not a reliably repeatable pattern and big public companies are built on real revenue and results over time. It's no different than PR. There are sleazy media outlets and/or journalists who can be unfairly influenced for $$$ but they tend to be minor league and not very valuable. At most, spending a lot on effective lobbying or PR gets you access to make your case. And often, you can spend a ton and not even get that much.)

> nothing surprising

I'm upset, not surprised. Does evil suddenly become totally OK and cool just because I know it exists? Of course not.

> or even very controversial here

Hard disagree. The greenwashing faction makes a very big deal of having genuine positive intentions. They got caught in a lie. They got caught so hard that they had to acknowledge the controversy and double down on their position. We have an attack and a counterattack -- blood is running hot. Not only is it controversial, it's maximally controversial.

> I've participated in the process of hiring high-end firms to do lobbying work.

> The headline would more accurately

No, your proposal is not more accurate, but it is more in line with company interests. It works overtime to draw attention away from the inferences that can be drawn from the evidence (i.e. that the greenwashing is a lie and that companies are actively involved in self-interested efforts to curtail environmental efforts) and makes every effort to push the blame down to the individual level. How convenient.

Nice try.

>> nothing surprising

> I'm upset, not surprised. Does evil suddenly become totally OK and cool just because I know it exists? Of course not.

Also, nothing surprising [to someone who's "participated in the process of hiring high-end firms to do lobbying work"] != nothing surprising [to the general public].

Also, it's annoying when someone deflects a statement (implicit or otherwise) about what ought to be with a statement about what is.

I have no idea how you can conclude that this lobbyist is exaggerating his accomplishments, specially considering his career and what Exxon have been doing since the 70s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont...). I guess one could claim that there is nothing "new" into this story, but how can you possibly say that there is nothing controversial regarding being part of a massive decades-long disinformation and anti-environmental campaign?

Well it seems the claims that the lobbyist is making about his contacts with Congress have been denied by the elected officials. They wouldn’t lie would they?

I agree, there is nothing inherently surprising here.

Should this be illegal? Not generally.

Should it be more transparent who lobbies for what? Absolutely. In my opinion meeting notes of politicians / lobbyist ought to be a matter of public record.

Also: is lobbying for policies that directly cause environmental damage and kill people morally corrupt and evil. Yes.

This assessment can go both ways. The fact that he would think these "brags" are going to make him look good shows how bad the intentions here are.

Whether or not these are things he has done, they are things he (and the company) are trying to do.

there's also the poor ethics of greenpeace lying about a job interview as well as releasing that content. way to stay classy greenpeace. Also pretty sure that's illegal in many countries.

>way to stay classy greenpeace.

That's a legitimate strategy by activist organizations.

>there’s the PETA Principle: the more controversial something is, the more it gets talked about.

>A rape that obviously happened? Shove it in people’s face and they’ll admit it’s an outrage, just as they’ll admit factory farming is an outrage. But they’re not going to talk about it much. There are a zillion outrages every day, you’re going to need more than that to draw people out of their shells.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...

> “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” … P.T. Barnum

> “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” … Oscar Wilde

> That's a legitimate strategy by activist organizations.

Maybe. But you’d better be sure you would still feel that way if the ‘activist organisation’ is espousing views you find abhorrent.

I'm not sure the takeaway from that essay is that PETA's tactics are "legitimate". Arguably they are effective (at least in the short term) but it remains to be seen whether the cost of such tactics on society are worth it.

So Project Veritas is ok too. Cool, Glad you can agree on that.

> So Project Veritas is ok too. Cool, Glad you can agree on that.

I believe the actual issue with Project Veritas is the highly deceptive edits they make to their targets' statements, not that they falsely identified themselves to get their targets to talk. It's totally consistent to be opposed to the former and not the latter.

Also, your statement is a non sequitur. It's like responding someone who says it's fine to be a vegetarian by saying they must be fine with Hilter and his genocides (since he was a vegetarian too). Sometimes you can trip people up with statements like that, but it's dumb, doesn't prove anything, and makes you look like an ass.

Your previous statement appeared to say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If you’re going to defend Greanpeace for its deceptive practice, it’s hypocritical to say project veritas is bad.

> Your previous statement appeared to say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If you’re going to defend Greanpeace for its deceptive practice, it’s hypocritical to say project veritas is bad.

I drew a pertinent distinction, which you seem to be ignoring. Or are you confusing me for another commenter? I made no statement previous to the one you replied to.

Did Greenpeace edit this interview to do something like give a false impression of what this guy actually told them? That's what Project Veritas often does. For instance, here's a conservative news outlet dissecting the kind of deceptions they engage in: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2011/03/10/does-raw-video-of-n.... The article outlines a lot of deceptive edits in one video, but some of them are particularly egregious, e.g.:

> So after saying that the MEAC website advocates the “acceptance of Sharia,” the video cuts to the NPR exec saying, “Really? That’s what they said?” The cadence is jovial and upbeat and the narration moves on. The implication is that the NPR exec is aware and perhaps amused or approving of the MEAC mission statement. But when you look at the raw video you realize he was actually recounting an unrelated and innocuous issue about confusion over names in the restaurant reservation.

I mean, that's not too far off from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yJ4QhrAaM&t=57s

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