Yep, but who the hell cares what Lauda does on her free time? (I have decided to call Lauda a she from now on instead of using neutral pronouns... easier.)
Is her addiction interfering with anyone? Is she doing crazy things while she is on pills?
While I believe others may argue over mental stability and other potential scientific evidence they could refer to which shows
this pill does
this,
this, and
this to your body/brain, etc. Personally, I don't believe I would have this type of response (I say this not knowing *any* details about the baseless allegations). I agree that Lauda can do whatever
s/he wants and ingest whatever s/he wants - although I would strongly encourage responsible moderation, but we are all human (I think?).
My current concerns are not directly related to pill use but more about credibility, character, and the evolution of events that have transpired on this thread which may alter my perceptions. I've got various concerns if the claims are not true, and various concerns if the claims were true... neither really relating to the pill use itself.
If you are looking for a signed message from lauda ordering pills over long periods of time, or a video of someone I claim to be lauda taking pills, I will tell you this evidence does not exist, and does not exist for almost every other drug addict out there.
If you had that, it would probably be all over the OP, I'm not looking for anything this detailed... at the moment I'm looking for
any form of sufficient evidence to support the claim, and no, a txt-based chat log which could be getting typed up by you right now, with no references as to its validity, will not be sufficient. We are currently on page 5 of this thread with just your word to back it up.
When someone in the media publishes something, they will say how they know said fact, and will ask the subject of an article for a comment/response. Sometimes the subject will not respond to the request for comment, and when this happens some readers might wait for a response before deciding if they believe the article. Sometimes the subject will respond, and when they do not explicitly deny the allegations, most readers will accept what is published as fact, even if they personally do not know enough information themselves to come to this same conclusion, or even if there is not enough public information to prove this in court. Sometimes the subject will outright deny the allegation, at which point readers will have to use the available facts to evaluate if they believe what is being said or not, and sometimes the writer may publish additional evidence if sufficient number of readers do not believe them.
Most usually present the source of information, and if the source is "anonymous" and that "anonymous" person is stating information they heard from another "anonymous" person, I believe readers would behave differently than the way you describe.
Regardless,
this is not the mainstream media and I would expect most readers here would not behave like this.
IMO, based on Lauda's responses to this thread, one can reasonably assume Lauda is denying that they take pills:
I'd like to know what pills I'm taking as well.
I believe this says "I don't take pills" and is an explicit denial...
I think you are wrong. I don't agree this is a denial, however if you were to give (probably too much of) a benefit of the doubt, this is another of Lauda's non-denial denials, similar to his response to allegations that Lauda sold accounts in the past, when he
said "I have not...purchased any accounts
to my knowledge" -- he is giving himself an out in case someone presents additional evidence against him.
So what is the "out" with this thread?
A pill addiction comes with repetition and based on Lauda's comments so far in this thread I don't think there is anyway to defend that Lauda has stated, at the very least, that s/he does not have any knowledge of taking pills.
If this all turned out to be true and had sufficient supporting evidence, I don't see any viable
out, at least not one that most would believe, so your
source should be satisfied with this denial.
Better yet, maybe I have a source who told me Lauda denied the pill addiction explicitly in a PM.
Using the word "maybe" is very different from outright saying that you have this information.
I would also point out that denying this via a 3rd party, in private is yet another way (actually multiple ways) for lauda to get "out" of being exposed as lying to discredit allegations against him if additional evidence is presented against him.
Are you not essentially doing the same thing here?
Posting an allegation from a "source" whom, to your knowledge, is providing accurate information but you cannot really confirm nor deny it is accurate.
Are you not leaving yourself an "out" to be able to say "my source was wrong, information was not correct, but it wasn't me who misled you, it was my unnamed source - sorry everyone" ?