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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

#141

Post by luckylion »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #109
luckylion wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially for the same reason you'll usually have far-reaching amnesties after civil wars etc, if you want freedom going forward. Doing an investigation to find "the real truth", which from what I gather in most threads here would be essentially "where did it come from and why was it the Wuhan lab that intentionally released it?", wouldn't really get us anywhere. None of the large powers would cooperate if they fel…

> Doing an investigation to find "the real truth", which from what I gather in most threads here would be essentially "where did it come from and why was it the Wuhan lab that intentionally released it?", wouldn't really get us anywhere. We shouldn't be conflating the result from a professional investigation with the prevalent popular opinion. > I also believe that there's nothing we can do to stop another similar ev…

> We shouldn't be conflating the result from a professional investigation with the prevalent popular opinion.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but professional investigations tend to be politically charged and popular opinion tends to be created by the same interests who create politics.

And it's not that we totally, absolutely wouldn't learn anything that would ever help us. It's just that we likely won't find a magic bullet (which would be worth a lot of trouble), but will probably create conditions where countries will cooperate less and mislead more the next time it happens. I mentioned amnesties previously, and I believe they work in a similar fashion. Hunt down the evil-doers who lost a civil war, if you want to remain in a perpetual state of civil war. Don't do it if you want to return to some kind of normalcy and peace.

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

#142

Post by pvaldes »

pvaldes wrote: post #99
dannyw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China accidentally released this then the world deserves to know what happened so all labs in the world can learn from it.

> If China accidentally released this then the world deserves to know what happened "China" didn't accidentally released anything, and is easy to see why. The group of scientists that were working in Wuhan (some Chinese, other not) don't represent the government or the entire country. How they could? Would be so absurd as to claim that "US" or "Italy" released accidentally covid-19 because a few scientists from US or…

could mes -> could mess

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

#143

Post by rleigh »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #138
helloworld11 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? Of course the origin story of COVID matters, enormously. Knowing where a virus originated and whether it leaked from a lab accident or came to us through a natural cross-over is enormously important for clinical reasons and in the case of this vast global pandemic, for simple historical reasons of firmly establishing what happened and how right down to the first sequence of events. In no way is wanti…

Is important for historians? How would it be important for "clinical reasons"?

The most obvious reason would be this: preventing a repeat occurrence.

We can't learn from our mistakes if we are prevented from finding out what the mistake was...

If the virus did get released from a supposedly secure research facility, this has huge implications for research policy and biosecurity standards worldwide. If the virus did originate from gain-of-function research, this again has implications upon whether we permit it or ban it worldwide. It was already banned in the US and other Western nations on safety grounds; maybe it's not safe anywhere in the world given that it could result in a global pandemic.

But without concrete evidence and open discussion, it won't be possible to make policy based upon rational discussion and decision-making.

Given the global impact of the pandemic, it would behoove us to give such investigation a high priority, given its profound importance to our long-term health and prosperity.

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

#144

Post by virtue3 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #63
syshum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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?

Sure.

Price fixing of the yuan to keep Chinese manufacturing significantly cheaper than everywhere else. https://www.investopedia.com/trading/chinese-devaluation-yua...

Taiwan's independence. The emergence of TSMC is pretty critical at this point in time and the US and other European countries have paid them a lot of money to open plants in their territories.

Chinas aircraft carrier program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_progr...

Chinas claims that the j20 can "beat" the f22. https://guardingindia.com/china/china-claims-that-j-20-can-b...

And the most recent and my latest favorite: China has started up 250 ICBM silos for nuclear weapons https://apnews.com/article/technology-europe-business-scienc....

This is most likely in direct response to the latest US anti missile capabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De...

China now has to either pretend is has way more nuclear missiles or actually make them (and maintain them).

The US and China are in this constant state of "our biggest trade partner is also our current biggest rival". I'm not really sure what the end game of that entails but I'm really hoping it just maintains at dick waving status.

It's going to be very interesting if/how China steps into Afghanistan. That was basically Russia's vietnam. The current US situation with it should be pretty obvious to everyone at this point.

