Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thelancet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 335 posts

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

#251

Post by clairity »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #182
clairity wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

religion is a way to coalesce and exert power on large groups of people. religion is politics.

That’s a political view of religion, most religious I know are simply asking ‘why something instead of nothing?’

but that's like looking at a function and defining it by its initial value. a function has meaning and importance beyond the 0th-order. and it's a philosophical view moreso than a political one (a political view posits how to use religion in the service of power).

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

#252

Post by epakai »

listenallyall wrote: post #191
armchairhacker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I do put most of the blame on conservatives. They're the ones who aren't taking vaccines or wearing masks. It just doesn't excuse some liberals from encouraging this left/right divide and just being nasty. Things like r/HermanCainAward, being proud when vaccine deniers get sick. At least understand that when someone is literally putting themselves in danger, they're not evil or selfish, they're delusional and misi…

> conservatives. They're the ones who aren't taking vaccines or wearing masks. Minorities (POC, Latinx) have the lowest vaccination rates. Do these groups generally lean conservative? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health...

Hispanic/Latino is 16.6% of all vaccinated while making up 17.2% of population.

Black is 10.0% of all vaccinated while making up 12.4% of population.

White (non-hispanic) is 61.5% of all vaccinated while making up 61.2% of the population.

So we're talking ~2.4 points behind at worst (stats are from the CDC link in your article). For comparison we're talking about more than a 10 point gap when comparing counties by political affilation. https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/the-red-blue-divide-in-covi...

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

#253

Post by [deleted] »

epakai wrote: post #252
listenallyall wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conservatives. They're the ones who aren't taking vaccines or wearing masks. Minorities (POC, Latinx) have the lowest vaccination rates. Do these groups generally lean conservative? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health...

Hispanic/Latino is 16.6% of all vaccinated while making up 17.2% of population. Black is 10.0% of all vaccinated while making up 12.4% of population. White (non-hispanic) is 61.5% of all vaccinated while making up 61.2% of the population. So we're talking ~2.4 points behind at worst (stats are from the CDC link in your article). For comparison we're talking about more than a 10 point gap when comparing counties by po…

[deleted]

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

#254

Post by epakai »

iammisc wrote: post #233
Aeolun wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Trump nothing surprises me any more.

The only people who think Trump was the source of the division are out-of-touch liberals. I don't even mean this pejoratively. I just encourage you to look beyond the current predominant media narratives. This society has been breaking apart for a while. All the signs have been there. Trump shocked the liberals, but Obama shocked the conservatives before him, and we can ping pong back and forth for a while I'm sure.…

Obama wasn't that shocking. There was just a massive outrage factory attacking him. There are controversial things the Obama administration did, but the outrage wasn't commensurate.

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

#255

Post by rjbwork »

jackfoxy wrote: post #132
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.

Being skeptical of a hypothetical like that is fine. Once the vaccine came out and was shown to be efficacious, they updated their opinions with the data. This is exactly the manner in which one would hope, and indeed expect, their political leaders to behave. To do otherwise is pure reality-denying insanity.

I was also very skeptical of the speed at which a vaccine could be created and rolled out. But, once it was rolled out and it was shown to be reasonably safe, certainly far safer than actually getting COVID, I went and got the jab. These are not hypocritical or diametrically opposed viewpoints and actions. They are the behaviors of someone living in reality, with all of the uncertainty that entails.

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

#256

Post by mikem170 »

hellotomyrars wrote: post #238
armchairhacker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I do put most of the blame on conservatives. They're the ones who aren't taking vaccines or wearing masks. It just doesn't excuse some liberals from encouraging this left/right divide and just being nasty. Things like r/HermanCainAward, being proud when vaccine deniers get sick. At least understand that when someone is literally putting themselves in danger, they're not evil or selfish, they're delusional and misi…

To be clear, while many of the common people who are taking the largely anti-mask/vaccine messaging from the big voices in their camp aren’t doing it because they’re evil, they are being selfish regardless of the fact they’re delusional and misinformed. To be even more clear however, the kinds of people pushing these viewpoints within their community are actually evil and doing it in bad faith for their own self gain…

> If people want to live in their own version of reality I don’t care. But when their version of reality is ruining it for the rest of us, it is a problem

Are you sure that is a true statement? What exact ruination are you referring to? Are you saying that we would not have had a delta wave in the U.S. if more people had vaccinated? Or that lockdowns would have gone differently? Or schools?

