If you're going to impugn someone else's integrity, could you perhaps sign your name to the comment? I have no idea who you are. I'm just going to assume you work for Alibaba, or Vk.
Surely you can't be this blind to the power imbalance.
A Googler defending Google on HN has the backing of one of the most powerful corporations in the industry, and no risk to his future career.
Calling out this bias or even being critical of the Google carries potentially huge career risk.
Anonymity is a necessity if unpopular opinions are to be heard.
And by all means assume I work for a competitor (which I do not) - that doesn't change the fact that DannyBee is incentivized to support Google and yet tries to distinct himself from this truth.
Anonymity is vitally important to civic discourse, which is why it's so galling when it's recklessly abused for cowardly and pointless drive-by character assassination.
But that's what I'd expect to see from a secret shill for Yahoo.
There is no character assassination going on here. I'm simply pointing out the incentives. Bear in mind that DannyBee is also engaging in what you call 'character assasination' on the same basis.
You, on the other hand, are now name calling, denying the power imbalance I mentioned, and accusing me of lying.
Why do you feel the need to put so much emotional energy into defending DannyBee, who seems quite capable of defending himself?
You seem to have clearly deviated from what you call 'civic discourse' - why have you chosen to do that? Does it seem justified by my comment?
If you think so, then ask yourself why it is acceptable for you to break from 'civic discourse', and yet it is not justified for me to do so, as you claim I have. Do you think your opinion is more right, or more likely to receive support?
I'm disappointed you feel justified in your rude and dismissive behavior, but since you don't see any need to examine it, I request that you refrain from challenging my comments on that same basis in future.
Ben publishes pieces in newspapers, journals, and testimony, and pretends they are objective while being paid by companies to write them.
If you think this is the same as me or anyone else commenting on HN about their personal opinions, i'm not sure what to tell you.
When I start submitting congressional testimony on behalf of google, and we start talking about it on HN, i'll happily note that i wrote it.
(In the same way when we talked about Google code.google.com, i happily noted i worked on it)