We specifically did pacific theatre exercises with the japanese self defense force and the south korean military with shit like launching land based JSDF missles from USN ships target guidance and plenty of other joint operations to show China(maybe Russia?) the capabilities of the US armed forces and it's allies.

inb4 "the usa started it". Yeah probably. China has been playing the military dick measuring game for the last 10 years pretty hard tho. I didn't think any country was as stupid as the USA to put as much money into defense spending but here we are (I am a US citizen).

tl;dr China is openly hostile to US military and economic influence in SE Asia.

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

#145

Post by syshum »

White_Wolf wrote: post #132
syshum wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From comments, and look at the actual study [1] I have 4 Points 1. No additional verification has been found since, leading to the probability that it was a false positive 2. The researches final paper and subsequent research only talks about finding indicators after Jan 2020 3. The original March 2019 only had 2 of 5 indicators, and seemed to be a data anomaly we should not be writing sensationalist news stories on…

On that same note I see you desperately want to believe it started in China. Maybe If you don't like the Spain results, Italy ones a few months before Wuhan will be more to your taste? https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim... Edit: Forgot to mention one thing. I don't care about either China or US. They are both just as bad as far as I'm concerned. Different faces of totalitarianism.

>>On that same note I see you desperately want to believe it started in China.

No, it is a clear fact that it started in China. The only open question is was that a natural transfer or a lab leak

I believe it was a Lab leak from China, and that china should be held responsible for that.

Now I freely admit that my bias is anti-china, I believe the government of china is one of, if not the single greatest threat to individual freedom in the world today.

I do care about US, I think the US is the greatest nation on the planet. I think the US for all its faults is still a Beacon on the Hill for individual freedom, though we are losing that as the government try;s to make us More EU like with very limited freedom.

To call the US totalitarian like China means you are willfully ignorant or or soo opposed to individual freedom/ pro collectivism that you do not even know that totalitarianism is anymore

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

#146

Post by BoxOfRain »

ramblerman wrote: post #62
ghyiihdruh wrote: post #58

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.

Exactly, science is a process rather than a priesthood and we forget that at our peril.

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

#148

Post by edmundsauto »

aww_dang wrote: post #85
dTal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've made a category error. We're not talking about the lost schmucks who've bought into this claptrap - we're talking about whose bright idea it was in the first place, and who's making an effort to spread it. Someone is providing those "alternative theories". You dig around a little and you find dubiously funded websites and media outlets pushing this stuff, as well as the more unsavory elements of media…

>So, who benefits when Americans lose faith in their government? The public at large if it results in more critical thinking, greater liberty or accountability.

If I look at the groups in America who appear to have lost faith in their government, I see a lot of groups - Proud Boys, antivaxxers, antimaskers, anti-CDC people - who could not be remotely categorized as critical thinkers. Their behaviors have caused a longer loss in personal liberty because the pandemic continues. And, to look at the Capitol insurrectionists - there's not much accountability.

I just don't think there's much evidence that losing faith in government leads to any of those benefits. And my experience tells me that it does the opposite.

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

#150

Post by read_if_gay_ »

luckylion wrote: post #141
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing an investigation to find "the real truth", which from what I gather in most threads here would be essentially "where did it come from and why was it the Wuhan lab that intentionally released it?", wouldn't really get us anywhere. We shouldn't be conflating the result from a professional investigation with the prevalent popular opinion. > I also believe that there's nothing we can do to stop another similar ev…

> We shouldn't be conflating the result from a professional investigation with the prevalent popular opinion. Maybe I'm too cynical, but professional investigations tend to be politically charged and popular opinion tends to be created by the same interests who create politics. And it's not that we totally, absolutely wouldn't learn anything that would ever help us. It's just that we likely won't find a magic bullet…

But China is already uncooperative wrt investigations. That’s probably the main reason why so many people want an ivestigation. It just looks extremely shady.

So, what I don’t understand is how accepting uncooperativeness is going to make them more cooperative in the future. I see how it would work with a group of individuals. But we’re at a different level of abstraction here, dealing with federal governments.

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