The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

This thread shows clear efforts of an organized group, likely state-sponsored, to disrupt it.

It was funny to see this happen on 4chan, because at first they could not get it right, and were stuck in their Wikipedia editor mode. They kept getting called out for it, or ignored.

They switched to upvoting and commenting unrelated threads to the front page. When 4chan changed their algorithm to combat this blatant manipulation, they ended with an effective weapon: shitposting.

You fill a thread on Covid or GoF research with an incredible amount of shitposts, and other shitposters attacking those shitposts, downvote walls of text to grey. Derail, derail, derail. You end up with a thread that nobody wants to read, and requires sifting through shit to find what you need. Then easier to just listen to the news about what expert Peter Daszak has to say.

Beating 4chan at its own game. 50 cent army is extremely good at shitposting.

And interesting posts are now hidden behind a "Read More", while posts defending zoonosis (imagine coming into a zoonosis theory thread to shitpost about lab-leak theory, hahaha) are on 2-3-4'th place.

It is getting harder and harder to find the facts or reason about what the hell is going on. The brain of society is poisoned to schizophrenia.

We can only hope that someday the "I fucking love science" crowd will realize science is no less political than any other human endeavor.

A conflict of interest does not depend on whether a person actually gains (or prevents himself from losing) anything, but whether he has some personal interest (such as fame, money, even gifts for a family member, etc.) that coexists with some duty-bound interest to some other party/society (e.g. fiduciary duty, professional ethical duties, etc.), and the person is entrusted with making a decision that implicated either interest depending on the outcome. Conflicts of interest are usually resolved either by disclosure or isolation from the adverse interest.

In this case, Fauci has sort of a small, debatable conflict. His personal stake is not money per se, but his reputation and clear preference for gain-of-function research. If it came out that gain-of-function research caused the pandemic, and Fauci was one of the leading cheerleaders for that since the early aughts AND Fauci may have provided some of the funding for this particular research, then Fauci would stand to lose quite a bit of reputation and standing. That's a real adverse incentive to determine that lab leak of a gain-of-function virus is not possible.

If his job is to share his opinion to the public, then he has a conflict of interest with respect to that decision, since the public doesn't know if Fauci-the-expert is talking or Fauci-the-reputation-seeking-bureaucrat. If he had merely disclosed any of his involvement with restarting funding of gain-of-function research in 2017 or his past advocacy for gain-of-function research, that would significantly resolve the conflict.

In my opinion, Fauci is simply an opportunistic bureaucrat and a liar (I repeat myself), and the conflict of interest claim against him is weak. Peter Daszam has much, much more problematic conflicts of interest. This is a guy who (1) discredited fellow scientists in the Lancet for considering an alternative hypothesis and (2) led a sham WHO investigation into the WIV lab, all while funneling NIH grant money to WIV, not complying with disclosure and review requirements and standing to lose his career if gain-of-function were to be seriously discredited. It would be hard for him to be more conflicted.

Also, for what it's worth, Fauci is the highest paid federal employee. He makes more than the president. Most "public servants" make $150k/year or less. Not to mention, Fauci had also made a book deal as a result of his celebrity.

> Suppose that Fauci had known for a fact in May 2020 that SARS-COV-2 originated in that lab. How would that have changed the advice he (attempted to) offer regarding public health and safety?

If he had known the virus was being researched and escaped the lab, certainly his recommendation should have included requests for any and all research and records related to the virus research. As such records have been very pertinent to public health guidelines and guidance, if not potentially toward treatments and future vaccines.

Also there is the very real financial and legal component if that were the case. On a much smaller scale it would be on par with destroying video evidence of a slip and fall, denying it ever existed, then when caught claiming it’s immaterial to the medical treatment of the injured…that’s still fraud and at minimum a clear attempt to escape legal and financial liability.

At least after some damage, one then learns something.