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

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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

DSingularity wrote: post #33
bpodgursky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I won’t read articles by scientists who whitewash colonial European exploitation with pseudo-science which claims that Africans are poor because they have genes inferior to the rich white men of Europe. Yeah, the same men who colonized and brutally exploited Africa and India and China and the Middle East. Yeah, those that robbed the world like common bandits while pretending they had a burden to civilize the “savage”…

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by roca »

guesst wrote: post #15
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 t…

One of the things Wade brings up is that gain-of-function research was justified by its proponents on the grounds that it would help prevent and/or deal with future pandemics. So a good question that needs to be addressed now is: did gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses help us deal with COVID19, and if so, how?

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

#43

Post by boomboomsubban »

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.

If it turns out to have transmitted from a zoological source, does that mean we don't need to worry about biolab security? And the same in reverse?

Both sources are capable of being the origin, we should work on reducing the chance that either cause a similar pandemic.

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

#44

Post by thu2111 »

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're citing an article that literally has as its first sentence, "Nicholas Wade is not a racist". As citations go that's not very convincing.

And at any rate, the attempted smearing of anyone who points to problems in establishment thinking as a racist is trivial, completely expected of a certain segment of society and of no importance relative to the topic at hand. Wade's article not only builds an extremely strong case for the "engineered in a lab" theory, but just as importantly, shows that virology as field needs to be shut down. Virologists have been caught engaging in two conspiracies around this topic now - the conspiracy of silence by Chinese state and researchers, and the second was the deception around the letters claiming a lab leak was an absurd conspiracy theory and which boldly claimed there were no conflicts of interest even though they had the biggest conflicts imaginable. That's before we even get to the stupidity of GOF research.

It's a small field with a bad culture, and as the article points out, has in the end contributed nothing to actually fighting COVID. The case for defunding it looks strong and the case for continuing it looks weak.

Those things are all far more important than your allergic reaction to a man who worked for decades at the NYT of all places

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

#45

Post by thu2111 »

guesst wrote: post #15
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 t…

The article in question (assuming it's the same one I read on his blog) actually does tell us these things. The research was largely funded by the United States and the funding would appear most likely to have been signed off by ... Anthony Fauci. So if that's true then the guy ultimately responsible in money terms is the guy who the government put in charge of fighting it, almost certainly without realising. This set of events ensures that whatever the truth, we can never expect an honest investigation of any kind from the governments (plural) that would appear responsible.

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

#46

Post by brendoelfrendo »

FpUser wrote: post #30
mromanuk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

And if the article tells the truth? Why would author's racial preferences matter? You might be surprised how much of modern tech was developed by racists and other bad apples. If you are from the US try reading how your rocket / space industry had been developed for example.

I mean, it's directly relevant: the man regurgitates tired, bad science to justify a racist worldview. His trustworthiness in this domain is compromised.

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

#47

Post by guesst »

willmadden wrote: post #39
guesst wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

SARS-2-CoV was almost assuredly not natural, and RaTG13 was a keyboard virus. The only question is if it was accidentally leaked or if it was intentional. We'll never know, the CCP destroyed the evidence. There are many videos and articles on this site about how SARS-2-CoV was not zoonotic. I don't necessarily blame China, but the funders of the research. https://www.peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-no..…

You're treating that question as settled. To me that is the mirror image of the media outlets trying to shut down an open question by claiming it's a "conspiracy" that has been "debunked". I would say what's needed is a credible, independent investigation, one that reasonable people can trust. We haven't had that yet.

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

#48

Post by thu2111 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #11
Judgmentality wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The article doesn't support the case for it being intentional. Negligence at best.

One of the things Wade demonstrates is that China was most likely doing research on CoV viruses in ordinary labs with nothing more than gloves and a white lab coat. The standard photo of Dr Shi is of her in a pressurised bubble suit but that's bsl4 and virologists don't like working in those conditions because it slows them down. So the research grants say the work will be done at much lower safety levels.

I guess at some point you enter a gray area where gross negligence and intentionality blur together. But the bioweapon idea shouldn't take hold because it's obviously wrong on its face: the virus has no characteristics that would make for a good weapon of any kind. For it to be intentional would require some kind of theory involving vaccinations but Europe's irrational shutdowns of their own vaccine programmes throws a wrench in the typical vaccine related conspiracy theories.

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

#49

Post by thu2111 »

guesst wrote: post #47
willmadden wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS-2-CoV was almost assuredly not natural, and RaTG13 was a keyboard virus. The only question is if it was accidentally leaked or if it was intentional. We'll never know, the CCP destroyed the evidence. There are many videos and articles on this site about how SARS-2-CoV was not zoonotic. I don't necessarily blame China, but the funders of the research. https://www.peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-no..…

You're treating that question as settled. To me that is the mirror image of the media outlets trying to shut down an open question by claiming it's a "conspiracy" that has been "debunked". I would say what's needed is a credible, independent investigation, one that reasonable people can trust. We haven't had that yet.

How is the article not that? Wade is a life long journalist, now independent, who has done extraordinary research, and who had relied heavily on research done by other independents as well, which is itself based strongly on credible micro-biology. Wade is nonetheless careful not to exaggerate his case but point out the mere balance of probabilities.

I'm not sure you can get more credible or independent than his work.

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

#50

Post by kbenson »

guesst wrote: post #15
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 t…

> 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.

That's the rational response. The fact that it can be played for political gain means it will be played for political gain, regardless of how rational it is.

Look at the whole mask debacle of the last year. If we assume people can and do act rationally, then both sides wouldn't have played it up as much and made it a defining issue or lied about portions of it, but instead we had both people and organizations/parties using it to rally their base (on both sides) and an authority that decided to use half-truths to trick people into doing what they thought they should do given the resources available at the time (to put it kindly).

That's the reality of the world we lived in for the last 12 months, and I see no reason to assume it's all of a sudden different. I'm not sure that means we shouldn't know, but let's be real clear on what the the likely outcome is if it's found to have escaped from some lab in China, regardless of who funded what or who was working on it, and that's that it would be a complete and utter shit show for the West and China, and possibly the entire world.

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