The media's lab leak fiasco • Hacker News Board

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#111

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

whydoineedthis wrote: post #42

partiallypro wrote: post #4

To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak. Where they thwarted any investigations from WHO or anyone else and arrested journalists even attempting to cover it. Now we have additional information of lab workers being sick back in November...I genuinely wonder why people immediately jumped in to defend China's actions through t…

I'm just going to say it - no one in their right mind would want Donald Trump leading a military war against our strongest frenemy in the world. You don't have to hate Trump to admit that he lacks complex strategy and communication skills, as well as a very week, if not incompetent, cabinet. Politically speaking, being in a "justified war" would have done nothing but hurt the democrats chances. It's hard to unseat a…

Genuinely curious, are you indicating that the current POTUS is better qualified to be leading potentially that same military action?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#112

Post by ximeng » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #29

"If the question is “are both hypotheses possible?” the answer is yes. Both are possible. If the question is “are they equally likely?” the answer is absolutely not. One hypothesis requires a colossal cover-up and the silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year. The other requires only for biology to behave as it always has, for a fami…

Both this and the originally linked article are long on politics and conspiracies and short on science, which is why the responses end up being political. The interesting questions here are not about CCP secrecy but about mutation rates in different environments and how effectively scientists can engineer mutations versus evolving them. It would be much more convincing evidence of lab leaks if examples of effective gain of function mutations being injected by scientists (or some kind of accelerated evolution by manipulating lab conditions) could be discussed and explained.

There won’t be a scientific conclusion based on an analysis of what media leaked what when.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#113

Post by bradford » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

ratsmack wrote: post #84

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #37

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story. No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy. I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label…

How do you think it would play out if it is found that our government (e.g. NIH/CDC) supplied funding for research that created this virus? I suspect many countries would take notice.

> funding for research that created this virus?

The very question demonstrates part of the problem here: there are ways that it could have been 'released' by the lab without being 'created' in the lab (or any lab). It's not clear to me that people are aware of this when the lab origin theory is discussed. Please don't prematurely make an assumption about what was going on in the lab.

It's possible that some researcher went into a cave, took some biological samples from bats back to the lab. Thereafter, lack of proper protocol led to an infection that resulted in the pandemic.

Embarrassing for China? yes, and I'd imagine they'd want to cover it up (although such accidents have happened at other worldwide facilities).

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#114

Post by louloulou » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #78

Empact wrote: post #22

As for policy consequences, how about this one: The United States directly and indirectly funded the Wuhan laboratory, and so bears some responsibility for the virus. It also appears Fauci and others were aware of the deficiencies of the institution. The US should end its support for dangerous research in institutions outside of its purview.

I am not from US. Back during early pandemy when not only some US politicians blamed China, Chinese politicians blamed US, when people asked me in person about it, I would explain that both are saying the truth. Obama banned gain of function research in 2015, right after some papers about Coronavirus specifically attracted attention. The fact that US government continued not just gain of function research, but resear…

It continued because the ban on GOF research was lifted in 2017 (https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statem...)

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#115

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:10 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #37

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story. No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy. I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label…

[flagged]

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#116

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #106

enraged_camel wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People ask this as some sort of weird gotcha, but it’s actually not that interesting, nor should it be surprising. After all, the previous administration was filled with habitual liars at every level who kept pushing “alternative facts” over observable reality and shat on the media at every opportunity. As such, everything they claimed was viewed as a likely lie, and rightly so. New developments have happened as well…

> the previous administration was filled with habitual liars at every level who kept pushing “alternative facts” over observable reality As opposed to now? US/Mexico boarder

And this type of whataboutism about irrelevant topics was one of their favorite tactics.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#117

Post by fitzie » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

The media really aren't the story here. their credibility couldn't be any lower. what is interesting is how the scientists stayed quiet, how big tech continues to use fact checkers to censor, and how the Chinese communist party and their allies were able to call discussion of lab leak theory causing hate but the notion of Chinese eating bat soup would not.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#118

Post by etcet » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #29

"If the question is “are both hypotheses possible?” the answer is yes. Both are possible. If the question is “are they equally likely?” the answer is absolutely not. One hypothesis requires a colossal cover-up and the silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year. The other requires only for biology to behave as it always has, for a fami…

Rootclaim has some fairly compelling analysis which suggests the lab leak scenario is more likely: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#119

Post by johncena33 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #97

zdragnar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cover up didn't need to be colossal, just for everyone to point to occams razor and call anyone with a hint of curiosity a racist. The fact that the origin of the outbreak appears to be in the same vicinity as a lab that experiments on similar viruses alone is sufficient reason to want a thorough investigation. Otherwise, the odds that nature produced such a virus, in such a location, make for a crazy coincidence…

Have you considered the possibility that it first appeared in the vicinity of a lab that experiments on similar viruses is because if it had appeared elsewhere, there would have been no sufficiently-equipped lab to isolate it? This is the streetlight effect: you find things where you (are able to) look for them. In other words, it couldn't have appeared somewhere far from a properly-equipped lab, because there would…

> Have you considered the possibility that it first appeared in the vicinity of a lab that experiments on similar viruses is because if it had appeared elsewhere, there would have been no sufficiently-equipped lab to isolate it?

You are essentially arguing for lab leak theory. Initially there was only one cluster of COVID and that was at Wuhan. That's why lab leak hypothesis is more plausible.

It was not the case that there were dozens of clusters all over the world and Wuhan lab was first able to identify the virus. Your argument would have _some_ validity if there are lot of clusters of outbreaks at the same time. But that was not the case. The initial cluster was only at Wuhan.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#120

Post by lamontcg » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #4

To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak. Where they thwarted any investigations from WHO or anyone else and arrested journalists even attempting to cover it. Now we have additional information of lab workers being sick back in November...I genuinely wonder why people immediately jumped in to defend China's actions through t…

> To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak [...]

That all sounds to me just like a massive authoritarian government bureaucracy dealing with a quick moving disaster on their soil where the beaurocrats didn't know what was happening, because the scientists couldn't tell them, so they leaned in on trying to control everyone.

The argument rephrased reads to me like "The reason why I believe in the lab leak theory is that an authoritarian country behaved like an authoritarian country, when I would have expected them to behave like my western democracy".