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Comment by StandardFuture | Hacker News Reader

People are downvoting the people not in agreement with the sentiment of the article.

Without downvoting can someone explain to me how we are sure this article is not sponsored by McDonalds?

Why are we all of a sudden being so positive about a food chain that has a long history of making things more difficult for non-industrialized food sources that were a source of income for poor communities before McDs expanded everywhere?

These are genuine intellectual questions, and non-emotional responses would be appreciated.

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Which downvoted comment here is supposed to have "genuine intellectual" questions? The one stating "This is the worst of what America can be, truly shameful to hear?" The one stating "I had no idea that this even existed?" The one discussing "poor human garbage"? I'll give like 33% credit to "Sounds suspiciously like McDonald's is the knife that tears families apart" because at least this is trying to advance a meaningful argument, even if it doesn't go beyond vague casting of suspicion.

I would be glad to entertain comments like the ones you have described. I just don't see them here.

> People are downvoting the people not in agreement with the sentiment of the article.

I downvoted a couple of comments in this thread, and flagged one of them. (A number of other people must have flagged that one too, as it is now "[flagged] [dead]". Turn on "showdead" in your profile settings if you want to see comments like that.)

In neither case was my downvote because the commenter disagreed with the article. It was because the comments were just plain nasty and disrespectful, both to other commenters and to the people who find community in places like McDonald's.

I don't have an answer to your question about sponsorship of the article, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I did want to explain the reason for my downvotes.

> "Without downvoting can someone explain to me how we are sure this article is not sponsored by McDonalds?"

The moderators have created guidelines about this type of post and instructions to address this sort of concern:

> "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data."

"Genuine intellectual questions" don't state a bias. You've already established that you believe McDonald’s is a bad actor, and all the reasoning in the comments have done nothing to change your mind. Your questions are rhetorical, not genuine in any way.

I know, right? Why, it's almost as if things can be both good and bad at the same time, instead of being purely one or the other.

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