9 ms·
This title is unreadable.
by jyriand 2y ago
This title is unreadable.
- smileybarry 2y agoMight be one of the rare cases where adding a “that” is actually necessary.
- alchemist1e9 2y agoThat would definitely help a lot.
- coldtea 2y agoSounds like executives from the company 3M convinced a scientist (presumanly to sign off) that PFOS (chemicals used for certain non-stick properties in domestic and industrial products) that seem to leak into human blood when using said products are safe
- Arthur_ODC 2y agoThat's what I immediately understood the title to mean... Is this not what the title is saying? I'm confused as to why people are having trouble understanding it.
- spixy 2y agoexcept you dont convince a scientists to sign off you can force a scientists to sign off...
- nikau 2y agoI'm sure a brown paper bag of cash can be convincing
- charlieok 2y agoThis got me curious enough to skim the article looking for the answer to whether 3M "convinced" her. It looks like the answer is: * They kept relevant information from her, including studies they'd done on the subject before * They sidelined her research efforts and made her feel unwelcome there * She grew to dread the subject and avoided staying involved with it * "when friends asked Hansen about PFAS, she would change the subject. Still, she repeatedly told [her husband] — and herself — that the chemicals were safe." I guess you could read that as saying 3M "convinced" her if you really wanted to, but I'd have looked for a different way to describe it. It helps to remember that article authors don't usually get to write the headline.
- coldtea 2y ago>She grew to dread the subject and avoided staying involved with it How very scientific.
- erinaceousjones 2y agoContext from the article I feel is necessary, here. She was pretty haunted by how it might be affecting her kids too. That's one of those "do I really want to go down this dark path" things, something which would've taken such a toll on her that she decided not to go there, now she had to focus on raising a family... > But first, she decided to have one last blood sample tested for PFOS: her own. The results showed one of the lowest readings she’d seen in human blood. Immediately, she thought of the rats that had passed the chemical on to their pups. > Hansen told me that, for the next 19 years, she avoided the subject of fluorochemicals with the same intensity with which she had once pursued it. She focused on raising her kids She WAS meticulous in her research for YEARS, but ultimately held too much unquestioning trust in the company line that PFOS was safe. She got worn down and burned out... Which is pretty understandable. At one point TFA quotes her asking her husband to walk her through the car park after work lest she be threatened by other 3M employees who now saw her as some kind of traitor, so at one time she was pretty worried about being victim of a Boeing-Type Incident. If you want people to remain scientific, you gotta foster a culture in which it is safe to do so, and the impact of the findings matches its significance.
- coldtea 2y agoWhy use force when money can be pretty convincing on its own? You can also help convince by giving false assurances or falsified statistics and results for their investigation.
- colmvp 2y agoI thought the rule was to keep the title the same as the article? The title is: "Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe"
- ximeng 2y agoThat’s 115 characters. 80 is the max
- jschveibinz 2y agoToxic Gaslighting of 3M Employee: "Forever Chemicals are Safe" Better?
- klodolph 2y agoYes. I think it’s a garden path sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence “3M Execs convinced a Scientist…” ok “3M Execs convinced a Scientist PFOS Found”… ok, the PFOS found the scientist? “3M Execs convinced a Scientist PFOS found in Human Blood”… PFOS found a scientist in human blood? The problem is that there are gramatically valid ways to parse partial versions of the sentence, which you have to reparse as you go through the sentence.
- faeyanpiraat 2y agoThanks for the lucky 10k moment
- chrisjj 2y ago“3M Execs convinced a Scientist [of the fact that] PFOS found in Human Blood”
- manuel_w 2y agoInteresting that for me as a native German speaker the title poses no problem at all. It seems to follow a structure I'm used from German language.
- bbarn 2y agoNot to mention the overuse of the term "gaslighting". What used to mean a serious systematic method of making someone question reality is now simply "lied", apparently.
- Terr_ 2y agoAgreed, that misuse has growing a lot in the last several years, and it annoys me. Sort of like people misusing the phrase "Ponzi scheme" to refer to basically any kind of unsustainable and ethically-dubious thing whatsoever.
- scarab92 2y agoSee also, the misuse of the relatively rare psychological effect known as burnout to refer to simply being tired or fatigued.
- iudqnolq 2y agoHN's automatic title worsener strikes again. Apparently the theory is that the word "How" in titles is always meaningless clickbait so HN automatically removes it. I don't believe this actually improves things.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- EasyMark 2y agoScientist convinced by 3M executives to ignore the dangers of PFAs?
- seec 2y agoThe whole thing is a poorly written snooze fest. Lots of stories with many irrelevant details yet it contains pretty much no factual data.
- meristohm 2y agoWhy is this criticism the top comment a day later?