> Calling [founders of advertising businesses] psychopaths is not unfair by any stretch of the word
That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call!
More generally: the problem with the comments we're objecting isn't that they're untrue. The odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth don't seem high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff isn't verifiable. What is verifiable is that the signal/noise ratio is low. Why? Because the excitement of indignation is noise, and when you take that out, and take out persuasive-sounding but empty rhetoric, there's nothing or almost nothing left.
I have no problem with critiques of VC as such and have made my own share of digs against suits. But shrill, vacuous rhetoric is outside what the HN guidelines call for, regardless of what it advocates. Repeating it often and loudly doesn't change that.
> That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one
I personally think monetizing via advertising is unethical, but I'll concede on this point. I realize I'm in the minority here so I accept that by currently ruling norms advertising is not a psychopathic activity.
> I'd say the odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth aren't high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff simply isn't verifiable.
Here, I strongly disagree. This stuff is very verifiable... by just going to news outlets (prestigious, established outlets, not just blogs) which have verified documentation of chats in which Zuck calls users of his site "dumb fucks" for having trusted him with private photos, SSNs, etc. We have documented proof of Evan persuading drunk women to perform sexual favors for his friends (no, it's not referring a friend to a friend, it's not innocently hooking up a date, it's getting drunk women to "give blowjobs" to his friends), in chats he is describing peeing on women, doing cocaine, about installing strip poles in places he owns, etc. This is documented in places like NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/magazine/whats-really-at-s...
What's more, Spiegel himself admitted this, Zuck similarly has recognized the chats to be true (not that such proof was needed -- it was validated by prominent journalists independently).
These folks need to be called out. At present we see a pattern of young brash founders who are misogynistic and disrespectful getting their way. Per the persistence of the patterns this kind of behavior is becoming normalized as being okay in society's eyes, one way to stop this is to do anything we can to stigmatize the non-consensual peeing on women, the violation of people's privacy, etc. It's by saying it's bad. Otherwise, what would-be entrepreneurs are internalizing is they can get away with this, that hustling in this way is just part of the game, that it doesn't matter that you're living life without recognizing others' dignity.
But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call!
I had substantive basis: the history of how he ran his business is fairly public.
You have every right not to like what I say. You have every right to say that you don't like what I say. But your high horse posturing is tedious, counter-productive, and, because you are HN's moderator, it does more damage to this place than I ever could.
That's beyond unfair; it's absurd. But yes, of course calling individuals psychopaths with no substantive basis is a personal attack, and a nasty one. Many people enjoy that kind of thing. Many also enjoy the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn't belong on Hacker News. This is not a borderline call!
More generally: the problem with the comments we're objecting isn't that they're untrue. The odds of this type of thinking arriving at truth don't seem high, but I don't know, and neither do the commenters. The stuff isn't verifiable. What is verifiable is that the signal/noise ratio is low. Why? Because the excitement of indignation is noise, and when you take that out, and take out persuasive-sounding but empty rhetoric, there's nothing or almost nothing left.
I have no problem with critiques of VC as such and have made my own share of digs against suits. But shrill, vacuous rhetoric is outside what the HN guidelines call for, regardless of what it advocates. Repeating it often and loudly doesn't change that.