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Comment by shermantanktop | Hacker News Reader

I think you are saying "an NGO probably has an agenda." Ok, sure, they are not robots with no opinions, and if you read even the first few sentences of that report you can see the opinion.

But if you are suggesting that this NGO is carrying water for some unspecified shadowy group that is pulling the strings, you'll need to provide some backing for that. Who has a nefarious motivation to oppose junk food?

Trial lawyers? Misguided do-gooders? Big Celery?

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> motivation to oppose junk food.

On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "clean, unprocessed, organic" product is big business. (I make no claims about this specific NGO).

So you're upset about something that hasn't happened yet?

Yes - the obvious state of dysfunction in food regulation and lack of enforcement in that area has led to an abundance of scam supplement hawkers[1] but I don't think the right conclusion to draw from that is that all criticisms of food regulation are in bad faith - I think it's very fair to say "We should have a serious discussion about our food quality and also we need to crack down on these BS supplements". I think we're all[2] pretty well aligned on the fact that the BS supplements need the crack down but we also should introspect on why so many people are motivated to seek things like that out.

1. I personally enjoy a can of hogwater every day and am happy to give you a referral code.

2. Except those who financially benefit from hawking snake oil, of course.

astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse depending on your point of view. it used to require people to read forums and make posts manually. now, you can automate that with a bot and in multiple languages.

What are you calling astroturfing? If anything, it would be the comment upthread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49127343

"On social media, making dubious claims about food science or food ingredients, then following up by selling some "

It’s only bad if you value the pittance of social trust people occasionally still afford each other. That’s definitely not as cool as another vacation home and a shiny new gofast boat for some of the few thousand people in this country that actually benefit from this sort of large-scale manipulation.

> astroturfing works, and is only getting better/worse

Perhaps one would say 'increasing' or 'decreasing'?

If you think any human endeavour, especially those that relate to handling of money, is without an agenda, I think you'd be wrong. If you also throw in the fact that this money is not taxed, you increase nefarious incentives. And that money can be given without needing to show the names publicly, this doesn't increase comfort.

Finally, even if robots were to run these operations, someone would have to code them and own them, right?

Unfortunately in the current political climate “NGO” is just a hop and a step away from saying “the deep state” for some people. They vaguely gesture to it and talk about it as if it’s a bogeyman.

Not saying they are specifically doing that, but I can’t confidently say they aren’t either

Up vote for Big Celery.

It's not they are not robots with no opinions. The agenda is the reason the organisation exists. NGOs exist to push agendas. If you are on the other side of an agenda it's always "outrageous" the government is funding them of course.

I do not know who is pushing but if you think there is not an entire industry of "healthy" alternatives for the companies in the article, you are very much mistaken.

Hell it might be the artificial sweetener industry, in the UK it's now practically impossible to buy a soda that is not full of artificial sweeteners, excluding regular coca cola, and regular red bull.

Not all NGOs. Some are actually mission focused and spend their money and effort on direct action instead of policy or advocacy. Do you really think the purpose of Doctors Without Borders is to push an agenda? No. They provide care to those who would otherwise receive none, who would suffer and die from poverty as much as illness.

Unfortunately, there are actually people who believe that DWB's purpose is political. Here's an example from the Times of Israel [0].

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/doctors-without-borders-and-th...

The article doesn't back up your comment.

I'm not sure how you can read the article and think it isn't arguing MSF/DWB is political. A few quotes:

    Hamas operatives in Gaza hospitals, failure to screen out terrorists, and politicized leadership erode the Nobel Prize-winning aid group’s claim to neutrality

    While continuing to invoke the language of medical neutrality, its rhetoric has become overtly politicized, most notably in its discourse on Israel.

    From medical neutrality to political advocacy

    This ideological position has also been reinforced at the highest level of MSF’s international leadership.

    That silence leaves the international community to ask whether MSF is advocating for Palestinians or functioning as a humanitarian façade through which terror is laundered by the moral authority of humanitarian medicine.

You can’t bomb hospitals. Period. DWB aren’t hospital admins or responsible for deciding who deserves treatment and who deserves to die. Netanyahu is a war criminal who will go down in history as a monster and a tyrant.

You explicitly can. Like come on, the law specifically says as much.

Literally no: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule28

The laws of war (outside jus ad bello) aren’t that complicated. Don’t shoot the medic is one every combatant benefits from.

1. Medics aren't hospitals. Nor are they any other building for that matter.

2. There's literally an exception right there in the singular sentence you linked to.

1. Distinction without a difference. Medical facilities and personnel marked with the Red Cross are afforded the same protections.

2. Fair enough. It’s still morally wrong to do so if it’s not solely being used as a military facility.

I don't know why you're telling me this. It's not like I agree with the article. I'm offering it as an example of people who think DWB is political.

Yes, they're saying that some members of MSF aren't neutral, which risks the perception of the whole organisation. That's a mile away from saying the organisation is political.

I get what you're saying, but my opinion is that an argument that encompasses everything from local operations up the highest levels of international leadership is an argument about the entire organization.

Considering we have 0 visibility into how their decisions are made and by whom, I think it's naive to claim that an organization's publicly stated "mission" is the only incentive that organization acts on. I don't know anything about DWB, but what determines if an organization has an agenda is the leadership, not their marketing.

This is just inaccurate. There is absolutely transparency and accountability. They generally have public tax filings and a lot of effort goes into to vetting non-profit finances and spending. Leadership are bound by non-profit tax filing requirements and their charters. They set strategy and execution, as do executives at every organization. But they don’t have free rein to do whatever they feel like.

See here for transparency, Charity Navigator is a great resource: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/133433452#beacon-report

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