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The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

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Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#61
post #2

Things like this usually come down to incentives. And right now I don’t see how almost any major power’s leaders have any incentive to push an investigation forwards. We are too dependent on China to piss them off, and so far experience shows we are much more likely to follow their demands than follow our own (Hollywood, NBA, Hong Kong, blizzard, albeit only one of those is geopolitical).

It's important to realize that the world's dependence on China is actually interdependence.

People fear what might happen if China suddenly blocked all exports to their country, and rightly so. China is a country where the government wields that kind of totalitarian power. However, this hasn't happened even once yet. The Chinese government knows that, once they play that particular card on one nation, every other nation in the world is going to freak out, stop talking about diversifying away from Chinese manufacturing, and actually do it.

The world absolutely should press the Chinese government to behave in an open and responsible manner on COVID and on many other fronts. China will respond with their usual hostage-taking and "wolf warrior" diplomacy, but it's a sham backed by thin air. China needs the world as its customers even more than the world needs cheap Chinese manufacturing. If the world's governments are willing to show a little solidarity then much can be accomplished.

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#62

No, it doesn't. It will only fuel anti-science sentiment all over the world and put scientists under scrutiny and attacks. We need more science, not more science attacks. It will also vindicate Trump like anti-scientists just when we need more science to tackle climate change, inequality, gender gap, and yes, search for viruses with pandemic risk due to human encroachment on wild life so we can be ready for them. Any…

Seeking objective truth is precisely scientific.

Science doesn't care if the result could be construed to be pro or anti Trump. You are speaking about science as if it is religion.

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#63
post #28
post #2

Things like this usually come down to incentives. And right now I don’t see how almost any major power’s leaders have any incentive to push an investigation forwards. We are too dependent on China to piss them off, and so far experience shows we are much more likely to follow their demands than follow our own (Hollywood, NBA, Hong Kong, blizzard, albeit only one of those is geopolitical).

>>We are too dependent on China to piss them off, That seems to be a problem... No? Maybe we should be pushing our political and business leaders to fix that. If a nation.. openly hostile to our interests is able to cause a worldwide pandemic that no one can investigate because it might upset that nations feefee's. That imo is much bigger problem than the pandemic itself

> a nation.. openly hostile to our interests

What interests of ours is China openly hostile to?

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#64
post #52

why does the world need a proper investigation into that? Sometimes it seems to me that it’s just because we want someone to blame. Not because it would actually help anyone.

Slightly torn on this. Surely it would be good to understand it better so that it might be recognised earlier next time. However the world’s mostly shambolic response is probably the better focus for inquiry. Can’t help feeling that the former issue is being used as a smokescreen for the latter.

> Can’t help feeling that the former issue is being used as a smokescreen for the latter.

It certainly looks that way. Given pandemics are a naturally occuring event, the origin of the event itself doesnt excuse the breakdowns in government, policy and to a certain extent personal human behaviour. It is not promisiong as there were precedents and plans in place, but we learnt nothing from inquiries into past pandemics.

Every person probably needs to have their own personal inquiry, no matter which side; 'its jsut the flu' to 'this is the end of humanity' and everywhere in between.

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#65

No, it doesn't. It will only fuel anti-science sentiment all over the world and put scientists under scrutiny and attacks. We need more science, not more science attacks. It will also vindicate Trump like anti-scientists just when we need more science to tackle climate change, inequality, gender gap, and yes, search for viruses with pandemic risk due to human encroachment on wild life so we can be ready for them. Any…

Seeking objective truth is precisely scientific. Science doesn't care if the result could be construed to be pro or anti Trump. You are speaking about science as if it is religion.

Scientists need to consider the political impact of their findings. If it will only be used to bring harm in the world it's irresponsible to share it.

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#66
post #26

Honestly though, do we? Why? It almost certainly wasn't man made and intentional. That's the only case we really need to know the origin story for, and I don't think anyone serious thinks that is plausible. Otherwise, the worst case is that it was a lab accident of some kind. It'd be fun to point and blame China for it and all, but is it something we really need ?

The problem with the boeing 737 MAX was also not intentional.

Unless you would argue we shouldn't investigate that either, why do you make a distinction here?

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#67
post #28
post #2

Things like this usually come down to incentives. And right now I don’t see how almost any major power’s leaders have any incentive to push an investigation forwards. We are too dependent on China to piss them off, and so far experience shows we are much more likely to follow their demands than follow our own (Hollywood, NBA, Hong Kong, blizzard, albeit only one of those is geopolitical).

>>We are too dependent on China to piss them off, That seems to be a problem... No? Maybe we should be pushing our political and business leaders to fix that. If a nation.. openly hostile to our interests is able to cause a worldwide pandemic that no one can investigate because it might upset that nations feefee's. That imo is much bigger problem than the pandemic itself

Part of the problem is that the entire mainstream media narrative of the pandemic was warped by using it to get Trump out of office, which lead to downplaying how important China's actions were. In particular, I remember a lot of the press harping on about how the Obama administration wrote a pandemic plan and how much better everything would've gone if Trump followed it... except the plan wasn't exactly as described by the media. The most important thing, according to the document, was something none of the media coverage mentioned - it wasn't mask wearing, or lockdowns, or vaccinations or anything they talked about, it was actually getting accurate information from the country where the pandemic started. It hammered away on the fact that every other part of the pandemic response fundamentally relied on that information, there was no way to do without it, and if the pandemic started in a developing country without the staff to gather it the US should deploy their own mission there to get it. There was no advice on what to do if the country was a near-peer of the US which refused to release that info for internal political reasons. An accurate description of that document would've put a lot more of the blame on China, and that just wouldn't do politically.

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeking objective truth is precisely scientific. Science doesn't care if the result could be construed to be pro or anti Trump. You are speaking about science as if it is religion.

Scientists need to consider the political impact of their findings. If it will only be used to bring harm in the world it's irresponsible to share it.

[deleted]

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#69

No, it doesn't. It will only fuel anti-science sentiment all over the world and put scientists under scrutiny and attacks. We need more science, not more science attacks. It will also vindicate Trump like anti-scientists just when we need more science to tackle climate change, inequality, gender gap, and yes, search for viruses with pandemic risk due to human encroachment on wild life so we can be ready for them. Any…

So, covering up science fuck ups is legimitate because it protects science, and we need science to promote other agendas to promote other dodgy agendas which are scientifically still unproven or unprovable (I don't know how science can even explain gender gap...)?

Re: The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started

#70

Why? What would that change, apart from distracting everyone into another giant anti-china campaign? Would we solve covid if we knew how it came to be synthesized?

Can you imagine saying, we don't care what happened at chernobyl because it's anti russian. Where does this weird narrative come from? The idea that properly investigating an event that completely shook the world to its core is somehow "insensitive". I mean, let's just not investigate anything where we might not like the answer... Is that really a legitimate strategy in your mind.

there was already an investigation, and it's pretty clear that any further investigation would involve threats to china. It's not about 'sensitivity'. We can just assume that the virus was leaked from the lab, unless the chinese prove otherwise. What does that change?
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