> It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know.
So it is not a conflict of interest because of the sum of money? Someone doesn't need to gain anything to be in conflict, by definition: "a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible."
Do you at least think he had a duty to disclose his involvement/investment in gain of function research? Specifically with the Wuhan lab at the center of this?
> As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the public. For this, his reward is a public servant's salary. Seriously, what's he getting here for his supposed "deception"?
Did you know he's the most highly paid government official? His measly public servant salary only paid him $417K. [0]
It's still not clear to me what the conflict of interest is. The amount of money is kind of important, because it gives you an idea of the level of involvement. As I said, $600K over 5 years is very little money, it basically makes sure you get the results of whatever research is already being done.
> His measly public servant salary only paid him $417K.
The top scientist in the country, with several Ph.Ds, 50 years of experience in a both public leadership and an incredibly complicated branch of biology, is making roughly what a staff engineer at a FAANG company makes...and you are complaining? That's the bargain of the century. He's a sick fuck for actually sticking it out - he could have bailed and consulted on "return to the office" for all the big tech and entertainment companies. He is 80 years old, working insane hours, and probably would have made more money in 6 months than he has in his whole public career from a really nice beach. You will never convince me that THIS is the smoking gun that proves Dr. Fauci corrupt, finally, after 50 years in public service. It's too stupid.
> It's still not clear to me what the conflict of interest is. The amount of money is kind of important, because it gives you an idea of the level of involvement. As I said, $600K over 5 years is very little money, it basically makes sure you get the results of whatever research is already being done.
Maybe he's covering his own ass? Maybe he's trying to protect gain of function research? He was, after all, the most vocal proponent that the risks with gain of function research were worth it. [0]
> The top scientist in the country, with several Ph.Ds, 50 years of experience in a both public leadership and an incredibly complicated branch of biology, is making roughly what a staff engineer at a FAANG company makes...and you are complaining? That's the bargain of the century. He's a sick fuck for actually sticking it out - he could have bailed and consulted on "return to the office" for all the big tech and entertainment companies. He is 80 years old, working insane hours, and probably would have made more money in 6 months than he has in his whole public career from a really nice beach. You will never convince me that THIS is the smoking gun that proves Dr. Fauci corrupt, finally, after 50 years in public service. It's too stupid.
Oh, ok. So before his only reward was his "public servant salary", but now that you know he's the most highly paid government official (including the President) his salary is now being compared to FAANGs and he's underpaid. What a sacrifice.
> Oh, ok. So before his only reward was his "public servant salary", but now that you know he's the most highly paid government official (including the President)
He is far from the top paid government official. That honor, by a long shot, in nearly every state in the country, goes to college athletic coaches[1].
I assumed this was a typo the first time, but since you repeated it - it's gain* of function. As in a virus gaining a new function.
Did you even read that paper? I doesn't say what you are claiming at all. It says they're going to hold a conference to determine if it's worth the risks, and says they should continue the moratorium while they do more research. Ah jeez.
> Oh, ok. So before his only reward was his "public servant salary", but now that you know he's the most highly paid government official (including the President) his salary is now being compared to FAANGs and he's underpaid. What a sacrifice.
Compared to what he could be making right now? Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate his sacrifice — he's criminally underpaid for how valuable his skills and experience are to the country.
You've broken the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously in this thread. We ban accounts that do that.
Most of the accounts that have been doing that in this thread, I've let off with just a warning. Yours, however, seems clearly to be using HN primarily for ideological/political/nationalistic battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for, because they're destructive of what this site is supposed to exist for. Therefore I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
> You've broken the site guidelines repeatedly and egregiously in this thread. We ban accounts that do that.
What guidelines have I "repeatedly and egregiously" broken in this thread? Was it the pointing out that a monetary gain is not a requirement for a conflict of interest? Was it where I asked the other poster if they thought Fauci had a duty of care to disclose his involvement in activities that some might see as a conflict of interest? Was it pointing out the fact that Fauci is the highest paid government official in the federal government (with citation)? Was it referencing and quoting Fauci's paper from 2012? Or was it me pointing out the other poster's bad faith responses to my comments (with the "Aw jeez")?
I've read the HN guidelines and this decision is not inline with them.
No, it has to do with name-calling, flamebait, and generally posting in the flamewar style. It's perfectly possible to do all the things you mentioned without any of that.
Also, it's against HN's rules to use the site primarily for political battle, which you've obviously been doing, and we warned you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25692385. Not cool.
