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An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

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Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#131

Post by motohagiography »

noptd wrote: post #127
stormbrew wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's unlikely that the people investigating will be the same ones developing new drugs or treatments for covid. Maybe not, but maybe they should instead be investigating how policy failed us so catastrophically around the world after it escaped its original area. When the world obsesses over its origin, it seems to be blatant deflection over failures at home.

The parent already addressed this concern: >The worldwide community is large. We can do many things all at the same time. Investigating the source is not a distraction.

That's a bromide though, political narrative is serial and synchronous, and distractions are designed to run the clock and cost time, which normalizes and consolidates all the evils that states have exploited in this.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#132

Post by jackfoxy »

advael wrote: post #98

It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks…

It's pretty easy to find old video clips of both Biden and Harris talking very skeptically about how fast a vaccine could be rolled out, its efficacy, and safety before they won the election. Contrast with the administration's policy today.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#133

Post by tedjdziuba »

dogsboywonder wrote: post #18

The amount of censorship, especially among the qualified scientific community in just about every facet of this disease is alarming. Even if the origins were accidental or lab-born or whatnot, the response has been so politicized worldwide that pure science has been largely thrown out the window. Every possibility should be analyzed & tested, even if it goes against the interests of a ruling party and all parties are…

This is why folks on the right roll their eyes when folks on the left say "trust the science!". What it really means is "trust the TV", which many people on the right are unwilling to do, because the TV spent 4 years calling them all evil racist bigots. Why trust someone that hates you?

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#134

Post by Gibbon1 »

devwastaken wrote: post #89

"In addition, the international research community has no access to the sites, samples, or raw data." The reason lab leak is considered a conspiracy theory, is because it's a literal conspiracy theory. The conspiracy being the CCP and potentially U.S. covering up a virus leak from their lab. Of course all sorts of other politics and disinformation get attached. Nobody has the evidence necessary to make evidence based…

A hallmark of a conspiracy theory is you always have a cartoon villein behind it. In this case the CCP is Dr Evil.

Also will say the approach the conspiracy theorists and foreign policy operatives have taken with this isn't likely to garner any transparency from China going forward. That's bad because fundamentally despite differences the Chinese and the the US have common interests in this.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#135

Post by gsnedders »

motohagiography wrote: post #107
ISL wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The origin matters for two major reasons: 1) So we can learn and mitigate the risks of something similar happening again. and 2) In the event that the virus was leaked from a laboratory, the world would like to send the lab a small invoice for costs incurred and damages.

So literally, nothing different. Labs are all hypersensitive about their processes right now, so they're doing 1) already, and the recipient of that invoice is the US NIH, or the CCP, neither of whom have either the willingness or ability to pay. It's window dressing, and I'm becoming even more suspicious that the disease origin is just another managed narrative, as everybody who believes it came from a lab believed…

I think the reasonable question in the lab breakout case is "was the risk assessment used to determine the Biohazard Safety Level the work in the lab was carried out under sufficient, and do we need to change processes to reduce the risk of such a breakout in future (e.g., by increasing the BSL needed for such work)".

That, to me, is the interesting part of the lab breakout case. Are we regularly underestimating the risk of novel viruses in research laboratories?

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#136

Post by void_mint »

armchairhacker wrote: post #122
void_mint wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. We're living in very different worlds I guess.

I do know some conservative, religious, pro-Trump communities were very focused on stopping the spread of covid and locking down. It wasn’t a partisan issue, it was common knowledge that covid-19 made people sick and we had to stop it. Until Donald Trump decided to say covid-19 is a hoax and preventative measures are unnecessary. Presumably because he‘s so contrarian that anything the Democrats supported he opposed a…

> And now it’s too late, since many conservatives got so invested in the fact that covid-19 is fake, and people can’t admit when they’re wrong. I wish liberals were more sympathetic and tried to make it easier for conservatives to accept the vaccine instead of mocking and shaming. But it’s so hard to get people to admit when they’re wrong.

It's interesting that you didn't say "I wish more conservatives would admit they were wrong", but instead put the onus of action on liberals.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#137

Post by mmerlin »

inglor_cz wrote: post #14
peakaboo wrote: post #4

It's so interesting to me that people can't even imagine that covid could be intentionally created and let out. Not a leak, not an accident. Is it because people don't understand that actual evil exists outside of movies? That there are extreamly powerful people in the world that will throw babies into fires because they believe in occult entities? This is not imaginary. We live in a world where very evil people exis…

Both bioweapons and chemical weapons suffer from a deployability problem. Sure, you will cause some harm; perhaps even great harm; but there is no guarantee you will emerge out of the chaos better off than your adversaries. What did China win so far? Paranoia of the rest of the world and an acute realization of most Western nations that they need to rethink their alliances (see the recent AUKUS story) and their suppl…

To be fair, AUKUS is more of a reaction towards China invading other countries territorial waters, creating military bases there, and bullying any other boats (who are simply just working within their own countries waters, or just crossing the Sea that China now claims exclusively as theirs).

Apparently for the past three years their vast 'fishing' fleets are also shining green lasers into the cockpits of passing planes and bridges of passing ships at night, to increase the stress and occupational risks heaped upon the shoulders of each captain/pilot of a non-Chinese boat/plane [1]

Let's also not forget their MASSIVE KNEE JERK REACTION to the Australian PM stating that we needed China to cooperate more with the W.H.O. (scientists attempted to follow the normal discovery process investigating the origins of Covid, but were denied access to dated lab samples from the Wuhan lab [2])

China was so insulted (and/or scared?) by these words that their knee-jerk reaction was to cut off billions of dollars of imports arriving from Australia, temporarily decimating some parts of our wine industry, and rock lobster export industry to China [3]

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-06/chinese-fishing-vesse...

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-tells-who-its-not...

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-10/chinas-trade-war-with...

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#138

Post by slacka »

birken wrote: post #105
void_mint wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. We're living in very different worlds I guess.

Yes, don't you remember the early days of the pandemic when Donald Trump was very pro-mask, including regularly wearing a mask himself, and then only when the liberal started moralizing he turned anti-mask?

> you remember the early days of the pandemic when Donald Trump was very pro-mask, including regularly wearing a mask himself,

I don't remember it. Because it never happened: https://apnews.com/article/michael-pence-virus-outbreak-dona...

It wasn't until the pandemic was raging in the summer that he wore a mask in public and then quickly stopped doing so. He even put on a show of ripping off his mask after he came back from his Covid hospitalization.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#139

Post by eunos »

advael wrote: post #98

It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks…

> until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies.

Surprising how easy it is to fracture American society then.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#140

Post by eunos »

ianleeclark wrote: post #125
advael wrote: post #98

It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks…

> It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect I've long thought the best way of reaching 100% vaccination in the US was to have competing Democrat and Republican vaccines. Democrats could don a dashiki and say one thing while Republicans could put up a crack smoking pillow salesman to say another.

Make 1 vaccine brand "endorsed by Republican" and other brand "endorsed by Democrat"
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