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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

This is off topic. Nothing that Hari did in the past invalidates his work on the drug war.

There's a pattern on the internet where as soon as someone's name is mentioned, people trot out the #1 worst meme about them and act like it ends the discussion. It's as if there's a big hash table in the sky that maps public figures' names to most-rage-inducing detail, and when a key in the hash table shows up, someone invariably rushes in with the associated value. That is a Pavolvian reflex, not thoughtful discussion. We're going for thoughtful discussion here.

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I'm against permanently "flipping the bozo bit" on any source, and yes, the grandparent post's pure-shunning against-the-person is both unhelpful and corrosive.

But there's a case to be made that the extent of Hari's prior dramatic fabrications still hasn't been recognized, and that he still tends to embellish details in more recent work:

http://www.jeremy-duns.com/blog/2014/9/7/kdgwxcbsned1rknh0h3...

(For me, a compelling excerpt from his book a few months ago – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8919880 – seemed vague and jumbled on timelines enough for me to wonder about the trustworthiness of Hari as a narrator... even though I'm naturally sympathetic to criticisms of the drug war and drug-warriors.)

As wrong as it is to say Hari "is" inherently something bad, it should be fair to remind the unaware of what he once-upon-a-time did via his reporting, and that those who are conservative with their trust may still want to take his most poignant reporting with a grain of salt.

dang, i know it's hardly news that everyone thinks you're doing a great job as moderator. but i just have to say, with this particular response, holy cow, you've really outdone yourself.

all of us see comments here that give us a faintly icky feeling, but it's pretty much only you who is able to put into words exactly what it is that's so icky about them. my hat is off to you, man. (absolutely no sarcasm intended, by the way.)

Perhaps you don't need to dismiss his arguments outright, but you should definitely examine the claims of a known plagiarist and liar a lot more closely than someone with a relatively unblemished record.

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