Comment by szc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by szc | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a poorly sourced and not a reliably fact checked article.

This is at least the 2nd time on HN that a report has suggested Ashley Gjovik was complaining about "toxic chemicals at work". The previous article referred to something published at "The Verge" - "her office is in an Apple building located on a superfund site" <https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22666049/apple-fires-senio...>

Other published articles (and I believe is likely the truth) indicate that the toxic chemical issues were related to her personal living space <https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart...>

The nytimes ought to be very embarrassed about this stupid error.

I note that the personal toxic superfund site issues were previously discussed on HN.

I am also somewhat confused about the persona of "Cher Scarlett". I do not think it is a real identity. I also have some serious doubts if they, or their alter ego, is actually employed at Apple. Reputable journalists could actually verify this with employment and tax records -- journalists would actually have to do the necessary due diligence.

Twitter suggests that "Cher Scarlett" is located in Seattle. (This would make them a remote worker for Apple). Also seemingly making quite a lot of tweets. When does this person do any work for Apple? Is this person the reason why Apple isn't responding to Security reports and the bug bounty program?

After reading many tweets I am failing to detect any comprehension of, or demonstration of, a computer security "mindset" -- something that, in my experience, does tend to manifest itself in the personality of security folks over extended periods of time.

I am unable to determine what sort of security role this person has.

I am not suggesting any malice or ill will towards "Cher Scarlett". I am trying to present this as a technical analysis.

In summary, I really question if "Cher Scarlett" is actually a real person in they way they are presenting themselves to be.

As the other commenters have mentioned, your "technical analysis" is very wrong here. I don't want to rehash the details that the others have mentioned about why you're wrong, but I do want to take a moment to say that what you've posted is pretty much perfectly embodies why many people hate "the orange site". It's these kind of faux-objective breakdowns that really hurt the site as a whole.

I'm willing to believe that you meant well with your comment, but I think you need to realize that even when you attempt to be objective bias creeps up readily. It starts with which stories you even decide to call out. You might feel that this person is fake or lacks the position that she says she has, but fact checking this inherently involves a selection process. Remember when Hacker News decided to "check" whether Katie Bouman had "actually worked on the black hole image"? This is where problems arise, because it's obvious this doesn't happen for everyone–just people that are thought to be "fakes", which is something that is selected by decidedly subjective criteria.

The second problem is that as you go through your analysis you bake in assumptions–in this case many that are wrong–and use it to arrive at an "objective" answer. Trying to reason from your armchair and present it under a guise of factualness is the biggest problem with any kind of "rationalist" analysis on the internet, including the kind that Hacker News is unfortunately known for. Here you literally have no idea of how Apple works internally, and at one point you openly claim that her personal Twitter doesn't demonstrate "a computer 'mindset'" (how can you possibly evaluate this objectively, even putting aside questions of why her Twitter is the right way to judge this?). Trying to submit it as "technical analysis" is just wrong, period.

It's good to be skeptical, and apply your own reasoning to things you read online. But try to be mindful of which things you're choosing to apply it to, as well as any flaws of your own you may be injecting when doing your own evaluation. Hacker News should be a place of healthy curiosity and discussion, but to do that we can't possibly accept this kind of content.

I appreciate your response and agree with what you have said.

I cannot undo what I've said - it is clearly very incorrect. I would like to retract it.

Do you have any recommendations for getting better at critical thinking? How can it be practiced in a way that doesn't get you banned when making mistakes?

I really would like to avoid making these sorts of mistakes in the future.

The first, and possibly the most important part, of critical thinking is to recognize that you can't be right all the time, and embrace the instances where you're wrong as learning opportunities. I am glad to see that you seem to be pretty good at that already :)

Aside from that, I don't actually have anything concrete for you, unfortunately. What's worked for me is reflecting on my own biases and confidence in the information I am bringing to the conversation. In your case here it's clear that you started your comment with "I think this person is fake" and constructed a (tenuous) chain forwards to arrive there using assumptions rather than concrete information. We all do this to some extent, but specifically taking time to look for this kind of thing can help reduce the chances of it happening. Another skill you can learn (generally, by interacting with people you disagree with) is the ability to run your own devil's advocate on your comments. It sounds a bit strange to say it, but a lot of what I write gets much stronger pushback from myself before I even send it than it does once it's out for others to respond to.

As for practice, you can do this anytime you interact with anyone. As long as you are interacting in good faith, an open mind, and with genuine curiosity, people are unlikely to ban you. What you might want to keep in mind, however, is the context surrounding the conversation: getting something wrong about Java is regrettable, sure, but ultimately not a big deal. But outright calling someone a fraud is a pretty serious accusation, especially considering that certain groups of people are often more affected by this problem. When talking about real-life people, you should be very careful about the conclusions you draw and what their consequences may be.

Cher is a real employee, but anything more I'll leave unsaid out of respect for her privacy. Apple employees can easily look up other employees, and there are easy ways to tell whether someone is an Apple employee should they choose to reveal some of those things.

Also I don't know whether she's remote or onsite, but there are multiple orgs with offices in Seattle - one of my friends just got hired as an engineering manager onsite for Apple in Seattle.

Some of these comments could use some fact checking of their own :) .

I agree. What I wrote is incorrect.

> Twitter suggests that "Cher Scarlett" is located in Seattle. (This would make them a remote worker for Apple).

Apple has a large in-person engineering office in Seattle, which is easy to determine from a Google search for 'apple seattle engineering':

https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/search?location=seattle-SEA (scroll down past the retail jobs)

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/signs-point-apple-making-seatt...

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-announces-new-office-s...

https://goo.gl/maps/qhjMUiC9M3HMGMQs7

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your argument. You think this person a) doesn't exist b) doesn't work for Apple c) does exist and works for Apple remotely, because there is no Seattle office d) works for Apple in the critical path for security reports and bug bounties, and is therefore why Apple is (allegedly) not responding to them because she's spending all her day tweeting e) works for Apple in an unknown capacity, which you cannot figure out f) tweets too much g) doesn't tweet enough about a specific security "mindset," which all people in a security role have?

This "technical analysis" doesn't seem to hold up, and I don't see any particular reason to suspect this person doesn't exist. I suspect the journalist's due diligence was more sound.

I appreciate your response. I retract everything I said. It was a very poorly thought out comment.

The article <https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart...> you posted is quite interesting, actually.

I started skeptical, but by the end tended to believe Ashley Gjovik. So I don't know about Cher, and maybe Ashley kind-of got radicalized by her experience, but she does have a lot of evidence about the apartment issue.

Really worth reading. Lots of research. Data. Environmental impact reports. Kickbacks from developers to the city (<https://blogs.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/2014/05/19/sa...>). All kinds of stuff. It's like The Wire.

It makes me look at urban redevelopment differently.

Also makes me think differently about "community investment" and such. How much of this is just bribes and protection money?

Are you suggesting there was not a real complaint about Ashley’s office being on a superfund site, or that you don’t find the claim credible and that therefore the nyt shouldn’t have reported it?

The complaint itself is definitely about the office. https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1438897383912394758?...

I didn't see that. I retract everything I said. It was not a well thought out comment.

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