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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

anyone with a vested interest on any side of an argument is a candidate for these types of services. we can all go pick the groups we don't like, paint with that broad brush, but in the end we need to realize that all sides do this and we need to be aware.

with the internet comes a lot of freedom and this is part of the price of having it because you can bet there is a politician waiting in the wings who will ask you to let them muzzle someone to protect you all the while another politician may be selling your right to speak.

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I disagree that all sides do this. Some sides simply have no money or resources to hire professional trolls.

For example home owners that do not want a nuclear reactor in their backyard are not likely candidates for troll farms, but huge energy companies (or whomever) are.

Based on my personal experience, being one of the few pro-nuclear voices in the ostensibly anti-nuclear social media [filter bubble], I'm half-inclined to accuse you of being an anti-nuclear shill. But I think you're not, we just live in different filter bubbles.

As for nuclear NIMBYs, sure, individually they don't have the money (I'm a nuclear YIMBY, and I don't have it either). But there's plenty of organizations with money and influence, campaigning against nuclear - e.g. fossil fuel industry, Greenpeace. So I'm going to back the GP - everyone does that.

That's a fair assessment, it's hard to really tell anyone's true motivations. But that is why it's so hard to tell who is a paid shill and who is genuinely invested in their beliefs/position.

It's the vastness of comments that I find as evidence of something wrong, not specific posts.

There is vastness of comments about climate change and the need to do something about it. They all must be written by trolls.

Doesn't it seem reasonable to believe that some are from trolls?

'Some' is a vague word.

I meant "some comments".

I meant, how many is 'some'?

> Some sides simply have no money or resources to hire professional trolls.

This is crucial. I think it makes sense to recognize how, since the invention of speech, there have been those who accrue power by hiring professional trolls.

Though one thing we learned from the last election is that troll farms can push extreme views on both sides of an issue just to encourage division.

If you believe all pro-nuclear-energy people are extremist environmental nuts, or all anti-nuclear-energy are anti-science luddites, then you've got a lot of people who are going to be easy to manipulate, since they won't ever entertain any argument from the other side.

That’s hopelessly naive, there are significantly powerful organizations representing NIMBY movements. [1]

1. https://www.sierraclub.org/nuclear-free

Sure, but this is also an industry, they are a "belief" industry, but it's not poor people, and it's not individuals. It's either really rich people or some kind of corporate body. (or governments obviously) Am I missing a group?

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