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Comment by GVIrish | Hacker News Reader

That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described.

Fact is that if this is real, it is the work of a sophisticated adversary that may have found a novel way to attack people. Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today.

A relevant example is the use of microwaves to activate a passive antenna through walls to eaves drop on conversations (look up "The Thing Listening Device). Again this was done many decades ago. Not too far fetched to consider that maybe Russia intelligence services found a way to weaponized microwaves.

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> That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described.

I can not disprove that there is a magic man in the sky. Or a teapot revolving around the sun. [1]

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim not the other way round. Yes, lack of evidence is enough to reject it. Not to mention that the claim goes against established scientific knowledge and therefore would need some serious evidence for it to be taken serious.

> Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today.

There is lot's of things we do not know but that does not make a good argument for the existence of something.

> A relevant example is the use of microwaves to activate a passive antenna through walls to eaves drop on conversations (look up "The Thing Listening Device). Again this was done many decades ago. Not too far fetched to consider that maybe Russia intelligence services found a way to weaponized microwaves.

Not really, there is no clear quantitative development patch from The Thing Listening Device to the Havana style microwave attack.

Now we know the hypotheses requiring the fewest assumptions to be more likely true. [2] So what is more likely?

The whole Havana Syndrome is fabricated propaganda that is typical and in line of many similar cases of proven lies?

Or that Cuba has some advanced secret technology that even the US has no access to and that they are using on US diplomatic personal without any good motivation. In fact it will hurt their reputation. So we need to also claim that they are irrationally evil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

> lack of evidence is enough to reject it

This is a pseudo-skeptical[1] finger in the ear reaction.

There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either.

All I see is a total a priori dismissal which is not good practice for either a skeptic or a scientist.

Here's what would've told me that this is a good faith exercise (by either you or Snopes): You show that you understand what the claimed evidence is, you present it in the most generous and strong terms, then you explain why it's wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK566408/#sec0017

There's little in the Snopes article which opposes the microwave theory, as opposed to the sound theory. It quotes two US experts in favour of the idea, and the strongest evidence it gives against microwaves is a dismissive reaction from an expert who, as the article makes clear, was acting as a spokesman for the Cuban government.

> There's nothing in your posts here that tells me that you've reviewed the evidence that's been put forth[2] and rejected it, and it seems Snopes hasn't either.

I have debated that topic multiple times during different years. Yes, I am not fully up to date with the newest version

I you were a police man and some guy came up and claimed to be a victim of a crime and you find out the details don't add up, well that happens. Now if he came back next year with a slightly different story about the same crime, yeah that is fishy. If he constantly keeps changing his implausible story you would at some tell him to get lost for wasting police time.

> if he came back next year with a slightly different story

So the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine keeps changing their story? Do you have evidence for this?

This is just ad hominem.

It isn't real.

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