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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

How is the top comment on an HN thread about Reddit one that burns two paragraphs contemplating whether there is actually a conspiracy running from a DC pizza parlor?

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Of course most people don't believe the pedo stuff. However, they're totally on board with slandering the DC power-brokers, especially the ones who exemplify the class-culture of the "liberal elite." That's what this is really about: the attacks on art are the main giveaway.

While I "get" the Maria Abramovic "Spirit Cooking" stuff qua art, it pretty clearly also shows art as "high-class trash". When people see Abramovic's art, then see pictures of her with all kinds of elites and celebrities, they're right to see the culture as decadent. But then again bourgeois decadence isn't anything new...

That's not my read. I think the art is key, but I think the majority involved genuinely believe they have discovered evidence of pedophilia, and consider the art a strong part of the evidence. Consider how the imagery in the Heavy Breathing videos would be received by the authors and target audience of this: http://truediscipleship.com/ten-scriptural-reasons-why-the-r....

One of the discussions that surprised me was genuine concern over a picture showing someone next to a cardboard cutout of the Pope. My guess is that most of the participants don't attend a lot of parties that display potentially blasphemous portraits of religious figures, and tend to make assumptions about the other amoral practices of those who do.

It's probably been linked outside of HN. Doesn't take too many votes to push it to the top.

Do any of these people know how unbelievably batshit crazy this pizza parlor stuff sounds to people who don't live on the "The Donald" subreddit?

This is --- not exaggerating --- the most batshit thread I have ever seen on HN. And I seen some shit.

It's not all that much crazier than what we know to be true. Pamela Anderson visited Assange to give him a sandwich the day before his internet git cut off and he more or less disappeared off the face of the planet. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Wait did Pamela Anderson give Julian Assange a poisoned Internet sandwich

No, but don't down play accusations about child explotation. This kind of behaviour allows pd rings to run in Norway for so long.

By the power vested in me by the Internet board of governors and Archer Daniels Midland I hereby downplay this particular accusation about child exploitation and may God have mercy on your soul.

May God have mercy on those forsaken children.

In fairness to the nutters, it's not like the notion there's a massive pedophile ring operating at the highest levels of government is absurd. We've seen them exposed in several Western countries, and both candidates had ties to Epstein. It's just this particular accusation seems to be bonkers.

I would be more surprised if there wasn't a pedophile ring in DC. But I don't think that case will be blown open by Podesta's emails and squiggles on pizza shop walls and a moon and star which is apparently Baphomet?

We're talking about a conspiracy that runs from a pizza parlor, the credibility of which is bolstered by a first-principles analysis rooted in the dynamics of pizza parlors as the top comment on an HN thread. This is some Tim and Eric stuff here.

There should be a term for your kind of comment, I propose "betterguy trolling", it's very similar to concern trolling but at its core is the belief that you are better than the other person. Your commemts have zero value here, all you said was to point fingers and laugh at the other guy's views. "It's PIZZA how can it be bad" is the extent of your research that you are letting on over the course of what - 4 comments. Maybe there is still a better word for it, it's not just about pretending to be better - ah I think I got it: "in-person trolling". You simply act like your viewpont is the sane normal accepted view.

The story we are talking about, it turns out, is even dumber than I made it sound.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13029262

That is not even close to being a summary of the story. Sorry. It's not just about mentioning pizza in an email. Your comment was once again completely pointless, I have already told you that what you are doing is only virtue signalling. You just call other people dumb and then link to people agreeing with you with 0 information or content.

Do not accuse people on HN of "virtue signaling". That's simply a way of saying that someone is lying, or commenting in bad faith, not because they believe what they're saying but because they're trying to curry favor with some other group of people. It's semantically indistinguishable from accusing someone of "shilling", and that's one of a very few arguments that's specifically forbidden on HN:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20shillage&sort=by...

There's also no way to make such an argument civilly, and civility is a basic requirement for commenting on HN.

Making arguments on HN is trickier than making them on Reddit, and you may find it's not worth the energy. There's nothing wrong with keeping your discussions there.

While I agree with you, this type of argument doesn't persuade a person from falling to confirmation bias. And the number of people who'd believe such a thing, far exceed the number of people obsessively posting (and trolling) online about it.

The New York Times is only going to magnify this effect. The skeptical argument has to acknowledge the inappropriateness of some of the pizza shop's Instagram posts.

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