Australia still has a covid problem, despite their lockdowns. Israel is still having covid breakouts, despite their high vaccination rates. It's putting a strain on many health care systems.

What do you think will change if we had closer to 100% vaccine compliance?

> and there isn’t a lot of room for discussion with someone who isn’t willing to engage with reality.

Quite the contrary, there's plenty of room for discussion. You obviously don't understand their point of view. Not everyone thinks the way you do. This ending to your comment struck me as quite dismissive. That's a lot of people you just wrote off.

Where does it leave us if we can't talk about these things, and respect our different values?

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

#257

Post by sangnoir »

Clubber wrote: post #207
titzer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who has lived abroad for a significant number of years and returned recently, it becomes abundantly clear, that if we only measure by the amount of time spent bitching, moaning, and fighting, Americans hate each other more than anything else on this planet. Disease, war, famine, injustice, genocide, plague? None will garner as much sincere unflagging burning rage as what those other fuckers did or said…

>because hate, hate, hate, hate. That's what sells ads. If you read an article that makes you feel superior to another group of people, like "look what these stupid people are doing," in so many words, that's a hate-monger company. There are many. Fear also sells, and it's a cousin to hate. You can't really have hate without fear. Fear of loss, fear of some unknown boogie man (George Soros, Koch brothers, etc.) It's…

> That's what sells ads.

The failure modes of the combination of democracy and America-style capitalism are fascinating, as is the reluctance of those with authority to act, to do so.

The American media is both too docile to ask difficult questions (so as to maintain access), while simultaneously riling up viewers' emotions with opinion-shows. Independent media in other western countries do a better job at holding authorities to account - even with something as basic as asking follow-up questions at press-conferences, or pushing back at incorrect characterizations.

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

#258

Post by void_mint »

chitowneats wrote: post #206
listenallyall wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conservatives. They're the ones who aren't taking vaccines or wearing masks. Minorities (POC, Latinx) have the lowest vaccination rates. Do these groups generally lean conservative? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health...

It's so strange the way that American liberals hand-wave low vax rates in minority communities. Vague references to the "Tuskegee Experiments", a real event that of course has had some effect on the way some minorities view Western medicine and vaccines. Or notions of "access", despite the vaccines being completely free and widely available for many months. Tuskegee was many decades ago. There are much more recent ex…

> It's so strange the way that American liberals hand-wave low vax rates in minority communities.

As you've commented (but then hand waved), the motive behind the distrust. "An orange man told me" vs. "The US government has spent hundreds of years oppressing our people, and the US medical system fails minorities consistently time and time again".

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

#259

Post by titzer »

School-Cotton wrote: post #211
titzer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American who has lived abroad for a significant number of years and returned recently, it becomes abundantly clear, that if we only measure by the amount of time spent bitching, moaning, and fighting, Americans hate each other more than anything else on this planet. Disease, war, famine, injustice, genocide, plague? None will garner as much sincere unflagging burning rage as what those other fuckers did or said…

Your metric seems silly given that there are several groups of people actively trying to kill each other for religious, ideological, or ethnic reasons in various parts of the world. People in the US may well hate each other more than people in most peaceful developed countries, sure. But “this planet” is a big place.

I mean that Americans hate each other more than they hate anything else on this planet. Clearly there is plenty of other groups hating each other.

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

#260

Post by DisjointedHunt »

timr wrote: post #165
krull10 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if they do gain of function research there, but NEIDL is in the heart of Boston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emerging_Infectious_D...

Pretty much every BSL4 facility in the US is within easy commuting distance from a major city. The CDC being a great example. These are not military, but it doesn't matter.

In the US. . . EVERYTHING is Military. EVERYTHING.
Post reply on HN