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The media's lab leak fiasco

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Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#231

Post by nfoz »

dougmwne wrote: post #169
arduinomancer wrote: post #137

I hate how it feels like there's such a "collective narrative" for everything now days with the internet. Whenever I talk to people about recent news stories in real life it feels like everyone is just repeating talking points they read online. Its like we've been absorbed into the internet consciousness and talking to a person is like talking to "the internet brain".

Thanks for speaking this out loud. I've been feeling the same thing. What's weird is I've been having identical conversations with people from multiple US states and several European countries. There used to be an enormous gap between people from different areas and countries, each existing in their own cultural bubble. Now that's changed, and I'm not talking about "closer" I'm talking "the exact same." Our opinions…

I agree and have experienced what you wrote, except I have no idea what your last paragraph means. What are you referring to / talking about? It feels like maybe an example of the phenomenon we're talking about lol

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#232

Post by roca »

danboarder wrote: post #12

One problem with politically charged issues is that one's bias can significantly color unresolved factual issues. In the article the early 'red flags' pointed out in the January 2020 study by The Lancet left clear open questions regarding the Seafood Market hypothesis, but many in the media glossed over these red flags. Now that additional facts are coming to light including the fact that multiple scientists at the l…

I'm open to the lab leak hypothesis, but the intel around those scientists being hospitalized is pretty weak.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#233

Post by xbar »

seattle_spring wrote: post #202
narrator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zerohedge getting banned from Twitter for publishing an expose of the Wuhan Lab which is pretty close to what is acknowledged as a probable story these days is the most high profile example. https://www.zdnet.com/article/zerohedge-banned-from-twitter-...

Is the majority of HN really fighting for Zerohedge to be recognized as a legitimate source of information?

No.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#234

Post by dqv »

seattle_spring wrote: post #208
SCUSKU wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Discussion with friends about the goings ons of the world frequently just turns into taking turns regurgitating what we can recall from NPR and NYT's The Daily.

What sources would you recommend instead?

All of them. Even the ones of your enemies. Sometimes you need to know the other side’s angle to understand if you’re unknowingly biased.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#235

Post by xbar »

swader999 wrote: post #229
asdff wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People stopped reading the source material, and started just parroting the talking points. It's even gotten to the point where people are even convinced the talking points are the source material.

There's very little real reporting. Most of it is regurgitation of one source article for any given story. Very often that source article is fabricated for a purpose.

The Washington Post and New York Times articles cited suggest that there is even less reporting than some think.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#236

Post by undersuit »

speeder wrote: post #204
undersuit wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good revisionism there. The very first sentence they push the bioweapon theory. https://www.zerohedge.com/health/man-behind-global-coronavir...

Indeed, he mentioned "weaponized virus" on the article, I had forgotten that particular bit.

It's been a long 16 months, mistakes happen, maybe I'm running a little low on empathy today too.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#237

Post by generalizations »

cratermoon wrote: post #139
generalizations wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> silent, unswerving, leak-proof compliance of a vast network of scientists, civilians, and government officials for over a year I was watching translated videos early last year made by chinese scientists trying to get the word out, at the risk of their lives. Compliance is simple: you talk, you "disappear". The Great Firewall blocks in both directions, and is very good. Additionally, the West had already decided tha…

> I was watching translated videos early last year made by chinese scientists trying to get the word out So you're saying the Great Firewall is porous and leak happen, but also saying that in this case, the information containment is 100% successful.

> Additionally, the West had already decided that it was politically expedient to ignore lab leak possibility. That meant the primary avenue for such leaks were more underground sources, like 4chan.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#238

Post by makomk »

temp8964 wrote: post #177
wombatmobile wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that this is Standard Operating Procedure(tm) for China When you say "China", do you mean the Department of Health, or the Department of Defense, or the Department of Trade, or the Chinese government, or the Chinese people, or some Chinese guy? It makes as much sense to attribute a Standard Operating Procedure to "China" as it does to attribute something like that to "America", or to say "Americans t…

What you said does not make sense at all. All Chinese government branches are directly under the command of the CCP. Even China's top court rejects the idea of juridical independence [1]. To say China is equivalent to U.S is totally ignorant. 1 . https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-policy-law/chinas-t...

On paper they're directly under the command of the CCP, but Xi Jinping only has so many hours in his day like any other human and can't personally monitor everything that's happening in a billion-person country. That seems to leave plenty of room for government branches to have their own internal politics and interests in practice.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#239

Post by wearywanderer »

dylan604 wrote: post #227
wearywanderer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Evidence" is not a person, and can't make decisions. Decisions are made by people, who we hope are informed by evidence. Who are these people and how are they chosen? What mechanisms exist to evaluate their effectiveness and recall them when they fail? These questions are currently being answered by American corporations, which is not confidence inspiring.

>Decisions are made by people, who we hope are informed by evidence. That hope is lost. It's really easy to get overwhelmed in how doomed we seemed to be because of it. People are believing things in spite of evidence, and are absolutely rooted in that belief to society's detrement. How much further could be be if beliefs were no longer held onto once evidence were present that shows that belief to just not be correc…

Some people will believe stupid things no matter the evidence until the day they die. I don't consider this such a severe problem as to warrant putting some people in charge of what others should believe. Just the contrary in fact...

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#240

Post by whall6 »

neither_color wrote: post #34

There’s a question as to why that fake consensus emerged. But I think the more troubling question is: How did people let the original story of what Tom Cotton even said go so badly awry? Essentially Cotton said something that was then transformed into a fake claim of a Chinese bio-attack, then the fake claim was debunked, and then the debunking was applied to the real claim with little attention paid to ongoing disag…

Woah woah woah who says the earth isn’t flat?
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