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Comment by jimsimmons | Hacker News Reader

Honest person would have rejected it and protected the prize's honour

That's a joke, right? Turning down community recognition and a million dollars to make an unclear statement about which category the prize was awarded in?

The argument had to do with honesty while your justification is that money and popularity are worth more than being honest.

Now perhaps Hinton does deserve the award, but certainly it should not be because of the reasons you cite: money and popularity.

I said nothing of the sort. Being "honest" does not mean you have to give a middle finger to a panel that nominated you. The point of that Nobel was clearly recognition for their achievement; the category choice was mainly irrelevant.

No being honest does not mean that and had you said that I'd have no basis upon which to object to your comment.

You refuted an argument about being honest about accepting an award on the basis that the award pays a lot of money and grants one a great deal of popularity.

If your argument didn't involve money and popularity, then why did you choose those two specific criteria as the justification for accepting this award?

I want to be clear, I am not claiming that Dr. Hinton accepted the award in a dishonest manner or that he did it for money, I am simply refuting your position that money is a valid reason to disregard honesty for accepting a prestigious award.

So we agree; you aren't claiming the award was accepted in a dishonest manner, and I never claimed anything about honesty being an issue. I simply found the idea of Hinton rejecting the award for the "honour of the Nobel [choice of category]" to be a silly idea.

Your indignation here seems a bit unwarranted. You definitely did bring the arguments about recognition and money into play and then basically gaslit someone for responding to them. You could have simply said that you misspoke.

It's up to the committee to protect that honour

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