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The media's lab leak fiasco

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Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#331

Post by jkhdigital »

asdff wrote: post #176
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".

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.

Human centipede baby

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#332

Post by slg »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #264
pavlov wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument seems to assume that Internet hosting is like air — a natural resource which by default is available for everyone to use, but social media companies restrict unfairly. As everyone here should know, it’s not like that: hosting can be awfully expensive, especially for media content. Social media companies receive money from advertisers, and use that money to host content from users and partners that hopef…

It’s not about hosting. It’s about distribution and eyeball minutes. As long as social media sites deliver content through an algorithmic feed, there are a limited number of slots available for the “next page.” The user will stop scrolling eventually. Their limited attention is valuable real estate. It’s also why social media has an incentive to maximize the time on feed. The best regulatory approach to social media…

How would you feel if we swapped out "social media sites" and "algorithmic" for "newspapers" and "editorial" in that first paragraph? There are a limited number of slots in the newspaper. Should the government step in a guarantee that the New York Times needs to publish any crackpot theory I come up with?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#333

Post by stevenhuang »

nfoz wrote: post #252
asciimov wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The far right will use this as a reason to curtail research. Maybe just curtail "dangerous" research at first. Then whatever other research they can convince their followers is also dangerous.

Why would you think that's just a "far right" thing? Actually I don't get what you're insinuating at all. Is anyone opposed to safety protocols?

It's in the nature of those who are politically inclined to try to view everything politically, and they often miss the mark.

I just ignore them.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#334

Post by tripletao »

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…

SARS-CoV-2 came to the world's attention because so many people in Wuhan got sick that clinicians noticed the unexpectedly high volume of patients. No special skill in virology is required to detect that, and there's no indication that the WIV was involved in doing so; if you believe it was, please post a reference. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 was first published not by the WIV but by Professor Zhang Yongzhen at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052966/chin...

Of course it's possible that the WIV had discovered the outbreak earlier by more sophisticated means, and the CCP has chosen to conceal this fact. I don't think it's even that unlikely, considering all the other early warnings they tried and failed to conceal (e.g., the reports from Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist unaffiliated with the WIV); but the question would then become why.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#335

Post by jkhdigital »

seattle_spring wrote: post #320
dqv wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally. Here's the thing: 95% of the time I see someone argue what you're arguing online, it's from someone who only believes completely false news sources (rather than biased).

How do you know they are false? And completely false, at that? Just asking.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#336

Post by Dma54rhs »

defaultname wrote: post #251
Moodles wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More critically, you have a higher standard of every random article in every newspaper than you do of agencies actually responsible. Which is truly dystopian. > But you find issue with the media. > Incredible. The HN topic is about the media, so I'm talking about the media. > Speaking of which, Trump's "travel ban" (that wasn't a travel ban) was the single action taken after the virus was already spreading uncontro…

There is zero disguising the intent of your comment. The bit about Pelosi "dancing" was particularly telling. There are a number of other replies that come straight from MAGA-verse, full of outrageous lies but that is where US politics are right now. The US had a catastrophically poor response under the prior administration. That wasn't because of the media. It wasn't because of Nancy Pelosi. It wasn't because people…

Incredible comment, is this is the level of discourse now in America?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#337

Post by briefcomment »

pedalpete wrote: post #222

Am I the only one who feels like this is mostly a non-issue. I feel like the case of if this came from a lab for from a market is mostly taking a political side against China - if it came from a lab, or for China - if it was naturally developed. If it came from a Chinese lab as part of a conscious effort of weaponizing a virus, sure, that's important, but I don't think anyone is saying that. If it came from a lab acc…

I don't think it's the actual facts that are especially problematic, but the rabid antagonistic response to a theory.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#338

Post by totalZero »

wombatmobile wrote: post #69
bsder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this is Standard Operating Procedure(tm) for China for anything which might upset the hoi-polloi. Trying to predict what China will execute people for is like reading entrails.

> 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…

The fundamental underpinnings of China's government and way of life are entirely different from what we Westerners are accustomed to. The simple fact that there are more individuals involved does not prove plurality of thought, because the organizational structure actively punishes dissent and silences critics.

Not every society of more than one person is pluralistic. Extrinsic forces and incentives make a major impact on human behavior.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#339

Post by dougmwne »

nfoz wrote: post #231
dougmwne wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What I mean is to really address climate change all 8 billion of us are going to have to come together and make huge changes to our lives and each make personal sacrifices for the greater good. There will be new government mandates and it will affect how we live and work. There will be a huge social pressure to conform and a huge backlash. But we will have no choice because our environment will have changed to be more dangerous to our survival. Sounds a bit like the last year, doesn't it?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#340

Post by totalZero »

makomk wrote: post #302
temp8964 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why the hundreds of thousands of mouths of Chinese Doctors and Nurses and medical researchers are kept shut now? Well, apparently the CCP told the truth, the whole truth to the world. Authoritarian regime doesn't work. /s

As far as I can tell from the outside, there were actually multiple overlapping cover-ups within China by different organisations with different interests that resulted in doctors, nurses and medical researchers being silenced - starting with local-level coverups that tried to keep the national government from knowing there was a problem, and ending with multiple national-level coverups, including attempts to cover u…

That's what you get with authoritarianism. Both the carrots (political advancement) and the sticks (punishment from above) encourage underlings to obey what they think their superiors would command, even when those superiors are not involved.

The pithiest example is the death of Li Wenliang. The doctor who was threatened and silenced for warning others of a SARS outbreak, himself died of the disease when it spread due to inaction.

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