Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Doc Met with Shock and Awe at Secret Screening | Hacker News Reader

Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Doc Met with Shock and Awe at Secret Screening

vanityfair.com

36 pointsTeever27 comments

I haven't been able to get a clear answer to my question about Theranos: Was what she offered obviously impossible? That's my understanding. Blood is not homogeneous so it is physically impossible to get an accurate full blood panel from a single drop. Was there every any plan to address this or was it clearly a 100% fictitious product from the get-go? Did any journalist ever ask her or any scientist at Theranos about this problem? If not, then what were the scientists at Theranos doing all day? Were they all in on the scam? Or were there no scientists?

I just don't get how you can spend years pretending to build something so obviously impossible.

I believe I read something about this film featuring a moment where Nathan insists that since she's innocent that they must go to the back yard to confirm how this machine works. Or something along those lines - in any case the absurdity of "I totally believe you, let me help you prove them wrong".

What I'm reminded of is that documentary The Jinx which basically takes you along for the ride until the subject accidentally confesses. Documentary filmmaking is so weird - there is always the element of fiction and make believe that somehow manages to get at the truth

A mix of needing a paycheck, "fake it till you make it" and psychopathy.

My understanding from articles, they had scientists hard at work trying to get their machine to work and the issues that were essentially maintenance (you really couldn’t have a testing machine like this that didn’t require expensive / regular maintenance as promised). The amount of blood wasn’t really even addressed yet and they faked results in house using competitors machines.

In house teams were not optimistic, but they got paid to experiment and try so they did.

Yes it is obviously impossible, as anyone familiar with the subject could (and did) say. You can't detect something that is so dilute that there isn't even a single molecule of it in a single drop of blood drawn from a capillary.

My impression from the book is that companies "knew" is was bogus, but the FOMO was so strong.. "but what if it isn't, and our competitor gets it, and we don't", that they stayed along for the ride.

'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49596119

Trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPhJLtzKk68

That's a news report. Here's a link to the teaser trailer published by A24: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJSRFWALTI

This movie is getting lots of publicity without a single review saying anything about the actual contents.

“Contents: Lizzy Holmes”. That’s all you need.

plenty of reviews with varying praise

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/you_can_see_everything/revi...

"A triumphant, riveting, and continually shape-shifting piece of creative non-fiction with curiosity and a playful sense of uncomfortable humor that will be no surprise to anyone familiar with Fielder’s work, it’s the kind of documentary that is persistently inquisitive and skeptical: both about its alarmingly wide-eyed subject who often refuses to blink, and the process of documentary filmmaking itself."

"You Can See Everything reaches for accuracy in its portrayal of a much talked-about figure. It ends up asking, with plenty of humor but no small amount of wisdom, what “accuracy” would even look like in the first place."

The trailer for the documentary is such a draw, due to the subject, and also how close they were able to get. She is a mythical character in many ways yet a tech Lance Armstrong.

She's not mythical. She's a female psychopath and that characteristic is fascinating for many people.

Only the female part is fascinating to them. Otherwise we'd see more high level dude psychopath scammers in prison.

But it's not the justice system; it's TV. And we have lots of psycho male scammers on TV.

SBF. Lance Armstrong. Both in a similar vein and both as fascinating.

Her lackey got more prison time than she did, even though he was following her orders.

even though he was following her orders.

I guess you missed World War II, and the trials that followed. "Following orders" isn't an excuse for anything.

It's not an excuse, but we hanged the guys giving the orders, too.

Her incredibly low-rate of eye blinks is extremely off-putting/disturbing for me.

Anyone else get the same vibe?

> and also how close they were able to get

... How close they were able to get to what? What they were promising was _literally impossible_.

Rehabilitating her image in the same format as Martha Stewart promises to be highly profitable for pre-public investors who can reap the holdings of bagholders yet to come.

I assure you that Nathan Fielder is not rehabilitating her image. If you’ve see his work, you’d understand.

He gets people with personality disorders or a lack of embarrassment to act insane in front of cameras, more or less. I don’t see why that would change, given the subject. She tried to get out of prison by having a baby.

> He gets people with personality disorders or a lack of embarrassment to act insane in front of cameras, more or less.

When Harrison Ford does it it's called acting. When I do it men with an extra long sleeve white jacket appear

that is not what will happen here.

Oh just watch the trailer

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