The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box? • Hacker News Board

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#11

Post by Mountain_Skies » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #5

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

> And let's not even begin to think what will happen if there were to be evidence that this was an intentional release. But don't you think it's important to know this?

It's important to know and it's important not to know. Both paths have mostly negative outcomes. The best path is for it to have been natural, second best is accidental. Intentional is unfathomable and has unlimited downside. We should all hope that's not the case here.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#12

Post by VectorLock » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #8

nnash wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely pathetic how no matter what China does they just get a limp handed pass from people like you.

Do you want nuclear war? Seriously, what is the appropriate response if it turned out China did this on purpose? If you cannot give an answer to this, why criticize those who see the inherent danger that you have no solution to?

Thankfully there are alternative ways to sanction a country short of nuclear war.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#13

Post by bpodgursky » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

Um, we could stop doing gain-of-function research for one. This would be a pretty important datapoint on that risk analysis.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#14

Post by bpodgursky » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

mromanuk wrote: post #4

dataflow wrote: post #2

Please consider spending the ~hour or so it takes to read this. Yes, this is a repost, but I'm posting it because it hardly grabbed any attention the first couple of times people posted it. [1] [2] Yes, it's long, but it's very much worth the read. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27056327 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27062021

Sorry, I don’t read articles written by racists. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2834627 https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/on-the-...

You could read articles by a guy who was the NYTimes science writer for 30 years though.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#15

Post by guesst » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

The China aspect is probably a red herring. Gain-of-function research was internationally funded, including by the US. The perils had been pointed out for years by virologists [1], some of whom managed to get an editorial in the New York Times against it [2].

If Covid turns out to be a lab escape (which is a big if), the nation or lab it happened in is just the proximate cause. Deeper responsibility would lie with the institutions and individuals that pushed it despite the risks. No one knows the answer to this (edit: I mean to whether covid escaped from a lab), but it's an open question that deserves credible investigation. Having the investigator be one of the principal funders of the research being investigated is such...bad optics, to put it nicely, that one wonders how anyone thought that would be ok.

[1] https://mbio.asm.org/content/3/5/e00360-12

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/an-enginee...

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#16

Post by croes » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #10

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

If it can get people to be more cautious in the future, it is absolutely worth it.

I doubt that, mankind tends to repeat it's errors

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#17

Post by dang » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #8

nnash wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely pathetic how no matter what China does they just get a limp handed pass from people like you.

Do you want nuclear war? Seriously, what is the appropriate response if it turned out China did this on purpose? If you cannot give an answer to this, why criticize those who see the inherent danger that you have no solution to?

Please do not perpetuate flamewars. That's also in the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#18

Post by luxuryballs » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:08 AM UTC

> By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: They were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true.

Not to get all political but this totally reminds me of Mitt Romney on Jan 6th evening when he said something to the tune of: “an (election) audit won’t satisfy, them only telling them the truth will”… how he or anyone at a news studio knew the truth when nobody else did was baffling to me

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#19

Post by goache » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #10

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

If it can get people to be more cautious in the future, it is absolutely worth it.

I cannot agree more - learning from mistakes is vital to preventing any further tragedies in the future

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#20

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 07, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #12

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want nuclear war? Seriously, what is the appropriate response if it turned out China did this on purpose? If you cannot give an answer to this, why criticize those who see the inherent danger that you have no solution to?

Thankfully there are alternative ways to sanction a country short of nuclear war.

[deleted]