That comment was four months ago. And it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Guess that qualifies as "repeated" in your book? Seems like a stretch.
What name did I call the other poster? I remarked that he appears to have a Fauci bromance, but that was after the "Aw jeez" sarcastic / flame bait comments. Prior to that I was commenting in good faith. And frankly, pointing out someone has a bromance for someone else after they've lavished praise upon that person in two separate comments does not name calling make. It's an observation, one that wasn't refuted by the other poster. Furthermore, despite being accused of having not read a paper because of a typo, I stuck to good faith commenting by quoting directly from said paper.
Can't help but notice I'm being banned for largely benign comments in a thread where I speculate about Fauci's conflict of interest. Comments other commenters expressed agreement. But the poster making sarcastic / bad faith comments who is defending Fauci gets off with a warning.
This conduct is your political battle, dang. Which is both not cool and, in my opinion, actively hurting debate on HN. HN would benefit from more balanced moderation.
"You continue to sidestep and move goal posts. Ah jeez. You cling to an obvious typo instead of addressing my questions. Ah jeez. Your obvious (and frankly cringeworthy) Fauci bromance aside..." is filled with name-calling (pejorative 'you' language).
I must admit that you have a point, though: I shouldn't have said that you'd broken the site guidelines "repeatedly and egregiously in this thread". You may have broken them repeatedly, but when I looked back I only saw one comment that was egregious in this thread (the one I initially replied to). I'm sorry for the overstatement. I usually try to make sure my statements are strictly accurate, and that one wasn't, and I apologize.
It doesn't change the ban, because that wasn't the reason for banning you. As I explained, we ban accounts that use HN primarily for political/ideological battle. Surely you're not arguing that your account hasn't been doing that? It plainly has.
Everyone in this situation feels like we're only banning them because we secretly disagree with their politics, but the truth is that we do these bans regardless of what the account is battling for or against. We're trying to enforce the guidelines because the guidelines are the best blueprint we have for the kind of forum HN is supposed to be.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means using HN for curious, thoughtful conversation, not getting into flamewars, not trying to smite enemies, and so on.
> Did you even read that paper? I doesn't say what you are claiming at all. It says they're going to hold a conference to determine if it's worth the risks, and says they should continue the moratorium while they do more research. Ah jeez.
A bad faith comment ("did you even read your link?") followed by a sarcastic "Aw jeez". Sure, two wrongs don't make a right, but only one wrong is being banned. For rthe record, I don't think the other poster should be banned, either.
> It doesn't change the ban, because that wasn't the reason for banning you. As I explained, we ban accounts that use HN primarily for political/ideological battle. Surely you're not arguing that your account hasn't been doing that? It plainly has.
I used HN for debate. It is difficult, if not impossible to avoid treading into political/ideological realms. I've gone through your comment history and have found numerous examples of you entering into the political/ideological yourself. If you need examples, I'd be happy to provide some recent ones. But I brought more than political/ideological debate to HN, I also submitted scientific papers, recently declassified documents and other materials that (at least to me) were of interest. But that's not the point, the banning of all "political/ideological battles" is a shortsighted policy that will eventually render HN a dead sea where nothing interesting is discussed because no ideas can be openly challenged.
> Everyone in this situation feels like we're only banning them because we secretly disagree with their politics, but the truth is that we do these bans regardless of what the account is battling for or against. We're trying to enforce the guidelines because the guidelines are the best blueprint we have for the kind of forum HN is supposed to be.
Well, you had to go back four months for a previous guideline violation and my account is only six months old. Two strikes and I'm out I guess, and the previous violation was a throwaway comment that wasn't targeting anyone. Seems like I was on a list (of sorts) and this was as good an excuse as any to ban me. But banning posters for expressing political/ideological viewpoints is itself a political/ideological battle. The political/ideological views that survive on HN (and they do) are nested firmly in your political/ideological blindspots. Which is why I suggest a more balanced approach to moderation would ensure that at least this poorly thought out policy is applied more evenly.
> If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means using HN for curious, thoughtful conversation, not getting into flamewars, not trying to smite enemies, and so on.
No, that's ok. I think I brought considerably more good faith debate to HN than anything else. It may not have aligned with your political/ideological sensibilities, but there's little I can proactively do about that minefield. The "rules" won't save me here.
How have I moved the goal posts? I've maintained that there is no conflict-of-interest here. I like Dr. Fauci, but I mostly don't understand the point of this line of reasoning. Right wing media sources have a long history of vendettas against individuals they perceive to be liberal or against them in some way - that's what this appears to be.
