Comment by memkit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by memkit | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> To the extent glyphosphate is problematic, it's in being toxi [2], not carcinogenic.

This is a fair assessment based on the published scientific literature. But you have to take into account the fact that the owners of glyphosate have

1) surveilled, harassed, defamed, and threatened individual scientists and

2) paid millions of dollars to ethically dubious scientists to publish articles in favor of the safety of glyphosate

3) paid billions of dollars to victims of glyphosate exposure because they were found liable (or thought they would be) of causing them harm

Given those facts, I think it's reasonable to assume that glyphosate is pretty f*cking bad for you and it's truly mind boggling that people feel the need to defend it.

It feels like everyone you talk to on the topic is a bureaucrat in the Soviet Union engaging in doublespeak. Clearly, the people harassing, threatening, surveilling, defaming, and bribing are the baddies. Clearly, they have something to hide.

> you have to take into account the fact that the owners of glyphosate have...

Monsanto was absolutely shady. That doesn't change the biochemistry of glyphosphate.

> it's reasonable to assume that glyphosate is pretty f-cking bad for you

Almost every industry has someone being shady. Concluding adversely from that is not reasonable. (It's literally ad hominem, concluding an argument by way of the speaker's character and motives.)

You said "Roundup definitely causes cancer in humans" and then provided sources. Your sources don't support that assertion beyond a very weak definition of causation, at which point we're back to it being similarly carcinogenic to widely-consumed foodstuffs.

Sure, there aren't many sources on my side of the argument because everyone who tried to publish was either threatened, harassed, surveilled, or bribed.

I'll give you that one.

> there aren't many sources on my side of the argument because everyone who tried to publish was either threatened, harassed, surveilled, or bribed

Right, a global conspiracy despite the repeated attempts by scientists who were being funded by interests opposite to Monsanto's trying to find evidence.

If you want a conspiracy, try this one: focus people on the provably-weak claims around carcinogenicity to distract from the stronger ones around toxicity.

> Right, a global conspiracy

It's not up for debate. It happened.

We know the threats, harassment, surveillance, and bribery happened. We know the specific people, the specific threats, the specific dollar amounts.

> It's not up for debate. It happened

False equivalence and straw man [1][2]. You claimed "everyone who tried to publish was either threatened, harassed, surveilled, or bribed." You're trying to conclude that argument by showing some people were threatened, harassed, surveilled or bribed.

Going back to your first post, you made a claim and provided sources that don't support it. Now you're backing up into, essentially, "trust me." This isn't arguing in good faith.

> We know the threats, harassment, surveillance, and bribery happened. We know the specific people, the specific threats, the specific dollar amounts

Sure. These actions apply to plenty of things. That doesn't prove the inverse.

The bottom line is there is a multi-billion dollar pay-out for anyone who can show Roundup causes cancer. As a $50bn company, Monsanto has weight, but it's in the low tier among the heavyweights.

Hell, if someone has convincing research and is scared, hit me up. I'll indemnify you against civil claims, finance the litigation and even pay for personal security and countersurveillance (if they're caught illegally surveilling, it adds to the damages). In exchange, I want my costs back first plus 51% of the damages.

SIDE NOTE: Memkit looks cool.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

I mean, I agree with your claims about my logical fallacies.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: If we could magically determine the truthiness of all these statements and I had to bet money, I would take my side.

> what I'm trying to say is: If we could magically determine the truthiness of all these statements and I had to bet money, I would take my side.

This is, in my opinion, a more-compelling statement than "Roundup definitely causes cancer in humans. It's well established at this point."

(Also, Roundup != glyphosphate. The nastiest bit in Roundup may be the surfactants [1].)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethoxylated_tallow_amine#H...

I admittedly get annoyed when people link to video and audio, but in this case, the best source I can think of for information about how IARC classification works is a Stronger By Science podcast episode about Aspartame: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-116/

If you ever have five hours to listen to someone geek out over esoteric history and regulatory state stuff, in a way that is presumably somewhat tangential to your political bents (presuming you have no strong opinions about strength training), this is a very good non-political source of information. JumpCrissCross gives the short version, but IARC's class 2 is probably not what you think it is. It's not just that it contains a whole lot of stuff I guarantee you ingest regularly without thinking about it. It's not meant to be an advisory to consumers at all. It's a recommendation to researchers about what sorts of compounds are worth putting further research into. The way the media reports about it is wrong and misleading to the people it scares.

The thing about that fact pattern is I would expect the same thing if the chemical was completely inert. This makes it very difficult to infer guilt or innocence based on Behavior alone

Reply on news.ycombinator.com