“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

All: Whether he is right or not or one likes him or not, Hersh reporting on this counts as significant new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), so I've turned off the flags on this submission.

If you're going to comment in this thread, please make sure you're up on the site guidlelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." We don't want political or nationalistic flamewar here, and any substantive point can be made without it.

If anyone else had written this, would it be significant?

Wouldn't it just be written off as a conspiracy theory that provides little to no evidence for its claims?

If the only thing that gets this on HN is Seymour Hersh's reputation (which has lately become somewhat questionable) then you might want to reconsider. Plus, the quality of the comments has not been very good so far.

No, I don't think it would be. Hersh is inevitably part of the story because of his historical significance and the network of government sources that he's cultivated for decades. It doesn't follow that his claims are true (even if he's accurately reporting, his sources must have their own agendas). That's why I added the question mark to the title above. The story being on HN doesn't imply anything about that—only that it's interesting.

Btw, I haven't gone back and looked at the history but I'd be willing to bet that the same things were said about Hersh's reputation from the beginning. That's standard fare for counterargument.

p.s. It's astonishing how narrow the space is for someone to say they don't know the truth about X but it's interesting. If X has any charge at all, you get pounced on by people who feel sure that they do know what the truth is. But if you think about it, it's a precondition for curiosity not to already know (or feel one knows) the answer—and this is a site for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So I don't feel that this is particularly a borderline call from a moderation point of view.

a) I don't understand the relevance at all to Hacker News. There are plenty of interesting things going on in the tech world that aren't making the front page.

b) There is a lack of evidence in the article. I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point.

c) His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris. That is why we demand evidence.

> I can claim that you destroyed the pipeline and it would be equally as valid at this point.

An established reputation is the difference between those claims. You making a claim without evidence is just that.

Hersh making a claim without sharing his evidence is something different. That isn’t to say we don’t need evidence, but there’s a better reason to believe him than you, given the context of the situation.

> His previous reputation is important but history is littered with examples of people making mistakes and relying on their own hubris.

And it’s also full of the opposite. The existence of hubris is not evidence of it.

But even then, that claim doesn’t fit, unless you are implying that he made the whole thing up and concluded that it must be what happened.

Another conclusion is that he has a source, and simply has not shared it yet.

Maybe time will tell.

> Maybe time will tell.

This article shouldn't be allowed here until that time.

Reputation is not evidence.

Reputation absolutely is evidence. I think you mean it’s not “proof”.

If John Carmack says there is an exciting breakthrough in 3D rendering that will give 8k 120fps ray tracing on commodity hardware, that’s noteworthy, and his reputation is evidence that there is substance to the claim.

HN would be super boring if only topics that had been conclusively proven could be discussed.

> (...) and his reputation is evidence that there is substance to the claim.

No it isn't. The guy's reputation is reason to give the benefit of the doubt, but either his claims are proven sound or else they are just as bullshit if Joe blow himself made them.

It’s still an evidence based stance, but temporarily substitutes one form of evidence for another. The notion of reputation is itself built on evidence, e.g. we observe that someone is generally truthful, so we are later justified in concluding that they might be telling the truth.

The concept of the benefit of the doubt still relies on this form of evidence. That doesn’t imply that this is sufficient.

Regarding Hersh vs. Joe Blow, there is still a meaningful difference in them getting things wrong.

When it’s Joe, you don’t care to begin with, and the revelation of wrongness doesn’t change your opinion of Joe.

When it’s someone like Hersh, such a revelation brings reputational harm, and raises more questions about how he became so convinced of this information to begin with.

This looks like an Appeal to Authority.

If I were claiming that I agreed with the article and found it to be convincingly true, and so should you, I’d agree. I am not doing any of those things.

Judging how incredulous one should be of an author’s writing based on their reputation is something else.

I would be incredulous of any author who doesn't provide evidence. Do you agree that the burden of proof should be applied equally to all authors regardless of reputation?

> Do you agree that the burden of proof should be applied equally to all authors regardless of reputation?

No.

Especially in stories involving classified information it's very rare to get unequivocal proof at first. For better or worse leaks are how stories break, and the leakers are careful about how they do it so to avoid criminal charges.

Given this, all you have is the reputation of the person doing the reporting. Historically have they shown good judgement in discarding the crackpots and do many of their breaking stories from unnamed stories subsequently turn out to be true?

In this case I think Hersh's reputation isn't what it used to be. This century only one of his major claimed stories (the Abu Ghraib prison story - which I don't think he broke anyway?) has turned out to be true, while most (all?) of his other major claims have turned out to be either false or completely unverified after many years.

>No.

>Especially in stories involving classified information it's very rare to get unequivocal proof at first. For better or worse leaks are how stories break, and the leakers are careful about how they do it so to avoid criminal charges.

>Given this, all you have is the reputation of the person doing the reporting. Historically have they shown good judgement in discarding the crackpots and do many of their breaking stories from unnamed stories subsequently turn out to be true?

I think we're back to an Appeal to Authority.