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Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

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Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#31

I think it's possible the virus leaked from a lab in China, but it's also possible it was transmitted in the wild a la "wet markets". Either way, regrettably due to Chinese propaganda and tight controls on speech and the press, it is highly unlikely the world will get an open and honest investigation from the Chinese government. The PRC simply cannot be trusted, which sadly has added immense fuel to all conspiracy th…

[deleted]

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#32
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your statement, please do not insinuate or ask if the commenter has read the article. It is against the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HN has such odd and draconian rules that should really come under scrutiny more often. We're not allowed to think or say certain things? What?

It's why the discourse stays on point and doesn't devolve into flame wars, or that's the theory, anyway. Pretty much everything has been designed to make people stay friendly.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#34
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your statement, please do not insinuate or ask if the commenter has read the article. It is against the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HN has such odd and draconian rules that should really come under scrutiny more often. We're not allowed to think or say certain things? What?

Asking if the user has read the article is an ad-hominem attack. The guidelines are there to encourage good discussion.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#35
post #21

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…

> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. I think that it is at least somewhat likely that it was the result of the lab's activities, but your assertion here has a huge dose of selection bias. If the virology labs studying coronaviruses were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but t…

Can you link to something that proves this is the criteria used for lab placement?

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#36
post #15

For expert opinion on this subject listen to actual virologists. They do a podcast about 2-3 times a week. https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/

Their main argument in the podcast is that the scientist in the lab says that they were not working on this virus and "even with the central control of china there is no way they could keep that secret". That argument is not going to hold a lot of water with people

Eh, 'trust the experts' works in most other cases.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#37
post #21

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…

I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#38
While the headline talks about covid, I found other bits of the article scary. For instance the supposed lax handling of pathogens like smallpox. While I would trust the worldwide scientific community for covid origin theories, I cannot look past the egregious safety violations reported in the article (if true).

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#39

I think it's possible the virus leaked from a lab in China, but it's also possible it was transmitted in the wild a la "wet markets". Either way, regrettably due to Chinese propaganda and tight controls on speech and the press, it is highly unlikely the world will get an open and honest investigation from the Chinese government. The PRC simply cannot be trusted, which sadly has added immense fuel to all conspiracy th…

My own idea is a combination of the two. I wonder if it leaked out of the lab by a lab employee trying to make some money on the side by selling lab animals to the wet market. (Note well: This is just my "seems kind of plausible" guess. I have no actual evidence to support it. And no, it's not actually "my own" idea - I heard it suggested by someone, who also had no evidence that I recall.)

半混蛋 So you say, it was the janitor, with dead lab animals, in the wet market, making some surplus money?

I assumed it was the gardener, in the dining room, with the hatchet..

Its almost as if the whole human species could not be trusted with dangerous tools and regularly drops the ball.

These wet-market are such a medieval relic and all just because of superstitious nonsense about refrigerated food being bad for your chi.

Homeopathy, TMC and how those shamanistic practices are all called wherever by whomever kill. 2.7 million so far...

Even worser, when you think about all those other "tech" miracles enlightenment zealots insist humanity can be entrusted. We blow a nuclear power plant every ten years, drop the vials like they are hot, but hey more power into each pocket.

Cant wait for the first long-range flying car, getting hacked and used in a remote attack. That surely will be the day, someone will admit that tech is limited,not by what can be done, but by who gets to wield it.

Makes one wonder though, that day i entrusted that vital system for millions, to that upstream repo.. was i the janitor that day..

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#40
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your statement, please do not insinuate or ask if the commenter has read the article. It is against the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HN has such odd and draconian rules that should really come under scrutiny more often. We're not allowed to think or say certain things? What?

I wish they would come under scrutiny more often—it would mean people are reading them!

Everything on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html is derived from (a) HN's core value of intellectual curiosity, which is the sole thing we're optimizing for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), and (b) well over 10 years of experience operating this place.

Not only that, but they're garbage-collected periodically, meaning that if there's any rule there which isn't 'paying' for the space it consumes on that page, we take it out. It's like a codebase that way: complexity is the enemy, less is more, and deleting is at least as important as adding.

If anyone has a cogent case for deleting one of the guidelines, that would be most helpful. If anyone can think of one that should be added, and can't be derived from what's already there, that would also be helpful.

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