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Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

As others have said in previous threads, this girl wasn't conducting a science experiment, she was blowing something up.

Those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

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True, but in this case, they were, because she was blowing something up... not conducting a science experiment. Which was the point of his post.

"Experiment" in this case has, I think, a somewhat fuzzy definition. From her perspective, calling it a "science experiment" probably makes perfect sense.

Yeah, maybe cooking meth is a science experiment too in a certain light.

OK, well call it what it really is then: a science demonstration.

Her first statement while being interviewed was that she was performing a science experiment. That story changed under interview, and she later admitted someone told her how and encouraged her to do it.

How is the former different from the latter? Is that not still science? Are you not doing science if a teacher directs you to perform experiments for a grade?

You mean, aside from the one being empirical, and the other just being a pyrotechnics demo?

It makes no difference with respect to her punishment. It was unfair no matter what. I'm just pointing out the technicality.

The point of mixing the chemicals and doing the procedure yourself is to understand it properly. Just being told about it in vague terms is far inferior in terms of learning.

It becomes a mere 'demo' once you're well-practiced in the specific procedure. And she wasn't.

@dylan -- no kidding, that's why my comment says "With respect to her punishment"

I'm curious, what is your underlying motivation for taking a contrarian position in this discussion?

Edit: I ask because I'd like to think that a thread on HN can come to some kind of understanding instead of an escalating spiral of heated arguments.

Look around at the replies to me and the downvote beating I'm taking for sharing my opinion. Turn on showdead for an even more depressing trip through my replies. Then ask yourself if this can ever come to an understanding without me seeing the "error of my ways" and adopting the "acceptable" position of this community. Then, go even further, and ask yourself if it matters one iota of a shit more than the several minutes I've already spent subjecting myself to this beating, including someone telling me I should play with anthrax and die for fuck's sake. Then turning it around on me and calling it my fault after I called him out on it (and got downvoted yet fucking again for doing so!).

The answer is, very clearly, absolutely not on all accounts. Hacker News does not tolerate dissenting opinion and that should scare you. The continued existence of this community and any contribution is plainly pointless, and while I'd invest a little time demonstrating that to you, I know that nobody will listen, I'll turn light gray, and this community will go back to having a grand old time patting themselves on the back throwing money at a Florida teenager they have never, and will never, meet nor hear about ever again.

One of the (many) problems in our discourse today is that there is no middle. No compromise. Ever. Look at American politics for an example. Even in this discussion here, there was no possible suggestion that I might be a little right, no possible seeking of an understanding, no middle ground. You either think this girl deserves our showering of praise and affection or you suffer the consequences and get grayed to nonexistence.

No, nitrogen. I'm done. You guys can have your polarized, pointless discussion, and I will go back to keeping my opinions to myself. Just like I'm pretty much done with this industry, as well, because it seems like the number of intolerable people that I have to spend nine to five arguing with, over pointless shit like this, continues to multiply until I don't want to listen any more.

I started this account when a good guy, Jesse Noller, had has life threatened by the very people in this industry for daring to intervene in the PyCon situation. I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I could effect some change and get people to see that there is a middle, there is a compromise, there is an opportunity for discussion. When I follow the community, I am rewarded with heaps of karma -- including one comment with dozens of upvotes for saying what HN wants to hear. When I dare speak against the community, as I have here, I am reminded why I keep my distance and why those of us who think rationally consider this community a heaping pile of arrogant shit. You should hear what people outside HN say about it, based on discussions like this. Congratulations, HN. You're now Slashdot. You're now the community that in a single thread compared a teenager that built a bomb in a two-liter bottle to Alfred Nobel and Marie Curie.

In the hours since you left this question for me, I went to see a film and forgot about Hacker News for four hours, and it was four glorious, wonderful hours I intend to repeat. Continuously, for the rest of my days.

If it means anything, in my opinion, we are observing a selection bias here: sociopaths and psychopaths feel the need to demonstrate the acceptable social behavior and, as additional safety measure, outrage over deviant behavior. Since they cannot tell either of these they end up mimicking each other and going ballistic over anything that differs from themselves.

If you take them seriously it's rather disgusting. However, I look at this as teenagers talking about sex (that they have not had yet), when everyone thinks he is the only virgin and is vigorously trying to hide this fact from his peers (who are doing exactly the same).

Can you be seriously offended by them? I cannot.

I'm glad you took the time to write this response. Part of the problem with this thread is that people defending Kiera Wilmot aren't just defending her, they're defending themselves. They did similar (or more extreme) things, and they know their lives would have been ruined by the kind of response demonstrated by school and government officials in her case. They know that society might lose decades of valuable contribution from a healthily curious girl, and think of what their lives would be like if their youthful indiscretions had destroyed their own careers.

People implicitly defending their own identities have a much harder time backing down or seeing the implicit defense of identity in the other side's arguments, so you have two sides escalating to ever more extreme examples until the discussion devolves into shouting and namecalling.

There were some deplorable comments that will no doubt be cited by others as examples of HN's terribleness (though you should note that you're the one who brought up anthrax). But there was also an inspiring rally around someone who looked like she could use some support. Sadly, not everyone who deserves this kind of attention gets it (like the Novato teenagers you mentioned in another comment).

In the end, your life will be perfectly fine without HN, HN will carry on without you, and eventually it'll either get better, or reach the point where everyone interested in rational discussion will leave. But if not HN, where? HN seems to have much less of a hivemind than, say, Groklaw. What other community is as consistently articulate (outside of stories about Apple ;-P), even if they're articulately vile and wrong?