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Comment by rTX5CMRXIfFG | Hacker News Reader

These days, whenever someone is being presented as an absolute villain (as in the case of Holmes), comments sections tend to have not a few posts about how the things they’ve done, from a different vantage point, are understandable, or morally ambiguous and not objectively evil, or even amoral. I’m completely opposed to what she has done, but could there be any reason why we all seem to be unanimous that she is objectively evil?

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Because she messed with the financial life and physical life of people. Also she used the enthusiasm shared by people who like to advance technology to manipulate people which is a grave sin for the kind of audience you'll find here.

Her main excuse is that she was manipulated by her COO but it seems unlikely. As evil as defrauding investors can be she was it. She also seemed pretty comfortable scamming medical techs and patients. There's just no way she didn't know she was selling snake oil. Maybe she started out with pure wishful thinking that if she talked enough she could will her device into existence but once it started actually testing blood it was way past the line. She was the CEO, she knew it was fake technology, she lied at every opportunity.

Exactly. Anybody can be making a company and say they haven’t done it yet but are making progress.

She said it works and that was a lie. A lie that affect lives and economics of rich and poor alike. Bad combination.

I really don't think there's much of a "there" there. In addition to the points others have made, she wouldn't have even gotten off the ground with this if she'd been a nobody from a poor family. Leveraging her family's connections was an essential part of the process and makes the whole thing even more shady.

While the case against her was about defrauding investors, a strong case could also be made that, for the sake of her own wealth, fame, and success (she notably wanted to be "the next Steve Jobs"), she defrauded anybody looking for medical assistance.

Fucking around with people's health just to get rich and famous is evil.

I think it's because of the weird eyes and deep voice. Honestly. There is something deeply unsettling about her. If she didn't do the wide eye and deep voice thing she'd be very attractive and people would think differently. They'd probably defend her saying she was manipulated and trusted the wrong people etc.

The evidence.

I don't think it's any sort of prejudice (sexism, high flyer, etc), her behaviour seems to speak for itself.

I don't see many call murderers or other serious criminals understandable. Holmes is a serious criminal, why would you expect to find people defending her? I haven't seen anyone defend Jeffrey Skilling either.

Yes

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