I specifically didn't focus on the "typo", except you said it 3 times, so I figured you'd want to know.
...and that quote hardly conveys to "the most vocal proponent". Talk about moving the goal posts!
> His measly public servant salary only paid him $417K
Oh please. The median CEO pay at a pharmaceutical company is nearly $5 million. It take all the way up to nearly $50 million per year, which someone with the incredible experience (not to mention government contacts) of Dr Fauci would be on the upper end of, and that's not too mention the tens of millions in signing bonus and retirement packages. [1]
> If you really want justice then you need a coherent statement of the offense, there should be a fair hearing with representatives of all sides, there should be impartial review whether that be trained judges or a selected jury of peers or whatever else, and so on.
Cool. Since China is the source of this virus, can they take the lead here? I'll wait.
There is no lead. Since America is the prime location for infection and death we should probably try to be serious about the issue instead of getting distracted.
And what exactly is China expected to do in any case? Apologize? Pay in the way fining Germany for WWI led to WWII?
You are full of moral rage, yet still have essentially zero scientific support. Are you sure that is okay?
> And what exactly is China expected to do in any case?
China, and every other country, should move such labs away from major population centers.
From the article:
> Then, in February, a research paper coauthored by two Chinese scientists, based at separate Wuhan universities, appeared online as a preprint. It tackled a fundamental question: How did a novel bat coronavirus get to a major metropolis of 11 million people in central China, in the dead of winter when most bats were hibernating, and turn a market where bats weren’t sold into the epicenter of an outbreak?
> The paper offered an answer: “We screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus.” The first was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which sat just 280 meters from the Huanan market and had been known to collect hundreds of bat samples. The second, the researchers wrote, was the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
> The paper came to a staggeringly blunt conclusion about COVID-19: “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.... Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.”
Key part: "Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places" Isn't this common sense? I feel that those claiming there is nothing that could be done with information pointing to a lab leak, as you seem to be doing, are being incredibly disingenuous. If the virus escaped from a lab, strengthening lab regulations is the obvious response that you seem to be pretending doesn't exist.
I consider principal engineers / architects "astronauts". They've spent so much time floating around they've forgotten what solid ground feels like. They're both disoriented and atrophied when it comes to engineering. It's a trap. You'll eventually have to come back down to earth, and the longer you spend in this role the harder it will be.
I don't know that I even really buy into the idea of a "principal engineer". Even in a really large company where you have a shit ton of people working on one bit of software, principal engineer doesn't seem like a well defined role that you need, because once you scale past the point where one person (a "lead engineer" or whatever) can manage the technical side for everything, the next "level" up in whatever structure you're working with by definition has to defer to their subordinates for technical expertise. That makes it a management role, not an engineering role.
I think once you're in "principal engineer" territory, it's your job to divvy up the work and hire people to make their own decisions and take responsibility.
If I was hiring specifically for that role I'd probably go with engineering manager or technical product manager or something.
Having said that I think you could make the case that principal engineer works if you're doing that stuff as well as taking responsibility for a subset of the app and continuing to do engineering work. Because I think there's a fairly large range of team sizes where you probably don't have 40 hours of managing to do per week (probably a range like 10-30? Maybe higher? Probably depends a lot on the app too). It's a nice hack to deal with the fact that you can't give someone two job titles.
Btw I think that strategy is underutilised. I've worked with far too many people that are doing 15 hours of really useful stuff and 25 hours of making everyone else's life more difficult because they're a bit constrained by their narrow job description. I really think more devs and designers should have side gigs as little mini PMs, POs and BAs instead of the usual strat of scaling up as quick as possible and running face first into the consequences of Parkinson's law.
Maybe that's your experience but the decisions and discussions you're not privy to is where their value is added. An IC4 isn't there to write implementation code as junior engineers can do that.
Hey disgrunt. We have a number of VoiceOver users on Mac, so something doesn't sound quite right (no pun intended). Please reach out to our support team at support+mac@1password.com and we'll be happy to help.
So it is not a conflict of interest because of the sum of money? Someone doesn't need to gain anything to be in conflict, by definition: "a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible."
Do you at least think he had a duty to disclose his involvement/investment in gain of function research? Specifically with the Wuhan lab at the center of this?
> As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the public. For this, his reward is a public servant's salary. Seriously, what's he getting here for his supposed "deception"?
Did you know he's the most highly paid government official? His measly public servant salary only paid him $417K. [0]
[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/01/25/dr-...