So should everyone shut up until they have hard evidence to present? That doesn't sound like a very interesting way to live. Even in court circumstantial evidence is a valid form of evidence and plausible scenarios can be presented to try and convince. What is wrong with that?

If you don’t bother to fact check your evidence before making serious accusations then yes, one should shut up.

Circumstantial evidence is still evidence yes, but this is just a bunch of shit that is observably false followed by salacious assertions.

Presenting claims that are trivially falsifiable as true without bothering to apply skepticism because it plays into your favored narrative is not journalism. It’s whatever the hell Hersh is doing now.

I don't understand how it is "observably false". It seems at least like a plausible story, although without hard evidence no one can say for sure. Calling the whole story "observably false" and "trivially falsifiable" seems to way overstate the case, and I wonder what the motivation and emotion behind that is.

The overarching accusation is plausible but many of the claims to support the story are observably false, as outlined in the linked article. And yes, as per your innuendo I’m clearly an agent of the state here to shut down your free thinking.

I think you might be misreading alienicecream's tone. Maybe I'm naive, but I'd like to think that he wasn't accusing you of being a shill. I think he was genuinely wondering about your reasoning. At the least, I am. I appreciated (and upvoted) your answer higher in the thread.

I find it interesting that different people have very different reactions to this. I don't think it's just national politics, although that often plays a role. For me, I was bothered by the way the news coverage immediately after the event converged to "Russia did it". It wasn't that I was in any way sure that they were wrong, but I was sure that they were absurdly overconfident.

I'd like to know what caused them to take this stance so universally and so strongly. My would guess would be tribalism and fear of offending the US government. Since then, I've been pleased to see that some recent articles that are moving more to the "we don't really know yet" stance. The New York Times had such an article in late December (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/world/europe/nordstream-p...), and the London Times had a similar one about a week ago (https://archive.is/A35Ce).

Hersh's article doesn't bother me in the way that it seems to bother you. It's not at all that I'm sure it's right. It seems possible, maybe even likely, that Hersh is being fooled by a bullshitter or even a foreign agent. He presumably published it on a brand new Substack because every more reputable outlet refused. But despite this, I think it's good to discuss its strengths and weaknesses. Many people (possibly including you) think it's better that we ignore it, but I think this is more likely to cause problems in the long term. I think it's interesting and useful to look at why our reactions are so different.

I would also add. If you claim to be respectable journalist or an objective observer, I, as a reader would expect you to have done your research and have a higher standard of your publications. Given your past accolades, presenting anything less without substantial support just tells me you are just trying to make yourself relevant with contrarian views

> So should everyone shut up until they have hard evidence to present?

And let the narrative given by "trusted US officials" stand unchallenged, yes.

This is one of the most infuriatingly disingenuous argument devices: "People keep doing this irresponsible thing and get traction!" "Oh, so you mean everyone should not do a thing???"

Yeah, buddy. The most absurd interpretation of the opposite is what we mean...