I think we're talking past each other a bit. In this moment I'm not trying to persuade you of anything about glyphosate though I obviously disagree with you, just saying that there are plenty of us out here who do argue in good faith and asking you to consider that what may look like astroturfing is just honestly held opinions by people who disagree with you. In this case, I read the article, the paper, skimmed a couple of citations from the paper, the Wikipedia article, and a paper cited in Wikipedia on contaminants, especially fluorine, and kidney disease in Sri Lanka. I found it all quite interesting and didn't do it out of a desire to blow off a link (blowing off work on the other hand...).

Sure, if you find a comment section spammed by new accounts with thin histories that look synthetic, call that out. I'm not even trying to persuade you that it doesn't happen (though to me it would feel like a misallocation of resources to do it to HN if you were going to do it). Maybe I'm bad at detecting it as you say.

As for examples, I've mixed up message boards a bit as well as glyphosate/Monsanto, but here's me from 2017 implicitly arguing that controversy over Monsanto suing farmers is a bit overblown (no pun intended): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14794627

From around the same time here's me saying that Monsanto's editing of a paper related to roundup safety was dumb but didn't concern me as far as glyphosate safety: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14974180

In that second link in the wider comments Dang replied to a flagged comment: 'Someone holding a different view than you do is not evidence of bad faith, and the internet trope of you-must-be-a-shill is poison'. I agree with him and it's part of why I enjoy the HN community where this isn't the typical mode of reply.