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So how are they keeping all the scientists involved in such a leak quiet? How many of these scientists are there?
A cover up isn't very hard to execute if the involved parties all have aligned incentives - in this case, not ruining their careers, possibly destroying their entire professional field, and publicly accepting culpability for millions of deaths and other damages.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect you have a bit of a straw man in mind. The opposition would likely say something like: "GoF is the best means at our disposal to fight diseases much worse than COVID".
I suspect that the opposition then is not considering the gravity of this research being responsible for the deaths of millions. Which is obviously absurd, so there is definitely something else going on.
1. You don't know what my position actually is, as I haven't stated it
2. You are confusing assertion and evidence
In order to be even remotely convincing, you would have to show that the risk/reward ratio of GoF is stacked against GoF. Right now, you're just aggressively telling us that it is.
You'll note that no matter how bad you demonstrate COVID to be, the opposition could (rightly!) claim that there are potentially worse diseases. And no matter how bad you postulate a future GoF-related outbreak might be, they could postulate a scenario in which humanity were saved by GoF.
This is a hard question. It's literally a philosophical one. I really wish you wouldn't be so snarky.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect you have a bit of a straw man in mind. The opposition would likely say something like: "GoF is the best means at our disposal to fight diseases much worse than COVID".
Friend, I think you maybe clicked the wrong reply link? I didn't say anything about GoF research at all. Assuming that we ever get the honest and open public debate about COVID-19's origins, and if it was a lab leak from WIV and was related to GoF research, then certainly the potential benefits of GoF research would be weighed against the potential dangers. I don't take a position one way or another in that conversat…
None of these Substack-based lab-leak hysteria pieces ever address "so what?" I see nothing here to convince me that Omicron is a lab leak as opposed to an animal reservoir, where the author includes "seems to have come from mice" as evidence for the former and not the latter, which is confused. Regardless, there is nothing actionable about any origin theory aside from "be mad at some unnamed scientist" or, as some o…
> We need to make efforts to stay informed about what’s happening with these viruses and the status of GoF research. We need to tell our friends and families, to use whatever platform we might have, big or small, to promote the end of this research. We need to get this in the public eye, so the public can demand change. We need to demand change, and not take no for an answer.
As someone who wasn't totally sure about the lab leak hypothesis before, this is rather convincing. Especially for the path that omicron took. I'm also surprised gain of function research has not been banned, the risk is far too high
A New Scientist article from two weeks ago suggests two other hypothesis for the evolution of omicron: that it either evolved in a single immune-compromised person, or that it jumped to an animal population and then jumped back: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2302268-how-did-the-omi...
I've been following COVID news the same way I do the weather during tornado season. That is to say, consistently and with an effort at personal awareness, but I'm hardly an expert. Yet I'm aware of several other "parsimonious hypotheses" which the author is not, and, worse, they apparently consider their own ignorance as evidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would add to that: "is it an intentional means of destabilizing the West?" To be clear: I see no evidence that Omicron is even a second lab-leak, much less that it's part of a sinister plot. My point is that there are immediate geopolitical implications, in addition to the scientific and public-health implications you have highlighted.
Which makes it even more ridiculous that random people on the internet are coming up with the lab leak theories and that American intelligence agencies, spanning 2 wildly divergent administrations, have not said anything to support this.
[0]: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declass...
So how are they keeping all the scientists involved in such a leak quiet? How many of these scientists are there?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A cover up isn't very hard to execute if the involved parties all have aligned incentives - in this case, not ruining their careers, possibly destroying their entire professional field, and publicly accepting culpability for millions of deaths and other damages.
Also does anyone know how many scientists would actually be involved anyway? What is the minimum?