[slg]

The first line of his testimony mentions working at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. Knowing how congressional testimonies tend to work, I Googled that to see if was one of those politically motivated think tanks with an intentionally neutral sounding name. Robert Epstein's Wikipedia page was one of the top results. I clicked through and noticed that roughly half of the content of that page was under the header "Criticism of Google". The links I included all came from either the Wikipedia sources, Epstein's testimony, or a link from one of those. The whole thing took maybe 5 minutes and didn't require any research skills beyond simply being curious.

[ryacko]

Claiming that Robert Epstein has an ax to grind sounds like you know him personally. Independent of that, it does seem like you spent thirty minutes of reading articles on the subject before you made that comment.

I am certain that 90% of the people who step into Congress are crooks, or at least have no honest opinion, so I would only use details of Epstein’s testimony to confirm existing biases.

[tptacek]

He does have an ax to grind against Google; that's not really in dispute. It's not clear that he's sharpening his blade on this particular Senate testimony, but it's a reasonable question to ask, since he has no particular expertise in the topic.

[ryacko]

I will equally say without any evidence that Epstein has forgiven Google, and is speaking out against Google for purely mercenary reasons.

[tptacek]

The difference is that you're saying something without evidence, and I'm saying something for which pretty extensive evidence is on the record. Please note that I'm being careful about separating what I have evidence for --- Epstein's grudge against Google over the quarantining of his hacked website --- from what I don't --- his testimony before the Senate.

[ryacko]

You are claiming that Epstein is a petty man, and has decided to devote his entire life towards smearing Google, although at this point it is for wages?

You disguise your rather strong claim with passive voice and a conclusion that doesn’t attempt to convince me at all.

[tptacek]

I think if you read any other comment of mine in this thread, you will not see me saying that Epstein has "decided to devote his entire life towards smearing Google". I don't know what you mean by "a petty man" and further don't think it'd be productive to explore that. I'd appreciate it if you could try a little harder to respond to arguments I've actually made.