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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

>nausea, severe headaches, ear pain, fatigue, insomnia and sluggishness

all these symptoms are virtually indistinguishable from any meal at The Cheesecake Factory, so call me skeptical. Its also an attack that cannot be detected by the worlds most sophisticated military, so, occhams razor.. the question im interested in hearing the answer to:

can you retire with full pension early from civil service in the embassy if you can prove a medical affliction or disability.

also worth noting the research on the matter isnt exactly concrete. no peer reviewed studies exist to even corroborate an attack at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome#Studies_regard...

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They are also indistinguishable from the symptoms of overworking for months. Or severe depression for that matter. I think it bears investigating but I agree with you that there is such a simple answer of pyschosomatic illness here that we must have some real proof. Otherwise I worry that all this hyperbolic coverage will do is increase the number of people experiencing symptoms.

They have found evidence of brain damage with MRIs. Can't fake that.

https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2019/july/ad...

Your occhams razor is that a large number of people are collectively faking symptoms to get a few years out on pension? IS this satire?

The number of American citizens experiencing symptoms was 26 as of June 2018.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-usa-diplomats/us-say...

so uh, yeah, im guessing there are a few dozen people who might want out.

Well it's not June 2018, is it? There are hundreds of people now saying they're suffering from this. There's a chance that some of them are lying, and some of them are misinformed, but it's incredibly unlikely that all of them are incorrect.

Why is this so surprising? This is something people have been doing for decades in most welfare societies.

Not on novel, source-unknown diseases that garner significant attention and likely dedicated medical research. Be smarter than this.

Yes, they have. Consider being more careful with your tone in talking to strangers online, you come across as arrogant.

People have, and possibly, some of the people here have done so, but it is INCREDIBLY unlikely that HUNDREDS of people have all decided that they're just going to make it up and lie to try and get a medical retirement. That's utter nonsense. There have been medical examinations of these people that have confirmed brain trauma. Nor have these people all even tried to retire early as a result. Some (many? MOST?) of them still want to work, though some are still medically unable.

This is a bad theory. It's really fucking stupid to be frank.

We should feel 100% comfortable calling out nonsense as such. I'm aware this comes off as arrogant. But "There is nothing wrong, it's just hundreds of people making up a disease / international attack to get out of work" is so pathetically ungrounded that such aggressiveness is, imo, justified, if the broad consensus isn't immediately that the idea is nonsense.

I'm really disgusted by how some ignorant folks are so quick to gaslight chronically ill people.

Russian agents have allegedly been using directed energy microwave weapons for years. That's a known fact.

The “allegedly” and “known fact” in your last two sentences are wildly dissonant. It’s a known fact that this is alleged?

Yes, the suspicion is a "known fact". Openly talked by the CIA, although there is no proof: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/10/russia-gru-directed...

I don't see a problem with the sentence.

That CIA says it, isn't a reason to believe it.

Sure, the most powerful intelligence agency in the World has no idea what they are doing. We should instead trust some tinfoil conspiracy from nobodies like you.

What else? NASA is lying about the shape of the Earth?

Don't get emotional. NASA shows us pictures and publishes scientific data. CIA leaks anonymously to sockpuppet access journalists. Can you really not tell the difference? They claim they lie because it's their job to do so. [0] Actually they lie so that their employers (that's us!) won't be forced to acknowledge how little CIA knows about anything.

If CIA actually had "powerful intelligence", they would occasionally be right about something. A month ago they were sure the Afghan government could control Taliban for at least a week. 15 years ago they were sure Osama was actually in Afghanistan. 20 years ago they had no idea he was planning terrorism. 35 years ago they had no idea that Soviet communism was in a weak position.

Of course, some CIA reptiles might have known about all of those things. Since they didn't communicate that knowledge to USA elected officials or the USA public, that doesn't really count.

[0] https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/We-Lied-Cheated-and-Stol...

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